Bannockburn House Burns do
Bannockburn House played host to its first Burns Night in many decades last Friday and I was delighted to be one of the 100 or so guests paying £10 a ticket to enjoy the event.
The proceeds were all to help the newly established Bannockburn House Trust on its journey towards ownership of the 500-year-old property at the junction of the M9/ M80 motorway. Bannockburn House has been unoccupied since the early 1960s and when volunteers got into the property almost a year ago, it was in a terribly neglected state. Fast-forward to February 2017 and it really is amazing what you can do with a great community spirit, some dedicated cleaners (affectionately known as the Bannockburn Scrubbers) and great deal of hot water transported in buckets, urns and the occasional, now unreturnable, irn bru bottle.
This was a Scottish evening that combined the best of Robert Burns with the best of Scottish folk music, and a remarkable Scottish/ Jamaican mash up from the amazing voice of Brina Murray. Robert Burns nearly emigrated to Jamaica and Jamaican born Brina, who now lives in Stirling, imagines what Burns music may have sounded like had he got on the ship at Greenock back in 1786. It was a remarkable musical set and I can’t recommend Brina highly enough – check her out on Youtube. Well done to everybody involved and I can’t wait until the next event, or indeed news that the house has been purchased and is in community hands for the first time ever. decades. If you’re surprised that such a collection is in Menstrie, you shouldn’t be. Clackmannanshire has a rich but largely unknown whisky heritage. The Haig family and the Jamieson family started out in the area (John Jamieson of the Irish whisky brand was born and died in Alloa), the world’s first commercial distillery was built near Kincardine and one of the largest bonded warehouses in the world is still based in Cambus.
Anyway, the tour was fabulous and I hope Diageo open their archives again in the future because their collection really should be enjoyed by whisky lovers as often as possible.