When I finished at the Secondary School in 1936 I worked for about six months in the Co-op but hated that, and then I was offered a job at the Gazette office, remembers Barbara Wickett. I did all sorts of office things, typing, accounts and so on. One of my jobs, once a week, was writing out all the cheques which had to be done in the office of Mr Stone, the manager.

Every Thursday morning, which was publishing morning, I had to be in at half past six in order to read the proofs of all the advertisements as these were considered a lot more important than the reading matter. If you had a mistake in an advertisement you could be refused payment!

I used to watch the pages coming off the machine, which assembled the paper as well. It went to press about mid morning, and then there was the big rush to get the papers out onto the streets and round to the newsagents in the afternoon. They also produced a Saturday paper called the Advertiser, which had to be got out fairly early because we closed at midday on a Saturday.

There was also a printing works there for customer printing that was run by Gerry Cosling. Our head office was in Swindon. The North Wiltshire Herald and the accountant used to come over to us occasionally and we made our returns to them.

Although I was straight from school I had to keep all the records of sales, percentages and so on, on great sheets of paper. I was better at handling decimals and things than anyone else in the office!

One day someone came round selling slide rules, which I had learned to use at school, and I persuaded them to buy one for me. When I left, the slide rule had to stay behind even though no one in the office knew how to use it!

I was given a lot of responsibility in the Gazette office, but because I was very young I wasn't paid very well for it. I was complaining about this one day to one of the senior reporters who knew someone who worked at W.E. Chivers. He offered to speak to them for me and try to get me a better paid job there.

When my mother got to hear of this she said that I couldn't possibly do that because there would be far too much swearing in the office at Chivers!

From: Devizes Voices compiled by David Buxton Tempus Publishing ISBN 0 7524 0661 2 £9.99 For a complete list of local history books published by Tempus Publishing visit: www.tempus-publishing.com