There are five other extant versions of’Auld Lang Syne’ written in Burns’s hand. If you were able to see them all together, you would be able to trace the creative process at work in the writing of the song, for each version is slightly different. The Mitchell Library’s version differs from the others in that the lyric generally recorded as ‘For Auld Lang Syne, my dear’ is, in this instance, ‘For Auld Lang Syne, my jo.’ I asked the curators of the library whether Robert Burns had had a girlfriend called Jo. They explained that ‘jo’ was a term of endearment, one that no one really uses in Scotland any more. ‘My jo’ means something like, ‘my darling’ or ‘my dear’.
Robert Burns said that the song ‘thrills my soul’, but he didn’t actually write it himself. ‘I took it down from an old man’s singing,’ he wrote in 1793. He sent it to James Johnson, the editor of The Scots Musical Museum (an anthology of traditional Scottish songs), saying it was ‘an olden song’ passed between families and friends.
As it turns out, ‘Auld Lang Syne’ had its origins in an anonymous fifteenth century poem that went under various names, including ‘Auld Kindries Foryett’, ‘Old Longsyne’ and, finally, in 1724, ‘Auld Lang Syne’. It was also a drinking song during the Civil War. A song beginning ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot’ appeared in print before Burns adopted the line: it was written by the poet Allan Ramsay, whose love of Scottish folk traditions inspired Burns; it’s about two comrades parting after a battle. What Robert Burns did was to take the sentimental feeling of the poem and adapt it to an age of emigration. He universalized it, and made it far stronger and more affecting than ever before. He described what he did as ‘mending’ songs, giving them to the world for the future.
This version of the song, that lives in storage, doesn’t break out of its vault very often. It was flown to America for a Tartan Day celebration in New York City and was on exhibition there for a little while, but most of the time it is stored wrapped in archival paper, protected by foam, in its black briefcase. Of course, anyone can see it, because this original belongs to the people of Glasgow, so the curators at the library will show it to you if you ask to see it. But preserving it out of the light is in its best interests, helping it to survive long into the future.
What I didn’t know about the song is that Burns wrote the lyrics, but the tune came later. There were several versions touted around – including one by Beethoven – before we got the internationally recognized one sung at midnight on New Year’s Eve. The Mitchell Library owns a copy of Beethoven’s score, which it displays in its Burns Room, right at the top of the library building. The room contains all Burns’s works, as well as memorabilia and other interesting treasures associated with this beloved writer. This room isn’t usually open to the public, but the library does rent it out for lectures.
On show in the Burns Room was the earliest score for ‘Auld Lang Syne’ that they own, in that version the tune was more nostalgic, while the one we know now is more assertive and confident. The modern tune is still poignant, but it doesn’t set everyone off crying at midnight each year, as the old one might have. The version we use is more suggestive of good times gone, and to come, and of the freedom of the human spirit.
Of course, Robert Burns isn’t only celebrated on New Year’s Eve. There is Burns Night on 25 January, that wonderful evening on which people gather together, to eat haggis (or to look at haggis and ask, ‘What is in it?’) and then read his poems aloud to one another while drinking whisky. Burns is also to be celebrated for giving us a word that rhymes with purple. In the last verse of a letter to Elizabeth Scott, a Scottish poetess, Burns wrote:
I’d be mair vauntie o’ my hap,
Douce hingin’ owre my curple
Than ony ermine ever lap,
Or proud imperial purple.
Which roughly translated means, Burns would rather wear plaid over his buttocks than any ermine or posh purple cloth. Curple, in this instance, is his bottom.
People often call Burns ‘Rabbie’, but he never signed his name as Rabbie, Robbie – or, indeed, ‘Bobbie’ Burns, as some Americans call him. His signatures included ‘Robert’, ‘Robin’ and, on at least one occasion, ‘Spunkie’. Neither did he ever wear a kilt, because kilts were outlawed after the Jacobite Rebellion and, if Robert Burns had put one on, he, like all Scots who wore one, would risk deportation.
But, of course, Burns’s most famous work is the song we all sing in the first moments of each year: ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Next New Year’s Eve, when you begin singing, ‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never called to mind,’ you might remember the piece of paper that lives quietly, in a foamy bed inside a briefcase, in the library in Glasgow. I know I will.
[An original draft of ‘Auld Lang Syne’]
The Mitchell Library in Scotland keeps this original draft, written by Robert Burns, in a black, combination-lock briefcase. The traditional New Year’s Eve song came about thanks to this piece of paper.
[Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians]
For decades Lombardo performed a live broadcast of the song from the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City on New Year’s Eve. Today, in Times Square, the tradition continues.
[An alternative tune]
In some versions of the song the tune is more nostalgic. There were several variations touted around – even Beethoven composed a version – before we got the internationally recognized tune sung at midnight each New Year’s Eve.
[Haggis]
Burns Night, on 25 January, is a Scottish institution: a night to celebrate the life and works of Robert Burns, eat haggis and listen to bagpipes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped to make this book.
I couldn’t have written it without the help of so many fantastic curators and museums. Thank you for your generosity, and for showing me around the backrooms, basements and storage cupboards of your collections. I’ve had the most wonderful time learning from and exploring with you all.
Thank you John Mitchinson – the brightest shining star ever! Since the evening we broke down in your car, on the way back to Great Tew, and talked about the idea whilst walking to your friend’s house to get petrol you’ve been so kind and wonderful. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your amazing advice and help. Thanks also to Rach.
Thank you to Hennie Haworth for bringing this book to life with your beautiful illustrations, firstly from Kyoto, when we’d only met via Skype, then from your home in the British Museum, and later with Theo toddling alongside you. Sending you chapters and then receiving back beautiful illustrations of things I’d seen was really magical. Thank you.
A massive thanks to the fabulous Zoë Waldie for great advice, encouragement over cups of tea, and for taking my book proposal to just the right place. Thank you to Ele Simpson for introducing me to Zoë.
Thank you Hannah MacDonald for believing in the book. Your ideas and input have been invaluable, and I’ve so enjoyed working with you and your team at Collins. Thank you Craig Adams for spot-on advice and Georgina Atsiaris for juggling all the different things that went into making this book – I’d probably still be thinking about finishing this book if it wasn’t for your excellent plans of action. For the beautiful design I have Martin Topping and Lucy Sykes-Thompson to thank – I couldn’t have imagined it turning out as perfectly as it has, thank you so much.
Thank you to Giulia Hetherington for sourcing the perfect photographs, Sarah Day for copy-editing – even when on holiday – and Sarah Patel and the publicity team. Thank you all so much for making it happen.
Thank you John Lloyd for giving me such a fantastic job at QI from day one. I knew I wanted to do something ‘interesting’ but that was all, so thanks a million for finding me and allowing me to do just that. Thanks to James Harkin for coming to museums with me, when the book was just an idea, high fives also to Dan Schreiber, and Justin Pollard – thanks guys – and to Flash, Sarah L, Sarah C, Liz and everyone at QI.
Thanks to everyone who had me to stay: Seb and Katie in NYC, Ches and Gabe in Boston, Paul in Toronto, Nyasha in Paris. Thank you to everyone who gave me advice, including: Ute for all the amazing help and fun times in Berlin and Boston, Cley and John P for Brazilian tips, Laura Z for hooking me up to the Morgan Library, Kath for Guggenheim connections, Martin for Swedish ideas, the fish curators at the Natural History Museum for suggesting my first ever behind-the-scenes trip, James MacLaine for contacts to other museums, Burgs, Alexa, Deana, Sophie D, Claus, Tor (for introducing me to Hennie), Chaz, Pops, Shan and Emily.
Finally a massive thank you to Olly for great ideas, delicious snacks, coming to museums, taking photos, adding geeky ‘amendments’ and for so much more besides.
Oh, and thank you for picking up and reading this book.
PICTURE CREDITS
While every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material reproduced herein and secure permissions, the publishers would like to apologise for any omissions and will be pleased to incorporate missing acknowledgements in any future edition of this book. The page numbers in this ebook do not tally with those listed below - please search by chapter to find the corresponding picture.
All illustrations © Hennie Haworth. Photographs by the author are published with permission.
p. 16 Museum of the City of New York/Getty Images; p. 19 Photo Pierpont Morgan Library/Art Resource/Photo Scala, Florence; p. 23 Eugene Cernan/NASA; p. 24 National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution; p. 25, p. 29a NASA; p. 29b Vatican Observatory; p. 31 AFP/Getty Images; p. 34a Photos.com/Thinkstock; p. 34b, p. 35, p. 37a © The Royal Society; p. 36, p. 40 Molly Oldfield; p. 37b NASA; p. 41 iStockphoto/Thinkstock; p. 42a © Natural History Museum, London; p. 46 Seeds: Time Capsules of Life by Rob Kessler and Wolfgang Stuppy, Papadakis Publisher, www.papadakis. net; p. 48a James King-Holmes/Science Photo Library; p. 48b © Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; p. 521 Photos.com/Thinkstock; p. 52r Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy; p. 53b Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford/The Bridgeman Art Library; p. 55 Museum of the History of Science, Oxford; p. 59 Museum of Sacred Art, Salvador, Bahia; p. 62a The Edgar Fahs Smith Memorial Collection, The University of Pennsylvania; p. 62b Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library. 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All rights reserved; p. 107 Molly Oldfield; p. l08a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; p. 108b Courtesy TeleGeography, www.telegeography.com; p. 110 Molly Oldfield; p. 114 Getty Images; p. 115, p. l16 Musée océanographique de Monaco, Fondation Albert Ier, Prince de Monaco; p. 118, p. 120 © Natural History Museum, London; p. 119 Natural History Museum, London/Science Photo Library; p. 121 Eye of Science/Science Photo Library; p. 125 The Art Gallery Collection/Alamy; p. 126 © Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Dist RMN-Grand Palais/MNHN, bibliothéque centrale; p. 127 Anup Shah/Thinkstock; p. 129 © Natural History Musem, London; p. 130 Photos.com/Thinkstock; p. 132 Doug Houghton40/Alamy; p. l34a, p. 135 (Stomolophus meleagris, MCZ SC 153), p. 136 (Physalia physalis, MCZ SC 132) Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, © President and Fellows of Harvard College; p. 134b1, p. l34br Collection of the Rakow Research Library, The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York; p. 138, p. 142 Photo Anneli Karlsson, the Swedish National Maritime Museums; p. l45a © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London; p. 145b, p. 146 iStockphoto/Thinkstock; p. 151 Molly Oldfield; p. 152 © National Museums of Scotland; p. 156, p. 157, p. 158 Kon-Tiki Museum, Oslo; p. 160 AFP/Getty Images; p. 161 Molly Oldfield; p. l64a Sir Wally Herbert Collection, www.polarworld.co.uk; p. 164b Getty Images; p. 165 Daily Mail/Rex Features; p. 168 Canadian Museum of Civilization, Geroge H Wilkins, 1915, 50918; p. l69a Photo Henri Chamoux – l’archéophone – www.archeophone.org; p. 169b Canadian Museum of Civilization, Archives, IMG2008-0963-0001-Dm; p. 172 Courtesy Alert photo pool; p. 174 Museum Afro Brasileiro/UFBA; p. 175 LatinContent/Getty Images; p. 177 AFP/Getty Images; p. 1801, p.l80r Royal Geographical Society, London; p. 182, p. 183 Lordprice Collection/Alamy; p. 185 Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard (Peabody 99-12-70/53559, 60743302); p. 186 Francis G Mayer/Corbis; p. 187 Bishop Museum, Honolulu; p. 190 Royal Ontario Museum, Canada; p. 194 National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 10/8708; p. 196 The Art Archive/Alamy; p. 197 Historical Picture Archive/Corbis; p. 199 George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress; p. 200 Getty Images; p. 202 Photo David Heald/Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation, New York © Succession Miro/ ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2013; p. 205, p. 206, p. 208 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; p. 212 British Library, London/Werner Forman Archive; p. 213 Carl & Ann Purcell/Corbis; p. 217 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London /V&A Images. All rights reserved; p. 218 The Print Collection/Alamy; p. 220 Hemera/Thinkstock; p. 221 Le Desk/Alamy; p. 223 Molly Oldfield; p. 224 Interfoto/akg-images; p. 225 Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis; p. 228, p. 230 p. 231 Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto © 2013; p. 234 © Royal Armouries; p. 235 Guildhall Library, City of London/The Bridgeman Art Library; p. 239a Ullstein Bild/akg-images; p. 239b BPK, Bildagentur fuer Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin/Photo Scala, Florence; p. 240 Photo Nadja Cholidis © 2012/BPK, Bildagentur fuer Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin/Photo Scala, Florence; p. 241 Tell Halaf-Project, photo: Stefan Geismeier, Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin – SMB; p. 244 Bettmann/Corbis; p. 245 Courtesy of the Nobel Museum, Stockholm; p. 247 RIA Novosti/TopFoto; p. 250 Getty Images; p. 251 Popperfoto/ Getty Images; p. 252a, p. 252b, p. 253 © National Portrait Gallery, London; p. 256 © Anne Frank Fonds/Anne Frank House; p. 257 Photos 12/Alamy; p. 258a, p. 259 Anne Frank Fonds/Getty Images; p. 263 Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe, acquisition funded by the Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin; p. 266 akg-images; p. 267 World History Archive/Alamy; p. 268 George (Jürgen) Wittenstein/akg-images; p. 271 Bletchley Park Trust /Science & Society Picture Library. All rights reserved; p. 272, p. 274, p. 275 Bletchley Park Trust; p. 273 National Archives, UK; p. 277 Image courtesy ofVisitGuernsey; p. 278a Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy; p. 278b Molly Oldfield; p. 279 The Print Collector/Alamy; p. 282 © Museum of London; p. 283a TopFoto; p. 283b BT Heritage; p. 284 Courtesy of www.antiquetelephones.co.uk; p. 286, p. 288 Molly Oldfield; p. 287a Photos 12/Alamy; p. 290 Courtesy of the British Dental Association Museum; p. 291a Antiques & Collectables/Alamy; p. 295 Museum of Zoology, University of Sao Paolo; p. 297 Natural History Museum, London/Science Photo Library; p. 300 © The Trustees of the British Museum; p. 302 Paul D Stewart/Science Photo Library; p. 303 geogphotos/Alamy; p. 306a The Gallery Collection/Corbis; p. 306b The International Museum of Naïve Art of Brazil (MIAN), Rio de Janeiro; p. 312 Photograph © 2013 Museum of Boston; p. 315 Molly Oldfield; p. 316 Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images; p. 317 Van Gogh Museum (Vincent van Gogh Foundation); p. 318 SuperStock; p. 321 Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation
, New York) © Succession Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2013; p. 322 Tony Vaccaro/Getty Images; p. 323 © Lucian Freud Archive; p. 325 Courtesy Hans Guggenheim; p. 328 Royal Academy of Dance/ArenaPAL/Getty Images; p. 329 Getty Images; p. 330 ROH Collections, Royal Opera House; p. 334, p. 337 Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum; p. 335 Popperfoto/Getty Images; p. 338 David Gee 4/Alamy; p. 340 Courtesy of the Mitchell Library, Glasgow City Council; p. 341 Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy; p. 342 Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy; p. 343 Hemera/Thinkstock
First published in 2013 by Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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London W6 8JB
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Text © Molly Oldfield 2013
The author asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Publisher – Hannah MacDonald
Editor – Craig Adams
Senior Project Editor – Georgina Atsiaris
Design – Lucy Sykes - Thompson
Illustrations – Hennie Haworth
Picture Research – Giulia Hetherington
Production – Stuart Masheter
Colour reproduction by FMG.
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The Secret Museum Page 31