THE OLD AND ONLY WAY OF QUALIFYING

Ian’s learning curve in Mulholland’s office was steep and exhausting. As the only junior in the Investment Department he was at the beck and call of all six of the valuers and negotiators, and sometimes the three senior partners. He was soon exposed to every form of commercial property investment.

Each night he would return to his small dingy room – often too tired to eat – for endless study and little sleep. He got up at six, arriving at the office with the cleaners every morning in order not to fall behind with the written papers, which had to be posted back to the College of Estate Management each week.

Jeremy Thring had been very good about Ian leaving early, and many were intrigued by the large Bentley which waited for him in Berkeley Square every Friday afternoon. He enjoyed the journey to Bath and after a few trips the chauffeur knew well enough to leave him alone, as sitting in the back, he went through the past week’s marked study papers.

He loved the weekend’s of delicious food, clean sheets and competitive games of Scrabble; the luxury of Widcombe House was such a contrast to the maid’s room in London. Right from the first weekend, Marcus Rose had insisted that he bring the work marked by the college with him, so that they could go through it after dinner. It was more unwanted pressure but, keen to impress, these sessions kept him from falling behind in the relentless treadmill of study and work. By the last Friday before Christmas 1960 Ian could relax; Contract and Tort, Valuations, Law of Property, all had earned him an ‘A’ mark, with only a ‘B’ in Building Construction. Marcus was pleased.

Sunday night, back in the maid’s room, the next week’s washing and ironing brought him back to earth. He had splashed out on a new-fangled ‘drip dry’ shirt, bought from Marks & Spencer at great expense. Its wrapper proudly boasted, ‘needs no ironing, just wash and wear, your body heat does the rest: after only five minutes, not a wrinkle in sight’. His creases lasted right through the day. At the drawing board, jacketless one morning, Mulholland made a comment about juniors coming to work in shirts they had slept in. Ian went back to ironing.

Another extract from chapter forty six of – ‘Go Swift and Far – a Tale of Bath’ The first book of The Westcott Chronicles