Sir Harry Lauder: Rab McNeil's Scottish Icons

Much blame for the latter image might be laid at the leathery brogues of Sir Harry Lauder, not all of it fairly as he was capitalising on a couthy presentation that preceded him. He was also talented in his own way, at one time the highest paid entertainer in the world and the subject of Lauder-mania, with 20,000 people lining the streets of Cape Town, South Africa, for hours to welcome him.

This is unfathomable to us now. He was famous for singing Stop Your Ticklin’, Jock. It was the Strawberry Fields of the early 20th century. What were these people getting high on? Well, it appears to have been a blend of patriotism (British with wee loyal Scotia a much loved, if slightly comical, part of that) and cosy humour shot with pathos.

Lauder was born on 4 August 1870 in Portobello, on Edinburgh’s eastern fringe, a pleasant suburb with a long beach. He appears to have had a traditional, character-warping Scottish upbringing, being frequently leathered with the tawse. His ancestry might be traced to the Bass Rock, off the coast of North Berwick, a tiny, guano-drenched island at times inhabited by Christian hermits and Jacobite prisoners.

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Biographies attribute his lineage to feudal barons, the Lauders of the Bass, though self-deprecatingly he preferred to think he was descended from pirates. At any rate, after childhood spells in Derbyshire and Arbroath, he descended the pits of Lanarkshire to become a miner.

By this time, he’d made a few singing appearances at public halls and soon became such a hit that, by 1894, he could turn professional. In 1911, he became the first British artist to sell a million records. He was knighted in 1919 after fund-raising for the First World War.

In 1915, he described the Germans as “savages”. In 1916, his only son John died on the Western Front. Winston Churchill was later to describe Harry Lauder as “Scotland’s greatest ever ambassador”, writing further that “by his inspiring songs and valiant life, [he] rendered measureless service to the Scottish race and to the British Empire”.

The Scottish race: that’s you, that is. But how much of you is in Lauder’s tartan-drenched stage persona? Are you embarrassed? Amused? Appreciative? If a millennial, perhaps – understandably – you shrug your shoulders and say: “Whatever.” But as a millennial, or indeed a zoomer, you have the advantage over earlier generations in that you can easily catch up with all the music from the past.

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On YouTube, there are performances or recordings of Roamin’ in the Gloamin’ and Just A Wee Deoch & Doris. I’ll be quite candid with you here and confess I should have checked these out myself before starting to write this piece, in which I’d been determined to present a reasonably positive picture. I wanted to say: “Well plaid, sir.” But, this is risible. At one point, I thought I was going to be sick.

But, back in the day, this cringeworthy cack sold like hot cakes, as did Lauder’s books, which included My Best Scotch Stories, Wee Drappies, and Ticklin’ Talks. On yonder Amazon, you can buy a reproduction of his early memoir, Harry Lauder: At Home and on Tour – written by “Ma’sel’”.

The reproduction gives a flavour of Lauder’s period, with ads for Thistle Soap, Eclipse Oatcakes (better than bread “which from its softness impairs the teeth through want of exercise in mastication”), and Nervotonine, a “great Scotch cure for all nerve complaints, debility, neuralgia, rheumatism, sciatica, Etc”. Gullible times (a cure for Etc indeed).

In his foreword, William Blackwood describes Lauder as a “genius” and writes: “The king who reigns among the love and admiration of his subjects requires no formal introduction to the people who bestow on him their devoted homage.” Steady on, old boy.

Lauder’s introductory message “To A’ Ma Freens” refers self-deprecatingly to his own words as “havers”, adding: “If ye’re no pleased wi’ this first attempt o’ mine I’ll never write another book, mind I’m tellin’ ye.” You could say he caught the tongue cleverly.

Like a certain disingenuous journalist whom I know intimately, he alternates couthy Scots with proper English. Chapter one opens with: “How other chaps feel when they sit down to take their lives – I mean write them – I don’t know …” Very English. But Scots words and expressions are additional ammunition to fire at readers. It’s bizarre not to use them. Sometimes, readers express disappointment that I don’t speak like some common street urchin from Leith (which I am). I do – but only in the privacy o’ ma ain hoose, ken?

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Scottish people, see? Self-deprecating. But we must be the ones doing the deprecating. In Norway, a church minister asked where I was from. When I said Scotland, he said “Oh, you must be very mean.” And I said, “Oh, and you must be a right …”; well, you don’t want to hear the rest; it went on a bit. It’s a scene he’ll recall on his deathbed.

Today, Scots remain the last people in the world at whom others can laugh without being executed for racism. We’re the most stereotyped people on Earth. You might say Lauder helped bring this upon us. But I’m not sure he was to know. Today, if very seldom, you may still see a Scot dressed like Lauder, usually coming out of a sanatorium, where they inhabit their own private Brigadoon.

They want foreign visitors to think, “There goes a true Scotsman”, whereas they are thinking: “There goes a right a***.”

If Harry Lauder were to reappear from his wee Hielan’ hell today, many Scots would tell him where to shove his twisted cromach, But, doubtless, some would applaud him for making the world laugh at us. Or, arguably, along with us.

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