Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday 22 January
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00:00Hello, welcome to the Scotsman's video bulletin for this Wednesday.
00:10My name is Dale Miller.
00:11I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by our Heritage Correspondent, Alison
00:16Campsey.
00:17Alison, we'll get to talk.
00:19Good morning.
00:20Good morning.
00:21We'll talk about all things on the heritage front with you shortly, just to pick up on
00:25today's Scotsman front page.
00:29And we led on effectively a trial of John Swinney, who's giving a speech in Glasgow
00:34today.
00:35He's going to talk about trying to push or work with the UK government on a quite tailored
00:42migration plan for Scotland, including a specialist Scottish graduate visa.
00:49We do know it is an issue for Scotland that a lot of graduates who come here to study
00:54at university leave thereafter.
00:57It has been a battle for a significant period of time for the Scottish government to try
01:01to improve population levels.
01:06We know they're fairly static here in Scotland and attract more working and skilled talent
01:12into the country, which obviously in turn can help drive the economy.
01:17So this is a plan from John Swinney to try and work with Labor, Sir Keir Starmer, other
01:22key ministers to try and get a specialised Scottish visa off the ground.
01:27I think that will be one to watch.
01:29And we've got all the build up in the paper of Scotland's Six Nations campaign.
01:34It hasn't been good news in the build up, losing the captain for two injury for the
01:40entire series.
01:41But fingers crossed that Scotland buck the odds of those injuries and make it a good
01:47campaign over the coming weeks.
01:51There's a lovely heritage package that's in the paper today, but also you can read
01:55that at scotsman.com as well.
01:58And Burns Night is approaching very, very rapidly this Saturday.
02:03And I was fascinated about this tale of effectively digging up the skull of Robbie Burns.
02:10So, I mean, Burns Week comes around every year and you always think, oh, what am I going
02:14to write this year?
02:16But there's always something that's taken you by surprise when it comes to Robert Burns.
02:21And I was actually looking at a book about Burns the other night, and there's just so
02:29much correspondence and letters and documents surrounding him.
02:34You get such a really, really rich flavour for the man's life and the poet's character.
02:42But this story kind of caught my eye, and it was about the night that Robert Burns'
02:50skull was removed from the mausoleum in Dumfries, where he was laid to rest for a second time.
03:01Now, he died in 1796 and was buried in a poor man's grave, as it's been described.
03:08And there was a bit of a feeling in Dumfries that this grave didn't really reflect the
03:14kind of might of the bard.
03:18After Burns died, there was a lot of attention on him.
03:22And there was a number of visitors to Dumfries who wanted to go and pay their respects.
03:27So you had poets like Coleridge and the Wordsworths come up to Dumfries to show their respects
03:34at the gravesite, and they couldn't find the grave.
03:38It was tucked away in St Michael's churchyard, and just a pretty humble memorial stone by
03:45all accounts.
03:46But there was a massive fundraising effort there on end in Dumfries to build this mausoleum.
03:51Now, I've never seen it in person, but from pictures, it is a very, very grand spot.
03:58So Burns was eventually moved there into the mausoleum 19 years after his death.
04:07And this was, you know, the early 19th century, there was growing interest in phrenology,
04:14which is the study of the skull to determine a person's characteristics, intelligence.
04:26And there was a group of guys in Dumfries, one called John McDiarmid, the newspaper editor
04:32of the Dumfries Courier, who someone actually said had links to the Scotsman, I've yet to
04:36determine that.
04:37But this chap, McDiarmid, he had a big interest in phrenology.
04:45And him and this group of men in Dumfries were super keen to extract or exhume Burns's
04:53skull and have it tested by the top phrenologist of the day, a guy called George Coombe, who
05:01was linked to the University of Edinburgh.
05:03Now, there was a very interesting account I read yesterday of the night that they removed
05:11Burns's skull for this mausoleum.
05:13Now, they'd been after it for a while and had asked Gene Armour, his widow, if they
05:19could go into the crypt to get the skull.
05:21Gene Armour was like, you know, no, this is horrific, you know, he's already been taken
05:27from his original grave into here, don't disturb him again.
05:30But when Gene Armour died in 1834, this group of men saw a window of opportunity to enter
05:36the crypt because it would be open to lower Gene's body into the mausoleum.
05:43So this group of men got permission from Gene Armour's brother to go and get Burns's skull.
05:51And there's an interesting account of the night that they went in.
05:55This group of guys had gathered in Dumfries at 7 o'clock at night, apparently, to go into
05:59the mausoleum, but it was too busy in the town.
06:01So they went back later at 10 when all the streets were quiet and they were seen with
06:06a ladder and a muffled lantern to kind of disguise their tracks.
06:11And they went in into the crypt, they had the key, went into the crypt, opened up the
06:16coffin and rather gruesomely, I feel, removed the head of Burns.
06:24Now, my kind of question was, well, how did they get the head off?
06:28But when Burns was originally moved, apparently the head became detached from the torso.
06:33And in 1834, when these guys went in to get the skull, to remove it, to take to Edinburgh
06:39for this phrenologist, apparently it was in an exceptionally well-preserved state.
06:45And there was even hairs still visible on Burns's head, which really put a shiver up
06:52my spine.
06:54And, you know, phrenology has been really discounted widely and was quickly discounted,
07:00I think, really as a bit of a kind of quack science.
07:03But at the time, it did have a lot of traction.
07:06And this guy, George Coombe, up in Edinburgh, you know, wrote a bestselling book on it and
07:11had gathered a lot of attention.
07:13And so your man, McDermid, after getting the skull, was seen walking through Dumfries,
07:19carrying Burns's skull in a linen bag through the town.
07:24I mean, it's just so, I just can't get my head round that.
07:29It was seen carrying the skull up to, into the town centre to see a chap, a plasterer
07:39in Dumfries to get a plaster cast made over it.
07:42And so there was a mould made of the skull in Dumfries and then there was a plaster cast
07:47made to make a replica skull.
07:48And this is what was taken to Edinburgh.
07:52So George Coombe got to work on his science and he came up with, you know, when he published
08:04his findings in a book later in 1834, so he kind of like worked very quickly, his assessment
08:13was the skull indicates a combination of strong animal passions and equally powerful moral
08:19emotions in Burns.
08:21And this was taken by assessment of the size and shape of various different parts of the
08:26skull.
08:27I think phrenologists looked at 27 different areas of the skull and came up with conclusions
08:32for each of these.
08:34So really talking about his sort of like the high passion of Burns.
08:41And we know this, this is the sort of long established narrative of Burns.
08:45You know, we know that he had many lovers.
08:49We know that he liked sex and that he liked women.
08:53We know all this.
08:54And this is like one of the assessments that George Coombe came up with.
08:57George Coombe came up with.
08:59And another of the findings that George Coombe reported was the element of the exquisite
09:08tenderness and refinement which Burns so frequently manifested, even when at the worst stage of
09:14his career.
09:16So I had a very interesting chat with a lovely woman called Judith Hewitt, who's the curator
09:21of museums in Dumfries and Galloway.
09:24And her properties include Robert Burns' house, which is a museum in Dumfries, which is set
09:32in Burns' last home in Dumfries and the Robert Burns Centre, where this replica skull actually
09:39sits.
09:40And, you know, Judith was talking about phrenology being this kind of quack science and how
09:45that really the findings of Coombe kind of really feed into these sort of popular narratives
09:51of Burns, which were taking shape at the start of the 19th century.
09:55Burns is this philanderer, the good time guy, this man of massive emotional intelligence.
10:02And the view sort of being, well, Coombe kind of had to say that because if he didn't, it
10:06would kind of sort of maybe draw light on the robustness of phrenology as a science.
10:16So the skull was immediately put back into the mausoleum and Coombe published his findings,
10:24which again got great traction in the day.
10:28So perhaps they didn't tell us necessarily anything new about Burns.
10:33They perhaps just elaborated, as I say, on the narrative that was already building up
10:37about him.
10:38But the fact that, you know, it was kind of seen fit to break into Burns' coffin and take
10:44the skull, you know, I don't think would really sit very easily with anyone today.
10:50It's incredible.
10:51Alison, pardon the pun about how many new sort of or revamped Burns tales can be dug
10:57up each year as we get to Burns.
11:00And I did have this mental image of him with flowing locks of hair, but I don't think it
11:05was probably that visible.
11:07But it did send the shivers, as you said.
11:12Absolutely.
11:13And just sort of, you know, breaking into a mausoleum in the dead of night, you know,
11:18and sort of rustling about in a coffin.
11:19I mean, obviously you would get arrested for that today.
11:24But it seems like in Dumfries, the sort of great and the good of the town, you know,
11:28did things their own way.
11:31And, you know, as I say, phrenology was very popular at that time.
11:36And so probably they were doing it with the best of intentions, you know, to prove Burns'
11:40genius once and for all.
11:42But I think, you know, we kind of already we know that.
11:45And that kind of still stands today.
11:51We have produced a special Burns supplement ahead of Burns Night this Saturday.
11:57Please go and pick up a copy of The Scotsman.
11:59If you want to flick through that, there's more work by Alison.
12:04There's a couple of fascinating reads in today's paper.
12:07Please, if you want anything, all the latest on heritage, there's also a great story on
12:15the site about the Merlin myth today.
12:18You can find Heritage in the navigation bar on our homepage.
12:21Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky.
12:24And as I said, go out and buy a copy of the paper today and tomorrow for all the very
12:29latest.
12:30Thanks to you, Alison.
12:31Thanks, everyone, for joining us.
12:32Thanks very much.