I HAVE always thoroughly enjoyed my provincial tours in England,
Scotland, and Ireland. Wherever I go I get real good entertainment during
the day fishing, golfing or shooting. After Edinburgh and Glasgow on the
trip of which I am writing I played Southport, in Lancashire. One day I
had gone out with a friend to have a round of golf forgetting that George
Foster, my agent, and a London manager named Harry Masters, were coming up
to see me on an important business matter. When they arrived and were
informed that I had gone golfing they said they would like to see what
sort of a game this golf business really was. Neither of them had ever
played it or seen it. As a matter of fact golf had not then taken England
by storm as it has since done. There were lots of courses but
comparatively few players. So Foster and Masters did not think they were
doing anything amiss when they marched on to Formby Golf Course in silk
hats, frock coats, and white spats. By the time they walked out across the
links and made up to us we were playing the fifth or sixth hole. I told
them to walk behind with Tom and "watch how the game was played." But I
don't think they paid much attention until Tom, always keen on a practical
joke, noticed that the pocket-strap of my golf bag was unfastened and that
a fine new ball—one of two I had bought at the professional's shop before
setting out—had dropped on to the fairway. "Hullo," said Tom on coming up
with the ball, "somebody has lost a ball here. Better
pick it up, George. It's worth two bob and Harry is always willing
to buy a good ball cheap—he'll maybe give you a shilling
for it!" Foster did as he was told, never suspecting that his leg (to
say nothing about mine) was being pulled. "I've just found this new ball,
'Arry," he said. "Is it worth a shilling to you?" I took the ball,
examined it, and decided that it was worth all of that amount. Foster took
his shilling and fell back to join Masters and Tom. A few holes later
Harry Masters came to rue with another new ball, said he had found it on
the course, and asked me what I would give him for it. "The same as George
got!" I replied, forking out another shilling and congratulating both
silk-hatted gentlemen on their ball-finding proclivities. "In fact," I
added, "I think I'll stop playing and have a look round myself for balls;
the Formby golfers seem to lose a lot !" At this stage Tom, as he told me
afterwards, was on the point of explaining the "joke" when another ball
trickled between Foster's legs. It had been driven by one of the plus-2
men of the club playing a game behind us. Foster instantly stooped down,
picked up the ball and promptly offered it to me for another shilling. As
I had not seen the ball coming, being too intent on my own game, I took it
from him and was examining it with a view to purchase when loud yells from
the rear caused us to look round. One of the Formby members was waving his
driver in the air and saying words which sounded to rue tolerably like an
outburst of general cursing. As I pocketed the "found" ball and was
dipping into my trouser-pocket for still another shilling to pass over to
Foster the player behind came dashing up with wild oaths directed not to
any one of us but to, as he phrased it, "the whole damned thieving bunch
of you!"' Tom, the scoundrel, turned away choking with laughter. Foster,
rather a dignified person at all times, turned upon the stranger with a
speech beginning "How dare you?" But he got no further for the Formby
member—one of the most fluent and original specialists in swearing I have
come across in a long life-time--denounced us singly, and as a
company, for the most contemptible and villainous gang of thugs and
outsiders that had ever had the nerve to spoil the landscape of a
respectable golf course. Foster and Masters he described as a "couple of
damned quack-doctors from the beach at Blackpool" while I was "worse than
the caddies who stole balls from a player's bag because I was at least
dressed like a golfer and ought to know better than buy balls picked up by
my overdressed friends before they ;had stopped rolling!"
By this time I deemed it expedient to take a hand in
the argument but the information, given in what was intended by me to be
convincing and dramatic style, that "I was Harry Lauder and ought to
explain that my friends from London did not ken much about golf"—rather
added fuel to the fire of the Formby man's wrath and off he started again.
He passed some particularly pungent and personal remarks about myself,
hinted that he was more than disposed to credit all the stories he had
heard about me in view of the first-hand knowledge he now had as to how I
got my golf-balls, and vowed that the local police should be called in to
deal with the whole disgraceful situation.
Had
it not been for Tom I do not know what the end of it all would have been.
He came forward, still laughing hilariously, and explained the joke he had
played not only on Foster and Masters but on myself. Immediately I heard
the staggering news that I had been buying my own golf- balls I hastily
opened the pocket of my bag, assured myself that it was true, and rounded
on Fostr and Masters with vocabulary second only in quality and selectness
to that of the Formby member. Having now something to laugh at himself,
the edge of his anger was turned and an hour later the episode was
declared ended and all wounds were healed it the nineteenth hole.
One golf story leads to another and while I am at it I
ay as well tell you what happened to me at the Auckland Course in New
Zealand. The first time I played here some years ago I had the same caddie
for two days running but on the third day a strange boy came up to the
first tee and handed me my driver. "Hullo," said I, "you're not the same
boy as I had yesterday and the day before—is he ill?"
"No, Sir Harry," said the lad, "he's quite well!"
"Then why is he not caddying for me today?" I asked.
"Well, sir, we tossed for it today--I mean we tossed
which of us should carry for you," replied the boy, looking just a bit
sheepish or sulky--I wasn't sure which. I must confess that I felt a
little elated that the New Zealand caddies should toss among each other
for the honour of carrying my clubs.
"So you
won, did you?" I went on.
"No, sir," came back
the prompt answer, "I lostI" Think it over, folks!
They tell a good story about me at an Australian course
through which a railway runs. At one of the holes you have to drive over
the rails. I had a very nice game with two or three "birdies" in the round
and was feeling so good that I perhaps erred on the side of generosity in
the way of a tip to my caddie at the finish. Immediately on returning to
the "pen" he was asked by the other caddies what I had given him. "Five
shillings," he proudly remarked and showed the two half-crowns. "Gee!"
exclaimed one of his companions, "you must have saved his life at the
railway crossing!"
Of the hundreds of golf
courses all over the world on which I have played I think my own home
course at Kim, in Argyllshire, is the loveliest from a scenery point of
view. The vistas of mountain, moor, and loch which you get from many of
the tees there are unexcelled. Every time I play a round at Kirn it takes
me about four hours because I simply have to stop after every other shot
and lose myself for a few minutes in a spell-bound admiration of scenes of
majestic loveliness. The golf, too, is quite hard enough for me. If I
shoot anything round 90 I think I have played above myself. Of course
there are no railway engines to help me at Kirn as there are at Monifieth
in Forfarshire, that little golf-mad town which has sent so many
professionals to earn fame and fortune in America. Once I was playing a
game there with Willie Blackwood. The first hole runs alongside the
railway track its entire distance. On this occasion I drove off, sliced my
ball so badly that the driver of a slow goods train saw it coming, caught
it in his hands and dropped it out on the first green. It was lying "dead"
when I came up to it and I got a two at a pretty hard four hole! How's
that for an untrue golf story?
But this one is
really true. Only a few days ago I went over with Blackwood to his club at
Oxhey, that beautiful course near London presided over—professionally--by
the genial giant, Ted Ray. As we had booked a time by 'phone the news
leaked out that I was going to perform and there was quite a group of
members of both sexes round the tee when we arrived. Before leaving
Harrow, however, we got hold of a very old and filthy golf-ball which
Black- wood's dog had been playing with in his garden for perhaps a couple
of months. Unless this ball was used in association with a club of some
kind nobody would have been able to tell what it was. It wasn't even
round. Arrived at the tee I solemnly took this monstrosity from my pocket,
handed it to the caddie and ordered him to tee it up. The lad started to
laugh but I was as solemn as a judge. "What the devil are you laughing at,
boy?" I asked sternly. "The b-b-ball, sir," stammered the caddie. "What's
wrong with the ball, boy?" I demanded. "I've played with it for four years
Put it down—a good high tee!" The caddie teed up and, wonderful to relate,
I hit a beauty with it, the unshapely, dirty mass hurtling through the air
for a good hundred and fifty yards. As "Wuilie" and I moved off, not the
semblance of a smile on our faces, we heard gasps, titters and "Well, I'm
damned !'s" from the astonished Oxhey members and I know for a fact that
it took "Jock" Anderson, the popular Scottish captain of Oxhey who was in
the know of our prank, quite a long time to prevail on the hor rified
members that I really put down a clean ball after the first shot!
But to revert back to my stage work. As the months went
on I began again to think about America and how nice it would be to get
back there again and touch some real money. I had kept in correspondence
with Will Morris since my return. Every letter I had from him contained a
sentence or two about my great success there and a hint that I had only to
say the word and he would fix me up for a much longer tour at a salary
which would make my earnings at home look like chicken-feed. Then all at
once, without even saying he was coming, Will walked into my dressing-room
at Liverpool. We shook hands. Will said, "When shall we sail?" I said,
"Just as soon as you can prevail on my British managers to release me--and
that'll be never!" But Morris and George Foster between them managed the
apparently impossible—at a price! I forget just how much "consolation
money" we had to pay certain managers for their agreement to release me
but I remember that the sum made my blood boil and it was only the thought
that I would come out all right on balance that induced rue to make the
trip. While saying this I must at the same
time admit that the call of America was very strong. There is an
electrical something in the air of the United States and the great
Dominion of Canada which, once it inoculates one's blood, cannot easily be
resisted. Perhaps it is the freshness, the vitality, the Spirit of Youth
which animates the peoples of the New World. If it is not these things I
cannot define the lure—quite apart, believe me, from monetary
considerations—America has always had for me. I have been going over there
for more than twenty years now and although my work is harder, much more
strenuous, across the water, I feel a new inspiration every time I land in
New York or Montreal for still another tour. Yes, as I write these lines
in Dunoon I find my mind wandering all over North America and I see rising
before my eyes familiar forms and faces that I have come to love very
much. This "America Calling" urge reminds me of the story about the
Scottish minister who had accepted, in ecclesiastical language, "a call
from God to another sphere of usefulness." His leading elder, discussing
the vacancy thus created in the local church, remarked to the senior
deacon that "it was a funny thing that God aye seemed to call his
meenisters awa' to a bigger steepend!"
My
second trip lasted for fourteen weeks. On this occasion I played ten weeks
in New York and a week each in Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and
Chicago. I thought my previous experience of New York had taught me all
there was to know about the States and its people. What a terrible
mistake! One only gets to know the soul of a nation when one begins to
work outward from its great towns and cities. So you will realize how
interested I was in visiting the four wonderful cities I have mentioned.
The week I spent in each of them convinced me that my American education
was only beginning. Chicago is as different from New York as London is
from Edinburgh; Boston might be on another continent so far as its
comparison with Pitts burg is concerned! While Philadelphia is again
completely different from every other American city. It is more like a
British city than any other place in the United States and that is
probably the reason why many British visitors have told me they feel
perfectly at home there. I always do—but then I have travelled America so
thoroughly, and am a "freeman" of so many of its chief cities that I am
and feel quite at home in any place from coast to coast. It is not my
intention in these memoirs to embark on any sort of "appreciation" of the
United States, its towns, their inhabitants and their characteristics. For
one thing I could not do justice to such an important and fascinating
subject and even if I attempted it I am no Will Rogers on such a lay and
the result, while it would be flattering to my friends the Ameri can
people, would be extremely disappointing judged as a literary effort. The
only real thought behind this paragraph is my suggestion that it is always
a dangerous thing hastily to judge a people or a country from a flying
visit to one or two of the big centres. After my first trip to New York I
was under the impression that America was an open book to me and that I,
shrewd fellow, had not taken long to weigh up its people, their
mannerisms, their characteristics, their amazingly numerous good points
and—well, their weak nesses. This extended tour the following autumn only
served to show me how little I knew and to embue me with the desire to
become better and better acquainted with a country the vastness, the
richness, the variety, the resources and possibilities of which made a
tremendous impression on my mind. In later years and under exceedingly
difficult circumstances the knowledge I acquired of America and the
Americans during my earlier trips was to stand me in good stead when I
became an unofficial ambassador of Britain—a Britain stricken, gasping,
but defiantly determined to see a Big Thing through.
From a professional point of view my second vaudeville
engagement in the States was even more successful than my first. The
audiences took me and my songs to their hearts; I was as happy as a king—a
lot happier than most kings I have met! And there was a smile on Will
Morris's face that became broader and broader as the nightly "returns"
were handed to him. Frequently I would "keek ower his shouther" to have a
look at the figures for myself and what I saw made distinctly good
reading, mind I'm tellin' ye. Often I would nervously ask Will if he
thought the Lauder vogue would last in the States.
"Last, Harry!" he would exclaim, "Why, we have only
started to scratch the soiface; we ain't got down to the real gold-vein
yet. We'll be diggers for ten years to comet" Saying which Will would show
his white teeth and blink his eyes so rapidly that you couldn't tell the
colour of them!
While the native Americans
certainly rolled up in their thousands, encouraged to do so by the
extraordinarily kind criticisms of my performances which constantly
appeared in the newspapers, there is no doubt in my mind that the exiled
Scots in the States had more to do with my success than many people
imagined. We are easily the most "clannish" race In the world. We love
each other even if we don't trust each other. Wherever we scatter
ourselves over the Seven Seas we seem to smell each other out and
gravitate as surely as Newton's law operates. Let one Scot be attacked in
a wilderness or on a cannibal island and another will pop up from nowhere
to his rescue. Put a Scot in the Mayor's chair of any city in the world
and he'll have to spend more than half his time finding jobs for people
from his own home town. Rustle a bag of money anywhere and the Scot will
beat the Jew to it every time. The expatriated Caledonians sure rallied to
my support during my earlier trips to Dollar Land. Not only so, they
turned up at my shows in all manner of Scottish costumes—in kilts, with
Balmoral bonnets, wearing tartan ties, and many of them brought their
bagpipes with them. They imparted an enthusiastic atmosphere to my
appearances everywhere; their weird shouts and "hoochs" and skins provided
good copy for the journalists and next-day talking points for the natives.
In the first twenty weeks I spent in the States I must have met personally
ten thousand people who claimed acquaintance with me in "the auld days in
Hamilton, Harry !"—or Glasgow, or Arbroath, or Portobello, as the case
might be. I shook hands with them all, lied fluently when I told them I
recognized them, and presented signed post-cards to one at least out of
every fifty! Apropos of this rallying of the
Scotties to my banner one of the most affecting incidents of my life
occurred on the opening night of my second tour in New York. Before going
on the stage I was handed a note signed by a Scot who said he had come all
the way from Klondyke to hear me. He had a personal message from five
hundred miners up there to deliver to me—would I give him a few minutes
after my turn was over? Of course I told Tom to wait at the stage door and
bring him round. In due course the man from Klondyke appeared, a big,
burly, rough-and-ready chap hailing originally from Ayrshire. The tale he
told me made the tears come to my eyes. There were many Scots in the
mining camp he came from and when they heard that Harry Lauder was to
appear in New York they decided to organize a sweepstake the winner of
which would have all his expenses paid to New York and back again. The
only conditions laid down were that the lucky winner should secure the
full words of all my songs (and as much of the melodies as possible of the
unpublished numbers) and bring back a signed photo of myself to prove that
the delegate had had actual personal contact with me. My visitor had drawn
the lucky number and had arrived in New York the previous Friday after
being on the road fully a fortnight. He told me that in addition to the
Scots who organized the sweepstake hundreds of other miners had taken
tickets and it was not until all the tickets had been sold that the awful
thought arose in the minds of the promoters—what if an American, or an
Irishman, or a Pole or a German won the prize? "Fortunately my name came
out of the bag first," said the Ayrshire man, "and here I am. Gosh, but
I've had the time o' ma life, Mr. Lauder. And now I'll go back happy!" I
got Tom to give him notes of all the songs and lyrics which were not on
sale and secure copies of those that were. I also prevailed on him to wait
another night or two, which he did, and I got him a seat in the wings
during my performances. The song he liked best was "We Parted on the
Shore." The chorus he shouted so loudly from his place in the wings that I
could scarcely hear myself singing it! He left for the frozen north-west a
few days later and I never heard from him again.
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