Danger at the top of THE WORLD
AUGUST 1967
Sally picked up the telephone receiver as a shrill ring cut through the empty office of the Lakes and Mountains Tour Company.
‘How may I help?’ she asked, pulling her notebook closer, listening patiently to the customer on the other end. ‘I can most certainly put those brochures in the post for you, thank you for calling,’ she said, politely placing the receiver down and going to a display of brochures advertising holidays in Austria and Switzerland for the 1967 and 1968 seasons.
She sighed, thinking how she’d love to travel, but for now would have to carry on dreaming and being a clerk in the holiday company’s office, with her father so poorly.
Flicking through the pages of a Swiss Lakes brochure, she wondered how much longer the business would survive with the big guys promising such large discounts on holidays worldwide. It was no wonder that Lakes and Mountains couldn’t compete.
She made herself a coffee, then pulled out a letter that had arrived that morning from her best friend Vanessa. Oh, if only I’d gone with her to work in London, Sally thought, as she read her friend’s exciting news of trips to the theatre, a discotheque and Carnaby Street. She’d dreamt of going to Carnaby Street and buying modern clothes, rather than have to pick up a pattern and fabric in the local market, and run up her own outfits on her mum’s old faithful Singer sewing machine.
