Burns started life as a ploughman in Scotland but is now one of the world’s most celebrated poets. Every January, his life is remembered with whisky, haggis, singing and dancing on Burns Night.

Perhaps as a distraction from the hard physical work of his early life on the farm, his poetry, and in many ways his life, celebrated the natural world and the pleasures of living life to the full.

His first published collection of poetry was extremely successful and, by the age of twenty-seven, he was a poet of some fame and reputation across Scotland. He began to move in more sophisticated circles, while also engaging in a number of relationships. He remained a radical thinker with a passionate belief in egalitarianism.

Burns lived only for another ten years, but poems such as ‘Auld Lang Syne’, ‘Tam O’Shanter’ and ‘A Red, Red Rose’ ensure that he remains widely read today.