My father had a fascinating way of telling stories and was also an extremely good reader. His delivery had a sincerity about it that almost fooled you into believing that he, himself, was the author. He had a clever way of holding our attention, and every once in a while, at a critical moment in the story, would stop to fill and light his pipe (Tam- O’ Shanter tobacco, gone now-a-days) or replenish the fire. This always brought shouts of “Go on Daddy” from his audience. Although he had a Scots voice he would somehow manage to project the London personality of say, Sam Weller or the cunning of Mr. Jingle ( characters in Dicken’s Pickwick Papers) without basically altering his own accent or being at all theatrical about it.

In this manner we would be treated to most of Dicken’s novels, Scott’s Waverley novels and The Lady of the Lake, Kenneth Graeme’s The Wind in the Willows, Captain Scott’s Antarctic tragedy, Kipling’s The Jungle Books, R.L. Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Catriona, Rider Haggard’s She, Ayesha, King Solomon’s Mines and Allan Quartermain, Longfellow’s Hiawatha, and many, many more. Nearer to Christmas we would vote for A Christmas Carol — one of our special favourites, just short enough to be completed in one evening, and with Dicken’s graphic descriptions of fog and frost at Christmas time, just the thing to get the imagination stirring in time for the festivities. The opening of “Marley was dead to begin with” gave me an eerie feeling of anticipation since I loved tales about ghosts. Reading A Christmas Carol to myself is something that I still enjoy doing at every Christmastide, and it always transports me back to those grand old times by the fire in the workshop.

The readings were interspersed with stories of his own boyhood in Scotland and in particular, tales of childhood escapades in three homes, Manor Steps Farm, near Bridge of Allan, Stirling, Kennetpans, near Alloa, and Batterflats near the King’s Park, Stirling. School days at Stirling High School provided another source of entertainment when recounted in his own inimitable way.

Other favourite anecdotes concerned his apprenticeship in Marine Engineering at D and W. Henderson’s shipyard at Meadowside on the Clyde near Glasgow. Hendersons had taken over the Meadowside yard from Tod and MacGregor in 1872 and were one of the yards instrumental in firmly establishing the Clyde as the world’s leading shipbuilding river. In my father’s day, to be an apprentice at a leading shipyard one’s family had to fork out a premium of £500, a lot of money in those days and it was a seven year stint. His tales of the fun and hard work they had at the yard, made me love the old riveters, plate-makers, boiler-makers, forge-masters and all the rest of the craftsman at the one-time builders of Anchor Liners and ships for the Japanese Nippon Usan Kaisha Line. His descriptions of machine-shops driven throughout by overhead shafting and belts (all unguarded), with power supplied by steam engines of great size, were brought to life by my father’s unique narrative skill. At the time of his apprenticeship there were still many famous yards like – William Denny and Bros. of Dumbarton, Alexander Stephen of Linthouse, Barclay Curle, Fairfield Shipbuilding, Beardmores, Browns, Yarrows, and Scotts of Greenock. Some of these yards were eventually “taken over” by the Royal Navy and contributed to a lot of specialised war tonnage. Just prior to the war in 1914 there were I believe, about thirty-eight yards on the Clyde between Glasgow and Greenock. A lot of them were casualties of the depression years between the two wars of 1914-1918 and 1939-1945, and so alas! the days when “Clyde- built” really conveyed a sense of marine perfection have long since gone and the proud ship-yards that once lined miles of the Clyde have become fading memories in the minds of the few old craftsmen left to reminisce. As an artist my father could, and did, embellish many a tale with glorious little sketches, which in a few deft strokes, suddenly enhanced one’s understanding to a remarkable degree.

§

I’ve no idea what the neighbours thought about it all (maybe they sang along with us!) but they certainly never complained. Of course, there wasn’t any television, and wind-up gramophones simply couldn’t compete with healthily delivered live music.

We did have a wireless set, but by modern standards it was a most complicated piece of equipment to operate, and the results were pretty unpredictable to say the least. It had been bought as a natural progression from the crystal and cat’s whisker sets which proliferated in many homes at the dawn of broadcasting. (As a wee boy I can remember feeling vaguely sorry for all those indignant, whiskerless cats which I thought were running about). I believe it was called a “Blackadder” and it had valves which glowed like low-powered electric lamps, mounted on top of an ebonite control panel. There was a tuning knob and another labelled “Reaction”. God knows what that was really for but it would produce the most awful screeches from the loud-speaker if not set just right. There were numerous coils which plugged into sockets and there was a grid-bias battery of 9 volts with a little wander-plug which had to be moved to a different battery socket as the supply gradually became discharged. A glass accumulator type of cell of 2 volts for heating up the valve filaments required charging by the local wireless shop or garage once or twice a week, so everyone bought two of them and always left one on charge at the shop. The set also needed a high-tension battery of 120 volts which did, actually, last for a considerable period – just as well because it certainly wasn’t a cheap item. Wires and switches abounded everywhere to connect all the bits and pieces, and the whole conglomeration was joined to an aerial running the complete length of the garden, from the top of the house to tall lime trees, at the end of the garden, and suspended by little porcelain insulators. A good earth connection was essential and usually meant a lead being clipped permanently to the nearest water or gas pipe.

Listening-in was a pretty hit and miss event and the sounds (not necessarily intelligible) could be heard through either headphones or the loud-speaker. Of course things didn’t always work out quite as planned and sometimes, when everyone was gathered around the wonder of wireless ready to experience whatever thrills broadcasting had to offer, the event would degenerate into an hilarious affair – especially if an odd joker was in the party! Possibly something akin to the following:

The valves on the set already heated up and glowing, the accumulator fully charged and the grid-bias battery apparently biasing the grids. The Oracle in charge of the tuning knob gives a little twiddle or two, and suddenly the sound of what appears to be a dog-fight pours forth from the great black horn of the loud-speaker — one dog is obviously having a terrible time, or maybe it’s two dogs with uncontrollable diarrhoea! Just as suddenly, it all changes to two snakes heavily hissing at one another, or perhaps the dogs have found a lamp-post and have got uncontrollable incontinence!

“What on earth is that?” from the fringe of the party.

“I reckon that’s probably Oslo,” says he with his hand on the tuning knob.

1st joker: “Oslo, that’s a funny name for a dog”.

“Quiet, I think I’ve got Hilversum.”

2nd joker: “Sounds very painful, I just hope it’s not catching.”

At this point the loud-speaker sounds like a fire-work display, or possibly a grouse shooting exhibition.

Oracle on the tuner: “I think it needs a bit more grid-bias, (always a good excuse if not sure what to do) or maybe a trifle more reaction”. Absolutely fatal! and all noises resolve into a stag-in-rut simulation which rapidly becomesa plop-plop-plop with the odd raspberry thrown in (could be stag-on-toilet) and pronounced by the Oracle as “motorboating”.

“It’s quite critical you know. I’m looking for the Marconi station’s call sign. It’s 2L0”.

1st. Joker: “Hello, Hello, there you are – saves you twiddling with that knob.”

Suddenly there is a sound like heavy breathing, and ever so faintly about three musical notes waft from the loud-speaker and then fade.

2nd. joker. “Well, that was a very quick concert, I must say. I think I’d rather hear the dog-fight again.”

Oracle, pompously: “You don’t seem to appreciate that these broadcasts are coming to us through the air, without the use of wires. That’s why it’s called wireless“.

1st. joker: “I presume that you are joking of course, I’ve never seen so many wires on anything”.

After the “Blackadder” we progressed through various set-ups to a Lissen Skyscraper Four, which had all the bits and pieces housed in one wooden cabinet and I believe, used a screened-grid pre-amplifier stage, detector stage, intermediate amplifier and a pentode output stage. At any rate it was far more powerful and easier to use than the old set, although it still needed the various high-tension, grid-bias and 2 volt batteries. The Lissen was purchased as a kit and was assembled by my brother Norman. It was really a very good kit, well thought out and required no soldering. All the terminals were nutted and the complete chassis was housed, together with the loud-speaker (which by this time had assumed a much neater appearance), in a handsome wooden cabinet. The various stations were printed by name on the tuning panel and a pointer indicated each one as the tuning knob was turned — quite different from the old “Blackadder” system which used a tuning scale marked in degrees. Strange that modern transistor sets seem to have reverted to a numerical scale, albeit in kilo-hertz or mega-hertz markings. We could only receive medium and long wave transmissions, but with a nice long aerial such as we had, it was good fun to hear the stations from distant place proclaiming themselves, as the tuning knob was manipulated.

I became quite taken with the mysteries of crystal sets and one-valve receivers. My bedroom was rigged with aerials, tuning coils, condensers and batteries, which sometimes managed to produce a few anaemic syllables or notes through the headphones.

Actually, rapid progress was made with receiving sets and soon there were a lot of sets on the market with names that would become famous for many years – McMichael, Murphy, Cossor, Pye, Ekco, Bush, Marconi, HMV, etc. which quickly became an essential part of most households.

Mind you, there was the odd outpost of the Empire that took longer than most to get up to date. One such place was my uncle George’s house in Wemyss Bay in Scotland. I remember in 1939 when I was on holiday there (I would have been fifteen at the time), trying to listen to the Declaration of War in the company of my cousin, my aunt and uncle and my brother on a so-called “portable” wireless set. Oh, very droll!

The portable set consisted of two quite large wooden containers, hinged together along one edge. The lower box contained all the valves, tuning gear and the three batteries, 120 volt high-tension, 9 volt grid-bias and the usual glass accumulator. The top box, which in the receiving position would be opened at right-angles to the lower box, housed the loud speaker and frame aerial. The whole lot was very, very weighty and should have included a mobile crane in the purchase price! The complete contraption had to be turned about so as to present the frame aerial in the best position to receive the loudest signals. Naturally, such a move could end up with the loud-speaker facing the wall, sort of self-defeating in fact. However, during the period of trying to catch what Mr Chamberlain was announcing, someone remarked that the portable set did not seem to be very efficient. This prompted the rejoinder from my cousin, “It should be, you know, it’s a Beethoven!” (quite a well-known portable set manufacturer). I suppose I ought to have been impressed but at the time it did cross my mind that if old Beethoven had stuck to symphonies and not strained himself trying to listen to his portable wireless set, he probably wouldn’t have lost his hearing! Just a thought of course.

NEXT

Footnotes