Burns on the street! Violet Dalton, Head of Volunteering at the National Trust for Scotland (NTS), will be appearing atop Antony Gormley‘s Fourth Plinth between 5 and 6pm on Thursday 23rd July. She will be wearing a plaid (see left for how the plaid looks! dress rehearsed yesterday here at the Scottish Poetry Library) borrowed from NTS’s property manager at Bannockburn – he’s also a re-enacter and wore the plaid in Braveheart when he was an extra. She’ll have some handspun wool from the Weaver’s Cottage too, so she’ll be taking the opportunity to get some knitting done while she’s there.
Violet also plans to recite some poems. She’s going to get some Burns in there with ‘Scots Wha Hae’ – not just because the NTS looks after the cottage, (it looks after all the Burns properties in Alloway and is building a new state of the art Burns Museum there), but in honour of his birthday of course – and there’s the Bannockburn connection too. She’s also planning to read some Liz Lochhead, Tom Leonard and Edwin Morgan, and is still swithering over some others. As head of volunteering, she’s hoping to encourage more people to volunteer, not just for NTS, but for other good causes too. She’s passionate about environmental matters and some of her poem choices may reflect this.
When asked, she told us she’s nervous, but excited too! She said she’s not too scared of heights, but is a little worried about the cherrypicker that sets you onto the plinth. But when else would you get an opportunity like this in life?
