THE SUFFOLK SCRIBBLER


WORK


My mother always used to say “Work that makes the world go round.”


I lived in a mining village that was had extensively influenced by the surrounding agricultural activities so much so that the autumn half term break at school was always referred to as “potato picking week” and the expectation was that most would do just that. There were no Eastern European immigrants in those days. Or rather there were many Poles, Ukrainians and, some alleged, Russians, who arrived during the war and wouldn’t or couldn’t go home, but they all worked down the pit.


So my first recollection or work was pea picking at about the age of 5. I must have gone with a friend and his mother and I remember that we, a group comprising mainly mothers and kids, were picked up and taken out to the field on the farmer’s trailer. Here we were issued with a sack each and a designated row to pick with the instruction that, “when the sack’s full take it over there to be weighed and we’ll pay half a crown a sack”, or whatever it was.


As I stood there, somewhat bemused, thinking about the hard work to come and how on earth I could possibly carry a full sack when I heard heated words coming form the weighing in area.


“These pods are too thin, we can’t possible do this for half a crown a sack,” said a formidable lady as spokesperson for all of us.


“That’s all there is,” said the farmer.


“Then we’re on strike,” was the response to which the farmer replied, in a very conciliatory tone, “Well bugger off then.“


And so we did, having, so far as I was concerned, learned some invaluable lessons about the nature of work and strikes.


Red Card Long, long ago, in what now seems a much different, and more appealing, environment I became a Chief Officer and soon settled into a new routine which I intend to tell you all about. Or rather I didn’t immediately settle in, as I was already booked into a 6-week residential INLOGOV Senior Management course that coincided, more or less, with the first 6 weeks of my appointment.


With 20/20 hindsight I would strongly recommend this as the best way to start off a senior management position as it certainly focuses the mind on structures, responsibilities and delegation. However on being parachuted back into my familiar office surroundings I quickly established the following routine.


60


To avoid the traffic I reached the office early, after a 30-minute drive I was at my desk by 8 am. Fortified only by about 10 cigarettes and endless mugs of strong black coffee I, literally, never left the desk until midday doing whatever it was a Chief Officer did in those days which, I suppose, was monitoring and directing all incoming and outgoing communications and supervising the conduct of all professional work and administrative/management actions.


I ate lunch at the desk. Invariably it was a minimalist “salad” with either smoked mackerel or a hearty Ardennes Pate plus a few slices of fine soft white bread liberally spread with farmhouse butter. Also I was always able to accommodate any cream cakes going if someone was popping across the road to the bakers. For relaxation I would glance through the local paper at any relevant articles my PA had highlighted for me.


After about 15 minutes, and another cigarette or two, it was back to work for the rest of the afternoon. Again fortified only by about 10 cigarettes and endless mugs of strong black coffee I worked away at the desk until about 6 pm at which time I would then drive home.


Of course it was not always possible to stay desk bound for the whole day. There were hours of thumb-twiddling committees that I had to be seen at and Management Team meetings and similar forums to attend. Sometimes I had to conduct professional meetings where negotiations had gone off track or reached an impasse and there were site visits to make. Although I knew the estate well I still found it difficult to sign off deals without, at the very least, having driven by the property, slowly, first.


Having driven home I would indulge in a large sherry, or two, until a large evening (meat and two veg) meal was ready at about 7pm. After this, and a couple of glasses of wine, I was ready to sit in front of the telly and sleep the evening away feeling self-righteously tired due to a hard days work.


Finally after a large brandy it was off to bed with a mug of black coffee. More often than not I was asleep before, as they say, my teeth hit the bottom of the glass.


But it was not all hard work and stress, oh no! There were holidays to take. The usual format was as follows. On Friday, after a normal week at the office, and the usual evening meal, during which I would refrain from drinking too much we (when I say we I mean I) would drive down to Dover to catch a late evening ferry and then drive overnight down to the Dordogne or Biarritz, arriving in time for breakfast. After a couple of weeks we would drive back to Calais on the Sunday to catch a evening ferry and eventually reach home at about midnight and so back to the office by 8 am.


I became a Chief Officer on 1st April 1985. Four years later, almost to the day, I was surprised to wake up in the Coronary Care Unit at the local hospital wired up to a number of complicated looking pieces of IT equipment. On reflection it’s a wonder I survived so long.


You have been warned.


THE TERRIER - Autumn 2011


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