Hi there
Here's episode 3 of 'Typist in Charge', my typing years' bio that I'm supposed to write for you once a month but seem to be a bit neglectful over the timeline -
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Mrs Parr sloshed into Typing Room 305, Education Department Head Office, Government Buildings, Wellington. She looked like a drowned rat. Her linen coat and once-smart figure-hugging dress clung around her like a bunch of wet washing. Her peepy-toe shoes leaked droplets of water. Her rainhat - one of those finger-length strips of plastic that miraculously unfolded into a bonnet that did up in a bow under the chin - was draped wetly across her forehead, dyed blonde curls snaked in the wet down to her nose. She clutched a short tightly-rolled umbrella, the fold-up style that had only recently hit the market; yes, the early 1960's was such a 'with-it' era.
"I hate-hate-hate fold-up umbrellas!" Mrs Parr, near to retirement and this icon of well-known stability, actually stamped her feet. Mrs Rowley, our Typist-in-Charge, tsk-tsked heavily as she noted the muddy footprints on the lino. Thank goodness footprints would wipe off, unlike the threepenny-piece sized gouges everywhere on the floor where the typists had walked in stiletto heels.
Elspeth and Evaline nodded solemnly, obviously glad they hadn't gone to town in the rain for their lunch. Francie rushed to help Mrs Parr pull off her soaked-through coat.
Mariana, our whiz at anything mechanical, muttered that these new-style umbrellas were hopeless as nobody could open them.
"Except Lorraine..." Mrs Rowley acknowledged me. And trying my best to look humble I gave a demonstration on the proper and efficient way to open a folding umbrella without a half-closed canopy collapsing on one's head. Or, as seemed to be the case with Mrs Parr, how to work the catch to even open the darn contraption. Trumphantly, I ended my demo without ripping my finger. I was heartily applauded.
Yes, we 'girls' helped each other in many ways. I helped them in jobs like opening umbrellas, and the other typists helped me when I couldn't understand an officer's bad writing, spelling, or adding up. As well, they enlightened me in The Ways of The World. One evening about half a dozen of us younger typists went out for a meal. The typists who were enlightened in The Ways of The World started talking about the four letter word.
Amy, a new typist, and she was a Salvation Army girl to boot, looked across at me in puzzlement. I shrugged. "What's a four letter word?" I asked. I was 16 and prior to this conversation had truly thought I was conversant with The Ways of The World.
"Mmmm..." Mariana's forehead creased as she was thinking. Finally: "It rhymes with 'duck'."
Nope. Neither Amy nor I had a clue. (...and back to the present for a moment: in the supermarket the other day, I heard an under five-year-old spouting the word that, indeed, rhymes with 'duck'. No-one batted an eyelid.)
One thing that the typists couldn't help me with was my typing. I wasn't very good at it. I just didn't have the patience to check my work. If there was a long job, maybe twenty or more foolscap pages, I could ask another typist to silently scan my finished typing whilst I read out loud to her from the writer's manuscript. And yet, still, Mrs Rowley insisted that I hand all my finished typing to her for re-checking. Much of it came back for retypes. How did the woman put up with me? Beats me.
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Below: an exact google image of a 1960's rainhat
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