Chapter
Fourteen - A Decent Job and Some Menopausal Madness
In July BT separated from the Civil Service and I was no longer needed as a temp in any of the other civil service union groups, so I had to leave. Some of the BT people that I had met whilst working in the Union BT Group told me who to approach in Personnel in order to get a job in BT itself. I went to an interview and test, but because there were rigid criteria to be met in order to be a secretary and because I had been trained in South Africa and had no British qualifications, I had to drop £3,000 a year from my salary at the Union in order to get into BT as what was then called a 'specialist typist'.
I started in the actual first week of the privatised BT - a strange coincidence as I had been employed at the BTUC to help with the campaign to prevent this occurring. My first day was awful. The secretary with whom I was told I would share an office was a temp and was not in that day. There was no one to show me anything and for the first time in my life I was confronted with a word processor. The boss in the adjacent office was the other secretary's boss and nothing really to do with me. I had to work for the 25 people in the Finance Division at the building on the Moorgate high walk.
The boss came rushing out of the adjacent office that first day and asked me to bring eight coffees into his meeting. I had never previously worked in any large institution where there was not a tealady with a trolley or a canteen, or at least a kitchenette with facilities. I did not have enough money to get the coffees anyway and had to interrupt his meeting to ask where I should get them and also for the money. He did not seem very pleased but gave me £10 and I went downstairs and found a snack bar and carried the paper beakers of coffee up thirteen floors on a tray. He also gave me a lot of typing but I had not used a word processor before and someone brought in a typewriter for me to use.
I thought I would never like this place after the stressful first day, but changed immediately I met Lynne the next day. She was wonderful with computers, taught me the word processor very efficiently and had a lovely sense of humour. We were both very fast and accurate typists and took great pleasure in having races and helped each other with work when necessary. We laughed so much about so many things that tears used to drop into our Olivetti word processors as we leaned over them in hysterics.
Later I found out she was the daughter in law of a famous comedian who had recently died on stage. She had three children, two from her first marriage and one who was the heir to the comedian's fortune. Her husband was also a performer and she was hoping to become his agent. Lynne left BT when they got a permanent secretary for her boss but we kept in touch for several years and I saw some of her husband's shows. Lynne and her family lived in Chiswick with her widowed mother-in-law. We often met after work at Earls Court in a cafe for an hour or two before going home in our respective opposite directions. She was lovely company when sober but drink seemed to be a problem with the entire family.
Once I went to Chiswick for dinner on a Sunday (Cathy was out with her friend Denise) and was offered a before dinner drink in Lynne & Tom's flat. Then we went downstairs where her mother-in-law offered us more before dinner drinks. I hid mine behind a vase on a shelf. The lady was already very drunk. I was sorry for her as she had been so recently bereaved but I think the drinking had started earlier than that. She told me that I had 'class' because of my thin ankles. I protested that my ankles were actually rather thick from all the wrenches and falls I had had. She told me she liked me but this unnerved me. I felt the liking could easily turn to dislike and rage and I felt similar to how I might feel if someone like Idi Amin liked me. Then we all went to the pub while the housekeeper kept a watch over the children upstairs. Everyone had more drinks and Lynne's husband finished up all the glasses which weren't completely drained. By the time we went home, his mother had one foot in the gutter and the other on the pavement. I worried she might get run over.
She tried to offer us more drinks when we got home but luckily Lynne said the dinner would be burnt so we went upstairs at last. The children were very excited over the dinner which must have been cooked to impress a visitor I suppose. It was very nice too. We had spoons for dessert on the table but before this was served, some reporters from the 'Sun' newspaper arrived and were taken into the lounge for drinks. The little boy kept shouting 'What's next mum?' But by then Lynne was getting belligerent and shouted 'shuddup' at him, and soon it was time for me to go home.
When I met her again a week or two later I asked her what had been for pudding and she said 'apple pie' and looked a bit embarrassed. I suppose I'm just not that fond of the taste of alcohol and I expect one has to be drunk to enjoy the company of others who are. I just found Lynne so much more amusing when she was sober.
That Christmas day, Jennifer and Trevor invited Cathy, my mother, Michael and me over to dinner at their flat in Edmonton. Michael and Cathy had spent Christmas eve with my mother and me and then after dinner, my mother and I planned to disappear by taxi before the arrival for tea of Nanny, Granddad, Barbra and John in two cars. At the end of the evening Barbra would bring Cathy back to us and Granddad would drop off John and Michael at the Woodford house. The stress of waiting for the taxi which had to be telephoned twice rather spoiled the end of our part of the day as I was so worried that the second group would arrive before we got away, causing at atmosphere. I suppose our taxi must have passed their cars somewhere along the North Circular Road. Apart from that worry it was a lovely day and Jennifer did a beautiful Christmas dinner for us all.
On Boxing Day we had a great surprise when Graham K turned up unexpectedly. I suppose at Christmas he was exceptionally lonely. He was by now about 25 and still moving in shady company. You could never be sure if anything he said was quite true, but he was very good looking and had an appealing personality. He often asked for stories about his childhood and his mother, and always wanted to know who his father had been. I tried to tell him as much as I could, leaving out the bit about his father giving notice at his digs and his workplace as soon as he knew Eileen was pregnant. All I could really say was that Eileen said how good looking the man had been, and that he had lived and worked locally in Brixton. I also I suppose tried to imply that she had been very much in love with him although I was not at all sure about this. This was only one of quite a few Christmases over the years when Graham K turned up on one of the principal days of the season.
BT was forever moving its divisions round from one building to another and sometimes from one area to another. We moved from the Moorgate high walk to Gresham Street. I loved it much better there. BT canteens in the larger buildings used to be not only cheap but had such lovely food. The finance group was very friendly and as I typed for about twenty five people I got to know them all quite quickly. I was so happy at Gresham Street that I used to sing on the stairs. We had pass cards to get through the doors and I was allowed pass cards to two floors as I had to deliver newsletters and papers to both floors.
I made particular friends with Angela who it turned out lived in Walthamstow quite near to me. She was very interested in the unions and although she was only about 29, we had a lot in common. This was the second Angela in my life. The posh first one from Flintkote had long since married well and was living back in Northamptonshire and I did not hear from her any more. I was invited to join the Curry Club of a group of the younger set in Finance and felt very happy. I used to try and please everyone and type the urgent things exceptionally quickly and race round delivering all the typing before they could reasonably have expected it. I had a wonderful report the first year from my line manager.
The only fly in the ointment was the money. I found out that there were Proficiency tests one could take which increased one's salary by two increments, and I was very lucky that due to some muddle in Personnel, I took two Proficiency tests, one in audio typing and one in word processing in the same month. This was not usually allowed but as it was their mistake there was not much that could be done. I passed both tests and my salary went up by four increments.
Then the usual thing happened. My mother was getting restless and said she wanted to return to Durban again. I had really thought she would stay that time. She had made a few friends amongst the neighbours and was going out to an astrology group one evening a week, but she said it was mainly that she didn't get on with Cathy. She said she would return at Easter. She was 79 and hated flying so I was very surprised. At this time Graham wrote to Jennifer and said he would pay for her to have a trip to Durban. His mother had died and for a short while after receiving his inheritance he was quite solvent, though my mother always said Graham had the opposite of the 'Midas' touch as far as business ventures went and would never be 'in the money' for any length of time.
However things were fine at this time and Jennifer decided it would help if
she went on the flight with my mother. This was also because she did not know
how to tell John that she was going. A 'resting' actress would obviously not
have the sort of money that would pay for a trip like this. She decided to tell
John and his family that my mother was paying for her as she was afraid of
flying and did not want to travel alone.
s to blame and was trying to alienate him further from
Jennifer by somehow arranging for her to be in touch with her real father.
Granddad wanted to help Jennifer and Trevor have a place of their own, and also to help all of us, so he put one of his renovated flats in Ilford into all our names, all being Barbra, me, Michael, Jennifer and Cathy. John had said he did not want to be a part of this arrangement. Jennifer and Trevor would live there and put a nominal amount of 'rent' into an account to pay for any necessary repairs and decorating. It was the upstairs of a small terraced house with a front sitting room, bedroom, bathroom and large kitchen overlooking the back garden.
Having worked in the tax department of the Accountants, I was a little
concerned that it might be a complicated part asset to explain to the tax
people but it was exciting to think we were joint owners of a flat that might
one day be a great asset to us all.
At about this time, I went back to my original operatic society who rehearsed
so close to where we now lived. Cathy was 14 and I felt I could leave her one
evening a week until 9.30pm quite safely although I always told the people
downstairs, an elderly brother and sister, where I was and that she was alone.
We did 'Iolanthe' which I had done there several years earlier and later did
'Calamity Jane' which I had never been in previously.
A lot of the BT people came to see the show, Angela of course and also Janice
who spent the night as I now had the room my mother had vacated. Janice lived
in Willesden Green whMy mother was not very pleased about this. She certainly
did not have the money to pay the fare for anyone else as well and thought she
would look so mean as she had not bought large
presents for anyone at Christmas and had nothing left over to buy good
going-away presents either. My mother was always very popular with young men
and I was pleased that both Little Roy and Graham K came to say goodbye and on
the same day too. Strange to see them together, similar aged young men from
such totally different backgrounds, Graham K, a macho but delinquent orphan and
Little Roy, from a comfortable middle class home but possibly the very opposite
of macho.
We all went to Heathrow at Easter to see Jennifer and my mother off. As soon
as the two of them went through to Passport Control we turned away to get the
train home. Apparently there was a problem over my mother's passport. She had
overstayed on her South African one and it was only Jennifer's pleading and
saying how old her granny was that made them relent and let them through
although they endorsed her passport so that she could never return to England
using it again! Jennifer rushed back out to look for us when this problem arose
but of course we had all left. Luckily for my mother she was later able to get
a British Passport due to her father having been born in Scotland.
Graham met them in Durban and my mother went to stay with some friends while
looking around for somewhere to stay, and Jennifer went to Graham's flat. By
this time his third marriage to Heather had also broken up. Jennifer had a
lovely time and met all her McNamee relatives including her half-brother
Richard who must then have been about ten.
While she was out there, I wrote her a letter and begged her to think of a way of telling John that she had met Graham whilst there so we could eliminate that secret from our lives. When she came back she did tell John. She telephoned him to say that she had seen her father's name on the door of an Estate Agent (Graham did work as one at that time) and had gone in and introduced herself. John took this quite well apparently and said he thought something like that might happen. She told me he seemed quite all right about it. However this was not entirely the case at all. When Michael arrived the following Saturday for tea as usual, he told me 'He said to me "tell her she's won, I give up" '. I said 'What did he mean?' Michael shrugged and said he didn't know. So obviously John did think in some way I waere we had lived when Jennifer was a baby, so it was a long way for her to come across London. In the morning after she saw the show, we went to work together. Cyril and his Australian wife Rebecca also came to the first show all the way from Bayswater and by public transport which I thought was very good of them.
Ilma had moved in to her house in the same road as me and was busy improving it and working in the evenings as a pub waitress as well as doing her job with the stockbrokers in the City. Ilma was and is always, very full of vital energy.
Cathy's piano teacher, Dick Williams in Walthamstow, wanted her to teach some of the younger of his pupils. She was paid half the adult rate so it helped both of them. It was nice for Cathy to be earning a little money and when Angela found out about this, she asked if she could come and have lessons at our flat, as she had always wanted to learn.. So once every week she came to tea, having her lesson while I was cooking.
This worked smoothly except for the occasion when I caught the Intercity train to Cambridge at Liverpool Street by mistake. It was a similar situation to that which occurred in the film 'Clockwise' where John Cleese went to the wrong side of the platform. I was a little puzzled when I noticed there was a buffet car on what I thought was a suburban train. When it whizzed through Tottenham Hale where I could change to the Walthamstow line, I really knew there was something amiss. The guard arranged for a special stop at Bishops Stortford to allow me to get off. I was so late home that we had to get a take-away that night.
In October, Michael started reading Languages at Essex University in Colchester. I tried to go regularly to see him for the day on a Saturday. He lived in a purpose built block of flats sharing with other students in the usual messy way they do. After a year he switched courses to Linguistics. He has always been a stickler for grammar, syntax etc. and is at the moment pedantically but often helpfully, editing my writing.
Whilst at University he put up a spoof advert on the notice board, including all the most common errors made in grammar, layout and punctuation. I thought that at the time he told me he had responses to this advert but now he says he didn't which rather spoils my story but here is the notice anyway:
T O A L L N E W S T U D E N T S
IMPROVE YOUR PRESENTATION WITH
T Y P E D E S S A Y' S
Do you find re writing by hand a drag?
Would you get better marks, if your presentation was clearer?
THEN WHY NOT GET ALL YOUR ESSAYS TYPED!
With the most up-to date technology, and word processing I can type your essays, and thesis' for only 30 pounds a type written page!
Many printing effect's are available, like, italics or bold or underlined! (As shown here!)
OTHER SERVICES
For an extra fee I will advise on presentation, and layout.
I will also correct grammar and spelling and puntuation, if required.
All fee's are negotiable.Possibly more expensive dependant on length of notice of time.
So if you want to improve y o u r presentation, for your essays, thesis' , get better marks for your work and impress your
tutor's-
MIGs the man!
And if your impressed, with the results, tell all your friends too! (Unless of course you dont want THEM to get good marks like you!
I visited him regularly at Colchester and once Jennifer and I went up together on the train from Liverpool Street. Just before the train left, an elderly nun came up with a young man carrying her suitcase. He helped her on the train and asked if Jennifer and I could see that she got off safely at Chelmsford. As I recognised the headdress of the Dominican Order, which my two Aunts had worn, I told her that I had South African relatives in the Order. I then realised that she was very deaf but she understood after a while and said (in a strong Irish accent) that she too was from South Africa. She had left Ireland when still a young girl. Perhaps she had always been deaf so had never heard the South African accent. Our conversation was so loud as she told us that she was from Cape Town and I told her I was from Durban, that the people on the other side of the aisle joined in and said they were from Johannesburg. I know there has been a recent influx of South Africans but at that time this was really quite a coincidence. The coincidences did not stop there. I told her the names of my two Aunts, Sister Philomena and Mother Aquinas and that I knew they had died. She then went into a graphic description of the terrible death Sister Philomena had, "bent over double with pain" and how the Good Lord had made her suffer. This seemed tactless to say the least!
Ever since my mother had left, I had worried that perhaps I should not have
expected her to be comfortable in such a small flat as the one in Browns Road.
I started looking in Estate Agents' windows and saw an advertisement for a
three-bedroomed flat a little further away from the station at Walthamstow.
Angela and Cathy and I went to look at it and we all thought it was wonderful.
It had a garage which I realised could be rented out, and the garage roof was
like an extra verandah and could be reached from French doors out of the
lounge. It also had a back verandah overlooking the garden. I realised that my
mother, Cathy and I would all have our own rooms and there were two living rooms
as well, one at each end of the long flat. In fact, there was more space in it
than in a lot of houses. Also the lease was much longer than the previous
Browns Road one.
Having a Leasehold flat in England is still a worrying thing, rather like
holding a time bomb in your hand. You need to pass it on before it goes off. No
one wants to buy a flat with a very short lease and I had not realised how
important this point was when I first bought the Browns Road flat. There were
only 60 years remaining on that lease. I decided to put my flat on the market
and try to buy this bigger one. This was a time when property was going up
quite a lot and eventually I got about twice as much as I had paid for the flat
five years' earlier. I had to take on a larger mortgage to get the new flat,
but felt it was worth it. My mother would pay rent out of her very good
pension, I thought, and this would help with the mortgage payments.
Cathy got very excited about the housewarming party and we all laughed at how mad it was that we should be arguing about who to invite months before moving and when we weren't even sure the move would actually happen. In fact, it took about five months, the same time as it had when I was in the process of buying the first flat.
As I was now nearly 49, I really thought that my romantic life was over. I had been happy for several years without any man in my life despite financial worries and the constant niggling concern about John and whether he was happy about my upbringing of Cathy. Then in April I was sent on substitution to another BT office where a secretary was away on holiday. This was a normal thing so that typists could get experience of what it took to be a BT secretary. I already knew quite a lot of the procedures as I worked in an office alongside a secretary from another group at Gresham Street. I knew about the post book, and how to mark what happened to every letter, whether it was copied to people, filed or put in a brought forward file. I knew about ordering stationery and other office supplies, arranging meetings, filling in whereabouts sheets for everyone in the group for the week ahead and that sort of thing. These things probably sound obvious to many office workers these days, but when I was first trained as a shorthand typist, all you did was take letters and type them and perhaps put them in envelopes. I had been called a secretary in the old days, but it was quite a different sort of job really.
There was a dazzling young man who I will call JG at the building in Holborn where I went for two weeks. Well, anyway, I thought he was dazzling. He was tall and blonde and wore glasses and had the most beautiful voice. He was astrologically a Leo and walked with the typical leonine languid stride. He called me 'dear heart' but maybe that was how he addressed all the ladies. He put chocolates on my word processor sometimes and the whole effect on me was all like the proverbial bolt from the blue. I knew it was all silly, I knew I was too old for him and most of all I was so surprised I could feel like a teenager with a crush again at my age.
When I got back to Gresham Street, I told Angela about him and she wrote comments in my Visitors' Book wondering if she would meet him. Her wish was soon granted as he was transferred to Gresham Street not long afterwards. She did not however find him attractive though she found him powerful and disturbing. I thought he must be about 38 and I was 48. However I found out he was only 33. He did not seem to realise how old I was and asked me if I would go to lunch with him. I was awkward and lacking in charm in my answer. I spoke about my children so he would realise how old I was and he did seem surprised and said 'you must be a lot older than you look'. However he still wanted to go to lunch with me and I went a few times. However stupid I was in my mind, I never would really have showed him how I felt. He seemed fascinated by me and what I said, but there was never the slightest physical thing between us at all. Some people in the office thought he was gay, but I didn't.
We discussed astrology and he wanted to know what sort of girl he would marry. When I did his horoscope I could see he would marry someone very like me. I was right in the end, as he eventually married someone with a rather similar horoscope to mine, also a BT secretary. But in those early days, I used to daydream about him, and imagined stroking his hair, or listening to his problems. I was besotted in a strange sort of way as I never imagined anything that went any further than this, though thinking of him kept me awake at nights. There was a pretty young girl called Amanda in the office who he used to joke with. I liked her very much but hated to hear them laughing together, it almost caused me physical pain if I heard them as I passed the bay in which they worked. I was very annoyed with myself at this ridiculous infatuation and thought it was time I found something to take my mind off this unsuitable crush.
The first thing I did after deciding this was to telephone Jeff. I had not spoken to him for about two years but he recognised my voice straight away and asked if I would like to go to lunch with him. It was a bit of a trip to Covent Garden in my lunch hour but I knew I could make up the time later. Jeff had changed quite a lot. He dressed more trendily and seemed to have a new image. He still was with his wife, son and dog in the country but seemed more sophisticated as if working in the arty atmosphere of Covent Garden had broadened his general outlook.
Over the next few weeks we had a short-lived and rather unsatisfactory affair conducted in his office at odd times. Sometimes we went to lunch together and sometimes to an evening meal. I really liked Jeff and enjoyed talking to him.
It did take my mind off my crush a bit but I knew it would never lead anywhere and although I knew I was no threat to Jeff's family life and did not wish to be, I still felt rather guilty. So I made a second decision. I would try again to find a man of my own age who was free and suitable. I often think it is a matter of luck whether people are happy in their relationships. It isn't that some people are just more lovable. I have known really nasty bossy women who have been very happily married. I think I can now understand how men feel when they want more than one woman. They are attracted to one sort of woman who will be good at cooking and bringing up their children, one with whom they can enjoy intelligent or humorous conversation and another who will look alluring in her underwear and never feel too tired to be wildly sexy.
Obviously it would be perfect if they could discover a woman who embodied all these traits but often it doesn't work out so fortunately. I do believe very strongly in fidelity, especially now with the threat of HIV infection. After all, one could actually kill one's most loved partner by being promiscuous and I am very glad I am not young and starting out on life's sexual adventures in the present climate.
But I can understand this desire to find the perfect mate. Looking back on my various crushes and romances, I can see that I found some men exciting, but not nice or compatible, some really interesting and pleasant but not physically attractive, and some that I liked and found physically appealing but were not mentally stimulating. And of course every woman needs a handyman round the house. I have joked with friends about this and we decided we needed a poetic charmer whose religion would keep him on the straight and narrow, who had had full medical training though was no longer a doctor continually being called out at awkward times, and whose hobbies were plumbing and carpentry. Well, you can see why the divorce rate is so high and so many are disappointed!
Different backgrounds too can be a problem although when people are in love, they discount this as trivial. Sometimes the trouble only starts when the children arrive and the parents have totally different views on upbringing and education, which they had never even considered whilst young lovers. If you marry a person whose moral training has been different from yours, or even non-existent, it will be quite a shock the first time you realise that they don't hand in lost property or cheat the public quite happily in their jobs or maybe at car boot sales when selling faulty goods. Some people have totally different ideas on personal cleanliness, or tipping in restaurants or racism and all these sorts of things will rankle over the years.
So all one can do really is to find the nearest thing to one's ideal and be satisfied. It certainly will not be any use hoping the person will change their deepest built-in habits, prejudices and attitudes. Of course I don't think anyone should put up with anything they find intolerable, but I believe someone once said you should allow your friends three faults and I think this applies to the opposite sex too.
But even that is not quite right because if the three faults were ones you found abhorrent, it would still not work.