A Woman Beadle

“When I went to Johnstone and Wamphray the Beadle was Mr. William Johnstone, Skip... Mr. Johnstone was succeeded my Miss Mary Glendinning. Woman in all walks of life has often to contend with the wall of prejudice. We had a high pressure system of heating, which depended for its smooth working on a regular supply of added water in the pipes. It was said that a woman could not work the heating apparatus. I undertook to supply water at regular intervals. Formerly a very little water was supplied, as one Beadle put it to me, at the beginning of each seaon with the result that interstices of air got in and the water in filling up these made a loud noise, as if a hammer were striking the pipes; now with a regular supply the working was smooth and noiseless. But many maintained that a woman could not be a success in the work, and one said to me: ‘She is not managing the pipes; you never hear them going click-click the way they did under their former Beadles.’”

-James Barr (not that one) ‘Lang Syne’ (Glasgow, William Maclellan, 1948) Pp. 36-7