SCOTS Project - www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk

Document : 350
Title    : Interview 04: Dundee woman on her first job
Author(s): N/A

Copyright holder(s): Mrs Cerwyss O'Hare
                     SCOTS Project

Audio transcription


F631: So, what about your first job, mum? Tell me about //that.//
F634: //First// job. Okay, eh, well I left school at fifteen, with a very
unimpressive leaving certificate. So, the ehm [tut] the field of commerce
and industry wasn't really jumpin up and down to get me. erm, so, I started
work in a shipping office. My first job was in a shipping office. And my
job entailed making cups of tea for the shipping clerks, [inhale] and,
answering the phone, [inhale] and generally just doing the kind of odd jobs
around the office. I was taken on as a junior clerkess, but I can't really
remember getting too much clerkess work to do. But, ehm, I quite enjoyed
it, but my main job, and the most important job eh, of the whole place,
seemed to be me cleaning out and lighting the fires in the various offices.
[inhale] There was three offices; there was the big main office and ehm,
where everybody really congregated; the shipping clerks and the
administrative staff. There was the office for Mr. eh Kinness, who was the
[tut] owner of the company and his son, Barry, who would take over the
company. And they were a very, very nice pair, these people, very nice
people. And the third office was the office for the secretary. She had an
office of her own. And each of them, believe it or not, had a fire-place,
with a fire in it. [tut][inhale] And each of these fires, every day, had to
be cleaned out, re-set and lit for the people coming in. So I had to be in
my work at half-past eight. And eh, I would then start to clean out the
fire, because at night we would just let the fire burn out. Wasn't allowed
to keep it on over night, because of, well they wanted to save the fuel.
[inhale] ehm, so, I would let the fire burn out, and, in the morning, I
would clean out the three fires, set them and light them. But, and that was
okay. But one of the big- the biggest problems was that we were two flights
up, [inhale] ehm, in this very, very old-fashioned tenement, down at the
docks, [inhale] eh with huge stairs, huge banisters. It was a really big,
kind of a big bulky sort of place; that is the only way I could describe
it. [inhale] And the coal was kept in the cellar, which was in the
basement, and the basement had no lights. [inhale] And, you know, the, it
didn't catch any of the daylight. So, I had to really go down there in the
dark of the morning. It didn't matter when you went down, it was still
dark, eh down in the basement, and fill the coal-scuttles; there was a
coal-scuttle for each office. [inhale] And, it was not sensible, but what I
used to do was fill the scoal-cuttle, coal coal-scuttle [laugh]
scoal-cuttle! Coal-scuttle.
F631: [laugh]
F634: And I'd fill this up, and then I would bump it, virtually, with my
knee from step to step to step, because I couldn't actually lift it. It
never ever occurred to me to only half-fill the scuttle, and it would be so
much easier, no no. The coal-scuttle was filled to overflowing, because my
idea was it would save me coming back down again durin that day. [inhale]
ehm, and I would do that, and, of course, s- the coal scuttles were very
heavy. So, one day Mr Kinness, the o-o- we used to call him old Mr Kinness,
as opposed to young Mr Kinness. Old Mr Kinness was comin up the stairs this
morning and he said erm eh, he could hear the bump, bump, bump, you know,
the the thud of the the scuttle being bumped up, and he said to me "Audrey,
what on earth are you doing?" And I said, "Well, [click], I'm bringing up
the coal for the fires." And he said, "Why?" And I said, "Well, you know,
the fires run on coal." [laugh] He said, "No, no, why are you bringing up
the coal?" And I said, "Well, that's part of my job, to bring up the coal."
And he said, "Nonsense. What a lot of nonsense!" He said, "We have four eh
big, strong shipping clerks that work here, and one of them could be
delegated each day to bring up the coal. You will no longer be bringing up
the coal." [inhale] And I was so happy really. They weren't! The the
shipping clerks //weren't happy. [inhale]//
F631: //[laugh]//
F634: And another, well that that that was the end of me bringin up the
coal. [inhale] But one of the big problems I had was I could never get the
fires to light. I wasn't good at lighting fires, because, at home, erm
Olive, you know, would always light the fire; I was never allowed to light
the fire, bein the younger one. [inhale] erm, so I had the most awful job,
and then my mum bought me, the p- big saviour of all time was a packet of
fire lighters. She bought me a packet of fire lighters. And I would stick a
couple on the the sticks - I think the ski- sticks were sometimes damp for
lighting the fire - put them in, light it and 'Woomf!' away it would go.
Because the shipping clerks were down on the docks early in the morning,
sometimes at seven o'clock. for the ships coming in to take, you know, the,
there was a thing called a 'bill of laden'. [inhale] And the shipping
clerks used to take a note of what was coming in off the ships. So they
were down in the cold mornings, down on, standin on the docks. And the one
thing that, all they asked was that the kettle was on, the cups were out,
the coffee was there, the sugar was there, the milk was there, a few
rich-tea biscuits, but the most important thing of all was the big blazing
fire. [laugh] [inhale] And, to be more than honest, they very, very seldom
had a big blazing fire when they came in, because [laugh] I could never get
the fire to light [laugh], but, practice makes perfect, and about six
months down the road, they got the blazing fire. And, certainly, after they
were bringing up their coal, they had a blazing fire on. So, that was, eh
that was my first erm, my first job. I stayed there till I was //s-s-s-//
F631: //How old were you?//
F634: I was fifteen when I went there. I stayed there till I was oh
sixteen, sixteen and a half. [inhale] And then I I I began to get a wee bit
ambitious. I thought, I thought, "I mean really, I I could be doing more
than lightin fires and makin cups of tea." And eh [tut] I saw an advert in
the Courier office, the newspaper office, for a junior typist. Now that was
a wee step up from a junior clerkess, because you would get to do some
typing. So I went for the interview, and I was quite shocked to get the job
really, erm, because I wasn't a great typist, you know, I hadn't had a lot
of experience, erm, just really school experience, but I had short-hand,
and in these days short-hand was used all the time. They didn't use
dictaphones, anything like that. [inhale] If you had short-hand, you could
you could get a job fair- fairly easily. So, I started to work in the
Courier, and I worked in a department called the 'editorial typists'. And
that was where, eh, there was thirteen of us, unlucky for some, but there
was thirteen of us in the pool, [inhale] and we all worked for the editors,
the various editors of the children's and adult magazines. erm the
children's comics; I worked for the editor of the "Bunty" and the editor of
the "Beano". [inhale] And eh, we would just type up all the, all the script
that went into the, into the comics, before it went up for printing up the
stairs. erm, came in from the authors who wrote it, then we typed it up,
and eh then it was taken onto another process. erm, and I stayed in the
Courier office for, well, till I left to have Gillian, so that would have
been when I was twenty-one, twenty-two. erm
F631: mmhm
F634: And that was really the end of my working career. [laugh] [laugh]
//[laugh] It was short. It was sweet. [laugh]//
F631: //[laugh]//
F634: And it was eh definitely interesting. //[laugh]//
F631: //[laugh]//
F634: And it was varied. erm And it was it was mostly, it was mostly, good
fun. erm, and that was re- apart from all the sort of wee side jobs //I
did,//
F631: //mmhm//
F634: that was my main, my main employment when I was, when I left the
school.
F631: mmhm
F634: I always remember too that erm, I went to work in, my first job, I
went to work, in the beginning, with socks. I wasn't allowed to have
stockings, until I got a wage. So my first week, I went to the, to the
office in socks, which caused quite a bit of //laughter among//
F631: //[laugh]//
F634: the shipping clerks. erm, and it was it was hard, because everybody
else, of course, wore stockings.
F631: mmhm
F634: But my mum said, "No, once you're earning a wage, you'll get a pair
of stockings." So when I took in my, I think my first wage was something
like two pounds and elevenpence, erm, and when I took in, no, two pounds,
eleven shillings. erm, and when I took in my first pay-packet, I was
allowed to go to the draper shop and buy a pair of stockings. But, of
course, to buy a pair of stockings, you had to also buy a suspender belt.
F631: mmhm
F634: So, it wasn't just the stockings, you needed the belt to keep them
up.
F631: mmhm
F634: erm, so that was another wee bit of expense, but anyway, that was
that, and I was only allowed one pair of stockings a week. So, if you
laddered your stockings, [laugh] //[laugh]//
F631: //[laugh]//
F634: you were either back to the socks, or you were eh, you just wore
laddered stockings. So I never ever went back to the socks. I was always in
laddered stockings //till the next week.//
F631: //[laugh] [inaudible]//
F634: And held my breath till the next Frid- Friday, until we got another
pair of stockings.
F631: mmhm
F634: So it's a hundred light-years away from
F631: mmhm
F634: [inhale] from eh, I think some of the first experiences of employment
that some people have, //but,//
F631: //mmhm//
F634: but that was my experience. It never did me any harm, and it em, it
taught me a lot about, there's a, there was a lady there called Stella,
who, she was the sort of senior clerkess. And eh, Stella, I think from day
one, did not like me. I think the girl before me had been there for years
and years and years, and she'd she'd left to go onto another job, and they
were quite comfortable with the staff, you know, they knew everybody,
everybody knew everybody else. And when I went in I just f-, there was a
thi- this girl particularly, this Stella erm you know, she she didn't,
like, make life easy for me, at all. And eh, you know, she would, she would
be angry about the fires and, you know, if if you didn't have the kettle
on. And I used to sit beside the switchboard - it was a very old-fashioned
switchboard, and my desk was just beside the switchboard. And, I was scared
of it, you know, every time it clicked [inhale] you know, I was terrified,
and she'd say to me, "For God's sake, answer the phone!" And I, and I'd
say, "Well," you know, she'd say, "Look, if there's a if there's a lever
comes down, and the lever says number one, press the button that says
number one and pick up the phone." So, you know, I would think "okay, that
that seems okay, //that's okay," you know? [laugh]//
F631: //mm//
F634: [inhale], and I can remember once doin it, and it wasn't number one,
but it was say number three, so I just pressed the button of number three
erm and said erm, you know, "Good morning, Robert Kinness and Sons, can I
help you?" you know, thinking "as if I could help anybody. I don't know
what to do." But I said, "Good morning, Robert Kinness and Sons, can I help
you?" And this voice said, "Good morning Audrey, this is Mr. Kinness here."
[laugh] //[laugh] He was just in the office next door.//
F631: //[laugh]// //[laugh]//
F634: //[laugh]// So she didn't, she hadn't told me about the internal
phone.
F631: mmhm
F634: She's told me about the outside phone. And things like that, you
know, so she she didn't make it easy, but on the other hand, I think it was
a great learning experience. //I think,//
F631: //mmhm//
F634: you know, it kind of prepared me in some way for the big bad world of
of industry, if you like. //eh//
F631: //mmhm//
F634: eh where you could come across people that that weren't entirely
helpful, or ehm didn't entirely like you, you know, you weren't going to
fit into every single situation. And eh, it was an early, a tender age to
learn these things, but I think it was [throat] a good learning curve.
F631: mmhm Can you talk about em, when you lost your memory? When you had
//[inaudible]//
F634: //[tut] [inhale]// Yes, //yeah, that was, yeah,//
F631: //[inaudible]//
F634: that was a eh a wee bit scary. I think it was more scary for people
round about.
F631: mm
F634: erm, because I had taken ill. erm, and just just thought I was a bit
tired. And erm, made an appointment for the doctor, eh, went to the doctor.
And, from there on in, I've no memory. Now what I'm gonna tell you is is
what I've been told, because from the point of going to the doctor, I'd
evidently gone into the doctor, got into the the consulting room, was asked
a few questions and collapsed on the floor. Just like a faint, you know,
just I'd I'd I'd I'd to all intents and purposes, fainted. [inhale] So he
got me up and got me over onto the bench and eh pulled in the receptionist,
cause there were no nurses worked in practices in these days. Now this
would be, I was born in nineteen forty-four, and I think I was probably
twenty-four by that time.
F631: mmhm
F634: So that was in nineteen sixty-eight. So there's no nurses in
practices. Anyway the receptionist came in, and he definitely said to her,
"Did Mrs Ower come with anybody? Is there anybody in the waiting room?" And
she said "No". And he says, "Well, look outside and see if there's a a car
or, you know, somebody with her." [inhale] So she looked outside and she
says, "Well, there's a little van sitting there", but, she says, I mean, "I
don't know." He says, "Well, run out and ask if if they came up with Mrs
Ower." And eh, so he says, "You know, just a long shot, but just to see if
s-sh-, you know, because she, this woman is quite unwell and it's unlikely
that she's come here by herself." So the woman went out and papa was
sitting in the in the van, cause he had taken me up. eh, "Did you bring Mrs
Ower?" "Yes." "oh well, you know, erm c-c- cause she's not very well, I
wonder if you would come in and speak to the doctor." So papa got a bit of
a fright, of course, cause he was just sitting waiting for me to come out.
So he went in, and the doctor said, you know, "Now Mrs Ower's quite unwell.
We're not quite sure what's going on, but I've I've taken some blood, we'll
have it tested, if you take her home, erm she'll have to be, you know, put
into bed, and er I'll come in in the evening, once I've got the the lab
results." So I was taken back home; Gran was there, lookin after Gillian. I
was in my bed and eh the doctor came in at night, and he said that the the
lab tests were not showing anything, but I was making no improvement. I'd,
I, evidently, had no idea, really, where I was, or or what was going on
round about me, so they put me into King's Cross, which is ehm in these
days was the ehm infectious diseases place. You know, if you've picked up
something, say you've been abroad, whatever, you went in there if you had
something that they couldn't figure out what it was. [inhale] So I was put
in there and I was given all manner of tests in there for a few days, and
they decided that it was nothing, sort of, as infectious as such, but
something was going on eh neur-neur-, can I say this word, neurologically.
Neurologically, there was something going on, so they put me over to to the
neurosurgery ward in erm [tut] eh the Royal Infirmary, and there I stayed
for several weeks. ehm and I was given some s-s- some tests that were
evidently not very pleasant, but the nicest thing is I I cannot [laugh]
remember them, but some of the tests were evidently quite unpleasant, and
they discovered after a, certainly a number of days, that I had a thing
called enviral cephalitis, encephalitis, which is inflammation of the the
brain. And the part that the the inflammation had affected was my memory.
[inhale] And, I'd a bad enough memory to begin with, to tell you the truth,
so that, [laugh] that was really, that was really bad news. [inhale] And
so, however, the er the only way to treat this was with with strong
antibiotics, ehm, but when I, I can remember, I think, and, you see, it's
difficult for me to remember, to to me to know what I remember and what
I've been told, [inhale] but I think eh I can remember coming round in the
ward, you know, being for the first time quite compos mentis, cause I was
sedated a lot. [inhale] erm and there was this little girl in the bed next
to me, and she had a kind of, sort of, cage-lookin thing on her head. She'd
obviously been in a road accident I would think. [inhale] And she had some
sort of metal-work around her head, and I can remember her saying, "Mrs
Ower's awake now, nurse." And she'd maybe been asked to to let them know
when I wakened up. So, within no time, the the two neurosurgeons were at
the desk; a Mr Block and a Mr Jamieson, were both at the bed. And the f-
the funny thing was, they were treating me like a little girl. They were
sayin things like, "And what's your name?" And "Where do you live?" And and
then it, the conversation got on, "and how old are you?" And ehm, "You have
a little girl, don't you? And what's her name?" Now some of the questions I
couldn't answer at all, but what they noticed was there was something wrong
with my speech. My speech was very slurred. And very hesitant, you know,
almost, yeah just just hesitant and very slurred. So that had to be put
right. ehm, I was, within the next day or two I was got out of the bed, I
was taken out of the bed eh for walking and ehm my my balance was was not
good as well. So it turned out I was to have speech therapy and
physiotherapy eh to put these two things right. So, I had that done over a
series of of, I think it, I don't know quite how long I was in the
hospital, but, in all, I was probably in about a month; between going into
King's Cross and then, and so, between the physiotherapy, the speech
therapy, strong antibiotics, I was erm I was allowed home, after about a
month. But I had all manner of restrictions put on me. I wasn't allowed to
drive. I wasn't ehm, I wasn't allowed to to look after Gillian on my own,
because I think what was happening in the hospital, was I was having fits.
I was taking fits. So they weren't quite sure if the fits would would
happen again. So, therefore, you know, I wasn't, it wasn't a good idea to
be just in charge of Gillian by myself. So, I stayed at gran's for a couple
of weeks and then I started to get really quite well erm and, of course,
wanted home. And that was when I started to go on the homeopathic
medication. erm because papa wasn't happy about the strong drugs I was
takin. I was havin to take these strong drugs. and I went on the
homeopathic medication. And when I went back to s- for my outpatient
appointment at ehm the hospital, saw one [burp] excuse me, one of the
surgeons, Mr. Jamieson. He was amazed. He was totally amazed [cough] that I
had made such a good recovery, because evidently this encephalitis can, it
A, it can i- it's not likely to end your life, but it can e- end your
active life, you know, it could it could interfere with your quality of
life. ehm and it didn't interfere with my quality of life after a while,
but that was havin got the strong drugs out of my system, only to replace
them with homeopathic medication. And now, I I didn't own up to the fact
that I was erm not taking the drugs. Cause they just said, "Are you still
taking your medication?" And I just said, "Yes." "Well, you're doing
remarkably well," says the and I reme-, this is one thing I do remember.
[inhale] eh the room was full of students, you know, obviously medical
students, when when he was interviewing me. and he said to one, to the d-
to the students, "Anybody got any questions to ask Mrs Ower?" And this
young student said to me ehm, "Do you manage to read Mrs Ower?" And I said
ehm, "Yes." He said, "What do you read?" And I said, "Well, I read the
papers." And he said, "Do you?" And I said "Aye". He says, "Tell me what's
in the papers just now? What's happening, you know, what's, sort of, in the
headlines just now?" And I said ehm, "Martin Luther King's been
assassinated." So that kind of puts a a date on it, doesn't it?
F631: mmhm
F634: And he he just looked at me and he said, "hmm". So I think they were
testing //me,//
F631: //mm//
F634: you see, to see if I, in fact, did read the papers.
F631: mmhm
F634: And I did, because I was so sad about that, you know, that was a
tragedy,
F631: mmhm
F634: ehm a a complete tragedy. ehm, so I remember that. So I think that
gave me a lot of brownie points. And I said to him, "could I get my t- do,
get to drive now? Can I get my licence back?" Cause they they took my my
licence, wasn't allowed to drive, and Mr Block, eh Mr Jamieson it was, and
he said, "No, no." He said, "I think we'll give you another six months
before we're comfortable with the driving." So I went back in six months
and I I was almost fu- fully restored. I think I was fully restored to to,
you know, normal health again, erm, and then I got my licence back and he
said to me, "Well, there's nothing we can do Mrs Ower. We just need to
discharge you." He said, "Normally people like you are coming back here for
years, and years." erm, and he said, "But, you know, you seem to have made
such a good recovery." He said, "I think you've had youth on your side. You
know, you're young,
F631: mm
F634: and you're normally healthy. So you've picked up this infection and,
okay it's it's, you know, it's laid you low, but your actual recovery
period has been very good." But, I still never mentioned the homeopathic
medicine. I just kept //takin it,//
F631: //[laugh]// mm
F634: and I I still never mentioned that. So that that was quite a, but
there's a period in my life that I actually simply can't remember, and some
of it is before the incident with the doctor. You know, because your dad
used to say to me, "oh remember we went", or "Remember" and, but if it's if
it was round about that period, it was a complete blank to me.
F631: mm
F634: And it's the funniest thing for somebody to say that you were there
and you took part in a particular occasion, or an incident, and it's a
complete black-out for you. //You//
F631: //mm//
F634: just don't remember it. So they said that there's parts of the
memory-bank that were damaged and would never come back, but that doesn't
//matter.//
F631: //mmhm//
F634: That's okay. ehm, I just felt ehm, lucky to be restored to good
health, you know. ehm


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Information about document and author:

Audio
Audio audience
Adults (18+): For gender: Mixed
Audience size: 2

Audio awareness & spontaneity
Speaker awareness: Aware
Degree of spontaneity: Spontaneous

Audio footage information
Year of recording: 2003
Recording person id: 631
Size (min): 23
Size (mb): 89

Audio medium
Other: Private conversation.

Audio setting
Private/personal: Recording venue: Private house
Geographic location of speech: Dundee

Audio relationship between recorder/interviewer and speakers
Family members or other close relationship: Speakers knew each other: Yes

Audio speaker relationships
Family members or other close relationship: 
Audio transcription information
Transcriber id: 632
Year of transcription: 2003
Year material recorded: 2003
Word count: 4292

Audio type
Interview: 

Participant
Participant details
Participant id: 631
Gender: Female
Decade of birth: 1970
Educational attainment: University
Age left school: 17
Upbringing/religious beliefs: Protestantism
Occupation: Research Assistant
Place of birth: Dundee
Region of birth: W Angus
Birthplace CSD dialect area: Ags
Country of birth: Scotland
Place of residence: Glasgow
Region of residence: Glasgow
Residence CSD dialect area: Gsw
Country of residence: Scotland
Father's occupation: Car Salesman
Father's place of birth: Dundee
Father's region of birth: W Angus
Father's birthplace CSD dialect area: Ags
Father's country of birth: Scotland
Mother's occupation: Doctor's Receptionist
Mother's place of birth: Dundee
Mother's region of birth: W Angus
Mother's birthplace CSD dialect area: Ags
Mother's country of birth: Scotland

Languages:
Language: English
Speak: Yes
Read: Yes
Write: Yes
Understand: Yes
Circumstances: All circumstances
Language: Scots
Speak: No
Read: Yes
Write: No
Understand: Yes
Circumstances: 


Participant
Participant details
Participant id: 634
Gender: Female
Decade of birth: 1940
Educational attainment: Highers/A-levels
Age left school: 15
Upbringing/religious beliefs: Protestantism
Occupation: Retired Medical Computer Operator
Place of birth: Dundee
Region of birth: W Angus
Birthplace CSD dialect area: Ags
Country of birth: Scotland
Place of residence: Dundee
Region of residence: W Angus
Residence CSD dialect area: Ags
Country of residence: Scotland
Father's occupation: Milkman
Father's place of birth: Dundee
Father's region of birth: W Angus
Father's birthplace CSD dialect area: Ags
Father's country of birth: Scotland
Mother's occupation: Weaver in a Jute Mill
Mother's place of birth: Dundee
Mother's region of birth: W Angus
Mother's birthplace CSD dialect area: Ags
Mother's country of birth: Scotland

Languages:
Language: English
Speak: Yes
Read: Yes
Write: Yes
Understand: Yes
Circumstances: All circumstances
Language: Scots
Speak: No
Read: No
Write: No
Understand: Yes
Circumstances: