MILNGAVIE'S very own Burns aficionado is far travelled this week — giving the Immortal Memory in Nairobi.
Len Murray is the guest of the Caledonian Society of Kenya and has been invited to propose the toast to the Immortal Memory of Robert Burns on Saturday night.
Last year the retired criminal lawyer was asked to go but had already been booked by Rad
io Forth for society Homecoming celebrations.
As it happens the secretary of the Nairobi Society, Jane Parmley formerly Buchanan, was born and brought up in Milngavie and still has family here.
Len's trip to Kenya is the latest in an impressive list of invitations he has received to speak abroad, having already given toasts in Bahrain and Singapore, four times in Canada, twice in Cairo and unable to accept invitations to Melbourne and Nova Scotia.
Such is his Burns pedigree that last year when the Scottish Parliament held a Burns Supper for the first time, with the entire Consular Corps in Scotland and various dignitaries from home and abroad invited, it was Len who was asked to propose the Immortal Memory.
In 2007, after chairing the West Sound Radio burns Supper, then First Minister Jack McConnell said: "Len has been an outstanding chairman — he has wit, style and stature and his knowledge of Burns will almost certainly beat anybody in this room."
Former chief constable Sir William Rae added: "I have attended many Burns Suppers where Len Murray has been a speaker but never before when he has chaired the event.
"It was a masterly performance and he brilliantly linked the speakers, musicians, singers and performers with an effortless continuity making him outstanding in this role."
No faint praise there, or in the list of accolades he has collected over the years.
It's nice work if you can get it and Len intends to make the most of the Nairobi trip after his performing duties are done — by going on a three-day safari to the Masai Mara.
