 |
 |
 |
Henry MacLennan
Lauder, much better known as Harry, was the first of several children
born to John and Isabella McLennan Lauder, poor but humble God-fearing
parents, who lived in a simple ‘but and ben’ in Portobello,
Edinburgh - though his father’s family came from the Borders; so
steeped in Scottish song, poetry and history. His mother, Isabella Urquhart
MacLeod MacLennan, came from the Black Isle.
Being poor Harry had to work as soon as he was able, so at eight years of age, he earned his first wage looking after pigs, then picking strawberries . A spell as a caddy on a golf course followed on to his CV.
Then, at the tender age of twelve, he was the breadwinner having lost his father to pneumonia at a time when there was no government assistance for widows with small children.
Also at that time he became a "Half-timer" ... Monday, Wednesday and Friday he worked in the mills from 6.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays it was back to school. His pay was 2/1d. per week (10 pence). This went straight to his mother, who took in washing, minded babies, and baked for the better off. Their combined income had to keep the children and their widowed mum. There was no "Social" then and they starved until his mother got them both some ‘homework’. Factories dropped off a hundredweight of old ropes and string which has to be teased out into yarn then mixed with flax. It took Harry and his mother around ten hours each in their cruelly busy week to do the hundredweight, which left their fingers bleeding and aching. Their wage for this extra job - 71/2 pence between them! (That’s about 4p or 6cents in today’s £$)
His recreation was to join "The Band of Hope" where all the lads and lassies proudly wore their blue ribbon to indicate that they were not addicted to the brewer’s delight –‘ the demon drink’.
His favourite hymns remained his favourites - "Shall We Gather At the River?", "All People That on Earth do Dwell", "Do Thou with Hyssop Sprinkle Me?" and "Lord of All Being".
Today, when social workers and "do-gooders" blame unemployment and shortage of money for our horrendous crime figures, they would do well to note the inhuman poverty and degradation in which young people grew up - just 100 years ago - without any crime wave.
It was at a "Band of Hope" meeting that young Harry Lauder sang his first song, "I’m A Gentleman Still", in public. The thrill of hearing people applauding wildly, something he had heard for the first time, spurred him on to thinking maybe he could learn another song.
A few years later Harry found work in a coal mine. It was slightly better paid work but dangerous work so he reportedly sang to himself to bolster his courage. Soon, his co-workers encouraged him to enter local talent contests that earned meagre but cherished prize money. He finally entered a contest singing the two songs he knew best, "Annie Laurie" and, of course, "I'm A Gentleman Still". He won second prize and was also given the chance to sing in small music halls.
So from twelve years of age the course had been set for an amazing career which, eighteen years later, would see him making his London debut and going on to become the highest paid Music Hall artiste of all time with visits to the U.S.A., China, Australia, New Zealand and Africa.
Some reports suggest that he never demanded high fees (such as is the norm today for less talented people) but gratefully accepted what was offered. The more likely story is that past hardships had taught Harry the value of money, how to count and be paid for ‘the bums on seats’.
So the report that, in the autumn of 1902, when Harry was asked to appear in Panto at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow - an unheard of honour for a local lad - he had the audacity to ask for £250 a week. He got £200, to the profession’s amazement, as he was currently earning £7 a week in London, which, in itself, was good. Harry played Roderick McSwankey in Aladdin and the show was so successful that it ran for thirteen weeks. The railways ran special "Harry Lauder" trains. For this, his first pantomime, Harry introduced his song, I Love A Lassie. It stopped every performance and held up the show each time he sang it. The patrons demanded encore after encore - each time for "I Love a Lassie".
Offers came from all over Britain after that pantomime ended, but then, in the middle of all the British offers, came one from America. Harry was amazed. He head dreamed of one day having a holiday in the America, but as for singing there - well, even he had never dreamed a dream like that. He didn’t stay dumbfounded for long. "Tell them I’ll come for £400 a week!" The promoter was almost dumb with shock. "Can he come down?" he asked - to which Harry replied "Yes, I’ll come down to £450 if he doesn’t accept at once!" The contract for £400 a week was delivered within the hour. Harry Lauder became the highest paid Music Hall artiste in the world.
Like his USA counter-part, Al Jolson, Lauder loved and went for the show-stoppers, many of which, with his feel for the audience, he wrote himself, ‘Just A Wee Deoch an’ Doris’; ‘Waggle o’ the Kilt’; Roamin' In the Gloamin' and the comic ‘Will You Stop Your Tickling Jock’.
At the start of WWI Harry Lauder visited his son, Capt. John Lauder, at the military installation prior to John being shipped overseas. There, he asked every soldier that he met "What can I get for you? What do you need?" The answer was nearly always the same "More men". The story goes that, at his own expense, Harry Lauder hired one hundred pipers to march the length and breadth of Scotland to recruit men. Which is why the bulk of the British forces in WW1 were Scots.
A few years later when World War I still raged in Europe, on January 1, 1917 to be exact, while Harry was on tour, he received a telegram at the Bonnington Hotel in London. It read, "Captain John Lauder killed in action December 28, 1916". Harry Lauder and his beloved wife Annie lost their only child on a battlefield in France.
The theatre manager closed the show until further notice, knowing it would be impossible for any star to go on stage to tell jokes and sing. Harry rushed home to be with his wife and spend private time of grief and prayer. His wife reminded him of millions of other parents that had received similar telegrams and encouraged him to go back to London and reopen the show to keep from putting hundreds of people out of badly needed work. Returning to the theatre he was given a letter that had arrived by special messenger. It was from a fellow officer who had been with his son John when he was killed. It read, "The Captain", he wrote, had died with great gallantry calling out the words "Carry On". Harry Lauder, though in a devastating state of loss, answered his dying son in the only way he knew and the call of entertainers "The Show Must Go On" was born. Harry did carry on that night singing his songs and telling jokes giving all he had to give. When the final curtain fell he collapsed from exhaustion. It is also believed that another of his ‘anthems’, Keep Right On to the End of the Road, was written in respect for and encouragement to those soldiers who braved that terrible war.
Weeks later he even tried to enlist for combat into the military and was rejected for combat because of his age. "Right then" replied Lauder "let me sing to the boys. I'm an entertainer. I can make their load a wee bit lighter with a song or two and a joke or two. It's the least I can do for memory of John".
No one had ever made such a request before. Many performers had entertained in military hospitals but none had actually gone to the battlefield where, if the enemy objected to the performance, might just start sending rounds of live ammunition rather than applause. After weeks of debate in the War Office Harry Lauder became the first person to entertain troops (both British and American) in the battlefield.
With a small custom built piano tied to the grill of a military vehicle he sang and joked his way across France in base hospitals, old chateaus, pillaged barns and dug outs.
It was a practice he repeated in World War II, though in his seventies, after receiving a request from Sir Winston Churchill.
His Majesty, King George V bestowed knighthood on Harry Lauder for service to his country in Buckingham Palace in April, 1919 with his dear Annie, now Lady Lauder, in attendance. Sadly, Lady Lauder died just before he received the "Freedom of Edinburgh Award" in 1927. An empty chair was placed on the platform next to her husband in her honour.
Though he created the image of the ‘mean Scot’, Lauder was probably the very opposite, though not in any showy or obvious way.
Sir Harry Lauder worked virtually until he died in February, 1950.
Being poor Harry had to work as soon as he was able, so at eight years of age, he earned his first wage looking after pigs, then picking strawberries . A spell as a caddy on a golf course followed on to his CV.
Then, at the tender age of twelve, he was the breadwinner having lost his father to pneumonia at a time when there was no government assistance for widows with small children.
Also at that time he became a "Half-timer" ... Monday, Wednesday and Friday he worked in the mills from 6.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays it was back to school. His pay was 2/1d. per week (10 pence). This went straight to his mother, who took in washing, minded babies, and baked for the better off. Their combined income had to keep the children and their widowed mum. There was no "Social" then and they starved until his mother got them both some ‘homework’. Factories dropped off a hundredweight of old ropes and string which has to be teased out into yarn then mixed with flax. It took Harry and his mother around ten hours each in their cruelly busy week to do the hundredweight, which left their fingers bleeding and aching. Their wage for this extra job - 71/2 pence between them! (That’s about 4p or 6cents in today’s £$)
His recreation was to join "The Band of Hope" where all the lads and lassies proudly wore their blue ribbon to indicate that they were not addicted to the brewer’s delight –‘ the demon drink’.
His favourite hymns remained his favourites - "Shall We Gather At the River?", "All People That on Earth do Dwell", "Do Thou with Hyssop Sprinkle Me?" and "Lord of All Being".
Today, when social workers and "do-gooders" blame unemployment and shortage of money for our horrendous crime figures, they would do well to note the inhuman poverty and degradation in which young people grew up - just 100 years ago - without any crime wave.
It was at a "Band of Hope" meeting that young Harry Lauder sang his first song, "I’m A Gentleman Still", in public. The thrill of hearing people applauding wildly, something he had heard for the first time, spurred him on to thinking maybe he could learn another song.
A few years later Harry found work in a coal mine. It was slightly better paid work but dangerous work so he reportedly sang to himself to bolster his courage. Soon, his co-workers encouraged him to enter local talent contests that earned meagre but cherished prize money. He finally entered a contest singing the two songs he knew best, "Annie Laurie" and, of course, "I'm A Gentleman Still". He won second prize and was also given the chance to sing in small music halls.
So from twelve years of age the course had been set for an amazing career which, eighteen years later, would see him making his London debut and going on to become the highest paid Music Hall artiste of all time with visits to the U.S.A., China, Australia, New Zealand and Africa.
Some reports suggest that he never demanded high fees (such as is the norm today for less talented people) but gratefully accepted what was offered. The more likely story is that past hardships had taught Harry the value of money, how to count and be paid for ‘the bums on seats’.
So the report that, in the autumn of 1902, when Harry was asked to appear in Panto at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow - an unheard of honour for a local lad - he had the audacity to ask for £250 a week. He got £200, to the profession’s amazement, as he was currently earning £7 a week in London, which, in itself, was good. Harry played Roderick McSwankey in Aladdin and the show was so successful that it ran for thirteen weeks. The railways ran special "Harry Lauder" trains. For this, his first pantomime, Harry introduced his song, I Love A Lassie. It stopped every performance and held up the show each time he sang it. The patrons demanded encore after encore - each time for "I Love a Lassie".
Offers came from all over Britain after that pantomime ended, but then, in the middle of all the British offers, came one from America. Harry was amazed. He head dreamed of one day having a holiday in the America, but as for singing there - well, even he had never dreamed a dream like that. He didn’t stay dumbfounded for long. "Tell them I’ll come for £400 a week!" The promoter was almost dumb with shock. "Can he come down?" he asked - to which Harry replied "Yes, I’ll come down to £450 if he doesn’t accept at once!" The contract for £400 a week was delivered within the hour. Harry Lauder became the highest paid Music Hall artiste in the world.
Like his USA counter-part, Al Jolson, Lauder loved and went for the show-stoppers, many of which, with his feel for the audience, he wrote himself, ‘Just A Wee Deoch an’ Doris’; ‘Waggle o’ the Kilt’; Roamin' In the Gloamin' and the comic ‘Will You Stop Your Tickling Jock’.
At the start of WWI Harry Lauder visited his son, Capt. John Lauder, at the military installation prior to John being shipped overseas. There, he asked every soldier that he met "What can I get for you? What do you need?" The answer was nearly always the same "More men". The story goes that, at his own expense, Harry Lauder hired one hundred pipers to march the length and breadth of Scotland to recruit men. Which is why the bulk of the British forces in WW1 were Scots.
A few years later when World War I still raged in Europe, on January 1, 1917 to be exact, while Harry was on tour, he received a telegram at the Bonnington Hotel in London. It read, "Captain John Lauder killed in action December 28, 1916". Harry Lauder and his beloved wife Annie lost their only child on a battlefield in France.
The theatre manager closed the show until further notice, knowing it would be impossible for any star to go on stage to tell jokes and sing. Harry rushed home to be with his wife and spend private time of grief and prayer. His wife reminded him of millions of other parents that had received similar telegrams and encouraged him to go back to London and reopen the show to keep from putting hundreds of people out of badly needed work. Returning to the theatre he was given a letter that had arrived by special messenger. It was from a fellow officer who had been with his son John when he was killed. It read, "The Captain", he wrote, had died with great gallantry calling out the words "Carry On". Harry Lauder, though in a devastating state of loss, answered his dying son in the only way he knew and the call of entertainers "The Show Must Go On" was born. Harry did carry on that night singing his songs and telling jokes giving all he had to give. When the final curtain fell he collapsed from exhaustion. It is also believed that another of his ‘anthems’, Keep Right On to the End of the Road, was written in respect for and encouragement to those soldiers who braved that terrible war.
Weeks later he even tried to enlist for combat into the military and was rejected for combat because of his age. "Right then" replied Lauder "let me sing to the boys. I'm an entertainer. I can make their load a wee bit lighter with a song or two and a joke or two. It's the least I can do for memory of John".
No one had ever made such a request before. Many performers had entertained in military hospitals but none had actually gone to the battlefield where, if the enemy objected to the performance, might just start sending rounds of live ammunition rather than applause. After weeks of debate in the War Office Harry Lauder became the first person to entertain troops (both British and American) in the battlefield.
With a small custom built piano tied to the grill of a military vehicle he sang and joked his way across France in base hospitals, old chateaus, pillaged barns and dug outs.
It was a practice he repeated in World War II, though in his seventies, after receiving a request from Sir Winston Churchill.
His Majesty, King George V bestowed knighthood on Harry Lauder for service to his country in Buckingham Palace in April, 1919 with his dear Annie, now Lady Lauder, in attendance. Sadly, Lady Lauder died just before he received the "Freedom of Edinburgh Award" in 1927. An empty chair was placed on the platform next to her husband in her honour.
Though he created the image of the ‘mean Scot’, Lauder was probably the very opposite, though not in any showy or obvious way.
Sir Harry Lauder worked virtually until he died in February, 1950.