In Celtic Airways the day was well begun. The first flight out that blustery October morning, the dawn London, had taken off at half past six and within the hour, three more scheduled UK flights and one continental flight had departed on time. By eight-thirty the baggage handlers were rolling the trollies towards the Vickers Viscount bound for Paris, and the lights in the office of Celtic’s Chief Executive, Oliver McGrattan, were steadily burning.
The Chief Executive’s office occupied half of the top floor of the building, one set of windows looking out on to the airfield where in the brightening landscape, Celtic’s recently landed New York/Shannon/Dublin Boeing 707 could be seen taxing majestically towards the ramp. The other windows faced the arrival and departure buildings, behind which rose the green and white control tower.
High up on the walls were photographs of pioneering members of Celtic Airways long since dead or grounded, and lower down, the more recent additions, showing the smiling countenances of the Chief Executive and his predecessors.
The floor was carpeted in a mink coloured carpet thick enough to muffle the feet of a hundred demanding passengers and the mahogany desk behind which Oliver McGrattan sat, was almost big enough to support a billiard table.
At one end of the desk was a tray with a silver coffee pot upon it, four Tara bone china cups containing the dregs of recently drunk coffee and a china plate bearing two shortbread biscuits, all that remained of this working breakfast. In the chairs arranged in a semi-circle before the desk sat the three women chiefs from the hostess section, and the topic under discussion - the main reason for their attendance here so early this morning - was one closest to their hearts, their new longed for, long-awaited, long-promised hostess quarters.
As the spokeswoman for the trio, the Hostess Superintendent, pointed out that the shabby prefabricated wooden huts which at present housed the hostess section of Celtic Airways and had done so for the past decade, were originally erected merely as a stopgap. A year or two had stretched to ten and now it was high time something was done about it. There was neither the space nor the facilities in these ramshackle old buildings for their rapidly increasing numbers and in view of the airline’s intention to recruit their biggest number ever this month, one hundred air hostesses, the situation was becoming crucial. By January, there would be four hundred hostesses in toto in the hostess section. Where would they put them all?
Slightly dwarfed by the huge mahogany desk, Oliver McGrattan sat in his leather- padded chair with an enigmatic half-smile hovering on his thin lips, studying with attention his well-manicured fingers, easing back a cuticle and turning the gold signet ring on his little finger. For twenty minutes, he had said nothing, apparently intently listening to the views put forward by the women. Now he began taking surreptitious glances at his watch which he had strategically positioned on the blotter before him, and fussily sub-dividing the neat files of papers on his desk.
‘Thank you, ladies, I found all that most helpful, constructive and enlightening.’
He glanced across at them and as they were silent he went on. ‘Unfortunately, you are not possessed of all the facts. Here is some more information for you. Since the purchase deal was signed last week with British Aircraft Corporation for the delivery of three new BAC One- Eleven short haul jets, the Board of Directors has put a six month embargo on all further capital expenditure.’
There was a fresh burst from his listeners. Oliver McGrattan picked up his heavy gold Rolex watch and slipped it back over his bony wrist then paused, waiting for their silence.
‘Thank you, ladies. As I was saying in view of this latest development, I cannot possibly sanction such a costly low priority building. Please be assured, however, that I am wholly au fait with the situation and fully sympathetic to your needs. You may depend upon it when the time is right....’
Blah, blah, thought Maura Kane, Chief Hostess over European Operations and the most junior member of the hostess team. She smoothed a strand of ash blonde hair behind her ear and cynically met the dismayed eyes of her colleagues. Once again McGrattan was fobbing them off.
She repressed a sigh. It was too damned unfair. They might have known they would come away disappointed yet again. And why? Not because of any embargo but because only six months in the job, Oliver McGrattan was obsessively cutting back expenses, intent on showing a profit by the end of his first year. Truly it was a man’s world. You wouldn’t see the pilots putting up with such conditions, nor McGrattan himself.
She glanced about the ultra-modern luxurious suite and felt her anger rise at the thought of the grotty conditions they were forced to put up with in the hostess section. Not even one shower between three hundred hostesses. In summer it was murder. What would it be like when the aforementioned speedier BAC One-Elevens replaced the turboprop Fokker Friendships, and hostesses were expected to double up on routes without a chance to freshen up between flights.
Almost defiantly she put the question, barely waiting until the Chief Executive had finished speaking.
‘Not easy, I should imagine,’ he replied coolly, and shot her a look of dislike.
Maura returned the look with interest. She and McGrattan had never hit it off. The new Chief Executive liked his women meek and biddable, not pushy and go-ahead and Maura made no apology for the fact that she was both. They were two attributes, she considered, you got simply nowhere without in this rat-racing world.
‘Now you’ve said it,’ Maura’s opposite number, the Chief Hostess over Transatlantic Operations, remarked crisply, ‘Can’t you just imagine what a boon those showers would be then.’
Some chance, Maura thought as she watched Oliver’s frowning expression. A change of blouse between flights and a touch of cologne was going to be the most any of her hostesses could hope for. She felt a slow burn of anger. It really was a disgracefully short-sighted policy.
‘Well, I’m afraid you ladies will just have to hang on a little longer,’ the Chief Executive dismissed them, getting briskly to his feet and coming round his desk. ‘Round about next April we’ll meet and discuss the situation again.’
Left to McGrattan, they would still be in the prefabs in the nineteen nineties, Maura thought in despair as she followed her colleagues from the room. There was no doubt but the man was a master of delay tactics.
Outside the three women stood for a moment to chat before returning to the hostess section. Unable to bear a post-mortem, Maura soon excused herself and headed rapidly for the canteen. Glancing at her watch, she decided she had time for a quick coffee before attending the hostess debates and interviews scheduled to take place that morning in Griffith House, the crew training centre.
A few miles from Dublin Airport the last of the twenty girls scheduled to attend the Celtic Airways debates and interviews that day was hurrying breathlessly towards the main road, intent on catching the 8.40 airport bus. As she hurried along, Kay Martin was unhappily aware that she had spent too long titivating in front of her mirror and was almost certainly bound to miss the bus. There wasn’t another for twenty minutes.
Kay had got up early to give herself enough time to pin up her dark hair and apply her make-up with extra care before dressing in the cherry-coloured suit and spindle heels she had bought especially for the occasion. She had arranged the day before for a friend to phone her in sick and taken the day off work. No one at home or at work knew she had applied to the airline. She had deliberately kept it a secret. With all the competition she was up against there was no guarantee she would be successful and she didn’t want to look foolish if she were turned down.
Now as luck would have it who should she bump into, as she hurried along all togged out in her finery and wearing the hat Dave Mason’s sister had made such a compliment of lending her, but Mrs. Halpin, the biggest gossip on Carrick Road. Kay’s heart sank, miserably conscious of how conspicuous she must look in the eye-catching hat.
It was a big wide-brimmed affair with floating velvet ribbons, like something you would see on Ladies Day at the Curragh and made her head prickle with heat so that every minute she had to fight an impulse not to snatch it off. Only for a superstitious conviction she stood a better chance at the interview wearing a hat, Kay would never have bothered with it at all.
‘Howya, Kath-leen,’ the old woman crackled, ‘What has you all tarted up this time of day. On yer way to the races?’ her shrewd old eyes lit maliciously on Kay’s headpiece.
‘No, just into town.’ It irked Kay having to answer the woman at all but the old busybody had a terrible tongue and there was no knowing what she might say to her aunt when they met.
‘Are yer on yer holliers then,’ Ginny persisted, challenged rather than discouraged by Kay’s sudden burst of speed. Her thin old legs in their split suede boots shuffled even faster, the empty shopping bag flying jerkily up and down on her crooked arm.
‘Must be a hot date whoever he is. Go on! I won’t keep yer.’
Mercifully, Kay had not missed the bus after all. Ahead of her it drew up and waited a little beyond the stop as constricted by slim skirt and four-inch heels, she made a last hobbled dash, Ginny’s valedictory blast in her ears, ‘Yer only young once. Make the most of it.’
Gasping, Kay accepted the grinning conductor’s outstretched hand and allowed herself to be hauled panting aboard.
‘Ooh, that hat!’ he sighed and hit the bell with his clenched fist.
As the bus lurched forward, Kay staggered, caught off-guard, and felt herself tenderly gripped from behind.
‘Easy does it, alannah.’
Blinkered by the hat, she shrugged herself free and tottered to the only empty seat between two gossiping women holding bulging grey Celtic Airways kitbags on their stout laps, their hair in plastic rollers beneath their headscarves.
‘Fares, please.’ The conductor approached and rolling her ticket, sang in irritating falsetto, ‘I had a bonnet trimmed with blue. Do I wear it, yes I do ...’
Blast him and blast this stupid hat, Kay groaned inwardly.
Feeling distinctly overdressed, she grimly sat it out as the bus rattled through Santry on its way to the airport. Supposing she was the only one at the interview wearing a hat, she thought. Oh God! it didn’t bear thinking!
A mini gale was blowing as Kay alighted at the airport terminal and following the instructions in her interview letter, walked in the direction of Griffith House. She had to ask the way several times and eventually arrived, feeling windblown and conspicuous, at the green sward set back from the main highway. Clutching her hat low on her forehead, she hurried up the narrow path set amidst neat borders of late-flowering petunias, with only one thought in mind - to repair the damage to her hair and make-up before anyone saw her.
In the washroom, Kay viewed her reflection in horrified dismay. The soigne look she had been to such pains to create that morning had quite gone, vanished in the wake of the malicious wind that buffeted the airport on all but the balmiest days of summer. Now she understood why all those women workers on the bus had kept their hair so unattractively rollered until the last minute. She wished she had been so wise, or had even the sense to tie on a scarf.
‘Damned climate!’ she swore. Making a quick decision, she pulled off the awful black hat and ruthlessly stripped away the velvet ribbon, unconcerned just then how she would explain to its owner the mutilation of her best hat. Trembling in her haste, she tied the long ribbon into a floppy artistic bow, then removed the tortoiseshell slide from the pleat of hair on her neck and shook down her hair. Released, the glossy waves fell smoothly to her shoulders. When she clipped the makeshift bow midway on the back of her head, the effect was at once pleasing and unfussy.
Satisfied, she stared at herself in the brightly lit mirror. At least now she had a face. Her black fringed eyes stared steadily and a little boldly back. Nothing venture, nothing gain, she told herself. It wasn’t as if she had flouted convention altogether. She had conformed to a degree.
Shoving the butchered hat behind the washstand with the intention of redeeming it later and feeling much relieved to be rid of it, Kay hurried out to the corridor. There she followed the sign marked Hostesses and quickly entering the interview room, slipped self-consciously into the one remaining chair at the huge mahogany table around which set nineteen other girls of her own age.
As she did so, her neighbour, a pretty blonde with a gleaming pageboy hair-do turned to give her a friendly smile. Kay returned the smile and relaxed in her seat, glad that she was not late after all. And that she had got rid of the ghastly hat - a real stroke of inspiration, seeing as none of the other candidates was wearing one.
She glanced about her and recognising no one from her first interview didn’t know whether to be sorry or glad. The room they sat in was large and the walls were panelled in the same rich coloured wood as the table. On the polished surface several heavy glass ashtrays were scattered. So they were not to be denied the solace of a smoke. Thank God, she sighed in relief.
From the way they were grouped, it looked as though there was to be a discussion of some kind. Kay studied the faces of those nearest her, seeking some clue, but apart from the friendly blonde’s initial greeting, none of them paid her any heed as they chatted in low voices amongst themselves.
She glanced away, depressed. Everyone seemed very well in with everyone else. Where had they all met before, she wondered. On the bus to the airport? Too much of a coincidence to believe they were all friends from childhood, she mused cynically. Her stomach rumbled painfully, reminding her that she had neglected to have any breakfast before coming out. She glanced at her watch and saw it was getting on for twenty to ten. What was holding things up? Nervously she wished they would get a move on.
Maura Kane, sitting at a small table at the top of the room with the Personnel Manager and the Hostess Administrator, unwittingly shared the same thought. She was aware that until the Hostess Superintendent made her appearance the first scheduled debate for that morning could not get underway.
This system of round-table debates had been devised by the Superintendent some years earlier when she maintained that they gave the best character clue as to the class of girl they were considering taking into the airline as air hostesses.
Maura gave a surreptitious glance at her watch. She had come straight from the canteen to Griffith House expecting to find her superior there before her and was now very conscious that they were running behind time. She looked up to find the Personnel Manager’s inquiring gaze upon her and met his eyes with a rueful shrug. It wasn’t like the Superintendent to be late, she thought. She decided to give her another five minutes before taking action.
In her office in the hostess section, Amy Curtis, the Hostess Superintendent, sighed and lifted her feet on to the little brocaded footstool she had dragged from under her desk. She was aware that she should have left five minutes earlier to attend the hostess debates but her mind was still dwelling on the recent meeting in the Chief Executive’s office and she found it difficult to bestir herself.
Besides she was feeling tired, all the fuss and strain of hostess recruitment over the past weeks beginning to tell on her. Given a choice that minute, she told herself, she would have headed straight for home and happily gone to bed for the afternoon. If only she could!
She let her grey head fall back wearily against her chair and with closed eyes reviewed the morning’s meeting which had ended so disappointingly. Unlike the European and Atlantic Chief Hostesses, the Superintendent had not placed a whole lot of hope in the outcome of the meeting with the Chief Executive, nor when it had followed on predictable lines had she echoed their frustrated indignation. McGrattan had acted much as she expected - displaying a healthy respect for number one and making sure that his first year of office would reassure the Board of Directors of their good choice in appointing him the new head of Celtic Airways. The Superintendent couldn’t entirely blame him. No doubt when he was more secure in his job, Oliver would give them their new hostess quarters.. In the meantime they would all just have to tighten their belts and hang on. Well, she for one wouldn’t have any difficulty.
Of the Spartan school, Amy Curtis was used to making sacrifices and felt that a certain amount of them were good for the human character. Today’s cabin crew wanted everything at once and with the minimum of effort. They were so much better off, if they only knew it, compared with the hostesses before them.
She often wondered how they would cope with a flight to Lourdes in an unpressurised Bristol Wayfarer loaded with stretcher cases, as their predecessors in the fifties had been forced to do. Although she had never been an air hostess herself she knew what she was talking about having done a good bit of flying in her capacity as Celtic Airways PR Officer. Briefly, she recalled the ugly, big plane bucketing uncomfortably through bad weather, with everyone throwing up. It had been a bit of a nightmare, she honestly admitted, especially when compared with the speed and comfort of today’s jets.
‘Better get a move on,’ she advised herself, fighting the temptation to stay where she was. Resolutely she kicked the footstool out of sight and struggled up. She was way behind schedule. Oh well! The day would be long enough for them all by the time it was over, she absolved herself, as she slipped into the jacket of her Hardy Amies suit and smoothed her hair.