The most important announcement concerned Marcia. She has recently completed a management degree, and so, even though I regard any formal qualification in business or management with the most profound suspicion, I decided that she deserved a promotion.

With our circulation and overseas customers still increasing, I felt that the time had come to appoint an Assistant Manager. This is a very prestigious position, as it means that Marcia now has her own private stapler and pencil sharpener, plus first call on the coal scuttle on chilly days. The announcement was greeted with loud cheers and a few champagne corks pinging off the frosty window panes, although Julie Anne said it would take a while to get used to addressing Marcia as 'Miss Bottomley', but we all have our crosses to bear.

Which brings me to Miss Gribble. Whilst we partook of some very special hors d'ouvres which I had prepared for the occasion (dry biscuits spread with peanut butter from memory), Miss Gribble began to relate to Marcia some pointless story about a collie dog which a comrade of hers had owned during her younger years in Glascow, as a member of the Gorbals branch of the Labour Party. Apparently the dog just slept all day, except at meal times, when it would walk lazily into the kitchen, frighten the owner's other two dogs away with a growl, and after eating most of their food as well as its own, stroll in a stupor back to the fireplace and fall asleep again.

And do you know what that dog's name was? asked Miss Gribble, her eyes widening like saucers.

Er...no...answered Marcia, a little taken aback.

'Manager!' replied Miss Gribble, with a sharp nod of her head.

I don't know if Saffron is aware of this, but printing establishments do not have shop stewards. Instead, they have a person called 'the Father of the Chapel'. It is a time honoured post for the workers' representative in a printing works, which recalls the days when the printing of books was intimately connected with the church. Well, here at petticoated.com we have a Mother of the Chapel, and Miss Gribble is one of the few women in Britain to hold that title. Unfortunately, she is now close to retirement age. Well, not unfortunately really. Don't breathe a word of this to anybody at the works, but it will be a blessed relief as far as I am concerned!