The Ups and Downs

Call me a traditionalist if you like, but I like the old lifts (elevators) despite their idiosyncrasies. I’m not a lover of those high-tech wonders that whip you up to the heavens in a matter of seconds. In my book “Views From the Balcony”, I write about the lift in my mother’s apartment in Paris (now my sister’s). It’s a temperamental contraption subject to stops and starts. Sometimes, though, it decides not to work at all, and the residents of the building are obliged to use the stairs until the repairman finally arrives to fix it. This was particularly inconvenient for my mother, going on ninety, the last time it happened, because no way could she climb the stairs to the eighth floor, and was therefore unable to get out and about. For almost three weeks she was confined to her apartment. She would have missed her weekly trip to the market on Place Monge, just as the stall-holders would have missed her smile and conversation. Fortunately, my sister lived nearby and was able to supply her with bread from the local boulangerie, meat, and the odd bottle of plonk – most important. I mention in my book how, on one occasion, after pressing the button for the eighth floor, the lift took me instead up to the penthouse on the ninth – a somewhat disquietening experience as I described. Then there was that time I waited a nerve-wracking half hour for the lift to take me down to ground level for a flight back to Australia. One of the residents had decided that was the right afternoon to load the lift up with almost the entire stock of plants from a garden nursery, and then transport them up to his apartment. It looked as if he wanted to create some sort of jungle. For some reason – and I can’t remember what it was now – maybe I had too much luggage – I couldn’t use the stairway. Just made the plane.

In Melbourne, Joan McQueen is the matriarch of elevators. She has been at the controls of Lift No.1 in the Nicholas Building in Swanston Street since 1977. “Over thirty years in a box,” she says. She estimates that she’s worked a total of 53,760 hours running her tiny lift up and down the nine floors. Surprisingly for the size of the building, there are three elevators: Joan’s No 1, an automatic one, and No 3 operated by Dimitri Bradas. The management were a little disturbed recently when Dimitri bought a stuffed bird at the Coburg trash-and-treasure market and installed it in his lift. Following that, he added red velvet curtains to give it “the loungey look”. ''It's mainly the bourgeoisie who give us a hard time,'' Dimitri says. ''Because of who they are, they feel they need to dish it out. It's about respect, we're providing a service. We entertain them, we provide information. I'm getting ready to deal with someone at the moment. Joan just ignores it, but I just tell them: if they are rude, obnoxious, arrogant, they're not allowed in my lift.''

The pair stand their ground with management, too. ''They use you, love,'' says Joan. ''They'd have us working 80 hours a week if they could. When I started here I used to let out the rooms in the building, give all the prices - the manager taught me to do all that. Do they remember that? No!''

But don't get the wrong idea. The elevator twins love their work (''the best lift-attendant job ever,'' says Dimitri) and they run a friendly service. ''We chat with people like they're mates,'' says Joan, ''and we don't sound like those sour voices in automated lifts.''

Joan got stuck in the Nicholas Building's automatic lift just last week. ''Wouldn't happen in mine,'' she says. ''My lift has always worked. It's the way you treat it.''