Open Writing

It was 1946. The country was still licking its wounds, and my time at Saint Albans RC Higher Grade School for Boys’ was drawing to a close. My fourteenth birthday was looming and the powers that be decreed that, on reaching this watershed, I would qualify to be thrust into the world of work, should I have the good fortune to find it.

My leaving testimonial, penned on headed paper by our headmaster, Joe the Unforgiving, famed for never caning the same boy twice, professed my abilities to be attentive, sensible, well-mannered, honest and trustworthy, fortuitously forgetting to include the word dullard. Surely, these worthy endorsements would be the key to a welcoming door. Mother thought Joe to be very kind, which was lost on me.

Looking in the hallstand mirror, I felt I had a problem. My father carried his age deceivingly well. He was all of 43, but he looked to be ten years younger than that. I had inherited his double-edged sword. There was I, on the brink of work, all of four foot six, and with luck I could pass for twelve years old.

Mother thought it wise that I should be breeched. To go looking for employment wearing short trousers could well be a handicap. For a topcoat my school mackintosh would have to suffice. I thought that my new half-mast trousers could easily pass for long short ones.

Father, who had never taken much interest in my education, or my lack of it - school was merely somewhere I went during the day - cheerfully posited the notion that I could become a jockey, saying that he knew someone who knew someone who had connections with Peacock’s Stables at Thirsk. The thought of mucking out after horses for a crust nipped in the bud my nascent self esteem.

One evening Dad asjed ne me what I was planning to do with the rest of my life, other than sitting in the house all day. He produced a thrupnibit. Laying the coin on the corner of the table, he announced "There's your tram fare into town. First thing in the morning get down there, and don’t come back without a job.''

Obviously, my new-found bohemian lifestyle was already starting to rub.

Having heard the rumour that school-leavers were now finding work hard to find because demobilised servicemen were returning to their guaranteed former emplyment, I thought I needed a positive selling point.

While looking again into the mirror, seeking inspiration, my eyes fell upon my Uncle Tommy’s demob trilby hat hanging on the hallstand. Uncle Tommy had forsaken it, passing it on to Dad. Even he refused to wear it, put off by its utilitarian green hairy felt.

In that moment of seeing the trilby my cunning plan was conceived. If, during the course of an interview, it became obvious that I was not going to be offered a job because of my youthful appearance, I could produce the folded trilby from my mack pocket and deftly put it on.

Hey, presto! The job would then be in the bag.

Admittedly when I first tried to wear the trilby it fell about my ears. A simple solution was at hand. Neatly folded newspaper inserted into the inner lining took up the slack.

I was now a matinee idol!

The following morning, still struggling to shake off the night, found me at the town centre tram terminus, adjusting my bearings. Breeched, trilby safely stowed, sporting a razor-sharp Brylcreem parting, I decided first to try and get work in a joiners' shop. This choice was based on my knowledge of joints, various woods and their best uses. Woodwork classes on Thursday afternoons were the only lessons I really looked forwards to.

To my consternation I discovered that knowing sycamore to be the best wood for mangle rollers made little or no impression. By lunchtime I was knocking on any door that breathed life. By late afternoon and in fading light and hope I was resigned to going home and breaking the bad news that I was still unemployed.

As I headed back towards the tram terminus the lamps of the local newspaper office seemed to be beckoning. This would be my last throw.

After mounting the steps of the sombre-tiled portico, I was faced with double doors embedded with heavy glass, their deep-cut bevels fired with rainbows from green shaded lamps in the late afternoon.
The office itself, with its complementary panelling of English walnut, highly polished counter and brass fittings, capped by a lofty ceiling of ornate plasterwork with cherubs, exuded the hushed atmosphere of a cathedral, heavy with spent whispers.

I approached a high counter, and just had the edge over it in regard to height.

Yes, there may be a vacancy!

I was directed aloft to the Composing Room, a place of chattering typesetting machines and pallid men, all in thrall to two large station clocks with roman numerals. Time was obviously of the essence. This was a room of green shades, with a dark void of a ceiling which was home to lost sparrows which were heard rather than seen.

Standing by his desk was the overseer.

Tall, slim, and wearing a winged come-to-Jesus collar, he introduced himself as Mister Elliot-with-one-‘t’. He had a pronounced Scottish accent and a large Adam’s apple. This disappeared down the front of his collar when he spoke, reappearing again just as quickly. Mesmerised, I couldn’t help but think of the Co-op Emporium lift.

I would be a messenger boy. Start tomorrow. Be here for seven-thirty to take a hand truck to the wholesale market to collect the produce for the canteen dinners. No mention of pay or hours. Thank you, sir. Should I look urbane and don the trilby?
Perhaps not, Exit whilst winning.

Remuneration turned out to be 17s 6d (88p) for a 44-hour week, work all day Saturday, Tuesday afternoon off, and "we work a week in hand''. What they failed to tell me was that they would run the legs off me and that it was a dead-end job. For their own reasons at the age of 16 they would fire me and replace me with another 14 year-old. An army of school-leavers must have passed down this curving cul-de-sac.

In happy ignorance I rode the tram home. Dad would be placated and pleased.

I could not wait to break the good news. Abandoning the tram early, I entered Dad’s mill to the clamour of its flying shuttles. Dad was sent for. Whilst waiting for his arrival, outside the shed door I decided now was the time to don the trilby. I was now a fully paid up member of the Contributors-to-the-Table, found not to be wanting.

Dad turned the corner, gaped, and cracked me one round the ear, thinking I had been meandering round the town all day looking like something that had fallen from a passing travelling circus. The trilby flew under a beam. Some folk are never suited, I thought to myself, as I walked the rest of the way home, nursing a hot ear.

Much to my surprise, after about three months as Composing Room messenger, I was offered an indentured apprenticeship of seven years as trainee Linotype Operator/Compositor. For once I must have done something right, although I was left with concerns about my spelling ability, hardly one of my strengths. Perhaps they wanted a new slant on the paper’s not infrequent howlers.

I suspected that it may be more usury than training, and I would still be on 17s 6d, but it did have prospects. So, for better or worse, I became a Printer’s Devil.

On completing my apprenticeship I was promptly conscripted into the Army (back to 17s 6d).

In thrall once again to other peoples’ whims, I found myself in the shimmering torpidity of the Middle East’s mid-day hours, my shadow evaporating whilst guarding the wire, the tedium broken only by my mastery of snuffing out a fly in flight, ridding myself of its vexing thrum as it scribed a provocative figure-of-eight. I was a succulent snack for the voracious ants that lick the salts leaching from my desiccated boots.

On demob, and with rare foresight, I reasoned that there would be little calling for a dexterous fly-catcher in civvy-street, so I opted for the newspaper, taking voluntary severance in 1983 at the age of 51, completing 37 years.

There were good times, of course, and some not so good, but that’s life, as they say.