While at the Lakeside, I had applied for a job as a Civil Servant in the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS). The posts available were for Clerical Officers, and were at various places in the North Hampshire and South Surrey areas. My shiny new ‘O’ Level passes were a requirement for the job, and I felt pretty confident as I turned up for an interview at Hippodrome House in Aldershot for an interview. My confidence was misplaced.

My problem was that I had never had a sit-down interview before, not even a practice one, so I went in there completely clueless. I was sufficiently aware that I was struggling because even now I can remember the sweat trickling down my back as I stumbled over the questions. If my dad, also a Civil Servant, had coached me a little then I’d forgotten any advice he’d given me, so I crashed and burned. I didn’t get the job.

All was not lost, though, as I was offered a Temporary Clerical Assistant post at the same office in Aldershot, on a six month contract. I gladly accepted, although I hadn’t given enough thought as to how I was going to commute from home.

I pitched up at the Aldershot London Benefits Office, ALBO for short, and started to find out about office work. The office paid short-term benefits to people with London addresses, so we didn’t get too many actual claimants turn up at the door. All the claims came by post, and I very soon found out just how much post when I was sent daily to the Post Room to open mountains of envelopes, stamp, then sort their contents. Every Clerical Assistant (CA) in the place was roped in to do this task daily, and it could take a couple of hours. The bosses were always hurrying us because the rest of the office was waiting on their daily heap of claims and claims documentation.

Had I managed to get the Clerical Officer (CO) job, I’d have been one of the people waiting on that daily mail.

I was assigned to a section of around seven or eight people, and was their clerical support. I filed, I found forms, I put letters in envelopes, and just about every other clerical task you can think of. It wasn’t demanding work, nor did it require a great deal of brain power, especially when tasked with filing papers in the hundreds of thousand of paper files that were stored in the open plan office.

The job paid thirty pounds a week, after deductions, and it came in the form of a Giro Cheque on a government account, which I had to cash each Thursday at the Post Office.

As I found out at the Lakeside, the repetitive nature of the work was a killer, and after about four months I was bored rigid. That said, six months wasn’t a lifetime and I felt that it would be a waste to give up the thirty pounds each week without having found another job first, so I stuck at it. I did at least get to experience an office environment, some great teamwork, and I met a few very nice people there.

The travel to and from home was an issue. There was a bus from Farnborough, but it was the best part of a two mile walk to the bus stop from our house, much of it on a fairly busy road without pavements (sidewalks), which was not great during those winter months I worked in Aldershot. My dad gave me a lift to the bus sometimes, but I always had to walk back, so it was never ideal. Now I was earning, though, I decided to get myself some wheels, and bought a 70cc motorbike, with the help of a loan from my parents. That was great while it lasted, but I managed to write the bike off of an accident after a couple of months of ownership, not my fault I hasten to add, so I was back to the bus. That was until one of my co-workers took pity on me and gave me a lift each day, to and from where I would have caught the bus. She demanded a fee, rightly so, but kept it a wee bit below the bus fare. I still had the walk, but as the evenings were getting lighter, it wasn’t so bad.

With the end of my contract looming, I started to look for other jobs, and this time was successful in getting a Clerical Officer post in the Ministry of Defence (MoD). While there were plenty of MoD places close to where I lived, the job I was offered was in London, which meant leaving the safety of home. I was young and stupid, so off I went into the wild blue yonder.