Tales From A Law Office - Part One

I was walking along Whitehall . It was a hot July morning. It was a Monday. My stomach was in knots. The previous Wednesday I had been at school celebrating my very last day as "a child." Now, here I was on my way to my first employment at W.G.S. & Company, Solicitors at Law. No longer would I have teachers to support me, now longer could I run to my parents if things did not go as planned. I was out in the wide world on my own.

As I looked up towards Trafalgar Square, I remembered all the wonderful days I had spent exploring London and how I longed for this to be just such a day. A day where I could wander historic lanes and alleyways, browse in little shops, stroll the vast rooms of the National Gallery, visit historic churches, ramble around the Tower of London or cruise down the Thames.  No, today was different. I was employed. I had allowed myself plenty of time so was very early and decided to walk the length of Whitehall. I was overawed by the government buildings, so grand, so imposing. I was very conscious of my high heels clack-clacking on the pavement. Then I reached my destination. A tall high narrow building right next to the Whitehall Theatre and only yards from Trafalgar Square.

Stepping into that place was like a journey back in time. Outside might have been like many other buildings in this imposing road but inside it was like something out of Dickens! Heavy dark furniture, gloomy walls, nothing bright and airy about it to lift my spirits. I was greeted by the office boy who showed me up to where I was going to work. A tiny office with four desks. My desk was next to the desk of Miss P.I. Miss I to my mind, seemed almost as old as the office furniture. Looking back, she would have been in her fifties. A tiny birdlike woman in twin set and pearls. Nothing passed her. She ruled her little kingdom with an iron hand. She had been with the firm all her working life and retired home each night to a lonely little flat, her aging mother and her cat. She was very suspicious of this "newcomer."

For the first few days I was just given mundane tasks to do, taking some of the load from the two general typists until they got to know if my work was up to standard. I did not meet any of the men who manned the place except to see an occasional head poked around the door. But, it had to come. I had to face the great Mr.W.G.S. himself and the two general typists bombarded me with stories of how difficult he was and how I had better prepare myself. Miss I, who was his personal secretary, said nothing.

The day came. I was told to take my shorthand pad and pencil along the corridor as Mr. S. wanted to give me some dictation. To this day I can still remember the way my heart pounded. After all, this was the BIG man, the founder of the firm himself. I had to knock three times on his door, each one louder, until I got the command to enter. What a shock! If I thought that the furniture in other rooms was Dickensian, it was nothing compared to this place. The room was vast, it was a cavern. Huge windows on one side, grimy and in need of a good wash. A massive Grandfather clock in one corner with a tick so heavy and loud it was a wonder that the whole of Whitehall did not reverberate to it, a massive oak desk so vast that quite a few people could have danced on the top of it. Endless bookcases, floor to ceiling, full of dusty tomes on all aspects of the law and everywhere files. Piles of them. Heaped in corners, heaped behind the desk, great teetering mountains of them. One slam of the door would have brought the whole lot down. It was dark, I had to peer into the gloom searching for some sign of a person. Sunlight never entered here. Suddenly, from behind a huge pile of papers he appeared, instantly standing upright. I had stepped back into the Victorian era! He was tall, very tall, well over six feet and very thin with rheumy eyes. He was well into his eighties. He wore a high starched collar and a long frock coat, glasses perched on the end of his nose, sparse white hair plastered down. He gave the appearance of being dusty himself, as though he had worn those clothes since the day that he entered the world, it was as if he and the office had been born at the same time and in another century. He peered at me down his long eagle-beaked nose. For a time there was only the ticking of the clock. Then "well, sit down gel, sit down". I had to clear a pile of files from the chair which faced his desk. I said "Good morning sir" to which he replied "Eh?" I repeated my salutation. Again the "Eh?". My heart started to pound, I wanted to escape. Then "You'll have to speak up gel, I am deaf you know, I am deaf" and he wildly gesticulated to his ears and turned his head so that I could see the deaf aides.

I sat down pencil  in hand and waited. Work commenced. It took a long time. He could never seem to find the papers that he was looking for, clouds of dust lifted into the air and hung there as he rummaged. He had the habit of dictating very fast and then falling silent. He spoke so fast that I could scarcely get it down. Every so often he would ask me to read back what he had dictated and I would get so nervous that my shorthand seemed like coiling snakes to me. Luckily I had a very good memory and could reel off lots of it by that alone,  although I did make the occasional mistake.

Then would come the interludes. I would sit waiting, nothing would happen. He would sit there totally silent with his eyes narrowed or sometimes closed. Several times I thought he had actually nodded off. I would sit patiently waiting, listening to the loud thumping of the clock and looking out of dirt smeared windows onto the rooftops of London buildings seeing how streaked they were with pigeon droppings and often seeing another bird add its own little package to the white mess. Then he would scare the hell out of me by suddenly thumping hard on his desk or leaping to his feet saying "Ah, got you that time gel, got you - you thought I was asleep didn't you, you thought I was asleep." He was very hard on the nerves was Mr. S.

You were never quite sure when dictation was over. All would fall silent, I would wait only to be told "well, what are you waiting for gel, get on with it, get on with it, time is money". Obviously I needed the files to work with. He had his own way of giving you those. He would throw them at you - literally. Files would come hurtling across the desk, some losing papers on the way so that I had to scrabble on the floor to retrieve them. His aim was pretty accurate but you had to watch it when the box files came. They could take your eye out! I soon learned to drop my pad and pencil and give my full concentration over to catching the flying documents. After a while I became expert at snatching them in mid flight. On looking at Mr. S. I could swear I always detected the trace of a twinkle in his eye.

Next installment: Mr. F. and Indian clubs.