SCOTS PAY HOMAGE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 104, 26 January 1939, Page 13

SCOTS PAY HOMAGE

Immortal Memory Of Great

ST. ANDREW CLUB DINNER

‘•This will always be a brave day for Scotland, because ISO years ago today Robert Burns was born in Alloway, two miles south of the town of Ayr, said Mr. A. J. Sinclair, Te Awamutu, in proposing the toast, “The Immortal Memory,” at the annual dinner of the St. Andrew Burns Club (Wellington) last night. More than 200 Scots, descendants of Scots and other admirers of Scotland's great poet, gathered to hear Burns’s works sung and recited and to partake of supper in the Scottish custom. Air. A. Hogg presided. In an eulogy of Burns Mr. Sinclair commented specially on “Tam o Shunter,” interspersing interesting comments with quotations of extracts from the poem. From his first war song, “Scots, Wha Hae,” to ’ Mary in Heaven” he had made every chord in Scotsmen’s hearts vibrate. Mr. Sinclair said.

Proposing the toast of “The Burns Federation,” Mr. J. R. Baird said that one heard-in New Zealand of £2OOO being owing for repairs to the Burns Mausoleum, but he believed that the sum had been paid. The greater part of the money was subscribed at a gathering of the Burns Federation, a federation of more than 300 Scottish societies, in Dumfries, which he attended. The toast of "The Wellington Association of Scots Societies,” proposed by Mr. AV. B. Mcllveney, was replied to by Mr. J. G. MacKenzie, who said that the association, now in its fifth year, was growing in importance continually. Briefly it existed to keep Scotland and maters of Scottish interest alive and to see that Scots, both Home and colon-ial-born, were not forgotten altogether in this cosmopolitan New Zealand. • The haggis, decorated with the cross of St. Andrew in electric lights, was piped in by Pipe Major A. Barclay and Burns’s address to the Haggis was recited by Mr. J. B. Thomson. Mr. Thomson said Burns’s grace also. Songs were sung by Mrs. H. McWliinnie, Mr. 11. Clark, Mrs. McLean (Greymouth), Mr. P. Isbister, and Miss Flora MacKenzie; a trio. “Willie Brew’d a Peck of Malt” (Burns), by Messrs. A. Fleming, H. Clark, and T. McNair, and a piano accordion solo was given by Mr. S. Gavin. Some of Burns's famous songs were sung by the whole company. The night concluded with dancing.