Lizzy May – Chapter 9

A Foot in the Door

‘Really Not the Thing,’ by Steve Fendt

Summer 1976

I soon got fed up with working for London County Council, I can tell you. It was a huge organisation with endless levels of bureaucracy. The chances of a lady clerk working her way up to a role that had variety and responsibility – well, they were non-existent, in those days.

So I started to look around for something more interesting. I’d always enjoyed writing essays and stories at school, so I wondered whether journalism might be the thing for me. It was a field still completely dominated by men, but I thought there might be a chance to do some freelance writing, if I got a foot in the door.

It took a while, but eventually I got my chance. I got a job as a shorthand typist at the Daily News, on Bouverie Street off Fleet Street, in the City of London. I liked the editorial standpoint: it was progressive, not one of those stuffy Tory papers. There were national and international stories from the paper’s own correspondents – thoughtful and independent, not just repeating what the rest of the press was saying. Even more interesting for me, there were articles about the theatre, music and books.

Fleet Street was the centre of the British newspaper industry, and everyone knew everyone. It was exciting, but also brutal, with the bullying, the backstabbing and the rumour mill, and you had to watch out, as a young single woman, or you’d end up being exploited by the powerful men who ruled the roost.

In the event of a scandal, you see, the men would close ranks, and you’d find yourself out in the cold. It was what they call the ‘old boy network’, and I’m sure it’s still alive and well on Fleet Street today.

So, a girl had to keep her wits about her. But your Nan wasn’t short of wits, in those days, Pauly. I loved it, to be part of this huge, powerful machine! Right in the beating heart of London, the greatest city on Earth.

Or at least, we Londoners liked to think so.

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I also loved classical music, as you know I still do. So I used to go to the free lunchtime concerts at St Martin-in-the-Fields, on the corner of Trafalgar Square. It was only five minutes’ walk from work, you see.

It’s still a lovely church, with its tall Neoclassical columns and ornate white spire. Thank goodness Hitler’s bombs didn’t destroy it, though they broke all the beautiful old stained glass. You should take a look, next time you go up to London with your friend Gary or what’s-his-name, William.

Unless something urgent came up, I had three quarters of an hour for lunch, which was generous in those days. It was because my boss, the Culture and Entertainments editor, took great long lunchbreaks himself, two hours or more. Sometimes he wouldn’t come back to work at all, or would roll in mid-afternoon reeking of whisky and cigars. As far as he was concerned, chatting with his pals at the Club was a ‘working lunch’.

He may not have taken his role very seriously, but he was kind to me.

So I often had time to hurry down Fleet Street and the Strand and slip into the church, just as the concert was starting, and squeeze into one of the back pews. I’d take my lunch with me – a sandwich usually. You weren’t supposed to eat in the church, not really, but nobody minded as long as you didn’t draw attention to yourself.

I remember this one concert particularly.

It was a cold, rainy Monday in June 1926, just a few weeks after the general strike. The programme advertised short pieces by Debussy, Ravel and Satie – very avant-garde for a church concert, but then St Martin’s always was adventurous. I particularly wanted to hear Ravel’s Tzigane. Do you remember we listened to his La valse last week? So much more interesting than Boléro, which is the one everyone knows, of course.

I couldn’t believe my luck: there was a free spot near the front, with a clear view. I scurried down the aisle, trailing drips probably, and squeezed along the pew, to tuts from people who didn’t appreciate getting wet knees from my sopping coat.

Tzigane isn’t a long piece, only ten minutes or so. It was composed for solo violin and piano, though it’s often played by a whole orchestra. It was inspired by gypsy music, but it jumps around in surprising ways. To some in those days, it was shocking or ridiculous, not what classical music ‘ought’ to be like.

The violinist, a Russian I think, was very good. To hear this strange and beautiful music in such a perfect setting – it was wonderful.

I was spellbound.

The one thing that spoiled it was a man just in front of me. He kept fidgeting, sighing and harrumphing – obviously he wasn’t enjoying the piece one bit. Before long, he fumbled in his pockets and bent forward. There was the flare of a match, then smoke.

He’d lit up his pipe!

He was puffing away at the blessed thing like a locomotive building up steam. Soon there was a great cloud of tobacco rising towards the marvellous stuccoed ceiling, all white and gold.

Well, that really wasn’t the thing to do.

It was a secular concert, of course, but this was still a church, not a jazz club. There was muttering from all sides.

I wasn’t having it. As soon Tzigane finished, I tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Sir, would you mind putting out your pipe, please?’ I said to him.

He turned to face me. I thought he was going to argue, and I think he thought so too.

He was a dapper man, very smartly dressed in a three-piece suit, with jet black hair slicked back and the pencil moustache that was fashionable in those days. He looked like he might be in his forties.

I thought he looked a bit of a spiv, to be quite honest with you, Pauly.

He looked at me, I glared at him, and his frown turned to a little smile.

‘For you, Miss? Anything,’ he said, with a twinkle in his eyes.

He made a big production of knocking out the blessed pipe. Tap tap tap, scrape scrape scrape. It was to tease me, I’m sure.

I was fuming. Who the blazes did this jumped-up, self-important twerp think he was?

And that, Pauly, was how I met your grandfather.

He was the most infuriating man I’ve ever known. And the most interesting.

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Coming up:

This Friday in Tales from the Wood: Pauly and Will conduct experiments. Meanwhile an alliance exacerbates the bullying problem. (Paid subscriptions.)

Next Tuesday in Lizzy May: Lizzy May’s acquaintance with the Very Annoying Man deepens. A natural disaster makes her homeless.