Two ‘Allawa lads’ ...
THE Scarborough Forty Club chairman, Mr Wastling, introduced the speaker Mr Lawson who presented his talk on the Allawa lad, aka Robbie Burns. Mr Lawson sported a tartan shirt and hat while he played a recording of the Selkirk Grace and Haggis toast by Andy Stewart.
Jim distributed maps, pictures and poems and regaled members with the life of Mr Burns. He had a hard croft farming background but went to school and wrote love poems to girls. He fell in love with many women and servant girls who often gave birth out of wedlock. He planned to marry and emigrate with several of them but one died of typhoid and the other was moved away. He eventually published several books of poetry which made him famous. He was a working class lad who circulated among the rich and famous. After marrying and fathering many children he died aged 39. In a recent BBC poll he was voted Scotland’s most famous man. Jim ended his talk by reciting several more of Robbie’s works.
Questions and comments came from Mr Jones, Vesey, Staniforth, Whittaker, Wastling, Wigglesworth, Hargreaves, Gosling and Maw. Mr Williams gave the vote of thanks to the chairman and the speaker. The speaker for the next meeting on Thursday this week will be Cheryl Govan with a talk entitled ‘Arts & young people’.
Sadly, Forty Club member Peter Slessor passed away a few days after this meeting. Peter joined the club two years ago and was a strikingly tall man with a beautiful deep Scottish lilt to his accent and a huge repertoire of humorous anecdotes. As a young man he went to sea on a trawler and he never forgot his roots. He was able to make from memory fabulous pencil drawings of trawlers at sea. He spent most of his life working for the United Nations Development Agency promoting trade around the world. Even in retirement he was an active member of the Scarborough UNA and brought his warm, compassionate nature to bear. Peter was one of life’s great characters and we will always remember him with his flat cap, pipe and glass of red wine in hand. We have lost our own Allawa lad.