The Conference Man

By PATRICK CAMPBELL And when they play 'Here Comes the Bride,' I stand outside, Just a girl that men forget.

ALOVELY old melody. So it was for me for ,the best twenty years of my life, and basi- cally I was glad to be passed over, despite a certain morbid curiosity about what the con- summation would be like.

To wrench the matter-L-and not, it would seem, a moment too soon—outOf metaphor into fact, I worked for twenty year on terms of open affa- bility with the editors of a number of newspapers and magazines without being invited by a single one of them to step into the sanctum sanctorum and join the editorial conference. Even the smallest pawns in the game got in from time to time, like the medical correspondent, the astro- loger and the crossword-puzzle setter, but not me. Just a girl that men forget. . . .

One might wonder why, but I didn't. In the interests of self-preservation I worked hard to keep myself out of conclave.

In these best twenty years I was privileged to work under, or slightly to one side of, no fewer than eleven editors, a modest bag, perhaps, by Fleet Street standards, but more than enough for me.

It was always a matter of delicate, precision engineering to create the right emotional climate between master and man in which the master, though probably holding a low personal regard for the man's contribution, could be put under the curb of suspecting that his judgment might be at fault, so that both could go our separate ways without uncomfortable friction against each other. It was tiring work if you had to do it more than once a year.

When each new editor appeared he'd have the usual four to five days riffling through the pack of resident workers, discarding some of the more highly paid kings, queens and knaves and then drawing more of the same kind from the news- paper he'd just left, or been bounced from, in order to refill his hand. My turn used to come early in the second week, and these encounters always took the same form.

The new editor began by shaking hands, and then saying that he didn't want me to feel uneasy about anything, a frank declaration that he knew that craven fear had been agitating my mind since the news of his appointment had come through. Next, he said he'd always enjoyed reading my stuff, and identified in some detail a piece l'd written for another publication about two years before without, however, venturing upon any mention of the regular contributions I'd been making to our own sheet in the mean- time. I respected this as a courteous indication of his view that the newspaper which was respon- sible for two-thirds of my income was getting the

waste product of what appeared to be a thriving industry. With the air now translucently clear he would invite me to propose, say, one idea for a Working format which would give a new and Wider scope to my inimitable Style.

It was a moment too cut and dried for com- fort, and I always tried to fray it about. I never, I went to considerable length to explain, seemed to get any ideas at all, or not ideas as such, like riding a penny-farthing down the Strand to prove that traffic moved more quickly a hundred years ago, or becoming an elephant boy for a week With Billy Smart, to find out if animals enjoyed circus training. Then, in case he snapped at either of these trifles, I hurried on into a dissertation about humour, showing that it was in an entirely separate category from all other newspaper work, a thing of mood and emotion and personal metabolism so fragile that it could be suffocated altogether by, say, working too closely with the reporting staff or, indeed, any other department. The difficulty was, I said, that I myself never really realised I'd got hold of a humorous idea until after I'd written it, a complication that made it impossible for me to present the idea. as it were, in advance, though naturally there were some subjects which were. . . .

They were busy men, all those editors, and they were usually prepared to cut it short, round about here. We would part, with expressions of our absolute confidence in the future, and the promise that, while I would continue to contribute in the same genre as before, both of us would make a Special point of concentrating on new ideas, and lob them backwards and forwards, by telephone, one to another. The important thing was that it put paid to any thought of my joining the edi- torial conference. 'For what,' as I put it to one envious features man, 'conductor of an orchestra would tolerate a flautist sitting in the front row Who's come without his flute? And what flautist would volunteer for fluting who doesn't know the score?'

All that was settled by my twelfth, and prob- ably last, editor. Starting with a quick rinse and reconstruction of the reporters and the art depart- ment, he then issued a letter to all the feature men, addressing us as his 'gifted writers,' and begging us, if we could spare the time, to attend Upon him the following Wednesday, for the pool- ing and mutual fertilisation of ideas.

It was a swift and deadly move, all the more effective for having been made without warning. It caught me a severe clip. I'd had no opportunity for climate construction, or the fraying of clear- cut issues. It looked as though I'd have to produce ideas instead. I found it small consolation to know that my curiosity about what went on at editorial conferences would now be settled. It might, I feared, be settled for good.

When Wednesday came, and the gifted writers started to gather in the secretary's room, it was some comfort to find that I was not the only one Who'd been caught between wind and water. A genial professional countryman, who up till now had been happy to send in his jottings about grouse, badgers and the habits of the peewit by Post. was profoundly alarmed at having to put in a personal appearance. 'What's all this about gifted writers?' he wanted to know. 'I'm a work- ing journalist and I'd like to leave it at that.'

I shared his anxiety. 'If you're a gifted writer,' I said, 'you've got to write in a gifted way, and I'm not sure either of us is up to it. Have you got any ideas?' If, I thought, there was going to be pooling and mutual fertilisation it might not be a bad plan to get off to a premature start, though my own game-bag was none too full.

He clammed up immediately. 'Not a sausage,' he said, clearly demonstrating the gifted writer's natural tendency to share his ideas with another. We went into the editor's room. With every nerve alert to make an early assessment of the speed of the court, I saw that the question of seat- ing was probably vital. There weren't enough chairs, so that at least three of the gifteds would have to sit on a side table, getting cramp, or lean against the wall, sliding off into vertigo. Furthermore, the sun was blazing in through the windows behind the editor's desk. Several gifteds, who'd made a wrong move, were already in bad trouble here, either gazing into the glare with brisk but stone-blind efficiency, or shading their eyes with hands or notebooks, under so much pressure already that I gave little for their chances. Riding off the fashion editress, I snitched a chair in the corner, with my back to the window, in the approximate position of left-half to the editor's centre-forward. It had several advan- tages, in addition to good visibility. It was a modest post, withdrawn from the central group, indicating more the observer than the active par- ticipator. It could also suggest, to those quick enough to spot it, that whatever other loyalties or alignments of interest might establish them- selves the editor and I were, beyond question, playing on the same team.

The proceedings opened with the news editor reading out from a typewritten schedule a list of stories upon which the reporters were already working. As we'd all been given a copy of this when we came in, and could read it for ourselves, its purpose might have been to show that hard news-gathering was, ah;eady going on, and that it was up to the features men to match it, if we hoped to claim a space in the paper. We let it pass without comment.

The editor lit another cigarette and sat back with the relaxed air of a man who knows he's going to be amused and entertained to the point of surfeit. 'Well, chaps,' he said. 'let's hear all your ideas.'

I thought that silence would probably follow this, too, and was deeply shocked to see that nearly all the chaps, including the professional countryman, showed a positive eagerness to shove in their oars, apologising briskly to one another for interrupting and then driving straight on, con- sulting copious notes and making it seem that the day would not be long enough in which to put forward all their ideas.

Nearly everyone had a new angle on the themes which were then current—the export of Irish horses and the breathalyser for drunken drivers—and made their suggestions with such fire that the meeting became seriously animated —seriously, that is, for the man who had as yet made no contribution to it. I decided to rectify this with a light witticism from, as it were, the jester's privileged chair. 'How about.' I said, in a momentary lull. 'combining everything into one big story, and trying the breathalyser on the Irish horses? I'm sure some of them could do with it. . .

Silence did follow, this time. The silence of the tomb, and that's what it felt like. Buried, six feet deep. I had made a cardinal error, one of which only a man new to conference work could have been guilty—the error of getting yourself suspected, however unfairly, of regarding the conference as a load of bull's wool. My care- fully chosen position, behind the editor and withdrawn from the other, honest workers, now seemed to add considerably to the general impression that I was merely sitting in for laughs. I tried to correct this. 'I wasn't offering it,' I said. 'as a serious suggestion.'

The editor was politeness itself. 'What are you going to amuse us with this week?' he asked. Under pressure. I made an even worse mistake, conference-wise, than the previous one. I started the speech mechanism working without knowing what the end-product was going to be. 'I met an interesting woman the other evening,' I said, 'who's built a swimming pool in the basement of her house in The Boltons. . .

The editor, and the conference, waited expec- tantly. As far as they were concerned the launch- ing of this idea had got no farther than a loosen- ing of the first chock. 'I was just wondering,' I said, suddenly getting the whole vessel under way, 'what would happen if twenty thousand gallons started leaking out. It's a densely popu- lated area. Douglas Fairbanks lives practically next door. . .

The editor liked it. He liked it so much he took it away from me and gave it to the news editor. 'Get one of the reporters on to it,' he said. 'There's a good news story there.'

I was so relieved to have made an acceptable contribution that I forgot, until the very end of the meeting, that I'd nothing to write about myself. The editor was unworried, eager to go into secret session with the advertising manager. 'You'll find something.' he said, 'all right.'

What I did find, three days later, was that the lady with the swimming pool was so incensed by the suggestion that she was flood- ing the Fairbanks basement that she'd threatened to put the matter in the hands of her solicitors if the slander continued. 'Do check your facts, cock,' said the reporter who'd run into it. 'It saves a lot of trouble in the end.'

To save trouble in the end --and because new ideas to give a wider scope to my inimitable

style still obstinately refused to come—I remained almost entirely silent for the next three meetings, sitting modestly in the back row of gifteds, facing the full glare of the midday sun. At the end of the third one the editor said he'd reached the conclusion that inspiration probably came more easily to humorous writers when they were on their .own, and that there'd be no need for me to attend on the following Wednesday.

The old half-back/centre-forward relationship had certainly gone into a decline. A few days later it came to pieces altogether, with my being sent permanently off the field, but it didn't sur- prise me.

After twenty years on the touchline you're crazy to get into the game.