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The Hamiltons lived an entirely different life. Although it was farming, it was under glass on a large and lucrative scale. Mr Hamilton's cultural aspirations were once expressed by buying a pianola, but he was too cultured to be able to tolerate the disillusionment this expensive toy brought him; he ceased, almost at once, to play it.
While he was away at work, the household busy with its daily dustings and cleanings, Dudley and his brothers, Stewart and Colin, and I used to try our hand at the machine. Its mechanical attributes, which were in any case more prominent than its aesthetic qualities, were then given a thorough testing. A pleasing effect was obtained by playing the Moonlight Sonata at full speed. Dudley and his brothers also found a way of making the machine play the same piece backward. But despite these novelties there was a lack of variety in what could be done. This, combined with the danger that Mr Hamilton might catch us at it, led us to abandon our experiments. The possibility that Mr Hamilton might vent his hostility to the pianola on us for demonstrating, albeit unconsciously, its maddening defects was real; it could not be ignored by boys with a sense of reality.
Mr Hamilton had a lively sense of his social obligations. He expressed these by being an officer in the Boys Brigade – the ‘B.B.‘, as it was called by the cognoscenti such as ourselves. One day we went to an important anniversary parade. I remember how much I admired his military appearance as he stood in his officers uniform and little pill-box hat waiting to take us all to the parade ground in his Leon Bollet; and the parade itself – hundreds of boys in their black uniforms, white belts and pill-box caps strapped at a jaunty angle to one side of the head!