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1910-06-12: ​tour stops---images---audio---~TRANSCRIPT~---notes---links---site navigation
310 Great Western Road
Aberdeen
Scotland
June 12th 10.

My dear Kathleen,

Thanks ever so much for your long + very welcome letter - I read it all through straight off + I did just enjoy it.  I was out at a music lesson when it came - and was very uplifted of course after it, + your letter was an extra + unexpected treat for I rarely get letters by the 11 o’clock post.  Father was hovering about (having spotted the “fist” + the postmark) + was anxious to know if you still smiled at the Yanks.  As a great favour I let him read through the budget + he was very bucked - he thinks he would like to come out for a holiday one day.  He says he got enough information to make a sermon on the Black + White problem.  I hope you don’t mind.  We have got hardened to being used as “illustrations” - though I generally blush so furiously that everyone can see who the “wee lassie” was.  He trotted out one story the other day that no one would have guessed - only I quite unconsciously went like a beetroot.

Your house sounds most cool + inviting - it’s hot enough here for me to be envious.  I almost wish I had no carpet for the one in my room is a perfect form of dust + rubbish collector.  Still in the winter I shall bless it rather more often than I do just now.  Pictures I absolutely could not dispense with + I don’t blame you for holding out against fashion.

We have not got a phone thank Goodness - they are a doubtful blessing at best.  But we have the use of one a few doors down at our Doctor’s house.  I don’t know how you like the heat in Savannah, but it’s horribly hot here; they say they haven’t had heat in Aberdeen like it for years.  The heat is so glaring here because of the everlasting white granite - but I suppose you would call it cool.

Mrs. Tandy hasn’t written to me yet + hasn’t sent the photo + I feel wild.  Cissie Meerloo wrote the other day + said that the Tandys hadn’t gone to Rome as Mrs. Fowles was ill.  She didn’t say what was the matter with her - but Cissie is pretty vague as a rule.  The only definite information I got was that they were going to Switzerland again in June sometime.

I think Muriel Pearce had two younger sisters - but I’m not sure - anyhow she wasn’t the only one.

Mrs. Rosetti is absolutely a dear - not as good as the dear of course - but still after her I count myself lucky to get one so nice.  She never forgets what you are doing, + is awfully interested in all your work.  She is going to get me into a Private Musical Society she + her hubby belong to.  The members meet in each others houses in the winter + have a different composer each time.  The next one is to be a “Brahms evening” - at Rosetti’s house.  The program is kind of informal + consists of song, string quartets + piano etc.  Doesn’t it sound jolly?  The last one was a Schubert evening - but of course the meetings don’t begin again until September.  I feel fearfully bucked at being asked to join - but am in an equally fearful funk in case I have to perform.  The music in Aberdeen is really most weird - they are a crowd of music teachers - but about 6 really outstanding ones in the piano line - 2 violin + 4 singing.  They don’t overlap much - but these people seem to do everything - for instance Mr. Buchanan Morton calls his house “Aberdeen School of Music” - he is R.A.M. + A.R.C.O. + seems to have heaps of cheek for he is pretty young still.  Well - he has a lot of private pupils for piano, is also Music Master at the Grammar School for boys + 3 Girls schools, is Organist + Choirmaster at a big city church + conducts several choirs in the small local towns.  Another man Warren Clemens does the same thing, + 2 lady singing teachers the same.  It seems rather a mixture to me.

We have just had a big Choral Festival here - with Dr. McNaught as Adjudicator.  Warren Clemens had 2 or 3 different choirs in for one competition, + of course his own Aberdeen choir got his best work.  He got lots of prizes with different choirs + one afternoon he had choirs in for 3 different competitions + had to dodge from Hall to Hall.  Buchanan Morton had at least 6 different choirs in under his leadership - + Miss Elizabeth Christie (a singing L.R.A.M. + the best singing teacher in town) was respectively top + bottom in in one competition for Ladies choirs - her own pupils choir was top + her choir from the Training College bottom.  This seems funny + I don’t think should be allowed.  The Rosettis are about the only teachers who are not organists or choirmasters somewhere.

The man who gets up this Festival every year is Professor Terry, Professor of History + Archaeology at the University; + music is his HOBBY, + he fairly lets the town know it.  The main idea is that before long the University will establish a Musical chair + if he can keep himself lively enough the Senate won’t like not to give him the chair.  Therefore he hustles round + makes such a fuss that you would think he was the only Musical member of the town.  There were about 18 competitions all choral save 3 small orchestral ones.  Then on the Saturday there was a great massed choirs performance of the Messiah under Dr. Coward.  Then on the Sunday afternoon there was a closing service - this was the only thing I went to.  I hadn’t time to go to the competition - + I didn’t think there was any chance of the Messiah being performed better than I had heard it at Worcester Festival of the Three Choirs!  The Sunday thing was ghastly - the singing was fearfully coarse + all the parts made as much noise as they could - likewise the orchestra - + Professor Terry conducted in what he thought was the approved style à la Henry Wood.  The difference was that his movements were senseless whereas Henry Wood’s aren’t.  There wasn’t a decent pianissimo all through - they had a new setting of the Te Deum by Sir Hubert Parry + the Magnificat by Walter Gadsby + the soft bits were just hurled out.  The trombone player must have been a bagpipe player at some time for he blared his notes so that nothing else could be heard.  I was heartily glad to get outside.

I told Mrs. Rosetti what I thought of it, + she said that the Messiah was worse.  She says I have been spoilt by living in the south + so has she.  She is a native of Worcester + was brought up on Cathedral music.  She knows one great fat girl who sang in the trebles at the Messiah who was enjoying herself so fearfully that she joined in with the men’s part in the Hallelujah Chorus!  That is the whole thing - the singers enjoy themselves too much + forget about everything save bawling.  The Scotch accent sounds beastly in a choir - you can’t imagine it till you hear it.

Professor Terry is preening himself now it is over of course, + in an interview with the Daily Journal man he claimed to have lifted the music of Aberdeen out of the mire of comic opera + grease paint.  Needless to say this has raised a lot of feeling among the musicians who have been longer in Aberdeen than he has.  I think he has got a fearful cheek.  Still by giving the Corporation free seats etc, + by keeping in with everybody he will get the chair all right I expect.  He must have an enormous tin of soft soap - for he uses it freely.  Father had to read one of the letters at the Service - + the next day he got a letter thanking him for his great help + saying “it was a treat to hear the grand words declaimed in such a majestic + fitting manner.”  I suggested sending it back to him with “soft soap” written across it.  The pianos here are pretty bad + when I go to a house + the piano looks musty I generally make an excuse.  The other Sunday I was at a friends to tea + she told 2 friends that Miss Jackson is so musical - + I had to play.  There was no getting out of it + I played the Harmonious Blacksmith.  It made me feel downright ill - the piano could never have been tuned + must have been a wedding present to the lady’s grandmother or great grand-mother.  Half the notes were gone altogether - + the wretch looked so innocent outside!  I can sympathise with you, my dear.  As this is a seat of learning brains are hugely admired + I feel bored to death - if Kate were here she would be worshipped I should think.  I fight shy of all the clever people at church + leave Tom to dabble with them.  I know its wicked but they make me feel wild - you hear a remark like this “Oh you ought to meet Willie Brown - he is such a nice fellow - he got the Varsity Gold Medal for Greek + was 4th in the Bursaries.”  When I argue that these 2 facts aren’t sufficient to make me pine for his friendship they stare.

On the whole I find that Aberdonians fairly earn their bad reputation - they say “A Jew can’t live in Aberdeen.” + I believe it.  Our gardener yesterday when we paid his bill that Mother was the only lady in all our row houses who hadn’t grumbled at the prices of the plants he had put in , yet all our neighbours are very nice people, + several of them keep 3 servants + a motor.  An Aberdonian thinks nothing of leaving a bill for a year or two years.  I heard in the week of a gentleman we knew who had been blacklisted by the Aberdeen Tailors union.  You get a substantial discount by paying bills when they are due - the shops are so glad to get the money at once.  The Aberdeen dialect is horrid - + Mrs. Rosetti is like an English oasis in a desert of Scotch uglinesses.  I have come to the conclusion that any English tongue is of all things the prettiest.  The educated people aren’t so bad, but the fisher people ugh, it might be a different language.

By the way you may be interested to know that Mr. Condy has gone to Worcester to the church that Father was in years ago.  They have had a rotten man for the last six years + the place has gone down a lot but they have promised him £250 a year to begin with, + then when all the people who left in the last man’s time come back he will get more.  He is going to be married in August.  I am awfully glad for he is heaps too good for Bow + he will be in his element in Worcester.  It is a beautiful church - with a fine organ + choir + the people are awfully kind + he ought to just enjoy himself there.  Father is going down to the wedding - I wish I was going too.

We have no 10 cent store but we have an affair called the “Northern Co-operative” which is like an octopus.  It began in a small way in the East End - ostensibly as a Friendly Society business for the poor; but it has grown at a fearful rate till it now has branches all over the town + any amount of motor delivery vans.  The dividend this half year was ⅜ of a £.  They have departments for everything - even an undertaking business.  Of course it’s awfully hard on the town shop-keepers who have to pay rates - income tax etc - the Co-op as a Friendly Society pays no income tax.  No one here thinks of going into business now - it’s no good.  Since we came 4 big Cabinet making + Furnishing Firms have been “sold up.”  Most of the small grocery firms are in a dying state.  I think it’s downright wicked.  The shame of it is that the rich people who don’t need the dividend get anything from the Co-op, + you can see the Co-op vans any day in all the big residential streets.  I heard the other day of a person who pays her rent off her Co-op dividends - she has a huge boarding house + gets everything from the Co-op.  

​The other day I was out shopping with a friend + she went to the Co-op + cashed her dividend cheque.  It was £12 odd.  I must say I was shocked - for they could easily afford to deal with the town tradesmen.  This girl’s father is a wholesale Boot + Shoe manufacturer + grumbles at the Co-op having a Boot business.  Aren’t folks consistent really?  Some sarcastic man suggested the other day in the paper that the Co-op should start a church, + give people dividend on their collection offerings.  Why not?  

I must stop now.  I hope you can read this scrawl + please forgive all the rotten grammar + everything.  I have been laid up since Thursday with heat fag + a species of bilious attack + I feel very woolly + wobbly.  The comet causes the heat - and the heat upsets me - so if you have any fault to find you must blame Mr. Halley.

Just now it’s never really dark here - I forget all the geography Cuddy used to teach us so I can’t explain why we have more light than London - but it is so.  All Thursday night I lay awake - it was light enough to read (if you wanted to which I didn’t) till 10.45, + by 1.30 it was light enough again.  In between was just like twilight.

I hope you are not melted quite, + that you have found ere now some kindred spirits in the musical line.  What does Ruth mean to do in Savannah?  You said she had a studio.

Lots of love from yours as ever

Maggie
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1910-06-12​: ​​​tour stops---images---audio---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
Father was hovering about (having spotted the “fist” + the postmark) + was anxious to know if you still smiled at the Yanks.  As a great favour I let him read through the budget + he was very bucked - he thinks he would like to come out for a holiday one day.  He says he got enough information to make a sermon on the Black + White problem.
It's a pity that we can't read what Kathleen said about "the Black +  White problem".  On the other hand, given what I've seen from Kathleen in dribs and drabs elsewhere, I'm not sure that I would enjoy it.


​2.
They don’t overlap much - but these people seem to do everything - for instance Mr. Buchanan Morton calls his house “Aberdeen School of Music” - he is R.A.M. + A.R.C.O. + seems to have heaps of cheek for he is pretty young still.

​Mr. Buchanan Morton seems to be:

Robert Buchanan Morton
Born: 10 Aug 1876
Died: 23 Jul 1946
​
3.
Another man Warren Clemens does the same thing, + 2 lady singing teachers the same.
I didn’t find anything in particular about Warren Clemens except that he was the father of Martin Clemens, a coastwatcher in the Solomon Islands (Guadalcanal etcetera) during World War II, about whom I have read - probably in Walter Lord’s book about the coastwatchers.

4.
Then on the Saturday there was a great massed choirs performance of the Messiah under Dr. Coward.

​Dr. Coward - I found this - “Dr. Henry Coward, the pioneer chorus-master":

https://archive.org/stream/drhenrycowardpio00rodgiala/drhenrycowardpio00rodgiala_djvu.txt

No relation to Noel Coward, apparently.


5.
The Sunday thing was ghastly - the singing was fearfully coarse + all the parts made as much noise as they could - likewise the orchestra - + Professor Terry conducted in what he thought was the approved style à la Henry Wood.  The difference was that his movements were senseless whereas Henry Wood’s aren’t.

Henry Wood - Wikipedia says:

Sir Henry Joseph Wood CH (3 March 1869 – 19 August 1944) was an English conductor best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introducing hundreds of new works to British audiences. After his death, the concerts were officially renamed in his honour as the "Henry Wood Promenade Concerts", although they continued to be generally referred to as "the Proms".

6.
We have no 10 cent store but we have an affair called the “Northern Co-operative” which is like an octopus.

Northern Co-operative  I found:

http://www.mcjazz.f2s.com/Co-op.htm

First paragraph:

The Northern Co-operative Society (Norco) opened for business in a small shop in the Gallowgate in 1861, and in 1905 the layer and larger premises became their HQ. By 1920, their name had been changed to the Northern Co-Operative Society. The building covered an extensive area between the Gallowgate and Loch Street, The Loch Street entrance to the Arcade which gave access through the building and to the Gallowgate. The 'Coopie' provided many people with all their requirements supplying clothes, shoes, groceries, milk, meat and coal. When the NCS opened their new HQ in Norco House in 1970, the building was vacated and stood empty until it was demolished as part of the redevelopment of the area for the Bon-Accord Centre. 

7.
The comet causes the heat - and the heat upsets me - so if you have any fault to find you must blame Mr. Halley.
In 1910, Halley’s comet first appeared in April.  I think it would have been just about finished in June.

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