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Bristow's Inferiors
The Lift-Boy  
 
Highslide JS
Strip 2406 was published in the Evening Standard in December 1968 and in Bristow (1970)

"A desk job would drive me up the wall"

C-Ps has manually operated lifts and consequently employs a lift boy whose job is to press the buttons and work the gates. The liftboy is extremely well informed on internal company affairs and will often communicate these via graffiti on the lift walls. He is also the first to know any sporting news. ("That was the news here on British Hi-Speed Radio. Now a summary of the day’s sports results direct from the walls of the lift at the Chester-Perry Building"). The job is jealously guarded and school-leavers that are left in the liftboy’s tender care are likely to be tearfully running back to Mother before the end of the day.

Highslide JS
Strip 1818 was published in the Evening Standard in December 1966. This scan is from the Sydney Morning Herald May 1967
 When we first meet this pocket-sized oracle he wears a very strange uniform, suggestive of a deserter from the Foreign Legion, and seems strangely moved by Bristow's description of Miss Pretty of Kleenaphone. Later he adopts a clerical style jacket and trousers, and drops the silly hat in favour of slicked back hair
The lift boy, unlike the post boy, has no ambitions for a desk job. (Perhaps if he was related to the firm's founder he would be keener). He is of course always up to date with latest fashions and the generation gap is never wider than when Bristow is trying to convince him to come to the Xmas Dinner & Dance as in strip 3956
Strip 3956 was published in the Evening Standard in November 1973 and in Bristow Extra. This scan is from the Melbourne Age December 1973
Relations between them are clearly better than a few years before when the lift boy was revealed to be the source of an outbreak of poison pen notices. Bristow had gone so far as to call in the services of the firm's amateur sleuth before he is given a steer in the right direction in strip 2866
Strip 2866 was published in the Evening Standard in May 1970 and in Bristow. This scan is from the Melbourne Age July 1970

Bristow is always keen to take the lift. With luck, it will break down and he can spend a quiet afternoon with the perfect excuse not to do any work. One wonders why C-Ps does not install automatic lifts - they must be the last company in the UK to employ a lift boy.

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