After I'd been in the mine a few years my brother Matt got old enough
to help me to support the family, and so, one by one, did my still
younger brothers. Things were a wee bit easier for me then; I could
keep a bit o' the siller I earned, and I could think about singing
once in a while. There were concerts, at times, when a contest was put
on to draw the crowd, and whenever I competed at one of these I
usually won a prize. Sometimes it would be a cheap medal; it usually
was. I shall never forget how proud I was the night a manager handed
me real money for the first time. It was only a five shilling piece,
but it meant as much to me as five pounds.
That same nicht one of the other singers gave me a bit of advice.
"Gae to Glasga, Harry," he said. "There's the Harmonic Competition.
Ye're dead certain to win a prize."
I took his advice, and entered, and I was one of those to win a medal.
That was the first time I had ever sung before total strangers. I'd
always had folk I knew well, friends of mine, for my audience before,
and it was a nerve racking experience. I dressed in character, and the
song I sang was an old one I doubt yell ha' heard-"Tooralladdie" it
was called. Here's a verse that will show you what a silly song it
was:
"Twig auld Tooralladdie,
Don't he look immense? His
watch and chain are no his ain
His claes cost eighteenpence;
Wi' cuffs and collar shabby,
0' mashers he's the daddy;
Hats off, stand aside and let
Past Tooralladdie!"
My success at Glasgow made a great impression among the miners.
Everyone shook hands with me and congratulated me, and I think my head
was turned a bit. But I'd been thinking for some time of doing a rash
thing. I was newly married then, d'ye ken, and I was thinkin' it was
time I made something of myself for the sake of her who'd risked her
life wi' me. So that night I went home to her wi' a stern face.
"Nance!" I said. "I'm going to chuck the mine and go in for the stage.
My mind's made up."
Now, Nance liked my singin' well enough, and she thought, as I did,
that I could do better than some we'd heard on the stage. But I think
what she thought chiefly was that if my mind was made `up to try it
she'd not stand in my way. I wish more wives were like her, bless her!
Then there'd be fewer men moaning of their lost chances to win fame
and fortune. Many a time my wife's saved me from a mistake, but she's
never stood in the way when I felt it was safe to risk something, and
she's never laughed at me, and said, "I told ye so, Harry," when
things ha' gone wrong--even when her advice was against what I was
minded to try.
We talked it all over that nicht--'twas late, I'm tellin' ye, before
we quit and crept into bed, and even then we talked on a bit, in the
dark.
"Ye maun please yersel', Harry," Nance said. "We've thought of every
thing, and it can do no harm to try. If things don't go well, ye can
always go back to the pit and mak' a living."
That was so, ye ken. I had my trade to fall back upon. So I read all
the advertisements, and at last I saw one put in by the manager of a
concert party that was about to mak' a Scottish tour. He wanted a
comic, and, after we'd exchanged two or three letters we had an
interview. I sang some songs for him, and he engaged me, at thirty-
five shillings a week--about eight dollars, in American money--a
little more.
That seemed like a great sum to me in those days. It was no so bad.
Money went farther then, and in Scotland especially, than it does the
noo! And for me it was a fortune. I'd been doing well, in the mine, if
I earned fifteen in a week. And this was for doing what I would rather
do than anything in the wide, wide world! No wonder I went back to
Hamilton and hugged my wife till she thought I'd gone crazy.
I had been engaged as a comic singer, but I had to do much more than
sing on that tour, which was to last fourteen weeks--it started, I
mind, at Beith, in Ayrshire. First, when we arrived in a town, I had
to see that all the trunks and bags were taken from the station to the
hall. Then I would set out with a pile of leaflets, describing the
entertainment, and distribute them where it seemed to me they would do
the most good in drawing a crowd. That was my morning's work.
In the afternoon I was a stage carpenter, and devoted myself to seeing
that every thing at the hall was ready for the performance in the
evening. Sometimes that was easy; sometimes, in badly equipped halls,
the task called for more ingenuity than I had ever before supposed
that I possessed. But there was no rest for me, even then; I had to be
back at the hall after tea and check up part of the house. And then
all I had to do was what I had at first fondly supposed I had been
engaged to do--sing my songs! I sang six songs regularly every night,
and if the audience was good to me and liberal in its applause I threw
in two or three encores.
I had never been so happy in my life. I had always been a great yin
for the open air and the sunshine, and here, for years, I had spent
all my days underground. I welcomed the work that went with the
engagement, for it kept me much out of doors, and even when I was busy
in the halls, it was no so bad--I could see the sunlight through the
windows, at any rate. And then I could lie abed in the morning!
I had been used so long to early rising that I woke up each day at
five o'clock, no matter how late I'd gone to bed the nicht before. And
what a glorious thing it was to roll right over and go to sleep again!
Then there was the travelling, too. I had always wanted to see
Scotland, and now, in these fourteen weeks, I saw more of my native
land than, as a miner, I might have hoped to do in fourteen years--or
forty. Little did I think, though, then, of the real travelling I was
to do later in my life, in the career that was then just beginning!
I made many friends on that first tour. And to this day nothin'
delights me more than to have some in an audience seek me out and tell
me that he or she heard me sing during those fourteen weeks. There is
a story that actually happened to me that delights me, in connection
with that.
It was years after that first tour. I was singing in Glasgow one week,
and the hall was crowded at every performance--though the management
had raised the prices, for which I was sorry. I heard two women
speaking. Said one:
"Ha' ye heard Harry sing the week?"
The other answered:
"That I ha' not!"
"And will ye no'?"
"I will no'! I heard him lang ago, when he was better than he is the
noo, for twapence! Why should I be payin' twa shillin' the noo?"
And, do you ken, I'm no sure she was'na richt! But do not be tellin' I
said so!
That first tour had to end. Fourteen weeks seemed a long time then,
though, the last few days rushed by terribly fast. I was nervous when
the end came. I wondered if I would ever get another engagement. It
seemed a venturesome thing I had done. Who was I, Harry Lauder, the
untrained miner, to expect folk to pay their gude siller to hear me
sing?
There was an offer for an engagement waiting for me when I got home. I
had saved twelve pounds of my earnings, and it was proud I was as I
put the money in my wife's lap. As for her, she behaved as if she
thought her husband had come hame a millionaire. The new engagement
was for only one night, but the fee was a guinea and a half--twice
what I'd made for a week's work in the pit, and nearly what I'd earned
in a week on tour.
But then came bad days. I was no well posted on how to go aboot
getting engagements. I could only read all the advertisements, and
answer everyone that looked as if it might come to anything. And then
I'd sit and wait for the postie to come, but the letters he brought
were not for me. It looked as though I had had all my luck.
But I still had my twelve pounds, and I would not use them while I was
earning no more. So I decided to go back to the pit while I waited. It
was as easy--aye, it was easier!--to work while I waited, since wait I
must. I hauled down my old greasy working clothes, and went off to the
pithead. They were glad enough to take me on--gladder, I'm thinkin',
than I was to be taken. But it was sair hard to hear the other miners
laughing at me.
"There he gaes--the stickit comic," I heard one man say, as I passed.
And another, who had never liked me, was at pains to let me hear _his_
opinion, which was that I had "had the conceit knocked oot o' me, and
was glad tae tak' up the pick again."
But he was wrong, If it was conceit I had felt, I was as full of it as
ever--fuller, indeed. I had twelve pounds to slow for what it had
brought me, which was more than any of those who sneered at me could
say for themselves. And I was surer than ever that I had it in me to
make my mark as a singer of comic songs. I had listened to other
singers now, and I was certain that I had a new way of delivering a
song. My audiences had made me feel that I was going about the task of
pleasing them in the right way. All I wanted was the chance to prove
what was so plain to me to others, and I knew then, what I have found
so often, since then, to be true, that the chance always comes to the
man who is sure he can make use of it.
So I plied my pick cheerfully enough all day, and went hame to my wife
at nicht with a clear conscience and a hopeful heart. I always looked
for a letter, but for a long time I was disappointed each evening.
Then, finally, the letter I had been looking for came. It was from J.
C. MacDonald, and he wanted to know if I could accept an engagement at
the Greenock Town Hall in New Year week, for ten performances. He
offered me three pounds--the biggest salary anyone had named to me
yet. I jumped at the chance, as you may well believe.
Oh, and did I no feel that I was an actor then? I did so, surely, and
that very nicht I went out and bought me some astrachan fur for the
collar of my coat! Do ye ken what that meant to me in yon days? Then
every actor wore a coat with a fur trimmed collar--it was almost like
a badge of rank. And I maun be as braw as any of them. The wife smiled
quietly as she sewed it on for me, and I was a proud wee man when I
strolled into the Greenock Town Hall. Three pounds a week! There was a
salary for a man to be proud of. Ye'd ha' thought I was sure already
of making three pounds every week all my life, instead of havin' just
the one engagement.
Pride goeth before a fall ever, and after that, once more, I had to
wait for an engagement, and once more I went back to the pit. I folded
the astrachan coat and put it awa' under the bed, but I would'na tak'
off the fur.
"I'll be needin' you again before sae lang," I told the coat as I
folded it. "See if I don't."
And it was even so, for J. C. MacDonald had liked my singing, and I
had been successful with my audiences. He used his influence and
recommended me on all sides, and finally, and, this time, after a
shorter time than before in the pit, Moss and Thornton offered me a
tour of six weeks.
"Nance," I said to the wife, when the offer came and I had written to
accept it, "I'm thinkin' it'll be sink or swim this time. I'll no be
goin' back to the pit, come weal, come woe."
She looked at me.
"It's bad for the laddies there to be havin' the chance to crack their
jokes at me," I went on. "I'll stick to it this time and see whether I
can mak' a living for us by singin'. And I think that if I can't I'll
e'en find other work than in the mine."
Again she proved herself. For again she said: "It's yersel' ye must
please, Harry. I'm wi' ye, whatever ye do."
That tour was verra gude for me. If I'd conceit left in me, as my
friend in the pit had said, it was knocked out. I was first or last on
every bill, and ye ken what it means to an artist to open or close a
bill? If ye're to open ye have to start before anyone's in the
theatre; if ye close, ye sing to the backs of people crowdin' one
another to get out. It's discouraging to have to do so, I'm tellin'
ye, but it's what makes you grit your teeth, too, and determine to
gon, if ye've any of the richt stuff in ye.
I sang in bigger places on that tour, and the last two weeks were in
Glasgow, at the old Scotia and Gayety Music Halls. It was at the
Scotia that a man shouted at me one of the hardest things I ever had
to hear. I had just come on, and was doing the walk around before I
sang my first song, when I heard him, from the gallery.
"Awa' back tae the pit, man!" he bellowed.
I was so angry I could scarce go on. It was no fair, for I had not
sung a note. But we maun learn, on the stage, not to be disconcerted
by anything an audience says or does, and, somehow, I managed to go
on. They weren't afraid, ever, in yon days, to speak their minds in
the gallery--they'd soon let ye know if they'd had enough of ye and
yer turn. I was discouraged by that week in old Glasgow. I was sure
they'd had enough of me, and that the career of Harry Lauder as a
comedian was about to come to an inglorious end.
But Moss and Thornton were better pleased than I was, it seemed, for
no sooner was that tour over than they booked me for another. They
increased my salary to four pounds a week--ten shillings more than
before. And this time my position on the bill was much better; I
neither closed nor opened the show, and so got more applause. It did
me a world of good to have the hard experience first, but it did me
even more to find that my confidence in myself had some justification,
too.
That second Moss and Thornton tour was a real turning point for me. I
felt assured of a certain success then; I knew, at least, that I could
always mak' a living in the halls. But mark what a little success does
to a man!
I'd scarce dared, a year or so before, even to smile at those who told
me, half joking, that I might be getting my five pound a week before I
died. I'd been afraid they'd think I was taking them seriously, and
call me stuck up and conceited. But now I was getting near that great
sum, and was sure to get all of it before so long. And I felt that it
was no great thing to look ahead to--I, who'd been glad to work hard
all week in a coal mine for fifteen shillings!
The more we ha' the more we want. It's always the way wi' all o' us,
I'm thinkin'. I was no satisfied at all wi' my prospects and I set out
to do all I could, wi' the help of concerts, to better conditions.