Eye on Millig: Helensburgh's links to the golden age of variety

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HELENSBURGH features twice in the latest edition of a show business magazine.

‘Stagedoor’ is the newsletter of The Scottish Music Hall & Variety Theatre Society, which is in its 40th anniversary year and incorporates The Sir Harry Lauder Society.

The newly-published spring edition reports that on Saturday, June 22, society member John Short will give an illustrated talk on the Logan family, which of course includes the late Jimmy Logan, Helensburgh resident and a former honorary president of the Helensburgh Heritage Trust.

The lunchtime talk to society members, which is thought likely to prove very popular, is entitled ‘The Logans and Me’, and family member John describes them as Scotland’s premier showbiz family.

The society features Jimmy and another comedian from Helensburgh, Lex McLean, on its website, and of course Helensburgh actress Jean Clyde was a close friend of Sir Harry Lauder.

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A special feature in this edition is the story of Helensburgh ‘boy singer’ Master Joe Petersen, who was in fact Mary O’Rourke. She also appeared under the names of Master Wilfred Eaton and Michael Dawnay.

Mary was born at 6 Maitland Street on July 26, 1913, the 12th of 14 children of Hannah O’Rourke and her Irish mason’s labourer husband Joseph, who were married in the town on September 16, 1892.

Singing was very much a family pastime, and both Mary and her brother Joe — the ninth child, born on May 6, 1909 — were considered experts in nostalgic songs before they reached the age of ten, perhaps because of their Irish family background.

In 1915 the family moved to Glasgow and father James had risen to become a joiner.

In the hard times during and following the First World War, people did what they could to make their own entertainment.

The diminutive Mary and Joe sang at home, in school concerts, at parties, at talent shows, and on other special occasions. They appeared together regularly, mostly separately but sometimes as a double act.

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Mary left school in 1927 and took a job. By 1932 she was making a name for herself in Scotland as a music hall singer, and her ambition was to be a dance band singer in London.

So she moved to the capital at the age of 17 to live with her Cockney uncle, entertainer and impresario Ted Stebbings, and his second wife Minnie Irvine, who was her mother Hannah O’Rourke’s sister, in Islington.

At this time boy singers had become the rage, but their voices had the bad habit of breaking. Ted had the brainwave that the now 18-year-old Mary could pass off as a boy, and so could take the place of his other boy singers.

She was not keen, but her uncle was persuasive, and she learned how to sing songs in a higher pitch than her normal alto voice.

Mary joined the famous Harry Bidgood’s Dance Band as a good singer who could impersonate a boy singer to perfection, and she was soon making records with the band.

By 1935 she was being publicised by Rex Records as Joe Petersen, The Phenomenal Boy Singer, and she recorded 59 'Master Joe' 78rpm discs for the Rex label between 1934 and 1942.

She was also recording as Wilfred Eaton and Michael Dawnay, and for ten months the public bought gramophone records on two different labels by two different named boys singers — when in fact they were both Mary, now aged 20.

By 1937-8 Master Joe — her chest tightly bandaged to flatten it — was top of the bill in leading British theatres with her electrifying stage presence, and her records were being broadcast on continental radio stations.

This was to be the height of Mary's fame.

She was now an international star, but was banned from broadcasting on the BBC because the powers-that-be considered her improper for dressing as a boy — although they did not explain how this affected her radio performances!

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In 1939 she was recording the hit songs of the day, but World War Two badly hit the gramophone record industry, and in 1942 the last Master Joe record was issued.

Mary was not heard of again south of the border until the late 1950s, and for the rest of her life she was a star only in Scotland.

On May 17, 1933, she had married advertising clerk George Lethbridge, from Islington, a semi-professional violinist, after becoming pregnant.

But it was not a happy marriage, despite the birth of their daughter Margaret, known as Margo, in 1934, and she developed a very serious drink problem.

In 1942, with her daughter at a Convent boarding school, she returned briefly home to Scotland, and for the next three years alternated between London and Glasgow.

After the war, in which her husband reached the rank of Major, their marriage continued to have problems, and she left him several times.

Mary was also badly affected by the deaths of her father in 1944 and her beloved brother Joe the following year.

In 1952 she finally parted from her husband, home and Margo, and returned to live alone at Hamilton Street in Polmadie, Glasgow.

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She was still much in demand as a performer, appearing with favourite artists such as Jimmy Logan, Tommy Morgan and Chic Murray.

Writer Jim Friel saw many of Mary's appearances in the Logan Family shows, and with Tommy Morgan at the Pavilion.

He said: “She always brought the house down and got several encores and was one of the finest singers I have heard. She sang sentimental songs with such a superb voice.

“The spotlight would be on her, and you would just see her wee white collar and face.”

But by now Mary was an alcoholic, and she developed chronic bronchitis and a heart condition.

As late as 1963, she was still appearing as Master Joe, with stars such as the Alexander Brothers, Johnny Beattie, Andy Stewart and Robert Wilson.

She took part in the final show at Glasgow’s Empire Theatre on Sunday, March 31, 1963.

Mary died of bronchitis at her home on Christmas Eve 1964, at the age of 51. She was interred in the same grave in St Peter’s Cemetery, Dalbeth, as her father, brother Joe and sister Sara.

A Glasgow evening paper said of her: “Her death is a great loss to the theatre world. She was a great entertainer.”

Well-known Scottish actress Fletcher Mathers, whose TV credits include ‘Taggart’ and ‘Dr Finlay’, wrote a play, her first, about Mary. She described her as “an incredibly talented and tragic figure”.

Her rendition of ‘My Ain Folk’ is considered by many to be one of the all-time top 20 Scottish songs.

It is included on a CD from the Lismor Recordings Preservation Series, which is available from MusicScotland.com – and in fact the owner of Lismor Records paid for a headstone to be erected on her grave.

Anyone interested in joining the society – which, as well as publishing the quarterly magazine, runs various events, including lunches, exhibitions and theatre visits – should contact Bob Bain, the secretary for more than 20 years, at 69 Langmuirhead Road, Auchinloch, Kirkintilloch, G66 5DJ.

Email: milligeye@btinternet.com