Thirty Years Ago Today
Monday, April 2nd, 2012 04:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanToday is the thirtieth anniversary of the Argentinean invasion of the Falklands.
That means that it is thirty years ago since I was entering my second month of employment with the now defunct Oswestry Borough Council, as an ‘Organising Secretary’.
In some ways that was the best job I ever had, though it paid so poorly that had I not been living at home with Mum and Dad, I should have had no money left for anything after paying petrol and upkeep. As I recall it was £89 a week before tax and that was a low wage even in 1982.
It wasn’t a real job, it was there because of a government job creation scheme. Half the job was to act as secretary to the so-called Shropshire Mini Olympics an annual event that was hosted in turn by each of the borough/district councils in the country.1 The other half of the job was even more ill-defined and was something to do with the borough’s attempts to crack down on litter. I liked this bit best. Apart from a couple of tedious school visits to chat to the kids and hand out freebies donated by the “Keep Britain Tidy Group” and an interview with the local newspaper about ‘educating people to bin litter’, I defined the job as an excuse to drive around one of the most rural boroughs in one of the most rural counties in England, running up a fairly generous and handsome fuel allowance in the process and poke my nose into quiet fields, beauty spots and down secluded roads looking for fly tipping that I could write up and report back to whoever was playing boss that week.
I even got to go on a sponsored trip down to Brighton and stay in a swanky hotel. After all this time I cannot remember which hotel, or anything about the convention/seminar or whatever it was. I do recall sitting on the train between London and Brighton, talking to a very nice chap from Delhi who was over from India for the same purpose, bizarrely enough. He have me some truly awful Indian cigarettes that turned my snot black for two days.
Anyway, that was thirty years ago and the first few weeks of that job were spoilt by my naïve worries about being prime military age when the country had just gone to war. My imagination always was worse than the reality, but that really didn’t help me at all.
There’s always something out there to give you the fear if you let it.
1I have no idea if it is still going -or if it does, who hosts it since Shropshire is now just two Unitary Authorities: Shropshire County UA and Telford & Wrekin UA.
That means that it is thirty years ago since I was entering my second month of employment with the now defunct Oswestry Borough Council, as an ‘Organising Secretary’.
In some ways that was the best job I ever had, though it paid so poorly that had I not been living at home with Mum and Dad, I should have had no money left for anything after paying petrol and upkeep. As I recall it was £89 a week before tax and that was a low wage even in 1982.
It wasn’t a real job, it was there because of a government job creation scheme. Half the job was to act as secretary to the so-called Shropshire Mini Olympics an annual event that was hosted in turn by each of the borough/district councils in the country.1 The other half of the job was even more ill-defined and was something to do with the borough’s attempts to crack down on litter. I liked this bit best. Apart from a couple of tedious school visits to chat to the kids and hand out freebies donated by the “Keep Britain Tidy Group” and an interview with the local newspaper about ‘educating people to bin litter’, I defined the job as an excuse to drive around one of the most rural boroughs in one of the most rural counties in England, running up a fairly generous and handsome fuel allowance in the process and poke my nose into quiet fields, beauty spots and down secluded roads looking for fly tipping that I could write up and report back to whoever was playing boss that week.
I even got to go on a sponsored trip down to Brighton and stay in a swanky hotel. After all this time I cannot remember which hotel, or anything about the convention/seminar or whatever it was. I do recall sitting on the train between London and Brighton, talking to a very nice chap from Delhi who was over from India for the same purpose, bizarrely enough. He have me some truly awful Indian cigarettes that turned my snot black for two days.
Anyway, that was thirty years ago and the first few weeks of that job were spoilt by my naïve worries about being prime military age when the country had just gone to war. My imagination always was worse than the reality, but that really didn’t help me at all.
There’s always something out there to give you the fear if you let it.
1I have no idea if it is still going -or if it does, who hosts it since Shropshire is now just two Unitary Authorities: Shropshire County UA and Telford & Wrekin UA.
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-03 10:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-03 10:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-03 10:21 am (UTC)My 1 year old niece drinks milky tea out of a bottle. She likes it, but I'm never sure whether when she asks for "tea, tea" she doesn't just mean she's thirsty and happy to drink anything.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-03 10:54 am (UTC)I couldn't survive without tea! I don't take sugar, but tea with a little milk? One of life's necessities!
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Date: 2012-04-03 04:26 pm (UTC)I'm always surprised when I see J with her morning cup of decaf tea. I think she likes to fit in with her parents.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-04-03 11:47 am (UTC)I remember being in a crowded shop on Oxford St during the conflict, where the radio was playing. The news came on and the newscaster was saying something about the fighting. Two beefy-looking guys a few feet away muttered disgustedly, "Nuke the bastards." "Yeah, nuke the bastards."
We, too, were worried about the possibility of being called up, though it seemed to me that the forces had enough manpower to fight for a couple of small islands; it wasn't the invasion of Normandy. I remember Nigel sneering that he didn't see why he should be shoved into a uniform to fight Thatcher's next election campaign.