31 July 1942

To doctor.  Urine OK.  Trouble no doubt caused by cold. On our side no sun until afternoon.  Many others suffering same complaint.  Out 5.20 – 6.15.  Started PT by By but stopped by PB as B not able to remember exercises of previous day.

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Another effort on the part of my uncles to amuse me was the ‘down’ bed.  I suppose that I myself with my then limited vocabulary was responsible for the description.  Our house and that of my grandparents were only a matter of 50 yards apart although in different streets.  We were ‘just round the corner’ from each other, with the result that ‘Smithy’, as I called myself, was rather oftener to be found in the latter house than in the former.  So when I issued the decree, ‘Smithy sleep here tonight’, the down bed was conjured up.  This bed was nothing more or less than a small mattress which was apparently kept under the bed in my uncle’s bedroom but it was made like a magic carpet to me.  Before retiring, Johnnie would take me into the bedroom, and standing in front of the real bed, with many mysterious passes of the hands and cries of ‘Open Sesame’, would cause the ‘down’ bed to come forth from its lair.  And while I gazed with eyes round with wonder, the ‘down’ bed would glide from under the valance, a few inches at a time with each call of the ‘Open Sesame’, and pass with the hands.  This magic impressed me very greatly and it was quite a long time before I discovered that my uncle Joe, concealed under the bed, was responsible for the mysterious progress of the ‘down’ bed.  Oh, happy happy days!  And what could equal the joy of a party on Hogmanay night, which was a real family reunion in the best sense of the word.  And as the years passed more grandchildren appeared, several marriages having taken place in the family in the interim, it seemed to be a case of ‘the more the merrier’.  On that great day, we children were put to sleep early in the afternoon and awakened only in time to dress and fully wake up about 8pm.  These parties followed the main, year after year, a sort of fixed routine in so far as the same songs were sung, the same games played.  But these, generally speaking, had a significance for our charmed circle only.  Take for instance, ‘The Demons and the Fairies’.  How this originated, I do not know, but it was never neglected.  All the children and some of the male grownups would go out of the sitting room where the company was assembled.  My aunt Innes, that dear self sacrificing soul (and it was always Innes) would sit down at the piano and commence a tremolo of tinkling sound on the high keys.  This was the signal for the children to come dancing into the sitting room doing their best to represent the ‘joie de vivre’ of the fairy world while the company applauded their efforts.  This was no sooner accomplished than the tones from the piano changed to a  deep bass rumble which gave their cue to the Demons represented by the few male grownups, who would then burst into the room on hands and knees, growling like beasts (or demons) and with gnashing of teeth would endeavour to grasp the children with their fearful claw like hands.  Such shrieks from the children, such awe inspiring growls as filled the air for some minutes!  a veritable pandemonium.  But of course the Demons never succeeded in their fell purpose.  The rest of the adult company would protect the Fairies and then drive the Demons with a combine rush out into the outer darkness of the lobby.  Each child had its opportunity of singing a little song, giving a recitation, or a dance, and I do not believe that any of them ever neglected the opportunity.  My cousins, Elizabeth and Margaret sang on one occasion a duet of which I recall only the following:

‘Oh, the sports of childhood
Roaming through the wild wood
Tripping through the meadows
Happy and free.’

and which was voted a great success.  Another childish song, by whom rendered I fail to remember was:

‘I’m a little busy bee, roaming in the clover,
Here I go, there I go, all the meadows over.
Hear me singing merrily – Bzzz- Bzz.
Ever singing merrily – Bzzz – Bzz.’

Of all the items rendered by the grownups I believe the most popular was always my grandfather’s rendering of ‘I traced her little foot steps in the snow’.  This ditty dealt with the going astray of a loved one during a snowstorm and the chorus of ‘I traced her little foot steps, etc’ was always accompanied by a few steps of a dance of grandfather’s own invention.  An innovation which he introduced one year quite brought the house down.  At the last chorus, he dipped his hand into his jacket pocket and brought out a handful of confetti which he sprinkled over his head while doing the dance.  It was a huge success.  The we had my uncle Jim who gave us the ballad ‘Lucky Jim’.  This ballad, a humorous one, dealt with ill luck of the singer as compared with that of his friends. ‘Lucky Jim’, the last verse related:

‘Years rolled on and death took Jim away, boys,
Left his widow and she married me
Oft I think of Jim so long at rest, boys,
Sleeping in the churchyard by the sea’

Chorus:  ‘Oh lucky Jim, how I envy him.’

or words to that effect.  It was a great favourite.  There was always a vocal item by George Rickart, my aunt Helen’s husband, who sang a song in Irish dialect which commenced:

‘As I went out one evening to Tipperary town,
I met a little colleen among the heather brown.’

which ended with :

‘Och, the little pigs had done
Oh, the dear little girl.’

Then there was the duet by Helen and George ‘Prithie, pretty maiden’ which is I believe, from one of the Gilbert and Sullivan’s operas, and Helen herself singing ‘My dear soul’ and ‘My curly headed babby’/  What a treat were their solos and what a glorious contralto voice she had.  I believe Helen once had an offer to record for ‘His Majesty’s Voice’ records and declined.  A great hit of the evening was always my uncle Pat’s rendering of ‘Every bullet has its billet’ which contains the lines:

‘Pass the grog round
Mind don’t spill it.’

and which was always, by general acclaim on the part of the men folk, repeated ad lib, until my aunt Margaret, who acted as barmaid on those occasions took the hint and recharged the glasses with mountain dew.

29 July 1942

PB is with us again but seems more subdued than formerly.  Trifling incident VH who, tapped on head with paper roll, flopped as if struck dead.  Very silly.  Walk around only. No PE.

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Nor truth to tell, did I contemplate other than purely legitimate means of securing the necessary article.  If in doubt, they say, ask a policeman and this was definitely applicable to the present issue.  I repaired, therefore, to the notorious police station in Lodge Walk which did a thriving business every Saturday night in the matter of drunks and disorderlies from the Castlegate and elsewhere.  Rather timorously, I entered the Charge Room and diffidently stated my business to a beefy man in blue seated at the high charge desk.  The fact that he did not wear a helmet gave me more confidence than I had had before entering.  To me, as I suppose to most people, a policeman complete with helmet is a rather awe inspiring sight, but a policeman without a helmet is a Samson shorn of his locks and deprived of his majesty.  This particular bobby looked quite human and heard my request with polite attention.  But apparently, in all his career as a minion of the law, he had never before been called upon to supply a cast off helmet.  He reflected deeply and then presumably decided to call in the help of Scotland Yard, or at least a higher authority, to handle the case.  He was clearly stumped.  ‘Ah canna tell ye’, he said.  ‘Ah’m afraid ye’ll have to see the Chief Constable aboot that.  Jist sit doon there for a minute.’  So I sat down on a bench while my shorn Samson departed presumably to enquire if the Chief Constable was disengaged.  While I sat there, I was approached by another polite man in blue.  His approach had something conspiratorial about it and he did his best to walk on tiptoe but without much success.  His feet ran true to regulation size.  He stooped down until his face was on a level with mine and then asked, in a hoarse whisper, ‘Is it anything confidential sir?’  The humour of the thing struck me and I grinned and replied, ‘No, no.  I just wanted to buy an old helmet.’  The poor man looked so disappointed and offended that I felt quite sorry for him.  He straightened up with an injured air and, turning his back to me, retired from the scene with massive dignity.  A few minutes later, my Samson reappeared and beckoned me.  ‘Will ye come this way, sir?’  So I followed him through a door, up a flight of stairs where he knocked discreetly on one of the doors leading off the landing, and ushered me into the presence of Chief Constable Anderson, he himself retiring and closing the door softly behind me.  The Chief Constable was seated at a writing desk busily writing when I entered.  He looked up a moment and, indicating a chair in front of his desk, said, ‘Please sit down’ and continued writing.  After a short time, he finished the task he was engaged upon and then, giving me his attention asked, ‘Now, what can I do for you?’  Feeling rather diffident in the presence of this august authority and, suspecting already that I had been directed not exactly to the proper department, I blurted out, ‘Can you sell me a cast off helmet?', and then added apologetically the reason why it was required.  He just sat and looked at me for a moment and then said, ‘No, I am sorry.  Will you go out this way?’  But as I passed him while he held a door open for me, I think I detected a slight twitching of his lips as if he endeavoured to repress a smile.  And I am sure that he indulged in that smile in the privacy of his sanctum, preparatory to having poor Samson on the carpet.  As for me, I descended anther flight of stairs and found myself outside in the street, having failed dismally in my assignment.  And, after all, it was decided to put another sketch altogether!  The programme had been arranged for the second tour and it so happened that we were to play first at Banchory, the place where I had commenced my career with The Balmorals and the place which was destined to see the end of it.  We arrived in Banchory by late afternoon train and having arranged accommodation, repaired to the hall and got everything set to rights just in time for the opening of the show at 8pm.  I sat in the ticket box till 8.15 and by that time the audience numbered….. two!  It was a complete ‘dry up’.  We gave the audience their money back and closed down.  Gus declared that nothing would induce him to stay to show his face in Banchory next morning and asked Monty if he was game to walk back to Aberdeen – 18 miles!  Monty was game and somehow the idea appealed to me too.  So the ladies were brought to the hotel and installed there for the night while Gus, Monty and I set out on our long trek.  I will always remember that walk.  Gus and Monty were so cheery and humorous about the whole business, accepting the bad luck in typical trouper spirit, that the miles passed under my feet almost unnoticed.  I remember we sat down at the side of the road with our backs to a wall somewhere beside Culter and I know I laughed until my sides were sore at Gus who, with a mock air of tragedy, sat calculating from the rolls of admission tickets how much could be saved from the wreck by the refund of entertainment tax.  When we arrived in town, it was still too early for the tramcars to be running and I, for one, had to walk right across town before reaching home, which added quite a few miles to those I had already left behind me.  I aroused a startled household about 5 am but deferred more lengthy details until I woke at 5 pm the same afternoon.  That finished my connection with The Balmorals.  I could have continued with them during the summer months in a Pierrot show on the beach but as the summer season did not commence until 1 May and the ‘dry up’ occurred about the end of February, I had no inclination to spend two months in idleness, or ‘resting’ as it is known in the profession, nor, candidly, could I afford to do so.  I applied, therefore, for a situation with the Aberdeen Savings Bank and commenced duty there in March 1919 as a respectable bank clerk.  But I had had my ‘fling’ and such a ‘fling’ as many might have envied and I have always looked back on those few months as a concert party artist with very pleasant memories.