It's a turning point in the life of any artist like myself to mak' a
London success. Up tae that time in his career neithing is quite
certain. The provinces may turn on him; it's no likely, but they may.
It's true there's many a fine artist has ne'er been able to mak' a
London audience care for him, and he's likely to stay in the provinces
a' his life long, and be sure, always, o' his greetin' frae those
who've known him a lang time. But wi' London having stamped success
upon ye ye can be sure o' many things. After that there's still other
worlds to conquer, but they're no sae hard tae reach.
For me that first nicht at Gatti's old hall in the Westminster Bridge
road seems like a magic memory, even the noo. I'm sorry the wife was
no wi' me; had I been able to be sure o' getting the show Tom Tinsley
gied me I'd ha' had her doon. As it was it wad ha' seemed like
tempting Providence, and I've never been any hand tae do that. I'm no
superstitious, exactly--certainly I'm no sae for a Scot. But I dinna
believe it's a wise thing tae gave oot o' the way and look for
trouble. I'll no walk under a ladder if I can help it, I'll tell ye,
if ye ask me why, that I avoid a ladder because I've heard o' painters
dropping paint and costin' them that was beneath the price o' the
cleaning of their claes, and ye can believe that or no, as ye've a
mind!
Ye've heard o' men who went to bed themselves at nicht and woke up
famous. Weel, it was no like that, precisely, wi' me after the nicht
at Gatti's. I was no famous i' the morn. The papers had nowt to say o'
me; they'd not known Mr. Harry Lauder was to mak' his first appearance
in the metropolis. And, e'en had they known, I'm no thinking they'd
ha' sent anyone to write me up. That was tae come to me later on. Aye,
I've had my share of write-ups in the press; I'd had them then, in the
provincial papers. But London was anither matter.
Still, there were those who knew that a new Scotch comic had made an
audience like him. It's a strange thing how word o' a new turn flies
aboot amang those regulars of a hall's audiences. The second nicht
they were waiting for my turn, and I got a rare hand when I stepped
oot upon the stage--the nicht before there'd been dead silence i' the
hoose. Aye, the second nicht was worse than the first. The first nicht
success micht ha' been an accident; the second aye tells the tale.
It's so wi' a play. I've friends who write plays, and they say the
same thing--they aye wait till the second nicht before they cheer, no
matter how grand a success they think they ha' the first nicht, and
hoo many times they ha' to step oot before the curtain and bow, and
how many times they're called upon for a speech.
So when the second nicht they made me gie e'en more encores than the
first I began to be fair sure. And the word had spread, I learned, to
the managers o' other halls; twa-three of them were aboot to hear me.
My agent had seen to that; he was glad enough to promise me all the
London engagements I wanted noo that I'd broken the ice for masel'! I
didna blame him for havin' been dootfu'. He knew his business, and it
would ha' been strange had he ta'en me at my word when I told him I
could succeed where others had failed that had come wi' reputations
better than my own.
I think I'd never quite believed, before, the tales I'd heard of the
great sums the famous London artists got. It took the figures I saw on
the contracts I was soon being asked to sign for appearances at the
Pavilion and the Tivoli and all the other famous music halls to make
me realize that all I'd heard was true. They promised me more for
second appearances, and my agent advised me against making any long
term engagements then.
"The future's yours, now, Harry, my boy," he said. "Wait--and you can
get what you please from them. And then--there's America to think
about."
I laughed at him when he said that. My mind had not carried me sae far
as America yet. It seemed a strange thing, and a ridiculous one, that
he who'd been a miner digging coal for fifteen shillings a week not so
lang syne, should be talking about making a journey of three thousand
miles to sing a few wee songs to folk who had never heard of him. And,
indeed, it was a far cry frae those early times in London to my
American tours. I had much to do before it was time for me to be
thinking seriously of that.
For a time, soon after my appearance at Gatti's, I lived in London. A
man can be busy for six months in the London halls, and singing every
nicht at more than one. There is a great ring of them, all about the
city. London is different frae New York or any great American city in
that. There is a central district in which maist of the first class
theatres are to be found, just like what is called Broadway in New
York. But the music halls--they're vaudeville theatres in New York, o'
coorse--are all aboot London.
Folk there like to gae to a show o' a nicht wi'oot travelling sae far
frae hame after dinner. And in London the distances are verra great,
for the city's spread oot much further than New York, for example. In
London there are mair wee hooses; folk don't live in apartments and
flats as much as they do in New York. So it's a pleasant thing for
your Londoner that he can step aroond the corner any nicht and find a
music hall. There are half a dozen in the East End; there are more in
Kensington, and out Brixton way. There's one in Notting Hill, and
Bayswater, and Fulham--aye, there a' ower the shop.
And it's an interesting thing, the way ye come to learn the sort o'
thing each audience likes. I never grow tired of London music-hall
audiences. A song that makes a great hit in one will get just the
tamest sort of a hand in another. You get to know the folk in each
hoose when you've played one or twa engagements in it; they're your
friends. It's like having a new hame everywhere you go.
In one hoose you'll find the Jews. And in another there'll be a lot o'
navvies in the gallery. Sometimes they'll be rough customers in the
gallery of a London music hall. They're no respecters of reputations.
If they like you you can do nae wrong; if they don't, God help you!
I've seen artists who'd won a great name on the legitimate stage booed
in the halls; I've been sorry for mair than one o' the puir bodies.
You maun never be stuck up if you'd mak' friends and a success in the
London halls. You maun remember always that it's the audience you're
facing can make you or break you. And, another thing. It's a fatal
mistake to think that because you've made a success once you're made
for life. You are--if you keep on giving the audience what you've made
it like once. But you maun do your best, nicht after nicht, or they'll
soon ken the difference--and they'll let you know they ken it, too.
I'm often asked if I'm no sorry I'm just a music hall singer. It's a
bonnie thing to be a great actor, appearing in fine plays. No one
admires a great actor in a great play more than I do, and one of the
few things that ever makes me sorry my work is what it is is that I
can sae seldom sit me doon in a stall in a theatre and watch a play
through. But, after a', why should I envy any other man his work? I do
my best. I study life, and the folk that live it, and in my small way
I try to represent life in my songs. It's my way, after a', and it's
been a gude way for me. No, I'm no sorry I'm just a music hall singer.
I've done a bit o' acting. My friend Graham Moffatt wrote a play I was
in, once, that was no sicca poor success--"A Scrape o' the Pen" it was
called. I won't count the revues I've been in; they're more like a
variety show than a regular theatrical performance, any nicht in the
week.
I suppose every man that's ever stepped before the footlichts has
thought o' some day appearing in a character from Wull Shakespeare's
plays, and I'm no exception tae the rule. I'll gae further; I'll say
that every man that's ever been any sort of actor at a' has thought o'
playing Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. But I made up ma mind, lang ago,
that Hamlet was nae for me. Syne then, though, I've thought of another
o' Shakespeare's characters I'd no mind playing. It's a Scottish part
--Macbeth.
They've a' taken Macbeth too seriously that ha' played him. I'm
thinking Shakespeare's ghost maun laugh when it sees hoo all the great
folk ha' missed the satire o' the character. Macbeth was a Scottish
comedian like masel'--that's why I'd like to play him. And then, I'm
awfu' pleased wi' the idea o' his make-up. He wears great whiskers,
and I'm thinkin' they'd be a great improvement to me, wi' the style o'
beauty I have. I notice that when a character in one o' ma songs wears
whiskers I get an extra round o' applause when I come on the stage.
And then, while Macbeth had his faults, he was a verra accomplished
pairson, and I respect and like him for that. He did a bit o'
murdering, but that was largely because of his wife. I sympathize wi'
any man that takes his wife's advice, and is guided by it. I've done
that, ever since I was married. Tae be sure, I made a wiser choice
than did Macbeth, but it was no his fault the advice his lady gied him
was bad, and he should no be blamed as sair as he is for the way he
followed it. He was punished, tae, before ever Macduff killed him--
wasna he a victim of insomnia, and is there anything worse for a man
tae suffer frae than that?
Aye, if ever the time comes when I've a chance to play in one of Wull
Shakespeare's dramas, it's Macbeth I shall choose instead of Hamlet.
So I gie you fair warning. But it's only richt to say that the wife
tells me I'm no to think of doing any such daft thing, and that my
managers agree wi' her. So I think maybe I'll have to be content just
to be a music hall singer a' my days--till I succeed in retiring, that
is, and I think that'll be soon, for I've a muckle tae do, what wi
twa-three mair books I've promised myself to write.
Weel, I was saying, a while back, before I digressed again, that soon
after that nicht at Gatti's I moved to London for a bit. It was wiser,
it seemed tae me. Scotland was a lang way frae London, and it was
needfu' for me to be in the city so much that I grew tired of being
awa' sae much frae the wife and my son John. Sae, for quite a spell, I
lived at Tooting. It was comfortable there. It wasna great hoose in
size, but it was well arranged. There was some ground aboot it, and
mair air than one can find, as a rule, in London. I wasna quite sae
cramped for room and space to breathe as if I'd lived in the West End
--in a flat, maybe, like so many of my friends of the stage. But I
always missed the glen, and I was always dreaming of going back to
Scotland, when the time came.
It was then I first began to play the gowf. Ye mind what I told ye o'
my first game, wi' Mackenzie Murdoch? I never got tae be much more o'
a hand than I was then, nae matter hoo much I played the game. I'm a
gude Scot, but I'm thinkin' I didna tak' up gowf early enough in life.
But I liked to play the game while I was living in London. For ane
thing it reminded me of hame; for another, it gie'd me a chance to get
mair exercise than I would ha done otherwise.
In London ye canna walk aboot much. You ha' to gae tae far at a time.
Thanks to the custom of the halls, I was soon obliged to ha' a motor
brougham o' my ain. It was no an extravagance. There's no other way of
reaching four or maybe five halls in a nicht. You've just time to dash
from one hall, when your last encore's given, and reach the next for
your turn. If you depended upon the tube or even on taxicabs, you
could never do it.
It was then that my brother-in-law, Tom Vallance, began to go aboot
everywhere wi' me. I dinna ken what I'd be doing wi'oot Tom. He's been
all ower the shop wi' me--America, Australia, every where I gae. He
knows everything I need in ma songs, and he helps me tae dress, and
looks after all sorts of things for me. He packs all ma claes and ma
wigs; he keeps ma sticks in order. You've seen ma sticks? Weel, it's
Tom always hands me the richt one just as I'm aboot to step on the
stage. If he gied me the stick I use in "She's Ma Daisy" when I was
aboot to sing "I Love a Lassie" I believe I'd have tae ha' the curtain
rung doon upon me. But he never has. I can trust old Tom. Aye, I ca'
trust him in great things as well as sma'.
It took me a lang time to get used to knowing I had arrived, as the
saying is. Whiles I'd still be worried, sometimes, aboot the future.
But soon it got so's I could scarce imagine a time when getting an
engagement had seemed a great thing. In the old days I used to look in
the wee book I kept, and I'd see a week's engagement marked, a long
time ahead, and be thankfu' that that week, at least, there'd be
siller coming in.
And noo--well, the noo it's when I look in the book and see, maybe a
year ahead, a blank week, when I've no singing the do, that I'm
pleased.
"Eh, Tom," I'll say. "Here's a bit o' luck! Here's the week frae
September fifteenth on next year when I've no dates!"
"Aye, Harry," he'll answer me. "D'ye no remember? We'll be on the
ocean then, bound for America. That's why there's no dates that week."
But the time will be coming soon when I can stop and rest and tak'
life easy. 'Twill no be as happy a time as I'd dreamed it micht be.
His mither and I had looked forward to settling doon when ma work was
done, wi' my boy John living nearby. I bought my farm at Dunoon that
he micht ha' a place o' his ain to tak' his wife tae when he married
her, and where his bairns could be brought up as bairns should be, wi'
glen and hill to play wi'. Aweel, God has not willed that it should be
sae. Mrs. Lauder and I canna have the grandchildren we'd dreamed aboot
to play at our knees.
But we've one another still, and there's muckle tae be thankfu' for.
One thing I liked fine aboot living in London as I did. I got to know
my boy better than I could ha' done had we stayed at hame ayant the
Tweed. I could sleep hame almost every nicht, and I'd get up early
enough i' the morning to spend some time wi' him. He was at school a
great deal, but he was always glad tae see his dad. He was a rare hand
wi' the piano, was John--a far better musician than ever I was or
shall be. He'd play accompaniments for me often, and I've never had an
accompanist I liked sae well. It's no because he was my boy I say that
he had a touch, and a way of understanding just what I was trying tae
do when I sang a song, that made his accompaniment a part of the song
and no just something that supported ma voice.
But John had no liking for the stage or the concert platform. It was
the law that interested him. That aye seemed a little strange tae me.
But I was glad that he should do as it pleased him. It was a grand
thing, his mother and I thought, that we could see him gae to
Cambridge, as we'd dreamed, once, many years before it ever seemed
possible, that he micht do. And before the country called him to war
he took his degree, and was ready to begin to read law.
We played many a game o' billiards together, John and I, i' the wee
hoose at Tooting. We were both fond o' the game, though I think
neither one of us was a great player. John was better than I, but I
was the stronger in yon days, and I'd tak' a great swipe sometimes and
pocket a' the balls. John was never quite sure whether I meant to mak'
some o' the shots, but he was a polite laddie, and he'd no like to be
accusing his faither o' just being lucky.
"Did ye mean that shot, pal" he'd ask me, sometimes. I'd aye say yes,
and, in a manner o' speaking, I had.
Aweel, yon days canna come again! But it's gude to think upon them.
And it's better to ha' had them than no, no matter what Tennyson sang
once. "A sorrow's crown of sorrow--to remember happier things." Was it
no sae it went? I'm no thinking sae! I'm glad o' every memory I have
of the boy that lies in France.