It was in his 40s when My Friend Harry took root in Newcastle and settled happily in that dirty, rowdy, swarming, inebriated and warm-hearted city. He'd found a home from home. In short order he progressed from feature-writer for the evening paper to sub-editor and to Chief Sub-editor and, being Harry, looked around him for other fields to conquer.
The prospects were not encouraging for, in those days, most promotions were vertical - and the vertical possibilities at Kemsley House, Newcastle, were nil. The morning, evening, Sunday and weekly papers ail had editors of remarkable ability and were all youngish and healthy.
So, Harry discussed this regrettable situation with the Assistant General Manager, one Rex Gerrie. Rex, having downed several of Harry's gins, confessed that he could offer no suggestion, but he did promise to have a word with the Managing Director, the Hon. Denis Berry. He did, and Harry was summoned to the Mahogany End of Kemsley House wherein resided - for an hour or two each day - Lord Kemsley's eldest son.
Denis had been in the Guards during the war and, glancing through Harry's file, noted with interest and approval, Harry's military record in World War 2. "On the staff at GHQ, India, I see," he commented. "Good show, that. We'll have to do something to help. You don't want to leave Newcastle, I’m told."
"Not unless it is absolutely unavoidable," said Harry.
"Bit of a problem, there, still..."
A week later, having had a word with his Dad, Denis summoned Harry back to the Mahogany End. "How do you fancy being the Company's Development Manager?" he asked.
"Great," said Harry. "What are the terms of reference?"
"No idea," said Denis. "We've never had one before. You'd have to make them up as you go along."
Denis spoke no more than the truth. Nobody knew what a Development Manager would do - apart from managing development. No other Kemsley centre in Britain had one. It was a new type of job - and was the very first 'sideways' promotion in the Kemsley group. Harry went away a couple of feet off the ground and had promised to let Denis have a precis of what he planned to do over the next 12 months. He first saw the Works Manager in order to secure an office for himself, then the Company Secretary to arrange for a secretary and finally the Buyer to provide a telephone, a typewriter and a couple of desks. He was in business.
On the very first day in his new role, he had started on his precis when the very first phone call came in. It was the Town Clerk of South Shields He was confirming that the Mayor and Mayoress would be paying the office an official visit the next afternoon so 'the usual arrangements' could be laid on. Normally, such 'arrangements' would have been handled by the Assistant General Manager, but Rex Gerrie decided that he could now happily unload that chore on to the brand, spanking, new Development Manager, so he had had the call transferred.
Harry briskly set about finding out what needed to be done and equally briskly did it. When all loose ends had been tidied up, he checked his appearance in the mirror to assure himself that he was fit to greet the civic leaders and went down to the front entrance of Kemsley House to be on the steps when they arrived. That was when he realised he'd dropped a clanger. He should have arranged for a copper to be in attendance to ensure that the civic Roller could pull up at the kerb. What was at the kerb, right outside the front entrance, and bristling with brooms, scoops and old rags, was a Corporation street-cleaner's barrow. Harry glanced anxiously up and down the street. No street-cleaner in sight. He was, in fact, on his second pint in the Express pub on the other side of the road.
Put yourself in the uncomfortable shoes of the new Development Manager performing his first prestige function, completely alone with this ridiculous problem and its impossible and yet only answer. Harry took a quick look around, nipped across the pavement, grabbed the handles of the dust-cart and began pushing it up the road.
It was Somerset Maugham who said that every story should have a beginning, a middle and an end. Real life seldom provides the sting-in-the-tail ending that marked Harry's story.
Trundling his barrow along the gutter, Harry suddenly saw, passing him on his way back from his club from lunch, the Hon. Denis Berry, Chairman and Managing Director of Newcastle Chronicle and Journal, Ltd., who had newly appointed him to the important new job but left him to find out for himself what the job entailed.
Their eyes met, no surprise was betrayed, no comment made - then. The comment came later. "I couldn't believe my bloody eyes," said the Chairman.
It was when the anguished Harry returned to his stance on the front steps that the Assistant General Manager, frothing at the mouth, grabbed him by the shoulder. "What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded. "The Mayor and Mayoress are wandering about the bloody building on their own?"
Well, how was Harry to know they'd drive up to the back door?
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