I'm thrilled that Clare Cooper (who was until very recently deputy editor of Woman's Weekly Fiction Special and deputy fiction editor of Woman's Weekly) has agreed to give us an insight into what went on in the WW offices.
I
remember my first day on Woman’s Weekly. I was packed off to an
induction course and then, later on, introduced to everyone on the
magazine. As we went round the office (separate rooms for each dept
in those days and treble the amount of staff – a stark contrast to
how it is now), I remember feeling slightly shocked yet also
impressed that most of them had been there for many years. I was
taken aback at how OLD so many of them were, having just come from a
very “young” publishing company myself, but also taking it to be
a very good sign. Little did I know that I, too, would become one of
the “oldies” one day and end up staying there for 29 years! Yes,
I was there BC – before computers.
My
boss, Gaynor Davies, who was there for 37 years, termed the phrase
“The knitted handcuffs”. Once you had settled in and found your
niche, it would take something quite extraordinary to winkle you out
of your comfort zone.
People
often mock women’s magazines, saying that they are shallow and
trivial, yet we had many letters and emails from readers telling us
how our magazine had helped them. I particularly remember the letter
we received from a lady in Northern Ireland. She said that another
bomb had just gone off nearby and Woman’s Weekly kept her sane in
an intolerable situation.
Almost
every week, the Champagne was cracked open to celebrate yet another
rise in the sales figures. The Cookery dept would put on a spread
and, round about October/November time, everyone would gather in the
kitchen to devour roast turkey and all the trimmings, which had just
been photographed for one of the Christmas issues.
At
the end of each week, Cookery would put out all the food they had
left over from testing and cooking from that week and there would be
a rush to get there for first pickings. When they had an
ever-popular traybakes special in the magazine, the scrum was almost
unseemly.
A
previous editor remarked that the fire alarm going off would elicit
groans and grumbles and everyone would reluctantly amble out of the
building to the designated safe space. A cry of “Cake!” echoing
down the corridor, however, and it was every man and woman for
themselves.
When
anyone could finally bring themselves to leave the magazine, there
was always a big leaving do: lunch, gifts, flowers, cake, a card with
a mocked-up WW cover with said persons’ face on it along with
suitable coverlines, and a vat of Pimm’s so huge you could almost
take a dip in it, traditionally made by the Knitting dept for reasons
lost in the mists of time.
When
I joined, I was told about the famous Woman’s Weekly birthdays.
They were pretty special: presents, cards, flowers, everyone singing
“Happy Birthday” to you, a long lunch with 30 or more staff and a
birthday cake baked especially for your tastes. So, chocolate for me,
always, but for Gaynor, who couldn’t eat wheat or dairy, a fabulous
concoction of different flavours of fruity sorbets and ices. I wish
I had kept the email that came round, some years ago now, in which
Cookery very apologetically explained that, due to staff and budget
cutbacks, they could no longer make a birthday cake for everyone. The
word “Spoilt” hovered in my mind at that point. In a sad way,
though, it was the marker for many more changes and things were never
quite the same again.
Still
on the subject of food, a gang of us would troop up to the canteen
every day (on the 29th
floor, with dizzying, jaw-dropping views to distract you from your
meal), where the carvery used to cost just one pound. The salad bar
was of the “all you can eat” kind and a particularly greedy
colleague used to pile her plate so high it was embarrassing. Her
nickname was “Desperate Dan” and the till staff were often
overheard making rude remarks about the size of her plates. There
was always laughter, though and ours must have been the liveliest
table there, especially on the day when a rather buxom colleague
dropped an earring into her cleavage and, quick as a flash, our
sharp-witted production editor, Alan, said, “There’s gold in tham
thar hills.” The entire table erupted.
Magazines
held regular staff sales of clothes, shoes, knitting, fabrics,
cushions and other home-related goodies, books, make-up, wine,
cameras, horsey items and anything and everything relating to the
many magazines in the company. Manners seemed to fly out the window
at these and I once witnessed a woman running around the tables in an
effort to beat the rest. And two women in a very unseemly grapple
for a bottle of perfume. It got so bad, an admonishing email was
sent round informing everyone that, if they didn’t behave, the
sales would cease.
Proceeds
from our own sales throughout the year went towards our Christmas
party, sometimes held outside the office if we had had a particularly
good year, or inside if not. Dismantling and removing the computers,
setting up the bar on one of the desks, draping tinsel everywhere and
dancing round the photocopier (tapes provided by staff; DJ Kevin from
the art dept) are all fond memories for me.
Readers
trusted us to the point of madness. One woman wrote in to our
problem page with the name of the tablets her doctor had prescribed
for her. She didn’t know what they were for, and wanted us to tell
her! Given the lead times for the magazine, the poor soul may well
have been dead by the time the issue came out, if indeed her letter
was even printed. But I imagine someone would have told her to go
back to her doctor or, at the very least, speak to a chemist.
Our
problem page editor was also the Mother of our union chapel. During
one meeting in her office, her phone rang and it was a reader whose
tampon had got stuck. In front of everyone, the editor talked the
distressed reader down, inch by inch.
One
year, we raised funds for “Wells for Gambia” which was a charity
set up by the author Philippa Gregory, who used to write for us. One
day, we received through the post a very small, thin envelope which
was tightly packed with what amounted to a thousand pounds, in notes,
with no covering letter. The girl who opened it was shaking. I can
see it now and I often wonder who had sent it – and in such a
casual fashion!
We
had cover-mounted gifts in those days – remember those?! On one
occasion, it was dried mashed potato that had exploded when it got
damp in the warehouse and on another, a comb complete with
ready-supplied lice.
There
was a rather nice bike on offer in the magazine once and I can still
see our deputy editor, John, riding it up and down the corridor to
test it out.
Jiffy
bags or, sometimes, boxes of books for review arrived in to the
office on a daily basis – like Christmas every day. And even more
so when we did the Christmas books pages. One year, my task was to
package up books and send them out to selected celebrities to review.
After a couple of weeks, I had to ring them all up to get their
reviews over the phone – not everyone was on email in those days. I
particularly remember how lovely Pam Ferris and Lynda Bellingham
were.
We
used to run serial writing competitions many years ago. The awards
ceremony lunch included speakers such as Maeve Binchy and Rosamunde
Pilcher, who were both charming, and our workshops in the early days
invited publishers, agents and such literary luminaries as Philippa
Gregory, Fay Weldon and – er - Edwina Currie (who was much prettier
in the flesh and actually very nice - softly spoken and unexpectedly
modest).
Still
name-dropping: When our Features dept, knowing how I feel about him,
asked me to interview Pasha Kovalev from Strictly over the phone for
a short feature in the magazine, I nearly dropped through the floor.
I had rather been hoping for a face to face interview, but it was
only a very short feature after all and the interview was over in
minutes. I wished it had been somewhere more private, and was very
aware of everyone around me earwigging (damn those open-plan
offices!), so had to keep it polite and professional and to the
point. I still have his number, though… any offers?!
Over
the years, I was able to write a few short stories for WW and also
other magazines in the company, under another name, plus a couple of
small features. Writing is a big passion for me, along with reading.
I hasten to add that I was rejected, too, by my own magazine and
others. Not everything I wrote was accepted, so I do know and
understand how it feels!
There
were some heated debates in our dept over stories we disagreed on. I
didn’t always win them but I put up a good fight on behalf of the
writers, who trusted us with their precious words. I always felt
strongly that someone should speak up for them and, of course, as we
often said in our regular round robin letters, we were very grateful
to receive the amount of stories we did.
I
miss the daily contact with the writers and I miss reading all their
wonderful stories, some of which struck such a strong chord with me,
they have stayed in my mind for years after I read them. There is an
immense amount of talent out there and I am so proud of them all.
Fiction
has always been an important element of the magazine and I sincerely
hope that it continues to flourish under the new regime.
All
together now: “Keeeep writing!!!!”
