The Postcard
A Commercial Series postcard that was published by J. W. B. of London E.
The card was posted in Devonport on Friday the 24th. December 1909 to:
Master C. Hockridge,
9, Trelawny Road,
Tavistock.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Best wishes for a
Merry Xmas and a
Bright New Year.
M. S."
Cock o' the North
'Cock o'the North' is a 6/8 military march, bagpipe tune, and jig. The title comes from the nickname of Alexander Gordon, 4th. Duke of Gordon, who in 1794 raised the 92nd. Regiment of Foot, which later became the Gordon Highlanders.
The composer is unknown, but it first appeared in print in 1816 as a violin tune.
It was later published in a collection of bagpipe music by Donald MacDonald in 1822, with the title 'The Cock’s Crow'
The tune has always been a march used by the Gordon Highlanders, although it did not become the official regimental march until 1933, when it replaced 'Hielan' Laddie'. Although strongly associated with the Gordons, it has been used by other Highland regiments as well.
At the Siege of Lucknow, during the Indian Mutiny of 1857, 12-year-old Drummer Ross of the 93rd. Highlanders signalled the arrival of his regiment to the besieged garrison, by climbing the spire of the Shah Najaf Mosque and playing 'Cock o' the North' on his bugle, while under heavy fire from the rebel forces.
In 1897, during an attack by the Gordon Highlanders on the Dargai Heights, which were held by Afridi tribesmen during the Tirah campaign, Piper George Findlater won the Victoria Cross for continuing to play a regimental march while wounded in both feet.
The official statement did not give the name of the tune he played; some accounts state that it was 'Haughs of Cromdale' which was the Regimental Charge-tune, others claim it was 'Cock of the North'. Findlater's own account says that he did not hear an order to play 'Cock of the North', and played 'Cromdale' on his own initiative.
Aunty Mary
Aunty Mary is a well-known drinking or bawdy song using the Cock of the North tune. There are a great number of versions with varying degrees of obscenity. They nearly all share the same first two lines. One of the milder versions runs as follows:
'Auntie Mary had a canary
Up the leg of her drawers;
She was sleeping, it was creeping,
Up the leg of her drawers'.
The song features in the surrealist BBC film The End of Arthur's Marriage. Note that the word cross has the same vowel as drawers in Cockney pronunciation:
'Auntie Mary had a canary
Up the leg of her drawers;
It whistled for hours among the flowers
And won the Victoria Cross.
Aunty Judy's budgie went broody
August Bank Holiday
It laid her an egg the size of her head
And frightened the cockerels away.'
A Court Ruling on Armenians
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, on the 24th. December 1909, the federal court in Boston, Mass. ruled in the Halladjian case that Armenians were of the White race, and thus eligible to become naturalised citizens.
Earlier, Jacob Halladjian and three other Armenians were denied citizenship on grounds that they were "Asiatics".
Jean Clemens
The 24th. December 1909 was not a good day for Jane Lampton "Jean" Clemens, because she died on that day.
Jean, who was born on the 26th. July 1880, was the youngest of the three daughters of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, and his wife Olivia Langdon Clemens.
On Christmas Eve 1909, Clemens drowned in a bathtub at her father's home after an apparent seizure.
According to Mark Twain's autobiography, Jean Clemens, like her mother, was a kind-hearted person, and particularly fond of animals. She founded or worked with a number of societies for the protection of animals in the various locations where she lived.
Jean experienced epileptic symptoms from the age of fifteen, which her father attributed to a head injury she had suffered at the age of eight or nine. The family spent years seeking cures in the United States and Europe. Twain also attributed her mood swings and sometimes erratic behavior to her uncontrolled epilepsy.
Isabel Lyon
Twain's secretary, Isabel Lyon, claimed that on two occasions in 1906 Jean physically attacked Katy Leary, a maid for the family, and said she had wanted to kill her.
However in her 2004 biography 'Dangerous Intimacy: The Untold Story of Mark Twain's Final Years', historian Karen Lystra questioned the accuracy of Lyon's account of Jean's violent behavior.
Karen suggested that Lyon manipulated a separation between father and daughter because Lyon hoped to marry Twain.
The Death of Jean Clemens
In December 1909, Jean Clemens was staying at her father's home, 'Stormfield' in Redding, Connecticut, and had decorated the home for the upcoming Christmas holiday.
On the morning of the 24th. December 1909, she was found dead in the bathtub. She had apparently suffered a seizure and drowned. Clemens was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira.
The Death of Mark Twain
Mark Twain died nearly four months after Jean, on the 21st. April 1910.
