A Wee Black Door on Hope Street
by Peter Devlin
Genre: Memoir
Swearwords: None.
Description: A short social and historical look at life in the kitchens of the Malmaison Restaurant in Glasgow.
_____________________________________________________________________
The entrance to Glasgow’s Grand Central Hotel sits on the corner of Gordon Street and Hope Street. Opened officially in 1907, it has hosted Opera stars and Hollywood greats such as Charlton Heston and Frank Sinatra. Its history is its elegance.
Walk ten yards down from the entrance on the Hope Street side and you will discover a small wooden door with no windows and no letterbox. Whilst the hotel received in 2009 a multimillion pound facelift and refurbishment, the little wooden door received nothing more than a coat of black matt paint. This little panel of wood served as the only entrance and exit point for thousands of kitchen workers in a period that spanned almost 80 years. The door, like the whole lower level kitchen area, which stretched from Gordon Street all the way down to the bottom of Hope Street, was blocked off forever in 1984.
On the 1st day of September 1980, I walked through that door for the first time. Behind the door was a space the length and breath of a telephone box, a ‘Clock Card Machine’ and a set of stairs that took you down two levels into the labyrinthine world of long concrete corridors and tunnels.
Adjacent to the bottom of the staircase were the changing rooms, and turning right took you down a narrow corridor some thirty yards long. This corridor introduced me gradually to the smell of roasting meats, fish cooked in wine, and freshly chopped herbs, all blending with the dank odour of unwashed copper pans and greasy stockpots. Entering the kitchen at the end of the corridor was like entering an arena; whereas you could reach either side of the walled corridor with your arms stretched out, the kitchen opened up into the size of a University lecture theatre.
Beyond this main kitchen was a corridor that took you further south under Hope Street towards the lavish industrial Patisserie, beyond which again due south took you to the very end of the kitchen and a metal door that is under Argyle Street and was used in the last century to transport foodstuffs between the kitchens of the Central Hotel and the kitchens of the St Enoch Hotel.
The kitchen served four banqueting halls, seating up to 200 guests at a time, Room Service, a lunchtime restaurant called La Fourchette (the fork) and the jewel in the crown, Restaurant Malmaison. The entrance to this grand A La Carte restaurant can still be seen as the large Oyster shell shaped canopy still overhangs onto the pavement on Hope Street.
At the time of my apprenticeship there were almost fifty full-time chefs employed (all men) and a handful of plongeurs (pot washers).
Everyone in the kitchen was referred to only by their surname. The Sous Chefs were addressed with the prefix of their rank, then their surname. This rule was relaxed only when the conversation was informal and with no one else listening. Therefore sous chef Renoir could be addressed as Jean Claude but never in front of anyone senior.
There were three other apprentices who started on the same day as me. I understood very quickly the rules and rituals. One of the boys had the unfortunate – at least in this place – surname of ‘Pitt’. His seniors were very quick to latch onto what was a great moniker for blasting out humiliating imperatives with that strong ending double consonant. ‘Eh, excuse me Pitt! What are you doing Pitt? Stand over here Pitt...’
The turnover of apprentices was very high, due in part to the nature of the work, but more by the tacit agreement within the kitchen ranks to ‘break’ all new entrants and test their respect for authority and true understanding of the ethos which permeated every corner of every quarry tile in every section of this closed shop. In fact it was indeed a ‘Closed Shop’ as joining meant you were a member of the Railway Union.
I was immediately assigned to the section known as Saucier. Other sections were known as Entremettier, Potager, Rottisseur, Poissonier, Garde Manger or Patisserie.
After a few weeks I began to find my feet and realized one’s loyalties stay firmly within one’s own section. Along with my 1st Commis and my two Chef de Parties, I forged strong relationships, with me firmly at the bottom of the rank.
My start date coincided with the development of a new menu for the Malmaison. This gave me the advantage of not having to play catch up and learn behind everyone else the crafts of this magnificent work of art. Since all the items were a heavily guarded secret, this was no ordinary menu. Like that of the banqueting halls, or the menu of La Fourchette, this was something created, practiced, and then demonstrated by the finest artisan in the hotel. Not even the Executive Chef was involved. That may seem odd, but the Executive Chef was responsible for so much of the management of all the functions of the food, including public relations, that the task of a new ‘Mal Menu’ was the sole responsibility of our senior sous chef, Jean Baptiste Reynard.
Jean Baptiste was in his mid-forties and looked like a cross between Sacha Distel and the man in the Cointreau Christmas commercials. There were apocryphal tales that he had access to an en suite room on the first floor – the most expensive floor, where he entertained female employees and even female guests.
The demonstrations on the new winter menu were, however, well worth waiting for. In our section – Saucier, where we had the bulk of the main courses – I watched with amazement as Jean Baptiste talked us through the preparation of everything from stuffed quails with marbled vin rouge and vin blanc sauces to poached lamb sweetbreads in mint and saffron creme.
As apprentices we were allowed to stay the night in the staff quarters at the very top of the hotel. These were single rooms, with no carpets, no heating and no amenities. This did not stop us from having a great time. As we were the last to leave the kitchen at night, we had the perfect opportunity to literally raid the larder, The Garde Manger. We stored the food we wanted in a well known unused oven, leaving room for the stash of stolen wine we were asked to store by the wine waiter. In return for giving him a safe haven for his bottles, we were given a couple ourselves. Being last out the kitchen meant scrubbing the stoves with vinegar and emery paper – no soap suds were allowed. By the time we walked to the main reception for our keys and up the fifteen feet wide ballroom staircase onto the first floor and then the lifts, it was usually around midnight.
My first engagement with their attempts to ‘break me’ came as I sat eating breakfast. We as the kitchen brigade would not lower ourselves to be seen eating in the staff dining room. Instead we took turns at cooking breakfast served in the kitchen at 11:00 and ate by pulling out benches under our work tables. I felt a hand run up the back of my head and the words ‘Haircut Devlin’. I explained I had no money and a £1 note was placed in front of me with the words ‘Pay it back on Friday’.
When it became our turn to do breakfast for the brigade, my senior Chef de Partie insisted I cook his breakfast personally once all the others had been fed. He wanted two fried eggs, sautéed in butter in a Plat de Crepes (a small omelette pan). Every time I broke the eggs into the pan the yolks burst. He stood over me the second time and the third until, determined to get it right, I lowered the eggs into the pan with my fingers so low they burned in the hot butter. A quick flash under the Salamander and lowered onto his plate. On reflection, I was never angry or frightened by these people, I just thought they were a bit daft – and still do.
On another occasion I was sent to the pastry chef to pick up some poached peaches. The chef felt it too degrading to hand them over to me, so instead dropped the container on the floor and made me pick them out myself. As I wiped the peaches down, removing shards of cinnamon sticks and cardamom seeds, I watched as he returned to his pan of boiled sugar syrup, dipping a whisk with the bottom cut off and flicking his wrists to create strands of angel-like hair candy floss over an oiled broom handle. It seems such a shame that such an artisan should also be such a tosser!
Other tasks preserved for the lowly apprentice included roasting large cast-iron trays of beef bones in a Rotarian oven. Getting them in was easy, but getting them out with the bones spitting fat, fierce heat, by now already soaking wet oven cloths, and the smell of rancid marrowfat made it unforgettable.
Basic sauces, such as Béchamel, were made in bulk, in large five gallon copper Rondeau saucepans, then filtered through a double muslin cloth with two sauceboats laid at the bottom to help ease the flow of the thick white cream. This was dangerous and both time and labour consuming; the heat of the kitchen heat became at times unbearable, especially for us as we were always working on hot stoves. It is with fondness, therefore, that I recall the relief when being sent to the Garde Manger fridge. The fridge was about the size of a standard classroom. The change in temperature was so fantastic, and as a bonus I would plunge my hand into the omnipotent tub of melon balls soaked in Pernod and tarragon and shove the syrupy ice cold balls into my mouth.
Despite the conditions, I loved it. Preparing opulent dishes, such as Escalope de Veau Framcomtoise, Augilettes de Caneton and Entrecôte Moutard de Meaux, and seeing them being garnished with my own hands using truffles, Béarnaise Glaze, Marbled Croutons, pomes gaufrette, beurre noisettes, blanched turned mushrooms and barrel shaped turned potatoes. Turning mushrooms and turning potatoes, although sounding as if they received the same treatment from the Couteau Culinnaire, could not be more different. The potatoes had to be two inches long and, when complete, be barrel shaped and have exactly eight sides. Inspection was both regular and simple. A sous chef would dip his hand into the large pan of completed potatoes, randomly lift three out and feel his thumb round all eight sides. Any that were more or less than eight were discarded.
‘Asleep at the wheel Devlin.’ There were no margins of error. And yet despite the public announcements of one’s occasional slips and trips, there was a real sense of achievement and pride in knowing these dishes were being turned out to the highest standards with a law I gave myself – my skill, my sweat, my craft and my timing.
This was the only time in my life when I saw copper pans being used for cooking and brand new unblemished virgin ones being used to serve the food in. Getting it right in the Saucier corner was not enough on its own. Just as every order was announced by the sous chef as ‘Ca Marche’ (an imperative exclamation, literally meaning to ‘Get it Ready’) an equally loud and demanding shout of ‘Envoyer’ meant that you presented to the finishing table the menu item where it would be inspected . Inspection was simple – your dish would be handed over to the waiters or it would be handed back.
I recall one afternoon sitting in a coffee shop on Gordon Street – it was always afternoons, as we worked split shifts – listening intently to a former chef who had returned home on leave from Buckingham Palace where he was now working. Listening to him, and looking at him, kitchen work seemed noble, a proper career. On reflection, this was nonsense as it is just hard manual labour with white overalls instead of brown ones.
Although both my Chef de Parties were extremely hard on me, I nevertheless held them both in high regard. One was flamboyant, early twenties. He was handsome with blond wispy hair and would often refer to himself as the Mark Spitz of the Salon Culinnaire. I remember seeing his girlfriend; she was the Head Housemaid – what else could she have been? She too was pretty, tall like him, blonde and the same wispy hair. Hermaphrodite if ever there was one. It just seemed to me that this is how it has to be; just like in school, the top guy gets the top gal. I can still see her standing there with her mint green overalls and white plimsolls.
My other boss wore a stern look always. Short dark hair and a military tight moustache. He treated me harshly, but fairly too. I think he wanted to say from time to time ‘Well done Devlin’. But it just wasn’t in his nature. The closest I came to any kind of approval from him was when we were both sifting Demi Glaze through a muslin cloth. Another chef demanded that I return his knife. Dave, my boss, told him to wait. The chef insisted I stop what I was doing and have the knife returned. There was a long silence. I could not just stop what I was doing – my loyalties were to Saucier. The chef stared, waited and tacitly, albeit from a distance, challenged us to respond. The Bay of Pigs, Khrushchev and Kennedy had nothing on this moment. I was by now clearly not big enough for this one, so looked to Dave. Without standing up, my boss Dave turned around and measuredly said ‘Remember your position Smith’. So much rested on his declaration. Smith stood for a few seconds more, before backing down in silence and left the kitchen. What mattered about that exchange was not just that my boss won the day, but that he was reminding the other person that he too has a position of authority, and that misuse of that authority was not accepted. For all the harsh treatment I received in those kitchens, that one moment spoke more to me about the lesson of being harsh with the message, but kind with the person.
After a few months I heard I was to be promoted to 1st Commis and that I would be staying on Saucier. I feel the same way about it now, 32 years later, as I did at the time – disappointment. This would mean leaving my gang of one and signing up, probably for the rest of my life. I liked the fact that they hadn’t broken me, that I held the most sought after amongst all Commis, that I was different and that I could get just about anything I wanted because I delivered. Before I was officially offered the position, I made my mind up it was time to leave.
One memory in particular that has left an indelible allegorical mark on me from those times is an incident involving one of the pot washers. His name was John, he was tall, hard of hearing and dumb. The commis were responsible for washing the small sauteuse pans within their own section; each section had a deep sink that could be sued to rinse out pans when needed in a hurry. All large pans, such as stock pots, Rondeaux, oven trays and utensils were taken to the pot wash area. I only ever remember John working there day and night. For fun – and some did consider it as such – the commis would place the pans on the floor and push them like curling stones towards John. As he didn’t hear or see anything until it just about hit him, he would invariably jump in fear and fright. This did not happen all the time, but it did happen. It was cruel and disgusting and I could never understand why or what was the point, other than cruelty.
I always handed my things into John, something he didn’t always appreciate; it was as if he had become so accustomed to this treatment that any kind of closeness was just as bad. He would mumble some anger towards me, but it was useless, we didn’t understand each other. I felt sorry for him, but looking back sympathy is as useless as trying to nail a jelly to a wall. It is empathy that is required, but that takes intellect and I had none of that.
To this day I do not know why I did what I did next. Standing outside the pot-wash one quiet Monday night, I threw a Rondeau along the quarry-tiled floor towards John. He jumped a bit. My effort was half hearted and half intentioned. John looked up, saw me and stared. I stared back, ashamed. No words were spoken. I know what he was thinking, I could see it in his eyes. I can tell you that what was unsaid was understood.
Perhaps I would have become more like the people and place I worked in, or perhaps I would have been able to keep my independence. At the time it was too big a risk, and so in January 1981 I mounted the stairwell out from the basement kitchens of the Glasgow Central Hotel for the last time. I hadn’t told anyone I was leaving and had no idea what I would do. The only certainty that night was that I would unlatch the little black door, close it behind me and head up Hope Street and catch the Number 41 bus home.
Swearwords: None.
Description: A short social and historical look at life in the kitchens of the Malmaison Restaurant in Glasgow.
_____________________________________________________________________
The entrance to Glasgow’s Grand Central Hotel sits on the corner of Gordon Street and Hope Street. Opened officially in 1907, it has hosted Opera stars and Hollywood greats such as Charlton Heston and Frank Sinatra. Its history is its elegance.
Walk ten yards down from the entrance on the Hope Street side and you will discover a small wooden door with no windows and no letterbox. Whilst the hotel received in 2009 a multimillion pound facelift and refurbishment, the little wooden door received nothing more than a coat of black matt paint. This little panel of wood served as the only entrance and exit point for thousands of kitchen workers in a period that spanned almost 80 years. The door, like the whole lower level kitchen area, which stretched from Gordon Street all the way down to the bottom of Hope Street, was blocked off forever in 1984.
On the 1st day of September 1980, I walked through that door for the first time. Behind the door was a space the length and breath of a telephone box, a ‘Clock Card Machine’ and a set of stairs that took you down two levels into the labyrinthine world of long concrete corridors and tunnels.
Adjacent to the bottom of the staircase were the changing rooms, and turning right took you down a narrow corridor some thirty yards long. This corridor introduced me gradually to the smell of roasting meats, fish cooked in wine, and freshly chopped herbs, all blending with the dank odour of unwashed copper pans and greasy stockpots. Entering the kitchen at the end of the corridor was like entering an arena; whereas you could reach either side of the walled corridor with your arms stretched out, the kitchen opened up into the size of a University lecture theatre.
Beyond this main kitchen was a corridor that took you further south under Hope Street towards the lavish industrial Patisserie, beyond which again due south took you to the very end of the kitchen and a metal door that is under Argyle Street and was used in the last century to transport foodstuffs between the kitchens of the Central Hotel and the kitchens of the St Enoch Hotel.
The kitchen served four banqueting halls, seating up to 200 guests at a time, Room Service, a lunchtime restaurant called La Fourchette (the fork) and the jewel in the crown, Restaurant Malmaison. The entrance to this grand A La Carte restaurant can still be seen as the large Oyster shell shaped canopy still overhangs onto the pavement on Hope Street.
At the time of my apprenticeship there were almost fifty full-time chefs employed (all men) and a handful of plongeurs (pot washers).
Everyone in the kitchen was referred to only by their surname. The Sous Chefs were addressed with the prefix of their rank, then their surname. This rule was relaxed only when the conversation was informal and with no one else listening. Therefore sous chef Renoir could be addressed as Jean Claude but never in front of anyone senior.
There were three other apprentices who started on the same day as me. I understood very quickly the rules and rituals. One of the boys had the unfortunate – at least in this place – surname of ‘Pitt’. His seniors were very quick to latch onto what was a great moniker for blasting out humiliating imperatives with that strong ending double consonant. ‘Eh, excuse me Pitt! What are you doing Pitt? Stand over here Pitt...’
The turnover of apprentices was very high, due in part to the nature of the work, but more by the tacit agreement within the kitchen ranks to ‘break’ all new entrants and test their respect for authority and true understanding of the ethos which permeated every corner of every quarry tile in every section of this closed shop. In fact it was indeed a ‘Closed Shop’ as joining meant you were a member of the Railway Union.
I was immediately assigned to the section known as Saucier. Other sections were known as Entremettier, Potager, Rottisseur, Poissonier, Garde Manger or Patisserie.
After a few weeks I began to find my feet and realized one’s loyalties stay firmly within one’s own section. Along with my 1st Commis and my two Chef de Parties, I forged strong relationships, with me firmly at the bottom of the rank.
My start date coincided with the development of a new menu for the Malmaison. This gave me the advantage of not having to play catch up and learn behind everyone else the crafts of this magnificent work of art. Since all the items were a heavily guarded secret, this was no ordinary menu. Like that of the banqueting halls, or the menu of La Fourchette, this was something created, practiced, and then demonstrated by the finest artisan in the hotel. Not even the Executive Chef was involved. That may seem odd, but the Executive Chef was responsible for so much of the management of all the functions of the food, including public relations, that the task of a new ‘Mal Menu’ was the sole responsibility of our senior sous chef, Jean Baptiste Reynard.
Jean Baptiste was in his mid-forties and looked like a cross between Sacha Distel and the man in the Cointreau Christmas commercials. There were apocryphal tales that he had access to an en suite room on the first floor – the most expensive floor, where he entertained female employees and even female guests.
The demonstrations on the new winter menu were, however, well worth waiting for. In our section – Saucier, where we had the bulk of the main courses – I watched with amazement as Jean Baptiste talked us through the preparation of everything from stuffed quails with marbled vin rouge and vin blanc sauces to poached lamb sweetbreads in mint and saffron creme.
As apprentices we were allowed to stay the night in the staff quarters at the very top of the hotel. These were single rooms, with no carpets, no heating and no amenities. This did not stop us from having a great time. As we were the last to leave the kitchen at night, we had the perfect opportunity to literally raid the larder, The Garde Manger. We stored the food we wanted in a well known unused oven, leaving room for the stash of stolen wine we were asked to store by the wine waiter. In return for giving him a safe haven for his bottles, we were given a couple ourselves. Being last out the kitchen meant scrubbing the stoves with vinegar and emery paper – no soap suds were allowed. By the time we walked to the main reception for our keys and up the fifteen feet wide ballroom staircase onto the first floor and then the lifts, it was usually around midnight.
My first engagement with their attempts to ‘break me’ came as I sat eating breakfast. We as the kitchen brigade would not lower ourselves to be seen eating in the staff dining room. Instead we took turns at cooking breakfast served in the kitchen at 11:00 and ate by pulling out benches under our work tables. I felt a hand run up the back of my head and the words ‘Haircut Devlin’. I explained I had no money and a £1 note was placed in front of me with the words ‘Pay it back on Friday’.
When it became our turn to do breakfast for the brigade, my senior Chef de Partie insisted I cook his breakfast personally once all the others had been fed. He wanted two fried eggs, sautéed in butter in a Plat de Crepes (a small omelette pan). Every time I broke the eggs into the pan the yolks burst. He stood over me the second time and the third until, determined to get it right, I lowered the eggs into the pan with my fingers so low they burned in the hot butter. A quick flash under the Salamander and lowered onto his plate. On reflection, I was never angry or frightened by these people, I just thought they were a bit daft – and still do.
On another occasion I was sent to the pastry chef to pick up some poached peaches. The chef felt it too degrading to hand them over to me, so instead dropped the container on the floor and made me pick them out myself. As I wiped the peaches down, removing shards of cinnamon sticks and cardamom seeds, I watched as he returned to his pan of boiled sugar syrup, dipping a whisk with the bottom cut off and flicking his wrists to create strands of angel-like hair candy floss over an oiled broom handle. It seems such a shame that such an artisan should also be such a tosser!
Other tasks preserved for the lowly apprentice included roasting large cast-iron trays of beef bones in a Rotarian oven. Getting them in was easy, but getting them out with the bones spitting fat, fierce heat, by now already soaking wet oven cloths, and the smell of rancid marrowfat made it unforgettable.
Basic sauces, such as Béchamel, were made in bulk, in large five gallon copper Rondeau saucepans, then filtered through a double muslin cloth with two sauceboats laid at the bottom to help ease the flow of the thick white cream. This was dangerous and both time and labour consuming; the heat of the kitchen heat became at times unbearable, especially for us as we were always working on hot stoves. It is with fondness, therefore, that I recall the relief when being sent to the Garde Manger fridge. The fridge was about the size of a standard classroom. The change in temperature was so fantastic, and as a bonus I would plunge my hand into the omnipotent tub of melon balls soaked in Pernod and tarragon and shove the syrupy ice cold balls into my mouth.
Despite the conditions, I loved it. Preparing opulent dishes, such as Escalope de Veau Framcomtoise, Augilettes de Caneton and Entrecôte Moutard de Meaux, and seeing them being garnished with my own hands using truffles, Béarnaise Glaze, Marbled Croutons, pomes gaufrette, beurre noisettes, blanched turned mushrooms and barrel shaped turned potatoes. Turning mushrooms and turning potatoes, although sounding as if they received the same treatment from the Couteau Culinnaire, could not be more different. The potatoes had to be two inches long and, when complete, be barrel shaped and have exactly eight sides. Inspection was both regular and simple. A sous chef would dip his hand into the large pan of completed potatoes, randomly lift three out and feel his thumb round all eight sides. Any that were more or less than eight were discarded.
‘Asleep at the wheel Devlin.’ There were no margins of error. And yet despite the public announcements of one’s occasional slips and trips, there was a real sense of achievement and pride in knowing these dishes were being turned out to the highest standards with a law I gave myself – my skill, my sweat, my craft and my timing.
This was the only time in my life when I saw copper pans being used for cooking and brand new unblemished virgin ones being used to serve the food in. Getting it right in the Saucier corner was not enough on its own. Just as every order was announced by the sous chef as ‘Ca Marche’ (an imperative exclamation, literally meaning to ‘Get it Ready’) an equally loud and demanding shout of ‘Envoyer’ meant that you presented to the finishing table the menu item where it would be inspected . Inspection was simple – your dish would be handed over to the waiters or it would be handed back.
I recall one afternoon sitting in a coffee shop on Gordon Street – it was always afternoons, as we worked split shifts – listening intently to a former chef who had returned home on leave from Buckingham Palace where he was now working. Listening to him, and looking at him, kitchen work seemed noble, a proper career. On reflection, this was nonsense as it is just hard manual labour with white overalls instead of brown ones.
Although both my Chef de Parties were extremely hard on me, I nevertheless held them both in high regard. One was flamboyant, early twenties. He was handsome with blond wispy hair and would often refer to himself as the Mark Spitz of the Salon Culinnaire. I remember seeing his girlfriend; she was the Head Housemaid – what else could she have been? She too was pretty, tall like him, blonde and the same wispy hair. Hermaphrodite if ever there was one. It just seemed to me that this is how it has to be; just like in school, the top guy gets the top gal. I can still see her standing there with her mint green overalls and white plimsolls.
My other boss wore a stern look always. Short dark hair and a military tight moustache. He treated me harshly, but fairly too. I think he wanted to say from time to time ‘Well done Devlin’. But it just wasn’t in his nature. The closest I came to any kind of approval from him was when we were both sifting Demi Glaze through a muslin cloth. Another chef demanded that I return his knife. Dave, my boss, told him to wait. The chef insisted I stop what I was doing and have the knife returned. There was a long silence. I could not just stop what I was doing – my loyalties were to Saucier. The chef stared, waited and tacitly, albeit from a distance, challenged us to respond. The Bay of Pigs, Khrushchev and Kennedy had nothing on this moment. I was by now clearly not big enough for this one, so looked to Dave. Without standing up, my boss Dave turned around and measuredly said ‘Remember your position Smith’. So much rested on his declaration. Smith stood for a few seconds more, before backing down in silence and left the kitchen. What mattered about that exchange was not just that my boss won the day, but that he was reminding the other person that he too has a position of authority, and that misuse of that authority was not accepted. For all the harsh treatment I received in those kitchens, that one moment spoke more to me about the lesson of being harsh with the message, but kind with the person.
After a few months I heard I was to be promoted to 1st Commis and that I would be staying on Saucier. I feel the same way about it now, 32 years later, as I did at the time – disappointment. This would mean leaving my gang of one and signing up, probably for the rest of my life. I liked the fact that they hadn’t broken me, that I held the most sought after amongst all Commis, that I was different and that I could get just about anything I wanted because I delivered. Before I was officially offered the position, I made my mind up it was time to leave.
One memory in particular that has left an indelible allegorical mark on me from those times is an incident involving one of the pot washers. His name was John, he was tall, hard of hearing and dumb. The commis were responsible for washing the small sauteuse pans within their own section; each section had a deep sink that could be sued to rinse out pans when needed in a hurry. All large pans, such as stock pots, Rondeaux, oven trays and utensils were taken to the pot wash area. I only ever remember John working there day and night. For fun – and some did consider it as such – the commis would place the pans on the floor and push them like curling stones towards John. As he didn’t hear or see anything until it just about hit him, he would invariably jump in fear and fright. This did not happen all the time, but it did happen. It was cruel and disgusting and I could never understand why or what was the point, other than cruelty.
I always handed my things into John, something he didn’t always appreciate; it was as if he had become so accustomed to this treatment that any kind of closeness was just as bad. He would mumble some anger towards me, but it was useless, we didn’t understand each other. I felt sorry for him, but looking back sympathy is as useless as trying to nail a jelly to a wall. It is empathy that is required, but that takes intellect and I had none of that.
To this day I do not know why I did what I did next. Standing outside the pot-wash one quiet Monday night, I threw a Rondeau along the quarry-tiled floor towards John. He jumped a bit. My effort was half hearted and half intentioned. John looked up, saw me and stared. I stared back, ashamed. No words were spoken. I know what he was thinking, I could see it in his eyes. I can tell you that what was unsaid was understood.
Perhaps I would have become more like the people and place I worked in, or perhaps I would have been able to keep my independence. At the time it was too big a risk, and so in January 1981 I mounted the stairwell out from the basement kitchens of the Glasgow Central Hotel for the last time. I hadn’t told anyone I was leaving and had no idea what I would do. The only certainty that night was that I would unlatch the little black door, close it behind me and head up Hope Street and catch the Number 41 bus home.
About the Author
Peter Devlin was born in Airdrie and now lives in Glasgow. On sabbatical from his work in the airline services industry after an accident left him Registered Blind, Peter has spent the last few years studying Latin, French and Italian grammar, with some forays into writing fiction. He has already completed the manuscript of a novel and is now working on the script for a play.