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William (Bill) Humphries (1941-2022) - School & Work 1957 - 1993
The economy remained depressed post-war. However, society became increasingly concerned by the Cold War and the fear of nuclear war. St Clement Danes Grammar School for Boys' students expected to do National Service and most saw a strong likelihood that they, like their fathers and grandfathers, would one day have to fight.
Looking back they remember the Notting Hill race riots in 1958 with the white working classes protesting against the increase in Caribbean migrants to Britain, and Conservative Harold Macmillan's rise to power as Prime Minister in 1957 and his "you've never had it so good" campaign.
Most of the scholarship students were relatively poor working-class boys whose parents struggled to pay for school uniform and trips. The school, however, continued to excel in education and in the sports arena, particularly football and cricket.
The school day ran from 8.50am until 3.30pm and began with an assembly every morning. Forty minute periods or lessons taught English, Maths, History, Geography, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Latin, Art, Physical Training, Religious Instruction, Woodwork and French or German.
Although the school worked a five-day week, the timetable continued to run for six days - Monday to Friday plus X-Day. X-Day would replace Monday in the second week, Tuesday in the third and so on until an ordinary Monday to Friday week came round again.
Free milk was served mid-morning and most boys had school dinners. Students were not allowed to leave any of their food and a master would watch and send boys back to eat anything considered edible.
Football and cricket remained the two most important sports at the school with the first teams playing against professional clubs. Any mention of the word rugby was likely to result in a detention! The school punched far above its weight at sport generally.
All masters were addressed as 'sir' and students were called by their surnames. Students also had nicknames for every master: Chip Chop, Old Nick, Drac and Toffee, to name a few! There were three types of detention: Headmaster's, Masters' and Prefects' and the occasional caning or slipper from the Headmaster and a few Masters. Some teachers had large plimsolls, an over-sized table tennis bat and there was the odd ear tweaking and chalk or board dusters at 100mph. Nobody really complained. The odd cross country run was used as a punishment and also cleaning up The Cage (playground). Some teachers were very strict. One teacher seemed to delight in dishing out treatment that would be unacceptable today.
Prefects' detention - the nearest thing to hell. The Cage was policed by the prefects who had a great deal of power. A prefect could impose prefects' detention - the nearest thing to hell in school life. A typical hour's detention would be the torture of sitting with one's hands on one's head for an hour or having to write an essay on a subject, deliberately chosen because you knew nothing about it.
Fridays were parade days at school. Students who were members of the army cadets (most of the senior school) would dress in army uniform for the day.
Like many of my peer group I realise that I was from a blessed generation of good education, full employment, the 60s, house price inflation and a defined benefit pension. I have literally seen the world - a world that was brought to life for me in geography, history, music, sport and many other ways by some remarkably good men, many of whom probably still had scars from World War Two and had to put up with students who were the probable forerunners of an age of rebellion.
The annual rededication service at St Clement Danes Church in London continues to this day but in the 1960s the school chartered its own train to get students and Masters to and from the Strand.
LONDON
Prior to leaving school in the summer of 1957 I worked Saturdays and holidays in a greengrocers in East Acton. After leaving school with extremely disappointing O level results I worked for two weeks in a storage facility answering phone enquiries. After two weeks of utter boredom receiving zero calls I left. Fortunately a neighbour suggested that I might be interested in becoming an electrician. Why not give it a try?
I successfully entered an apprenticeship with the country's largest contractor,Troughton and Young, and was dispatched to Bucklersbury House a large site on Canon Street in the City of London. At 15 storeys, Bucklersbury House was the first tall slab to be built following the lifting of restrictions on buildings above 30 metres after the second world war. During this time there was an industrial dispute over the poor pay of apprentices who on starting received only 20% of the full electricians rate ( in today's money 5p/hour ). Because of this the company sacked all but six apprentices with me being moved to Head Office in Knightsbridge until the dispute was settled. Whilst at the offices I was considered for a post as assistant to a director, missing out because of my age. So after an interesting few months it was back to the building site. Working there until it's completion, I was then moved to Blackfriars House on the south side of Blackfriars bridge.
It should be noted that, at that time workers were paid hourly and only given an hours notice of dismissal. This quite often happened on a Friday afternoon giving those selected for the sack no time to find alternative employment until the following week. In addition to this there was no such thing as sick pay or holiday pay and certainly no bonuses this being not conducive to safe practice.
During the next 6 years I worked all over London from The National Physical Laboratories at Teddington in the West to Tower Hill in the East. I worked on office blocks and in many places of interest such as churches, The Ministry of Defence (in the tunnels underneath where the war rooms were during WWll), the Foreign Office and the Treasury including 10 Downing Street. Also worth a mention were two stints at Regents Park Zoo, the second having me installing the electrics in the then new giraffe house.
Through my apprenticeship I developed valued skills in many aspects of the electrical industry, including basic lighting and power, telecommunications, heating, refrigeration, power distribution and shopfitting. I also picked up many skills and "tricks of the trade" in a variety of different building disciplines which would stand me in good stead in the ensuing years.
By the age of 23 I was set up for promotion to chargehand, however a twist of fate, the first of several in my working life, led me in a different direction. Wishing to buy our own property as we could not even get on the Council waiting list in London, Pat and myself decided our best option would be outside of London. Fortuitously Pat had a workmate who had similar ideas. We all went to look at properties in the Ipswich area of East Anglia. Another acquaintance had moved to a place called Hadleigh in Suffolk so we looked there and found some nice three bedroom bungalows which at £3500 we felt we could afford (it being about 3x our annual wages).
Having found a possible place to live I then had to find employment. I took a train to Ipswich and found the labour exchange (jobcentre). Having registered there I, quite by chance saw a building site in the middle of town with a Matthew Hall sign on it. On my return to London I went to their head office and managed to get a job in Ipswich provided that I started straight away. This entailed me moving into lodgings in Ipswich while I found a flat for Pat and myself.
IPSWICH
We moved from Turnpike Lane to Norwich Road, Ipswich at Easter 1965 and stayed there till our bungalow was finished the following Easter. I started working at the Ipswich Civic Centre site which comprises the police station, law courts and spiral underground car park. Also at the bottom of the dual carriageway stood the Greyfriars development comprising underground shops and restaurant on the roundabout and shop/offices with a tower block of flats. Here I was to work for the next three years. When the work dried up and I had to become redundant I found employment with a company called Holliday Hall working on the new hospital block at Ipswich hospital. This lasted for a couple of years and again I was made redundant.
I found employment with the Eastern Electricity Board in Ipswich where I quickly found that fitting the odd socket outlet in houses was not for me. Fortunately, so did my employer and I was moved to the local technical college which was being renovated. There I realised that while I was in my element the others were only used to house wiring. I had to show many tradesmen how to use metal conduit and wiring. After about 18months the Electricity Board started to lay off staff for the first time since 1947. As I was new I had to go under the " Last in first out" principle.
After several weeks of being unemployed I found a job with a Colchester firm called MG Installations where I started at less than my unemployment benefit. Whilst with this company I worked in and around Colchester including the army barracks. I was promoted to charge hand, then foreman, working on many different types of installation including a hangar complex for Phantom fighters at RAF Bentwaters, troubleshooting a bad installation at the tax offices in Witham and work at the Brentwood School. When I worked on a new school for American servicemen's children at RAF Alconbury I had to leave home at 05:00 not returning home until about 21:00 each day Mon -Fri.This went on for two years during which time I was in competition with another foreman to complete our contracts first. The prize to the winner being the new leisure centre at Bury St Edmunds.
My contract completed first and I duly took on the installations at the sports centre Over the next eighteen months or so we worked on a most interesting and award winning building in the leisure industry and eventually the building was completed. Unfortunately the company I was working for went into liquidation, during which time I had turned down the opportunity of staying at the centre as maintenance engineer. I was offered a guaranteed year of self employed work also by the Suffolk County Council which I also turned down due to the setting up costs. When the General Manager of the centre heard I would be out of work he reoffered the position and I accepted. I literally was doing up a screw for the contractor on the Friday and finishing it on the Monday for St Edmundsbury Council.
BURY St EDMUNDS
The change of track to maintenance was more different than I imagined it would be. Not so much in the technical aspects, although more on that later, but things like working a shift and then getting called out with a 20 mile each way trip at very late hours (always for trivial matters). This eventually led to me uprooting the family to a caravan on site while we tried to sell the bungalow at Hadleigh. This in itself was a challenge and we had to be rehoused temporarily after winds threatened to cause trees to collapse on the caravan. We eventually moved into our first and only house (not a bungalow) which I still feel was the best property we have had.
On the work front I, in addition to my electrical and building skills, was able to learn a new discipline , swimming pool engineering and maintenance. In fact I took to this discipline well because of my earlier love of chemistry and physics. During my time at Bury St Edmunds I joined the newly formed Institute of Swimming Pool Engineers where I made many useful contacts in the industry. At the leisure centre we used Chlorine gas which is highly toxic and needs specially trained staff to handle it unlike many pools which use solid or liquid chlorine donors. After a short while I had the centre at Haverhill added to my workload, visiting two or three days a week. During my time in Bury I applied for and got a post as lecturer in electrical installation. Due to a touch of nerves I declined the post despite the college being more sure of me than I was.
After 5 very good years at the leisure centre a disaster occurred. There was a terrible fire which all but destroyed the centre. Everyone but the centre manager, myself and another engineer were laid off. Us two engineers spent a good few months restoring the pool tanks to something like their former state.a task which also gave me a greater understanding of cleaning methods, materials and equipment.
BRIGHTON
During this time a chance of promotion to a management position arose in Brighton. Following a trip to the seaside I was offered the post of Senior Plant Officer at the Prince Regent Swimming Complex. As so often happens the work content escalated and fortunately so did my grading until my title was changed to Technical Services Manager and my portfolio consisted of an assortment of about 10 wet and dry facilities. Following about 10 years of interesting and varied work in this role the government decided to privatise the leisure industry and I was moved into a new office and my job title was changed to Premises Officer. My new role entailed the drawing up of detailed operating procedures for the various premises for the eventual contractor to work with. When this work was completed, I found that my post was redundant and so, after looking at several alternative posts with the council, I took an early retirement. Over the years since I have maintained an interest in " the business" and have, hopefully, been able to pass on some of my accrued knowledge and experience to my two sons. They have both achieved more than I ever did in their professions as is only proper.
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