Time of My Life

‘Haven’t you got ITV yet?’

‘The one with adverts?’

‘Yes, the one with adverts.’

‘They’ve got it in London, but we haven’t.’

Right.

I looked around the room, trying to spot where the cameras were. There were a couple of pictures on the wall, and they looked innocent enough, but the mirror above the fireplace – that could definitely be a two-way job with a camera on the other side. I looked straight at it and smiled – winningly, I hoped. Mrs Brown came in and picked up a big bag from behind the armchair and took out some knitting. This was clearly going to be a riveting evening.

‘If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to sort myself out,’ I said.

‘Of course, dear. What was I thinking of?’ said Mrs Brown. ‘Peggy, take Rosie up to her room, will you please, pet?’

Peggy clearly didn’t want to be dragged away from the grey delights of television, but, sighing heavily, she led me up the narrow dark stairs, along a narrow dark landing, up a few more steps, to a small, icy cold room. It had been quite nice in front of the fire in the sitting room, toasting my toes, but once you went out of that room, the temperature plummeted.

‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘It’s really my brother Stephen’s room, but he’s in Cyprus at the moment.’

‘Oh, lucky him,’ I said, thinking of bars and beaches and all that clubbing.

She stared at me as if I were mad. ‘Two soldiers were killed there last week.’

‘Is he a soldier then?’

‘Doing his national service, isn’t he?’ she said and left me to it.

It was a bleak little room. Lino on the floor and a rug at the side of a narrow bed with a shiny green quilt, a chair, wardrobe, a bookcase with lots of Biggles books and football annuals, and a pile of football programmes. There was a trophy of a cricketer and some model planes, and that was about it. The only clothes in the wardrobe were a school blazer and a few old jumpers. Our Stephen was hardly a style icon, unless he’d taken all his possessions with him.

I looked around for cameras. Nothing obvious. Would they give us privacy in our bedrooms? Surely they would. But they didn’t in the Big Brother house, did they? I looked around again. If there was a camera here, it had to be in the cricket trophy, I decided. Too obvious. Or maybe the model planes … I picked them up and put them in the wardrobe and shut the door. Then I picked up the Biggles books and put those in there too. That felt a bit safer. Now I could look in that trunk beneath the window.

A proper old-fashioned trunk, and on it were my initials RJH – Rose Jane Harford. I lifted up the lid. Clothes! So this is what I was to wear. I rummaged through them excitedly. Oh I do love clothes.

I tried to remember what sort of clothes they wore in the 1950s. I thought of Grace Kelly in High Society … Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face. Or even Olivia Newton John in Grease. Oh yes. In my mind’s eye I was already jiving with John Travolta, his hand on my nipped-in waist while my skirt swished and swayed beguilingly …

To my deep disappointment, these clothes were not at all beguiling. In fact, they all reminded me of my old geography teacher. And I mean old geography teacher. There were a couple of heavy wool skirts, one of which had a matching jacket. Some cotton blouses, and cardigans, hand-knitted by the look of them. And a pair of trousers, Capri pants in heavy navy cotton.

There was a dressing gown that looked like my grandad’s. Oh and the underwear! The bras were made of white cotton and looked as though they were designed for nuns. I bet Grace Kelly never wore anything like those. Knickers too -white cotton. I don’t think I’d worn pants like those since I was about three years old. In fact, even at that age my underwear had more style. These were dreadful.

There was a serviceable, very serviceable, raincoat and a bright red jacket like a duffel coat. I quite liked that. It had a matching beret too. I tried them on and did a twirl in front of the rather blotchy wardrobe mirror. Then I hung the dressing gown in front of it. Just in case of cameras.

A very functional wash bag contained a toothbrush, a round tin of bright pink toothpaste, a face cloth, a bottle of White Rain shampoo for ‘normal’ hair, and some cold cream. And at the bottom was a handbag, nice leather but brown and boring. I opened it to find a funny little purse containing money. But not money I knew. There were some notes, orange ones that said ten shillings and green ones that said one pound. One pound notes – I thought they only had those in Scotland – also lots of coins, not like Euros, but big and heavy.

I kept the jacket on. It was so cold in there. Out of the window I could hear the sound of rushing water. There must be a river. I looked out, but the streetlights were so dim I could only see the faint outline of some trees and a bridge. The view could wait till morning. I presumed I would still be here in the morning. I wished I knew exactly what was going on. I felt very unsettled and a bit, quite a bit actually, lost.

I missed Will. I tried my phone again. I have a video on it of Will just walking down the street towards me. It’s wonderful because you can see he’s thinking of something else and then suddenly he sees me and then he has a great big grin. I play it a lot, especially when I miss him. And never missed him as much as in this strange place where I didn’t know what’s happening. But the phone was absolutely dead. Nothing.

There was a knock on the door. Mrs Brown. ‘Rosie, I’ve made a cup of tea. Or you can have cocoa if you like. Come downstairs and get warmed up.’

Cocoa! Such excitement, I thought as I went down into the kitchen. In the dim light, Mr Brown was sitting in the rocking chair, reading a copy of The News – the old broadsheet version, of course, very authentic. But there was someone else in there.

A small girl was sitting at the table. She was surrounded by exercise books. Judging by the dirty dishes near her, she’d also polished off the remains of the casserole and the rice pudding. She was wearing one of those old-fashioned pinafore dress things they had in the St Trinian’s films – a gymslip? – a very grubby school blouse and a stringy tie. Her mousy, greasy hair looked as though it had been hacked rather than cut. And she had specs, the ugliest specs I’ve ever seen and so cruel to give to a child.

But as she looked up at me, I realised she was older than I had first thought – probably about eleven or twelve, and that behind those horrid specs she had a measuring, challenging expression that was a bit disconcerting.

‘Are you the American?’ she asked.

‘I’m not American,’ I said, already weary with that assumption.

‘This is Janice,’ said Mr Brown. ‘She’s very clever, doing well at the grammar school and she comes here to do her homework.’

I must have looked a bit puzzled by this because Janice said simply, ‘I’ve got seven brothers. Two of them howl all the time.’

‘Her mum cleans the post office where Doreen works,’ said Mr Brown, ‘so she always comes here when she’s got homework to do. I used to be able to help her but I think she’s cleverer than me now, aren’t you, girl?’

With that Peggy came into the kitchen and to my surprise, gave the grubby little girl a big smile. Peggy looked really pretty when she smiled.

‘Hiya kid!’ she said. ‘How’s the French? Mrs Stace still giving you hell?’

‘Of course. We’ve got a test tomorrow.’ Janice looked worried. ‘Will you test me, Peggy, please? Perfect tense?’

‘I have given.’

‘ J’ai donné.’

‘He has finished.’

‘Il a fini.’

‘They have gone.’

‘Aha, that takes être! Ils sont allés.’

‘Well done,’ said Peggy.

‘Do you speak French, Rosie?’ asked Janice.

‘A bit,’ I said. ‘I did it for GCSE, but not like that.’

‘Janice is smashing at it,’ said Peggy amiably, almost proudly. ‘One day she’s going to go to France and she’ll need to know how to talk to them all, order her snails and frogs’ legs and wine.’

‘It would be wonderful to go to France,’ said Janice wistfully, ‘wonderful to hear people talking differently.’

‘Tell you what,’ said Peggy – she really seemed quite nice when she wasn’t talking to me – ‘you don’t need to do any more French, you know enough for today. Shall I wash your hair for you? You can use some of my new shampoo.’

‘Oh yes please, Peggy!’ said the little scruff, bundling her books into her satchel.

Soon she was on a stool, kneeling over the big white stone sink in the scullery, while Peggy shampooed her hair and rinsed it using a big enamel jug. She wrapped it in a rough kitchen towel and then combed it out for her quite gently and carefully, easing the comb through the tangles.

‘If you like, I’ll trim the fringe a bit for you,’ said Peggy and went to get her mother’s sewing scissors. She snipped away, looked at her handiwork a bit, turned Janice’s head this way and that and snipped a bit more. ‘There, see what that’s like when it dries.’

It was already starting to fluff up in the warmth of the range. It looked so much better, shinier. There was even a hint of red in the mousy strands.

‘Now now, Janice, Peggy, time to pack up.’ Mrs Brown had come into the kitchen and was getting a cloth out of the dresser drawer. ‘This is a kitchen not a hairdressers. I need that table for the breakfast things and it’s time you were at home and in bed. Here,’ she took a scarf out of a drawer and gave it to the girl, ‘put that over you. You don’t want to be walking the streets with wet hair, you’ll catch your death.’

‘Right-o, Mrs Brown,’ said Janice, taking one last look in the mirror before gathering up her satchel. She smiled hugely at Peggy. ‘It’s lovely, Peggy, really lovely. Thank you. See you tomorrow.’ She slid out of the back door, small and scruffy and still smelly too.

‘She can’t help it,’ said Mrs Brown, noticing my expression. ‘Terrible family. Father’s out of work half the time. Mother’s a willing little woman but has no idea really. All they seem able to do is make babies. There are seven boys and Janice, and two of the boys are simple. Still, Janice is bright and got into the grammar school, so let’s hope it helps get her somewhere. She deserves a chance, poor scrap. Right. Tea or cocoa?’

I had cocoa – for the first time since a Brownie sleep-over when I was about seven – said my goodnights and took it up to bed with me. There were too many things I wanted to think about. I undressed, put on the great big dressing gown, scuttled to the bathroom, scuttled back, popped the dressing gown back over the wardrobe mirror and got into bed. Icy sheets. I reached for my notebook.

DAY ONE IN THE 1950s HOUSE

Very cold but headache better and at least I realise what’s going on. Clearly, our reactions to a new situation must be part of The Test. Initial disorientation all part of this.

Must find out how long I’m going to be here for. What about work? My life? Maybe all will be explained soon.

Find video diary room.

What’s the prize?

Find cameras. Smile at them. A lot.

Be nice to everyone.

Peggy – a test?

Have noticed that all Big Brother, It’s a Celebrity, etc TV shows are never won by the loudmouths, but by the quiet pleasant ones who win admiration and respect from all concerned, doing hard work, solving quarrels, being calm voice of reason all round. This is what I shall do. Practise being calm voice of reason.

I tried to ring Will again, but the phone was still dead. That made me feel really alone and a bit down. But then there was a knock on the door.

‘I thought you might like a hot-water bottle,’ said Mrs Brown, handing one over and giving a strange glance at the dressing gown spread out over the front of the wardrobe. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘Yes fine thank you!’ I said brightly.

The hot-water bottle was wonderful, warm and squidgy. I shoved it down between the sheets, which smelled of soap powder and sunshine and, as I wriggled down between them, with my feet nice and warm, I clutched my phone, the way I used to clutch my woolly cuddly cat when I was little. Even though my head was spinning, I was asleep in minutes.

I wished I’d been able to talk to Will, but if this was a challenge, then bring it on!

Chapter Three

Challenge? I’ll tell them what to do with their nasty, manipulative, heartbreaking challenges. Today has been a nightmare. A glimpse into an alternative universe. I hated it. If I didn’t think it was all a TV show I don’t know what I’d do.

I never even asked to be in this. They cant just dump me here without asking, without any preparation or briefing. Shouldn’t they have had my written permission? Contracts with lawyers? Big fat fees? Get-out clauses? Insurance? Maybe I could sue them for stress and anxiety. What happens if I break my neck on the stairs at The News? Or die of pneumonia from the damp and cold?

Or from a broken heart?

Today was my first day on The News 1950s style. It had started badly. My clothes, my proper clothes, had vanished. Someone must have taken them while I was in the bathroom. Even my own handbag. All I had left was the handbag from the trunk, a dead phone and the notebook and pen from my bedside table. I thought of going down to demand my things from Mrs Brown, but then I remembered the Golden Rule of Reality TV which is Be Nice, Smile, Don’t Make A Fuss. So after a wash – no shower, and I couldn’t even have a bath because there’s only one loo and that’s in the bathroom and people kept banging on the door – I got dressed in my 1950s clothes.

Everything itched, scratched and dug in. There was no Lycra, of course. Dressed in the skirt suit I felt trussed up like a turkey. My suspender belt (when did I ever think they were sexy?) threatened to ping at any minute and my capacious cotton knickers kept disappearing up the crack of my bum. No wonder people in old photos look miserable.

And I still couldn’t get anything on my phone … When I woke up it was on the pillow beside me, and I just grabbed it automatically. Nothing. Just a blank screen. The blank-ness of it just hit me and made me feel so dreadfully alone. Even if they were blocking the signal, you’d think they’d let me look at the stored pictures and messages on it, wouldn’t you? It was a link to my world, my proper world, and Will.

And my hair! No shower, no dryer, no mousse, no straighteners. All I could do was comb it. Great.

After that grim start, the day got no better.

My usual breakfast was yoghurt and banana. Here it was porridge and boiled eggs. Compulsory. By the time I’d eaten it I felt so weighed down I thought I’d never lift myself off the chair. And the coffee … the coffee came from a bottle that looked like gravy browning and tasted like it too.

To make it worse, because Mrs Brown worked mornings in a post office, Peggy and I, who apparently didn’t have to be in work until half an hour later, had to do the washing up.

‘You can wash,’ said Peggy, handing me the porridge pan, with its burnt-on bits. ‘It makes sense for me to wipe up and put away because you don’t know where anything lives.’

‘You could show me,’ I said, but knew as I said it, there wasn’t much point.

Do you want to know what I think of the 1950s so far? Well porridge pans really piss me off. Non-stick hasn’t been invented yet. Neither has washing-up liquid, just disgusting green soap. You have to scrape the congealed porridge off with a knife and then, the real horror is when you have to scoop great blobs of it out of the plughole. That is so disgusting.

And Peggy. Peggy is a pain. Pisses me off even more than porridge pans. I am trying really hard to be nice to her and smile a lot (for the cameras, which I haven’t found yet) but it’s really tricky.

‘Are these clothes all right for work, Peggy?’ I asked.

‘Very suitable,’ she said.

‘Do your clothes make you itch?’

‘Of course not,’ she said, but with such a filthy expression that I’m sure her knicks were stuck up the crack of her bum too. ‘Come on. Time to get a move on.’

She handed me an Oxo tin. An Oxo tin? What was I meant to do with that? I must have looked blank because she said, ‘It’s your sandwiches, for your dinner.’

Off we went. I don’t know how they’re doing it, but it’s very clever. Of course, Peggy led the way. (The more I think about it, the more she must be part of the team setting the challenge.) We went through some narrow streets and across a market square. (It’s clearly a film set.) There was very little traffic, just a few old cars. ( The sort they always have in period films.) And a delivery boy on a bike. (They always have that as well.) And there was a milkman with a horse and cart. (Which I thought was taking it a bit far really, but that might have been the one with the camera in it, so I gave the horse an extra nice smile.) The shops were small with crowded little windows, a bit drab, but the streets were very clean. No pizza boxes or burger trays. (Shows that it must have been all pretend.)

‘Is it far to The News?’ I asked, wondering how we’d get to the industrial estate.

‘No,’ she said. And that was it. No chatty girly conversation. In fact, nothing. Right, thank you, Peggy. But I remembered my winning ways and smiled and tried again. Tricky, because she was walking quite fast and I was struggling to keep up, and not just because of the shoes.

‘Have you worked there long?’

‘Five years.’

‘So what’s the editor like then?’

At this she went a bit pink and turned around to face me. ‘He’s a wonderful man,’ she said vehemently. ‘Wonderful!’

Bit of a giveaway wouldn’t you say?

But now we were at The News. Not just off the ring road. It was right in the centre of town. And the funny thing was that it looked just like the old pictures we have hanging at reception in the industrial estate. A really old timbered building, with leaded windows. There were some big gates at the side, leading into a yard where I could see old-fashioned delivery vans. I don’t know how they did it, but it was very clever.

As soon as we walked in through the door, Peggy changed character and was as nice as you like. Smiles and ‘Good mornings’. She led the way upstairs.

Well, it was a newspaper office, but not as I knew it.

The place was chaos. A warren of small rooms, each one crowded with heavy wooden desks piled high with papers. The windows were small and grubby, and almost obscured by heaps of papers and files. There were papers everywhere. Piles of yellowing newspapers, on the floor, in corners, on windowsills, blocking doorways. Health and safety would have had hysterics. Especially as there was also a thick cloud of smoke. Everyone seemed to be smoking.

One stray fag end in that lot …

Peggy was leading the way along a narrow corridor of bare and battered floorboards. Then she led me into an outer office, hung up her coat and knocked reverentially on an inner door. ‘Good morning Mr Henfield.’ She was almost simpering. ‘I’ve brought Rosie Harford.’

Richard Henfield looked exactly like his photograph. That was a nice touch, I thought, well researched. Middle-aged, specs, moustache and pipe. Nice eyes, weak chin. ‘Ah yes, you’re with us for a few weeks.’

‘Apparently,’ I said with a winning smile. There must be a camera in here.

‘So tell me what you’ve done.’ He leant back in his chair and stared at me. It wasn’t a particularly nice stare.

‘Well, after my degree, I did a post-graduate diploma in journalism and worked on a weekly paper for a while. For the last few years I’ve been a general reporter, then on the business desk, and now I’m a features writer, specialising in social and consumer issues.’ Smile again.

‘Well, aren’t you a clever little girl,’ he said, gazing at my boobs.

Really! My fingers itched to slap his pompous, patronising, sexist face. But smile, Rosie, smile. I smiled.

‘Better see what you can do then,’ he said, standing up to put his arm around my shoulders – not nice, he smelt of stale tobacco and sweat and half-digested meat. Didn’t the man shower? – and led me back along the corridor and into one of the crowded smoky rooms, where an oldish man in a trailing overcoat was sitting with his feet on the desk reading a paper, while a woman talked on the tele-phone. Two other men were picking up their coats as if on their way out.

I ostentatiously removed myself from Henfield’s arm. That smell was taking reality TV a bit too far.

‘Is Billy about?’ asked Henfield.

‘Assizes,’ said the man, hardly lifting his eyes from the paper. Seeing me, his beady eyes lit up too and he gave me and Henfield his attention.

‘OK Gordon,’ Henfield said. ‘This is Rosie. She has a degree and a diploma and knows all about business and social issues.’ He said it in a sarcastic, mocking tone.

‘Very fancy,’ muttered the woman behind him, putting the phone down and lighting a cigarette.

‘She’ll be here for a few weeks and no doubt she has many talents to reveal,’ he leered. ‘And a lot to show us.’ He and Gordon gave each other knowing glances and then both looked me up and down, when, thank God, Peggy came along simpering, ‘There’s a phone call for you Mr Henfield,’ and off he went.

‘Smarmy bugger,’ muttered the woman. Promising. Then looking at me, she added, ‘I’m Marje, by the way. Well, let’s see what you can do then.’

‘Anything,’ I said, all keen and eager and desperate to get stuck into a decent story.

‘Kettle’s over there,’ said Marje. ‘No sugar for me, two for him’ – pointing at Gordon who’d gone back to reading the newspaper – ‘and the cups need washing. Down the corridor at the very end and don’t wait for the hot water, because there isn’t any.’

Did I have a sign saying ‘skivvy’ stuck to my forehead?

Gordon was the News Editor. When he’d stopped eyeing me up and down he had decided I was barely worth considering. ‘You’d better follow Marje around for now,’ he said as he took his tea without a thank-you. ‘She can show you the ropes. There’s a couple of golden weddings in the book. You should be able to manage those between you.’

Golden weddings! I hadn’t done those since my early days on the weekly. But off I went dutifully with Marje. We had to walk to the old people’s houses. There seemed to be only one van for the staff, and the photographers used it all the time. Reporters had to walk.

Marje strode briskly along.

‘Have you been on The News long?’ I asked, with the little breath I had left. She was setting a cracking pace and I was struggling to keep up.

‘Since the war,’ she said. ‘I was on the switchboard and when all the men got called up there was only me and old Mr Henfield left, so I started doing everything.’

The war again.

‘Young Mr Henfield, the one who’s editor now, was in the army. And Gordon and most of the others. John, the Chief Sub Editor, was in the RAF – got the DFC but he never talks about it. The younger ones weren’t, of course. Billy and Phil were just a bit too young, lucky for them. But they’ve done their call-up and their fifteen days since.’

‘Fifteen days?’

‘Yes, you know. Two years’ national service and then fifteen days every year for three years. Don’t they do that in America?’

‘Oh yes,’ I said vaguely, too fed up to argue about this American business. ‘Something very like.’

I was really getting into this 1950s thing. It was almost as if I were really there. But it was a bit worrying that everyone else seemed to have done so much research. Maybe they’d had more notice than I had. That wouldn’t be hard. Ah well, I would just have to wing it. Tricky though. I was trying to get my head around the fact that the war had only finished ten or eleven years ago, because that was as if, well that was as if it had been finishing just when I was doing A levels. Weird.