First Jobs

I had sampled paid employment before university. The Post Office rashly assumed grammar schoolboys were hard working and trustworthy, and recruited sixth formers for the Christmas post round (22p an hour). We were given a very industrial-looking bike, brief directions and a huge sack of envelopes and sent out into the cold rain, while the regular postmen warmed themselves in the sorting room. Unfortunately for them, we finished our heavy Christmas round in about a third of the time they took to deliver a normal round. We were promptly intercepted by the union steward and told to go to the canteen if we knew what was good for us, so we spent the rest of each shift drinking coffee and eating cheese sandwiches, which cost approximately the same as our earnings.

In university holidays I applied for an office job with Marconi, and spent two Summers putting on a gruff voice, phoning suppliers and telling them off for being late with deliveries. I had one fill-in week at another factory, where I had to empty rubbish bins. Again, I finished the days work in about two hours and as a warning, I was sent to scrape rust off a huge oil tank for the rest of the day.

I started full-time employment as the British Manufacturing Industry was in its last blaze of glory. I joined an industrial truck manufacturer as a management trainee, and was sent to work in every department for a few months at a time. That was an eye-opener, and a very valuable experience too. The factory employed several thousand people and was a living microcosm of the industry. The Chairman turned up occasionally in a Rolls Royce, but he never spoke to us. There was an active apprentice school which turned out skilled fitters if they survived the pranks. There were also three separate canteens; one for factory staff, one for office staff and one for "management". You knew your place. We made very high quality products and were proud of them, but it was obvious that there were huge inefficiencies and gross over-staffing by today's standards. It was strictly 9 to 5, and the pace of work was very easy compared to the pressures of today. Within a short time of joining, Ted Heath took on the unions and the Three Day Week was imposed, so we all took a massive pay cut and only worked three days out of seven. This was a disaster for many of us because we didn't have much left at the end of a month at the best of times. Still, we struggled through somehow and went back to full time work as soon as we were allowed. Here is a photo from 1979: my boss Cliff, the two office girls, me and our beer-mat collection that covered every wall surface.



There are lots more stories I could tell about factory life in the Seventies - practical jokes, scandals on the Night Shift, old-fashioned ideas - but that would make me seem like an old codger. After a few years I became interested in a very innovative technology at the time - business computing, and moved on to the very different world of IT.

My first employer was taken over by a German firm, all production moved to Europe and most of the site was sold off for warehousing. My second employer's factory was merged with another for efficiency, the site was sold off, and now is a retail park with a Toys 'r Us where my Planning Office used to be. That was typical of the way Britain's traditional manufacturing industry gave way to the economy of the 80s and 90s.