Secrets of Rabbie Burns’ love life revealed

The secrets of Robert Burns’ sex life will be laid bare tonight with his dalliances with servants revealed in detail.

In a radio documentary, comedienne Keara Murphy will explain just how rampant the Bard was, fathering as many as four illegitimate children.

The warts ‘n’ all expose will shed light on the poet’s passionate love-making with a string of women, mostly servants.

Burns expert William Ogilvie admitted that while the Bard was a known philanderer, many of the explicit details about his shadowy trysts still remain unknown.

He said: “It’s definitely accepted that Burns had relationships outwith marriage but there is still a lot of haze surrounding the details.

“His wife Jean Armour was so in love with her husband she was able to put up with his follies. This side of his life has been probed many times. But there is still a lot of information to surface.

“Either way it should make for very interesting listening.”

The poet’s private life has for centuries been the subject of much public dissection. Despite being married to Jean with whom he fathered nine children Burns found it nigh on impossible to keep himself to himself.

Tonight’s radio show will attempt to piece together what happened to the mothers and the babies which stemmed from his liaisons.

Each of the four children conceived outside marriage were born to servant girls.

Farm servant Elizabeth Paton fell pregnant while working for Burns with his first-born child Elizabeth who later became the subject of the poem A Welcome To My Love Begotten Daughter.

The documentary will also attempt to uncover what fuelled the Bard’s obsession with servants and dissect his relationship with his children. And host Keara believes she’s the right person to do it.

She revealed: “I have loved Burns ever since I was a lassie. My siblings and I were brought down to Alloway to explore Burns’ Cottage and The Burns’ National Heritage Park.

“We were all given a bit of pocket money and my brothers and sisters spent theirs wisely on knickerbocker glories and 7-Up. I blew mine on a large book of poetry.

“My siblings have proper jobs now while I stay at home and read aloud to the mice. So, I do feel I can relate pretty closely to Rabbie Burns, for the life of the pauper poet is not much different from the life of the jobbing comic.”

Burns Night is now big business with events set to take place all over the world.

Popular butchers find themselves swamped by global orders while the event provides a welcome post-Christmas fillip for the fine whisky market.

And in Glasgow’s George Square yesterday the statue of the bard was given his its outfit for the occasion a Tam o’ Shanter hat and tartan scarf.

One onlooker, Tracey Benn, 42, from Castlemilk, Glasgow, said: “I think he looks very fetching in his trews, they should leave him like that.”

The Secret Sex Life Of Robert Burns, BBC Radio Scotland, tonight at 10.30pm.