FROM MINER LAD TO KNIGHT.

Grey River Argus, Volume 26, 26 May 1919, Page 4

FROM MINER LAD TO KNIGHT.

SIR HARRY LAUDER'S CAREER. Probably the honours list of peace year will contain no name likely to p™ rise to more comment than the | kniplitmjj of II !U ry Lander, the Scotch comedian and singer, and probably none will be received with greater surprise and approbation by the mass of the public. l.auder has had a strange nte. He commenced life early as a trucker-lad in a Scotch colliery, and worked as a miner until he gi ; ew to man's estate. His talent as a singer came out at Saturday night's penny concerts in Glasgow, and at those, 'wee Scots niehts"' that he so often" sings of. Gradually tho magnetism I of his personality, and the catch in his big sympathetic baritone became talked about, and at the same time Sir Harry found that lip could write songs just as good and just as melodious as those hn had been singing. Such talent, could not be hidden long in a coal mine. He was offered engagements one night a week at first and then provincial tours, and all the time lie was improving and perfecting his songs and -earning others. Then he secured a fine engagement at somethinc like £20 a week, and the manager was shrewd enough to tie him ur» in a contract which lasted a. long time — h»w long does not matter. Lauder grew to regret the contract. He know his value bottw, but was in honour hound force to fulfil his engagement. When this was out. his stock went up with a rush, for every manager was after tho braw Scotch' comedian, and ten years his salary ran into nearly four figures per week. He is to receive, exactly £1000 per week on his Australasian tour from J. and Jf. Tait. The knighting of Harry Laudcr is not, however, due to his lowly origin or rapid ascent, in the vaudeville market. LaudeT is a remarkable comedian, and a remarkable man. When a man can bewitch a world with his songs — and what songs are more widely known and sung than his — can do other things. When the war broke ' out Laudcr was in Australia, but on the completion of his tour through that, country he went home, and threw himself into war work with all the fevour and enthusiasm of the most loyal of Scotsmen. He raised a large siim of money for the Scottish war hospitals, invested huge sums in war loans, and then went to America, and in the course of a series of lectures he gave a wavering nation the Allies' view of the wai«" and the Germans. He spoke to hundreds of thousands of people throughout the States, and his frank buffets of speech are said to have had a material influence in sway ing American opinion. The Americans love Lauder for his art, ami when they found the sturdy Scotsman "eyes out" for the Allies, they could neither resist the man or his argument and many in America owe their invest ments in Liberty Bonds to the persuasive tongue and Teady wit ol bir Harry Lauder. It * impossible to measure the value of the work he did in America, but evidently the Kings advisers were aware of it, and brought it under His Majesty's notice at the proper time. Sir Harry Lauder,, who is now in Melbourne was en route from America to Sydney when the news of his knighthood came over the wires.