Underneath the arches of the house rafters, watched by three rats, the boy, Burns, is lost in a book by the light of a single candle. It was the beginning of learning for a farm boy who would be a poet.

The 15-year old Burns feels the first pangs of love, not so much for a girl, but more for the song he has just written for Nellie Kilpatrick in the harvest field. It was a love that was to last.

The young man, Burns, may not have been able to sing to himself but he was full of music, as he showed when he taught himself to play the fiddle. This was his tool towards mastering the art of composition.

Robert Burns was quick to understand that a man was as good as his words. Conversational skills and a way with words was essential towards making a good impression in whatever level of society.

It’s not what you know but who you know that matters in the world. Networking was the ladder the Mason, Burns, used to climb upwards. Being of the craft also fed his love of the occult and the mysterious.

The ploughman-poet, as Burns called himself, knew the label would attract the town, especially when the gentry (and their ladies) discovered that he was nothing like that image. On the contrary, he was charming, articulate, romantic and handsome. In short, he was a sensation in Edinburgh.

The world premiere of an acknowledged masterpiece took place, not in the withdrawing room of the elite, but in a humble farm house near Dumfries when Burns, himself, read it to his own family, a few friends, farmhands and serving people.

Burns loved the theatre and went as often as he could. It was his hope one day to write a play. Instead he was involved in a real life drama in the Theatre Royal, Dumfries, when the Royalist and Republican factions clashed during the singing of the National Anthem. He did not join in, but it was easy to tell where his sympathies lay.

Robert Burns is found by Maria Riddell sitting by the empty fire at sunset, knowing that his end is near yet knowing just as surely that his name will live on.