Between finishing my Clerical Assistant contract and starting in London in a permanent job, I had a two week hiatus. As I’d paid my National Insurance dues, I went to the Job Centre to sign on as unemployed.

Anyone who has ever had to “sign on” will know, the first question they ask you is “Are you available for work?”. I said yes, but only for two weeks, and she said “Good, that’s how long you’ll be needed.” So it was that I fetched up at a company called Solartron in Farnborough as a temporary labourer. Solartron made measurement instruments (it says here, I don’t really remember), but I and another couple of press-ganged youngsters were engaged to move the accounts department from one part of the building to another. This was in the days before desktop computers, so apart from furniture, cabinets, and racking, most of the move involved paper; tons of it.

It was fairly hard work physically, but quite rewarding in getting a specific task completed. It also helped that I could cycle into the factory, and get paid forty pounds a week for my trouble.

What I learned at Solartron, though, was that there were some very lazy people around, and a couple of people on my crew worked harder at avoiding work than they did actually working. I was quite shocked. Still, it was only two weeks, and I was very happy to be paid more than twice the amount that the unemployment benefit would have paid.

I was ready for “The Big Smoke”.

The Solartron factory is long gone now, all bar a small part of it. The rest is now a new B&Q DIY warehouse.