[Post Office Telephones - September 1945
By the beginning of September I still had no employment. I asked my
mother how she was managing and whether she still received the Army
allowance for my keep, and she evaded the question. I could not help
feeling there was something wrong. She had been currant-picking but now had
no regular work. I was getting very worried. So when an advertisement
appeared for a clerk with "Post Office Telephones" appeared in the
Colchester paper I applied for it.
Before I had the interview the day of the class re-union approached.
All the girls were excited and we had a pleasant afternoon. I bought an
autograph book and got the signatures of all the girls in the form, wishing
me well in the future. Everybody else had done this previously before they
had left school. To my dismay I was almost the only girl there who had left
school and had not obtained employment. Those going into the Sixth Form
were quite happy and included about half the class. The half of us who left
included some of the girls who were in the habit of getting top marks.
Maisie said she left because she did not like school. I am not sure what
she was doing initially but she later managed to get work as a laboratory
assistant in a chemistry laboratory which I thought was lucky. They had not
offered me a job. I believe her father was in management at the factory,
which made plastics. When pressed about what I was going to do, I said that
I had applied for work with Post Office telephones.
"The Post Office", gasped Miss Creighton. "Surely you can do better
than that?"
I began to wonder what was wrong with me. I had worked so hard and done
everything the teachers required. But it was not enough to keep me out of
the Post Office!
Our School Certificates results had not yet appeared. That was the
drawback. I had nothing on paper as evidence to produce about my school
record when I appeared for interview. "The official results were what
mattered," I thought. "If only they would arrive". The following week I had
to attend for interview at the Post Office Telephone Department. The
manager listened to me politely when I told him that I thought I had passed
School Certificate.
"How do you know?" he said doubtfully
"Well I was always good at mathematics."
"Mathematics is not what is wanted here," he said.
That left me depressed. I thought I had failed again even at the Post
Office.
However he left me to wait in an outside office while he consulted
someone else. He called me back. and said "We have a job in the Telephone
Sales Office for a filing clerk. Can you start next Monday?" I said
"Thank-you very much. I would be pleased to start work on Monday."
This job was not as good as the one Pat had got with the Inspector of
Taxes, but I was grateful for anything at this stage. I went home and told
my mother that I could start work on Monday. To begin with she let me wear
one of her better dresses. It was a little short for me, but this did not
notice as I would be sitting down I thought. Filing clerks did not sit down
much so I soon started to wear the grey flannel costume with a blouse or
jumper.
I thought "I am managing all right, and later on I might get the sort
of work I really wanted".
I was paid about £2 per week. I did not spend any money casually I
was
saving up for a new bicycle at a cost of £13.
The first week I had to pay 5 shillings for two insurance stamps, one
for unemployment and one for sickness benefit. We had to register with a
Friendly Society as the National Insurance Act had not yet been introduced.
I intended to give my mother fifteen shillings per week for my keep,
leaving me with one pound per week to spend. Out of this the weekly season
ticket on the buses cost five shillings. Hot meals at the Cottage Cafe cost
one shilling per day, but I paid only sixpence as I got coupons from my
employer which entitled me to half-price lunches. This left me twelve
shillings and sixpence for myself. I knew that the pay was going up to two
pounds ten shillings per week on my eighteenth birthday in six months time,
so that was something to hope for. In those days with two week's spending
money I could buy a skirt. But I spent nothing at all on myself until I had
saved £13 for the bicycle. This took me about six months.
But the first week was expensive. I was paid in cash on Friday but
only five-sixths of the week's pay as I had not worked on Saturday morning.
This meant another seven shillings deducted. So I had only thirty-three
shillings in my pay packet the first week, and needed fifteen shillings of
this for expenses. I offered my mother fifteen shillings for keep. But she
would not accept it.
"Don't pay anything the first week. You need your money," she said.
I thought I ought to but she insisted that she could manage. But the
next week I had two pounds in my pay packet so gave her fifteen shillings.
I found I had to pay vet's bills and also bought some scarlet runner bean
seeds for the garden so that Dad could plant them in the Spring.
This first time I handed over some money for my keep I thought was
childhood's end. It was the in-between time. Not a child and not grown-up
though I thought I was grown-up.
"I am a woman now. I am grown-up," I said to my mother.
"Well," she said hesitantly "I don't think you can say that until you
are twenty years of age".
In the office Pauline and I, both seventeen, were filing clerks. The
work was very boring. The staff were quite kind. As Pauline and I were
under eighteen we were given a free cup of "National Milk Cocoa" at
break-time. This was supplied by the Government to all employers for junior
staff. It was the best thing I had tasted for some time, and I was
disappointed when it became no longer available. I was asked to join the
union, which was called the Civil Service Clerical Association. There was a
subscription of twopence per week, to which I agreed. Another penny went to
the Hospital Saturday Fund. The union was quite formal and I never heard
anything about its activities while I was in this office. Everything in the
Civil Service was formal. The route out of boring work was via the Civil
Service Examinations, so I put my name down to do these. At the same time I
looked for evening classes in chemistry in Colchester. Though I found some
classes, I was told off by my father for overworking and had to give them
up, for the time being. I protested that these were the one thing I enjoyed
but it was no use.
At this time careers for women were not encouraged. I was told by older
men, especially by the family doctor that I would get married soon. I
decided that I did not want to get married. There were a few older women in
senior positions in my first office but they were all unmarried. They did
not seem to have a very exciting life, as they were usually put in charge
of a room full of young girls doing routine work. Soon I was moved to even
more routine work than I had done as a filing clerk. This was sorting
telephone charge tickets for each call made into numerical order. I worked
for the Civil Service examinations in order to escape from this life.
My school certificate results had been sent to me two weeks after I
started work. I had three distinctions, in mathematics, science and English
language, and credits in everything else, so I was well above Matriculation
level. Unfortunately I had not been able to use these results in job
interviews. They had come too late. What I did not know was that the
Matriculation was not registered officially in the case of those girls who
had not entered the sixth form, so officially , it did not count for
anything. Yet it encouraged me that I could work for examinations in the
future. The civil service was a formal world and required passes in their
own official examinations.
The world of 1945 was one of rapid change. We would not return to the
bad times of the 1930s . There was a better prospect in view. That was the
hope of the young people in the office, whenever I met someone to discuss
things with. We were not afraid to say that we thought the monarchy should
be abolished. We wanted to be revolutionary in a quiet way, which meant
that the King or Queen would perhaps be looking for work as an architect or
as a schoolteacher, but not the army as a career. Anything but that. At
least young women no longer had to seek jobs as domestic servants if they
came from poor families. The boys had two years in the Army for they were
conscripted at 18 years of age, unless their service was deferred until
they completed advanced education. I was somewhat afraid of leaving any job
before I found another, or becoming unemployed, because there was a
regulation called "Direction of Labour" which meant that anyone over 18
could be directed into areas of labour shortage. I thought that might
result in a very unpleasant job, far, far worse than the Post Office, but I
could not imagine what these areas of labour shortage might be. And as it
never happened to me, I never found out. I never met anyone who was caught
by that regulation.
In the meanwhile my father had to take low-paid work as a labourer with
Edme Maltings. He said it made him very tired, so was looking for something
better, preferably an office job in the civil service, which he soon
achieved, as his old army department took him back as a civilian worker. My
mother had a little rest but unfortunately remained very weak with
recurrent
asthma attacks, but she was very cheerful.
I regarded 1945 as the year of my childhood's end and what happened
after this was a different story.