Sarah Linton is used to being the centre of attention

IPC

elizabeth bowen












(Above): St John's Lane leading into Charterhouse Street with the central arch of Smithfield Market.


Temporary work. I went to the company at 9 o’clock as usual, but Mitch Holmes called me in to his office and asked me to go up to London to take his place at a meeting with the advertising agency the company uses. So then it was a rush to drive to the nearest station, wait for a train and travel up to Liverpool Street.

From Liverpool Street I got a taxi to Farringdon and eventually found the advertising agency, which was near Smithfield Market (a market for meat wholesalers - huge 1867 Victorian edifice in red brick and Portland stone, smell of blood in the air, stain of blood on the cobbles). After the bustle and noise of the streets the agency was very quiet. Actually it was two agencies (one owner) - upstairs was advertising, downstairs was a PR consultancy.

I was shown into the big featureless Board Room and given some coffee. Shortly afterwards Sarah Linton arrived - slim, in her late twenties, curly dark hair, very animated in the way she talks (uses her whole face to express herself). She is one of the company’s sales team, and despite her lack of experience has already been made Mitch Holmes’ assistant (making her unpopular with the rest of the sales staff).

As we drank the coffee Sarah Linton said that she had asked for me to be included in the meeting as she knew so little about advertising. Then we were joined by Jon Theobald, Creative Director of the agency (aged in his fifties, short, balding, rotund build, very intelligent eyes, mischievous way of talking). Into another taxi and across the Thames to Kings Reach Tower in Stamford Street (a tall office block where many magazines have their headquarters - the taxi driver looked at Sarah Linton and said: “As soon as you mentioned Stamford Street I knew you wanted IPC luv. You have the IPC look”).

The exterior of Kings Reach Tower is utilitarian 1960s brutalism, the interior twenty-first century office luxury. We went up in the lift to somewhere near the top of the tower and into the offices of a lifestyle magazine. We met the magazine's sales reps and in a small room (spectacular views across London) had a presentation on the advertising campaign to date and ways in which it can be developed (inserts, “special features”, sponsorship of various sections of the magazine). After the presentation the magazine reps took us to lunch in the nearby OXO Tower (red sofas in the shape of Mae West’s lips). We were shown to a table in the centre of the restaurant where I ordered salmon followed by chicken cooked in olive oil, followed by a sort of cherry pie. Jon Theobald ordered the wine. The meal was excessively long, and went on all afternoon.

As we left the restaurant Sarah Linton started complaining “I did not like our waiter. I did not like his attitude” (I hadn’t noticed anything wrong - but Sarah Linton is used to being the centre of attention and possibly he had inadvertently ignored her in some way).