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Jenny Vaughan at 40
Life Membership finally caught up with her
LONGTIME union activist, Branch officer and freelance Jenny Vaughan basked in the glory of (OK, "accepted") the congratulations of London Freelance Branch at its February meeting for her elevation to NUJ Life Member status.
Jenny tries not to cringe with embarrassment as Phil Sutcliffe sings her praises.
Leading the tributes from the non-virtual floor ‐ in-person at the hybrid meeting room at NUJ's head office ‐ was fellow LFB stalwart Phil Sutcliffe. With his usual charm, he opened with an insult.
"For musical fans, Jenny and I are 'the ruins that Cromwell knocked about a bit'. Jenny has finally claimed her Life Membership, which in fact she has been entitled to for may years. You get Life Membership just for being a member for 40 years.
"'Just for being a member' in Jenny's case is something else entirely because she's always been that thing we call an activist. She's always worked for the union. I think she first got involved in the course of a strike at a company whose name escapes me..."
Possibly fearing another age-related joke was on the way, Jenny interrupted Phil's flow with a clarification.
"No no," she said, "I first got involved because I got a new job. I joined the union when I was working for a book company called the Hamlyn Group which was part of IPC. It was a closed shop ‐ we had those in those days ‐ so I had to join. I left after a year and went somewhere else but the Father of Chapel owed me £1. So I had to go through a branch meeting to claim it because you could get a lot a lot for a pound in 1969."
Phil readily agreed and continued: "For our younger readers, a closed shop used to be when you couldn't take up a job without joining the union. Strange days, eh? But Jenny has been a real activist ever since, a lot of it in London Freelance Branch. She'd been Treasurer for yonks, which is one of those things they call a thankless task, except we often did thank her ‐ but nonetheless, Treasurers like to regard it as a thankless task, then they feel even better about doing it."
Jenny contradicted: "No, it's very satisfactory being Treasurer. Once you've got the knack of it, you do it and everybody else is completely amazed. It's actually not very difficult."
"They also get the Branch abacus," confirmed Phil, "which is a great reward.
"All through, she's worked on all sorts of union stuff. She was on the NEC as a job share, I believe, with Hillary McCaskill and other of our members. They were members of what you might call the 'Awkward Squad' on the NEC in that they didn't necessarily go with the flow. And she was on Freelance Industrial Council for many years, which obviously is a body that represents us in the union hierarchy.
"For all of her endeavours, a few years ago she was awarded the NUJ Gold Badge.
"One of the highlights of her activist career was at some company or other, she was out on strike, out on the pavement, and who was there alongside but a young Neil Tennant. Now, for younger readers again, Neil Tennant was a member of a pop group called the Pet Shop Boys. [Editor's note: Prior to selling 50 million records worldwide alongside Chris Lowe, Neil was a music journalist on Smash Hits magazine.] But before all that, Neil Tennant was out on the picket line with Jenny. And he wrote us a strike song.
"Imagine that! It's lost in the mists of time. I think we should revive Neil Tennant's strike song and have periodic renderings of it. Anyway, the thing is, Jenny's done loads of stuff for all of us for a very long time. It's worth mentioning all this when Life Membership comes up. Congratulations, Jenny. And thank you."
After a round of applause from in-person participants and Zoomers alike, Jenny chipped in once more: "It was actually a lock-out song. If it comes back to me, I'll let you know."
The Chair inexplicably announced that if she could remember it, we would hear it at the next LFB meeting.
This has been minuted, Jenny. We hope you are practising your vibrato.