Eglinton Street, Irvine

Image: © Dave Hitchborne Taken: 14 Sep 2008

The Burns Club - The first time I ever went inside the Burns Club I got to take photographs of the current Marymass parade as it passed by. The parade is one of Scotland's largest horse-drawn processions. The club was actually closed, but I knew the curators, who back then were Mr & Mrs D Smith. David Smith (1921-2008) became honorary member of the Burns Club in 1994. David worked latterly as a traveller for plumbers merchants including Thomas Graham and John Richmond. Football was one of his passions and, despite a trial for Glasgow Rangers coming to naught, he remained a lifelong supporter of the club. His footballing ability was, however, recognised elsewhere and after seeing service in Gibraltar during World War Two (as a drummer in a Cameron Highlanders band) and, to quote him, “finishing the war without firing a shot in anger”, he was asked to sign for Burnley but declined - he had lost a 17-year-old brother through a football-related injury and did not want to put his parents through worry in that direction. He did play for both Motherwell and Kilmarnock, finally finishing his senior playing career with Stranraer. David was happily married to Madge (1924-2009), a native of Sheffield, and it was as a couple that they were recruited by Irvine Burns Club Secretary Andrew Hood in 1975 to act as curators to the Club and Museum. David, with his encyclopaedic knowledge and boundless enthusiasm for Burns, and Madge, with her practical, organisational skills, were an immediate hit with the Directors and members of the Club and the very many letters received both by David and the Club in the intervening years are a testament to the open, outgoing friendliness with which he charmed the public. He was a keen golfer, a weel-kent after-dinner raconteur and performer, a man with enthusiasm and a pawky sense of humour. In 1993 Andrew Sinclair, the then President, felt that David’s contribution to the Club had been such that the offer of Honorary Membership was made. David accepted and continued for many years to present the public face of Irvine Burns Club with the same relish and keenness he demonstrated in the seventies - E L Park, President 1994-95 (text condensed) David and Marjorie Smith were my uncle and aunt.

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