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Pat Smyth, a civil servant with the National Assistance Board in West Tyrone from the 1930's to the 1950's, recalls his memories, experiences and the larger than life personalities he encountered on the way.
Issues like Women's Liberation and Equal Opportunities were not to the forefront in the nineteen-forties in West Tyrone. I would venture to say that some of the young ladies who got secure jobs with the Board, on their own doorsteps, after the completed their secondary school education, regarded the civil service as a place to be suffered for a time until they got married.
But when the men who were out in the field came in rehearsing amusing experiences this aroused some envy and curiosity on the part of their female colleagues.
In winter of course none of the women evinced any desire to put on wellies and go wading through the glar (mud) and snow to reach the last houses on the foothills of the Sperrins, but when the sun came out in the springtime and the heather-clad hills changed colour, some of the ladies got restive.
There was also a growing conviction in the Board's management circles that women had a role to play in visitation. To meet this, it was decided to encourage them to take up the role.
Angela O'Neill, being the most mature, was our first choice and she gladly volunteered to break the ice. She chose a local run on a bicycle, for starters, and on her first foray out by Clanabogan she asked me to let Annie Leitch go with her.
It was a grand summer afternoon and the two of them were 'raring to go'. They reported back before closing time and rather sheepishly revealed that they had to abandon one call. There had been a 'Billy' goat loose on the loanen, and it had dropped its head and faced them, they reported.
Alex Hyndman, the senior clerk responsible for the Canabogan area, was the man they reported back to. He cross-examined them about the menacing goat, and finally said it was time they found out the difference between a 'Nanny' goat and a 'Billy'. Mrs. Doherty's goat was not a Billy, for he had seen the owner milking it, and the animal was as docile as a lamb - it had even eaten twigs of ivy out of his hand' he said.
Angela and Annie got a right ribbing from the lads, over Mrs. Doherty's goat. 'Imagine sending 'weemin' out tot farm to check farm stock when they can't tell a 'Nanny' goat from a 'Billy'', was one of the taunts.
In defence of the ladies, may I say that animals, especially goats, or even a cow, can be sex discriminating. A neighbour of ours had a cow which was a real danger to women, but quite well behaved with men, and when we were boys and walking to school daily, every goat in the neighbourhood would have chased us for our lives, simply because we imitated their bleating and tweaked their beards when we got them behind bars of a gate and had protection.
I never heard any complaints of sexual harassment. In fact, with the one exception the staff were a very agreeable lot. The one exception was a mature busybody who stirred up stride, but friendly banter was commonplace, confined mostly to colleagues well able to hold their own. The more sensitive lassies were left alone.
One amusing episode still sticks in my memory. Due to overcrowding, we had the use of roof space for staff. The ceiling was low and in hot weather an electric fan had to be used for ventilation. Only visiting officers used the attic (for writing up their reports).
Girls employed on tracing, placing and filing who climbed up to the top of the house (an all male domain) were captive targets for the lads and verbal duelling was regular. One lassie fixed the boyos. The fan had three speeds and as she made her exit, she threw the switch from 'low' to top speed. The effect was instantaneous and very similar to that of a jet stream!
Five visiting officers each had his array of loose papers on his desk. When these took off, each of them had an hour's hassle retrieving his records. From then on the particular young lady was treated with the utmost civility when she visited the visiting officers' den!
In 1940 the board had taken responsibility for means-tested supplementary pensions and dropped the word 'unemployment' from its title. Following the publication of the Beveridge Report on social insurance and allied services, the foundations of the present welfare state were being laid when I moved to Omagh.
The Beveridge plan envisaged a State scheme to provide 'freedom from want from the cradle to the grave'. The gap to be filled was particularly significant in West Tyrone. Challenging times lay ahead and recruitment and training of additional staff became the priority.
A 1948 statute placed responsibility on the Board for providing national assistance to everyone in need, with the decisions of local officers final, subject to a right of appeal to an independent tribunal.
The assessment of means and determination of need regulations conferred wide discretionary powers on local officers, with freedom to override the regulations where need was exceptional and urgent, for example, in the face of natural disasters.
Applications had to be made through the Employment Exchange by the unemployed; in other cases they were made by post. As soon as they had been registered, we had to make home visits to complete declarations of means and secure verifications.
The more senior and experienced personnel handled fresh applications, others carried out review visits. We sent orders-to-pay to Employment Exchanges, or authorisations to the book-issuing branch at Head Office, as appropriate. Postal drafts and cash payments were used to supplement running orders.
As all notices of decisions went out in my name, I got all the bricks and bouquets. The manner in which some were addressed was very revealing.
Area officers had to act as clerks to appeal tribunals and hearings took place on the Board's premises, quite inappropriate, a point that Senator McGill raised frequently. The level of responsibility borne by executive grade civil servants in the Board was quite insufferable, even with upgrading in 1948.
When I moved to the Ministry of Commerce, to a branch, which provided only a service and had no financial functions, I got an eye-opener at the inequalities of civil service grading.
The Board's Head Office exercised control by periodic audit and administrative inspections when an officer of the same rank as the Area Officer spent a week on the premises and compiled a report. They also called in blocks of cases by serial numbers for scrutiny on a regular basis and of course, processed complaints addressed to them.
Area Officers dealt with all complaints that were addressed to them locally, whether they came from high or low. At Omagh many written complaints came via local M.P.s and other important personalities, but visits were more usual. At these the grievances of applicants were analysed closely. 'Top brass' from Head Office dropped in on Area Officers from time to time and members of the Board as well.
Staffing had eventually to be increased significantly. After the war I got a most able deputy manager in the person of J. H. Copeland, who eventually rose to the rank of Permanent Secretary in the Department of Health and Social Services.
After a spell as an Area Officer elsewhere he was transferred back to succeed me at Omagh. Our roles were reversed some years later when he gained entry to the Deputy Principal grade at Head Office, and I joined him there, still as a Staff Officer, until he recommended me to the Department of Commerce as the 'best Staff Officer the Board had' and, belatedly, I gained promotion.
Pat Smyth, 2001
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