Reply from the Lassies

By Mel Jappy

It’s traditional for women to come a fair way down the running order at a Burn’s Supper. Only once most of the other traditions are over is a woman invited to deliver a spoken version of these scribblings in the form of a Reply to The Toast to the Lassies. 

Being a ‘reply’ I needed the source material to write this piece. And so I awaited Joe Fattorini’s Toast to the Lassies with great excitement. I was looking forward to drafting a thoughtful counterpoint to his carefully crafted thoughts on the magnificence of womanhood, and the fortitude of my sex. The first draft was mostly about him, and his favourite Glasgow pubs, men and a fan called Margaret. By the second, he’d realised what side his bannock was buttered. In the words of Rabbie, I suppose “A Man’s a Man for A That…”

As I’ve said, in a traditional Burns Supper running order, women may seem subservient. But at a modern version of this wonderful event the speakers are more often than not women. The Immortal Memory (the keynote in which someone is invited to deliver their own analysis and colourful portrait of Scotland’s greatest ever poet) is the most coveted spot. In fact, many of the best Immortal Memories I have heard have been by women. Val McDermid’s comparison of Burn’s to Jim Baxter, Raith Rover’s greatest ever player, is legend. And while woman could make the Address to the Haggis, give the Selkirk Grace and provide all the entertainment, it is only in the Reply to the Laddies that women have been given a particular place in the event itself.

Not that Robert Burns would necessarily have wanted it that way. He had quite an eye for women. In addition to the nine children he had with his besotted wife Jean Armour, he fathered at least four illegitimate bairns.

Burns wasn’t heartless in his pursuit of love and the blessings it brought. The servants with whom he fathered on the wrong side of the blanket, were often the subject of his most romantic poetry. His first illegitimate child Elizabeth is the subject of the unapologetic though self-deprecating A Welcome to My Love Begotten Daughter..

 Tho’ now they ca’ me fornicator
An’ tease my name in kintry clatter
he mair they talk, I’m kent the better,
E’en let the clash;
An auld wife’s tongues’ a feckless matter
To gie ane fash

His disinhibited nature may point to the fact that Rabbie was no stranger to the delights of a tincture or two. And as his fame grew and he found himself in the fine salons of the Edinburgh New Town I have no doubt he would have enjoyed as many grape-based drinks as those of John Barleycorn. An uncommon number of his poems do feature drinking, albeit much of the time as a cautionary tale. The epic Tam O’Shanter even starts in the pub:

When chapman billies leave the street, 
And drouthy neibors, neibors, meet; 
As market days are wearing late, 
And folk begin to tak the gate, 
While we sit bousing at the nappy, 
An' getting fou and unco happy, 
We think na on the lang Scots miles, 
The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles, 
That lie between us and our hame, 
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame, 
Gathering her brows like gathering storm, 
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. 

Tam leaves the pub and heads home to his angry wife and on the way sees some demonic goings on in the churchyard. But emboldened by the booze he takes a fancy to one of the witches who’s wearing a ‘Cutty Sark’, a shirt that’s too small and calls out to her. The Devil decides to take chase of the drunken Tam and although he escapes his faithful mare Meg who pays the price having her tail pulled off. Once again proving that ultimately no matter how much effort women put in to saving men from themselves, it’s usually the women who end up damaged and seeking solace in a bad haircut.

But I digress... This poem written in 1790 would no doubt have amused many of the Scots abroad at the time. And it’s to a particular subset of these adventurous souls that I set my curtsey - if I believed in such deference – and they are the Scots who have helped shape the world of wine.

The Auld Alliance is Scotland’s most famous connection to France. Born out of a shared need to stop the English stomping all over everything, in 1295 it was agreed that Scotland would share mercenaries in return for access to some of the finest French wines. There were other reasons of course, but let’s stick with that focus for now. In return for the Scots unwavering support at Agincourt (yes, I know not exactly France’s finest hour) and beyond, it was the Scots Wine Merchants who were given first choice of Bordeaux’ finest wines. The English, much to their chagrin, were given a far inferior product. This right was protected for hundreds of years as the barrels were landed on the Wine Quay at Leith and stored for the Scottish elite.

As late as the 1670s Scots merchants were making the trip for a version of what I suppose today is the En Primeur. It’s not noted if they wore red tartan trousers although I like to think they did. And even after the Act of Union which brought the nations together Scots continued to smuggle claret into Scotland to avoid tax. A tradition that may find itself being revived in this post Brexit era.

Port soon became a more patriotic drop to drink but Scots of all colours preferred wine from Bordeaux, particularly when toasting their exiled leader Charles, ‘the King across the water’.

In 1720 Scotsman George Smith journeyed to Bordeaux and found himself buying a vineyard at Lafitte. He added his name to the estate, built a stunning manor house and without him we would not have the magnificent skincare range of Caudalie that is made there now. And the wine of course. I think George is one Scots Laddie I can offer my unadulterated adoration.

And what of Port?  That drink that by the 18th Century was a symbol of British patriotism.

A disproportionate number of Scots had a hand in the development of the Douro. The Grahams may have arrived to trade in textiles (Scotland wasn’t short of sheep) but in accepting 27 barrels of port as payment for a debt, they founded one of the greatest Port houses of the region. 

The brothers Cockburn were already successful wine merchants in Leith in 1815 when they decided to open a branch in Porto. Now owned by another family with Scots roots – the Symingtons – I think Scotland can safely say that some of its finest lads, aided no doubt by some women of incredible strength, are owed at least a small nod of appreciation for their entrepreneurial spirit. I can’t help but think it would have been a damn site easier to mash up some barley and set a light under the still back home in the glens. 

But we Scots have never looked for the easy path. Our people have always been our best export. Men and women from that wee, bonnie, driech, but intoxicating land have gone out and done great things. I cannot claim to be one of them, but I salute my ancestors and share with them the invisible thread of longing for my homeland. And with that I raise a glass, of Claret to the Laddies. Ye uggit bairns, ye.

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