My next job was in a small office named the Bureau of Abstracts.
It was ideal for me. There were four other people in that small space: Jean Dodd was the office manager, then there was Betty, Mrs Seal and myself. They were kind people. Mrs Seal was an Anglo-Indian lady who was old enough to be my mother (perhaps my grandmother), Betty was a couple of years older than me and Jean Dodd was a couple of years older than her. Betty was lovely – she always had a smile and she and Mrs Seal were very helpful to this gauche, ignorant newcomer! Our purpose was to keep a record of scientific journals. Mr (or perhaps it was Dr.) Popper gave instructions to Jean and she distributed the work to her minions.
My job was to put on little index cards the name and date of the journal, the name of the contributor, and the title of the article. I was very proud to be doing what seemed very important and vital work!!! It was a pity that it was so deadly boring!! but that didn't really matter, because I enjoyed the friendly banter of the office and I quickly came to really like my fellow workers. Jean, the proud holder of a degree, would gently tease me, the lowly holder of a school certificate. Betty was studying part-time for a science degree and Mrs Seal would talk about her highly qualified sons. It gradually sank in that if I wanted to “get on” I needed some further qualifications. But what?? No-one in my family went on to higher education. I had two uncles who entered the teaching profession through the government scheme for members of the armed forces returning to civilian life after the war. I was too shy to approach them.
I finally thought I would like to be a physiotherapist. I made the necessary inquiries and got an interview at a local hospital. My school qualification were woefully inadequate and I was told to go away and get some science knowledge. So, off to night school for an A level in physics and chemistry, my very worst subjects in school. I returned to the hospital with my very low level A levels. Sorry they said – inadequate – I wouldn't cope with the training. So that was that!
What next? Perhaps I could be a high powered secretary. So I go back to night school for shorthand and typing skills. I managed to acquire some skills and become the proud owner of a competence certificate. I decided that the train ride to Charing Cross had lost it's charm and I got a job in one of the offices of Siemens in Charlton. I liked it there in spite of the smell of the river in the summer! It was a small office with a lad not much older than me, an older man and the office manager, a somewhat humorless man.
One day I had typed a letter to a supplier in France(beautifully I thought !)and I took to the boss who seemed somewhat distracted. So I said, rather sharply, “Are you going to sign this french letter?” and I didn't understand why the other men fell about laughing!
But it wasn't long before this job was unsatisfying. I decided I would become an accountant. Then I found that this was a rather expensive qualification to acquire since you had to be articled to a firm of Chartered Accountants and furthermore you had to pay to be articled!!! Obviously this was beyond my financial ability, let alone my as yet untried intellectual ability.
There was another Chartered Institute – the Chartered Institute of Secretaries – a qualification for company secretaries. I didn't have to be articled. I could study with one of the distance correspondence colleges and I could afford the fees. I enrolled and started on a new road. Consequently I didn't have a misspent youth like my contemporaries – I, spent all my spare time in the little box room in our three bedroom semi preparing for the intermediate examination which took about eighteen months. Therefore I missed all the excitement of the swinging sixties which has always been a regret.
But I didn't miss it at the time being taken up with my mission to obtain a qualification. In the meantime I had a job in the office of a London property company and had the task of dealing with share certificates. It was a small office with a Scotsman as the manager who would occasionally burst into a couple of lines of a Scottish song and then settled down again to his work!!! He had a (to me!) an elderly lady secretary who he delighted in gently teasing which she loved although she pretended to be outraged!!!The other person in the office was a quiet , gentle man who would come to my aid if I had problems. It was a jolly, chaotic atmosphere and I loved it. Amazingly the work got done to our manager's satisfaction and also apparently to the bigwigs who occasionally visited us.
I really regretted leaving these kindly folk but then, having achieved a pass in the intermediate examination I set my sights on the final, locked myself up in the box room yet again and looked for a job where I could demonstrate the knowledge acquired in that little room in a practica situation. I deduced that the likelihood of becoming a company secretary in a male dominated profession was remote so I decided to go down the accountancy road. John Lewis were advertising for trainees and I jumped at the chance.
I met Mary Bush who was quite a character. She was working in the office that you got to by going through the square where the Royal Academy is. She also played hockey so we became friends. One day, she was down in the office in Pall Mall and I was in the Saville Row office. She sent me up some grapes! All the other ladies were there - Mary, Jean and Mrs Seal. Jean Dodd went “ooooh!” but I was confused because I didn’t have a clue about anything sexual or romantic. I was very mystified at this. There was another incident like this that showed my naivity. I had been down to Trafalgar Square not longer after they had put the figures in the fountain, I was telling everyone how nice they were. Jean, who used to tease me, asked me what sort of figures and I said “they are women, because they’ve got boobs” and she found this hilarious. Again, I was mystified by these remarks. It is possible Mary Bush was in love with me but I was too naive to realise. Sadly, we lost touch.
My first holiday without the family was with Joan Donaldson, whose father was my Mother's dancing partner. My mother loved old-time dancing and Jack Donaldson was a very good dancer. My Father never danced and so Jack became an essential partner. His wife always accompanied them and occasionally Joan and I were allowed to go. We thought it quite hilarious and we were very unkind about a dancer who wore a wig and to whom we referred as “wiggy”.
So Joan was my companion on my first holiday without the family. I was 17 and Joan was a bit older. We hitch-hiked to Scotland. The piper at Glen Coe was our first occasion of the real Scotland and the Braemar Games was the next. We stayed at youth hostels and being the eldest Joan took on the role of the elder sister, eschewed any reckless behaviour of mine and ensured that we were safe.
Sadly Joan contracted cancer and died at an early age, leaving two daughters. I remember meeting her one day as I was coming home from work. She had one of her daughters in the pram and she looked very bloated from the medication. It was shocking to see.
Many years later, one of her daughters contacted me and we had a very happy reunion talking about Joan. Strangely enough, she lived on the other side of the river, in the same village my daughter would later buy a flat.
My next holiday was with my very best friend at Dartford and has been ever since. Sheila and I in 1948 decided that it was time we saw something of the world. The war was still a shadow at home when we packed our backpacks and headed for Dover. At the cafe on the port in Calais they were serving bacon and eggs, luxuries almost unknown in England. I have always had a good appetite and had two portions, much to Sheila's disgust. We were headed for Vimy Ridge because Sheila's dad had fought there in the first World War.
We found our first youth hostel in Amiens, where the washing and the toilet facilities where outdoor and where the only other occupant was a young man, who shook our hands when it was time to retire and made his way up an outdoor staircase to the male quarters. We continued hitch-hiking and at one point got a lift with a lorry driver who planted a huge oily hand on my thigh (we were wearing shorts, of course and it was my turn to sit next to the driver!)and announced “ un souvenir” to which Sheila responded “un souvenir horrible”! At one point in out journey we were picked up by a very posh car with a young man and his mother. The young mad stopped the car outside a shop in a very pretty village and came back and present Sheila with a vert pretty handkerchief. I was most jealous, but was assuaged when I received an envelope from Sheila some 70 years later containing the same handkerchief with a note “your turn”!!
We managed to make it to Berne where a very lovely man took us to a very nice hotel and arranged for us to have a very nice room – it was the first time we had seen duvets instead of sheets and blankets and the beds had huge duvets on them. We locked the door of the room because, innocent as we were, we thought our knight in shining armour may pay us a visit during the night. We approached the receptionist in the morning to pay our bill, wondering if we had enough money, to learn that our knight in shining armour had in fact paid the bill! This was one of the many kindnesses we met with on our journey. One of the many kind people who gave us lifts was a French woman who spoke excellent English and was scathing about our very poor ability to speak the language of the country we were in.
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