I didn’t realise I was a ‘Woman Returner’

When my beautiful daughter was born I became a ‘stay at home mum’, two years later my second beautiful daughter arrived, I was very happy looking after them but after I’d spent five years talking about and comparing how many dirty nappies they’d filled in a day, their growing vocabulary and sleeping habits vis a vis my friends’ sproggs I decided to go back to work but not in Hospitality, I thought I’d retrain and aspired to an ‘easy’ office job which would give me an outlet and an income (and therefore a semblance of independence).

I responded to an advert in the local evening paper, The Gloucester Citizen, offering free courses for women returning to work and needing new ‘modern’ office skills. The first stage was an interview at GlosCat to assess my qualifications and suitability. The form didn’t have a section to list your qualifications above GCSE’s, hmm, they didn’t quite know what to do about that so Sharon (the co-ordinator) suggested we just pretended I didn’t have any as I might not get a free course if I admitted that I was well qualified!!! (FYI Sharon and I have been friends now for nearly 30 years)

At the end of the 10 week course we all took a Typing exam (which involved using triple carbon paper – why when we were using electric typewriters with a correcting facility?) a Touch Typing exam (basically a speed test) and an Office Management multiple choice test – a moron could have passed this element of the course, it was a total waste of time. Given that we only had one 2 hour typing class per week how we were supposed to pass an exam with only 20 hours practise when the 16 year olds doing the same level qualification took it over an academic year?  The only reason I passed was that I bought myself a small portable typewriter (on the ‘never never’ courtesy of Littlewoods catalogue) so I could practise in the evenings.

After the course finished I applied for a part time clerical assistant role working for the County Council, the department was called ACET (Adult Continuing Education and Training). I’d never heard of it. During the interview I was asked how I would cope with dealing with colleagues or learners for whom English wasn’t their first language? I had to explain that I was Welsh, my husband was second generation Ukrainian (hence the surname they were all having difficulty pronouncing) and my mother-in-law was Italian so I didn’t quite understand the point they were making? The white middle class English interview panel members were very apologetic, bless them.

On my first day the Office Manager took me into the main office and introduced me to the team. The unofficial ‘boss’ was a lady called Brenda, a petite, dark haired lady, well made up and dressed immaculately in a pencil skirt, kitten heeled stilettos and the obligatory twinset (no pearls on that day), she lorded it over all ‘the girls’ in the office and once she had questioned me (far more thoroughly than the interview panel) I was allowed to find a corner to hide in.

She had been working there for years and had a little trick she’d perfected. The entrance to the office was through a long corridor with doors at each end. Whenever someone opened the first door the vacuum in the corridor would make the door at our end bang so Brenda knew exactly when anyone was coming and would hit the button on her electric typewriter (which was always primed with paper) so by the time the person walked in it looked like she was busy typing rather than gossiping which was her favourite pastime and one she indulged in constantly.

She announced to me that there weren’t enough typewriters to go around and that I could use that, waving an elegant hand towards a heap in the corner draped with a vinyl cover.

On further inspection turned out to be a BBC computer.

I was overjoyed, it was just down my street. I taught myself to use it and was very happy there for a couple of years. It’s the only job I’ve had where I had to clock in and out. Brenda had a little trick for that too but I can’t divulge ??. My main role was inputting data into the newly created training access point (TAP) database, this project was manged by a lovely guy called Roland. I loved working with him, he didn’t have one nasty bone in his body, we had great fun.  We are still friends after all these years.

Then came devolution and ACET was broken up and some of us were relocated into the local College, which was then called GlosCat (Gloucestershire College of Arts and Technology) now it’s called GlosCol (Gloucestershire College). I worked for many years at the College and in my time there I undertook a number of different roles.

But little did I realise that I’d end up going full circle.

N.B. By full circle I mean that 18 years later I returned to work for the Council’s Adult Education Department as Head of Learning. Barbara had retired well before then but still used to pop in. These ‘visits’ were planned meticulously and had to involve a stop for tea and cake. I was re-introduced to her as the newest senior manager and I reminded her of my humble beginnings as her ‘junior’. She commented in her most queenly manner, “You haven’t gone far, have you!” I took that in the best light and hoped she meant geographically rather than my career!

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