I WAS shown around the hotel in the morning - through the noisy kitchen and into the rumbling pantry down into the cellar and along the labyrinthine corridors to the staff room, where some off duty chambermaids were having lunch mashed potatoes, peas and a shadow of lamb! (I'll eat at home, I thought.), And then it was out into the yard where the bottles were stashed and stored, followed by a tour of a laundry full of vaguely familiar faces with uncertain smiles.
In the afternoon I was given a short white coat to wear and put to work in the kitchen and dining room. I would also have to give the day porter a hand from time to time, I was told that he would show me the ropes. Unfortunately he insisted on speaking with a fake Mexican accent all the time and I couldn't understand a word he said to me. Except for the word peseta of course, which seemed to hold some strange significance for him.
Over the next few hours I encountered an array of hotel characters. The little dapper barman with the fag behind his ear. "The world may be, round," says he, "but people are square." And the stocky yard boy with the quiff and the three brushes - one for the yard, one for the store and one for his hair. And then there was the lonely little night porter who had trained himself to sleep with his eyes open, much to the annoyance of the randier residents who were dying to muggle in a bit of action in the early hours of the morning.
My first day in the dining room was horrendous. I was only 10 minutes in the place when I broke a trayful of glasses. The manageress, who up until then had been a fairly sedate sort of creature, suddenly turned turk and reefed me from on high. She said that I wasn't fit to be employed at all, I was so awkward, and that she was going to stop five shillings a week from my wages to pay for the damage and I knew by the serious face of her that she meant it.
Later that same day I knocked over a vase with my elbow and watched it smash into smithereens onto the floor. I discreetly scooped up the pieces and slipped them into my pocket and that evening I jangled my way out the door. I tried to glue it together again but it looked really weird. A few days later the hotel detective - a retired guard with fertilised eyebrows - was assigned to the case. He arrived on the scene with a flashlight and gloves and for some strange reason a big measuring tape.
It was around that time too that the waiters and waitresses began missing their tips. In all innocence, as I cleared the tables in the dining room every evening I pocketed the two shillings and half crowns that I found there thinking they had been left for me. A meeting was called in the kitchen after one of the night shifts and the headwaiter broached the subject of the missing money, with me blushing like a bellboy in the background.
"When someone sends you out for a newspaper," the head waiter said to me one morning, "you always keep the change".
"Even if he gives me a fiver?" I asked. "He won't," he said and I could see him smirk as he walked away.
There's so much to know, so much to learn, I thought, as one calamity followed another knocking over things and getting lost and getting the wrong end of the stick all the time. And then, just when I thought things could get no worse, I cut my hand on the slicer as I was making a teachest full of Melba toast. It was a fairly nasty cut, too. In fact I had visions of being christened "Thumbs" or something for the rest of my life. I was led pale faced down to the store room where the first aid man patched me up and told me I'd be alright before I was twice married.
Later, still in a state of shock, I rambled out into the dining room with a blood spattered jacket, amidst a sea of aghast faces as people practically fainted into their soup. The manageress was waiting for me when I got back to the kitchen and as I stood there gazing up into her fuming face a torrent of abuse rained down on my poor, dejected little head.
On my evenings off I'd go up to the carnival or down to the snooker hall or else hang around outside the dance hall, wishing I was old enough to go in. There were some consolations though. I had money in my pocket for a change and a few tall tales to tell. I had, for instance, seen a woman in her underwear one day as I went to her room to fetch a tray. And another day the yard, boy told me to keep nix as he went into the store room with one of the girls from the laundry. And on top of that, the day porter taught me how to make Irish coffee, which he assured me - would bring in the pesetas, and he was right. I used to get two shillings and sixpence for every Irish coffee I made and sold. In one day alone I sold eight which amounted to a cool pound for yours truly. In fact I was making much money now that I was sorely tempted to offer to pay for the broken vase which they were still harping on about. Although on second thoughts I changed my mind. Knowing my luck it would turn out to be an antique and I'd end up working there for the next 20 years or something.
I worked four weeks all in all before I decided that enough was enough. On my last day the manager (who seemed to be modelling himself on JFK) called me into his office and told me that had been a great experience for me - which I thought was nice of him. He also stopped another five shillings from my final wage packet. He mentioned the vase too in passing.
Later, at home, I told my mother my tale of woe and she tossed my hair and said not to worry.
"Another five shillings though," I said.
"But sure that's how they have it hon," she said. "That's how they have it!"
