Mark Perry, director at Melville PR: “A London-based client requested a re-pitch at 9.30am on 23 December...in the 1990s, with no PowerPoint. I was assigned, as a newly appointed account manager, to accompany my manager to the pitch in London, but my manager arrived late to the office and wanted us to add more ideas to our 45-page document.

“The entire team stayed behind. The boss, however, left early for his son’s nativity. I left the office at 4am, giving me two hours to shower before getting on the train from Manchester to London.  On the train, my boss said he didn’t like the new documents, asked me to ‘sit somewhere else’ while he redid it, before sending me home to fax over the edited documents as I had ‘let him down’. He said he would tell the client I had ‘missed the train’.

“We didn’t win the pitch, but we [former colleagues] still celebrate the day. That’s when we know Christmas can begin."

Oonagh Barrington, MD at PR firm Transatlantic: “I had to ring round every Greggs spokesperson (with no luck) trying to get a comment for this story. I decided to give it a no comment.” 

Natalie Trice, publicity expert at Natalie Trice Publicity: “My wildest PR Christmas Eve was at a well-known kid’s animation channel. We spent the morning riding around the fourth floor on two wheeled, branded scooters and watching Scooby Doo before heading to Carnaby Street to carry on where we left off the night before. It was carnage, but so much fun. My first Christmas in PR was stocking the Kwik Save cupboard with bargain basement chocolate and own brand digestives, as well as collecting red Betty Crocker Spoons for press packs."

Andy West, advisor and non-executive director at Westofcenter Consulting: “Imagine the scene: A PR (me) in his mid-20’s manning the agency phone lines on New Year’s Eve. An inbound call comes in the irate MD of a big client, demanding blanket trade media coverage w/c Jan 2nd. He insisted I ring the main five editors to place a story and get him interviewed that afternoon (New Year’s Eve). And when politely reminded that editors would likely be at home and not interviewing, he screamed down the phone: ‘You are paid to know their home numbers. Get on to them now and call me back with a schedule of interviews.’ Needless to say, this did not happen and thankfully, that aggressive client was fired. It was a long time ago – but boy, I’ve never forgotten it!"