I used to work for MORI Telephone Surveys - or MTS for short. The offices were on the edge of Clerkenwell in London and I worked there for just over two years. They were interesting times and, without wanting to sound dramatic, they were also life changing times.
I was one of three people interviewed for two roles as research executive. They initially offered the jobs to the two other candidates and told me that unfortunately my services would not be required - that's until one of the people didn't turn up to work on their first day, or any other day after that... Not the best way to get a job but I took it all the same.
The woman who ran MTS was Rosemary. She had started her career in research - as far as I remember - working as Bob's assistant. I only ever met Bob once - an American who desperately wanted to be British or at least to have a knighthood or some such accolade. Previous to working for Bob's MORI I believe she worked at Colombia pictures with her husband Donald and also for Greenpeace at some point - but that was all thousands of years previous.
Rosemary had a wicked sense of humour and was somewhat eccentric. On my first day at work she took us all out and got me drunk - little did I know that this would be a regular occurrence - and when I say regular I mean most days. She smoked and if anyone wanted a cigarette we would go and smoke in her office with her - it was whilst smoking in this office with her that we saw the twin towers of the world trade centre come under attack and collapse after being hit by two aeroplanes. She had some funny stories - like falling down the back of a filing cabinet whilst trying to retrieve some papers and being rescued by the actor Sidney Poitier who grabbed her ankles and hauled her out. She used to have an office cat which lived in the bottom of the filing cabinet - and a range of spirits which lived in the top of the same filing cabinet. When one of Rosemary's cats- Trotsky I think - had developed diabetes she joined an online group called Sugar Cats, well who wouldn't? And who wouldn't travel to America to meet up with the sugar cats team and go sky diving with them?
Rosemary once invited us all for a weekend away in Walton on the Naze up in Essex. It was a boating weekend and was incredibly drunken.
Chris & I slept on one of the small boats in what felt like a coffin - my face was about six inches from the top of this box and condensation kept dripping onto my face throughout the night. - Chris was not happy. We ached the next day whilst sailing around the estuary the next day.
I remember Chris Downham playing his guitar and leading a sing along to Van Morrison & Beatles songs at sunset on the deck of a boat. It was a good time.
Rosemary died in the last year that I worked at MTS. She had travelled up to the forest in Essex where her husband was buried, sat at his graveside and injected herself with a massive overdose of insulin which she had kept to one side since his death. She had always said that when the time was ready she would do it herself and that she never wanted to be sick. It was her time and her way.
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