“Growing up, my interest in Robert Burns was minimal, if not non-existent,” she confessed. “I thought his work was for the highbrow – something rich people celebrated at posh Burns’ suppers. “It was not for the likes of me … the hardly educated, council estate, overspill girl. “Burns wasn’t something which seemed part of my life. But neither was going to university or having more intellectual pursuits. “Now, I see that I was wrong. I am precisely the kind of person Burns wrote for.” In 1975, the Reader family relocated to Irvine, as part of the Glasgow housing overspill. “At 16, I attended Greenwood Academy in Irvine – the same school Nicola Sturgeon later went to – and there was a female teacher, who was really into Burns,” said Eddi.