A drink with Robert Burns

Was Robert Burns an alcoholic? Was he a womanising drunkard who neglected his family and work, and who died in poverty? I set out to examine the truth of this while exploring Burns relationship with alcohol.

A number of coincidences following a visit to the amazing National Trust for Scotland Burns Centre in Alloway led me to consider a book with specific references to drinking and to his relationship to it through his life. Through his songs and letters I have explored his references to alcohol in toasts, epistles, epitaphs songs and letters. I have also examined his role in the Excise where he was responsible, among other things for inspecting brewers and distillers.

Burn's relationships to alcohol and to women have been troublesome, mostly due to the early reviews and criticisms of his works. While some of it might have been fair I was struck by the unfairness of much of the commentary on Burn's drinking and set out to examine the truth in what his early critics and biographers wrote about him.

I have used previously unpublished photographs of an early Burns tour as well as postcards and prints to illustrate Burn's association with what he called in one poem: 'Scotch Drink'.