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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.
The Board had started off with nine area offices in 1934 but its name had been changed to the National Assistance Board and its responsibilities greatly widened with the outbreak of war.
The introduction of the Prevention and Relief of Distress Regulations, for example, saddled it with the administration of a wide-ranging scheme to provide relief to persons suffering hardship due to war causes. For example, barge owners who had had their lighters impounded and small hauliers who had lost their lorries had to turn to us for money to live on.
When I went to Omagh, The Board had fifteen offices, five in Belfast and the rest in County towns. Its headquarters were at Fermanagh House, Belfast and the chairman was a former linen magnate, Richard Williams, alias Richard Rowley, the poet of Mourne.
Although it was legally autonomous, it was within the bailiwick of the Minister of Labour, John F. Gordon, who was reputed to have fixed 'a glass ceiling' at Junior Staff Officer for Catholic staff, which was rather less drastic than that of his cabinet colleague, Basil Brooke who had publicly boasted that 'he wouldn't have one of them (Catholics) about the place!'
In June 1943 I was just two years in the rank of Junior Staff Officer, hence I was not worried, but as a member of the executive of the civil service staff association, I was happy to launch a drive for upgrading all officers, five years later, when a similar demand had succeeded across the water.
We won, after a mighty struggle, and in 1948 Area Officers in post, including three Catholics (one of whom was myself) had to be upgraded to Staff Officer, causing a splintering of Gordon's glass ceiling. The Ministry of commerce, headed by Nip Jones and Hertz Rubens had already opened up the higher civil service grade of Deputy Principal to Catholics, an historic step for the Stormont civil service.
The Board in its entire life of some thirty years never promoted one Catholic staff officer to Deputy Principal, and many years later, after two years at Head Office as an administrative inspector and departmental staff training officer, I had to opt for a flat transfer to Commerce where Mr. Rubens (who interviewed me) promised me promotion when a vacancy arose.
He kept his promise but died suddenly at the office door a very short time after. He was an Under Secretary and Jones was the Permanent Secretary.
My predecessor at Omagh was James Beattie. On my rounds I had found him a most able Manager and I knew that I was fortunate to step into his shoes.
Happily, no friction had ever arisen at Omagh over the religious make-up of the Board's staff. There would have been maybe five or six Catholics out of a total of twenty and total harmony prevailed.
A handful of young ladies had been recruited from local secondary schools but the bulk of the staff were mature ex-service-men. Throughout the civil service temporary ex-service personnel were upgraded to permanent positions as clerks from time to time through promotion boards.
Rather surprisingly two bright well-educated young men from Belfast area, Paddy Bogues and Tommy Kernan, had been posted to Omagh as temporary clerks. Not many city dwellers would have been willing to go to Omagh but career opportunities in Belfast for Catholic secondary school-leavers were virtually non-existent in the nineteen-thirties.
Picture: Page 47 - NAB staff. Back row from left: Williamson, Miss Brown, Askin, Miss O'Neill and Kennedy. Front row: Mrs. Adams, Miss Fyfe, the author, Miss Monteith and Miss Wilson.
Both were outstanding officials and it was a real pleasure to monitor their casework. They were deservedly popular in the office and with the people whose applications they had to investigate, and James Beattie thought the world of them.
He was a relatively hard driver but Kernan and Bogues were well able for him, and a bit of banter kept relations happy. He just heaped work on them and they went through it like a knife through cheese.
Not having entered by the open competition and not being ex-service Bogues and Kernan had had to be paid off as others fitting the category became available. I felt the loss keenly and with the benefit of hindsight I have to say that had the two been retained in the service and been promoted on merit, they would surely have attained high rank.
Picture: Page 48. Staff 1947. From left, back row: Misses Fyfe, Monroe, Wilson and McFarland. Front row: Messrs. Garvey, Williamson and Vaughan
Happily, both of them fell on their feet. Michael McSorley, a cycle merchant, happened to be in need of a trainee manager for his Bridge Street shop and I had little difficulty in persuading him to hire Tom Kernan.
I recall assuring Michael that if he took him on he would never let him go. Tom got on well in the job. Records were just becoming popular and soon he was expert in details of new releases and getting customers what they wanted.
As well he had to become conversant with the cycle trade, including motorcycles. Michael's early death left his young widow desolate soon after, but with Tom in charge of the shop, she had no business problems.
Latterly, I dropped in any time I was in Omagh, to see how Tom was getting on and I found him his usual happy self, with everything in apple-pie order and business flourishing. Sadly he did not have a long life.
Paddy Bogues had experience of the jewellery business in Belfast with his family before he joined the civil service and when he was made redundant, he opened a gift shop in the town centre and he never looked back.
It wasn't long until he gained a most able and popular helpmate, in the person of another good friend of mine, a solicitor called Rosa Murnaghan, daughter of George. It was but a short time until they opened a second branch at Market Street, and eventually, another in Amagh.
Like his buddy Tom Kernan, Paddy Bogues retired early and died at a relatively young age. By that time he had become a leading name in the jewellery trade.
Picture: Page 49. Hutchinson, Bogues and Kernan -1944.
Pat Smyth, 2001
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