‘I wouldn’t be 15 now for all the tea in China.’

Press, 23 November 1981, Page 12

‘I wouldn’t be 15 now for all the tea in China.’

Peggy Makins, who became well-known as Evelyn Home in the English “Woman” magazine, recalls the hard times and great expectations of her first job during the Depression.

What doyou want?" asked the girl, still in the hat and coat, who sat down hastily at the table bearing a large book.

“I work ‘here,”. I said in confident tones, “My name’s Carn.”

“Oh, you’re new,” she yawned. “How do you spell it?” Then she pushed the book over to me and indicated where I should sign, opposite the time 8.45 a.m. marked in the margin.

It was earlier than that but the book’s day began then; the girl, I afterwards learned, was paid extra to arrive at 8.30 a.m. Higher up the page was a thick black line marked 9 a.m.

■. Sign your name above and you could lose wages for lateness.

“Bet you’re never as early as this again,” the receptionist said. “Go down the stone steps, turn the light on and you’ll see Miss France’s name on the door. That’s your department.” The stone steps had deep grou.cS worn in their centres, it all smelt dank and there was an ancient pump at the bottom.

I was enchanted, having always loved old houses; the thought of working in a 17thcentury basement kitchen caused me no dismay. Indeed nothing could have caused me dismay that morning.

It was 50 years ago, 1931:. I was 15 and in a tizz of excitement and apprehension about starting my first job. In the country at large, the slump had settled like a thick, choking blanket of despair. It bore many of the same marks as today’s Depression, but the young then were lucky. Firms.;, were engaging office-staff adolescents at £1 a week and turning away husbands and fathers asking nd more than £3.

The . unemployed, nearly two million of them, were mainly men who fought in the First World War.

You saw them everywhere, begging in the .streets: “Exserviceman, wife and five children to support.” Things were better, though, for school-leavers. They were cheap labour. I was interviewed for several posts offering £1 a week, and could actually choose one nearer my heart’s desire, journalism. I was to be a junior records clerk in a publicity agency. The. boss had tried to get me to accept 15s, but I’d stuck out for the whole pound. “I know it’s scarcely a living wage,” he said. “But of course you have parents to back you, and we are in a slump.” . ~ • I’d learned enough by then to realise that without an official certificate vouching for shorthand speed 120 w.p.m., and typing 80 w.p.m., I’d get no better offer.

I dreaded the obvious shorthand, though I would need it as a reporter. My father was a dab hand at it: he was a general clerical worker in a . small office, fearing very much for his job at that time. “I learned shorthand and typing at night school when I was 14,” he said. “It makes a long day of it, but it won’t hurt you — you’re young.” To be young meant- to suffer,, but as we were all suffering, it didn’t matter so much. My only real asset was a matriculation certificate carrying a few distinctions; this or its equivalent was asked of almost any boy or girl applying for a whitecollar vacancy with any prospects. It was originally the entry qualification for a university place, but few could afford to use it for that purpose. There were no grants or automatic financial aids for would-be university entrants, apart from the tiny handful of scholarships. Matriculation then had become a sort of rubber-stamp requirement by employers for youngsters who were needed to make tea, keep the stamp book and do the filing. My : headmistress wanted me to apply for one of the university scholarships within the school’s gift; I refused. I scorned the competitive exam system which had suited me, but thrown out friends whom ! knew to be cleverer than myself — but without the nerve and confidence to stand the exam strain. I was wrong, of course, to refuse, but the headmistress's attitude deeply offended me. A graduate herself, one of the early bluestockings, she scorned everything but academic prowess as low commerce.

Journalism, my special ambition, was not even honest commerce.

I was semi-intoxicated about the new, or newish, opportunities for women. The professions had reluctantly opened up their doors to women doctors, lawyers, lecturers, scientists, teachers. Amy Johnson had flown round the world, there were women in Parliament. The men, I thought, had conceded that we had the right to a career. The main snag, it seemed,

was that most young women didn’t care a fig; They usually said with dreary regularity:. “Oh, I shall try to get into an office, until I marry, of course.” When I said this was not my idea at all, my mother was alarmed. She made me read a novel called “This Freedom” about the terrible effect a wife’s career had had on all about her. ' This was only overcome, need you ask! by her giving up her work as a lawyer and returning to her diminished family (one, or maybe two, children had died of neglect) in her proper role. I said: “But why did she get married? You can’t mix up your profession with your private life — I’m not going to want to get married or have a family. I don’t have to, now. I can be independent as a working woman.” Mother shook her head mournfully. “When you’re older, you’ll understand,” she said. “All women want to get married.” I wouldn’t agree; I disliked the life that went with marriage, the home-making, the kowtowing to the men who went out to their jobs, the slogging work, the endless toil of looking after little children. . It didn’t attract me, but I saw it was a full-time job - more than full-time. You could choose it, or you could cut it out. I meant to cut it out. And this is the difference between 50 years ago, and now. I still think marriage and children make so many demands on all but superwomen that they drain away the. undivided attention which a thoroughly successful career needs. (Jn the other hand, I do think that today one can have a very pleasant subcareer as com-

plement to a first-class marriage, or a delightful sub-marriage as complement

to a brilliant career. . In 1931, however, I was a happy bachelor girl, loving my job, moronic though it was. At least it gave me the chance to read dozens of different newspapers and periodicals which were part of my education. It also gave me the daily adventure of exploring London and eating lunch out (I still miss this bit of laziness); bf learning to be

a theatre-goer; and of managing make-up. coping with other workers and with men.

On the whole, 50 years ago we were totally innocent sexually, but not ignorant.

The adolescent smut talked in the sixth-form and among my friends at work was very informative and not frightening, at least to me.

There were also a few enlightening books to be got from the Public Library, and the odd older married sister, or rather advanced mother, whose wisdom was passed on in the office.

But a far more urgent problem than sex or romance in those days wds money, as I believe it is today with teen-agers. It is the phase when peak desires coincide with the lowest possible income, when one almost literally aches for some garment or goody and it is utterly out of reach*. Stockings were my weekly Waterloo. They were pure silk, fragile: it was all wrong to have a darn showing in them or, of course, a ladder. Even at a shilling a pair I couldn't afford them; I put down nearly 40 years of overweight to eating stodge cheese rolls, the cheapest possible lunch, in order to keep up a supply of those flesh-pink tubes. Nylons to me are still a marvel.

Another result of the general poverty was that adolescents almost always lived at home with their parents until they married.

The bed-sitter world was on its way, but had not yet arrived.

So there was a great deal less loneliness, far less separation out into agegroups and the consequent misunderstandings which that leads to, far more homemade fun, food and conventional etiquette. We could go to six-penny hops but could not afford alcoholic drinks. We could skate, play tennis, walk and talk and be thrilled by a fortnight at Clacton in August. Were we actually content, harder-working, better off — or just naive? I still don’t really, know. But we were not naive about one 1 matter: many of us, including' me and my elder brother, knew war was coming.

We felt it in our bones, dreaded it, joined the League of Nations Union, and read about the desperation of Ger-

many. It was impossible to dream far into the future. When the upturn in the economy came, it was the impending war which started the factory wheels turning again. • Have the young of today the innate fatalistic sense which we had? Do they, too, see this moment as their last chance of fulfilment, and in challenging the establishment see that they have nothing to lose? I am glad to be 65; it was fine to be 15 but I wouldn’t be 15 now for all the tea in China.

“Sunday Times,” London