At Nalders LLP, we have been helping to shape the way Cornwall and the surrounding communities have formed and operated for over two hundred years. Over that time we have had many helping hands come through our premises as valued members of the Nalders LLP team.
Today the spotlight of our appreciation falls on 95-year-old Noel Drew, who worked at Nalders LLP as an office boy during his youth. Here is a trip down memory lane with Noel, to help remind us how the way we work at Nalders, and society in general, has changed. This is Noel’s story.
Noel’s Story
“My name is Noel Drew. I lived in Malpas and went to Truro boy’s school. I began working with Messrs Nalders and Son, located at 7 Pydar Street, Truro, at the age of fourteen. At that time the firm consisted of three partners – Gerald Nalder, Horace Visick, and Arthur J Lyne.
I began working in 1939 as a general ‘office boy’ – I worked in the outer office where I dealt primarily with clients as they arrived and left, fielding phone calls, and handling the firm’s post.
Gerald Nalder was a strong-willed and dominant man, who never addressed me by my name, so I quickly learned to answer to “boy!” In the office was a large, wide staircase that led up to Mr Nalder’s office on the second floor, and his heavy footsteps echoing up the staircase was the signal to everyone that he had arrived.
I used a box-key telephone to put clients through to the relevant solicitors. Part of my job involved timing the calls as they were made, so I’d know how much to charge the clients. When the day ended I was called up to Mr Nalder’s office to deal with the post. I’d stand at the front of his desk with a blotter and as Mr Nalder signed them, I’d move around to the side of the desk to blot them. I’d leave the office at five to take the letters to the post office, and then deliver any further communications to other solicitors around town.
We had an enormous Will Book, in which it was our job to write the Wills. Best handwriting, of course, was required.
Every three weeks or so it was time to put on a brown housecoat and go up into the loft, where there were countless brown parcels that contained contracts and conveyances etc. They were all wrapped in brown paper parcels, with the client’s name tied up with pink tape. It wasn’t the most organised affair and so I spent a huge amount of time having to check each bundle to find the one I wanted. As it was in the roof space I’d come down absolutely covered in soot and spider webs. Somehow I don’t think the clients knew they were kept that way.”
At this moment allow us to take a moment to return to the present, where at Nalders LLP we can assure you that our client documentation is not kept this way anymore! Back to you, Noel.
“Mr Nalder was a chain smoker, and De Maurier was his brand. Though he never seemed to smoke a whole one, he’d have a few puffs then leave the rest to burn through in the ashtray. Toward the rear of the office lived Mrs Courts, the office caretaker. She cooked Mr Nalder’s meals at lunchtime, where he’d retire to her dining room to eat – I remember lemon sole being a particular favourite of his.
I was paid two and six pence a week. After two years I left for an offer of five shillings working at County Hall.
At eighteen I joined the army, where I was posted to Italy, Egypt, and Germany during WW2.”
Our thanks to Noel for his time spent with us, sharing his memories, and service to his country. He is just one of the many who have helped shape Nalders LLP, and Cornwall in general, into what it is today.