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The day I met Frank Zappa was the day that changed my life. Had I realised how momentous it would be, I might have clipped on my dangly earrings with more care, raced into London with greater speed and answered the phone at the office more eagerly. But on that dull, drizzly August afternoon in 1967, I had no idea.
I earned ten shillings an hour at a printers in Dover Street. Not a firm with huge machinery and hordes of men, but a large office space with golf-ball typewriters and twenty girls seated in squares of four. We typed menus, programmes, adverts, film scripts and sometimes novels by hopeful writers. At the end of the room, behind a glass partition, two boys worked enormous photocopiers.
But we girls were not mere typists, not at all. We ran around town with portable typewriters and notebooks to hotels or private homes. Our clients coul