Great Scots

Quick, mark your calendar! January 25 is Rabbie Burns’s birthday—-St. Andrew's Societies all over the world will be celebrating. Steed and I had a Scottish adventure once—-it was a great excuse to see him in a kilt.

I don’t know much about Robert Burns, beyond an important styling footnote that is best left to the likes of Miss Emdash to comment on (for why we followers of Strunk & White write Burns's), and one huge pet peeve point I make below.

There are certainly hip Scottish cultural touchstones today, like Ewan McGregor and, in its way, The Last King of Scotland, but the Scottish presence I feel close to is Sir Harry Lauder. My parents often played his "Just a Wee Doech an Doris" at their parties, and so my attachment to that Scot is bundled into those deep childhood feelings of feeling safe and cared for.

(music up)
There's a good old Scottish custom, that has stood the test of time,
It's a custon that is carried out in ev'ry land and clime.
Where brother Scots fore-gather, it's aye the usual thing.
When just before they say guid-nicht, they fill their cups and sing-

Lauder was one of the most famous musical hall performers of all time, known to a certain generation of Americans through his years of farewell tours. When I got older, I learned that some Scots blamed him for the caricature of the canny, cheap Scotsmen in a kilt that they didn’t particularly like.

But Lauder was of his time, and he built a career that brought him to lunches at Buckingham palace and to working with Charlie Chaplain, and Laurel and Hardy in early Hollywood. Not too shabby.

Just a wee deoch-an-doris, just a wee drap that's a'
Just a wee deoch-an-doris before we gang a-wa'
There's a wee wifie waitin', in a wee but an ben
If you can say, "It's a braw bricht moonlicht nicht" ye a'richt ye ken

More than that, he and his wife Ann had one beloved son, John, who died during World War 1 in France. Lauder wrote a beautiful poem in his honor. He helped to raise funds for the war, and is considered one of the first performers to entertain the troops on the front line--in the trenches. He was knighted in 1919 by King George V for his tireless patriotic efforts.

I like a man that is a man, a man that's straight and fair,
The sort of man that will and can, in all things do his share
I like a man, a jolly man, the sort o' man you know,
The chap that slaps your back and says "Here Jock, before you go-

I carried this warm feeling for Lauder in my heart for many years with little resonance in the world, when one day, about 6 years ago, a colleague took me to an opening at the Leica gallery, and Al Hirschfeld was there. My colleague introduced us.

“Mr. Hirschfeld, what a thrill to meet the man who drew Harry Lauder.”

In fact, I had read that Hirschfeld’s drawing of Lauder was his very first for the NY Times, and it launched his career there.

Hirschfeld looked genuinely surprised to hear Lauder’s name. He looked so intently at me with those clear, blue, blue eyes, that all I could think of to do in response was to start singing a bit of "Doech an Doris. “Oh my goodness—-how old are you?” he smiled, as he pressed my hand very strongly. He said he thought “Roamin’ in the Gloamin’" was the greater song, and we agreed to disagree on that point.

I like to think Sir Harry and Al are performing and sketching, together again.

Now for the pet peeve: can we pleeeease get one of Robert Burns’s most famous lines quoted correctly, at least on his birthday:

"The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley"