About this episode
Robert Burns began a correspondence with Agnes McElhose, also known as Clarinda and Nancy, a married woman he was besotted with. When she left Scotland to reunite with her husband he wrote Ae Fond Kiss as a heartfelt farewell. It was later set to music and is one of his most famous 'songs' along with Auld Lang Syne and My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose. Karen Matheson, the singer with Capercaillie, talks about its meaning to her and how performing it at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014 was a very special moment. Joan Donaldson from Michigan grew up with Scottish music and has called her latest historical novel Ae Fond Kiss. She says she channelled her grief into the characters as a way of dealing with a devastating loss. Sir Geoff Palmer discovered the song when he arrived in Edinburgh in the 1960s. He has traced Burns' and the song's connection to his home country of Jamaica and feels proud of the links he discovered. For film maker Karen Guthrie from Ayrshire - Burns' birthplace - coping with and caring for her estranged parents meant long drives home through the countryside he inhabited. It was a journey of rediscovering Scotland's national poet and relating her family's story to Ae Fond Kiss. Musician Seonaid Aitken plays both versions of the song on the violin and explains how the music conveys the feelings of longing after an unresolved love affair. Producer: Maggie Ayre First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2025.