Did bard have a beard?

Published on Thursday 22 January 2009 20:17

As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, it is surely time to debunk the myth that has grown up around the poet's image. Surviving images show him clean shaven, but this was not unusual for portraits, akin to official photographs today.

Since Burns lived well before the invention of the safety razor, daily shaving would have been a time-consuming and dangerous matter, unless there was a servant on hand to do it.

The reality is that Burns must have been hirsute for much of the time, and the positive images of beards in a number of his poems, the Epistle to William Simson, for example, underline the point.

It is time to reclaim Burns for the hirsute poet he clearly mostly was.

KEITH FLETT

Organiser, Beard Liberation Front

Mitchley Road

London