Last week’s Burns Night Supper held on the grounds of the British High Commission on Kingston’s Trafalgar Road was an elegant well attended event.

Below is British High Commissioner Alicia Herbert’s full address: 

Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, dear friends, Afeef, thank you for that generous toast. 

It was warm, elegant, and delivered with exactly the right balance of praise and self-preservation.

 A wise laddie knows that a Burns Supper succeeds only when the lassies feel properly appreciated — and tonight you have negotiated your position extremely well.

But we’ve listened with just a wee bit of suspicion – because experience tells us that compliments at Burns Night are generous but not always binding!

The Toast to the Lassies is playful, affectionate but it also carries a deeper truth. 

Burns understood something timeless: society is strongest when women are recognised not as ornaments to history, but as authors of it. He wrote women as intelligent, spirited equals — sharp in wit, fierce in loyalty, and entirely capable of winning an argument… often before the gentlemen realised the debate had begun.

Standing here tonight feels especially meaningful to me. My journey has taken me across different parts of the world, but now my home in the UK is Glasgow. 

In Glasgow, Burns is everywhere — in conversation, in music, in jokes told over a table, in pride carried without apology. His words belong to the people, and the people carry them with affection and irreverence in equal measure.

And so tonight we celebrate a Scottish tradition here in Jamaica. It is a reminder that culture does not stay in one place. It travels. It connects people. It grows richer when shared. Burns would have appreciated the poetry of this moment — and probably raised a glass to it.

What makes a Burns Supper endure is not nostalgia. It is relevance. His writing speaks across oceans and centuries about dignity, equality, humour in hardship, and pride in identity. These are universal themes — the kind that allow traditions to cross borders and still feel at home.

The lassies gathered here tonight represent many journeys and many stories. Some of us carry Scottish heritage, some British heritage, some Caribbean heritage, and many carry a mixture that reflects the world we live in today. That blending is not confusion — it is richness. Identity is not a boundary; it is a meeting place. 

On behalf of the lassies, we accept the toast not as flattery to be modestly dismissed, but as a celebration shared. Burns believed in partnership — in conversation between equals. His work reminds us that society thrives when voices are heard together, not separately. 

May the spirit of Burns live on, may the partnership between Scotland and Jamaica continue to thrive.  And we celebrate the enduring voice of Robert Burns, who understood that humanity sounds best when everyone has a verse.

To the laddies — with warmth. To the lassies — with pride. To friendship, laughter, and shared tradition.