RT IS said that every writer has
{ 84 one novel in his heart. Every
{3a member of Parliament has one
223 newspaper article in his head.
Most of the members whom I know have
already written theirs. Mine has remained
unwritten because I have always felt sure
that no one would believe it. But it 1s true.
It concerns my young days. I was born and
bred in Parkhead, then a village four miles
from Glasgow. It is now absorbed in that
great city.
Then, as now, Parkhead was the home of
the engineer, and its greatest center was
Beardmore’s Forge. Engineers and labor-
ers were poor. Around them were shop-
keepers, small merchants, and professional
men. The children all went to the same
school, but because they were better clad,
had other manners, and were quicker at
their lessons, the sons of the middle class
tended to keep apart from the sons of
engineers and laborers. The sons of engin-
eers and laborers had a similar inclination
to keep apart from the sons of the middle
class.
As we grew towards manhood, our inter-
ests were different. We, the sons of engin-
eers and laborers, went to night school and
had little money. They, the sons of the
middle class, had the evenings to them-
selves, and they also had money. The
result was that there were two groups of
youths in Parkhead, and it is of these two
groups that I write here.
The middle-class boys formed a sort of
club. There were a dozen of them. They
called themselves “The Jolly Twelve.” 1
knew them all. Their fathers were “hard”
men, fond of money, but not fond of spend-
ing it. They were autocratic and domineer-
ing. They bossed their wives and their
children.
It was partly in revolt against their
fathers and partly in revolt against the
repressive Puritanism of the day that “The
Jolly Twelve” decided to go the pace.
Their mothers were good women, but soft.
It was quite usual then in Scotland for men
to be hard and women to be soft, a fact
which has provided many authors with
themes for novels.
These mothers, themselves the vietims
of the hardness of their husbands, and un-
able to escape, secretly sympathized with
their sons.
“The Jolly Twelve” set out to have a
good time. They called it ‘seeing life.”
They used to spend evenings in Glasgow.
They came back drunk.
By the time we reached the twenties
there were rumors of one or the other being
in trouble. Some lost their jobs and found
difficulty in getting new ones. Some did
not even look for jobs. They became
known as heavy drinkers, great swearers,
and gamblers.
I must say, though, that they were kindly
>» «
[This article first appeared in the May issue
of the Tribune. of Capetown, South Africa.
It was forwarded to us with permission to
print. EpiTor.]
OCTOBER,
1942
soso(—= 4 i
soso —m —4 (
X “The ‘Jolly
Twelve’ set out
to have a good
time.”
THE JOLLY TWELVE
By David hirkwood,
fellows, easy-going, and good-natured.
Even the worst of them was kindhearted,
and every one was devoted to his mother.
My parents warned me against mixing
with them. Other parents warned their
sons. The result was that we formed an-
other group. Boys and young men always
form a club, even if the street corner 1s their
only clubroom. But we were more fortu-
nate, because a man older than ourselves
formed a temperance club, and night after
night we went to it for our fun, mixed with
the gleaning of knowledge.
In due course our boys settled down and
married. Some of us met our wives at the
club concerts and parties. By the time we
were nearly thirty the line of life of the two
groups began to tell. This is what it told
for eleven of “The Jolly Twelve.” The
twelfth I lost sight of.
1. Son of a house agent; committed sui-
cide by poison at thirty.
2. Son of a manager; married at twenty-
eight; two years later found dead with
throat cut.
3. Son of a merchant; cut his throat in a
stable at thirty-one.
4. His brother; went very low; accepted
Member British Parliament
£250 for marrying a girl; disappeared at
twenty-five.
5. Son of a shopkeeper; died in a lunatic
asylum at 30.
6. Son of a shopkeeper; drowned himself
in the Clyde at twenty-six.
7. Son of a shopkeeper; poisoned himself
at thirty-two.
8. Son of a merchant; bairned [betrayed]
a lassie and fled the country.
9. Son of a shopkeeper; jumped from a
bridge into the Clyde at thirty-five.
10. Son of a coal merchant; committed
suicide at thirty-six.
11. Son of a warehouseman; cut his throat
in a Glasgow hotel at thirty-five.
The longest-lived of the eleven died at the
age of thirty-six.
Now trace the line of life of the other
group:
1. Became manager of one of Beard-
more’s mills; died at sixty-three, leaving a
fine family.
2. Went as a young man to the U.S. A.;
sent back at the age of fifty to superintend
erection of vast works in England, of
which he became manager. Still living.
(Continued on page 12)
Page FIVE