as I knew it.
The place was chaos. A warren of small rooms, each one crowded with heavy wooden desks piled high with papers. The windows were small and grubby, and almost obscured by heaps of papers and files. There were papers everywhere. Piles of yellowing newspapers, on the floor, in corners, on windowsills, blocking doorways. Health and safety would have had hysterics. Especially as there was also a thick cloud of smoke. Everyone seemed to be smoking.
One stray fag end in that lot …
Peggy was leading the way along a narrow corridor of bare and battered floorboards. Then she led me into an outer office, hung up her coat and knocked reverentially on an inner door. ‘Good morning Mr Henfield.’ She was almost simpering. ‘I’ve brought Rosie Harford.’
Richard Henfield looked exactly like his photograph. That was a nice touch, I thought, well researched. Middle-aged, specs, moustache and pipe. Nice eyes, weak chin. ‘Ah yes, you’re with us for a few weeks.’
‘Apparently,’ I said with a winning smile. There must be a camera in here.
‘So tell me what you’ve done.’ He leant back in his chair and stared at me. It wasn’t a particularly nice stare.
‘Well, after my degree, I did a post-graduate diploma in journalism and worked on a weekly paper for a while. For the last few years I’ve been a general reporter, then on the business desk, and now I’m a features writer, specialising in social and consumer issues.’ Smile again.
‘Well, aren’t you a clever little girl,’ he said, gazing at my boobs.
Really! My fingers itched to slap his pompous, patronising, sexist face. But smile, Rosie, smile. I smiled.
‘Better see what you can do then,’ he said, standing up to put his arm around my shoulders – not nice, he smelt of stale tobacco and sweat and half-digested meat. Didn’t the man shower? – and led me back along the corridor and into one of the crowded smoky rooms, where an oldish man in a trailing overcoat was sitting with his feet on the desk reading a paper, while a woman talked on the tele-phone. Two other men were picking up their coats as if on their way out.
I ostentatiously removed myself from Henfield’s arm. That smell was taking reality TV a bit too far.
‘Is Billy about?’ asked Henfield.
‘Assizes,’ said the man, hardly lifting his eyes from the paper. Seeing me, his beady eyes lit up too and he gave me and Henfield his attention.
‘OK Gordon,’ Henfield said. ‘This is Rosie. She has a degree and a diploma and knows all about business and social issues.’ He said it in a sarcastic, mocking tone.
‘Very fancy,’ muttered the woman behind him, putting the phone down and lighting a cigarette.
‘She’ll be here for a few weeks and no doubt she has many talents to reveal,’ he leered. ‘And a lot to show us.’ He and Gordon gave each other knowing glances and then both looked me up and down, when, thank God, Peggy came along simpering, ‘There’s a phone call for you Mr Henfield,’ and off he went.
‘Smarmy bugger,’ muttered the woman. Promising. Then looking at me, she added, ‘I’m Marje, by the way. Well, let’s see what you can do then.’
‘Anything,’ I said, all keen and eager and desperate to get stuck into a decent story.
‘Kettle’s over there,’ said Marje. ‘No sugar for me, two for him’ – pointing at Gordon who’d gone back to reading the newspaper – ‘and the cups need washing. Down the corridor at the very end and don’t wait for the hot water, because there isn’t any.’
Did I have a sign saying ‘skivvy’ stuck to my forehead?
Gordon was the News Editor. When he’d stopped eyeing me up and down he had decided I was barely worth considering. ‘You’d better follow Marje around for now,’ he said as he took his tea without a thank-you. ‘She can show you the ropes. There’s a couple of golden weddings in the book. You should be able to manage those between you.’
Golden weddings! I hadn’t done those since my early days on the weekly. But off I went dutifully with Marje. We had to walk to the old people’s houses. There seemed to be only one van for the staff, and the photographers used it all the time. Reporters had to walk.
Marje strode briskly along.
‘Have you been on The News long?’ I asked, with the little breath I had left. She was setting a cracking pace and I was struggling to keep up.
‘Since the war,’ she said. ‘I was on the switchboard and when all the men got called up there was only me and old Mr Henfield left, so I started doing everything.’
The war again.
‘Young Mr Henfield, the one who’s editor now, was in the army. And Gordon and most of the others. John, the Chief Sub Editor, was in the RAF – got the DFC but he never talks about it. The younger ones weren’t, of course. Billy and Phil were just a bit too young, lucky for them. But they’ve done their call-up and their fifteen days since.’
‘Fifteen days?’
‘Yes, you know. Two years’ national service and then fifteen days every year for three years. Don’t they do that in America?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said vaguely, too fed up to argue about this American business. ‘Something very like.’
I was really getting into this 1950s thing. It was almost as if I were really there. But it was a bit worrying that everyone else seemed to have done so much research. Maybe they’d had more notice than I had. That wouldn’t be hard. Ah well, I would just have to wing it. Tricky though. I was trying to get my head around the fact that the war had only finished ten or eleven years ago, because that was as if, well that was as if it had been finishing just when I was doing A levels. Weird.
Walking along, I could see bits of the present town but not many. I had to say that the TV company had been very thorough. You could almost believe you really were back in the 1950s. There were so many more shops, for a start, lots of little ones. Lots of butchers, a couple of bakers. No candlestick-makers, but a fishmonger, two bookshops, lots of tobacconists, a wool shop, toy shop, baby clothes, another couple of chemists, a china shop, a couple of ironmongers. No supermarkets, but grocers’ shops like Home and Colonial, and Liptons … To be honest, it all looked a bit run-down.
Then I could smell it … coffee. Proper coffee …
‘Oh Marje, can I really smell coffee?’
‘Probably Silvino’s is just around the corner.’
‘Silvino’s?’
‘Italian coffee bar.’
‘Oh glory be. We haven’t got time, have we? Just for a quick coffee. I’m longing for coffee …’
‘No time, sorry,’ said Marje and I had to ignore the tantalising smell as we hurried off to the first golden wedding. Nice couple. (Recipe for happy marriage – he always tipped up his pay packet on a Friday night and she always had a hot meal ready for him.)
Luckily, George the photographer turned up to take their picture
