My Friend Harry had much in common with the Cresta Run champion, Carl Holland. Both were adept at dropping clangers.
When a Cambridge undergraduate, Carl once made his way from the Kulm Hotel at St. Moritz to the railway station with a smile of happy expectancy on his face. He was to meet a girl whom he had invited to stay at the hotel for the Cresta season.
Sure enough, she was on the train, but imagine his horror when he found she was accompanied by another pretty girl to whom he had issued a similar invitation. In the heady social whirl of the Bright Young Things of those days, he had forgotten all about his original invitation. The young lady hadn't, however, and there she was.
What did the hapless Carl do? Well, he might have been a wow on the Cresta Run but he was somewhat lacking in resource in other matters, it would seem. He succeeded in alienating both girls - who impounded all his ski gear and then agreed between them which would bring the breach of promise action.
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Now to a considerably humbler environment and to Harry.
In the late Twenties as a junior reporter at Chatham, Harry escorted a young lady by the name of Rosalie to the Press Ball at the Town Hall.
Leaving her at the foyer, he made his way upstairs to the bar in the balcony while she headed for the cloakroom. He was half-way through a bottle of light ale and engaging in banter with all and sundry and reflecting on the pleasures and prospects of the evening, when up came Fred.
"You'd better nip downstairs at the double, old man," he advised. "She's getting a bit restive."
"Restive?" said Harry. "Can't be. We only arrived a few minutes ago."
Fred looked puzzled. "She's been there, all on her own, since eight o'clock to my knowledge," he said
"Who has?" asked the mystified Harry.
Fred pointed over the balcony to the ballroom below. There, sitting by herself and quite plainly restive, was Joan. Harry felt much as Carl Holland must have felt at St. Mortiz railway station.
Joan had been Harry's inseparable companion earlier in the year, before he had met Rosalie and he recalled that he had implored her to accompany him to the forthcoming Press Ball. He further recalled that, in order to ensure her presence, he had given her a ticket. "I frequently have evening engagements," he had explained, "so if I don't call for you at 7.15, make your own way to the Town Hall and I’ll join up with you as soon as I can."
All that had been weeks and weeks before and he had forgotten all about it. Not so Joan, evidently. The question was: Where did he go from there? Rosalie waiting happily in the foyer; Joan waiting restively in the ballroom.
"Fred," he said, " go down to the foyer and tell Rosalie I've been called out on a lineage assignment by the Express and look after her for the evening. I'll settle up with you tomorrow."
"Bert," he said to another bird-fancier, "see that smashing brunette sitting down in the ballroom?"
"I've had my eye on her for some time," said Bert.
"Well, she's yours. Joan's the name. I invited her ages ago but forgot all about it. Tell her I've rung you from Maidstone to say my assignment's going to take hours: Tell her I'm heartbroken, naturally."
As Bert sped eagerly towards the lonely Joan, Harry sped down the back stairs two at a time and took steps to discard his double trouble. Big ones.
As it turned out, neither girl was too distressed, from what Harry heard later. He found that a little discouraging.
There was, of course, no probability of a breach of promise claim, Harry then pulling down all of £2 10s (£2.50) a week. Add about 30 bob (£1.50) on top of that for lineage from other papers and it is clear enough that he wasn't in the Cresta Run set.
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Move forward, now, 30-odd years and move north some 300 miles to Newcastle upon Tyne. Step into the labyrinth then known as Kemsley House.
At the southern wing of that conglomerate of former hotel rooms, offices and dwellings, and on the first floor, was a panelled region known as the Mahogany End. It was the Holy of Holies wherein dwelt the Hon. Denis Berry, Managing Director of Newcastle Chronicle and Journal, Ltd. In the softly-lit passage leading to Denis's office was a marble pedestal atop which was a bronze bust of Lord Kemsley, Chairman of the Group and father of Denis.
Had you been in that vicinity at about 5.30 p.m. on any weekday except Saturday, you would have seen a queue of most distinguished people. Indeed, you would have seen some of them still standing in line if you had turned up a couple of hours later, for Denis was in no hurry to get home. His dinner time at Wylam was anything after 8.15.
The eminent people queueing up were editors and departmental managers waiting their turn to discuss with Denis the matters of the day. The practice was to stand in line until Denis's red light saying ‘Wait' turned to green saying 'Enter' and if it was your turn, in you went. That was the invariable procedure and it was borne with resignation, if not joy.
One evening, just to relieve the tedium, Harry observed to all those dancing attendance on the Managing Director that he thought Lord Kemsley was looking a bit peaky.
"Got a bit of cold, perhaps," he said. He took out his handkerchief, gave Lord ICs bronze nose a comprehensive wipe and said encouragingly: "Blow for Daddy." Harry's performance raised a thin smile which, in truth, was as much as he could reasonably have expected.
But at least it stayed in someone’s mind long enough to be recounted as an anecdote the following day to one Albert Birkbeck. Albert was a legendary figure among circulation people and the newspaper distribution fraternity in the North East, and rightly so, for his record was second to none. But if he had a weakness, it was his supreme veneration of the Kemsley family.
That evening, Albert was among those queueing at the Mahogany End. What possessed him to leap right out of character will never be known, but to everyone's amazement he gleefully exclaimed: "Do you know what Harry did last night?" Pausing to extract his handkerchief, he chuckled: "He wiped the Old Man's nose like this and said 'Blow for Daddy’” And right on cue, out came the Hon. Denis Berry on his way to the Directors' loo.
Albert, ashen, stared at him, his left hand still caressing the back of Lord Ks head, his right hand holding the hanky to the nose. All around looked wordlessly from Denis to Albert and back again.
After what seemed an age, Denis broke the silence. "Perhaps I might see you next, Mr Birkbeck," he said, an icicle dropping from every syllable.
Albert never told anyone what happened after Denis's door closed behind him.
But, then, he was never a very communicative man.
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