Musings

It was on this day back in 1969 that I arrived, shortly before 8:30am, at the offices of Post Office Telephones in Trinity Street, Peterborough. I was just sixteen years old and had never had a job of work before. I had previously applied for a job as a Computer Operator at a local engineering firm but had been turned down because “I didn’t have the aptitude for working with computers”. Fascinating – but more on that later. I had finished school the previous week and had applied for a job as a Clerical Assistant with Post Office Telephones a little while before. On passing the exam and interview, I had been accepted. Though I had been told I would not start there until September – so I thought that would be great, a couple of months on holiday and then start! However, there was a chap who was planning on emigrating to Australia, so he did just that without letting his manager know, finally handing in his week’s notice and leaving! As a result I received a letter advising me that my new start date was 7th July and so I began work that day, having ended school the previous week. The first couple of days were a bit of a blur, being introduced around, filling in forms, signing the Official Secrets Act as I was now a Civil Servant (something I am still bound by, even now) and on the Wednesday I sat with a lady who began my training. That was fine, but on the following day when I turned up and sat at my desk, I saw no sign of the lady from the previous day. My manager was an ex-army major and so when I sat there doing nothing, not knowing what to do, I was asked rather sternly by the manager where my trainer was, so I replied that I had no idea and after a short while a chap turned up to continue my training. This he did very well and in fact he and I are still in contact after so many years. I really did have to learn about life outside of school and I enjoyed it for the most part, though it is very different, in the same way as school is a whole lot different now. At work over the next few years I was moved around into different groups learning different aspects of the business, as one senior manager had asked if I planned to make this my career, which I did. I went from Office Services to Accounts, then Directory Compilation and into Sales. As expected I didn’t get on with everyone, but that is life. I also grew in my own self-confidence, which I really needed. Then, when computers were introduced I found I could manage those far better than some of my colleagues, which also helped me and made me smile, given the computer operator job I hadn’t previously got – yet now I was using them! A different kind of computer work though, I guess. As I got older I was offered promotion and that was a challenge which, after a bit of work, I achieved. I was also enjoying these moves as it meant I was dealing with a range of people, both colleagues and customers.

But there were a few folk in the office who I simply did not get on with and as does happen, unfortunately one was a senior manager. Their ways were not mine and I learned that further promotion was never going to be mine, at least not in that office in Peterborough, even though I was through a promotion board. My face simply did not ‘fit’ as the saying goes. But the company itself was changing, times as well as attitudes were also changing so, when an opportunity came for me to move to Leicester on a higher grade job with the same firm, I took it. For a little while this meant travelling every workday from Peterborough to Leicester and back, but that was good too as I met a lovely lady on the train and a while later we married. Yes, I chatted her up on the train! More work changes a few years later meant moving up to Nottingham and after a while the marriage didn’t work out, but as some of us know that can happen. I was in Nottingham for a few years but again further changes in the firm, which years before had become a private company, meant me moving again, first briefly up to Sheffield then down to Birmingham. I had previously bought a house near Chesterfield, but then house prices fell so I had to stay where I was living and travel every day. That wasn’t easy. I was in Birmingham for another few years but rumours were spreading about more changes, so when it was learned that wherever I went the office would often close (which wasn’t true, by the way!) you can imagine what was being said. However, I had learned on the quiet that we were indeed moving, but to a brand new building across the road from where we were. So when I was asked by colleagues over this rumour about me, I told them that I liked Birmingham and so wouldn’t close them, but simply move them to a better building! A few weeks later the official news broke, so you can imagine how I was viewed! But by now I wasn’t getting any younger and with so much travelling my health had begun to deteriorate. As I have said, because of housing prices I could not sell my property, also I’d had epilepsy from birth, but that was under control fairly well. As a youngster I had developed asthma – I had wondered why I got breathless at times, but I had done a great deal of singing in various choirs, which helped. So it was that I got a transfer back to Sheffield, with an interesting comment from my manager who said, in the nicest, kindest way “Good luck – and don’t come back!”. That transfer was on an initial trial of three months, but after just one month I was called in to see the senior manager there in Sheffield and told not to worry as I was not going back to Birmingham. Over the next few years I became a Trainer and that I thoroughly enjoyed. But my father had been a teacher and an older brother was a driving instructor, so maybe it is in the blood.

Then one day I was called in to see a couple of very senior managers who told me I was to go and train a new team of people in Manchester. This new team would then be doing the work that the team I was presently working with were doing. Furthermore I was not to mention any of this to my existing colleagues. I wasn’t happy, but it had to be done and if I hadn’t, someone else would have been found to be their trainer as the change was going to be made. But at the end of the several months spent with this new team, where I and a couple of other trainers taught the new team, I was advised that me going back to work in Sheffield would not be a good idea. Thankfully I was told of a job opportunity working back in Leicester and I appreciated that very much, as I would be working with people I knew and doing a job I enjoyed. That change wasn’t always easy, as one or two folk there were, to put it mildly, difficult, but I survived. Then the day came when further changes were announced. I naturally thought I would be on the move again, but I was told “Oh no, we have a new team – we don’t want you”. So I accepted the package I was offered, fondly named ’New Start’ and left the firm. I then went out into the big wide world, where I found that just about all of my existing training qualifications with British Telecom counted for nothing. So I went on a full teacher training course, I passed that and with quite a bit of help and guidance started up my own business, teaching people (mainly my age and above) the basics of taking good photographs (which I had done as a hobby since I was a teenager) and how to use computers as well as the ways of sharing photographs with family and friends via the Internet. I did all that until I retired, except then my health deteriorated, I had heart problems and I found myself in this lovely Care home, where I now write my weekly blogs. I am well looked after, I certainly eat far better here than I did at home – I never was any good in the kitchen – and I have also found that consuming milk or cream is not good for me. Add to that I have become vegetarian, so I’ve seen quite a few changes over the years! I cannot live forever, but I hope to carry on for a few more years yet. This is a shorter blog than before, but after the last couple of weeks I too need a break!

This week…
As the saying goes, time flies like an arrow – but fruit flies like a banana!

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