What’s in a job? by Ronald Mackay
Easter 1962, I hitchhiked from Aberdeen where I was studying, to London where my mother lived. Next day, at 7:30 a.m. took the Tube to Bank and walked to Little Trinity Lane. Bowler-hatted City bankers and lawyers strode purposefully to their offices. Proudly, I presented myself at the headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
“I’m looking for work as a porter.”
The receptionist pointed to a marble staircase. “See Larry and Lou in the viewing hall.”
Broad empty tables, each with an empty chair, lined the perimeter. A small group of young men sat on radiators chatting. They paid me no attention. Two white-coated older men swivelled their heads towards me. Am I seeing double?
“Larry!” “Lou!” Each thrust out a hand. Identical twins! They bore the authority of knowledge.
“Looking to work as a porter?” They asked simultaneously.
“Yes,” I said, to each in turn. I soon learned that to talk to one was to talk to both.
“Viewing begins in an hour. Auction lasts ten days. Thirty -bob a day. Eight sharp, to five.”
“What do I do?”
“Buyers view furs in this hall.” They gestured to the tables. “Porters bring them samples. Here’s the catalogue.” It listed the furs about to be auctioned.
“Buyers arrive after nine. Each buyer needs a porter. Offer your services. He’ll name the animal and the catalogue batch number he wants. You bring him furs from that batch. When he’s examined them, take them back. Hang them exactly where you found them. He’ll ask for another sample. And so it goes.”
“Where are the furs.”
“Come!” I followed Larry-Lou, as I decided to call them, through swing doors and into an enormous warehouse. The odour was powerful. Row upon row of animal pelts hung on strings. They stretched into the dark vastness.
“Each row is labelled. Pelts are broken into strings. Each string is labelled and numbered.” Larry-Lou reeled off the names: “Mink, civet, seal, karakul, muskox, caribou, llama, alpaca, skunk, coyote, wolf…”
I’d worked on Highland estates and had seen deer hides hung to dry. But here! I was looking at the winter-work of thousands of trappers from around the world.
“Get familiar with the catalogue. Get to know the location of the furs on sale each day. That way, you can bring the buyer what he wants quickly.”
This is the most exciting and interesting job in the world! I thought. I felt proud to be an employee of the great Hudson’s Bay Company.
“Don’t listen to the Terrible Twins!” The young men still sitting on the radiators.
“Why not?”
“Work hard or not -- you still get only 30 shillings a day.”
“Where do you come from?” I detected northern accents.
“Leeds.”
“We came here for the clubs.”
“Easy to pick up chicks in London.”
“Saturday’s, we hand out the Morning Star.”
“The communist newspaper?” I asked.
“Yea!” There was a challenge in the voice. “We distribute them outside tube stations.”
They began complaining how exploited we were but how, with a revolution, utopia would come.
Silent, I listened. I shared neither their politics nor their aversion to work.
They despised the City and its businessmen. I knew the world to be full of opportunities to learn, earn, and prepare myself for the real world not an imaginary utopia. I respected the Hudson’s Bay Company whose adventurers had founded the institution in 1670. I respected those diligent men like Larry-Lou who kept it going.
“I’d better take a look at the warehouse,” I excused myself. “Larry-Lou warned me that buyers appreciate a knowledgeable porter.”
“Rich effing capitalists! Make fur coats. Worth effing thousands.”
“They’ll slip you a tiny tip when they’re finished, and expect you to thank them!
My catalogue under my arm, I made a grateful escape into the warehouse.
A source of delight. I started with “Wild Mink”. The furs hung in rows, arranged from delicate browns to black. A string ran through the eye-hole of each to hold a score or so together. Each carried an identifying label: “Wild mink. Male. Canada.” The rows were a hundred yards long.
Larry-Lou appeared out of nowhere. “Wot you fink, Jock?”
“I’m fascinated!”
“Wanna know more?”
“Sure!”
With pride, Larry and Lou told me they’d worked for the Hudson’s Pay Company since they were 16. They knew every aspect of the work carried out at Beaver House and were happy to share some of that knowledge with someone who expressed interest. For the next 30 minutes they held me spellbound.
I learned the history of the Company since receiving its royal charter from King Charles II almost 200 years earlier. It gave them the sole right to trade in Rupert's Land, a vast area of Canada.
I learned that although some furs are still trapped in the wild, some are farmed. Most countries insist on humane methods. Wild animals produce more offspring than can survive. Some are eaten by other animals, but we can also benefit from this surplus. Trappers work in winter. The meat, like beaver, muskrat and Afghan lamb feeds their families and they sell the pelts. No endangered species are traded by the company. Fur garments, as opposed to cottons or synthetics, last for decades. Each is made by artisans who pass on their skills from mother to daughter.
Larry-Lou only finished to allow me to return to the viewing hall where buyers would be arriving. I’d learned a lot. How mink and other animals are skinned to give a full, uncut hide. That this leaves the furrier to decide how best to cut. How the female pelt in some animals is longer and slimmer than the male. How the quality of fur is assessed by examining the outer guard hairs and the depth of the underfur.
“Before you return, Jock, we’ll show you one other thing.” We moved to a distant row. “Farmed mink. What do you see?”
I examined the furs carefully. “Farmed mink show more variety of colour than wild?”
“You got the eye, Jock!” Larry and Lou were delighted. “No need for dye in the fur trade. A buyer knows the shades he needs. The more he can get, the higher he’ll bid at the auction. Uniformity adds value. The better you understand what a buyer wants, the more useful you’ll be. If you have down time, get to know the layout of the warehouse.”
I returned to the showing hall. A few buyers were already examining samples at tables. A new buyer walked in. He looked towards the group of free porters. They ignored him. I stepped forward. “Porter, sir?”
For the next hour I brought my buyer silver fox, muskrat and mink. Every time I went in search, I scanned the rows and labels the better to acquaint myself with the layout. I’d also learned that I could make a buyer an active offer of help.
As soon as I was free, I approached a new arrival. “Porter sir?” The lads from Leeds smirked.
The afternoon began with a demanding buyer. “Muskrat. Dark. Male.” I brought him strings. “Any with silver guard hairs?”
“Yes.”
“How Many?”
“I’ll check,” I told him.
“Same quality as this!”
“Yes.” He looked at me appreciatively.
An hour later, he slipped me two, half-crowns. “Thanks!”
I was learning what buyers expected and how to satisfy them. By the end of the day, I had thirty-five shillings in my pocket. As we left, I told the lads from Leeds.
“Effing flunkey!” They appeared to believe that they earned their 30 shillings by little more than their presence. I saw my work as an honest deal between me and the Hudson’s Bay Company represented by Larry-Lou. I had to earn my 30 shillings by performing, to the best of my ability, the work expected from a porter by a buyer. To the lads from Leeds, tips were demeaning. To me, tips represented evidence that my diligent service had contributed to a buyer’s satisfaction, added value to his time, and had exceeded his expectations.
Next morning, I was ready and waiting. Two buyers strode in. Similar foreign suits, similar faces. Another pair of twins!
“Porter sir?”
One nodded, I led him to a table near the warehouse doors. The other brother snapped his fingers towards the Leeds lads to get their attention. They took their time to respond. They looked at one another. Reluctantly, one left the comfort of the radiator and followed the buyer to a table.
“Avram Abrahamyan” My buyer showed me the surname on his catalogue. “Brother,” he pointed. “Jacob. Not to confuse us! Never!”
I blinked, wondering how to distinguish one from the other.
“Know mink?”
“Yes.” I didn’t tell him it was my second day.
“Wild. Canadian. Female. Dark brown.”
I returned with four strings. He lingered longer over one. “More! Like this.” His growled.
There were thousands of wild male mink but I was learning to distinguish shade. I selected six dark strings.
Avram Abrahamyan examined them carefully. I watched. He pushed two towards me. “More! Like these.” He wants dark tapering lines.
The new strings I brought elicited grunts of satisfaction. He wrote in his catalogue.
“More!” He looked at me, eyes no longer hostile. “Twenty more. Like this!”
I brought more. He marked lot numbers in his catalogue and added ciphers.
“More!”
I went back and forth. He examined, took notes, and added ciphers.
“I go lunch.” He thrust his catalogue at me. “Don’t surrender it! To nobody!”
I went for a cup of tea from the urn. Larry-Lou caught the surname on the catalogue under my arm. “Ah! One of the Abrahamyan brothers. From Soviet Asia!”
“Avram!” I nodded.
“Tough customers. Annotate their catalogues in code. If this fell into another’s hands and that other could read the code, they’d lose their bidding advantage. Buyers keep their needs secret to keep prices in check.”
Apprehensive now, I abandoned my tea and clutched my charge the tighter.
“Tell you what he wants to look at this aft?”
“Karakulcha. I’m going to the warehouse now to see what they are and where they hang.”
“We’ll show you.”
Larry-Lou led me deep into the warehouse and pointed. There hung the most beautiful pelts I’d ever seen. Lamb-size, ranging from black through greys to white. Gently, I touched the tightly wound coils.
“Labelled by origin. Look!” Pure romance! Turkistan, Persia, South-West Africa, Caucuses.
My stomach rumbled as I waited for Avram Abrahamyan. Ah! Here he is! He reached for his catalogue. Hold on! That’s not Avram’s ring!
“Sir, aren’t you Avram’s brother?”
Aggressively, he tapped the cover I was clutching. “My name. My catalogue.”
I retreated a step. “But you’re Yakob.” I tried to keep uncertainty out of my voice.
He scowled, and to my relief, withdrew.
Avram arrived.
“All good?” Raised eyebrows.
“All good!” I said. How can I even begin? His own brother!
“I’ll start with Swakara. Pepper and salt.”
In the warehouse I found the Southwest African Karakul, selected a dozen strings, returned to the viewing room and placed them on the table. Avram smiled and nodded appreciatively.
“Look!” He caressed the soft, tight, whorls. As fine as coils of cigarette smoke. “How many?” He asked. I told him. “Bring all.”
I was loving this work.
“Five o’clock! Wind up!” Larry-Lou announced. Buyers entered final annotations. Porters returned strings to the warehouse.
As I made to leave, I found Avram and Jacob together, waiting by the marble staircase. Poker-faced, Avram pointed at me. “In street! We talk!” What’s in store for me? Surely, I haven’t lost my job.
The City’s workday was ending; businessmen and secretaries headed for the Tube.
The Abrahamyan brothers stopped in the middle of the pavement, unconcerned by the inconvenience they presented to impatient pedestrians.
“Did good, you!” Uncomprehending, I looked from one to the other.
“Bloody business!” Avram drew the edge of hand across this throat.
“Sentimental, no place!”
“We must cautious.”
“Vigilant.”
“You passed.”
“Tomorrow, you work for both of us.”
“Two tables.”
“Twice the work.”
“Can?”
All day, they’d been testing me! I was stunned. I managed the words, “I can!”
Avram tucked a pristine pound note into my jacket pocket. Jakob added a second.
“Tomorrow, same.”
“If good!”
As one, they turned and melted into the crowd.
Hudson's Bay Company, Beaver House, London
Canada's threepenny stamp with Beaver
Fur auction '70s
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The Beaver atop Beaver House, HBC, London
Furrier with strings of Afghan lambs
Natural furs come in many colours and shades
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