by Millie Gray
*
Saturday night found the six teenagers monopolising the centre bench of Lochend Park. This was no surprise because the park was special to them. This was the place where they had grown up together, played together, dreamt together . . .
‘So Bulldog Drummond didn’t take much persuasion to admit you to his academy?’ Molly said, causing Angela to stop gazing at Hannah, who had started to canter down the hill towards the duck pond with a brown paper bag in her hand.
‘No,’ was all she responded to Molly, who she thought was a bit piqued.
‘And how did you get on, Ewan?’ asked Robin.
‘Well, he just asked me what profession I would like to aim for.’
‘And what did you reply?’
‘Me? I just shrugged, but my mum told him nothing less than my being a lawyer would be acceptable to her.’
Freda tittered, before starting to run after Hannah.
‘What was Freda laughing at?’
‘Just your mammy saying that she wants you to study law,’ was Robin’s reply as he nudged Ewan in the shoulder.
However, Ewan was now staring down towards the pond. He seemed to be completely fascinated by Hannah and Freda, who were enticing the ducks out of the water to get fed. Ewan’s captivated reaction did more than unsettle Angela. A feeling of foreboding was suffocating her, because he was looking at one of the girls – but which one? – with an entranced, affectionate gaze. It was a tender look that she had never enjoyed from him; no, never ever had any of her advances towards him sparked such a look of pleasurable arousal. Rising up from the bench, she allowed a possessive smile to light up her face before she slipped her arm through Ewan’s and quietly confided, ‘Don’t mind what any of them say. They are just jealous that you and I are going places . . . places that they couldn’t possibly even dream of.’
His response was to roughly pull himself free from her grasp. He then started to skip down the brae towards the object of his fascination. Overcome by vaulting jealousy, Angela sank down on the bench again. She wondered which one of her two friends had captivated him. Shrugging, she decided it was of no consequence who he fancied right then, because Hannah was just going to be a glorified clerk and Freda a hairdresser at Janet Briggs’s. She gave a little snigger. Oh yes, once her Ewan was climbing he wouldn’t wish to be dating either of them. No, no, when she and Ewan got to Leith Academy she would make sure he thought of no one but her. The added bonus was that Ewan’s mother would see Angela as a very suitable girlfriend. Angela tittered as she pictured the look of horror on Ewan’s mother’s face if he ever tried to introduce either Hannah or Freda as his chosen mate for life.
Two
September 1966
‘Freda, why are we on this bus going up town when I want to go to the shows at Portobello and get a shot on the Jungle Ride?’
Freda did not respond, as she was aware that there was really no answer to that question that would satisfy her spoilt but adored nine-year-old half-sister, Susan. Instead, she stared ahead, her thoughts drifting back four years.
Wrinkling her nose, she acknowledged that now she was – in most people’s estimations – a mature, attractive, self-assured nineteen-year-old. However, she conceded that back in 1962, when she arrived half an hour early to Janet Briggs’s Hairdressing Salon to start her apprenticeship, she was a nervous, gawky, immature fifteen-year-old. Vividly she remembered how she had wrapped up, in a brand-new hand towel, the expensive hair-cutting scissors and three combs of various sizes which her grandmother Rosie had bought for her, before packing them into her handbag. Unlike her mother, she was sure that by the end of the day she would be expert enough to cut customers’ locks, or at least comb out their perms.
What a shock it had been when, on opening the door of the salon, the owner, Miss Briggs, bid her an offhand ‘good morning’ as she passed her a tin of Brasso and an assortment of cleaning cloths.
Freda’s mouth was still gaping when Miss Briggs pointed to the broad brass doorstep and announced, ‘The first of your duties each morning, Miss Scott, is to clean that step, and I should add that I like it gleaming, so that our clients know they are entering a first-class establishment. After that, you should go on to polish up the letterbox. I should make you aware that I just loathe finger marks on letterboxes so any spare minute you have, please check that my letterbox does not require another buff up with the Brasso.’
When Freda finished her chores with the Brasso, she forlornly looked down at her broken and stained fingernails. Only last night Robin had insisted on giving her a manicure so that she would create the right image for starting work at Miss Briggs’s. Each nail he had filed to perfection before finishing them off with two coats of clear nail varnish.
She was still looking at her fingernails when Miss Briggs’s voice brought her back to the present. ‘Well done, Miss Scott. You have cleaned the brasses to my satisfaction, so now could you sweep up the hair from the salon floor?’ Miss Briggs was about to walk away when she hesitated. ‘Now I think it is only right, my dear, that I point out that I am a fair employer, so I will allow you to choose whether you stay on after closing time to wash the salon floor or come in early in the morning to do it.’
A desire to say that she would prefer not to clean the floor at all had Freda bite her tongue. Forlornly she replied, ‘Where are the mop and pail stored, Miss Briggs?’
Miss Briggs’s mouth gaped. ‘Mop?’ she almost screamed. ‘Oh no, Miss Scott, I think you should know that I am very particular about the cleaning of the floor, so I expect you to get down on your hands and knees and use a scrubbing brush – a scrubbing brush that I generously supply.’
Having decided to scrub the floor in the evening instead of the morning, six thirty was chiming on her mother’s sideboard clock when Freda eventually got home.
‘Where the devil have you been?’ was her mother’s tight-lipped greeting.
‘Oh Mum, I would have been better to have taken a job in the filthy Roperie than at the hairdressers. All I have done all day is clean and scrub. I didn’t even get a chance to comb my own hair, never mind anybody else’s!’
‘That right? Then you’ll be pleased to know that you can rest all night because I’m going to the Cappy Bingo, so you’ll have to stay in and look after Susan.’
Freda was annoyed by her mother’s statement, but as it would have taken energy to respond – energy that she didn’t have right now – she just huffed, before asking Ellen, ‘What’s for my tea, Mum?’
‘Tea?’ exploded Ellen. ‘You waltz in here at nearly supper time and you expect me to have kept you some tea? No, no, if you’re hungry, just make yourself some toast and cheese.’
Freda scowled in reply.
‘And Miss, you can wipe that “who stole my tattie scone” look off your face and think about poor me. Oh aye, with you coming in so late I’ll have to get my skates on so I get to the bingo on time. You know that Agnes and I always go together and share out any winnings we get evenly between us.’ By now Ellen had donned her coat and as she tied a headscarf round her bottle-blonde hair she added, ‘And it would just be like the thing for Agnes to hit the jackpot before I get down and that wee snivel, Jessie Mack, who is longing to be pals with Agnes, to have taken my place so she can swan off with my share of the spoils.’
The outside door banging shut and the quick clip of Ellen’s high-heeled shoes on the pathway signalled that she had gone. Suppressing a desire to cry, Freda switched on the television. The television set was rented from Radio Rentals for ten bob a week – ten bob that Ellen continually reminded the family she earned by cleaning up for three hours after a ‘clarty bitch’ in Morningside. It turned out the ‘bitch’, Mrs Fowler, really did think that she was too upper class to be doing her own housework and thought she had been put on this earth to write another Pride and Prejudice. The other thing that annoyed Ellen about Mrs Fowler was that, unlike everybody in Leith, she owned her television set, which she always reminded Ellen was an indicator of the differenc
e between being poor and working class, like Ellen, and being upper middle class, like herself.
The television had warmed up and Coronation Street had just started when Freda started to smile. If there was one thing that could make her feel better about her horrible first day, it was tuning into Coronation Street. She, being an avid follower of the soap, knew that even if you had had a pig of a day, tuning into Corrie made you feel better. It was just watching how the believable characters – ordinary, everyday people – coped, especially when they were consistently kicked and slapped in the face. She could recall distinctly that when the first episode aired, all the newspaper critics hammered it and predicted that it was doomed. They reckoned that it was just a realistic picture of dreary, everyday working-class life in the North and, this being the case, it lacked the glamour and escapism that was necessary to attract mass audiences. The millions of households who now tuned in each week to watch the goings-on on the street had doomed the predictions of the biased critics.
Freda, while still trying to keep an eye on the screen, dashed into the kitchen to rescue her toast from under the grill. She poured some boiling water into the teapot and it was then she became aware of the strong odour of the Zoflora disinfectant wafting up from her hands. Giggling, she remembered that in an effort to please Miss Briggs she had liberally poured the Zoflora into her wash bucket before starting to scrub the floor. Now, instead of the smell of the disinfectant annoying her, she breathed the lavender aroma so hard that it tickled her nose, causing her to laugh uncontrollably. The scent had reminded her that before Coronation Street was the chosen name for the programme, it had been suggested that it should be called Florizel Street. However, as soon as it was pointed out to the producers that Florizel was too like Zoflora, the posh disinfectant, it was immediately changed to Coronation Street.
She had just returned from the kitchen with her teacup in one hand and toast in the other when she heard the outside door open. Her younger sister Susan bounded in followed by three of Freda’s friends: Hannah, Molly and Robin.
‘Glad to see that you have obviously had a happy day,’ snapped Molly.
‘Oh, so did working in the gown shop not work out?’
‘Well all I did, for the whole day, was pick up pins and scraps of material from the floor.’ She scowled, adding, ‘And when I wasn’t doing that, I was continually sweeping that blooming floor or cleaning the lavatory.’ She blew out her lips in exasperation, before expounding, ‘I wasn’t even allowed to put tacking stitches in a hem, I wasn’t.’
Freda giggled. ‘Oh, Molly, I know how you feel. I had the same sort of day. I felt I was Mrs Mop.’ Freda turned her attention to Hannah. ‘Now, how did your day go?’
‘Well, as you know, I’m working in the city planning office of the Edinburgh Corporation, so when I arrived I was told that the day starts for the office staff with a read of the morning papers and a cup of tea. After that we went over to the town clerk’s office to pick up some planning applications that the public had lodged.’ Hannah hesitated.
‘And?’ Freda said in an effort to jolt Hannah.
‘Well, we then had to log them all into our system, but I was told that before I did that I had to go round all the offices and find out who wanted what from the canteen.’
‘For lunch?’ spluttered Robin.
‘No, they go down to the canteen themselves at lunchtime. I was to go for their morning break rolls – you know, bacon, sausage, black pudding or fried egg. Mind you, some only ordered a plain buttered bap! After my lunch I was told to take a long walk before getting the evening papers, and then to come back into the office to make the afternoon tea.’
Molly and Freda looked at each other before Freda gasped, ‘Seems to me, Hannah, that you have landed on your feet.’
Hannah nodded. ‘Yeah, and in the afternoon I was sent over to the legal department to see a solicitor and get the court papers for a demolition in Leith. See, when I knocked on the door and a woman’s voice shouted, “Don’t stand on ceremony . . . just get yourself in here!”, I couldn’t believe it.’
‘Why?’ queried Robin.
‘Because all the bosses are men and the women that I have seen so far are just clerks, receptionists and typists.’
‘So, what like was this woman?’ Molly tittered. ‘I mean was she glamorous like Audrey Hepburn and do all the men in the City Chambers want to go on a “Roman Holiday” with her?’
‘Think you mean, roam all over her,’ Robin suggested with a wink.
‘No, she is a solicitor and she is more a Margaret Rutherford sort of person. Honestly she is – right down to her hair, which looks like it’s not been combed for a week. She has a face that only a mother could love, and she continually pulls her tight jumper down over her large, sagging bosom. And her desk! It’s just a midden . . . piled up, it is, with all these large sets of papers tied up with pink ribbons.’
Robin, Molly and Freda all exchanged bewildered glances with each other before Hannah continued, ‘Her first words to me were, “You a new girl?” and I nodded. She then stared out of her window, which looks over on to St Giles’ Cathedral, before turning, looking me in the eye and saying, “Right, to get promoted in here you have to be male, you have to have been educated privately and preferably at George Heriot’s, and you have to be a member of the Masonic Order and play golf but”’ – Hannah paused for breath and then continued, now wagging her finger in a perfect imitation of the solicitor – ‘“we women in this Council have to start to change all this nonsense. It is easier for me and Clarinda in the architects department because we have been to university and they wouldn’t dare not give us a principal officer’s grade, but you can still challenge too – because things are changing. Now to start with, don’t clutter up your life with a man. You are not engaged or anything?” To that I just stuttered, “No, I have a problem so I won’t be getting married.”’
‘What problem?’ Molly interrupted.
Realising that she had made a mistake, Hannah blustered, ‘It’s nothing . . . just something personal that I don’t want to talk about just now.’
‘Good grief – surely you’re not thinking of becoming a nun!’
Hannah ignored Molly. ‘Then Miss Carruthers said, “That is good because you look to me to have what it will take to change things for women here. And the plus is, if you get yourself to night school and up your qualifications, you could do it.” Then she became all dreamy and she addressed the wall, “Pity I won’t be here to see it, but she will be the first principal officer that has come up through the ranks and not through university.” Then she stopped and spoke to me again, saying, “And remember, play your cards right and you will have a job for life here. Oh, and while I remember, get yourself into the superannuation scheme. A pension in old age is really a necessity. A man providing for you just means you are obligated.”’ Hannah paused again and took a deep breath. ‘And when I got back to my office, I asked about Miss Carruthers and I was told that she might appear like a witch but that she was brilliant at her job – better than any of her male counterparts. Only problem with her is that she doesn’t allow the poor cleaners to dust her desk, and to make sure they do not she throws a linen sheet over it when she goes home for the day!’
‘Well, all I’ve got to say, Hannah, is keep at it. Now, do you three lassies wish to know how my day went?’ Robin cooed, swaggering about the room.
Freda chuckled as she popped the last of her toast in her mouth. ‘Darling Robin,’ she began as she winked at him, ‘I bet that as you, like Hannah, always land on your feet, you were never down on your knees today and no one pushed a sweeping brush into your hand.’
‘You’re right there.’ He gave an elaborate bow to Freda. ‘You see, Stuart’s is owned by Charlotte Stuart, and her son Billy is a lad that I’ve got friendly with – he’s also training to be hairdresser – so I didn’t have to do any skivvying . . .’
Freda gasped and playfully punched him in the shoulder. ‘Are you saying th
at you actually got to cut and style someone’s hair today?’
‘Don’t be daft, Freda. Like you I will be at least two years into my training before I am allowed near anyone – that is, anyone still breathing – with scissors . . . unless of course my dad drives me into giving him a quick Delilah!’ He chuckled before becoming serious. ‘But here, Freda, you do realise that most of our hands-on training will be done at Regent Road Night School on porcelain models with wigs?’
‘Right enough, we have to enrol and attend there for three nights a week . . .’ Freda’s eyes widened and her hand shot to her mouth. ‘Oh, but if I do that how will my mother get to her precious bingo?’
‘But it’s not three nights, it’s four.’
‘Four! What do you mean?’
‘Just that to be the very best at hairdressing, you and I are going to apply for a training place at the Hairdressing Academy, which takes place on a Friday night.’
Sinking down on the settee beside Hannah, Freda’s lip began to quiver.
‘No use you bursting into tears. If we are to learn how to shampoo and cut with our own brand of style . . . mark you, at the start we will also have to be experts at perms, pin curls, marcel waves and flame thinning!’ He sank down on the couch and nudged himself in between Freda and Hannah before tucking his arm through Freda’s. ‘Look, you and I are going places with this hairdressing. So for our particular needs we have to gain modern expertise – and we have to get ourselves hand-held hairdryers that will change the whole idea of how women should have their hair styled.’
‘You’re bonkers. Yes, stark raving bonkers.’
‘No Freda, I’m not.’ Robin was now rubbing his fingers together to indicate money. ‘As you know, nowadays women have a bit more cash to spend on themselves and they like having a luxury hairdo that is the envy of all their pals. So, that being so, Billy and I are going to be their coiffeurs and you their coiffeuse.’
Disengaging herself from Robin’s arm hold, Freda ran her fingers through her hair, stuttering, ‘But Robin, last week you said you thought we should be known as stylists . . . I mean, what do you mean by coiffeur and coiffeuse?’
