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By Dennis Rookard "Hunter", the cry echoed across the dingy smoke filled room, crowded with the flotsam of Brentwood's collection of down and outs, hard drinkers and those down on their luck - who all shared, back in those dim distant late nineteen fifties - no matter what their age - one thing. They were all out of work, and this labour exchange was their social club. "Hunter" rang the by now angry female voice fighting to be heard over the shuffling of feet, muttered conversations, newspaper folding and hacking coughing of the towns drinking class, all facing up to the riggers of another Monday Morning…. A situation that was for them quite normal. But not for me. For in that age of full employment. These were the professionals at the craft of staying out of work. This then was my very own personal life changing moment. Yes at the tender age of sixteen I had joined the grown-ups. For at long last this was my first venture into in this cavernous office, it's dark green walls covered with posters urging us to go for training as a plumber - bricklayer - electrician. Or even to sign our worthless lives away in the Army or Navy. "Do we have a William Hunter here," Came the cry of the aged crone again. My trembling hand went up, as I called "Yes miss". "Then get yourself over here," she screeched back, "I've not got all day for the likes of you." Thus were our battle lines drawn. Her pen slowly tapping the desk as red faced with embarrassment I struggled to move the metal framed chair out from under the desk only to find it bolted to the brown foot stained lino of the floor. Bolted I supposed in order to prevent me throwing it at the middle aged hag still glaring at me from behind her pile of forms and assorted card index boxes. "Name. She grunted, totally unaware that she had been calling it out for the last two or so minutes" "Hunter miss." "First names asked the dragon, pen poised over a form." "William John said I, noting for some strange reason that all this was been written in green ink. "Age she shot back." "Sixteen said I." At this, our eyes met for the first time… as slowly she took the form in both hands and slowly tore it up, depositing the two halves in her waste bin. "You. Her voice beginning to shake with fury, "you should not be here. You", the voice rising to a shout continued, "should be reporting to the youth unemployment office." "But." I said wondering what all the fuss was about, "isn't this the unemployment office. It says so outside." "It may well say unemployment office outside… but as your only sixteen, you need the Youth unemployment office, and that's at the other end of the high street." As I trudged up the high street, I had time to reflect on the action that had landed me in this unhappy situation. For life changing it had been. "You got to get a career young William, I'd had been told on leaving school the year before. Got to get a trade was the war cry. You see back in the in the late fifties, if there was one thing the working class prized above all else. It was one of their number with a trade. That got only got you more money, but a certain amount of respect in a factory or building site if you had done your time as an apprentice. Oh yes, it meant going back to school for a few days a week. But this would be a special school where they actually taught you something, rather then the one you'd left behind a year previously, which was more a prison camp then a place of learning. That decision had been made one Saturday night during a family conference around the table with the next door neighbour, who knew someone down the pub who could good put in a word for me with the owner of an electrical contractors. My Parents thought this was a good idea. So a couple of Mondays latter I presented myself at the back door of a small electrical shop halfway down Kings Road, for at the age of fifteen, I had been elected to take my first steps on the long road to becoming an electrician. Now this was a somewhat unusual choice. For both my house and the one next door were within that part of the town that after the war, were still being lit by Gas. Or if you were in the two tiny bedrooms overhead, by Oil Lamps. Mind you looking back I can see the crafty thinking by the parents and the bloke next door…. Six months in the job and little William could do the wiring up for them. And all for free, nicking the wire and what-have you off the job as it were. This remember, being a time still of national shortages, and scrounging materials accepted as the standard way of doing things. It was also an activity that also accounted for the many local front doors and back garden sheds painted the same colour shade as the local bus, rail or factory house colours. But sadly the great wiring up of our homes for free was not to happen; for within days I discovered that becoming a new electrical apprentice was not on their agenda. No fixing up old Vacuum cleaners was the nearest I got to welding a soldering iron and as for on the job training, making tea and holding the ladder was about it. After a year of this, and wanting more money - well by now I had discovered the back doors of certain local pubs and friendly landlords ready to induct me in the ways of beer tasting - On accepting my wage envelope for that week, I asked first what were the chances of an apprenticeship and secondly the chance of a wage raise. Now was their any connection I wonder, between that humble request and the fact that the following week whatever I did was wrong, lost them money and worse they were cutting back. All of which led to my taking my leave of them with P45 clutched in hand and that Monday morning appointment down at the local Labour exchange. ENDS |
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