Burns Night in Beverley is always a highlight of Beverley and Holderness Labour Party’s year.
This year, 125 members and supporters crowded into the Beverley Memorial Hall on Saturday evening, January 28th.
They heard a rousing speech from Mayor of Goole Terry Smith who at only 19 proposed the Toast to the Lassies.
Local Councillor Ann Willis toasted the Laddies and dancing to traditional ceilidh music set the scene.
Bagpipes announced the arrival of the haggis following which everyone tucked into a fantastic supper of Haggis, bashed neeps and chappit tatties all washed down with Scotland’s national drink, and we’re not talking IRN BRU.
But the highlight was undoubtedly the Toast to the Immortal Memory of Robert Burns. The toast came at the culmination of a fantastic speech delivered by ASLEF President Tosh McDonald who recalled the esteem in which Burns was held by the union’s founders over 100 years ago.
Tosh brought the house down with his recollection of his response to the devastation wrought by Margaret Thatcher on our society in the 1980. ‘I hated her so much,’ he told the audience. ‘that I’d set my alarm clock for an hour earlier than necessary every morning just so that I could have another hour each day hating her.’
Tosh recalled the sacrifice of the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War and the devastation wrought by man upon his fellow man by the nazies. Unfortunately, as Tosh noted, the election of Trump and the Brexit vote showed that the self same inhumanity and intolerance decried in the poems of Burns, is still widespread in modern society.
But the evening was upbeat and a celebration of the Hope that springs eternal, embodied in both the poetry of Burns and the speeches of Jeremy Corbyn.
Almost £1200 was raised on a night which culminated in a roof raising rendition of the Red Flag and the Burns classic ‘Auld Lang Syne. The only question on everyone’s lips as they left was ‘How do we top that
next year?’ Over to you Tosh.
