It's been awhile but I just stumbled across some old Ian Walker articles from the old sociological journal, the New Society, which have previously not appeared on the blog. If you're interested in Walker's articles from the late 70s/early 80s, click on the following link for a fascinating insight into Britain in the early days of Thatcherism.
Jazzhats take stock
A swarm of dark suits in a hexagonal, hall. Some dark suits are motionless, some write in notebooks, some move around speaking into walkie-talkies, some are on the telephone, some are moving at high speed and some are clustered before a black screen containing green printouts. This is science fiction in period costume. “There are three species of life down there,” says Luke Glass, the Stock Exchange’s PR man. “You can tell by the various colours of the badges.”
Blue badges are unauthorised clerks, “bluebuttons” in Exchange argot, who assist the dealers. Yellow badges are the dealers (brokers and jobbers). Members of the Stock Exchange have silver badges. They are the highest form of life in this building which was opened in 1972, has 26 storeys, 321 feet high, and does £700 million worth of business a day.
Above the 16 hexagonal “pitches” where the brokers and jobbers are making their deals, an electronic clock stretches the width of the hall. It is 11.55 in London, 3.55 in San Francisco, 6.55 in Toronto, 11.55 in Zurich, 12.55 in Johannesburg, 19.55 in Hong Kong and 20.55 in Tokyo. The men speaking into walkie-talkies are conversing with their clients. “Could be Hongkong, could be Cheapside,” says Luke Glass.
A bell rings, and there is a rush towards the black screens. Green lettering displays “Beechams results.” There is a sudden and large accumulation of blue and grey suits by one of the hexagons. “Dealing in Beechams,” says Luke Glass, “I’d be prepared to bet.”
Men in black uniforms with red lapels guard the four entrances to the main floor. They are still known as waiters, from the time, in the 18th century, when stockbrokers operated from Jonathan’s coffee house in the City. “They’ve given up serving coffee, but they still take messages. They are part of the security system, too. But they are wonderful sources of information, like any good waiter anywhere, even down to knowing what people’ll be in.” Luke Glass shows me the Stock Exchange Council rulebook. Its cover has a crest bearing the motto, Dictum Meum Pactum. My word is my bond. “When a broker does business, quite literally, it’s down to his cufflinks,” Luke Glass’s cufflinks are inscribed with the St George’s cross. “He has total unlimited liability. They’ll do a £5 million bargain in a couple of seconds, a system based entirely on mutual trust.” All deals are known as bargains, whether or not they are good value.
A TV screen in this office is tuned to one of its 22 channels. It shows the prices per ton of zinc, tin and rubber, the price per ounce of gold. The price per pint of Bass in the Throgmorton Bar is 43p, which Duncan Steven, aged 26, finds excessive. “In East Grinstead I get Shepherd Neame for 37p a pint, from the wood too.” On his yellow badge it says “Shaw & Co. 670,” the name of his stockbroking firm, and his number for the £115 million computer system. Duncan earns £4,400 a year, not counting bonuses, though he’s not getting many of those at the moment. “Times are hard, the market’s quiet.”
Many blue, yellow and silver badge wearers come to this bar, known also as Sloshy Nells, at lunchtime. Most yellow and silver badge wearers have a piece of grey technology stuffed inside their breast pocket, bleepers. An aerial on the Throgmorton Bar’s roof connects it to the Exchange’s telephone system. Duncan’s bleeper starts bleeping, and he has to go pick up a telephone in the bar downstairs.
A tattooed barman tells his customers he never puts water in his Scotch, and two silver badges are telling each other what wonderful weather we’re having for the time of year. “Just done some deal and they were panicking,” says Duncan, when he reappears five minutes later.
Like everyone else in this bar, Duncan wears a tie, though not one from his old school. He went to a secondary modern. “Jazzhats” is his term for those within the Exchange who flaunt class connections. “You know, those blokes who play cricket, who’ve got all the gear, coloured cap [jazzhat], MCC tie, the whole bit?” Blokes like that are also known as “waah-waahs,” he says. “Ask them something and they say, ‘Yaah’ or ‘Waah.’ You can’t understand a bloody word they’re saying half the time . . . But on the other hand there are some really whizz-kid East End kind of blokes in the Stock Market.”
Those who are well connected do not necessarily need to be whizz-kids. They sit in the right clubs and restaurants all day, supplying the business (according to Duncan), who also says it is an open secret that a jobber will always offer a lower price to a broker who is an old school chum. “Undoubtedly. No question about it.” But some heads, Duncan tells me, will soon roll. A new computer system, called the Talisman, is being brought into the Exchange, and already “it has laid off a lot of staff.”
Is the Stock Exchange enjoying the Thatcher reign? “It’s a well-known fact,” he says, “that under Labour the market is bullish.” This is good: bulls buy stock in the hope of selling it at a higher price; bears sell stock, hoping to buy it back at a lower price. “In the run-up to the election, the market was very bullish. But it just went down when Thatcher got in. Since then it’s been firm.”
One of Duncan’s friends, Colin, is a jobber. Although he sounds very posh, he says his background is “ordinary, lower middle class.” He votes Tory and I wonder if that isn’t against his own interests, if a Labour government is really better for the market than a Conservative one?
“I always look at it like this,” he says. “If you get fluctuations, like you do when there’s a lot of strikes, you get a lot of activity on the market. As a jobber this is what you want; it’s a consideration that isn’t always acknowledged. The more action, the more money there is to be made.”
William, another yellow badge wearer, lives in Tonbridge and is keen to explode myths: “We’re the hardest-drinking set going. Just because we wear shiny shoes arid stiff collars . . . When the action’s on in there, it’s every man for himself.” So this etiquette I’ve heard so much about . . . “Yes, well, you can elbow an older bloke out of the way once, but not twice, you won’t get away with it again.”
This dark oak bar with its nicotine-stained ceiling and long mirrors is now almost empty of dark suits. All William’s friends have gone back to work. “We try to provide a service for our clients. And if we get it wrong, we get a bloody bollocking too, I can tell you.” William quaffs the remainder of his pint and walks out wiping his mouth.
Pamela Allen, who is 23, is one of the official Stock Exchange guides, stationed in the visitors’ gallery. She speaks French and German, went to Folkestone Girls’ Grammar School, and dropped out of university to become an air hostess with British Airways. Does she enjoy this job? Of course she does, “Very much indeed. It’s a very exciting place.”
She is answering questions being posed by three Yugoslav engineers, from Zagreb. “Gilt-edged stock are government bonds. It’s a generic term. Originally, government bonds were issued on little white cards with gilt edges.” Pamela has all the replies by heart. The questioning over, she resumes reading the Daily Mail. “Union curbs—no time for delay,” it says on the editorial page.
At 3.15 the men in red lapels politely clear everyone out of the visitors’ gallery. We go down the stairs and out into the street through glass revolving doors. “It’s new and strange,” says one of the Yugoslav engineers. “Just like looking at the movies.”
