that had to be changed every time they worked on a different ship, and deducting the cost of their sheet music from their wages. The Amalgamated Musicians Union protested about these enforced terms but their members soon discovered they had little option but to accept them. After deductions bandsmen received little more than a shilling a day while at sea.
Jock, along with the other seven musicians in the Titanic ’s band, was therefore employed by Blacks and not by the White Star Line. Later, this catch-22 loophole would be exploited by both companies to side step their responsibilities.
As a musician, Andrew Hume was not well disposed to Charles and Frederick Black, both of whom he knew well. But he recognised that they enjoyed a close relationship with the White Star Line and might be more forthcoming about news of his son. They were.
Before heading back to Dumfries from Lime Street, Andrew Hume had just enough time to send a telegram home. It said simply:
5
Jock and Mary
A thunderbolt at the Rood Fair
At the beginning of the last century, when Jock and Mary were still at school, Dumfries was enjoying something of a renaissance. Education had become both compulsory and free, with rarely more than fifteen to a class. The philanthropist Andrew Carnegie had funded the building of a large and handsome public library, the Ewart. The town’s Theatre Royal, Scotland’s oldest working theatre, where Robert Burns and J. M. Barrie had regularly performed, embraced the new world of cinema by screening silent films. A bridge was built linking the two communities of Dumfries and Maxwelltown for the first time. Although motor cars were seldom seen on the town’s cobbled streets, an iron foundry began manufacturing vehicles and a dog-cart builder seized the opportunity to build car bodies. The town’s main industry – wool – found profitable new markets overseas.
Opportunities for travel were broadening everyone’s horizons. Railway branch lines had been extended, putting the whole of Britain within reach of Dumfries in a day. By sea, coasters laden with Dumfries sandstone or wool provided a quick and easy link to the major ports of Liverpool and Glasgow – and from there to the rest of the world, as Jock would soon discover. By 1910, the major shipping lines were dominating advertisement pages in the Dumfries & Galloway Standard , offering affordable passages to almost every destination in the world: the United States, Canada, South America, South Africa, Egypt and Australia.
Yet Dumfries, with wool and clog-making still its main exports, kept one foot firmly in the past, holding on to its traditional values and customs. Religion remained a powerful influence on people’s lives, with twenty churches serving eight denominations. Superstitions, some dating back to the Middle Ages, continued to hold people in fear – a bird down the chimney signalling an imminent death in the family. Many children still ran around in bare feet, although all but the poorest now had shoes. Centuries-old traditions carried on as before, particularly the regular fairs held at fixed points in the calendar. These included the ‘hiring’ fairs held twice a year, at which farm workers offered themselves for employment, and the frequent horse and cattle sales, staged weekly on the broad stretch of land overlooking the River Nith at Whitesands, to which gypsies would journey 100 miles or more to sell or buy ponies.
The most important event of them all was the Rood Fair, held on the last Wednesday in September. The Rood Fair started in the sixteenth century as an agricultural show at which livestock and produce were sold and exchanged. By the beginning of the twentieth century it had also become Dumfries’s major social event of the year and been designated a public holiday. People young and old came from miles around, everyone dressing up for the occasion. You could still buy a sheep, a sack of seed potatoes or a bottle of wine shipped
Jock, along with the other seven musicians in the Titanic ’s band, was therefore employed by Blacks and not by the White Star Line. Later, this catch-22 loophole would be exploited by both companies to side step their responsibilities.
As a musician, Andrew Hume was not well disposed to Charles and Frederick Black, both of whom he knew well. But he recognised that they enjoyed a close relationship with the White Star Line and might be more forthcoming about news of his son. They were.
Before heading back to Dumfries from Lime Street, Andrew Hume had just enough time to send a telegram home. It said simply:
5
Jock and Mary
A thunderbolt at the Rood Fair
At the beginning of the last century, when Jock and Mary were still at school, Dumfries was enjoying something of a renaissance. Education had become both compulsory and free, with rarely more than fifteen to a class. The philanthropist Andrew Carnegie had funded the building of a large and handsome public library, the Ewart. The town’s Theatre Royal, Scotland’s oldest working theatre, where Robert Burns and J. M. Barrie had regularly performed, embraced the new world of cinema by screening silent films. A bridge was built linking the two communities of Dumfries and Maxwelltown for the first time. Although motor cars were seldom seen on the town’s cobbled streets, an iron foundry began manufacturing vehicles and a dog-cart builder seized the opportunity to build car bodies. The town’s main industry – wool – found profitable new markets overseas.
Opportunities for travel were broadening everyone’s horizons. Railway branch lines had been extended, putting the whole of Britain within reach of Dumfries in a day. By sea, coasters laden with Dumfries sandstone or wool provided a quick and easy link to the major ports of Liverpool and Glasgow – and from there to the rest of the world, as Jock would soon discover. By 1910, the major shipping lines were dominating advertisement pages in the Dumfries & Galloway Standard , offering affordable passages to almost every destination in the world: the United States, Canada, South America, South Africa, Egypt and Australia.
Yet Dumfries, with wool and clog-making still its main exports, kept one foot firmly in the past, holding on to its traditional values and customs. Religion remained a powerful influence on people’s lives, with twenty churches serving eight denominations. Superstitions, some dating back to the Middle Ages, continued to hold people in fear – a bird down the chimney signalling an imminent death in the family. Many children still ran around in bare feet, although all but the poorest now had shoes. Centuries-old traditions carried on as before, particularly the regular fairs held at fixed points in the calendar. These included the ‘hiring’ fairs held twice a year, at which farm workers offered themselves for employment, and the frequent horse and cattle sales, staged weekly on the broad stretch of land overlooking the River Nith at Whitesands, to which gypsies would journey 100 miles or more to sell or buy ponies.
The most important event of them all was the Rood Fair, held on the last Wednesday in September. The Rood Fair started in the sixteenth century as an agricultural show at which livestock and produce were sold and exchanged. By the beginning of the twentieth century it had also become Dumfries’s major social event of the year and been designated a public holiday. People young and old came from miles around, everyone dressing up for the occasion. You could still buy a sheep, a sack of seed potatoes or a bottle of wine shipped
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