Fresh from a day’s campaigning in Largs for the Scottish elections, members and guests of the North Ayrshire and Arran Conservative Association gathered for their third annual Burns Supper last week.

Held in the Seamill Hydro Hotel on Saturday 30 January, the event was the best attended to date. Chairman, Richard Wilkinson said, “This was only our third Burns Supper and the numbers attending have grown each year. As well as attracting Burns fans, it also shows the growing popularity of the party in this area”.

Following the chairman’s welcome, the haggis was piped in by Ciaran Sinclair and addressed with gusto by Ian Dickson. The meal served by the Hydro of haggis, neeps and tatties and steak pie was much appreciated.

The toast to the Immortal Memory of Robert Burns was proposed by Ian Dickson, a past president and director of Irvine Burns Club.

Drawing on Burns’s time in North Ayrshire, Ian described Burns as the apprentice flax maker who lived in Irvine for two years and left the apprentice poet.

A robust Toast to the Lassies was given by Brian Whittle, a former European and Olympic champion athlete in the 400 and 800 metres who is currently standing in Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley as the Conservative candidate for the Scottish elections. Equally robust was Conservative MSP, Margaret Mitchell from Bothwell, a Central Scotland member of the Scottish Parliament who replied on behalf of the Lassies.

Entertainment for the evening was provided by Eleanor Lamont and William Parker who sang a medley of Burns’s songs, accompanied by David Rocks on the keyboard. Ian Dickson also gave a reading of the ‘Epistle to James Tennant of Glenconner’.

The evening concluded with a vote of thanks given by Jamie Greene, Scottish Conservative candidate for Cunninghame North in the Scottish elections. Billy McClure, Cunninghame South candidate, was also present.