What is Harry Lauder's walking stick?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
March 11, 2005
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At one time, shrubs and trees were planted to separate fields or fields from roads. These hedgerows divided land in a gracious, idyllic way. They were a mix of useful plants neighbors could share—willows for basketry, berries and nuts. A modicum of maintenance kept the hedgerow, a hedgerow. Wildflowers grew there; birds and small animals had refuge in the midst of cultivated lands. The hedgerow stayed the same and yet it changed with the seasons and
the passing of the years.
Sometime in the early 1860s, a curious shrub was noticed growing in a hedgerow in Gloucestershire. It was hazel like the hazels (Corylus avellana Linnaeus) that people had cultivated for hundreds of years. But it was different, its branches twisted and corkscrewed and wept. Not many years after the discovery of the contorted hazel, a boy was born at the north end of the same island in Edinburgh. The boy would make the hazel famous.
His father died when Harry Lauder was twelve. He helped his mother support his seven siblings by working in a flax mill while he went to school. Later he worked in a coal mine and it must have been difficult to see the stars when one is in 'the pit'. But he clung to his dream—someday he would be a music hall entertainer.
Harry mixed comedy with music and made laughable, yet touchingly lovable characters for his songs—the stodgy Dame, the red-nosed slovenly Calligan, the kilted tight-fisted Roderick McSwankay.
By 1912, Harry was at the top. He was elected to the Rotary Club of Glasgow and his fame spread beyond England. In 1913, he entertained in America; in 1914, he was in Australia. While in Melbourne, the British Empire entered World War I. Harry's son, John left his father's tour and went
to war.
Harry, too old to be a soldier, mobilized to do what he could do best, entertain. And entertain he did. Realizing that those soldiers and sailors maimed by the war would be left in poverty, Harry raised huge sums of money for their pensions. Then Harry did something crazy and the war office fought him on the very idea of it all. He took entertainment to the trenches and battlefields of France.
Harry and Ann never saw their son John alive again. In 1919, Harry was knighted for his charitable works. When World War II broke out, he launched himself into another round of entertaining the troops and raising funds. Harry Lauder died in 1950. Few alive today have even heard his name, but entertainers have kept alive the tradition he started—laughter and songs for soldiers and sailors far from home.
It was Harry's wild character, Roderick McSwankay that made the hazel famous. The decked-out Scotsman leaned on an equally crazy hazelwood cane. The shrub became known as Harry Lauder's walking stick.
The Special Collections of the Library at the University of Glasgow has a page dedicated to Sir Harry Lauder. To view the page, click on the link:
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/sta/lauder/index.html
Click on the thumbnails to enlarge the images. The third thumbnail down on the left side is the character, Roderick McSwankay.
The Kemper Center for Home Gardening of the Missouri Botanical Garden has photographs and general cultivation information on Corylus avellana "Contorta". To view the photographs and learn more about this fascinating shrub, click on the link:
http://www.mobot.org/gardeninghelp/plantfinder/Plant.asp?code=C360
(Compiled from: "A Famous Glasgow Rotarian-Sir Harry Lauder", Basil Lewis, Rotary's Global History Fellowship, Donald Murphy, ed., 2004; "Sir Harry Lauder: 1870-1950", Special Collections, J. Gardham, Library of the University of Glasgow, 2005;
"Biographical Notes on Sir Harry Lauder", Gregory Lauder-Frost, Clan Lauder, Electric Scotland, 2004; "Harry Lauder in Australia 1914", L. Richards, The History of Australian Theater Archive; "Corkscrew Hazel (Corylus contorta)" The Botanical Archive, American Garden Museum, 2005;
"Hazel Corylus avellana", The-Tree.org.uk, and "Contorted Filbert; It's Twisted", B. Rosie Lerner, Horticulture Department, Plant & Pest Diagnostic Laboratory, Purdue University, 2003.)
killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~
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