Unlikely Stories Mostly

by Alasdair Gray

  Left: Modern Cessnock shortly after implementation of the smoke abatement act.

  Right: Old Cessnock from General Roy’s ordnance survey of 1739. Fig. A represents the swamp, B the duckpond, C the McMenamy hovel

  Left: Unimproved duck, after the watercolour by Peter Scott.

  Right: McMenamy’s Improved Duck.

  Above: McMenamy’s Improved Duck Tandem .0005 seconds after launching.

  Below: McMenamy’s Improved Duck Tandem. .05 seconds after launching. (The ducks, though not yet drowned, have been killed by the shock.)

  Vague, however, was modest enough to know that his appliance was improvable. The power generated by a rocking-chair is limited, for it swings through a very flattened arc. His second knitting frame was powered by a see-saw. His Granny was installed on one end with the needles mounted in front of her. Hitherto, Vague had avoided operating his inventions himself, but now he courageously vaulted onto the other end and set the mighty beam swinging up and down, up and down, with a velocity enabling his Granny to turn out no less than eight hundred and ninety caps and mufflers a week. At the next Glasgow Fair she brought to market as much produce as the other knitters put together, and was able to sell at half the normal price and still make a handsome profit. The other inhabitants of Cessnock were unable to sell their goods at all. With the desperation of starving men, they set fire to the McMenamy cottage and the machinery inside it. Vague and his Granny were forced to flee across the swamp, leaving their hard earned gold to melt among the flames. They fled to the Burgh of Paisley, and placed themselves under the protection of the Provost, and from that moment their troubles were at an end.

  Engraving by Shanks in Glasgow People’s Palace Local History Museum showing decadence of that art before Bewick’s advent. Nobody knows if it portrays Provost Coats or McMenany’s Granny.

  In 1727 Paisley was fortunate in having, as Provost, an unusually enlightened philanthropist, Sir Hector Coats. (No relation to the famous thread manufacturers of the following century.) He was moved by McMenamy’s story and impressed by his dedication. He arranged for Vague to superintend the construction of a large knitting mill containing no less than twenty beam-balance knitting the next ten years Vague spent fourteen hours a day, six days a week, swinging up and down on the opposite end of the beam from the woman who had nourished and inspired him. It is unfortunate that he had no time to devote to scientific invention, but his only holidays were on a Sunday and Sir Hector was a good Christian who took stern measures against workmen who broke the Sabbath. At the age of thirty Vague McMenamy, overcome by vertigo, fell off the see-saw never to rise again. Strangely enough his Granny survived him by twenty-two years, toiling to the last at the machine which had been named after her. Her early days in the rocking-chair had no doubt prepared her for just such an end, but she must have been a remarkable old lady.

  Thirty is not an advanced age and Vague’s achievement was crowded into seven years between the ages of twelve and nineteen. In that time he invented the paddle boat and the ironclad, dealt a deathblow to the cottage knitting industry, and laid the foundations of the Scottish Textile Trade. When Arkwright, Cartwright, Wainright and Watt completed their own machines, McMenamy’s crankshaft was in every one of them. Truly, he was the crank that made the Revolution possible.

  McMenamy’s tombstone, Paisley High Kirk, engraved for the 1861 edition of Samuel Smiles’s “Self Help”. (This corner of the graveyard was flattened to make way for a new road in 1911.)

  THE GREAT BEAR CULT

  In 1975 there came straight to Glasgow from a Berlin gig Pete Brown the poet, Pete Brown the friend of Horowitz, Pete Brown the songwriter and sometimes pop-song singer. And I dined with him at the home of Barbara and Lindley Nelson. As usual Pete was with a new girlfriend who received most of his conversation, but first he showed the Nelsons and myself a souvenir of Berlin, and that was what we discussed. It was a street photograph of Pete arm in arm with a bear. Berlin takes its name from a bear, so commercial cameramen prowl the streets with a suitably dressed partner. But though the bear in the picture was a disguised man he appeared so naturally calm, so benignly strong, that beside him Pete (who in isolation is as calm, benign and shaggy as a sapient man can be) looked comparatively shifty and agley. We were also intrigued to find the image in the photograph oddly familiar though Barbara, Lindley and myself had never seen another like it. Did it recall dim memories of our infancy in the thirties when the British bear cult was still a political force? As we discussed what we knew of the cult I realized that the time had come for a television programme on it, one which mingled public archive material (photographs, films and sound recordings) with dramatic re-enactments of what took place in private. In 1975 the British Broadcasting Corporation was celebrating the fiftieth year of its charter, archive material was being daily broadcast and displayed, surely the BBC would be interested? It was not. I discovered that although Lord Reith’s restrictions upon clothing, drink and sexual conduct had for years been matter for jest in the corridors of Broadcasting House and the Television Centre, his tabu upon all reference to the cult after Ramsay McDonald’s famous broadcast to the nation was still in force. The BBC rejected my documentary drama. I offer it here, hoping readers will not be afraid to view it upon the television screen of their minds.

  1 STUDIO INTRODUCTION

  To a recording of The Teddy Bears Picnic the camera advances upon a commentator leaning casually against a table on which is displayed: a fancy-dress bear costume, a toy teddy bear, a Buckingham Palace sentry’s bearskin helmet, a Daily Express Rupert Bear cartoon annual, and a copy of The House at Pooh Corner.

  RECORDING: If you go down to the woods today you re sure of a big surprise!

  If you go down to the woods today you’d better go in disguise!

  For every bear that ever there was

  Has gathered there for certain because

  Today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic!

  COMMENTATOR: If you go down to the woods today, you’d better go in disguise. Yes. And if you were clearing out an old cupboard recently it’s very likely that you found one of these at the back of it. (HE LIFTS THE BEAR COSTUME AND STANDS UP)

  Perhaps curiosity prompted you to try it on. You can slip into them quite easily …

  (HE PUTS IT ON)

  Once the zip is pulled up it’s surprising how warm and comfortable you feel. And then, if you adjust the mask over your head, like this … (HOLLOWLY) you are not only completely weather-proof, your voice has acquired a hollow, resounding note.

  (HE REMOVES THE MASK)

  The costume you found was almost certainly a relic of the great bear cult which swept Britain in the early thirties. Nobody who remembers those years likes talking about them, but most of you watching tonight were born rather later, so perhaps the time has come to give the origins of the cult, its wildfire spread and wholly unexpected collapse, some sort of dispassionate examination. So let me take you back to 1931, a year of world-wide trade-depression and economic crisis. There are nearly three million unemployed in Britain alone. A former socialist is prime minister of a National Coalition government with the conservative leader as his deputy. In Trafalgar Square the photographic business is in a bad way.

  2 TELECINE: TRAFALGAR SQUARE, STUDIO, STREETS, LAWCOURT

  Henry Busby, a licensed street photographer, squabbles with two others for the custom of a foreign visitor (“I saw him first!”) who manages to escape all of them. Henry returns glumly to his studio and to George, his brother and partner. Ruin faces them. Must they also join the armies of the unemployed? Henry has a sudden idea – he has heard that in Berlin the street photographers have partners dressed like bears because there is a bear on the city coat of arms. Why not try that here? George objects that London has no bear on its coat of arms and people come to Trafalgar Square to be photographed with pigeons. Henry shows a newspaper photograph of people queuing in hundreds to see a new bear acquired by London Zoo. Bears are popular –
Rupert Bear in the Express, Winnie the Pooh etc. He rents a skin and persuades George to put it on. George finds it surprisingly comfortable. They go out into the streets arm-in-arm and reach the Square followed by a small crowd of laughing onlookers.

  HENRY: Come on now, who’ll be first to be photographed with this fine chap?

  They do a brisk trade, drawing clients from their competitors, who complain bitterly that the bears are frightening the pigeons. But next day when they return to the Square they find the other photographers also accompanied by bears, a black bear, a polar, and a child dressed as a koala. They protest. A brawl develops. The bears are arrested, fined and bound over to keep the peace. However, the press and BBC are glad of some comic relief from a grim world situation, and the matter is widely publicized. The queues to see the new bear at London Zoo grow longer. The Teddy Bears’ Picnic becomes a popular hit. Furriers start marketing teddy bear suits for children.

  3 ARCHIVE MATERIAL: RECORDING OF BBC NEWS PROGRAMME IN TOWN TONIGHT

  Dr. Karl Adler, discoverer of the inferiority complex, is visiting London for an international psychiatric conference. A BBC interviewer asks his opinion of the growing enthusiasm for bears. He replies that though the bear cult is (he believes) of German origin he feels it is destined to make great headway in Britain. He is asked the causes of the cult – why not an elephant or a tiger cult?

  ADLER: In the first place a bear is one of the few creatures that do not look ridiculous when walking about upon their hind legs. But there are more significant reasons for their popularity. They are not normally flesh-eaters – their favourite food is honey and buns – so women and children feel safe with them. But they have claws and teeth which they can use if threatened, so men can identify with them without losing their self-respect. In my opinion a civilization such as ours has much to gain from this cult. The greatest part of a psychiatrist’s work is with people who feel inadequate as human beings, and considered objectively most of them are physically and mentally inadequate; but dressed in a properly padded skin they make surprisingly adequate bears …

  4 TELECINE: STUDIO, STREET AND LAWCOURT

  The words of the interview emanate from a wireless-set in George and Henry’s photographic studio. George, wearing the bearskin without the mask, sits reading a newspaper. Henry switches off the wireless, saying irritably:

  HENRY: What blasted rot! … Take that thing off,

  George.

  GEORGE: No. I’d feel cold.

  HENRY: I feel cold, but do I complain?

  GEORGE: Yes, all the time.

  HENRY: Then you might have the common decency to give me a shot!

  GEORGE (STANDING): I’m going for a walk. HENRY: Like that?

  GEORGE: Yes, why not? This is a free country. And I’m comfortable in it.

  (HE FITS THE MASK OVER HIS HEAD) HENRY: But you look utterly ridiculous … what’s the use in talking? When you’ve your mask on you might as well be deaf.

  George walks slouch-shouldered through Soho followed by a small jeering crowd, most of it children. He meets another bear followed by a similar crowd. Coming abreast they glance at each other’s muzzles, suddenly stand erect, put their backs to the wall, roar and menace their persecutors with their paws. The children stop laughing and run away. The remaining adults calls the bears “cowardly brutes” and one or two of the most belligerent accuse them of being “afraid to fight like men”. The other bear hangs back but George flings himself on the critics and is badly beaten up in an affray which knocks over a costermonger’s barrow. He is rescued by the police and accused of provoking a riot. He is brought before Lord Goddard, a highly punitive judge of the period. There is a man dressed like a bear in the public gallery and the judge begins by having him removed by the ushers. George’s lawyer makes a dignified and convincing defence, pointing out that the accused has been the only person to physically suffer, that he was outnumbered and unjustly provoked etc. Nonetheless, the judge sees George as “one of these misguided individuals who seem determined to lead Britain backward to an age of primitive savagery” and condemns him to an unusually savage term of imprisonment, while regretting that the laws of the land make it impossible to have him publicly flogged into the bargain. George, asked if he has anything to say to this, responds with dignity and courage.

  GEORGE: I do not blame the children who mocked me – I do blame the parents who failed to restrain them. I can’t blame the roughs who attacked me – I do blame the society which deprives them of honest employment and leaves them with nothing to do but roam the streets jeering at innocent animals. For I am innocent! Bears are strong, but bears are gentle! Lastly, I blame neither the police or the laws of Britain for bringing me here, but I will say this! I would rather wear a bearskin, and stand in the dock, than wear a wig, and sit on the bench, and pass such an inhumanly cruel sentence as you, my Lord, have passed upon me!

  (A STORM OF APPLAUSE SWEEPS THE COURT. THE JUDGE ORDERS IT CLEARED.)

  5 ARCHIVE MATERIAL: NEWSPAPER STILLS AND PATHE NEWSREEL CLIP

  We see headlines denouncing unkindness to bears in popular and progressive newspapers, then photographs of bears at Hyde Park Corner demanding justice for their martyred brother, bears with collecting cans gathering money for an appeal fund; processions of bears with banners urging George’s release; then the banner headlines announcing that the appeal has been upheld. A newsreel clip shows George emerging from the wicket-gate of Wands- worth prison to be confronted by a cheering crowd, a third of it wearing bearskins. Two supporters assist him into one. He makes a speech before donning the mask.

  GEORGE: Fair play has triumphed! For myself I am happy, but for my fellow Bruins I am jubilant. The British people have always admired us for our gentleness; they are now learning to like us for our strength, and believe me, we live in an age when strength was never more necessary. Sinister forces are abroad in the world, forces eager to tear the fur from our backs and the buns from the muzzles of our cubs. We must organize!

  (HE PUTS ON THE MASK AND EMITS A HOLLOW ROAR)

  A rapid montage of stills shows the growth of the cult, starting with trademarks for Bear-brand stockings, Polar-mints and the Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer panda growling through its celluloid arch. We see photographs of a beargarden-party at Cliveden House which the German ambassador attends in the costume of a prehistoric grizzly. In Oxford Street shop windows expensively furred bears posture among the wax dummies. In poorer districts you can buy costumes made of rabbit-skin. In Piccadilly Circus furry prostitutes attract pinstriped businessmen by throatily roaring.

  6 TELECINE: A SUBURBAN BUNGALOW

  An insurance clerk, Mr. Osborne, returns excitedly from his work in the city carrying a big wrapped box.

  MR. OSBORNE: I’ve bought you something, my dear.

  MRS. OSBORNE: Ooh let me see, what is it?

  (MR. OSBORNE TEARS OFF WRAPPING AND LID. HIS WIFE STARES INTO IT)

  MRS. OSBORNE: Not one of those!

  MR. OSBORNE: Why not? They’re all the go you know.

  MRS. OSBORNE: But I don’t want to be a bear. I want to be a squirrel, a super squirrel with a great big bushy tail.

  MR. OSBORNE (FIRMLY): No! You’ve got to be a bear.

  (HE TAKES A PEAKED CAP FROM THE BOX AND CLAPS IT ON HIS HEAD)

  I’m going to be the keeper.

  6 ARCHIVE MATERIAL: NEWSPAPER STILLS AND PATHE NEWSREEL CLIPS.

  We see photographs of main streets in Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow with a high proportion of bears among the passers-by. At Brighton and Blackpool they are being photographed in family groups. Then, in newsreel, we see a guard in a sentry box outside Buckingham Palace. His conical steel helmet has a Prussian spike projecting from the top, a Norman nosepiece and Viking horns sticking out each side.

  NEWSREEL COMMENTARY: For more than eleven hundred years – ever since the days of Ethelred the Unready – the Guards of the British Royal Family have worn the traditional horned helmet, popularly known as the Wanky.

 
(WE SEE THE HORNED HELMET BEING PLACED IN A GLASS CASE)

  NEWSREEL COMMENTARY: Today the Wanky is consigned to a niche in the Imperial War Museum and the guards are on parade wearing a new kind of headgear! Bearskin helmets!

  (WE SEE THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD) NEWSREEL COMMENTARY: Traditionalists may sneer, but throughout the Empire many will find reassurance in the thought that the British monarchy is able and willing to move with the times.

  To the tune of The Teddy Bears’ Picnic, photographs and headlines show George Busby becoming eminent through the British Bear Cult. We see him attending rallies in public parks where bears hug each other and share buns and honey in perfect freedom.

  RECORDING: Every teddy bear who’s been good is sure of a treat today!

  There’s lots of wonderful things to eat and marvellous games to play!