In the days before teabags, my Dad’s office cleaner was a dab hand at telling fortunes from spent tea leaves. Clearing away the teacups, Stella, in her fifties, with small, gipsy-like features, would remark, ‘Ooh, that’s interesting – whose cup was this?’ and the office would come to a halt while she enlarged on what she had seen. Struggling to make a living as a freelance journalist, I was often ‘helping out’ at the office and on one such afternoon Stella pounced on my empty teacup. ‘Your life’s going to change quite a bit,’ she began. ‘Don’t know when, though.’ She described in some detail a building I didn’t recognise and said there was someone, gender unspecified, whose name began with ‘E’, who would be a great help to me. She saw horses in the cup, too. And that was it.
In those days, to help my periodic assaults on the bastions of the 91热爆, I was starting to sell short talks to its European Service. They would go by post and produce by return either a rejection note or a cheque for four guineas – £4/ 4 shillings – for the talk to be offered for translation to the 40-odd language services occupying Bush House in Aldwych. I was never asked to come and record a talk myself, which I dearly wanted and which would have upped the fee to five guineas. In fact, I never actually spoke to anyone there. Dad had a friend who had a friend
whose wife was ‘in the 91热爆’. What she did there we weren’t told but a long promised introduction had not so far materialised.
Previously, I had spent six months as a telephonist with the GPO’s Continental telephone exchange in the City.
There was no direct dialling in those days. If you wanted to talk to someone in Paris or Prague or anywhere in Europe, you had to dial CON and an operator would make the connection. Women manned the switchboards by day, men worked either in the evenings or through the night. All human life was at the other end of a phone. We were, of course, forbidden to listen in to conversations except to check there were no blips on
the line and to log calls when they ended. Frequently there was no conversation at all, just heavy breathing – so eloquent.
I had been forewarned about the man who called every Tuesday asking to be put through to the Pope and no, he didn’t want the Vatican and he didn’t have the Pope’s number, he just wanted to talk to the Pope. The usual procedure was to wait half a minute or so and then tell him the Pope’s number was engaged – we didn’t have it anyway – and could he call again later. ‘Righto,’ he would say, cheerfully, and try again
he did – the following Tuesday.
There were many callers who didn’t have a number; they were duly transferred to directory enquiries. There, although supplied with telephone directories of most of the European capitals, you could check with a local operator, in English for western, French for eastern Europe. Fine, though Moscow’s directory was something of a challenge as it was in Cyrillic.
Some people refused to believe that we operators didn’t have the number they wanted at our fingertips.
‘Get me the George V Hotel in Paris.’
‘Of course, could I have the number, please.’
‘You must know the number, I haven’t got it.’
‘Neither have I, and without it I can’t connect you.
I’ll put you through to Directory.’
‘No, I want the George V Hotel NOW!’
After I left the job, the talk I sent to the 91热爆 about the Continental service earned me the usual four guineas but still no call to record it myself.
Months later, out of the blue one Friday morning, I had a phone call from the head of European Talks. Had I seen the report in the Times that morning about a ‘hotline’ that was being set up between Washington and Moscow?
Yes I had.
‘Well, you know about telecommunications – could you do us a 4½ minute piece about it?’
‘Er… yes, of course; do you have any more details?’
‘No, only the few lines in the Times.’
‘When do you want it?’
‘We’ll send a driver to pick up the script this afternoon
at 3. OK?’
(Gulp) ‘Um… yes, of course.’
This was 10.30am. I started ringing round. The Post Office – they’d get back to me. The US Embassy – they’d seen it in the Times, too, but knew nothing more. The Soviet Embassy – their Press Office has closed for lunch (11am?) and would be back at 4pm.
A security-scared Post Office did indeed ring back – to tell me they had nothing to say and would answer no questions. Somehow I gleaned the information that the hotline, which was to come into use in August 1963, a couple of months later, as a safety arrangement to avoid the likes of the Cuban missile crisis which had so nearly started a world war two years earlier, was a direct teleprinter connection rather than an actual telephone.
A call to the local telephone manager (a now extinct species) to enquire about a trans-continental teleprinter setup for my (imaginary) business and I had as much material as I was likely to get.
I rang European Talks. ‘Don’t send a courier, I’ll bring it in myself.’ It was the opportunity I had been waiting for. In Bush House (Stella’s vivid description came back to me), the Deputy Head of Talks read my piece and said, ‘Fine, let’s go down and you can record it.’ At last.
In the studio I was introduced to the producer in charge. Her name was Elizabeth – the tea leaves’ ‘E’? Bizarrely – and how’s this for a coincidence? – she also turned out to be the elusive wife of Dad’s friend’s friend, and was to become a valued mentor. She had a house in the country, too, and out of the blue that afternoon asked, ‘Do you ride?’