15 May 1996

On recounting some of my experiences of working in the publishing industry, some wag asked, back in the 90s, “So, what are you going to do when you leave school?”

1 March 2026 – Mick Hart’s Diary One Day in Travel Trade Publishing

The following diary extract is taken from my time as managing editor at a now-defunct travel-trade publishing house, which we shall here refer to as Shackelton Press.

Shackelton Press for me represented the last post in a long line of desperately bizarre, tumultuously chaotic, and unbelievably high-octane-stressed advertising-based publishing houses, each one stocked with larger-than-life, weird and wonderful characters.  

Let’s do a bit of time travelling:

Preface

These little insights, or snippets of madness, are taken from my 1996 diary. The setting is London. The names of both the publishing house and the actors in it have been changed to protect the reputations of the not-so-innocent. If you know who you are, God bless you. I trust that you all came through the experience mentally and emotionally unscathed. They were, as John Lennon lyricised, “Strange days, indeed!”

Cast of Characters:
Editorial Director: Byron Quill (Quilly)

Managing Editor: Mick Hart (or, ‘managing badly’, as Sebastian used to say, or ‘managing just’, as Mr Ormolu was wont to quip)

Production Department Staff
Sebastian Forrester (subeditor/researcher/writer – part-time actor)

Margaret Clark: (researcher/subeditor)

Matt Ormolu: (editor)

Grant: (graphic design and page layout)

Arthur: (freelance editor – South African) nickname ‘Slice’

Suit & Tie: (researcher/subeditor) – female

Publishing house: Shackleton Press

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Introduction

Is it the same today? In my days, people were always leaving publishing house editorial/production departments, either because they couldn’t stand the pace any longer and wanted to get their life back or were, or so they said, moving on to richer pastures. Such is the land we occupy, known as Wishful Thinking.

On this day, Friday 15 May 1996, someone – yet another someone – was about to make the great escape. She was a northern lass, who we will refer to here as Margaret Clark.

In connection with this event, I had been directed by my director (after all, that’s what directors are for, directing) to sally forth, in my own time, of course, or manage someone else to do the same (that’s what managing is all about, delegating) in the interests of procuring for the aforesaid Margaret a communal card and leaving present.

To avoid the boredom of it, I delegated the role to the one chap in our department whom I knew would turn a routine task into something more diverting. No one was better suited to this task, I thought, than Sebastian Forrester, the irascible budding actor, whose aspirations of high culture and whose self-regard for sophistication presented numerous opportunities whilst preparing for the lunchtime trip to, how do we say it, ‘take the piss’.

Friday 15 May 1996 – as it happened

Sebastian, who was extremely excited by the responsibility conferred on him, entertained, with my help, the whole department. He set up his affectatious cultural airs as if they were skittles and my debasing of them the balls that would knock them down.

Margaret Clark, the girl who was leaving today, reminded me of a stick of rock; she had ‘Northern Girl’ stamped right through her. As such, she would most likely have been happy with a pair of clogs, a flat hat and a bowl of mushy peas, heavy on the mint sauce, for a leaving present, but Sebastian, true to form, had his mind set on something she would like because it was something he would like. He seriously had no idea if she had any interest in, or appreciation of, art, and neither did I. But once Sebastian had latched onto something, it was like a dog’s teeth in arse. (This analogy has some baring, sorry, bearing, on the eventual choice of gift, or, of course, I would not have employed it.)

So, we were off to Covent Garden to buy Margaret, who was leaving, a book on art that she might not want, would not like and would never read. It sounded to me like the perfect present for a person quitting a job that she did not want, did not like and was pleased to close the covers on.

Sebastian, just before we left the office, was commenting vociferously on the remarks of one of his colleagues, whose projected view on everything he considered rather crass: “Oh yes, Michael, there’s old Ormolu, his usual helpful and refined self, ‘I think some novelty items are in order, Sebastian,’ he said. Novelty items, indeed. And we all know what he means by that!”

What Sebastian did not know was that Matt Ormolu and I had already discussed the type of present that we were going to buy dear Margaret, and novelty items were top of the list.

“Oh no, Michael!” protested Sebastian, his nose curling and sensibilities clearly offended. “I’m not under any circumstances going into Nutz Novelty shop!”

“Sebastian I barked (Sebastian was the son of an army officer, and sons of army officers, I have found, respond instinctively to the old sergeant major treatment). “Sebastian!”

“Yes, Michael!”

“We are going in!”

“Right, Michael!”

“Oh my God!” That was Sebastian, genuinely shocked by the risqué greeting cards greeting him in Nutz Novelty.

Naturally, being a thespian by aspiration, buying anything of such a crass, crude nature was theatrically beneath him.

Officially, we only had our lunch hour in which to buy a present, and the clock was ticking. In Nutz Novelty, the hands and the pendulum bore an intended resemblance to male genitalia.

“Pity we can’t afford that,” I thought.

Sebastian’s dithering was impinging upon our schedule, so I had to make a managerial decision. So, much to his dismay, I grabbed the nearest greeting card. On its cover was a naked man, who was looking rather gay. Then, before Sebastian could faint, I added to my basket a jumping clockwork bum and a packet of luminous condoms.They were always experiencing power cuts up North, so Margaret should find some practical use for them.

Sebastian was so appalled that, in the interests of balance and resuscitation, I accepted his need to restore the culture he’d lost by looking for it in Dillons bookshop.

In Dillons, we haggle over two potential publications: Works of Art of the Past Century or 100 Years of Playboy. I’ll leave you to decide which one of us advocated which book.

To placate Sebastian, Works of Art of the Past Century it is. A good manager always manages to make concessions when they are faced with a member of staff who looks as though he’s about to stage a tantrum.

With the esteemed book in his mitt, Sebastian proceeds to checkout, putting the book on one side of the counter and resting the Nutz Novelty nude-man card on the other.

The shop assistant rings up the book and then, glancing at the gay card, with its picture of a compromised nude man on the front, asks Sebastian, “Is this yours?”

Sebastian panicking, “Good heavens, no! He bought it from Nutz Novelty!”

But ‘he’, meaning me, was nowhere to be found. I had expeditiously removed myself and was studiously and demonstratively preoccupied with Post-modernist Works of Art.

“We sell them here,” the assistant said, referring to the card.

“Do you!” exclaimed Sebastian. “Well, I’m shocked!”

Mick Hart’s Diary One Day in Travel Trade Publishing

We were already late back from lunch, two hours late to be exact.

“It wil be a ground-to-air arse-seeking boot for us, Mr Hart!” was Sebastian’s prediction.

We were rattling along on the tube, with Sebastian imitating what he expected Director Quill to say about our lengthy expedition,” Huh! Did it take two of you!”

“To which the reply will be, Sebastian: ‘Yes, one to go into the arty-farty shop and one to buy the bouncing bum.’”

Mr Quilly never commented on our combined late return, but he did say, “I can’t have my managing editor buying condoms, bouncing bums and false breasts in Nutz Novelty Shop.”

“I’m sorry, Mr Q.” I contritely replied. “It won’t happen again.”

Leaving his office, I thought, “Where did he get the false breasts from?”

As I approached the editorial department, I could hear actor Sebastian hamming it up in no uncertain terms: “… and whilst I was in Dillons looking for a decent present, there’s old Mick,” I could hear him sneering, “dithering about in Nutz Novelty shop, undecided about whether he should buy the fart spray or the masturbatory glove?”

“False breasts? Masturbatory glove?” Perhaps Quill and Sebastian were more frequent visitors to Nutz Novelty than we gave them credit for. Perhaps they are given credit? Perhaps they had a joint account!

When I entered the department, I was greeted with: “We thought you were never going to come back. It’s 5pm!”

“Sebastian’s fault,” I replied. “He’s such an old woman when it comes to buying presents.”

No fear of reprisals for that comparison. The one thing I never did was employ feminists.

Mick Hart’s Diary One Day in Travel Trade Publishing

We were late back, so late that we barely had time to wrap the presents and get the card with the bare gay man on the front signed.

South African Arthur, regarding the nude picture on the front of the card, asked: “Why is there a picture of Quilly on the front? More to the point, who took it?”

Grant, from the production department, asked, referring to the photo, “Is this a still out of Sebastian’s latest film?”

After everyone in the production department had signed the card, I ferried it, with half the department behind me, to Mr Quilly’s office. Through the window in the door, we can see him smiling as he signs the card.

Matt Ormolu: “Quilly’s smiling. Perhaps people should leave more often.”

Even Mr Quilly himself had a comment to make: “I’ll have to be more careful about who photographs me as I’m scrubbing my right knee!”

It was almost time to leave for the leaving party, which was taking place at a venue in the Angel. There was an air of school days’ excitement in the office. We were going to be really naughty and leave fifteen minutes early. Even old Suit and Tie, one of the female editorial staff, was coming with us tonight. She usually went straight home to darn her socks or something.

Outside on the street, most of those people accompanying me waited patiently for a cab; all, that is, but Sebastian.

“Typical Harty situation,” he scoffed, referring to me, and then directed at me: “Haven’t you heard of that simple and convenient mode of transport known as the tube?”

“Indeed I have, Sebastian, but you being an actor and all, I wouldn’t dream of casting you in the role of a commoner. Besides, on the tube you’d most likely be deprived of a speaking part, whereas in the cab your oratory will be rewarded with a standing ovation.”

“You’d have a job standing …” but his derision was cut short by our chariot arriving.

The cab got us to where we wanted to be, door to door, in half the time it would have taken by tube.

“I know, Sebastian, there is no need to congratulate me. We are here much quicker than if we had taken the tube; that’s why I’m the manager, here to manage.”

Sebastian’s book, A 100 Years of Art, came in handy. Margaret used it as a platform for the jumping bum, and everyone, except for Sebastian, was enraptured by it. “Good choice, Sebastian,” Ormolu glowed – and so did the condoms.

Whilst Ormolu and the condoms glowed, Sebastian glowered; he was leaning in close – too close, I thought – to two of the female editors for which he had a lascivious liking, chastising me for all he was worth: “You should have seen him, old Hart, standing there in Nutz Novelty, unable to make up his mind whether to buy the fart spray or the masturbatory glove!”

I steered clear of this conversation but wondered how Sebastian would deal with certain questions the female staff now were putting to him regarding the glove to which he had alluded, of which, like Quilly’s female breasts, I had not the slightest knowledge.

All things considered, the party went well, which was something of a letdown by publishing standards. Nobody got paralytic and disgraced themselves by fondling bottoms, except for the clockwork one, or by slagging off the production director to his face; nobody threw up, got into a fight or bonked one another in the gentlemen’s lavs and the stench of Ganja was conspicuously absent. It all could have been so very different, if I had only invited the sales staff.

Copyright © 2018-2026 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.

Dear Diary … 2025 – that was the year that was / How to grow old graciously