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The Typing Pool

Miss Lynas was known as Mack the Knife, but is wasn’t for her pearly white teeth.

Young women in the 1950s were beginning to think that a life after school of nursing, teaching or secretarial occupations in their home towns, eventuating in a good marriage, was not really their cup of tea. Many young women sought other occupations or went to university. Some did the expected occupations but in countries or cities elsewhere. Miss Lynas was one of those.

Miss Lynas spent several weeks on a ship heading from Sydney to London in the early 1950s, enjoying every freedom post-WWII offered people at that time. Once in London, Miss Lynas’ excellent referees secured her a post in the typing pool at the British Medical Association. She wasn’t there to find a doctor-husband, however. The BMA paid reasonably well and Miss Lynas had other plans. Broadway was on her mind!

Miss Lynas was one of many young women from the Antipodes who settled in boarding houses for women in London whilst they worked in the city. She easily made friends with women from other countries and they too were eager to attend Broadway plays or current films with her. And travel. Travel was gold to these women in the 1950s.

Miss Lynas was a skilled shorthand typist, stenographer, and researcher; an asset to the BMA typing pool. Her truly outstanding skill, however, was her wit!

Mack the Knife

The women of the typing pool watched in unveiled intrigue, masquerading as both horror and heightened arousal, as Miss Lynas, with impeccable timing, turned and faced a smirking Kenneth as they both exited the dusty file room.

Kenneth, known amongst the women as ‘Crawler,’ was a tall lanky fellow with sandy hair and a slight stooped demeanor. Kenneth fancied himself with the ladies. To enhance this fanciful attitude, in his eyes, he trotted out supercilious references to authors whom he thought the women would know nothing of.

Miss Lynas, was, in that time, somewhat of an anomaly. She often trumped Kenneth with something he did not know about an author, or a book, a play, a film. He found this perplexing. And exciting.

Miss Lynas with her ‘Spanish hips’ and shapely ankles, was next, Kenneth was sure of that, on his tally of women who had fallen for his advances. He wasn’t entirely unsuccessful in this respect. His father was the Director of the BMA at that time.

Turning back toward him, Miss Lynas, pretty chin tilted up, boldly told Crawler where he most definitely should not place his hands. Further, she suggested an alternative place he could put his mouth. The women in the typing pool gasped! Miss Lynas, left eyebrow raised, paused, inhaled, and said what she said right to his face! Then, looking him up and down, she laughed at him. The collective eyes of the typing pool grew rounder. The women drew a breath. What will the boss’s son do?

What could Crawler do? Miss Lynas always cut him to the quick!