When I left school in the early 60's, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I enjoyed using words but seemed to have no particular aptitude for anything and no aspirations. Somehow, I got a job in the advertising department of Lewis's which was one of a chain of large department stores --- not to be confused with John Lewis. One of my jobs was to walk every floor of the store with 'proofs' of 'copy' due to be published in the local newspapers in Lewis's weekly full-page advertisements. I was trained to write some of this. Every proof had to be signed off as correct by department managers. My job was to get this done. Lewis's advertisements were never what you might call 'sophisticated' affairs. That was not the demographic we targeted. One truly memorable event happened on the morning of what was known as a 'Mammoth Sale' which had been 'splashed' across pages in the previous day's issue of local newspapers. These were a type of occasional, frenetic one-day event during which the store aimed to shift unsold or over-stocked items at knockdown prices. They were very popular and hordes of shoppers came from miles around to start queuing outside all the entrance doors for hours before opening time. As soon as the people at the front saw the staff moving towards doors to open them, word spread and the crush started. On one unforgettable morning I had started at 8am in the basement with my sheaf of proofs for next week's advertisement. I always started down there and worked my way upwards, using the escalators as I went. I had just started touring each department on the ground floor when a bell sounded and the doors were opened. Have you ever seen film of a herd of thirst-crazed wildebeest raising clouds of dust as they charge en-masse across an open plain towards a distant source of water? I took one look at the several sets of doors as they were thrown open by staff who leaped aside and ran for cover to avoid being crushed by the onslaught. Separate tides of wild-eyed, baying shoppers surged forwards; every individual almost frothing at the mouth in anticipation of bargains galore. They either spread out like a tsunami of psychotic savages on the rampage, or they converged in phalanxes at the bottom of the single escalator. The next few minutes saw me running for my life up escalator after escalator as hordes of rampaging old women hurtled after me to get to whatever floor they intended to pillage. Sod getting the proofs signed, I just wanted to avoid being trampled underfoot! I didn't stop until I reached our office on the top floor and could slow down. Many years later, after watching a particularly aggressive coach-load of bad-tempered pensioners at a supermarket checkout, I wrote an especially cynical poem titled 'The geriatric mafia'. It wouldn't surprise me if some of them were offspring of the Boudica Bargain-Bagging Brigade in Birmingham:
The Geriatric Mafia are gathering
with Zimmer frames, sticks and bags.
They're off on a shopping coach trip.
A reunion of Macbeth's hags.
On the journey, conversation's restricted
to outdoing others whinging about pains
caused by haemorrhoids, arthritis or ulcers
and the problem of stubborn stains.
In the moments before arrival,
the coach falls ominously still
as each wrinkled soldier of fortune
invokes inbred instincts to kill ...
On rare occasions, if a really big event was due to happen later that week, I was able to earn some overtime money by working after hours. This usually meant going down into the store to assist those few managers who needed to work late to organise stock. By then the lifts, escalators and most lighting had been turned off. There were just islands of illuminated stands here and there where someone was working. That was a wonderfully eerie experience, especially at Christmas when the only other light came through windows which faced out onto the street where flashing coloured lights had been hung on the sides of the store as decorations. The mannequins on display stands seemed to suddenly loom out of shadows like solid areas of darkness in the gloom. Brilliant!