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Jack Hill's first job on leaving school in the early 1940's was at the National Provincial Bank in Leicester.
Soon after this I was transferred to Humberstone Road branch but I can't remember the chap's name. I do recall eating in the back room, which was icy cold because Mrs whatever only lit the gas fire just before she brought me a cup of scalding hot Bovril.
A crisis occurred at Melton Mowbray branch when someone fell ill and so I was transferred there for a few weeks. This presented me with problems of bus routes and connecting services. In addition the day was much longer, but at least I learned something of a wider horizon.
Then one fateful day I was transferred to the main branch opposite Woolworths and was allocated to the remittance section, which also operated the telephone exchange box. The personnel here were all female and so I was suddenly pitchforked into a space with female chatter on all sides and a much freer attitude to things.
As junior clerk I was required to arrive at 8.15 a.m. to collect the post and assist in opening the letters by slitting the flaps and placing them for action by the accountant.
On leaving school, young Jack Hill worked for the National Provincial Bank in Leicester and recalls some of his wartime duties there.
One of my tasks was to accompany the remittance clerk to the clearing house at Midland Bank to pass over and receive cheques that had been processed the day before. Much checking and cross checking was carried out to avoid embarrassing mistakes and recriminations.
The next stage was to collect cheques which had been posted by the machinists, stamp these as completed and then file them away downstairs in the vaults. Cheques that had been paid in by customers were collected from the cashiers, and then the sorting and checking process began.
All the cheques had to be separated into respective piles and then listed on rolls of paper by branch number, drawer's name and amount on manual machines which had a fierce handle operation that caused the frame to dance across the floor unless one's weight was pressed downwards on the side bars.
I became quite adept at using these machines with their half-closed totals and final totals and lots of flourishes. But by so doing I left myself wide open to exploitation as the girls/women would take themselves off to their hidey hole, leaving me in sole charge of the dreaded phone machine.
This appliance had several incoming lines and about twenty extensions, and was operated by means of plugs on the end of cables, which were weighted and hung below the control surface until required. The plug was inserted into a socket and the call taken. Then hold on one moment please. Put plug on hold then get another plug to ring the extension, then get them to hold on whilst the plugs were swapped and the key switched over. Phew!
But wait until most of the lines were in use and the wires were all crossing over one another, then the trouble would begin. Panic would set in as one knew the caller was getting irate and would complain to the person being called. Several occasions I have had Mr Jones shout out Mr Hill, 'You've cut me off!'
At this early stage in city branch, I had bushy hair with no hint of hair cream, but having to bend down all the time my hair had to be brushed back at frequent intervals. The chief accountant from his elevated box watched this until he could bear it no longer and then called me over and instructed me to start using Brylcreem. Red face for the morning.
Back to remittances. the branch was on a wartime footing and there was always the danger of the building being bombed, hence the cross-referencing of the cheques. A copy of the sheets was sent every night to Trentham Gardens in Staffordshire. The people who worked there must have been snowed under with paper.
Cheques destined for other branches or banks had to be scrutinised for correct date, tally of words and figures, and a correct endorsement on the back. Often larger businesses with perhaps 150 cheques to pay in would miss an endorsement or an initial. And we lowly clerks would spend a few minutes gazing around before writing in the missing words or even forge an initial. This act saved a mountain of paperwork in extracting the item from the cashier's entries, sending it back to customer etc.
Imagine the consternation when the accountant came over with a grim face and cheques that had been rejected by the paying bank due to an omission not spotted by one of us. The error would have to be admitted by the person concerned after which there would be the usual sharp comments.
RD meaning refer to drawer was OK since this meant that there were insufficient funds in the account but a triumphant 'endorsement omitted' or endorsement incorrect or incorrect date occasioned a feeling of humiliation {on me at least].
A final duty of the day was to enter the post in the post book, and so I was always one of the last to leave and had to carry the letters and HVP's to Scunthorpe to the post office at the railway station. The process of money to Scunthorpe puzzled me for a few days until I learned that workers at the Appleby Frodingham steel works numbered in their thousands and had to be paid in cash, so pound notes and fivers were always in demand.
The first time I went down to the vaults I was intrigued by the degrees of separation. Books and ledgers in fairly open areas but banknotes and securities hidden behind a proper circular door with huge bolts all round. An inner grille gate was kept shut during the day but allowed air to pass into the vault.
A bridge spanned across the door threshold to allow access for the trolleys of cash and notes. Each cashier had to complete his or her tally of the day's takings and then take all his or her documents into the main vault. Always there was a second person present to use the double locks to open the grille gate.
Quite often a cashier would find a discrepancy and he or she would be taken off the counter to try and find the error. It could be either a few pounds or hundreds. No-one was supposed to know of the problem apart from the cashier and the Chief. Very often the error arose because of a transposition of the figures, and older members would ask what the error was and then try to recall occasions when they had the same figures.
A skill taught to me early on involved adding or casting up long columns of figures, the secret being to group the figures into tens and thus simplify the mental exercise.
Throughout my time in the bank I was always addressed by male employees as Mr Hill, but with the women, there was a different code and I was John to them. They were of course addressed as Miss or Mrs by the males.
My salary at the beginning amounted to one guinea per week, that is one pound one shilling, and this was paid direct into an account. Even with this tiny amount I managed to save a few pence, and with the luxury of a chequebook I was able to purchase many 'adult' books on taboo subjects. Thus was I able to learn about the facts of life and the mechanics of sex.
I also bought several books of nude photographs, which were pored over a great length. Titles included 'Friendship, love affairs and marriage,' 'Facts of life,' and so on.
Early on in the banking career, I decided that it wasn't long term for me, and had been attending night school for drawing lessons of an engineering nature, for want of a more suitable course, and whilst there met the son of the accountant from Humberstone Road branch. This fact haunted me in case he disclosed my interest to his father.
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