Burns birthday kicks off a year of events

OF MICE, there will be plenty, as well as a flock of sheep, a giant cart-horse, a Spitfire, a bicycle and a copy of Lincluden Abbey.

Carried aloft as home-made lanterns, some requiring several hands, there will be 3,000 of them making their way through the streets of Dumfries and lighting up Robert Burns' house and his burial place on the way down to the town's historic Whitesands.
Of men, there will be even more. Around 10,000 marchers are expected to crowd into the town this evening as the first weekend of Scotland's biggest national party gets into full swing with four "Burns Light" processions that will converge to witness a 15m wooden model of Tam O' Shanter astride his horse be put to the torch on the River Nith.

For Shirley Bell, chief executive of the Robert Burns World Federation, it is yet more proof of Burns' universal appeal. "The numbers are amazing and if Robbie had been around he would have been proud of what was being done in his name," she said. "Burns Light will be truly spectacular. It is an event that has captured people's imaginations both here and abroad and the enthusiasm is just astonishing."

Scotland's year of Homecoming will be an "extraordinary celebration", First Minister Alex Salmond said, as the first events officially got under way.

A weekend of celebration is being held to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, and the start of the Homecoming programme.

It aims to attract expatriates back to Scotland to celebrate the country's culture and heritage.

The Burns weekend marks the start of the year-long programme of events.

Traditional Burns Suppers will be held as far afield as Kazakhstan and Malawi, Moscow and Sydney, but the focal point of this weekend's Scottish festivities will be Alloway in Ayrshire, the village where Burns was born in 1759.