Secretary to an eccentric…part 1

SOLC DAY 10

I didn’t go to university/college when I left school. My parents had a mountain of debt and I felt not to add to it. I also wanted to be tied to family for as short a time as possible. I did a secretary/linguist one year diploma course at a shabby college in London, where I learned how to touch type and to write shorthand in both English and French.

Touch type always raises a smile for me. Back then it was more like ‘bash type’ as one had to really thump the keys of a manual typewriter to get them to smash the ribbon against the space bar and then crash the handle of the carriage violently from right to left to start the next line of type. When I think back to the whole process now, as I flutter my fingers gently across a keyboard, I marvel at how I had to use such force in that pre-screen world!

I hated everything about being a secretary as I had to concentrate so hard to type and write in shorthand correctly. I constantly mistyped certain words and lost my train of thought while a letter was being dictated to me. I loathed offices and London which was smoggy, dirty and very unfriendly five decades ago.

But this morning as I thought about today’s slice, I recalled the time I became a temporary secretary with an agency in London (slightly preferable to being a permanent secretary and being endlessly stuck in the same office) and twice had the pleasure of working for George (his surname escapes me). He was in his seventies or maybe eighties and from the US. I have no idea how he ended up in London, but I believe he was living off the proceeds of stocks and shares. I think he might have been divorced and any family he had was back in the States. He was small, spritely, eccentric and a great boss.

At the time he was working on a manuscript on the history of marzipan. I kid you not… The first time I was called in to his address in Eaton Square (which today is known as the most expensive address in London!), I didn’t have a great deal of expectation, but his address was within walking distance of the flat I shared with five other girls, so that was a plus. The six of us had been fortunate to have found a first-floor apartment at an incredibly reasonable rent in Cadogan Square just behind Harrods. I shared a bedroom with two other girls which was no big deal after sharing a dormitory with ten at boarding school. Our in joke was that Harrods was the corner store!

George’s place was very small and cramped from memory with a LOT of books. His study where he worked was carpeted with books and documents. His cleaner was not allowed to touch them but had to clean around them. I worked in the kitchen. The cupboards were not filled with kitchen items but folders of his work. He joked that when another document was typed up and ready to file, he would throw out another saucepan.

I have no idea why he was researching the history of marzipan (or marchpane as it used to known as), but it earned me several trips to the British Library that you can only enter with a member’s card.

I’ve just glanced at the clock, I’ve got to go out and this needs to be posted now, so there will be a part two of life with George..!

GRATITUDE DAY 10

I am so thankful that we don’t still use manual typewriters.