A Thought-Provoking History Scotland Webinar

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Leisure and Pleasure – Everyday life in Second World War Scotland

I don’t often sign up to webinars, but something so closely aligned to my own current research was irresistible.

The History Scotland webinar series is promoted by the History Department at the University of Dundee. The guest speaker today was Dr Michelle Moffat of Manchester Metropolitan University.

And what did I learn? Leisure pursuits didn’t stop in wartime, especially going to the cinema.  This is worth knowing.  (However,  I must be careful not to assume things were exactly the same everywhere.  It makes me wonder about central London, for example, where people might have felt more threatened. )

There was also interesting detail about rationing and food shortages, and discussion about how much people in Scotland felt the war was ‘their’ war. (I suspect anyone who had relatives fighting overseas would  very much have felt indirectly part of it.)

And a reminder about the Mass Observation Archive.  I had forgotten about this, but it’s a crucial resource – I’m going to check it out with some questions that I hope it might help with!

Moving with the Times: from Silent Movies to (oh, Gosh!) British Pathe Shorts

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
A tangle of movie film roll

You can tell I’ve spent too long in the late nineteenth century – in the research sense, that is.  Dizzy with excitement at the thought of seeing a silent movie – yes, it might actually come to pass, albeit not for a few months – I was almost deliriously pleased to discover that one of my research interests made British Pathe ‘shorts’ during the Second World War.  My aim is to contrast two singing careers, started only a decade apart – and here’s the first contrast. One began their career during the First World War and the silent movie era. The other made British Pathe shorts during the Second.

We think we’re so advanced, with our internet and our AI, electric cars and digital sound … but anyone born in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century might have been amazed by their own advances in technology.  A fin-de-siecle child treated to a magic lantern show, might have sung along to hymn or Scottish song texts projected on a magic lantern screen, the singing led by whichever grown-up had been co-opted in to help. When silent film came along, any music would be provided by a cinema pianist or a small ‘orchestra’ – possibly no more than a piano trio. What you heard would partly depend on who was playing and the bundle of music they’d brought with them.

But when the children became adults, they would would find themselves listening to the wireless or going out to ‘talking’ movies.  Watching, in adulthood, a short film performance by a contemporary star vocalist would have been unimaginable a decade earlier.

However, I must still cool my heels as I wait to see if (and when) the silent movie that I need to see, can be converted into a modern format.  Meanwhile, I’m trapped in the nineteenth century with the printed novel that gave rise to the movie.  As I read, I wonder how they managed to condense the story into a couple of hours, and then convey the whole plot by wordless gestures. 

I can’t wait to see.

Accessing Silent Films

Lucerna: a Magic Lantern Database

‘LUCERNA is an online resource on the magic lantern, an early slide projector invented in the 17th century.

‘For more than 350 years the magic lantern has represented and fed into every aspect of human life and every part of the world. It is still used today, both in its original form and through direct descendants like the modern data projector.

‘LUCERNA includes details of slide sets, slide images, readings and other texts related to slide sets, lantern hardware, people and organisations involved in lantern history, and much more.’

(Introduction to the Lucerna database)

Cover Image from Pixabay

Hearing Her at Last (She Died in 1936)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Why do collectors collect things? Especially old things.  The link with the past? The feeling that in some remote way, there’s a virtual thread linking you and an earlier era, or a particular individual?

As I’ve mentioned, I’m writing a long article about some late Victorian/Edwardian Scottish women musicians.  It’s virtually finished.  But there’s one more thing to do.

I have a single 78 rpm shellac recording of one of these women, whose reputation was not inconsiderable in her day.  She played in London.  She and her ‘orchestra ‘ made a handful of recordings.  But I have no means of playing this precious artefact.  I’ve tried to beg or borrow an old gramophone (or newer technology) to no avail, so eventually I bought a record player on Amazon.

All this because I wanted to know what instruments were in her band, a century ago! My article is incomplete without this detail. 

Petronella
There’s an anecdote about a whisky-filled teacup rattling on a piano edge whilst she played …!

Main image:- Beltona gramophone,  post 1923, from Wikipedia.

Maybe Read this First? Hanley’s ‘Dancing in the Streets’

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Picture from Dancing in the Streets book cover

Unless you’re Scottish, you may not have come across Clifford (Cliff) Hanley. He was a Glasgow journalist, writer and sometimes lyricist, born in 1922 and dying in 1999. Dancing in the Streets was first published by Hutchinson in 1958. My own eBay copy is a 1983 reprint by Edinburgh’s now defunct Mainstream Publishing. Amusingly, it came secondhand all the way from a library in Ilford, Essex!

Picture of 1983 Mainstream Publishing edition of Dancing in the Streets book

On the second day of my indisposition with Covid, I picked it up, decided that even Glasgow autobiography and social history was beyond me, and turned to Audible. Don’t judge me! But yesterday and today, feeling closer to my normal self, I picked it up again, and read the whole thing cover to cover. This is a man who knew Glasgow inside out, as a local journalist. (You’d like to read his obituary, maybe? Here it is in The Guardian, 14 August 1999.)

Subject heading: Glasgow (Scotland) Social life and customs

Hanley wrote well, and entertainingly. There’s lots of local colour – not to mention wee reminders that times have changed since then. (Go to a party on the night your wife’s in hospital having your firstborn? I think not! I imagine husbands weren’t allowed in the delivery room in those days, but this is still barely a mitigating factor!)

I bought Dancing in the Streets in the hope of tracking down some elusive information – which I didn’t find, as it happened. (It was, admittedly, a long shot!) However, I did recognise names that I’d already encountered, and I was to discover different gems that filled me with some excitement, because odd little passages foreshadow things that I, as an incomer to Glasgow, had later discovered through diligent research, and these convinced me that what I have written in my forthcoming monograph is certainly born out by someone who was actually there in inter-war and postwar Glasgow. I’m quite glad I hadn’t read it until now. It’s useful background, but it’s not on the subject of Scottish music publishing or amateur music-making, so I don’t feel I was negligent in not considering it earlier. However, in bearing out truths that I had to learn the hard way, there were several ‘Yes! See?  That’s what I found!‘ moments, amongst the laughs that I couldn’t stifle between coughing!

For example –

In my forthcoming book, I’ve written about Emigration and Homesickness

Hanley took a holiday job on a cattle-ship from the Clyde to Montreal, as a very young teenager. On page 95 of his book, he meets some Glaswegian expat women there:-

‘How is Argyle Street, son?’ one of them asked kindly. ‘Fine – still the same, big crowds on a Saturday night an’ buskers playin’ the flute.’ ‘Oh, my God!’ She started weeping, but took a hold of herself. ‘It’s that nice tae hear a good Scotch voice. Could you no’ take me hame on your boat, son?’ ‘I wish I could’, I said in desperate pity. ‘Ah know, ah know, son, ah wish you could tae. Don’t you ever leave your hame, son, it’s the best place in the world. Ah wish tae God ah had never left dear auld Glesga.’

You can see how sentimental old (or more recently manufactured) Scottish songs would go down well with such fond emigrants!

In my new book, I mention Newer Approaches to Folk Song in the 1950s

I have certainly not suggested that the folk revival started, like flicking on a light switch, in a certain year, but I have highlighted new trends, and the influence of Edinburgh University’s new School of Scottish Studies. It’s fair to say that Hanley was not in this new movement. On the contrary, he seems to be poking gentle fun at it, on pages 208-10 of his book. At the abovementioned party, he describes an actor who ‘wanted everyone to sing folk songs, or Hebridean mouth music’, and a girl who was a potter, who wanted to ‘dance some kind of reel in her bare feet’. Later, she was ‘doing something stooping down and stamping, which apparently was meant to represent walking [sic] the tweed’.

WAULKING not Walking

Clifford and the potter were both, I’m afraid, wrong. The word is ‘waulking the tweed’ and Hebridean women used to thump urine-soaked cloth on a table, to soften it. Yes, I know – it sounds gross, put that way! (Feel the same about your genuine old Scottish tweed now?) Anyway, here Clifford has encountered one individual who is more aware of the new trends, and another who has a vague delusion that she understands it! Neither are seen as kindred spirits. Hanley wrote for a living, including the aforementioned song-lyrics, and had occasionally dabbled in performing on stage and radio. Probably a little younger, these partygoers were not part of his usual scene at all.

I’ve written about Teenagers and Gramophones and American Influences

And on page 242, Hanley writes about the decline of variety theatre, about teenagers’ musical tastes, and a new preference to listening to music at home on gramophones rather than go out to a variety show.

Don’t be Shy to read ‘Non-Academic’ Books!

So, unexpectedly, reading this book came as welcome vindication for some of the points I’ve made – a feeling which is always nice, of course. It’s hardly surprising that a book like this actually functions as useful background reading for a study in popular musical culture. But it also came as a welcome reminder that sometimes there’s benefit in stepping back and reading more widely. A book doesn’t have to be a scholarly tome – no index or bibliography here – to contain worthwhile background information. Information, in fact, that I wouldn’t even have recognised as valuable before I embarked on my research, but which came as validation of the most welcome kind.

My own book’s been copy-edited, the proofs have been corrected, and it’s well on its way to being published. I believe orders can be placed at the end of October. But for now, you might just find me heading to the local library to see if I can pick up anything else by Clifford Hanley. You can get Dancing in the Streets very cheaply secondhand, if you’d like to read it for yourself.

Women in the Wings, Women on the Stage: Historical Success Stories in Scottish Music History

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Edwardian lady in hat

I was bemoaning my many failings yesterday, when I was told (firmly) that I should be more positive and regard myself as a success-story. Unfortunately, I grew up being made so aware of my deficiencies that I’m kind of pre-programmed to look on the dark side.  I’ve never quite matched up to expectations!

There’s no Pleasing Some People

Mind you, the criticisms have changed over the years:-

  • You’re clumsy, untidy and hopeless at sport’;
  • ‘Don’t be disappointed if you fail your 11-plus exam’;
  • ‘You need a secretarial qualification – in case your research doesn’t get you a job’;
  • ‘that “Dr” on your address-labels looks like showing-off’,
  • ‘So-and-so says all those qualifications are ridiculous’,
  • Are you writing another boring book?’

Which just goes to show that some people are never happy, and maybe I should disregard the comments altogether. For what it’s worth, my books are fascinating! And I rather like my ostentatious “Dr”. Liking my ‘letters’ is probably a failing too.

Being a Successful Woman in the Early 20th Century

Tools of the trade?

However, when I consider how much harder it must have been to be a successful woman a hundred years ago, I’m mightily impressed by the women I’ve encountered during my researches into Scottish music publishing. I’m contemplating writing an article about them, but they are often ridiculously modest and very hard to track down, which presents a would-be writer with quite a few problems!

So, who have I got? No, I’m not going to name them just yet. Suffice to say, I have two ladies whose death certificates mention music publishing. And a piano teacher who wrote and self-published a handful of really rather good songs, along with raising three children. And the entertainer’s mother who arranged some Scottish hits. (So far, I’ve only traced documentation of her up to her marriage and the birth of her first child – so frustrating!)

Best of all – and I’ve only recently started researching this in more depth, so she gets the most passing of mentions in my forthcoming book – an incredible lady whose father-in-law started up the business, but who very definitely eventually ran the business herself, with her husband helping her (not the other way round). At the same time, she was a much sought-after conductor with her own orchestra. Wow! Impressive. She didn’t have children. In those days, I can’t imagine how she’d have done what she did, if there was a whole brood of Edwardian children with all their white frilly laundry to do, and no convenience foods! One maidservant? Or two?

I’ve encountered another woman, a singer, whose life looks equally fascinating in different ways. Not a publisher, this time, though. She needs a different article written about her.

Only this weekend, I was reading a blogpost which said that there weren’t really that many women booksellers in the Victorian era, which I think makes it all the more remarkable that these late Victorian and early-twentieth century Scotswomen were quietly forging careers in the music business. So, I shall carry on quietly digging away to find out what I can about them all, and at some point, one, or hopefully two interesting articles will emerge. Watch this space!

Success, for me, is research findings, in print!

Not the best Song: ‘Glasgow’s Tuppenny Tram’, by a Variety Artiste

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
We think this is the City Council?

At least a couple of decades ago – long before I was interested in the social history of amateur music-making in Scotland – I came across a curious piece of sheet music. Knowing that my other half is more than a little interested in Glasgow trams, I made a photocopy and kept it safe. Every so often, we would joke that I’d get someone to sing it when it came to ‘final curtains’ time. (It would make a nice change from ‘Abide with me’ and the 23rd Psalm, after all!)

My Insatiable Curiosity

I hadn’t looked at ‘Glasgow’s Tuppenny Tram’ in years, but whilst I was proofreading my forthcoming book, I decided I really should look to see who had published that song. James S. Kerr? Mozart Allan? Galbraith’s in Renfield Street? Certainly not Bayley & Ferguson or Paterson’s. So I looked. The song was self-published in 1926 by the author and composer, an entertainer called R. F. Morrison. The song was actually arranged by Carleton H. Smyth, who was secretary and treasurer of the Glasgow Masonic Burns Club. (You’ll see that Morrison was also the author of ‘Just a wee Deoch-an-Doris’ and ‘Suvla Bay’. Which is interesting, since Harry Lauder’s songsheet of ‘A Wee Deoch-an-Doris’ seems not to mention Morrison at all – but I couldn’t access Morrison’s version without going to the British Library, so I shall have to remain mystified.)

There’s no’ much wrang wi’ Glasgow, auld Glesca on the Clyde;
St Mungo’s name is known to fame, ower a’ the world wide.
There’s bonnie places roon aboot, that thousands never see,
You need no ship to make the trip, so be advised by me.
CHORUS.
Take a trip on a tuppenny tram, and happy you will be,
From daylight till dark, there’s many a park, awaitin’ for you & me,
Don’t use your hoard for a Daimler or Ford, Like the workers of Uncle Sam,
Since Maister Dalrymple made motorin’ simple, wi’ Glasgow’s Tuppenny Tram.

Glasgow’s Tuppenny Tram / R F Morrison, 1926

‘Since Maister Dalrymple made motorin’ simple, wi’ Glasgow’s Tuppenny Tram’

Whilst we remembered the closing lines of the song (after all, we knew that Mr Dalrymple was a significant name in the history of Glasgow’s tram system, until he disappeared off to Sao Paulo in Brazil as a transport consultant), it’s fair to say we hadn’t looked properly at the whole song.

I’ll spare you the second verse! It lists a number of places you could visit by tram. (As the chorus says – see above – no need to waste money on a car!) Meanwhile, the back page is a large advertisement reminding you that there are 32 parks to visit in Glasgow (and still get home in time for tea), and reminds the reader to take care crossing the road …

It’s rubbish! It does incorporate some bits of Scottish song-tunes, but Carleton H. Smyth’s setting was very humdrum. Only one actual mistake in a chord, to be fair. My book is missing NOTHING AT ALL by not referencing this song.

Oh well, it’s a nice reminder of what Glaswegians would do on a sunny Sunday afternoon, or during Fair Fortnight if they had a bit more time. (Apart, of course, from going to variety concerts to hear the likes of R. F. Morrison! I wonder what the other acts were like?)

Meanwhile, I have now been positively begged not to have the song performed when it comes to the final curtain! What’s it worth … ?!

Back page of song - advertising and a safety reminder
Back page of song – advertising and safety first

The Glasgow Ladies Publishing Sheet Music

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Yesterday, I set out to track down some music.  It’s light music, not great music  – almost ephemeral, you could say – but together,  it tells a story.

I also wanted to find out more about the life of one of these fin-de-siecle Glasgow woman music publishers.

It’s not that easy. The music is scattered round our legal deposit libraries; the cataloguing isn’t completely consistent; and fin-de-siecle ladies, whether single,  married, childless or proud mothers, didn’t  leave much record of their daily lives.  They’re hidden in the shadows of family members, and, whilst I imagine they knew one another, let me stress that this is NOT a tale of a female publishing cooperative!

I had a nice chat with a local history librarian, making an acquaintance who is now equally keen to find out more; then I headed home – as yet, none the wiser – to devise a complex spreadsheet of music titles.  I’m visualising a pinboard with strings criss-crossing between ladies, libraries and  work-lists.

So complex, indeed, that I still haven’t planned how best to get to SEE the music.

A weekend task?

Sadly, a Pixabay find, not one of ‘my’ ladies!

Material Evidence of Use: Music that was Loved

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I accepted a generous donation of old books to the Library a couple of weeks ago. This presented me, personally, with a bit of a problem because our offices, furniture and contents are being moved around, and I had proudly emptied most of my shelves in readiness.  There will be fewer shelves in the other office.  And now I had two shelves full of old Scottish music  – right up my street – which needed cataloguing.

  • Most vital priority – get them done before I retire from the Library.
  • Almost as vital – to get them done before the move on Thursday next week!

Of course, the lovely thing is that they’re books I’ve encountered in various research contexts … the PhD; the Bass Culture project (https://HMS.Scot); the book chapter on subscriptions; and my own forthcoming monograph.

I catalogued like crazy on Thursday and Friday. I’ve catalogued Sammelbande (personal bound volumes) of songs, piano music and fiddle tunes. I’ve shown colleagues books signed by George Thomson.  I’ve indexed Gow’s strathspeys and reels. And yesterday I blogged about James Davie and his Caledonian Repository.

But I’ve also just enjoyed handling the music, because sometimes one finds some endearingly human evidence of the scores being used, even to the point of needing mending.  It’s quite touching to ponder how much a piece had been used, before it actually needed stitching – here, along a line where the edge of the printer’s block had originally left a dent in the paper:-

Stitched on one side, pasted on the other!

I’ve smiled at Georgian ladies’ stitched repairs to much-loved pieces, noticed with amusement a handful of early Mozart Allan books (yes, including some strathspeys and reels) in a fin-de-siecle Sammelband which had seen better days; spotted piano fingerings pencilled in; and best of all, found a tartan ribbon in a volume dedicated to the Duke of Sussex – his personal copy, which was first sold out of the family’s possession in 1844.  His library was dispersed after he died in straitened financial circumstances:-

Nine Scots Songs and three Duetts, newly arranged with a harp or piano forte accompaniment / by P. Anthony Corri

Whittaker Library catalogue entry

This book has the Duke’s family crest on a label pasted inside, and the outer cover is embossed with  ‘A F’ (Augustus Frederick), reflecting the monogram on the title page.

The Duke of Sussex’s mongram
Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773-1843)

The tartan endpapers and tartan ribbon between pp.30-31 are a perfect illustration of what I have written about in a chapter on tartanry in my forthcoming monograph.  Everyone – whether nobility or commoner – liked a bit of tartan on or inside their Scottish song books, and here, someone even found a bit of tartan ribbon to use as a bookmark.

I have just a few of those books left to catalogue now.  There’s an intriguing one without a cover or title page, waiting for 9 am on Monday  …!  Hopefully, I’ll end up with an empty bookcase again.

What does a Librarian want with a PhD, anyway?

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Few people in Glasgow knew that I had an unfinished first PhD guiltily lurking in my past, when I announced I wanted to do a PhD. It would actually be my second attempt. I’m told that someone (an academic?) asked that memorable and somewhat hurtful question, ‘What does a librarian want with a PhD, anyway?’

Chained to the shelves – Wimborne Minster Chained Library (Wikipedia)

I realised with a jolt, yesterday morning, that I would be retiring from librarianship exactly fifteen years to the day, since I submitted my thesis to the University of Glasgow. I never managed to cease being a librarian in order to become a full-time academic, because I had family responsibilities in Glasgow, and the chances of a full career-change without relocation were limited, to say the least. However, if I entered librarianship with the unfulfilled expectation of soon having a PhD from Exeter, and the aspiration to become a scholar-librarian …. well, I did achieve the latter aspiration. After getting the Glasgow PhD, I became partially seconded to research three years later, and I’ll continue as a part-time researcher when I’m unshackled from the library shelves.

I don’t know who it was that queried whether a librarian actually needed a PhD, more than twenty years ago. It’s probably a good thing I don’t know! However, if I could show that individual how I’ve just spent my afternoon, then maybe they’d begin to understand.

The other day, an academic colleague said they were putting a student in touch with me, to advise them about resources for a project. This afternoon, I was working from home as a librarian, so I decided to spend the time finding suitable resources for my enquirer. I had in mind a lever-arch file from my own research activities, that I knew was in my study-alcove.

Subject Specialist

[Scottish] ResearchFish

The more I thought about the query, the more things I thought of suggesting. I looked at my own monograph, for a start, along with a couple of essay collections that I’ve contributed to. I compiled a list, mostly but not entirely from the library catalogue. (I tweaked a few catalogue entries whilst I was at it. What does an academic want with a library qualification?, one might ask!) I The family balefully eyed the dining-room table that they were hoping to eat off, as I moved aside the ancient and modern books that were gaily strewn across its surface. However, I’m fairly content that I’ve done my preparation to help with the query. I’ve also enjoyed an afternoon in the company of old friends – the compilers, authors and editors of all those books!

A Value-Added Librarian

Listen, I wouldn’t have known any of those resources if I hadn’t done that PhD. I wouldn’t have known what the arguments were. I wouldn’t have known how nineteenth and early twentieth century song-collectors viewed their collections, nor the metaphors they used to describe them, nor which collections might be of particular interest. I wouldn’t subsequently have collaborated on The Historical Music of Scotland database. And if I hadn’t gone on researching, I wouldn’t have known about some of the more recent materials, either.

I kennt his faither! (A Scot knows what that means)

There might have been times when others wondered who I thought I was, but I am absolutely certain that it has come in useful!

‘Repugnant to Modern Feelings of Propriety’? The Most Beautiful Scottish Song

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’ve started listening to another Audible book, but it’ll take a while for me to finish it. To take a break from listening, I sidled over to the piano and played a one-eyed rendition of my favourite song.

Lady Anne Bothwell’s Lament (Baloo, my Boy)

My Song Gems (Scots), edited by James Wood and Learmont Drysdale (London: Vincent Music Co., 1908), is a nice big score that sits comfortably on the piano stand. This song is arranged by Finlay Dun, a Victorian arranger. As I squinted at the words, they didn’t look like what I remembered hearing sung from Cedric Thorpe Davie and George McVicar’s The Oxford Scottish Song Book (1969). What was going on? I suspected Davie and McVicar had taken their words from George Farquhar Graham and James Wood’s mid-Victorian Songs of Scotland. ‘You’ll see’, I told my bemused son. ‘The words will have been too smutty for Victorian ears, so Graham and Wood changed them.’

Davie used their words – which were perfectly acceptable for a collection intended both for classroom and adult use – but his musical setting is updated.

A Deserted Mother and Child

Graham and Wood’s collection revealed in the footnotes that it was an old ballad collected by Bishop Percy. However, Graham said that …

The Old Ballad, though poetically meritorious, is so coarse in most of its stanzas as to be repugnant to modern feelings of propriety. We have, therefore, adopted only the first stanza of it, the additional stanzas here given having been written by a friend of the Publisher.

Songs of Scotland (Edinburgh: Wood & Co., 1850), Vol.2, pp.30-31

Percy’s original version is in the National Library of Scotland’s Digital Gallery (Reliques of Ancient Poetry, 1767). Today, the lyrics are inoffensive!

And here’s the Cedric Thorpe Davie setting using Graham and Wood’s sanitized words:-

Kathleen McKellar Ferguson sings the Oxford Scottish Song Book version, divinely, here on YouTube

The Song Gems (Scots) version is in modern English and the text has been partially rewritten again –  it falls halfway between the original and the sanitized words! And the musical arrangement? Straight from Graham and Wood’s collection.

Percy, verse 3: Smile not as thy father did, to cozen maids, nay God forbid / Bot yett I feire, thou wilt gae neire Thy fatheris hart, and face to beire.

Wood and Drysdale, verse 2: Smile not as thy father did, to cozen maids, may God forbid / For in thine eye his look I see, The tempting look that ruin’d me …

Olde English or modern, take your pick!

As for Graham and Wood, or Thorpe and McVicar? Not a ruinous smile to be be seen! The lady may have been deserted, but no hint that she had first been seduced!