Holy Willie's Prayer : Robert Burns defines "the unreflective."

In writing Holy Willie's Prayer Robert Burns created an insightful and entertaining satire about the hypocrisy of the self-righteous. The poem is the prayer of a person who  - convinced of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination which declares that from birth only a chosen few are elected by God to go to heaven while the greater multitude is eternally damned -  assures himself that he is one of the elected heavenbound minority.

In relation to the religious bigotry we experience in the world today the barbs of Holy Willie's Prayer still hit home. The poem also retains immediate interest for the hypocrisy portrayed in the prayer is evident in so many of the actions of this century's "democratically elected" political leaders.

Holy Willie is no fictional character. He was Willie Fisher, an elder of the Kirk in the parish of Mauchline, Ayshire  who, on observing what he considered the misdemeanours of his fellow parishioners, would report, at great length, to the minister on their misdeeds while making insistent proclamation of his own righteousness. In Scottish language and culture a "Holy Willie" has come to represent a hypocrite who lives a life free of self-reflection and humour. I wonder which of the world's political leaders he brings to mind?

A manuscript of the poem, handwritten by Burns may be read here on the National Library of Scotland's website.

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Argument. Holy Willie was a rather oldish bachelor elder, in the parish of  Mauchline, and much and justly famed for that polemical chattering, which ends in tippling orthodoxy, and for that spiritualized bawdry which refines to liquorish devotion. In a sessional process with a gentleman in Mauchline-a Mr.Gavin Hamilton-Holy Willie and his priest, Father Auld, after full hearing in the presbytery of Ayr, came off but second best; owing partly to the oratorical powers of Mr. Robert Aiken, Mr. Hamilton's counsel; but chiefly to Mr. Hamilton's being one of the most irreproachable and truly respectable characters in the county. On losing the process, the muse overheard him [Holy Willie] at his devotions, as follows:-

Holy Willie's Prayer

O Thou that in the Heavens does dwell!
Wha, as it pleases best thysel,
Sends ane to Heaven and ten to Hell,
  A’ for Thy glory!
And no for ony gude or ill
  They’ve done before Thee.

I bless and praise Thy matchless might,
When thousands Thou has left in night,
That I here before Thy sight,
  For gifts and grace,
A burning and a shining light
  To a’ this place.

What was I, or my generation,
That I should get such exaltation?
I, wha deserv’d most just damnation,
  For broken laws
Sax thousand years ere my creation,
  Thro’ Adam’s cause!

When from my mother’s womb I fell,
Thou might hae plunged me deep in hell,
To gnash my gooms, and weep, and wail,
  In burning lakes,
Where damned devils roar and yell
  Chain’d to their stakes.

Yet I am here, a chosen sample,
To shew Thy grace is great and ample:
I’m here, a pillar o’ Thy temple
  Strong as a rock,
A guide, a ruler and example
  To a’ Thy flock.

O Lord thou kens what zeal I bear,
When drinkers drink, and swearers swear,
And singin’ there, and dancin’ here,
  Wi’ great an’ sma’;
For I am keepet by the fear,
  Free frae them a’.

But yet—O Lord—confess I must—
At times I’m fash’d wi’ fleshly lust;
And sometimes too, in wardly trust
  Vile Self gets in;
But Thou remembers we are dust,
  Defil’d wi’ sin.

O Lord—yestreen—thou kens—wi’ Meg—
Thy pardon I sincerely beg!
O may ’t ne’er be a living plague,
  To my dishonor!
And I’ll ne’er lift a lawless leg
  Again upon her.

Besides, I farther maun avow,
Wi’ Leezie’s lass, three times—I trow—
But L—d, that friday I was fou
  When I cam near her;
Or else, Thou kens, thy servant true
  Wad never steer her.

Maybe Thou lets this fleshy thorn
Buffet Thy servant e’en and morn,
Lest he o’er proud and high should turn,
  That he’s sae gifted;
If sae, thy hand maun e’en be borne
  Untill Thou lift it.

Lord bless Thy Chosen in this place,
For here Thou has a chosen race:
But God, confound their stubborn face,
  And blast their name,
Wha bring thy rulers to disgrace
  And open shame.

Lord mind Gaun Hamilton’s deserts!
He drinks, and swears, and plays at cartes,
Yet has sae mony taking arts
  Wi’ Great and Sma’,
Frae God’s ain priest the people’s hearts
  He steals awa.

And when we chasten’d him therefore,
Thou kens how he bred sic a splore,
And set the warld in a roar
  O’ laughin at us:
Curse Thou his basket and his store,
  Kail and potatoes.

Lord hear my earnest cry and prayer
Against that Presbytry of Ayr!
Thy strong right hand, Lord, mak it bare
  Upon their heads!
Lord visit them, and dinna spare,
  For their misdeeds!

O Lord my God, that glib-tongu’d Aiken!
My very heart and flesh are quaking
To think how I sat, sweating and shaking,
  An' pish’d wi’ dread,
While Auld wi’ hingin lip gaed sneaking
  And hid his head!

Lord, in thy day o’ vengeance try him!
Lord visit him that did employ him!
And pass not in thy mercy by them,
  Nor hear their prayer;
But for thy people’s sake destroy them,
  An' dinna spare!

But Lord, remember me and mine
Wi’ mercies temporal and divine!
That I for grace and gear may shine,
  Excell’d by nane!
And a’ the glory shall be thine!
  Amen! Amen!

Graham Taylor, a good football manager and a special man

In the late 1970s and early 1980s I played rugby for Old Merchant Taylors whose ground and clubhouse was at Durrants, Croxley Green, near Watford and on Thursday nights after training I’d occasionally see a man sitting quietly at the club bar drinking a half pint of beer in the company of one acquaintance or another. It was Graham Taylor, the manager of Watford Football Club. At the time I imagined that Durrants was a place where he could escape the glare of the football world.

Taylor's first reign as manager of Watford FC was glorious. In what seemed next to no time the club climbed from the fourth division of English football up to the first division (now the premier league), finished runners up in the latter, reached the FA cup final and qualified to play in Europe. During the time Graham Taylor was manager of Watford, I watched one of the finest football matches I’ve ever seen. It was an FA cup tie in that famous run to the cup final; a midweek replay in January at Vicarage Road played against Watford’s great rivals at the time, Luton Town, was then managed by the future Spurs manager and now radio pundit, David Pleat. The result was 4-3 in Watford’s favour. Paul Walsh, Luton’s great striker scored that night, but John Barnes, who was soon to move to Liverpool, scored a magnificent winner with a powerful, low, 20 yards shot.

Graham Taylor had attributes other than his football expertise - indeed though it proved so successful, he was often criticised for his long ball style of football -  and these spoke of him not just as a man of football, but also of his stature as a man. I would mention but two of these special characteristics here. Firstly, family was important to him and I think this quality was evident in the way he turned Watford Football Club into a community resource, a football club where families could feel comfortable. Secondly, he had dignity and courage. He showed this in the face of despicable press coverage during and at the end of his period of managing England. It was all you could expect of a good man. Good men are rare. 

On reading what I've written here, I realise that as much as I am acknowledging the loss of a good man in Graham Taylor, I am also grieving for that time in my life, for how things were as I recall times of happiness with family and friends and times of regret. For better or for worse the past cannot be changed and the best we can hope for is acceptance and understanding.

Hogmanay and the knighthood of Ray Davies

It’s Hogmanay but I won’t be celebrating a great deal. These days I don’t rest easy with this particular Scottish ritual. On a few occasions, many years ago now, I joined in the whole carnival but found myself so exhausted and  distraught in the aftermath of my revels that I have since eschewed extended New Year jollification.

Nonetheless there is a good feeling in Scotland around the New Year. It is a time for wiping the slate clean, for forgiveness and renewal and so tonight my wife and I will be early to bed and tomorrow morning on New Year’s Day, car already packed with our luggage, we will drive north from Totnes, Devon with Scotland as our eventual destination where we will breathe in Edinburgh’s New Year cheerfulness and optimism.

Back garden with clothes pegs, Orchard Waye, Totnes

We won’t complete our journey in one long haul. We’ll stop off on the M6 at Hilton Park Services just north of Birmingham where I will buy enough shirts from the Cotton Traders’ stall to last me through the next year. 

Hilton Park Services - the place to buy shirts

From there we head up to the Castle Green Hotel at Kendal and enjoy a swim in the pool before dinner. 

View of sheep's rears from the Castle Green Hotel, Kendal

After a night’s rest we’ll drive north leaving the M74 at the couthy town of Moffat where Robert Burns allegedly scratched a verse on one of the windows of the Black Bull Inn. We'll probably stop for a coffee here at the very respectable Moffat House Hotel.

Moffat among the hills

Leaving Moffat we'll take the A701 and immediately we will be climbing and winding through the hills, and, after leaving behind us 'The Devil's Beef Tub',where border reivers once hid their stolen cattle, beyond the summit of the 1400 ft pass with the loftiest hills of the Southern Uplands on our right we'll reach the source of the River Tweed and the heart of John Buchan territory at Tweedsmuir. Motoring on towards Broughton we will cruise by the old coaching house, the Crook Inn (will it ever be re-opened ?), and beyond the village of Broughton with its brewery, we'll pass through agricultural and moorland country with exotically named places like Romanno Bridge and Lamancha before we descend to the town of Penicuik.

Opened to trade 1604, closed....?

 Leaving Penicuik we’ll wend our way to Edinburgh and park the car in Milton Street, Abbeyhill where we have a tenement flat.

It will be about midday and after the glory of our morning journey we'll quietly enjoy a bite to eat and spend a restful afternoon reading the newspapers. We’ll go out in the early evening and for a while I’ll enjoy a feeling of being where I belong but gradually I will be subsumed by a sense of being a stranger, a misfit, for this is not the Scotland I left in 1957 or indeed the Scotland I left again in 1976. It shouldn’t be. Scotland is not a museum piece, I am the museum piece, and I shouldn't be.

Home sweet home, Milton Street, Abbeyhill, Edinburgh

Speaking of newspapers and misfits, I read in today’s issue of The Guardian that Ray Davies of the Kinks, probably my greatest rock n' roll hero has been offered and has accepted a knighthood in the New Year honours. I feel ambivalent about this, pleased because his genius and his considerable contribution to music are being recognised but unhappy because there are aspects of the honours system that I think are related more to giving favours to those with power and high financial status, to those on the “inside”, rather than those who question the status quo.  Ray Davies has composed a number songs about those on the “outside", the misfits, and I guess this is what led me to think about living in England without being totally at home here, while, though I feel I belong in Scotland, I am no longer at one with myself when I am there either. Still, I console myself by remembering that I’m not like everybody else.

Happy New Year !

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Notes

Misfits   The Kinks 1978 Arista

I'm not like everybody else The Kinks 1966  B side of Sunny Afternoon Pye Records


Among other songs that might be included in a Kinks "misfits" list are Dead End Street, 20th Century Man, See my Friends, David Watts and Sitting in my Hotel.

She's a woman. Can she do it ?

In these next few weeks the BBC is focussing on women. This morning on breakfast TV the news presenters were interviewing one of those people they regularly bring on who are experts and tell us about things in terms of what we must do or what it's important for us to do and how terrible things will become if we don't do them.

Today's expert, was saying how in our culture women weren't thought to be as capable as men in most things except for producing babies. She, (the expert was a woman), said that whenever women are being considered for any enterprise, the tacit or expressed observation made, and question asked, was always,  "She's a woman. Can she do it?"  The presenters and no doubt others watching may have nodded in agreement but I have never in my whole life been able to buy into this idea .

They're not Amazons

Without any doubt women have held enormous sway over my life. All the women I've been closely related to have been impressive. My grandmothers, my mother, my wife, my sisters, my daughters and, my almost one year old granddaughter, are, or were, formidable. I'm not suggesting that they were Amazons or Madonnas but all have been -  apart from, as yet, my granddaughter - successful in their different kinds of careers and have been fortunate enough to have children whom they have brought up to be not perfect but good people. In addition to these achievements and more potent in my view is that these women have held things together for their families particularly during times of crisis without recourse to those predominantly masculine traits, punishment and violence.

They're not Madonnas

They're women. Can they do it? They do it better.

From Smokies in newspaper to high tea in a restaurant : a tale about my youngest sister

     In the first half of the 1950s Sunday afternoons in winter were not my favourite part of the week. We were taken on a jaunt in Bessie, the 1931 Standard 10 car that my Daddy drove us around in. We often had to stop at someone's house en route to fill the overheating radiator with water. Daddy would often say Bessie used more water than petrol.  Invariably we’d head for Arbroath and go to the seafront by Victoria Park. We’d  play on the grass with a ball or clamber down to the rock pools but I wasn’t too keen on slippery rocks and smelly seaweed. I preferred sandy beaches like the one at Broughty Ferry. After that we’d walk up the clifftop path which started just by St.Ninian’s Well. The cliffs  are not amazingly high there but could still be a wee bit scary. 

     Our exercise over for the day my father drove down to the fisherman’s cottages near the harbour  where my parents would buy Smokies from the smokehouse. These were wrapped in newspaper and we drove out to park in a layby on the Dundee Road about two miles out of Arbroath. Mummy, Daddy and my younger sister, J, all loved smokies. I hated them and did without. Just the smell of the smoked haddock almost sickened  me,  I hope I’ve gotten over to you that as a young boy a Sunday afternoon in winter was situated somewhere between misery and anathema.  On every occasion my memory tells me, the weather was cold and dull.

With J, my sister, and Bessie on a cold Sunday in pre-baby sister M days. Mummy is in the car

     Then in 1955, my youngest sister. M, came along. We continued to go to the Victoria Park and played ball on the grass and walked up the cliff pushing M in her pram but we did not go on to the rocky beach because it was too slippery to be on carrying a baby.  More importantly for me we did not go to the smokehouse because stopping to eat smokies in a layby for half an hour was not an easy pastime when you had a wee baby to look after. Instead we went to the Star Restaurant in Arbroath  where we enjoyed high tea together. I always had sausage, egg and chips with toast followed by cakes and a cup of tea. This beat smokies hands down as far as I was concerned and of course M was immediately the centre of attention with the waiters and customers : a bonny wee baby. Soon she was old enough to sit at the table in a high chair and she was very early in learning to speak which led to her becoming an even bigger attraction. 

Daddy with M on Broughty Ferry Beach

     My father could at times be stern and taciturn  and on these occasions in public places like the restaurant my Mummy would quietly say “Chic, cheer up a bit we’re here to enjoy ourselves.” One Sunday M, though she had not many words at this time, picked up on my Mummy’s remark and with loud self-assurance  hollered to Daddy, “You’re just a big crabbit brute!” Coming from such a wee girl this announcement caused great amusement among the other diners and though I tried to I couldn’t prevent myself laughing for neither my sister J, nor I would ever have had the nerve to shout at Daddy like that. Where she plucked this phrase from I leave to your imagination but I am led to believe very young children learn to speak from the things they hear adults saying. To my surprise Daddy took M’s critical declaration well and we continued going to the Star Restaurant every Sunday. The climate had changed and I remember all of these post-smokie days were sunny In the following weeks and months M continued to entertain her audience and as her vocabulary grew so did her repertoire. We all loved it until the day came when we left for England.

     As a footnote I should add that I have grown to like the aroma and taste of smoked haddock. I particularly like it in kedgeree. The best smoked haddock is of course an Arbroath Smokie.

My mother, Jimmy Shand's band and The Proclaimers : an email exchange

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From Noel Howard : 28th September, 2016

Hi Charles,

There used to be a programme on Irish radio in the 50s called Scottish Requests and invariably “The Road to Dundee” featured as well as “The Northern Lights”, and "Sweet Alice Ben Bolt”, among other “hits” of the day with Jimmy Shand always a favourite.

Oh for such simplicities!

Noel

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From Charles Sharpe : 13th October, 2016

Dear Noel,

I was interested in your recollection of the Irish radio programme which played requests for Scottish songs and airs. 

You mentioned Jimmy Shand who - though he spent most of his childhood in the village of Auchtermuchty in the Kingdom of Fife  -  became in the 1930s (after a spell in the coal mines), a rent collector in Dundee and he used this job as an opportunity to earn extra money by selling accordions on commission for a local music shop. This was at a time when he was also trying to establish himself as a musician assembling his own band. When he came by my grandparents’ tenement each week to collect the rent he’d let my mother practice on the accordion he brought with him and after a few weeks of this she seemed to be showing promise as an accordionist. 

You can guess what happened. Jimmy approached my Granda Jackson and said “John, ye’re lassie’s a braw player. If she were tae ha’e  an accordion I’d be happy tae ha’e her in my band.” My mother who was 12 or 13 at the time, was very excited about this but Granda Jackson couldn’t afford to buy an accordion, so Jimmy didn’t get his sale or any commission and Chrissie, my mother, didn’t get an accordion and never became the only woman to play in Jimmy Shand’s band. 

That’s how the story’s told in our family anyway.

It may only be coincidence, but Charlie and Craig Reid, the Proclaimers, though born in Leith spent most of their childhood in Auchtermuchty.  There may be something in the air in Auchtermuchty if you can afford your instrument.

Best wishes,

Charles


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From Noel Howard : 13th October, 2016

Really recalling those simpler times of childhood and aspects of it, like the radio programme Scottish Requests, always makes me grateful for the memory of the simple security that such occasions huddled around the radio brought as a family.

Keep in touch. 

Noel

Crimes, misdemeanours, ancestry and pride : Forfar 1940s

From the age of six months until I was almost 5 years old, my memory is that I reigned supreme in Forfar. I seemed to be able to do what I liked. The polis never touched me.  

While living in our wee 'but and ben' at 9 Green Street I stole our next door neighbour's baby's full milk bottle from the pram and sucked ecstatically from its teat, I pee’d into a brand new zinc bucket displayed with other goods outside the ironmongers, declaring what a good boy I was, I lay in the middle of the paddling pool in The Greens  to stop my mother (who hated going into ponds, lochs, rivers and seas) fetching me in for my tea (thence, putting me to bed and hated sleep). 

It was even said that I ran off with the tinkies following the carnival after sampling a frothy amber brown liquid they had. I now understand this last escapade as an exercise in getting back to my roots, since years later my mother told me that on her mother's side we had tinkie ancestry. I have always been proud of this.

An omnipotent boy in Forfar with his younger sister , J, and the tail end of their dog,  Darkie, so called because his right eye  was surrounded by a black patch. This name was given in the days when social sensitivities were not as highly tuned as they are - rightly in most cases - in current times.

Auld Reekie Blues

I was ill the whole month I was in Edinburgh this August. There were good times baby sitting for our beautiful granddaughter, and meeting up with her parents was OK too. Nevertheless I was knackered all the time and the only escape was to sit on the Esplanade at Portobello, look at the wonderful skies there, see the changing light over Fife and watching people passing by walking, jogging, scootering, skateboarding and cycling. It's great to witness all these things but even they wore me out in the end. And, for once, the charity bookshops in Stockbridge failed to offer up solace.

Portobello Beach before the Cockenzie Power Station was knocked down so that TV pictures of the Open Championship at Muirfield looked prettier,

What's more I couldn't bring myself to get up to Dens Park to watch the famous eleven. "You're just sorry for yourself!" you say. Right first time. I'm wallowing in misery.  Things have got to get better and they will if I can get up to Dundee on October 1st to watch the Dark Blues beat Celtic. October 1st is my birthday by the way but don't bother sending me any cards, they might make me cheer up.

Okay my wife was ill some of the time and I should mention that she put up with me and I give her credit for that. She has borne her own and my troubles with fortitude. What a miserable, wretched creature I am. Just like my father, a crabbit brute.

By winning the American Open Tennis championship Andy Murray could deliver me from this brown study and I suppose the Scotland fitba team overcoming the mighty Malta offers the possibility  of lifting a few clouds.

Winning and losing in football and in life

     Competitive sport is predicated on winning and losing. It’s good to win but if you lose you know there will be another day, so I know though I am feeling in a small way triumphant  (if that’s possible)  that last Saturday Dundee enjoyed a 3-1 victory over Ross County, I can, without guilt,  savour it because I can remember the dismay of recent defeat at the feet of the same opposition, and to use the old cliche, after a sporting defeat, “Nobody died.” In life however if you lose your livelihood, if you don’t have the money to feed, clothe and shelter your kids, if you cannot stop an aggressor destroying your home, if you are the victim of terrorism or criminality then there may never be a return to happier days. In this kind of defeat, something does die.

     It's a shame that as a human community we have allowed an economic system, the capitalist system, to predominate. It too is predicated on winning and losing but unfortunately the losers in this game give up in the despair of acceptance or remain impoverished, or seek out new places to live and new ways to earn money. 

     
     Unfortunately the ones with power, the ones determined to win at all costs do not welcome these initiatives and ensure that the losers are crushed.  In turn this leads to further poverty or in some cases violent revolution. Whichever happens,  the consequences are always catastrophic for the poor, the meek, the crushed and the helpless. 

     Our human community needs, and must begin to construct a new selfless way of looking after and caring for each of its members. It can be done. I believe that from 1945 to 1951 the Labour government in the United Kingdom made inroads into achieving this by setting up a welfare system which protected our most vulnerable, a health system which was available free to all, and a national education system which provided schooling for every child. 
     The success of these initiatives was not welcomed by those powerful economic forces which persuaded subsequent governments that there was no possibility of making a profit out of services which were provided for the people by the people.  Gradually over the passing years governments of every ilk have allowed capitalist adventurers  to invade our welfare, health and education services and to rob us of those parts of our services from which they believe they can make a profit while leaving ordinary, modest and relatively poor folk to support - by paying their taxes - those services which have no possibility of profit. 

     So the result of this match is “Capital 1 Community 0” and the result will be the same every week for it is difficult to see where even a drawn match in any future fixture would come from, never mind a win for the human community. 

     I suppose I've been kidding myself to think sport is any different. While things remain as they are,  Dundee Football Club, though it may occasionally enjoy the better of a little skirmish, will aways lose to the likes of Manchester City and Real Madrid. Is that fair? or should I, a sheep among the flock, accept it as the way of a selfish unjust world?

"Keep on Rockin' in the Free World"

'There’s a warning sign on the road ahead,

There’s a lot of people saying we’d be better off dead

Keep on rockin’ in the free world

Keep on rockin’ in the free world.'

I'm desperate! Dan

But where is the free world, Neil ?

Is your irony lost on me?

I no longer act  -  too numb to feel.

I guess I’ll go back to bonnie Dundee

Where D.C. Thomson publishes reactionary tripe

Twixt couthy lines frae The Broons and Desperate Dan

That scramble my mind and fog up my sight
Of the devil and detail of a usurer's scam.

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The first stanza is taken from Neil Young's "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World" to be found on his 1989 album "Freedom."

My photo caption is extracted from the script of Alan Bleasdale's "Boys from the Black Stuff" (BBC, 1982).

The statue of Desperate Dan created in 2001 by artists Tony and Susie Morrows shows the great man striding the High Street, Dundee.



Postscript added 14th July, 2019

Just back from London after listening to and watching Neil Young and Bob Dylan. It was a great gig and both men impressed in their own way. Let's not forget, they're both in their seventies. Not that it was a competition, the two men are friends, but Young edged it. Though staying to listen to Dylan's full set paid dividends for you gradually began to understand where he's at now.
Apparently difficulties with the management teams meant they couldn't sing together on a song, though the folk who saw the show in Kilkenny were treated to a brief joint performance.
For me it was fantastic, I'd never heard or seen Bob Dylan live, and of course Neil Young is one of my heroes. It was great how he knocked Barclaycard "oot o' the game".
I'm well over seventy years old too and this was probably the last time I'll be standing on my feet for seven hours.
"Why not sit down?" you may ask. Look, if I sit on the ground these days, there is a good chance I'll never get up again.