My first day at Percy Brothers was way back in 1965. I was sixteen, fresh out of school and certainly a bit naïve. When I had been for my interview a few weeks earlier with my dad, he insisted that I wore my school uniform. This caused great hilarity in the Folding Room which was populated by girls and ladies aged anywhere between fifteen and seventy. At least I didn’t have to wear my school cap!
I was apprenticed as a compositor which meant that part of the job consisted of assembling individual letters of lead type in a composing stick and I needed to learn the positions of the letters in the upper and lower cases where they were stored. I also needed to recognise words reversed and upside down! Once the letters were assembled they were made up into a page, tied up with string and placed on a galley which was a tray with sides. A proofing press was used to ink the page and a sheet of paper placed on the page so that a rubber roller could be passed over it and a proof of the page made. This could then be used to find and correct any mistakes.
The man in charge of the linotype room which was where I was working was called Harold Perks. Dressed in a suit, he looked for all the world like a department store floor walker and was known for his lack of common sense. He decided the best way for me to ‘learn the case’ was to use one that was very rarely used by the comp rooms staff – 4 1/2pt used normally for Old Moore’s Almanac, one of the many publications produced at Percy Brothers. This was so tiny I thought I was never going to read the letters, let alone learn the case. Fortunately within a short period of time the FOC (Father of the Chapel, ie shop steward) found out what was going on and came in went berserk with Mr Perks. A red head, Charlie Penny, he was responsible for some of the most cutting insults I have ever, known, both to me and the managerial staff. Imagine Peter Sellars in ‘I’m Alright Jack’ and double the attitude and you would still be nowhere near Charlie’s range of insults and tricks designed to get his staff the best conditions he could. Took me many years to realise what he had done for me.
The minute type was soon replaced with 30pt Garamond and my apprenticeship began in earnest.