Part 17 (1/2)

”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 s.h.i.+llings 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 cla.s.s 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, G.o.d 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 Sc.r.a.pe 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 s.p.a.ce 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 La.s.sie” 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'