ABSTRACT
By the mid-1960s, the leases of the two Wigmore Street properties needed attention. The rent was something like £100 a year and the leases, which were due to expire in 1995, were worth a fortune as commercial rents were now beginning to rise alarmingly. As far as Emmie was concerned, when it came to paying death duties, the business would be worth very little, for though the name of Ibbs and Tillett was of some value, the assets came to nothing at all, so the business would have to be sold. For many years the agency had not been realizing its full earning potential, part of the reason being the low fees charged for the artists. For most of her working life, Emmie operated a monopoly and could tell artists what they were worth and what they could be sold for. Ibbs and Tillett was therefore like a musical Exchange and Mart acting for both parties, a clearing house marrying promoters to artists. To the question, 'who are your clients?', she would answer, 'everybody', for she owed a duty both to the artist and to the client, regarding herself as a servant of the profession, never earning big sums of money. In her eyes, her role was to feed the profession and concert promoters with artists at an affordable fee, not to promote their careers. In fact she believed that she did promote artists' careers and in a totally fair way, but realistically she had always had her favourites, and they were generally the cream of the artists who were also her close friends. So while there was an element of truth in the fact that artists were leaving because of low fees, it was more a case of the lack of career promotion which other agents were now doing, which made them go. Generous and altruistic as she was as a person, Emmie was also economical with the handbag.
