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In 1943 my first job was in the typing pool of the Milk Marketing Board, Thames Ditton. There were about 30 manual typewriters, mostly Imperials with 12 inch carriages and a few with 24 inch carriages (very heavy to return) which were used for typing balance sheets and statistics. The noise seemed deafening! Hours of employment were 8.30 — 5.30 with an hour’s break for lunch. A tea lady brought drinks round to our room. There was a Trade Union and weekly pay in cash, which was according to grade and years of service.

A supervisor was responsible for giving out and checking the work. As a shorthand typist, for which grade you had to have 80 wpm shorthand and intermediate typing certificates, I was liable to be sent to any department for dictation. Details of the number of letters, how long the dictation and how long it took me to type them had to be recorded on a form each day. Permission had to be sought for a visit to the toilet and that too was timed.

I was given exact details as to the layout of letters, memos etc — indented paragraphs and narrow margins to save paper. Headings had to be centred and at least one and sometimes as many as three carbon copies taken — any mistakes corrected neatly with a special round eraser. No overtyping! Each letter had a typed envelope. Ribbons were often bicolour — the top half black and the bottom half red. The machines were serviced by mechanics, but we all had a cleaning kit comprising two brushes — one for removing the rubber dust, one like a large stiff toothbrush for cleaning the typeface, and a duster.

We were expected to dress neatly. Most wore a costume (jacket and skirt) with a hand-knitted jumper. Trousers were not allowed, although as the war went on some girls did wear them, with their hair in a snood (possibly covering curlers). At 5 o’clock they disappeared to the cloakroom to emerge in dressy frocks and high-heeled shoes, their hair in curls or pageboy style, ready to meet their boyfriends.

One Monday we turned up to find that a bomb had fallen nearby and blown out all the windows. Everywhere was covered in broken glass. The women were sent home and the men helped with the clearing up. The next day workmen started replacing the windows with black tarred paper and laths, so we had to have the lights on all the time. It was very cold and we wore our topcoats with head-scarves and woollen mittens.

When an air raid siren sounded, the firewatchers on the roof would ring the alarm bells if danger seemed imminent. We no longer went to the shelters but were told to take cover under our desks. A typist desk is not very big and invariably some part of one’s anatomy was left sticking out. Luckily for me it was only a lath that hit my backside when another bomb fell close by.

Because employment in the MMB was a reserved occupation, being solely concerned with dairy farming, there was little turnover of staff, so we knew each other quite well and were all affected in some way by personal matters such as when a husband in the Canadian Forces came home from abroad; a fiancé was shot while escaping from a PoW camp; and a boyfriend rescued after four days in an inflatable raft.

The experience I gained in the year I spent in the typing pool stood me in good stead and I was promoted to Junior Secretary grade in the Transport Department.

About 20 years later, having gone to college, I took a party of my students to the Milk Marketing Board for a visit, and found some staff were still working there and remembered me!

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