File:Ted Brown, 1976 (4072388922).jpg

'In October 1927 Mrs Mair interviewed for an additiona, lift-boy. The temporary job at £1 a week, 9.am to 7.30pm was offered to a boy who already knew through friends the social life of LSE. He much enjoyed the atmosphere ar the Drama Society shows, boxing matches and the Malden Sports days. SoTed Brown happily accepted...He did not stay long working in the lifts but transferred to the wider duties of a porter. And when the House Manager now tells prospective porters at interview that they will not be asked to do things he hasn't done himself, the statement can be proved to the hilt. Suitably prompted he recalls routines like re-addressing all staff letters to their homes at 3.pm in vacations, or emergencies ranging from repeatedly rescuing the Beaver mascot during rags (until its rumoured drowning in the Thames), to an alarming incident with an ill student late one evening in 1930, which lead to the creation of Evening Deans. In 1939 the porters were trained in firefighting, and the night after the school was evacuated to Cambridge, since all the nightwatchmen were by then in the Territorials, Mr Brown patrolled the buildings alone in the first balackout. This heralded the only break in his service to LSE, when between 1940 and 1945 he was called up for war work as an engineer and fitter in Newark. Then the school negotiated urgently with the Ministry of Labour to get him back to prepare the battered Houghton Street Buildings for reopening and the 1945-6 session...' LSE Magazine, June 1976, No 51, p.16 (Retirements)


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