Chapter 1
March 29th 1975, a Saturday, was the day I finally became a working stiff. After six months of signing-on every fortnight in Carmarthen’s dingy Unemployment Office. I was finally handed a job; oh, how I wish I hadn't now.
Six months after being expelled from my Grammar school, justifiably in hindsight, I was going to begin work at a newspaper. Not as a journalist, of course, and not even as a paid member of staff, but I was actually going to start work! It promised to be a major step forward for me. After having spend six months mooching around my parents house, going to bed late after reading a pulp novel on my own in the lounge, no twenty-four hour TV in those days; I was going to become member of the working classes.
During that time, a period I would subsequently describe as my "lost days," I would wake up sometimes in the middle of the afternoon to a solitary breakfast. Next I would mooch around something to occupy my time. I would sometimes kick a football listlessly around the deserted streets for hours on end. Alternatively, I would pull on an old pair of ‘daps’, as Plimsolls were called in those days in that part of the country, and jog mile after steady mile along the quiet country roads. Most of my lost days were spent alone, waiting for the post to arrive. Hundreds of job applications were completed and posted; most of them were ignored, none of them were successful.
Once a week, I would receive a Giro cheque from the government for the princely sum of £6.05 per week. £3 of the money went to my mother for housekeeping; the balance was spent on weekend binges. Binge drinking at the weekends is not a modern phenomenon despite what today's media would have you believe.
As it happens, the late spring of 1975 was the start of what would prove to be two glorious, hot summers. I remember that particular day so very well. It stared brightly, the air clear and crisp. The early chill of spring soon gave way to warmth as the sun arced gently upwards in the crystal clear sky. True, the summer of ’75 was only a portent, the merest shadow of what was to come during the fabled, glorious drought year of ’76. However, in this quiet corner of south west Wales we could look forward to day after day of warm summer sun and cloudless, Wedgwood skies. Alice Cooper's seminal 'School's Out', seared into the hearts and souls of the younger generation, my generation, and a pre-paedophile Gary Glitter exhorted us to be a member of his gang. A truly great time to be young and alive, gaudy, tasteless and wonderful! I wore my dark hair long, jeans and denim shirt, with ridiculous wedge shoes, increasing my 6'3" height by an extra 4 inches; what a clown I must have looked. My hair is grey now, but at least I still have hair.
At this stage in my life I was yet to have ventured away from that tranquil and idyllic region of my childhood. I had never even been as far as England, let alone the Costas of Spain. Nor had I seen the vineyards of southern France, the splendours of the Grand Canyon, or anything else for that matter. I was a parochial boy; my family could never have afforded such foreign travel. Yet the coast of what used to be Pembrokeshire then Dyfed, now Pembrokeshire again, was to be blessed with weather even better than that experienced by the hoards of British holidaymakers who spent small fortunes to fly package tours to Continental Europe. Yet the weather was not why I remembered that specific day of that specific year.
When I said that I started work that day, it was not what you would really call the start of a proper, honest-to-goodness career as such, it wasn’t even paid work. I began my sometimes illustrious career in journalism that fateful day, as a volunteer hack-gofer at the regional daily newspaper, the South Wales Trumpet. The SWoT, as it was nicknamed with no little degree of irony, was a tiny local paper of the lowest possible standing. It presented twenty-six pages of adverts, local news, adverts, obituaries, and yet more adverts. If it could have a claim to fame, it was that its pages probably contained more typographical errors in a good month than the notorious national tablet, the Guardian exhibited in an average year.
So, you might well ask why after some six months of enjoying myself, choosing when to go to bed, when to get up, and what to do during the day, why would I volunteer for a job, unpaid, at a local rag? Well, to be perfectly honest, truth be told, I didn’t volunteer at all.
The Department of Health and Social Security, the DHSS, who had been paying me my Giro cheque, decided that they would no longer keep paying a 17 year old waster his £6.05 per week ad infinitum. No, the then Labour government, in its infinite wisdom, had launched the first iteration of the Youth Opportunities Training Scheme that spring, and the Carmarthen DHSS offices were amongst the first in Wales to roll out the new regimen.
I knew nothing about this new initiative when I turned up as usual to sign-on that fateful Thursday morning two days earlier, at the dingy DHSS offices. In its ‘70’s manifestation, the DHSS was not about to spend a great deal of money on its client facing facilities.
I stood in the queue that formed in front of the counter marked A-D Friday. I waited far longer than normal whilst the 5 sad souls ahead of me were seen, slowly, one by one. I was never the most patient of souls and queueing all ways tested my patience to the limit, but this was especially wearing when the sun was dining just outside. Occasionally, one of the claimants being interviewed at the desk would raise his voice in question or shout. This was not unusual, and I continued to wait impatiently.
Then, at last, it was my turn. I shuffled up and took a seat in front of the bullet proof Plexiglas screen, behind which Mr. Davidson, the sour faced 40 some-thing greeted me with the words “Good morning Mr. Donahugh.”
His voice, as ever, was monotonous. He spoke without looking up from his papers, one of which I could see was my case file; growing thicker by the fortnight. Other papers were strewn haphazardly over the surface of his desk, together with small pack of index cards, piled neatly in one corner. It turned to the inside of the front cover and place in index finger below a specific entry. “It seems that you have been claiming benefits now for over 6 months.”
“Err ... yes”, I replied studying the bald patch on the crown of his head. He had yet to look up at me and I began to feel a more and more uncomfortable at this departure from the norm. After the initial interview where my details were taken, the signing-on procedure usually consisted of me turning up, declaring that I had not worked for the previous fortnight and that I was still available for work and that I was actively seeking work. I would then sign my name at the foot of one of their interminable forms. The whole process usually took no more than five or ten minutes after the long wait in the queue and resulted in the weekly receipt of the much-anticipated Giro cheque. Today was different though; ominously different.
Davidson’s eyes finally swivelled up to look at me from behind his thick horn-rimmed glasses. His rheumy eyes, stared at me with what seemed to me like a mixture of distaste and displeasure. His seven o'clock shadow added an air of fuzziness to his disinterested, shabby appearance. “Have you heard of the government’s Youth Opportunities Programme?”
I hesitated before responding, “ Err. What’s is it?”
He pulled up a sheet of paper with the flourish of a magician conjuring flowers from his sleeve. “This leaflet explains it all Mr. Donahugh. Take it with you and read it at your leisure. Briefly, it means that after being unemployed and claiming benefits for 6 months you are required to start training or work or you will be unable to continue claiming your entitlements. You have to find a job Mr. Donahugh, within the next fortnight or we may have to suspend your claim for Supplementary Support.”
For the first time in the 6 months I had been visiting that grubby office, the man smiled; it looked more like a sneer, I almost shivered.
I blustered, “A job? How the hell am I going to find a job or a training course in the next 2 weeks? In six months I haven't even had a single interview! And another thing,” I added in a stream, my voice rising in volume, words spilling out more quickly, “ Do you have any idea how many job applications I’ve sent out in that time?”
His smile broadened as he reached across his desk with his left hand. The hand came up clutching the index cards. No VDU monitors, PCs or Laptops in those days of course, everything had to be stored on cards, in filing cabinets, or in expandable manila folders.
“As it happens, Mr. Donahugh, I can help you there. Each one of these cards," he showed me the cards in emphasis, "contains details of all opportunities available within 10 miles of your home.” He began shuffling the cards, the magician now prestidigitator. “We have time to go through them now if you like,” he added, his tone made it clear that I had no choice in the matter; I slouched back in my chair and stifled a sigh.
I realised then why the five people ahead of me in the queue had taken so long to complete their interviews; why wait had been so much longer than usual. My heart sank. I nodded and with a sigh sank further into the hard chair and showed him the palm of my left hand in a gesture that he should continue. I waited, anticipating what was to come with a growing sense of disquiet.
Davidson stopped shuffling the cards and began to read from the top of the deck. “Windsor Iced Cream is looking for someone for their factory in Pendine. That is only down the road from you, isn’t it?”
“About five miles away,” I replied helpfully.
“Oh that's very good,” Davidson continued, “you could start Monday morning at 6 o’clock. The shift finishes at 3 , and you have an hour for lunch.”
“What?” I recoiled in horror, "6 o'clock in the morning!" My jaw dropped.
Davidson continued, warming to theme, “The pay for a 35 hour week is £8.57, with benefits.”
Fuckin’ hell! I thought, “6 o’clock in the morning! This bugger wants me to get up at 6 o’clock in the morning and make my way to a bloody ice-cream factory and freeze my nuts off for 35 hours a week and be better off by £2.07 pence! I should fuckin’ cocoa. And what are these bloody benefits he’s talking about? Free fuckin’ cornets I suppose?”
“I worked for a Windsor Ice Cream last summer and didn't get on there at all well. In fact, they asked me to leave after a week," I added somewhat embarrassed. "Is there anything else?” I asked hurriedly.
“Don’t fancy that now do we?” he asked archly. He placed Windsor Ices index card face down on the top of his desk. He looked at me with an arched right eyebrow, sporting a look my father would have described as "old-fashioned". He began reading from the next index card: a farm labourer, a Council road sweeper, a shop assistant, all rejected on one pretext or another. The process continued for the next 5 minutes with Davidson offering progressively poorer “opportunities” as the as the pack of index cards grew smaller in his hands. From Petrol Pump Attendant to Hairdresser’s Assistant the crappy list continued.
My response to each resulted in the cards being turned face down one by one and Davidson growing more and more frustrated. The final card was exposed at last, I held my breath. This was becoming like a TV game show. What was coming up next I wondered, test model at a local condom factory, perchance? A cocktail waiter on the Titanic?
This was my last chance.
Davidson looked at me, his fish eyes now challenging. “The South Wales Trumpet is looking for a volunteer Copy Boy.”
I sighed, “What on earth is a Copy Boy?”
“I don’t know,” answered Davidson somewhat sharply, fast approaching the end of his tether. He acted as though I was being ungrateful in the face of his largess. “There aren't many job details on the card, but it looks like you could start next Monday at 10 o’clock if they are still looking and agree to have you.”
“At least it is not the crack of fuckin’ dawn,” I mused. I try to put a look of hopeful anticipation on my face; I am sure it came across as careworn and doubtful.
Davidson continued, “There’s no indication of the hours, but as I said, this is a voluntary position.”
“What does that mean? Don’t I get paid?”
“No, this is an unpaid position; we treat it as a training course.” Davidson stared at me again, encouraging, “You will continue to receive benefits for the duration of the voluntary role, and you will also be entitled to travelling expenses at 5p per mile, or bus fares if there is a reasonable route to and from the job. It also looks like you will have the opportunity to attend a day release training course on journalism at Carmarthen College." He paused and looked again at the details on the card in his hand, “The position is based at Sarnau, the trumpet's head office."
David looked at me again over the top of his glasses, "How far is Sarnau from Red Roses, nine or ten 10 miles isn’t it?”
Not for the first time, I smiled to myself at the name of my home village; more a hamlet in the village really. Red Roses, why that poetic name was chosen for such a dreary crossroads in the middle of nowhere, I shall never know, I had never seen a rose growing there, red or otherwise. I nodded at him and ran a quick calculation in my head. "Five pounds a week extra for mileage! Not bad.” I could use my dad’s dilapidated two-stroke moped which would cost me virtually nothing to run. Just a tank full of petroil mix once a week would cover it. I’d be better off financially although I’d have to work for a living. But I couldn’t mark time all my life, could I? Despite my forebodings, I began to feel some optimism for the upcoming change in my life.
"Sounds interesting, any other details?"
"There's a phone number on the card here are," said Davidson, "I'll just give them a little tinkle and see if the vacancy is still open." He reached for the old black Bakelite phone on his desk and began dialling. I managed to suppress a smile at his use of the arcane word; this was not the time for levity.
Davidson fell silent for a few moments and waited for his call to be connected. I leaned back in the uncomfortable chair and stared up at a brown stain on the ceiling. My mind wandered, I wondered what had caused that brown stain. The blood of a claimant who committed hari-kari upon hearing that he was required to work at Windsor Ice Cream perchance?
Davidson continued to speak quietly, and I could barely hear his side of the telephone conversation. After a short period he covered the mouthpiece with his hand and said, “The position is still open, and has been for a few months. You are actually the first person to show any interest in it. Just a moment.” He removed his hand and continued speaking. He swivelled in his chair away from me and I could hear almost nothing, just a murmur of his voice and gaps as he listened to the answers.
So, no-one else had even applied for this job. I began feeling a little uneasy, my emotions swinging pendulum like from positive to negative. Why not? Why had no one applied for it before? What did these others know that I didn’t? Perhaps the word ‘volunteer’ had put people off. I would never know, but I was lumbered with it now. It was the best of a bad lot. I hoped that it wasn’t a bad as the others had thought.
Davidson put his hand over the mouthpiece again, “Do you have an English O level?” I nodded and he returned to his quiet telephone conversation for a few more minutes.
While I waited I examined a layer of dirt that had gathered under my fingernails. Where had it come from? I’d washed my hands thoroughly that morning, with a nail brush to. Then I realised that I had been scratching at the upholstery on the arms of the grimy chair I was sitting in and the dirt had rubbed off. My hands were now filthy and sticky, I shuddered and the thought of all the other no-hopers who had sat in that same chair before me. How many of them had accepted their fate as readily as I had just done? Lambs to the slaughter?
After a few more minutes Davidson completed the conversation and re-cradled the handset. Leaning forward again, close to the glass screen so I could hear him clearly, he said with an air of accomplishment, “There now, it’s all settled.” He marked a tick in a box on the card and I could see that wrote my name and NI number in another box on the index card then leaned back in his chair, mission accomplished. Next he actually rubbed his hands together in self-congratulation. “Now then, Mr Donoghue, there’s been a slight change of plans. They actually want you to start on Saturday, at 10 o’clock in the morning. You are to report directly to the Managing Editor, a Mister Dai Lewis. Apparently he already has a little assignment for you.” Davidson actually beamed at me then, a genuinely pleased or so it seemed to me.
I felt like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a fast-approaching car on a jet-black night out on the moors somewhere. My heart rate increased, and a prickly sweat broke out under my arms.
“What assignment?” I asked with some trepidation. I then thought of something else, "Saturday, but that's only the day after tomorrow." I shuffled uneasily in my chair and added, "I don't even know if I can get to Sarnau on Saturday morning. I'll have to check out transportation," I hesitated, then added with a nod, "but I can probably make it okay."
"I'm sure buses run between Red Roses and Sarnau on a Saturday," he said impatiently, "and as for the assignment Mr. Lewis he didn’t say, but I am sure it’ll be fine. They’re hardly going to send you out on a story now are they? I suppose they’ll be looking for you to make the tea or something. Mr. Lewis did say that there is the possibility of the job becoming a full-time paid position at sometime in the future, if you fit in well. The pay won’t be much, but it is a job. Meanwhile, you will still continue to sign-on fortnightly, but you can do that by post so it won’t affect your new job, will it now?”
With that, he turned away from me again, reached into his desk tidy and retrieved a rubber stamp that hung on a special clip at the side of his desk-tidy. He loaded the stamp with ink from a pad in a special receptacle alongside are the desk tidy and pressed it carefully into a space on the cover of my case papers. He then closed the buff-coloured folder with a flourish as though he had just presented me with the keys to the City; to a new life. It was clear that the interview had been terminated.
Davidson dismissed me with a wave of his hand and beckoned the next claimant in the queue to come forward. No ‘Good luck’, nothing, just a dismissal, the interview was terminated.
I rose from the chair somewhat numb and made my way out of the offices in a bit of a daze. I walked slowly away into a Brave New World where I would become what? God alone knew.
Had I known then what I know now, I would not have gone anywhere near that damned newspaper. I would have run from the SWOT and would never have come within a mile of Sarnau, but hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?
Had I known what was in store for me, I would have jumped at the chance of working Windsor Ice Cream. I would have dived headlong into a career of mucking out pigs, sheep and cattle pens rather than stepping blindly into the murky world of journalism. My life would have been so different had I never heard of the SWOT or the bloody Welsh Panther.
.-.-.-.-
