The story of Burns’ time in Irvine will be the theme of the annual diary dedicated to the national Bard.

Now in its 21st year of publication, the Robert Burns Diary is helping put Irvine firmly on the Burns global map.

For the story of how the young Ayrshire farmer wanting to learn flax dressing came to Irvine, then a bustling seaport, and had a life-changing experience, is the theme of The Robert Burns Diary 2020, currently being distributed globally.

Burns came to Irvine from the family farm near Tarbolton in Autumn 1781 to learn flax dressing but left the Royal Burgh some eight months later as an Apprentice Poet or as he put it in a letter to an influential Irvine-based friend “I resolved to endeavour at the character of a poet”.

Bill Nolan, Hon Secretary of The Irvine Burns Club who stepped down last month from being President of the Robert Burns World Federation, said: “Until recently, Irvine seems to have been one of the best kept secrets in the life of Robert Burns but it deserves to be up there for it was in Irvine that the spark of poetic genius was initially lit and later nurtured to create one of Scotland’s only true international literary icons.”

The Robert Burns Diary for 2020 is currently on sale locally at £5 from Wellwood Burns Centre & Museum on Saturday afternoons and also from The Irvine Townhouse, The HAC, Irvine Library and the NAC Heritage Centre in Saltcoats during opening hours.