TYPIST-IN-CHARGE, Episode 4

 Hi there

Typing Room 305, Education Department, Government Buildings, Wellington, NZ.  1961.

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Miss Hopkins was now a Staff Typist, sitting in a typing  pool like we other peasants, but until her recent retirement she had been the Supervising Typist-in-Charge of all Education typists, with her own room no less.  We loved hearing her stories about how she started in Education some forty years back - 

When Dorothy Hopkins was a sprightly junior typist, about 17 years old, there was a stiff protocol involved when addressing others.  It was all 'Miss', 'Mrs', 'Mr';  no first names allowed.  The Typist-in-Charge at the time was a Miss Peggy Patrick.  One evening the typists were all out to dinner.

Dorothy Hopkins, no doubt with a gleam in her eye, and in some trepidation but with a hint of a rebellious soul in her young body, asked "Would you pass the salt please ...  Peggy?"

There were a few sharp intakes of typist breath across the table.  Quickly muffled giggles came from a couple of the juniors.

Peggy Patrick passed over the salt.  "Here you are ... Miss Hopkins."

When I joined Education in 1960, I called all the older typists 'Miss' or 'Mrs'.  They called me 'Lorraine'.  By the time I got to senior status, everybody in government departments were called by their first names, so I never got to experience the heady pleasure of being addressed with a prefix.

As a junior I was required to sit the Public Service Typing Exam.  It was the most recognised typing exam in NZ.  My work typewriter had been  bundled up on the day before the Saturday November 1961 exam and sent to Gilby's Business College in Willis Street.  I'd brushed inside the keys basin with methylated spirits, picked out the gunk from the letters 'b', 'd', 'e', 'p' and  'o'' with a bent paper clip, wiped the wax off the main roller where I'd used a stencil* the previous day, and polished the keyboard until it gleamed.

The speed test was to be scheduled first.  Then an hour's break for me before it was time for the confused manuscript part of the examination.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, dear reader,  exam day was the exact day Cliff Richard, Britain's King of Rock'n'Roll, would be in Wellington.  Did I also forget to mention that I was a rabid Cliff Richard & The Shadows fan?  Cliff had turned 21 the previous month, and was young and gorgeous.

In my hour's exam gap I sprinted down Willis Street to the Hotel St George where the boys were staying, and I met up with two friends.  There was a metal fire escape clinging to the side of the hotel -

We climbed it, of course.  Right to the top floor (seventh?).  It was a scary escapade but, hey, this dare-devil climb was done with the hope of seeing Cliff in his - sigh - bedroom, and breathing his same air, swooning over him.

We peeked through a window and, heavens(swoon!), there was Jet Harris, bass guitarist of The Shadows.  He gave a girlish shriek and ducked behind an open wardrobe door.  Oops ....  We scuttled back down the fire escape.  First one off the contraption, I raced up Willis Street but my friends, not so lucky, were caught by the hotel manager.

I arrived at my exam venue puffing, panting, heart racing, mind exploding, and it was one minute before the exam started.

I failed the exam.  Any wonder why? 

above:  Hotel St George, Wellington.  The Beatles stayed here in 1964.

PS:  I passed the exam the next time around.

PPS:   * a stencil was a foolscap sheet of lightweight cardboard with a waxy sheet atop.  A cardboard strip ran across the top of the stencil with perferated holes in it so that the typed stencil could be slotted into a Gestetner machine and hundreds of copies of the typing could be run off.  A red liquid could be brushed over a typed mistake and after a few minutes the typist would type the correct letter on top of the set liquid.  Stencils were not typed with a ribbon.  There was a small lever at the side of the typewriter that would move the ribbon down from its usual place to enable a key to heavily penetrate the stencil.