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ROAMIN' IN THE GLOAMIN' 79
demand for tickets was tremendous. Another highly popular attraction was when an amateur competition was announced.
It was in connection with one of these contests that I made my first public appearance in Glasgow. I won the second prize, but, far more to the point, my success secured for me a series of engagements for other Harmonic concerts. The fee was one pound, and for this you had to sing at all three halls, free transport being provided by the organization. The audiences at these "Glesca Bursts" — thus the entertainments were vulgarly designated on account of the limitless tea and ample supplies of pastry provided for at a shilling a head — were highly critical. If they liked you they applauded with terrible efficiency; if they didn't they adopted very pointed methods of getting you off the stage as quickly as possible.
I am glad to say they liked me from the first, and I have nothing but pleasant memories of my numerous appearances at a type of concert which has long passed into oblivion. I need recall only one incident which stands out in my mind in connection with these Saturday night entertainments in Glasgow. One of the prominent comedians engaged from the south sported a fine astrachan coat. I saw him hang it up in the dressing-room. It fascinated me beyond any other article of male attire I had ever seen. A man who wore a coat like that, I told myself, must be a great artiste. Some day I might have an astrachan coat myself ! But surely there was nothing to prevent me having an astrachan collar on my present coat! So with the fee I earned that night I bought a strip of astrachan and got Nance to sew it on to my coat collar. I felt that now I was a real artiste for the first time ! When I walked abroad with that coat in Hamilton I had to suffer much chaff and sarcasm. But I stuck to the astrachan collar. It was to me the trademark of an "artiste."
There was a famous old music-hall in Glasgow at this time called the Scotia. It was run by a most competent