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Chapter 2
My First Job
Eventually my school days drew to an end. I had taken my Schools Leaving Certificate and managed to scrape some reasonable results: -
Mathematics Distinction
General Science Distinction
Additional General Science Credit
Geography Credit
English Language Pass
French Pass
English Literature Pass
Just before I left school the House Master had to advise me on what career I would like to follow. I had always dreamed of becoming a Veterinary Surgeon but as I failed completely in Latin, there was absolutely no way I would ever get to University. I therefore agreed that I should take a job at Reading University as an assistant laboratory technician. I started work in 1949 and was assigned to the Department of Microbiology, which was headed by Professor B C J G Knight. The staff consisted of a senior laboratory technician (Mr Pendry), two laboratory technicians (Jules Tignet and Ruth Barker), one assistant laboratory technician (myself) and a cleaner (Miss Chapman). Miss Chapman was a very sweet old lady and took her work seriously. She took a great interest in all of us and was like a mother to us all. She had worked at the University for many years. Mr Pendry was a member of the Reading Salvation Army Brass Band and played the silver cornet. He was very teetotal and, although unqualified as a lab technician, was a very knowledgeable chap. Jules Tignet, one of the laboratory technicians had done his National Service in the Royal Air Force and was the son of a French taxidermist who lived in Caversham. He later married a girl who worked in the Dairy Science Department. I will write a little more about Ruth later in this chapter. Both of the lab technicians were doing evening classes at the university and at the nearby Royal Berkshire Hospital to take their F.I.M.L.T. (Fellow of the Institute of Medical Laboratory Technicians) which would enable them to become senior laboratory technicians. I therefore had to start my obligatory course. My course of studies, which had to be done in the evenings, consisted of the following courses: - Bacteriology and Microbiology (taken in our own department), Organic and Inorganic Chemistry (in the Chemistry department) and Haematology and Cytology (at the hospital). This left two evenings a week to myself that I filled with ballroom dancing classes and the youth club.
As I lived about five miles from the town, which had only a very limited bus service, and was only being paid the princely sum of £2. 10 shillings a week, I needed to get a bicycle. As this was just after the war, facilities such as hire purchase were not available. However, the person who owned the bicycle and wireless shop in the next village had set up a form of hire purchase funding it from his ‘bounty’ on leaving the navy. If you bought your bicycle from him after having paid a deposit, he would let you pay it off at a sum you could afford. There was no paper work involved, all being agreed on the shake of the hand and entered in a notebook, which he kept and a card that I kept. As I was so badly paid it was agreed that I would pay back five shillings a week and, as I was handy mechanically, could do a couple of hours on a Saturday morning working in his workshop, putting batteries on charge and doing simple cycle repairs such as punctures, and eventually even repairing Sturmy Archer three speed gears! For this I was given an extra credit of two shillings a week. Ted’s workshop was always very busy with a constant stream of customers, and lads like myself, who came in for a quick chat. Twenty-five years later, when I visited Ted in his shop, which now had got rid of battery charging and covered white goods and televisions as well as bicycles, there was still a gathering of young and old in his workshop for a chat. When I went in there I was soon handed a wheel rim to ‘true up’ and a couple of punctures to mend. When I worked there on a Saturday morning we scorned the use of tyre levers and simply removed or replaced a tyre with our hands. As we used to say, you don’t always have tyre levers with you on the road but you always had a puncture outfit and your hands. This also saved any damage caused by metal tyre levers.
I spent a very happy time at the department and, after a few weeks was put in charge of the rabbits. We had about twenty rabbits, which were usually black and white. This breed was known as Dutch and was preferred by the laboratory because they had quite large ears with distinct veins. Although I fed and cleaned them out mornings and afternoons, we all had to take it turns to be on ‘rabbits’ on weekends. This meant one had to go in morning and afternoon on Saturday and Sunday to feed, clean and water them. They really were big pampered pets. We all had a favourite. I remember mine was a big buck rabbit called ‘Thumper’ named because if any of the ladies went near him he stamped his back feet as a warning. He was fine with men. We did have two incidents over the rabbits while I was there. The first was when I went in on the morning of ‘Sheep Night’, which was a University Internal Rag. I noticed as I rode in on my bike that the Red Hall was adorned with five dustbins, one placed on the top of the central dome and one on each of the small corner domes. It was then noticed that these dustbins belonged to the rabbit house and were kept for the sawdust and droppings removed from the cages. The University Administration sent out for a team from a local builder to remove the bins but the builder said that they would need to put up scaffolding in order to remove the bins and this would take some time. During the lunch break, the bins were returned to the rabbit house, complete with contents by some of the students, who had recovered the bins unnoticed during the lunch break! Well if the Oxford students can scale the statue of Queen Victoria in the City and place a chamber pot on her head at night, ours can scale the building in broad daylight, unseen! The other incident had a sadder outcome. One night some of the students entered the rabbit house and released them all from their cages. Next morning when I came in I found all of them hopping round the floor - some I am sure had a satisfied look on their faces! The sad outcome was that twenty-eight days later, all of the does had given birth. Obviously ‘nursing’ mothers were not used for the tests. Contrary to common belief, the rabbits were not cruelly experimented on, in fact during my time there we never lost an animal nor were any of them distressed in any way. Part of the work of the Department, besides teaching students the mysteries of bacteriology and microbiology, was research being done by a couple of the lecturers (both doctors) into certain diseases. One of these doctors, to whom I was responsible for the well being of the rabbits, was doing research into producing anti-toxins for the Salmonella Typhus group. She eventually developed the system for producing one, which is now routinely used in the treatment of outbreaks of typhoid fever.
During this period of my life I started going out with a girl from the next village to me. I had met her and a girl from my village whilst queuing up to see Max Miller at the theatre one Saturday evening. I was nearer the front of the queue than they were so they came up and chatted to me to make it look like they were with me and I had saved them a place in the queue! I was so struck by this girl that, out of bravado I suppose, I paid for the pair of them to go in AND paid two shillings each so we could sit in the front row of the upper balcony (the Gods). I then accompanied the young lady home on her bus, and then walked one and a half miles back to my home! We saw each other occasionally at the youth club and after other ‘girl friends’ I eventually married her! She must have made an enduring impression on me!
At this time I had my first real romance with a girl (Ruth) who also worked at the University. She was a couple of years older than me and we actually got engaged. She lived about seven miles the other side of the town from me which meant I had a twenty-four mile round trip to see her. I often used to cycle home with her from work to have tea and then we went out for a while and then I left about nine o’clock at night and rode home. What stamina we had in those days. We also went out dancing at the weekends and sometimes her father, who owned a factory making hand made bricks, would take me out with his wife and two daughters for a day in the car when we would go down to the coast. Not many people had cars at that time, my father had a motorcycle and sidecar and we three boys all had bicycles. Her father also had a block booking of seats at the repertory theatre in Aldershot and we therefore often went there. I always travelled in the back seat between Ruth and her little sister Anne (Dumps). I remember that the car was a big black Rover and I felt very important being driven around in a car. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), the romance only lasted until I was posted abroad with the Royal Air Force. I supposed the absence was the cause for the break-up. She later married a soldier from the local barracks and I heard later that she had a very large family.
I enjoyed working in the laboratory even though some of the work was occasionally very repetitive. One of my tasks was to autoclave (sterilise) the used test tubes and Petrie dishes to kill off the bacteria before they were washed and also to help prepare the various types of agar and nutrients, which were used to grow the bacteria. I also had to ensure that the various reagents used in the staining of slides for examination by microscope were ready for the student’s use. Some of the stains used, such as Gram’s stain, were actually made up by me from various other reagents. Whenever required, I had to assist Dr Shattock in her research into the Salmonella Typhus group of bacteria. This was extremely interesting as although the tests I carried out were routine I did occasionally find something of great importance to her. I even had one strain of bacteria named after me because I found it! (Fame at an early age!!)
I left the University soon after my eighteenth birthday as I had to do either my National Service or join the services as a regular serviceman. I chose the latter as the pay was a bit higher!
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