January 1982

Lancelot Rogers thought long and hard about a suitable handle, a call sign for himself when he got his CB radio. There were so many unsubtle tossers out there, who, thank God, one never met, calling themselves ‘Rocket Man’, ‘The Big Bopper’ , ‘Bedroom Cowboy’ and other coarse names and every other woman was ‘Foxy Lady’. They always said:
‘Got any ankle biters?’ and he would say
‘No ankle biters’
And he always said:
‘Keep your lipstick off the dipstick,’ to the women.
It was harmless enough but you didn’t actually want to get to know them.
No, Lance wanted something more urbane, reflecting his lifestyle and taste, nothing suggestive or vulgar, perhaps something intriguing.
He was just below average height, which is tall for a Welshman and slightly plump, due to his liking for good food and Spanish wine. Their little house was as comfortable as a good income and not too much effort could make it. He liked nothing better, after a soft day at the office, enlivened by sizing up the girls in the typing pool or in engineering, than to come home to Pat, his wife. They would often prepare a meal together, open a bottle of wine, and he would sit in front of the fire in his slippers, maybe enjoying a pipe, perhaps planning a holiday or listening to a Richard Clayderman LP. He liked piano music, he said, but when Celia lent him some Mozart concertos and Beethoven piano sonatas on L.Ps for him to tape, he had politely returned them saying:
‘Not that kind of piano music.’
No one, with a C.B radio, but Lance knew why his call sign was ‘Bilbo’.
He was careful with his money but didn’t stint on top-of- the range clothes and shoes. Suits, shirts, ties socks, shoes were always coordinated. He usually smelled of just a little too much duty free Paco Rabane.
He had left the ‘valley boys ‘of his home town behind, when he went to grammar school. The Eton of the Eastern valleys. A succession of better jobs in administration and appropriate evening classes and he had made the transition into management. He now had a comfortable position in a big company, pleasant colleagues, a reasonable income and a staff of one. There had been a re-organisation in the office recently. He had been allocated Carrie-Anne as his assistant, but hadn’t relished that. She was a recent graduate trainee and had far too high an opinion of herself, having come from Personnel. He had once announced to no-one in particular that he and Pat were going to a fancy-dress party as ‘Heart to Heart’, with red paper hearts pinned on their sleeves. He thought that was really clever, and not as vulgar as dressing up. Carrie-Anne had looked up from a report she was reading and commented:
‘Well, I certainly hope your wife looks like Stephanie Powers, because you don’t look a bit like Robert Wagner.’
He had of course, ignored such a rude remark.
So after some negotiating behind the scenes, Celia was appointed as his assistant. What he didn’t know was that Carrie-Anne had told Celia she would rather resign than work for Lance Rogers
Lance didn’t particularly like Celia, either. She was far too left wing for his liking, a trade union rep. who sometimes had to go and represent people who had broken staff rules. Trade unions were alright so long as they stuck to negotiating pay rises, improved car schemes and longer holidays, but they should keep their noses out of management matters. Celia had too much to say about company policy and politics in general. He knew she voted Labour. He had noticed too, how her name kept appearing at the foot of slightly subversive articles in the Trade Union newsletter. There were little cartoons and the odd pastiche of management directives, nothing you could quite put your finger on…but give her enough rope. There was her attitude too. She would stroll around the office. He had to tell her recently to walk around more briskly and look more business like. It had lasted less than a day. And she would wear trousers in winter and go bare- legged in summer. Really, it wasn’t professional. No, women should wear skirts, preferably tight fitting and high heels so their bottoms stuck out when they walked. That was nicer. Celia was into exercise-to –music, even taught classes. He preferred playing Badminton, you could see the ladies’ knickers when they bent down for the shuttlecock. He knew they did it on purpose. He thought golf might be pleasant, not too vigorous, nice people, Rotary Club types. He had said only a few days ago, over coffee, that he was taking advice about some off-shore investments. She had said she and her husband were investing abroad too; they had a sponsor child in Burundi.
Bloody typical.
Luckily, Lance and Celia, like most people in offices, were able to put their personal differences behind them when it came to work. He recognized that she was a ‘leftie’ and she recognized that he was a pratt.
One thing they had in common was an interest in photography and video, which came in useful in work. Recently they had been asked to make a video film to be used throughout the company, selling the merits of the next re-organisation to the staff. The request had appealed to both of them. The manager insisted that it be shot country-wide, so after writing the shooting script, they loaded cameras, tripods, storyboards, lights, sound equipment, batteries and a jumble of leads and adaptors and set off for a few days shooting in the north.
Celia left her car outside Lance’s house having transferred her case to his boot, where his Barbour jacket, green wellingtons and tartan rug in a carry case were neatly packed. The weather forecast predicted snow but there was no sign of it when they set off.
The journey was uneventful, the next day’s shooting went to plan and dinner was satisfying.
The next morning, each looked out of their bedroom onto a substantial fall of snow. It was not so heavy as to prevent them getting out and working and Celia managed to get kitted out with a pair of workman’s boots in one of the depots. They were only two sizes too big.
It didn’t take long, through TV, radio and phone calls to establish that due to unusual conditions, the north had got off lightly while the south had frozen to a standstill. No traffic was moving in or out. Everyone advised them to stay put. The problem was, they had done most of the work and the week-end was looming ahead.
Now, if they had fancied each other, what a heaven sent opportunity it would have been. As Murphey’s law prevailed, here were two people, who disliked each other at worst and bored each other at best, stuck in a small hotel in a drab village in North Wales with nothing to do and nowhere to go.
Celia spent much of her time on the phone. Lewis was tearing his hair. Fifi had incarcerated in her bedroom with Callum, who Lewis insisted on referring to as ‘Shagnasty’. Bobby was out with his mates from dawn ’til dusk on the sledge, coming home soaking wet, to eat and change his clothes, leaving the wet ones on the kitchen floor and disappearing at break-neck speed down the nearest slope, headfirst into a drift. No-one would help Lewis shovel snow. She tried to sympathise but couldn’t really see the point in all this snow shoveling, men seemed to need to do. Lewis was also suffering from newspaper deprivation. There was no Guardian crossword and no TV listing. By the third day he was phoning for the T V schedules, to moan that Callum was still there and to say they had run out of milk. Celia felt she was somehow expected to fix it all over the phone. Luckily, she had some other friends and her mother, she could call up, who while cut off from the world, didn’t expect her to sort out their situation.
Lance went out and cleared a path through the snow for the hotel’s regular customers and he built a snowman in the garden. Celia wondered where his ’free child’ had suddenly come from. He then disappeared to his room and slept for hours. She wondered which was worse: sitting in her room watching TV and hearing him snore through the walls or listening to Lewis moaning about Fifi, Callum and Bobby.
When it was deemed safe enough for the return journey, although both their villages were still impassable to all but four-wheeled drive vehicles, they were relieved to be going home. They each bought a torch and a flask, which the hotel filled with coffee for them. Lance still had his CB radio in the car so they could get road reports, mostly from truck drivers. They got safely to Newport, where Lance left his car, all their luggage and equipment and they both phoned home to let people know their plans. Lance got a train and Celia got a lift in a works’ Land Rover to within a couple of miles of home. Lance bought milk for Pat and tucked the long, cool white bottle into his padded coat. He wondered how Celia was getting on walking up the hill that led from the river Taff to the Garth Mountain. She’d be OK, all that exercise she did.
Celia walked up the unlit steep road, her torch making yellow pools of light on the grey snow. A Jeep stopped and gave her a lift half way, then she was on her own again. A few four- by-fours slithered passed but no-one stopped. About half a mile from home, rounding a bend, she saw three lights up ahead.. She recognized voices and shapes. It was Lewis, Fifi and Bobby coming to meet her.
For days after, Lewis and Celia, in common with thousands of others who had to get to work, walked to main roads and crammed onto overcrowded buses. Once in work, they spent much of the day wondering how they would get home again as the bus service was very restricted. It was a week before the minor roads were clear enough for Lewis to get his car off the drive and take Celia to Lance’s to collect her car. Lance and Pat made them welcome as they took off their shoes in the porch. Pat served them Gold Blend in bone china mugs as they sat on the G Plan settee. Lance was wearing a Pringle sweater and sheep skin slippers. When they left he waved them off from the door of ‘Rivendell’.