Family Friends - The Swans

It was about 1885 that my father and mother were invited by their friends, Mr. and Mrs. F.G. Swan of Windermere to come and visit them one summer. So we stayed at Windermere for several weeks. It was the longest train journey I had ever made with a change to a local train at Kendal Station. The Swans had a large house on beautiful grounds with a wonderful view of Lake Windermere. Addie and I had a grand time. They sometimes took us out in a boat from Bo’ness. We usually tried the fishing among the islands on the lake. It was then I managed to learn how to row a

boat successfully. Perch were the fish we caught usually with live minnows as bait. The Swan’s had one little girl, Katy then. She was a bright little thing with a nurse to look after her. She was just learning to talk and her name for me was, ‘boy.’ Every time I came into a room where she was a shout would greet me: “Ho boy, boy, boy.” And a finger would point and beckon me nearer. It was the first house I had been long in where numerous servants did the work. A maid waited on table at every meal. I got corrected several times for talking directly to the maid when she held a plate of good things at my side. I had been brought up to an equality of people in a house so it took a little time to get educated to the proper etiquette. The servants stayed many years with the Swans so they must have treated them well. F.G. Swan had been a partner in his father’s financial firm in Glasgow but retired from the firm when he married. He had made lots of money before retiring but rebelled against his firms method of gambling with stocks and bonds, He thought that a stockbroker’s gambling was just as bad as any kind of gambling and refused to go on with it. He did right both for himself and for the cause of decent living. His father and a brother went deeper than they had intended after he pulled out and a slump came eventually that caused them great losses.

Mrs. Swan or Emma as my mother called her, came from London. She was the daughter of Mr. H.N. Newton, a retired judge, who had held a position in India for many years. F.G. Swan and my parents had met at some religious meetings in Glasgow. They were all of the same mind regarding the serious things of life and had the same views with respect to organized religion. Judge Newton had similar beliefs and had published a book the title of which was, Letters of a Man of God. The letters were written during the life of a Woolwich man, W.B. Sinisin (?) an old friend of my father’s whom he had known through Fred Swan. He was known to us as ‘W.B.S.’

These things did not interest me when I was a boy but were picked up from my mother’s conversation years later. Eventually, with the birth of a boy, the Swans had two children. Fred Swan took a cold which developed into pneumonia. Emma Swan telegraphed for my mother (she did not trust any of the local nurses) and she went to Windermere to nurse Fred. He died after about five days illness. He was still quite a young man. My father was an invalid then as well and so we lost touch with the Swan family. They moved to the south of England, I believe. My mother had a few letters from Emma Swan but gradually the connection was lost.

Now, when I hear the name, Swan – it revives many memories of long walks on the outskirts of Windermere, of long rows in boats around Bo’ness and across the lake. It reminds me of visits in hired wagonettes to Ambleside and beyond. The tired horses pulling char-a-bancs up the steep street of Windermere through piles of horse manure. The many tourists gadding around the hotels, the men in fancy straw hats and the ladies in long skirts with frills and bustles. I can remember walking up the main street of Bo’ness with the day’s catch of perch - all tied on a string. Emma would twit me about how I could strut when folks looked at my fish. I recall how nice it was to enter through a fancy iron gate to a gravel driveway leading to the house. There the old Persian cat came to meet us and he would watch with interest what was done with the fish. He took as much interest in the catch as I.

In 1887, while I was at Alan Glen’s technical college, that was the year of a great Glasgow Exhibition which was opened by Queen Victoria. I remember seeing the procession going along Sauchiehall St. to the Exhibition Grounds and seeing the carriage of the old queen passing. I didn’t get a very good look at her as the crowd was too great at Charing Cross and had not got there with Addie in time to get a good place. The Swans came from Windermere to attend the exhibition for a week and we were quite a few times with them seeing the sights, the exhibits and the games in progress. The Swans visited us at Carrington St. several afternoons and old Mr. Swan from London was there once too. The old man with his decisive ways stands out in my memory. I can remember his asking me what I was going to do when I grew up. I told him I wanted to be an artist. That was the notion I had at the time anyway. My father smiled and asked Mr. Swan what he thought. “What is he good at?” asked the old Englishman. “Mathematics and drawing he seems to be ahead in,” said my father. “Then he can’t be an artist. No artist is any good at mathematics. Besides artists are poorly paid. No, he is at a science school. Let him try something that requires brains. He will make good, I think.” So, my idea of being an artist was forgotten about. Perhaps just as well.

One day the Swans took us to the exhibition and we had lunch at a great palace-like dining place. The waiters were all Japanese to add novelty to the tables, I suppose. I had never seen a Japanese person before and I was quite interested. Their English was not very good and we were amused by their short stature. But they knew their work.