So it was time to make a start in the real world and get a job! I started work at Unilever. I was to be trained in the use of the adding machine called, (in those days) a comptometer. I was seated at a desk in a huge hall full of other young women all engaged on the same deadening task - completing sheets and sheets of calculations with the aim of completing them accurately and rapidly.
A supervising person came round to collect the sheets and, I suppose, mark them for accuracy. She (it was a "she" - I suppose a man would not be suitable to supervise a hoard of very young nubile women!)approached my desk and looked at my work and commented on the fact that I had used a dot over a figure to indicate a recurring decimal, I had copied it she said. I said we had be taught to indicate a recurring decimal thus. She said I was lying! and that was that - after a few days giving my time to Mr Unilever I gathered my coat and handbag and left the building. That was my first experience of the work place!!!
I really found it very difficult, this growing up business The grown ups I had been in touch with in the main were my teachers and they were kind and helpful (on the whole). My mum was, of course, still wholly occupied with the twins. My brother was married and had left home. Dads didn't consider their business to advise daughters about the ways of the world. So I felt a bit on my own. I didn't like having to wear stockings, even less did I like having to wear shoes with a heel , and as for cosmetics, I usually made a complete mess of putting on make-up! And my hair has always, to this day, been unruly.
So, now I needed another job. I realized that I needed at least a modicum of skills. I went to classes for shorthand and typing. I tried hard and eventually got certificates of competence. Armed with the fruits of my labor I applied for a job with Siemens in Charlton. I was pleased that I didn't have to get the train. My new job was only a bus ride away. It was a small friendly office. I had to type letter to suppliers and I found I could do that!
One of my colleagues was a nice man about my age and I used to enjoy playing chess with him in our off duty moments . He usually won but I didn't mind because I rather fancied him, but I was far too gauche to do anything about it. When I felt I was ready to take on a more sophisticated job, (or did I mean a more highly paid job)I answered an advert for a secretary in a firm of architects in Westminster. I thought that sounded suitable for an aspiring employee!! I was seated before a typewriter and provided with a short passage to type.
Consequently I was interviewed by one of he partners and told I would be hired with the proviso that my work would be assessed at the end of the week. In other words I was on a week's trial!! I was given very long specifications to type during that week, at the end of which the same partner very kindly informed me that my work was not of a quality required for the type of work the partnership needed! So there I was again, jobless. Fortunately it was the times when one could walk out of one job and into another.
Meanwhile my school friends informed me that the PE staff at Dartford were arranging for the hockey teams to go to Wembley to watch the match between England and the Netherlands. As a former member of the first team I managed to get permission to accompany the group. I delightedly donned my school uniform. I was really thrilled to be in the stands with my school friends shouting at the top of my lungs. I was one of them again. Of course my joy was short lived. I arrived home, took off my beloved school uniform and never wore it again.
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