Wickhams. A family-owned solicitor’s office on the first floor of an old Edwardian – or perhaps even Victorian – building. The owner was long gone but his grandson was running the accounts department. I was the new office boy, aka general dogsbody, aged 16, and in my first proper job. That is, full-time employment, not merely Saturday work. I had a salary and luncheon vouchers. I was a grown-up.
My work involved pretty much everything except making the tea – and I was probably spared that task because there already was a tea lady. She came around at 10:30 dishing out tea, coffee and biscuits. I shared an office with an old-timer who wore a permanent smile and had shaky handwriting.
I say I had to do “everything”, but perhaps I should be more specific.
This being the days before anyone could make copies themselves, I had to take documents to a print shop across the road. The first time I went the pleasant lady who served me asked me how many copies I needed. I hadn’t been told, but this was before I’d developed some initiative. I answered “Oh, I don’t know”, which prompted her colleague to say to her in a stage whisper “Bloody thick”. I found another print shop to go to after that.
Another task was to rush to a court to give last-minute briefs to barristers, or to other solicitors’ offices to deliver or collect papers. Once when I was running to get the papers to their destination on time I crashed into another boy running in the opposite direction. “Sorry, sorry”, I shouted as his nose erupted in a red fountain.
Every week I would have to write up closed cases in a ledger, and then take the closed files in a box to the company’s store room. I colour-coded the ledger to make it slightly easier to find information – this was in the days before personal computers. I sometimes wonder what happened to those ledgers, or the files, or the warehouse. Were the files eventually digitised? And if so, why? Unless one of the cases happened to be Jarndyce vs Jarndyce, what use would they be to anyone living?
An essential aspect of my work involved going to the delicatessen over the road to buy sandwiches for the senior partners. The sandwiches were freshly made while you waited, and you could have a seemingly infinite combination of type of bread and type of filling.
Once, I was a penny short. “Oh don’t worry about it”, said the person serving me. But an hour later I returned with the missing penny, and the look on his face was one of sheer delight. I think not so much because his books would now be balanced, but because bothering to square a debt was not always in top place on people’s to-do list.
Along the road from the solicitor’s office stood a newsagents, to which I’d be sent to pick up cigarettes. One day I decided to try them for myself. A friend of mine told me, some years later, that a friend of his had gone with him to a pub for the first time in his life. He asked the bartender for a glass of ale, thereby erecting a flashing neon sign above his head announcing “First timer!”. I think my attempt to don an air of sophistication vis-à-vis cigarettes must have come over in the same way, because I asked for “A packet of 10 menthol filter-tipped cigarettes, please”. “Terry!”, gasped the proprietor’s wife. But she sold them to me nonetheless.
The highlight of my day was picking up the post from the post room every day. And not because I have a fetish for opening and distributing mail -- although I still remember the contents of one letter:
Sir
Is your firm still in existence, as there seems to be a one way traffic of correspondence in this case.
I remain, Sir, your humble and obedient servant…”
No, it was because the post room housed the switchboard, which was operated by a beautiful girl with a lovely smile. The problem with being a 16 year-old boy who is reduced to a gibbering wreck when in the presence of an attractive girl is that you’re a 16 year-old boy who is reduced to a gibbering wreck when in the presence of an attractive girl.
Well, she left, and so I was asked to take over. It was an old-fashioned switchboard and when someone asked you to put them through to someone else you had to plug a couple of wires into the requisite slots, and pull a lever to tell the person you were connecting to that there was a call for them.
I never managed to work out which lever to pull out of the two available options in each case. Hardly surprising, given that I’d had no training, had no aptitude for this kind of task, and no interest either. Therefore I always pulled both, to be on the safe side. One day a senior partner came to see me.
“Terry, could you please work out which lever is which? Every time you connect me to someone I receive an eardrum-splitting shriek in my ear.”
Billie should have retired two years ago. I knew that because he told me every single day, generally at several decibels higher than strictly necessary unless you were on opposite sides of a busy road.
“I’m 67 years old. I should have retired two years ago, but if I did this place would collapse.”
He meant it.
One morning he told me to make a call to Mr Jenkins of Johnsons, another solicitors, and to put him through when I’d been connected.
Me: Good morning. This is Terry from Wickhams.”
Girl: Hello.
Before I had a chance to say anything another, male, voice spoke.
Other voice: Hello.
Girl: Hello.
Other voice: Hello.
Girl: Hello.
Other voice: Hello.
Girl: [Aside: This bloke from Wickhams is a nutcase.]
Me: [Charming.]
Other voice: You sound like a nice girl.
Girl. I am.
Other voice: How old are you?
Girl: 17.
Other voice: Ah, 17. I remember when I was 17.
Girl: I bet that was a long time ago.
Other voice: Ooh don’t be like that. I’m only 21.
Girl. Right.
Other voice: How about me taking you out to lunch one day?
Just then Billie burst in.
“It’s OK, forget the call. I’ve sored it out. If it wasn’t for me this place would collapse. I should have retired two years ago. Good job I didn’t. It’s OK, you can hang up now.”
But I didn’t want to hang up. I wanted to hear how this nascent romance blossomed, or didn’t. Did they meet for lunch? Did they end up getting married? Are they sitting with their grandchildren even as I am writing this? I’ll never know!
There was a time I accidentally pulled some wires out. I reconnected them instantly, though the reconnecting left something to be desired:
Woman: So will you be contacting Gilbert?
Man Gilbert? Who’s Gilbert?
Woman: Wait. Who are you?
I was unable to correct my error for several seconds because I was laughing so much I had tears streaming down my face. I was incapable of doing anything sensible.
Eventually, Wickhams made the right call: they brought in a professional switchboard girl. She had the most amazingly sexy voice. Hers was the kind of voice that you hear on complaints lines these days.
Me: I’m going to phone this company and demand my money back. This thing is supposed to last 10 years and has started to go wrong after a week. I’m going to give them a piece of my mind.
Girl with soft, sultry voice: Good morning. How may I help you?
Me: Erm, er, well this product seems to be going wrong…
Girl: Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that, Sir.
Me: Oh no, it’s not too much of a problem. I mean, no need to apologise. It’s not your fault.
Girl: Well, let me see if I can get a replacement sent out to you by Express delivery.
Me: Oh, well only if it’s not too much trouble, I mean it’s a just a minor issue, I mean etc
I happened to be in the area a few years ago, so I thought I’d see if there was anyone from Wickams still around, and who might remember me. But the old building was gone, replaced by a spanking new office block with a plush entrance, subdued tones, and a polished name board. Wickams was not listed.
The deli was gone.
The newsagent was gone.
The print shop was gone.
Perhaps Billie was right after all.
This essay was first published by the Soaring Twenties Social Club on Substack. The original essay was introduced by Tom, the publisher of the STSC, as follows:
“Today’s writer is Terry Freedman from the appropriately named Eclecticism Substack
Eclecticism: Reflections on literature and life
Terry is a prolific writer on all sorts of topics and themes but it is his more autobiographical essays that I personally am drawn to. So I’m absolutely delighted that this is exactly what has come across my desk from Terry.
Terry has a great ability to grasp and capture the everyday, as well as an excellent feel for the quotidian conversations and dialogues that make up so much of our ordinary lives out in the real world. And from this he is able to mine real meaning and insight. Today’s piece is an ample demonstration of all of this a real pleasure to read as a result.
Enjoy.”
For more of my creative nonfiction work, please visit Eclecticism, my own newsletter on Substack. And do subscribe to the STSC as well, for a very eclectic collection of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by a variety of writers.