ONE of the highlights of my job as Provost at this time of year is the numerous invitations to attend events dedicated to the Bard, Robert Burns.

Of course many of you know Inverclyde has incredibly strong links with the life and works of the great man but I would like to go into a little more detail.

Robert Burns’ first patron was James Cunningham, 14th Early of Glencairn who was born at Finlaystone in 1749. We know Burns visited the estate and he is also believed to have stayed in Port Glasgow with his friend Captain Richard Brown, who is thought to have gone on to become a founder member of Greenock Burns Club.

And of course there is Highland Mary.

Mary Campbell was the daughter of a sailor from Dunoon.

The family moved to Campbeltown when she was five and eventually to Greenock. At some point Mary began work in Ayrshire as a nursemaid and there met Burns, pictured right.

How that happened is not exactly clear but she ended up working for Gavin Hamilton in Mauchline, who was a close friend of the Bard, and she became the inspiration for some of Burns’ finest and most famous poems:

Ye banks and braes and streams around

The castle of Montgomerie,

Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,

Your waters never drumlie!

There simmer first unfauld her robes,

And there the longest tarry!

For there I took the last fareweel

O’ my Sweet Highland Mary.

Tragically Mary died at the age of just 23, probably from typhoid fever contracted when nursing her brother Robert who had the disease, soon after exchanging Bibles with Burns and committing themselves to each other. She was, of course, buried in Greenock. Soon after her death he wrote: “My Highland lassie was a warm-hearted charming young creature as ever blessed a man with generous love.”

This year I had the great honour and privilege of giving the Toast to the Greenock Burns Club (the Mother Club) and was also delighted to accept invitations to Port Glasgow and the Greenock police clubs. One of the highlights of the season though has to be the Burns Federation Children’s Competition which this year takes place in March at Ardgowan Primary.

It is always such a pleasure to see the children perform with such talent and confidence.

Of course none of this would happen without the work put in by the teaching staff and the logistics and the running of the event by the Greenock Burns Club. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for my invitation and for all the work they do.

I would like to finish with a verse from William McGonagall’s ‘An Ode to the Immortal Bard of Ayr’

And in my own opinion both you and them are right,

For your genius there does sparkle bright,

Like unto the stars of night,

Which I most solemnly declare

To thee, immortal bard of Ayr.