Chapter 03 (1936 – 1938) - (Pages 29 - 37) - Bonnie Anne
Dundee was not a very bonnie place in the early ‘thirties, especially not for the unemployed. The basic industry, on which the town’s fortunes largely depended, was in a bad way ; more than half the labour force of about 34,000 jute workers were unemployed ; imports of raw jute were down by 100,000 tons compared to pre-1914.
(In fact there was no falling off in the demand for jute goods ; the main cause of thousands of able-bodies men whiling their days away at street corners was the ugly fact that the United Kingdom had been importing more and more cheap jute cloth from India, rising from 41,000 tons in 1929 to 137,000 tons in 1939. Business was business, and no doubt it was to be expected that early on merchants with capital to spare would take the opportunity of investing in Indian industry – jute-spinning machinery had been taken out to India as early as 1855 – with the raw materials already on hand, not to mention a vast source of cheap labour).
It had still seemed to Jimmy, fortunately, that the prospects of picking up a bit of casual labour in the big town must be better than in and around East Wemyss where at one time he had been so long unemployed as to go on the Means Test. This system, employed an army of professional pryers and snoopers (not to mention an unpaid vengeful informer) took into consideration the entire income of a household, so that workers in a family must support members out of work. No more fiendishly successful method (other than war) had ever been devised for splitting up families, since it paid workers to go into lodgings and escape the burden of keeping their less fortunate brothers and sisters.
When Jimmy came to the city in 1933 there had been a deputation of unemployed to the Town Council seeking assurances that benefits to dependents would not be cut or delayed while they were on a hunger march to London to protest to the government over a new Unemployment Bill.
One public figure, a well-fed old maid, seemed to think it was just a question of wiser household management. So utterly out of step with the way of life of the poor was this enlightened woman that she dared to advise the wives and mothers on how to make a pot of soup at a cost of 2d! Somehow it had not come to her attention that for generations economic necessity had compelled the housewives of Dundee to become experts in the thrifty replenishment of the kail-pot.
Many families saw meat on the table only rarely, and then mostly as unidentifiable ‘cuttings’ – anonymous left-over scraps for a cheap stew. On the principle of ‘Come in and buy or we’ll both starve’ butchers in depressed districts offered shilling parcels – a bit of mince, a sausage or two, a tiny chop perhaps, depending on what was plentiful, and which no doubt would not keep much longer.
‘Stovies’ were a popular and cheap filler – potatoes, onions and a good knob of fat cooked ‘til brown in a minimum of water….Greasily satisfying.
If you waited until the last minute on Saturday nights you could pick up bargains of beef, fruit and vegetables at the open-air stalls of the down-town Greenmarket – with a tune thrown in from a celebrated local melodeon-player, Paddy McGrory, whose busking attracted large crowds, and the equally celebrated minstrel Blind Mattie who accompanied herself on a simple box.
(Paddy reputedly had once been declared the Scottish Champion Melodeon Player. Where and when this was decided is no longer remembered, but the story is that Paddy and his comparatively unpretentious instrument was finalist along with an Italian with a magnificent piano accordion. Selection after selection from each, and the judges could not decide. Then one of the panel had an idea – swop instruments. Which they did. The Italian could make nothing of the button keys while Paddy was able to knock a tune out of the other thus gaining the award! Mattie, although depending on her voice more than her playing, was later to be ‘kept in melodeons’ by Jimmy).
The papers were appealing for gramophone records to help provide Christmas cheer at the Dundee Royal Infirmary – If we have gramophone records that do us good to listen to let us send them to our ailing folks who have much more need of being enlivened and encouraged.
If we don’t have gramophone records let us buy one, two, three or four at eighteenpence or 7/6d, with the chance that some bit of music or humour will, by the real magic that works better than some medicine, put some downcast invalid in the mood that brings back good health…
The gramophone records contributed almost two years ago are worn out. No one can know the good they did, the cures they wrought.
Well, Jimmy’s first Regal-Zonophones had been made, but were not yet issued, so he could not donate anything at this time. Later, his records and unstinting personal appearances would have him rated No. 1 musical therapist at hospital and institutions all over the country.
(Incidentally, that particular appeal brought in over 1,500 records, collected mostly by Stevenson’s Laundry vans, one driven by uncle Jim Denham).
Scottish Champion Accordionist….Not yet thus proclaimed. The title was presently being conferred upon William Hannah in advertisements for Wilkinson’s Excelsior – ‘five different models, steel reeds ; tuned to British Chromatic Extended Scale….’
Mrs Denham had tried to persuade him he would be more comfortable staying with one or other of two aunts of his living in Dundee than “in this hoose-fu’ o’ bairns. There’s no’ much peace here for anybody!”
But that was what Jimmy wanted, and so he moved into pal George’s room, who wasn’t home that often now.
Jimmy thought the world of the Denham bairns. As for them – here is Mrs Isobel Binnie who was wee Isa between seven and eight when Jimmy joined the family…….Will Fyfe was appearing as Sammy in ‘Babes in the Wood’ at the King’s, but the Denham’s put on their own panto –
He seemed to be always hearing tunes, was always humming, drumming fingers on the arm of his chair – his was an old hard wooden arm-chair which had it’s place between the kitchen sink and the fireplace.
“C’mon,” he would suddenly say “Let’s hae a concert!”
With an old hat of Dad’s on and a stick under my arm I would do the cake-walk. Wee brother Jim would delightedly strip off and throw Mum’s fox fur round him to do his Tarzan act – a flying leap from the bunker with a blood-curdling yell. We all sang and danced.
There was one song we hugely enjoyed at the time –
“If you should see a big fat wumman
Standin’ at the closie bummin’
That’s my Ma-a-am-mee!”
But the summer evenings were the best.
Our house was on the top pletty, (pletties, long iron-railed stone platforms serving the storeys of the old tenements connected by an outside stair) and overlooked a big square of back greens to the backs of tenements in Arbroath Road, Robertson Street, Graham Place.
Well, Jimmy had only to step out of our door with his melodeon and folk would begin to appear on other pletties. And when he played they not only listened, they danced, calling across in the intervals for this reel, that strathspey.
The tenements with inside stairs instead of pletties, windows would be raised, and you got glimpses of crooked linked arms birling past and would hear cries of ‘hooch!’ You could even see the windows of the lavatories on the outside stairs opening.
Then, folk seemed to have a lightsomeness of spirit, despite the hard times, that only needed awakening – and Jimmy was able to do that.
Times were hard. Mrs Denham not only cooked, washed and mended for her family and the lodger ; to try and make ends meet she baked cakes which unemployed husband Will took around on a baker’s board to sell with the potted hough she also made, a hundred three-penny bowls at a time.
Wee Isa Denham runs in from Butterburn School –
“Clean my shoes, hen, an’ I’ll gie ye thruppence”.
He would be playing somewhere that night.
“See an’ dae the insteps properly an’ a’.” He liked things just right. Mum would have his shirt ready, then off he would go.
Engagements were beginning to roll in, now, and he might get as much as fifteen bob for a night’s playing, often all night, which was still welcome indeed ; for here was his basic financial situation at the beginning of his working for Forbes –
Wages 35/- a week, out of which had to come board and lodging 25/-, and 5/- weekly payment on a £33 two-row 36 bass box. After deduction for stamp he was left with 2/8½d!
It was a great night when he made his first appearance at the Plaza in Hilltown. How proud the family were! They were all there of course, plus Gran and Grandad specially come in from Longforgan.
Mum Denham had had a bit of a job persuading Jimmy to wear the fancy purple satin Cossack blouse the promoter had provided for the occasion, but now there he was resplendent, alone in the spotlight – at which he was shaking his head in annoyance. In fact at one point he refused to continue his recital until the power was reduced somewhat.
As Jimmy’s fame spread beyond the town, over to the west, up to the north, south even into England, Isa began to accumulate what was to become a trunkful of presents ; from a single celluloid doll brought from a trip to Aberdeen and on from teenage compacts and such to sophisticated evening wear brooches made from curious New Zealand shells, not forgetting a tea-service in hammered pewter on the occasion of her marrying Sandy Binnie in 1953.
In his earliest days in Dundee there was little to spare for presents.
Later, the basic rate could be improved upon through commission. For a shop sale he got 6d in the £ ; 1/- in the £ for customers he had called on ; 2/- in the £ for personally introducing a customer.
Charles and Jimmy toured around. Charles explaining his system and Jimmy demonstrating in various halls, at a nominal admission charge of 6d. They went as far afield as Yetholn and Lockerbie. And once when Charles was ill the shy Jimmy played and lectured as well! This was at Boarhills near St. Andrews. “Mind you,” he admits, “there was a lot mair playin’ than talkin’!”
Between times he demonstrated in the shop, followed up enquiries, and the bit he didn’t like, having so recently known hardship himself, occasionally went debt-collecting.
Things began to get better all the time.
Tom Walker, sales rep of G. Murdoch Trading Company of Glasgow, heard him playing in the shop one day, and this led to an offer to make records for Beltona, then selling for 1/6d.
Soon he was being featured in their advertising as James Shand alongside such of their stars as another accordionist, Curly McKay ; bothy ballad singer Willie Kemp who also played tin whistle, jews’ harp and occarina ; Donald Davidson, who was then to the mouth-organ what Jimmy was fast on the way to becoming to the button-key accordion.
When the Denhams moved from Princes Street to 150 Hilltown the lodger went with them. There wasn’t the same set up of pletties there, and his at-home playing was confined to the kitchen.
In the flat below lived Mrs Pullar. On day she was talking to Mrs Denham, and mentioned how much she enjoyed Jimmy’s music – “But canna say I care much for yon drum.”
There was no drum ; there was only Jimmy and his accordion…..
Ah! Mrs Denham had it – it was his time-keeping foot!
And after that when he played she saw that he had a cushion to mark time on!
Jimmy’s family and friends had always been welcome at the Denhams. Lately he had been bringing a new friend, Ann Anderson, a pretty young waitress from the Station Hotel, Leven. They had got to know each other through one of her brothers (she was the youngest of nine) being interest in motor-bikes ; also, Jim’s married sister Nancy had gone to live in Leven. On a succession of motor-bikes (“he was quite likely to set out on a Norton and come back on a New Imperial” says pal George Denham ; “terrible lad for swapping and doing deals”), Ann was whizzed back and forth between Leven and Dundee as well as on sundry sight-seeing excursions and visits to relatives.
After her father died they decided to get married.
As was the custom in those days, Forbes’ shop-lassies decorated the groom-to-be with coloured crepe paper and confetti the night before the wedding and led him to his lodgings with rousing cries and songs and a chamber pot of salt with a carrot stuck into it.
Icy roads in Fife next day, the 24th January 1936, made Jim and his family guests half an hour late arriving from East Wemyss at Colinsburgh Town Hall.
The obliging hall-keeper, however, had opened up access to the drink supply with the result that the Anderson’s did not unduly chafe at the delay.
The newly weds had a meal in Woolworth’s upstairs café in Edinburgh while waiting for the train to Peebles, where they spent the honeymoon at the home of Mr and Mrs John Maule whom Jim had become acquainted with some time before through a demonstration tour of the Borders.
Getting a house had been much easier than they had expected, and they returned to Dundee to set up their home at Ellengowan Drive.
Remember Aunt Rachel?
She hadn’t forgotten her nephew, giving lavish assistance with the furnishing.
Later that year he managed to buy his first car, a second-hand Morris 8, for £32 10s.
In 1937 records by James Shand at 1/6d went up to 2/- and were advertised in the People’s Journal as now by ‘Jimmy Shand of Dundee’.
In August the issue of the 7th included a little story with a postage-stamp size portrait –
Dundee has produced many musicians of note. Mr James Shand took his position in the list of those who have made good in this sphere when he made his debut over the air on Thursday night by giving a solo performance on the accordion.
Mr Shand is well fitted for the task. Champion Button Key Accordionist of Scotland (as mentioned further on, this title was bestowed by the record company. In one Championship contest he did take part in, his button-key playing was played second to the piano-accordion of Chrissie Leatham (daughter of Peter, old friend of Jim’s) This was at the Old Metropole Theatre in Glasgow.) he has been playing the instrument since he was six years old, 22 years ago, and is well known all over Scotland. He is accordion demonstrator with J.T. Forbes, Musicseller, Dundee, and a star recordist of accordion music. He has little time for jazz, and prefers the spirited national music of Scotland, Ireland and the Continent…..
Goes as far as the Borders, plays at concerts, dances and garden fetes, and has appeared locally at the Victoria and Plaza at charity performances.
In October 16th issue Charles S. Forbes announced a new discovery, Louis Cabrelli, piano accordionist whom he arranged to have auditioned over the telephone to reps of a record company in Glasgow with gratifying results. News of another kind, however was also appearing…….
On July 10th 1937 the paper quoted Dr R.C. Buist who, addressing the St. Andrews Ambulance Association, raised the possibility of attach from the air, and the suitability of the old railway tunnel running through a shoulder of The Law – the dill that rises over Dundee – as an air-raid shelter…..
Meanwhile Jimmy got on with living up to the title Beltona now advertised his records with – Scottish Champion Button-Key Accordionist. How did he acquire this title?
Rest assured it was not self-bestowed. Just, the record had decided thus to designate him.
Then Forbes called in a film advertising unit and they shot Jimmy with his fingers practically a blur flying over the most intricate passage of The Marquis of Huntly’s Farewell. It was a silent film, and a record of Jimmy’s would be played when the film was shown in cinemas.
He went to see it when it was out on at the Victoria Theatre.
There were the flying fingers all right – but the tune being played was The Bonnie Lass o’ Bon Accord – practically a dirge in comparison!
Louis Cabrelli became Jimmy’s co-demonstrator, and with Forbes they toured all over popularizing both types of accordion.
On occasion a customer would take on something beyond his playing and paying ability ; like one young farm lad who made his down payment and collected a Black Dot Double Ray from a stand the firm had at the Angus Show in Brechin.
A few instalments came in ; then payments ceased. The defaulter had moved to another district and could not be traced for a long time. Then it was heard he was on a farm near Carnoustie, and the next time Jimmy had business up that way he dropped in.
It was a fine summer evening when he knocked on the bothy door ; and right enough the lad opened it.
“Well, Andy, I suppose ye ken whit I’m here for?”
“Aye, Jimmy, the money, or the box. It’ll hae tae be the box, I canna afford it.”
He brought out the accordion, then “Jimmy, would ye – would ye gie’s a wee tune first?”
“Shairly that, lauddie;” and within minutes the old spell was drawing the cotter folk to their doors.
The defaulter craved a last request……..Certainly, his pleasure….Then it must be Dovecote Park, with which Jimmy duly obliged.
“Wait, afore ye tak it awa’ – can I hae a wee tune, a last we tune mysel’?”
“Of course, son;” and the box straps changed shoulders.
Young Andy launched heroically into – into something……
“Aye” said Jimm, “but, ah, well – whit was that, Andy?”
“Dovecot Park of course!”
The moment of truth then seemed to arrive for the would-be exponent, for as he handed the box over he suddenly spat and said “Ach, ye’re a lot o’ bloody swicks anyway’ – ‘Play at Sicht the Same Nicht’ eh? Well, I’ve had the damn thing two years an’ canna play yet!”
Some models seem to have been very reasonably priced. A typical Forbes advert –
Are You A Two-row Player?
Then let Jimmy Shand show you how much easier and better a three-row is to handle. His demonstration costs you nothing – but is worth a lot.
Here, or in the Perth branch, or in your own home ; he visit ALL DISTRICTS
Three-voice, Three-row Instruments (Shand keyboard)
From £7 7s 6d
He composed his first tune while with Forbes : Lunan Bay, which is a wee place up the east coast. Impressed with its beauty? Or maybe it was a tribute to someone who lived there?
Neither. All he had ever seen of Lunan Bay was the sign-post pointing to it which he often passed in his business journeyings in the wee yellow van. The waltz tune soon found a place in Scots Country Dance repertoire and is still popular today. His boss put the music down on paper for him.
Well’ he now was what he had never dreamed of becoming – an established white-collar worker, his hands only controlling the van steering or magically releasing melody from an arrangement of buttons, reeds and bellows, or perhaps in the evening shaping a wooden boat for the Denham laddies.
In October 1938 a picture of Shand and Cabrelli was published in People’s Journal with an account of a great professional honour which had come their way. They had been chosen as the two most outstanding accordion players in Britain, and had been invited to play before 1,000 accordionists at the Annual accordion Day Festival in London the following month.
(Something else was coming in for praise. The old railway tunnel running under the 500ft Law, the town’s hill, could be turned into one of the finest air-raid shelters in the country some spokesman was enthusiastically proclaiming – could hold six to seven thousand easily).
The Accordion Festival was a triumph for both. The year 1938 was a good year. He now had more than a dozen successful records to his name which had become synonymous with the button-key accordion.
Also, he had a lively little son, Erskine, who danced to Dad’s music.
Jimmy and Ann worried about the effect on the bairn of a dampness in the house which persisted despite many attempted remedies.
They decided they would have to move, but good rented houses were not now easy to get.
(In fact there was no falling off in the demand for jute goods ; the main cause of thousands of able-bodies men whiling their days away at street corners was the ugly fact that the United Kingdom had been importing more and more cheap jute cloth from India, rising from 41,000 tons in 1929 to 137,000 tons in 1939. Business was business, and no doubt it was to be expected that early on merchants with capital to spare would take the opportunity of investing in Indian industry – jute-spinning machinery had been taken out to India as early as 1855 – with the raw materials already on hand, not to mention a vast source of cheap labour).
It had still seemed to Jimmy, fortunately, that the prospects of picking up a bit of casual labour in the big town must be better than in and around East Wemyss where at one time he had been so long unemployed as to go on the Means Test. This system, employed an army of professional pryers and snoopers (not to mention an unpaid vengeful informer) took into consideration the entire income of a household, so that workers in a family must support members out of work. No more fiendishly successful method (other than war) had ever been devised for splitting up families, since it paid workers to go into lodgings and escape the burden of keeping their less fortunate brothers and sisters.
When Jimmy came to the city in 1933 there had been a deputation of unemployed to the Town Council seeking assurances that benefits to dependents would not be cut or delayed while they were on a hunger march to London to protest to the government over a new Unemployment Bill.
One public figure, a well-fed old maid, seemed to think it was just a question of wiser household management. So utterly out of step with the way of life of the poor was this enlightened woman that she dared to advise the wives and mothers on how to make a pot of soup at a cost of 2d! Somehow it had not come to her attention that for generations economic necessity had compelled the housewives of Dundee to become experts in the thrifty replenishment of the kail-pot.
Many families saw meat on the table only rarely, and then mostly as unidentifiable ‘cuttings’ – anonymous left-over scraps for a cheap stew. On the principle of ‘Come in and buy or we’ll both starve’ butchers in depressed districts offered shilling parcels – a bit of mince, a sausage or two, a tiny chop perhaps, depending on what was plentiful, and which no doubt would not keep much longer.
‘Stovies’ were a popular and cheap filler – potatoes, onions and a good knob of fat cooked ‘til brown in a minimum of water….Greasily satisfying.
If you waited until the last minute on Saturday nights you could pick up bargains of beef, fruit and vegetables at the open-air stalls of the down-town Greenmarket – with a tune thrown in from a celebrated local melodeon-player, Paddy McGrory, whose busking attracted large crowds, and the equally celebrated minstrel Blind Mattie who accompanied herself on a simple box.
(Paddy reputedly had once been declared the Scottish Champion Melodeon Player. Where and when this was decided is no longer remembered, but the story is that Paddy and his comparatively unpretentious instrument was finalist along with an Italian with a magnificent piano accordion. Selection after selection from each, and the judges could not decide. Then one of the panel had an idea – swop instruments. Which they did. The Italian could make nothing of the button keys while Paddy was able to knock a tune out of the other thus gaining the award! Mattie, although depending on her voice more than her playing, was later to be ‘kept in melodeons’ by Jimmy).
The papers were appealing for gramophone records to help provide Christmas cheer at the Dundee Royal Infirmary – If we have gramophone records that do us good to listen to let us send them to our ailing folks who have much more need of being enlivened and encouraged.
If we don’t have gramophone records let us buy one, two, three or four at eighteenpence or 7/6d, with the chance that some bit of music or humour will, by the real magic that works better than some medicine, put some downcast invalid in the mood that brings back good health…
The gramophone records contributed almost two years ago are worn out. No one can know the good they did, the cures they wrought.
Well, Jimmy’s first Regal-Zonophones had been made, but were not yet issued, so he could not donate anything at this time. Later, his records and unstinting personal appearances would have him rated No. 1 musical therapist at hospital and institutions all over the country.
(Incidentally, that particular appeal brought in over 1,500 records, collected mostly by Stevenson’s Laundry vans, one driven by uncle Jim Denham).
Scottish Champion Accordionist….Not yet thus proclaimed. The title was presently being conferred upon William Hannah in advertisements for Wilkinson’s Excelsior – ‘five different models, steel reeds ; tuned to British Chromatic Extended Scale….’
Mrs Denham had tried to persuade him he would be more comfortable staying with one or other of two aunts of his living in Dundee than “in this hoose-fu’ o’ bairns. There’s no’ much peace here for anybody!”
But that was what Jimmy wanted, and so he moved into pal George’s room, who wasn’t home that often now.
Jimmy thought the world of the Denham bairns. As for them – here is Mrs Isobel Binnie who was wee Isa between seven and eight when Jimmy joined the family…….Will Fyfe was appearing as Sammy in ‘Babes in the Wood’ at the King’s, but the Denham’s put on their own panto –
He seemed to be always hearing tunes, was always humming, drumming fingers on the arm of his chair – his was an old hard wooden arm-chair which had it’s place between the kitchen sink and the fireplace.
“C’mon,” he would suddenly say “Let’s hae a concert!”
With an old hat of Dad’s on and a stick under my arm I would do the cake-walk. Wee brother Jim would delightedly strip off and throw Mum’s fox fur round him to do his Tarzan act – a flying leap from the bunker with a blood-curdling yell. We all sang and danced.
There was one song we hugely enjoyed at the time –
“If you should see a big fat wumman
Standin’ at the closie bummin’
That’s my Ma-a-am-mee!”
But the summer evenings were the best.
Our house was on the top pletty, (pletties, long iron-railed stone platforms serving the storeys of the old tenements connected by an outside stair) and overlooked a big square of back greens to the backs of tenements in Arbroath Road, Robertson Street, Graham Place.
Well, Jimmy had only to step out of our door with his melodeon and folk would begin to appear on other pletties. And when he played they not only listened, they danced, calling across in the intervals for this reel, that strathspey.
The tenements with inside stairs instead of pletties, windows would be raised, and you got glimpses of crooked linked arms birling past and would hear cries of ‘hooch!’ You could even see the windows of the lavatories on the outside stairs opening.
Then, folk seemed to have a lightsomeness of spirit, despite the hard times, that only needed awakening – and Jimmy was able to do that.
Times were hard. Mrs Denham not only cooked, washed and mended for her family and the lodger ; to try and make ends meet she baked cakes which unemployed husband Will took around on a baker’s board to sell with the potted hough she also made, a hundred three-penny bowls at a time.
Wee Isa Denham runs in from Butterburn School –
“Clean my shoes, hen, an’ I’ll gie ye thruppence”.
He would be playing somewhere that night.
“See an’ dae the insteps properly an’ a’.” He liked things just right. Mum would have his shirt ready, then off he would go.
Engagements were beginning to roll in, now, and he might get as much as fifteen bob for a night’s playing, often all night, which was still welcome indeed ; for here was his basic financial situation at the beginning of his working for Forbes –
Wages 35/- a week, out of which had to come board and lodging 25/-, and 5/- weekly payment on a £33 two-row 36 bass box. After deduction for stamp he was left with 2/8½d!
It was a great night when he made his first appearance at the Plaza in Hilltown. How proud the family were! They were all there of course, plus Gran and Grandad specially come in from Longforgan.
Mum Denham had had a bit of a job persuading Jimmy to wear the fancy purple satin Cossack blouse the promoter had provided for the occasion, but now there he was resplendent, alone in the spotlight – at which he was shaking his head in annoyance. In fact at one point he refused to continue his recital until the power was reduced somewhat.
As Jimmy’s fame spread beyond the town, over to the west, up to the north, south even into England, Isa began to accumulate what was to become a trunkful of presents ; from a single celluloid doll brought from a trip to Aberdeen and on from teenage compacts and such to sophisticated evening wear brooches made from curious New Zealand shells, not forgetting a tea-service in hammered pewter on the occasion of her marrying Sandy Binnie in 1953.
In his earliest days in Dundee there was little to spare for presents.
Later, the basic rate could be improved upon through commission. For a shop sale he got 6d in the £ ; 1/- in the £ for customers he had called on ; 2/- in the £ for personally introducing a customer.
Charles and Jimmy toured around. Charles explaining his system and Jimmy demonstrating in various halls, at a nominal admission charge of 6d. They went as far afield as Yetholn and Lockerbie. And once when Charles was ill the shy Jimmy played and lectured as well! This was at Boarhills near St. Andrews. “Mind you,” he admits, “there was a lot mair playin’ than talkin’!”
Between times he demonstrated in the shop, followed up enquiries, and the bit he didn’t like, having so recently known hardship himself, occasionally went debt-collecting.
Things began to get better all the time.
Tom Walker, sales rep of G. Murdoch Trading Company of Glasgow, heard him playing in the shop one day, and this led to an offer to make records for Beltona, then selling for 1/6d.
Soon he was being featured in their advertising as James Shand alongside such of their stars as another accordionist, Curly McKay ; bothy ballad singer Willie Kemp who also played tin whistle, jews’ harp and occarina ; Donald Davidson, who was then to the mouth-organ what Jimmy was fast on the way to becoming to the button-key accordion.
When the Denhams moved from Princes Street to 150 Hilltown the lodger went with them. There wasn’t the same set up of pletties there, and his at-home playing was confined to the kitchen.
In the flat below lived Mrs Pullar. On day she was talking to Mrs Denham, and mentioned how much she enjoyed Jimmy’s music – “But canna say I care much for yon drum.”
There was no drum ; there was only Jimmy and his accordion…..
Ah! Mrs Denham had it – it was his time-keeping foot!
And after that when he played she saw that he had a cushion to mark time on!
Jimmy’s family and friends had always been welcome at the Denhams. Lately he had been bringing a new friend, Ann Anderson, a pretty young waitress from the Station Hotel, Leven. They had got to know each other through one of her brothers (she was the youngest of nine) being interest in motor-bikes ; also, Jim’s married sister Nancy had gone to live in Leven. On a succession of motor-bikes (“he was quite likely to set out on a Norton and come back on a New Imperial” says pal George Denham ; “terrible lad for swapping and doing deals”), Ann was whizzed back and forth between Leven and Dundee as well as on sundry sight-seeing excursions and visits to relatives.
After her father died they decided to get married.
As was the custom in those days, Forbes’ shop-lassies decorated the groom-to-be with coloured crepe paper and confetti the night before the wedding and led him to his lodgings with rousing cries and songs and a chamber pot of salt with a carrot stuck into it.
Icy roads in Fife next day, the 24th January 1936, made Jim and his family guests half an hour late arriving from East Wemyss at Colinsburgh Town Hall.
The obliging hall-keeper, however, had opened up access to the drink supply with the result that the Anderson’s did not unduly chafe at the delay.
The newly weds had a meal in Woolworth’s upstairs café in Edinburgh while waiting for the train to Peebles, where they spent the honeymoon at the home of Mr and Mrs John Maule whom Jim had become acquainted with some time before through a demonstration tour of the Borders.
Getting a house had been much easier than they had expected, and they returned to Dundee to set up their home at Ellengowan Drive.
Remember Aunt Rachel?
She hadn’t forgotten her nephew, giving lavish assistance with the furnishing.
Later that year he managed to buy his first car, a second-hand Morris 8, for £32 10s.
In 1937 records by James Shand at 1/6d went up to 2/- and were advertised in the People’s Journal as now by ‘Jimmy Shand of Dundee’.
In August the issue of the 7th included a little story with a postage-stamp size portrait –
Dundee has produced many musicians of note. Mr James Shand took his position in the list of those who have made good in this sphere when he made his debut over the air on Thursday night by giving a solo performance on the accordion.
Mr Shand is well fitted for the task. Champion Button Key Accordionist of Scotland (as mentioned further on, this title was bestowed by the record company. In one Championship contest he did take part in, his button-key playing was played second to the piano-accordion of Chrissie Leatham (daughter of Peter, old friend of Jim’s) This was at the Old Metropole Theatre in Glasgow.) he has been playing the instrument since he was six years old, 22 years ago, and is well known all over Scotland. He is accordion demonstrator with J.T. Forbes, Musicseller, Dundee, and a star recordist of accordion music. He has little time for jazz, and prefers the spirited national music of Scotland, Ireland and the Continent…..
Goes as far as the Borders, plays at concerts, dances and garden fetes, and has appeared locally at the Victoria and Plaza at charity performances.
In October 16th issue Charles S. Forbes announced a new discovery, Louis Cabrelli, piano accordionist whom he arranged to have auditioned over the telephone to reps of a record company in Glasgow with gratifying results. News of another kind, however was also appearing…….
On July 10th 1937 the paper quoted Dr R.C. Buist who, addressing the St. Andrews Ambulance Association, raised the possibility of attach from the air, and the suitability of the old railway tunnel running through a shoulder of The Law – the dill that rises over Dundee – as an air-raid shelter…..
Meanwhile Jimmy got on with living up to the title Beltona now advertised his records with – Scottish Champion Button-Key Accordionist. How did he acquire this title?
Rest assured it was not self-bestowed. Just, the record had decided thus to designate him.
Then Forbes called in a film advertising unit and they shot Jimmy with his fingers practically a blur flying over the most intricate passage of The Marquis of Huntly’s Farewell. It was a silent film, and a record of Jimmy’s would be played when the film was shown in cinemas.
He went to see it when it was out on at the Victoria Theatre.
There were the flying fingers all right – but the tune being played was The Bonnie Lass o’ Bon Accord – practically a dirge in comparison!
Louis Cabrelli became Jimmy’s co-demonstrator, and with Forbes they toured all over popularizing both types of accordion.
On occasion a customer would take on something beyond his playing and paying ability ; like one young farm lad who made his down payment and collected a Black Dot Double Ray from a stand the firm had at the Angus Show in Brechin.
A few instalments came in ; then payments ceased. The defaulter had moved to another district and could not be traced for a long time. Then it was heard he was on a farm near Carnoustie, and the next time Jimmy had business up that way he dropped in.
It was a fine summer evening when he knocked on the bothy door ; and right enough the lad opened it.
“Well, Andy, I suppose ye ken whit I’m here for?”
“Aye, Jimmy, the money, or the box. It’ll hae tae be the box, I canna afford it.”
He brought out the accordion, then “Jimmy, would ye – would ye gie’s a wee tune first?”
“Shairly that, lauddie;” and within minutes the old spell was drawing the cotter folk to their doors.
The defaulter craved a last request……..Certainly, his pleasure….Then it must be Dovecote Park, with which Jimmy duly obliged.
“Wait, afore ye tak it awa’ – can I hae a wee tune, a last we tune mysel’?”
“Of course, son;” and the box straps changed shoulders.
Young Andy launched heroically into – into something……
“Aye” said Jimm, “but, ah, well – whit was that, Andy?”
“Dovecot Park of course!”
The moment of truth then seemed to arrive for the would-be exponent, for as he handed the box over he suddenly spat and said “Ach, ye’re a lot o’ bloody swicks anyway’ – ‘Play at Sicht the Same Nicht’ eh? Well, I’ve had the damn thing two years an’ canna play yet!”
Some models seem to have been very reasonably priced. A typical Forbes advert –
Are You A Two-row Player?
Then let Jimmy Shand show you how much easier and better a three-row is to handle. His demonstration costs you nothing – but is worth a lot.
Here, or in the Perth branch, or in your own home ; he visit ALL DISTRICTS
Three-voice, Three-row Instruments (Shand keyboard)
From £7 7s 6d
He composed his first tune while with Forbes : Lunan Bay, which is a wee place up the east coast. Impressed with its beauty? Or maybe it was a tribute to someone who lived there?
Neither. All he had ever seen of Lunan Bay was the sign-post pointing to it which he often passed in his business journeyings in the wee yellow van. The waltz tune soon found a place in Scots Country Dance repertoire and is still popular today. His boss put the music down on paper for him.
Well’ he now was what he had never dreamed of becoming – an established white-collar worker, his hands only controlling the van steering or magically releasing melody from an arrangement of buttons, reeds and bellows, or perhaps in the evening shaping a wooden boat for the Denham laddies.
In October 1938 a picture of Shand and Cabrelli was published in People’s Journal with an account of a great professional honour which had come their way. They had been chosen as the two most outstanding accordion players in Britain, and had been invited to play before 1,000 accordionists at the Annual accordion Day Festival in London the following month.
(Something else was coming in for praise. The old railway tunnel running under the 500ft Law, the town’s hill, could be turned into one of the finest air-raid shelters in the country some spokesman was enthusiastically proclaiming – could hold six to seven thousand easily).
The Accordion Festival was a triumph for both. The year 1938 was a good year. He now had more than a dozen successful records to his name which had become synonymous with the button-key accordion.
Also, he had a lively little son, Erskine, who danced to Dad’s music.
Jimmy and Ann worried about the effect on the bairn of a dampness in the house which persisted despite many attempted remedies.
They decided they would have to move, but good rented houses were not now easy to get.