Diminutive music-hall comedian Harry Lauder, born in Portobello, near Edinburgh, started out as a mill-worker and pit-boy in the mines, but through indefatigable hard work and self-belief became one of the most popular comedians of his day. Dressed in a parody of Scottishness with a plaid, crook and Highland dance shoes, he specialized in droll and sentimental songs. His brand of tartan humour appealed particularly to the overseas expat community. Here he describes trying to find work in London, the first step in what was to become an international career.
Next morning, the 19th of March, 1900, I packed my ‘props’ into two Gladstone bags, took twenty pounds in golden sovereigns from the ‘stocking’ we kept in a secret spot beneath the kitchen bed, kissed Nance half a dozen times and set off to the Central Station [Glasgow], booking there a third-class single ticket for London …
The first evening I spent at a cheap hotel in the Euston Road. My bed and breakfast cost three and sixpence – a lot more than I had been in the habit of paying while on tour in Scotland, and I resolved that I would have to economize in other directions. So I walked all the way down to Cadle’s Agency. This firm had given me some ‘dates’ in the provinces and I felt sure they would be able to get me a show in London. But the head of this firm – I forget his name at the moment – only smiled pityingly when I said that I wanted to get work as a Scotch comedian in one or other of the big West End halls.
‘Harry, my boy,’ he said, ‘you haven’t an earthly. We have had one or two of your kidney down here before and they have all been dead failures. If you have any money saved up for this trip get away back again before you do it all in!’
This was a most disheartening start. But there were other agents in London, hundreds of them, and I resolved to call on every blessed one of them before I caved in. Late that afternoon I met an old variety agent named Walter Munroe, whom I had met in Glasgow. I offered to buy him a refreshment. Like all good professionals he accepted with alacrity and I could see he was most powerfully impressed by the fact that I paid for it with a golden sovereign. Walter took me round several offices but with no result – the agents were all averse to handling the unlucrative business of an unknown Scottish comedian. Late in the afternoon we were walking rather mournfully along the Strand when we ran into Mr Tom Tinsley, the manager of a little hall known as ‘Gatti’s-in-the-Road.’ The ‘road’ referred to was the direct thoroughfare leading south from Westminster Bridge. Tinsley was the first actual manager I met in London. We adjourned to a public house and again I ‘flashed’ a sovereign for publicity purposes. Once more it had a good effect, Tinsley opening his eyes in palpable amazement at a Scots ‘comic’ being in such affluence. But whenever I mentioned that I was looking for a job his geniality dried up on the spot.
‘It’s no good, me lad,’ he assured me, ‘my patrons at the ‘‘road’’ would eat me alive if I put you on. I tried a Scot last year and he had to fly for his life. You’re in a foreign country and the sooner you realize it the better!’ Tom had another drink at my expense and left us, but before taking his departure he noted my ‘town address’ (I had fixed up a third-floor room in the Lambeth Road at fifteen shillings a week), and said he would let me know if anything fell out of his bill at any time within the next week or two. Walter Munroe took me to several more agencies, but we met with the same reception at them all. ‘Luv-a-duck, ’Arry,’ said Walter Munroe in his most lugubrious tones, ‘it ain’t no bleedin’ good. You ain’t wanted up ’ere and that seems the finish!’ And then Walter went his way.
I spent a very cheerless night in my back-third at the Lambeth Road, but was up bright and early tackling more agents and more managers. I must have walked ten or twelve miles in that weary search for work. But everywhere the result was nil – a blank wall of discouragement. When I got home I asked the landlady, ‘Any letters, messages, or telegrams?’ Had I stopped for a minute to consider I would never have put so stupid a question, for it was a million to one against any communications awaiting me. My wife did not know of my address in London yet, and Tom Tinsley was the only person who had taken a note of it. To my amazement the landlady replied, ‘Yes, there’s a telegram up in your room!’ I dashed upstairs two steps at a time – had my legs been longer than they are I would have tackled three – rushed into the room and there, sure enough, was a telegram addressed Harry Lauder, Comedian. It read as follows: –
One of my turns ill. Can you deputize at ten o’clock tonight? Reply at once – Tinsley, Gatti’s.
Inside two minutes I was in a grocer’s shop near by appealing for the use of his telephone. I was so excited that the grocer was constrained to ask me if anybody was dead. ‘No,’ said I, ‘but I’ve just got my first London job an’ it’s awfu’ important to me!’ ‘That’s the worst of you Scotties,’ dryly observed the grocer, ‘you always take your work too d—d seriously. But you’ll find the ’phone round the end of the counter there.’ Tinsley was in his office. I assured him that I would be on hand in good time the same evening, and I thanked him profusely for keeping his promise. From the grocer who had been so kind to me in the matter of the ’phone I bought a fivepenny tin of salmon and went home and ate the lot to the acccompaniment of a pot of tea and some bread and butter. Feeling pretty chirpy after the repast I began to debate within myself what songs I would sing to the hard-baked lot of Londoners whom I would have to face that night at Gatti’s-in-the-Road …
I was in the dressing-room an hour and a half before I was due to go on the stage. I took immense pains with my make-up. When it was finished and I was ready for my call I found I had fully half an hour to wait. It was dreadful. I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t stand still; my nerves and emotions were in a state of tempest. My memory of what happened in the next hour is completely blurred. But I have a hazy recollection of dashing on the stage, my crook stick thumping the floor to give the orchestra the correct time – an almost unconscious habit to which I have been prone for many years – of starting my first song in dead silence before a rather sparse audience, of suddenly hearing a snigger or two all over the house, and of finishing ‘Tobermory’ amid an outburst of applause. Down came the curtain. Evidently the stage manager was under the impression that one number was quite enough for an extra turn. But the applause and laughter continued. ‘Can you give ’em something else, young Scottie What’s Yer Name?’ asked the stage manager. ‘Yes, number four in my music-books – ‘‘Killiecrankie!’’’ I excitedly replied. ‘Kill a what?’ asked the stage manager. ‘Never mind,’ I replied, rapidly changing in the wings while we were speaking. ‘Ye’ll ken a’ aboot it when I’ve finished.’
‘The Lass’ went even better than ‘Tobermory.’ The audience went mad over the unknown Scot who was making them laugh and they raised the roof for another song. ‘Calligan, Call Again’ left them still unsatisfied, but I had taken up far more time than the programme permitted and the only thing left for me to do was to go on and make a speech of thanks. I assured the audience that although this had been my first appearance in London it would not be my last. My name, I told them, was Harry Lauder, and I asked them to come and hear me whenever they saw the name on a music-hall bill in London.
‘Sure we shall, ’Arry,’ shouted a cockney voice from the fourth row of the stalls. ‘You’ve made my ol’ woman ’ere laugh for the first time since I married ’er!’
This sally put the house into a fit of merriment and I made my exit from the stage the most successful extra turn that ever descended on London from the fastnesses of Caledonia, stern and wild.