Toasting the Lassies from afar at virtual Burns Night
Jamie's Journal by Jamie Stone
It was while I was mashing the tatties that I suddenly remembered. I turned to my better half to confess as she took the haggis out of the oven. This Burns Night was going to be bigger than she had expected. What I had forgotten was I was now shortly due to Toast the Lassies at a virtual event in Edinburgh.
Luckily, she took my announcement in her stride: “Oh well, perhaps you’ve got some new jokes this year…”
Now there’s the rub. Jokes that I could cheerfully fling at a Caithness or a Sutherland audience have to be treated with caution when it comes to the straight-laced and genteel citizens of Auld Reekie. They can be very shockable.
“Whatever are you doing?” asked my cousin Helen, and fellow bubble-occupant, as I talked at the iPad beside my dram. I pressed ‘mute’: “It’s okay, Helen, they’re just about to pipe in the haggis”.
“Sorry?”, and my cousin Helen turned to look in bewilderment at the haggis by her side.
But later, when we had finished our meal and the time for speeches was approaching, it was a much more relaxed affair and we moved to the sitting room for my speech.
Having thought about it carefully, I decided on a series of anecdotes about some of the characters I have come across during my time in politics. I told my Zoom audience in Edinburgh about the time I asked the Prime Minister Theresa May to accompany me to a hotel in the Highlands (to see how Highland hotels greatly rely on seasonal workers from the EU).
Of course, I should have thought the question through – and Theresa scored a real hit by archly replying that this was the first time that an Honourable or Right Honourable Member had ever invited her to a hotel. Very much at my expense, she sat down to a crash of laughter in the packed Commons. She had made a good joke and I acknowledge it here today.
I also mentioned somebody I had known during my time at Holyrood, Lord James Douglas-Hamilton. James had been a minister in Maggie Thatcher’s government – and a nicer and more well-mannered man in the Scottish Parliament simply did not exist. He was then, and still is today, dearly loved by politicians of all colours.
When he was a minister, he was much disconcerted to discover that the chauffeur of his ministerial limousine was a female. He always insisted on getting out of the car and opening the door for her, rather than the other way round. Indeed, I am told that in doing so he nearly took out several cyclists in Edinburgh.
Today, he graces the Upper House as the Earl of Selkirk. I bump into him occasionally and when I do it is always a pleasure.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. Gentlemen, please raise your glasses – I give you The Lassies!”
Of course, the trouble with a virtual speech sitting in front of the fire and talking into your iPad, is you don’t know how it’s gone down on the other end. One week later, all that I can say is that I haven’t had any rude emails.
I write in a lighthearted style to offer a word of cheer in a very difficult time for us all. Please God, the vaccinations roll out as fast as possible and next year we enjoy celebrating the life and work of Robert Burns in the traditional way that is so much part and parcel of our Scottish way of life.
