HERE IT IS GUYS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL
Beachcomber’s Tales from the Day”“The Connie, the New Boss and the first day at the new job”
A little backgrounder here on the social status in the UK in the late 50’s early 60’s.
There was without doubt a class distinction hangover from before the war – you had your “working class” [ Blue collar ], Middle Class [ white collar ], then you had the upper class who were minor aristocracy, ex. Generals and Admirals and the like and general toffs. Each "class" generally moved / socialized / married within their own circle of social demographics.
This applied to all walks of life and none more so than your working environment. Top management or company executives / owners would be Upper Class, middle management would be middle class – then you had oiks like me at the bottom. Within the working class there was a fierce sub-division – manual workers and “office” workers. The Office workers perceived the manual workers as lazy toe rags and the manual workers saw the office workers as a total waste of space they could well do without. In reality of course neither one could do without the other – which was also the case all the way up to the top !
Only on the shop floor were workers called by their Christian names [ apart from foremen / shop managers ] – everywhere else within industry it was surnames or when you were talking up a class it was Mr…… or Sir.
So, when the young and rebellious Beachcomber was still working for others it was a given that these rules would be bent or broken. With a finely honed sense of sarcasm and a reasonable way with words – these pompous pricks would often get their verbal come-uppance.
It was with this background that the 20 year old Beachcomber became the youngest ever Grade 1 Draughstman at the local Electricity Board [ energy supplier ]. With collar length bright red hair, the interview was touch and go – as all the other inmates had the traditional “short back and sides” haircut. But the interview was passed successfully and a start date set for the beginning of the next month.
At that time the transport was either the trusty old JU250 race bike transporter or the Ex. Bob Mac Connie. The formal dress for the drawing office was either a suit [ mainly for younger draughtsmen ] and as you got further up the tree – or just older – tweed jackets with leather arm patches, checked shirts [ with tie of course ] and cavalry Twill trousers seemed to be the uniform.
The JU250 was having one of it’s quite frequent head gasket changes, so the Connie was pressed into service for the 10 mile commute to the workplace.
Wanting to make an impression [ ?? ] and dressed in a smart double breasted Blazer, Drainpipe trousers, and Eaton Clubman Brothel Creeper shoes, the eager Beachcomber set off for his first day at work.
All was going quite normally until a traffic jam was encountered on a small lane leading to the offices. Naturally with the bike filtering on the inside and outside was not a problem to get to the head of the queue [ line ]. Around half way down and swapping to the inside a guy with a bristling moustache with 3 young girls [ 18 – 20 ] decided to take offence - initially by pumping his horn and then by moving his car over forcing the Connie into a ditch to impress his lady passengers!
Not impressed the now covered in mud and grass Beachcomber crawled out of the ditch to confront matey. Now while he was in the safety of his tin box he was very brave, but he made the fatal error of winding his window down to administer “a good talking to “. Seconds later his head and shoulders were halfway out of the car and pinned as he was – a smart and none too shabby right hook caught him under the chin and laid him out.
Another motorcyclist stopped to give a hand to extricate the Connie from the ditch so the journey could be completed. Fortunately apart from grass and mud everywhere, the bike was undamaged. While all this was going on the car was still immobile [ as was the driver ] and the traffic ahead had cleared, whilst the jam behind now went on for over a mile !
That was in fact the main access to the facility and most of the cars were in fact driven by workers there.
Needless to say most were late for work that Monday morning.
So arriving at the complex the Connie was parked up in a convenient place by the main doors so it would be safe in full view and on up to the Drawing office – stopping off via the washroom to get rid of as much mud and grime as possible.
Having explained the lateness to the Chief Draughtsman he accepted the reason as it was backed up by 5 other drawing office staff who were delayed by the same incident ! In fact there was much muttering under breath and general finger pointing on the way to the drawing board station.
The Drawing Office was in fact a division of the Engineering Department and the tradition was that all new staff would have a one to one introductory pep talk by the Chief Engineer. Normally this was conducted as soon as you made yourself at home so that the law of the land could be laid down as to behavior, dress code, hours, etc.
The morning wore on without the heart to heart with the Chief Engineer and nervous looks between the Chief Draughtsman and his Boss and again finger pointing in my direction.
Eventually the call came and the march up to the next floor where the upper management had their offices began. This route went by the secretarial office pool, where the 3 young girls from the morning’s incident were working. Again – much giggling and pointing of fingers and to my astonishment a few blown kisses !
Outside the Chief’s office now and a swift rap on the door brought forth a muffled “come in”. In fact so muffled that a second, louder rap on the door followed by an almost bellow – totally unintelligible.
OK so who guessed ? Yes on opening the door there was the very guy I had laid out in his car that morning ! His jaw was virtually immoveable and there were obviously several missing teeth.
And to add a little salt in the wound? The place where I had parked the Connie just happened to be his private executive car parking space.
Hmmmm. what outcome ? Would the Beachcomber have set a new record for being fired before he started? Well no, in actual fact the arsehole had so embarrassed himself in front of his posse of popsies, he held out his hand and apologized !
Just before the door closed after the interview, he did ask politely if I would park the Connie in a different place the next day.
How to become a hero in your workplace before you even start.
The Electricity Board went on to be my personal “perk” for the next 9 months until I just couldn’t stand it any longer. There’s a whole bunch of stories there, but only one bike related.