The Ecclesiastical Commission.

So. I’m wondering just how to start this story. Elizabeth Eastleigh was probably one of the worst people I ever worked for. Or, put it another way. She was probably the worst boss I ever had and working for her was probably the worst job that I ever had.

It all began about six months after I had got my Master’s Degree at King’s. I found myself in that ridiculous position of being very well qualified academically for a job for which I had no experience. It’s a common dilemma for many young people leaving university. To get the qualifications you need, you forego the practical experience which you actually need to get the job you want. It’s either that or forget about the qualifications and go straight into the hands-on employment and struggle to get above the basic grade of whatever you’re in.

So there I was. Six months after graduation, with a pile of failed job applications and rejection letters to show for all my efforts. Then, just as I was really beginning to despair a job came through for me. It was one which I had almost forgotten about because the interview had taken place months before and had gone so badly that I had simply dismissed it from my mind. But then the letter came. My application for the post of researcher for the Ecclesiastical Commission had been successful. Unbelievably, there it was. Stated clearly in a letter on headed paper so thick it was almost card. Starting salary, proposed starting date and instructions on where to report for my induction with the Human Resources Dept in the Bishop’s Palace at Westminster.

Of course, I was overjoyed. A job at last, just as things were getting really depressing. But, as I made my way to Westminster on that first morning, certain things about the interview came back to me in a rather deflating fashion. I had been interviewed by two people. A very pretty young woman from the HR Department, and the woman I would actually be working for, Elizabeth Eastleigh. Elizabeth Eastleigh was a small woman who I would have to describe as ‘slightly plump’ or even dumpy. She wasn’t pretty, especially compared to the head of HR sitting next to her. She was probably in her later thirties. She had grey eyes and her face was a little too rounded, framed by straight shoulder-length brown hair. She didn’t smile when I entered the room, though she did shake hands. Soft, small hands that were slightly damp to the touch.

For the course of the interview most of the questions were asked by the Head of HR, with Elizabeth Eastleigh sitting stony faced and scribbling furiously on a note pad. After forty minutes or so, I was gifted with a lovely smile from one and a grim scowl from the other, and ushered from the room. And that, I thought, was that. Now, there came this completely unexpected job offer.

It took the best part of an hour to get through the formalities with HR and then I was led through a maze of corridors to a small office overlooking a damp courtyard. There were two desks, positioned facing each other but about ten feet apart at either end of the room. Along one wall were series of grey filing cabinets and a bookcase stacked with files.

The head of HR pointed to one of the desks and said that Elizabeth would be with me shortly. Her parting comment was ominous. ‘Good luck,’ she said with another flash of that winning smile.

Elizabeth Eastleigh bustled into the room about ten minutes later, carrying a coat over one arm and unwinding a long scarf from round her neck. She was wearing a loose-fitting grey trouser suit that hid her body and accentuated what little height she had.

‘Good morning,’ she said grudgingly, and followed it up with a heavy silence as she made her way to her desk. There were no words of welcome. Instead she laid some heavy files on my desk and suggested I read through them to get an idea of what was ‘going on’. Then she would fill me in with details a little later – something which she never did comprehensively - so I was forced to piece my tasks together in a very ad hoc fashion which left me constantly stumbling for competency.

The role of the Ecclesiastic Commission – let’s call it ‘the Commission’ for the sake of brevity – was to constantly review public relations between the Church, government and public, with a special emphasis on monitoring any stories in the media which needed to be brought to the attention of the Bishop’s Special Council. It transpired that there were constantly things which the Council needed to be aware of, ranging from potential accusations of child abuse to financial corruption or any issue on which it was thought the Church would need to be seen to provide moral or ethical leadership.

And Eastleigh was Queen of all this. She was good at her job. So good that the Council relied heavily on her and it put her in a very powerful position. So powerful, that nobody considered how she behaved at work. And in truth, she was awful to work with. I hadn’t been there more than an hour before she told me bluntly that she hadn’t wanted me for the job: that I was not only not her preferred candidate, but that I was completely unsuitable. And her behaviour towards me, during the eight months that I worked there, seemed wholly formulated to make me leave voluntarily as soon as possible. Although I had a job description, she wouldn’t let me do my job, but gave me snippets of work which never amounted to anything coherent. As a result I was often left poorly informed and floundering which, as I have intimated already, left me appearing incompetent. When I got things wrong or misunderstood something, she would pull a face and make tutting noises, even, on more than one occasion, shouting at me in unwarranted frustration.

It was a behaviour which few other people would have tolerated, and indeed I should have walked out. But I needed to get some experience. On one occasion I went to see the Head Of HR, who was hugely sympathetic, and pleaded with me not to do anything hastily. It tuned out that the previous occupant of the job had walked out in tears; furthermore, the young woman Eastleigh had wanted for the job had only lasted three days. The Commission were worried that Eastleigh was driving herself into the ground. She was a workaholic and going through a difficult marital relationship which made her bad-tempered and prone to violent mood swings. I also learned, though through a different source, that Elizabeth Eastleigh was what was often described as “very well connected.” Her parents belonged to some minor branch of the aristocracy. A background which appeared to have placed her under some social and professional pressure. Social in particular perhaps, because Elizabeth Eastleigh did not conform to the pretty, willowy stereotype so often pictured in magazines devoted to her class. So the Head of HR had made a desperate appeal for me to try and be a little sympathetic, because I was perhaps their last hope.

This of course was all very flattering to me, but as far as I was concerned it left me in a shitty work situation which I didn’t really deserve. Nevertheless I stuck with it, and as the weeks passed, my constant attempts to be supportive and sympathetic to Eastleigh resulted in an occasional softening of her behaviour towards me. There were instances, when things were going well, when she was almost pleasant, even gracing me with a strangely maternal look of affection. In fact, I would probably have described her as a bit ‘mumsy’. Perhaps there was more to this than met my young masculine eye. Some time after I had started working there, a colleague in another department let slip that Eastleigh was receiving hormone treatment to try and achieve a pregnancy, and perhaps this hormone therapy was determining her mood swings. Either way, it was effectively another plea to try and bear with her; to provide sympathetic understanding and support to a heavily burdened woman. So, caught in a trap between my own dilemma and her needs, I stayed.

The Biannual Conference.

Soon after I started working for the Commission, I learned that one of our more important roles was to organise the biannual conference of the Bishop’s Special Congregation. Occurring, as its name indicated, every six months the Congregation was a meeting of the Special Council: a gathering of selected bishops and senior Church officials, convened to review not so much the work of the Commission, but its findings. Issues of serious concern to the Church were raised, discussed, and policies devised on how to respond to them. Most significantly, its role involved identifying matters of concern and configuring damage-limitation strategies. As such a lot of it was very hush-hush and Elizabeth kept much of it close to her chest. I spent a lot of time on the telephone interviewing people about things where I had only the vaguest knowledge of what was going on. This often left me floundering on the telephone with a highly irritable Elizabeth listening from the other side of the room. More than once she intervened by shouting that I had got something or other wrong, or wasn’t explaining something correctly. It was not a happy working environment.

You might understand therefore why I was constantly on the look-out for alternative employment and why, every morning, I dreaded walking into the Bishop’s Palace. So when, Elizabeth finally took a few minutes to explain the organisation of the Bishop’s Biannual Congregation to me, you will understand that my heart not only sank, it thudded into the bottom of my boots! I learned that my attendance would be required not just at the meetings, but at the dinners that followed in the evening. The thought of having to spend three days and nights with Elizabeth Eastleigh, and of having to make small talk with a bunch of ageing religious types filled me with despair.

In fact I managed to dodge the first Congregation completely. To put it bluntly, I pulled a pretty convincing sicky and a bitterly grudging Elizabeth Eastleigh accepted my inevitable absence. Ironically, on her return she was in a surprisingly good mood, though she never once shared anything about the progress of the conference.

However, I knew that I was not going to be able to pull off the same stunt again. So the gradual approach of the next Congregation filled me with dread. This situation was made more dismal by two things. Firstly, because of the pressure of work, Elizabeth actually delegated a bit of work to me in its entirety. So much so that it soon became obvious that I would have to report on it and make a formal presentation to the Bishops themselves at their meeting. Now Elizabeth didn’t delegate. She hated not being in total control of things. So the fact that she was being forced to relinquish some responsibility to me infuriated her – even though it was her reluctant decision. There was clearly going to be no escape for me this time.

The second thing was that some senior Government Ministers were going to be in attendance. This raised the stakes somewhat, and heightened the pressure on Elizabeth. While she could not do all of the work, she could take over some of the organisation. And in this instance she decided to take over the responsibility for booking hotel accommodation for everyone. This turned out to be a serious mistake, for the Congregation on this occasion was in Edinburgh. A factor which, in her haste, she failed to take into account.

Since I was responsible for organising the plane tickets, I managed to arrange it so that I caught a slightly later flight than Elizabeth, an arrangement which seemed to suit her as much as it did me. However, when I arrived at our hotel in Edinburgh, it immediately became clear to me that something had gone wrong. In the lobby of the hotel, a gaggle of both male and female bishops were engaged in sorting themselves out. They all seemed to be clutching key cards and chatting away merrily. But Elizabeth was standing at the reception desk looking tense and very red in the face. As I arrived she gave me a venomous glance and hissed that there was a problem with the accommodation. We were a room short. The tone of her voice, and the expression on her face, implied quite clearly that this should have been my fault. The problem was that it wasn’t. She had taken over the organisation of the bookings. And since we could hardly deny one of the bishops their accommodation, it meant that there was a problem for either me or she. And since she needed to be on hand for anything the bishops wanted, it meant that the problem was mine.

‘The hotel are trying to find you somewhere else.’ She explained, unapologetically.

But I could tell from the look of consternation on the face of the receptionist, that they were having problems. As the bishops gradually dispersed, Elizabeth and I were stood in reception with a growing sense of pessimism. Many phone calls were made. Multiple searches of the internet. But no room could be found.

‘It’s the International Arts Festival’, the man on reception explained. ‘The City is rammed.’

Elizabeth’s face was stony. I offered to return home – obviously my preferred option, but she would have none of it. It was essential I was there at least for the first day to present my report. She drew me to one side.

‘There’s no option. You’ll have to stay tonight, give your report in the morning and then return to London in the afternoon.’ She glanced quickly at me and then turned to look at the door. ‘We’ll have to share my room tonight.’

I gave her a startled look but she avoided meeting my eyes. Her face was rigid with fury and her lips were drawn together tightly. I followed her rather meekly to the lift and up to the room we were going to share.

‘Perhaps,’ she added as the lift door closed, ‘they can find you a folding bed for the night.’

They said they would try. But they failed.

Elizabeth unlocked the door to the room and ushered me inside. The room contained a king sized-bed and an en-suite bathroom. She bustled inside, ignoring me as she unzipped her case and began hanging clothes in the wardrobe. I stood awkwardly, not sure what I was supposed to do. But I could sense her angry frustration growing. Finally, she slammed a wardrobe door shut.

‘Oh for goodness sake!’, she exclaimed. ‘Put your bag down over there. There’s no point you unpacking, so you might as well go down and wait in the bar until dinner time.’

She gave me a cold glare and, not waiting to be told again, I fled from the room.

Dinner was an uncomfortable affair. A long table with twenty-odd senior members of the clergy who largely ignored me though I was sat among them. Elizabeth had arranged to get a seat at the far end of the table from whence she was able to ignore me completely. Fortunately, the wine flowed pretty freely which helped alleviate some of the boredom.

At the end of the evening I waited awkwardly as the assembled bishops gradually said their goodnights and drifted away either to their rooms or the bar. I didn’t have a key to the room and had no idea how to cope with the situation. All I could do was wait for Elizabeth to give me a lead. However, I noticed as she was saying goodnight to various people, she kept glancing over their shoulders at me and frowning. When they had finally all departed she gave me a furious look.