Editor's Preface

The wording and section titles here are copied verbatim from a photocopy of Professor Watt's handwritten diary, which he gave me some time around the year 2000. The text here is presented in the order in which it appears in the diary. Sometimes a portion of the text is introduced with a title and sometimes the subject changes without a new title.

This work was written gradually. In its present form, some, though not all of it, probably dates from the 1970s. Its style is informal and its tone is personal. Its pagination is disordered and there are passages that have been written more than once, as well as earlier sections that have been deleted and replaced by fuller ones.

This unpublished text has been included here because of the valuable light it sheds on William's personality, childhood, education and early views on religion.

The Text

My mother

This is an appropriate place to give an outline of my mother's life. After her sister Jeanie's death, she was the oldest of the children, but she was able to train as a teacher, first as a ‘pupil teacher’ at Larkhall Academy, and then at an institution in Glasgow. She presumably completed her training before 1890, and then worked as a teacher until her marriage. She had a very fine contralto voice, and told me that she had thought of becoming a professional singer but decided that it was somewhat risky as a career.

My father and she married on 17 July 1902, after he had been minister of Ceres for a few months, and there she played a full part in local life as the minister's wife (though I think I am right in saying that at that time there were three other churches in the village). I did not appear until March 1909, but Mother was then very satisfied at having produced the first Burns grandchild.

In summer 1909 my father moved to be first minister of Balshagray Parish Church in Glasgow. Within a few months, however, he was found to be suffering from a kidney disease for which there was then no cure, and he died in May 1910.