They think they want a secretary. What they really want is a cross between their mother and a waitress,” says the womanising creative director to his new secretary in Mad Men, the slick BBC drama set in an advertising agency on New York’s Madison Avenue in the Sixties.

There were several deadly sins practised then: smoking, drinking, racism, adultery and sexism. “It looks complicated, but the men who designed it made it simple enough for a woman to use,” explains the bossy office manager when showing the new girl her typewriter.

But were 1960s advertising agencies really fuelled with red-blooded office men leering after catwalk- fashionable “girls” in the typing pool? Did sharp-suited junior account executives and their chain-smoking bosses really berate a secretary for wearing her skirts too long?

After completing her Pitman training in 1963, Elaine Braham was 17 when she started working as secretary to an account executive at the London-based advertising agency Spottiswoode. “The ad industry was so glamorous and everyone was incredibly fashion-conscious. The ‘girls’, as we were called, wore miniskirts and the men wore suits,” Elaine recalls. “Sure, it was a male-dominated world and very flirtatious at times. As a secretary (there were no PAs then) I earned £7.50 a week. I sat in a cubby-hole outside my boss’s office and he would buzz me in to offer wine and biscuits to clients. Practically everyone smoked at their desks and my boss took long liquid lunches and spent most afternoons asleep on his office couch. I didn’t notice the sexism but, looking back, we were treated as decorative airheads who gossiped, swapped fashion tips and ‘took a letter’.”

Her colleague and lifelong friend, Marilyn Raphael, 63, also worked at Spottiswoode in the Sixties as secretary to the account executive on the Brooke Bond tea account. “I was allowed to call my boss by his first name, which was unheard of in those days,” Marilyn recalls. “I distinctly remember a tea lady called Mrs Angel coming round two or three times a day with a trolley.”

So how does this era differ from a 21st-century advertising agency perspective? “There is still banter, but far less talk about ‘the man upstairs’ and more opportunities for PAs to get involved on every level,” says Hilary Moran, 29, PA to chairman Tim Delaney and group CEO Mar- garet Johnson at Leagas Delaney. Denise West, 45, agrees. She has worked for some of the UK's most respected ad men since the Eighties and is currently PA to Tim Lindsay, chief executive at TBWA\London.

“Advertising is still a male-dominated world, but its women are much punchier now; our opinions really count,” she says. “The fashion says it all. It was so starchy back in the typing pool days of the Sixties, but nowadays jeans and trainers is the staple working wardrobe; bosses are seldom suited and booted.

Lindsay agrees: “Back in the Sixties, a secretary’s job was seemingly to make a man’s life pleasant. Nowadays, because of title inflation in the industry, nobody is called ‘secretary’ and the PA role has evolved. I would never dream of asking Denise to pick up my dry-cleaning or buy presents for my missus.”

Times Recommends

• Inspirational leadership
• How to get a new job
• The reluctant CEO