A Musical Interlude & Other Entertainment

During my apprenticeship at Watson, Laidlaw & Co around 1896 I thought of taking up a musical instrument of some kind. There was another lodger in a room of the same house on Eglinton St. where I had lodgings. He was a tall, fair-haired young man from a country district near Inverness. He was a good pianist and played music in the evenings that sounded good coming through the wall. He talked about music when he dropped in for a chat. It was all Greek to me as I did not know one tune from another. The lad was a carpenter to trade but like most musicians never spoke of his ordinary occupation. At the entrance to the public stairway to our flat was a music shop that displayed fiddles, harps, banjos and other musical instruments in its window. I used to stop a few minutes and look them over and began to wonder if I could learn to play the things to make music in my room like my neighbour. Just about then, Aunt Lockhart sent me a pound note for my birthday present and I felt rich and generous. So, I went in one day to the music store. When I came out I was the proud owner of a violin and a mandolin. The mandolin was a birthday present for my sister Addie. I took

them out to Lochwinnoch the next weekend and gave Addie the mandolin and showed mother my violin. The reception I got was staggering to my good intentions. “What! You that has no ear for music will try to play the violin? No, no,” said my mother. “What nonsense!” And words to that effect. “And a mandolin! Only Italians and niggers play that. No, no! Not in the house.” Addie eyed the mandolin wistfully but gave it back to me. I was told to take the things back to the shop and try to get my money back. I did get some of it back when I told the shopkeeper I had changed my mind but he kept about 25% of it. My mother hinted that when I earned sufficient money I could present Addie with an organ of a good make and she would pay for half. I did that two years later. My mother could play it well and many a fine evening with psalms, hymns and Scottish songs the three of us had in later years. I learnt to keep time to the music if another led the way.

I spent a fine Christmas holiday about that time at my Aunt Lockhart’s at Biggar. My cousins from Glasgow were there too. I was several years older than my eldest cousin, James Wm. Hepburn and his younger brother George and little Jean. I must have spent a week there and my aunt had several of my old school friends in for an evening of games and singing. I think my sister was there also that time. Among the families that I met again were the Boas, the Weirs, my old antagonist – Nellie Kelly and others. I was at a party with the Boas that time too. A family of four sons and five daughters. The Boas had a hardware store and lived in a flat above, an ironmonger’s shop as it was called then in Scotland. The Weirs had a plumbing business next to the playground of the Morrison School I went to as a boy.

I got on well with the Boa girls. They were a handsome family. Nan Boa was about my age. She took me in hand and soon I found myself out walking along a country road outside of Biggar. The weather was too cold for dallying, however. We were glad to get back to the fireside with the rest of the company. The Weirs also gave a party and I was in fine fettle there as I taught them many new games. I kept it up so late that I had to slip in quietly at Aunt Lockhart’s. Luckily the maid, Bessie, left the back door unlocked for me. I gave her a kiss next day in the lobby for that and got an ear slapped soundly for my pertness. Bessie did not hold a grudge, though. At lunchtime I felt her fingers stroking my back as she handed a plate of potatoes with her other hand.

One of the Boa boys, Bob Boa, looked me up at my lodgings in Glasgow. He was a carpenter or joiner in Glasgow. He knew my musical fellow lodger. In fact, they worked in the same factory. So, I went to see him at his lodgings in Crosshill, close to where we had lived as a family in my father’s time. I found him living with a family called Grieve, originally from Broughton, near Biggar. There was a Tom Grieve, a dry goods salesman, Nellie Grieve, a pale girl of about twenty and an Aunt Grieve from the country. While I was there another lad came in, Jim Lamb. He used to be in the same class as I at Morrison’s School at Biggar. The four of us decided to meet often. Tom Grieve invited us to meet once a week at his house where we would play card games. All that winter we kept it up. When we got tired of talking about old times at Biggar we would play whist every Monday evening until we were experts at the game. Nellie Grieve sat knitting beside us and kept count of the wins. The four of us seemed to get along first rate and only once was there a little coolness.

Bob Boa was in an excited mood one evening after many months of steady card playing and proposed that we play for money, pennies to begin with. Tom Grieve looked at me but said nothing. I looked at Jimmie Lamb and he was looking at Nellie to see her reaction. I decided to put my foot down for some reason. “No,” I said. “If we are going to play for money, I quit.” “Right you are, Tommy,” said Tom Grieve. The question did not come up again. Several years afterwards when Nellie Grieve was an invalid and I was lodging with the Grieves for a winter she mentioned that night. “I was proud of you that night, Tom. You decided just right and you took so little time to think of it. My brother Tom never gambled after that. His wife and he have you to thank for that.” Jimmy Lamb was a clerk in the Caledonian Railway Company offices. He rose to a high position there. I lost touch with him when I left Glasgow the first time. Only once were we to meet when Tom Grieve had a wife and home of his own and Jimmy and I were invited to a party.