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So, I’m back at home (and, let’s face it, not a very comfortable home) having just crashed, so to speak, all of the career expectations that I had nurtured over the previous years. Not only had the prospect of a military flying career evaporated but also, it seemed, had any prospect of the other options that once seemed accessible - acting and going to university.
With the benefit of hindsight, of course, this is silly. Presumably, I could have tried to fulfill either the acting or university goals. But I didn’t. As I recall, it was as though whatever possibilities had appeared to exist a year earlier had gone. Pffft! Smoke and mirrors. Fantasy. Non-existent.
The only thing that did seem possible was getting a job. It was the only course of action that I understood. And the thinking was reinforced by practical considerations among which the primary driver was the fact that there was no money. There was no money at home. There were no sources of financial support. There was absolutely no cushion or safety net.
So what did I do? I phoned J’s father.
I can’t go on calling her ‘J’, can I! And I need to explain a little more about my relationship with her family: it has taken me an unconscionable amount of time fully to realize what the dynamic was. Not that there’s anything very complicated about it. It’s simply that I found her family to be an exemplar of what was, for me, an ideal. It wasn’t just the fact that it was a ‘classic’ nuclear family. More than that, the sense of respect and love among them all - father, mother, three children - was palpable.
‘J’ was Jeanne. Her father, John, a Scot, was a big man who managed the iron ore blasting activities at steel manufacturer Stewarts & Lloyds in the nearby town of Corby. Jeanne’s Mother, Peggy, owned and ran a women’s fashion shop in Market Harborough.
It helped, of course, that John seemed to like me … or, at least, hadn’t beaten me to a pulp when he caught me in flagrante delicto with his daughter. So, I phoned him.
I explained that I’d quit the Air Force and didn’t know what next to do. He told me to meet him that evening in a pub in a village near Market Harborough. I turned up at the appointed hostelry at the appointed time.
This all happened a very long time ago and I don’t remember much of the detail. It probably started out with me trying to explain more about what I had done. But I do clearly remember John saying, “There’s a chap at the end of the bar who might help. Shall I introduce you?” And I said, “Yes.”
The chap at the end of the bar turned out to be the managing director of a shoe manufacturer called Newbold & Burton, with manufacturing units at Sileby in Leicestershire and Grantham in Lincolnshire. A little later, Jack, for that was his name, asked me if I’d like to start work at the Sileby factory on the following Monday morning. And I said, “Yes.”
So it was that I commenced my role as Closing Room Manager, which perhaps merits a little explanation.
The shoes we wear, however plain or fancy, rugged or flimsy, consist of an ‘upper’, which is the part that goes over the top of the foot, and the sole-plus-heel unit that goes underneath. The two parts are brought together in the Lasting Room.
Self-evidently, most of the design and styling of a shoe goes into the upper. Yes, soles and heels can vary dramatically - consider, for example, Louboutin’s clever brand innovation of the red sole - but that’s the part that literally gets walked on and is consequently less susceptible to ‘styling’. But uppers, particularly for women’s shoes, come in all manner of patterns and constructions. And the uppers are assembled and sewn in the Closing Room.
Thus it was that, with a minimum of instruction, I was tasked with managing the efforts of around fifty women, each seated at an industrial sewing machine. The components for particular shoe patterns, in specific sizes, were grouped on trolleys and fed into the room. Our task was to complete specified quotas of completed uppers for particular shoe patterns and sizes each day.
Fortunately, the women knew what they were doing. Which was more than could be said for me.
In the factory …
It’s early 1966. I’m 20 years old. The first No. 1 pop single of the new year, appropriately enough, is Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group. Although, at this point, I’ve gained some experience of the world (not literally because, despite my spell in the RAF, I still don’t have a passport and haven’t been out of the United Kingdom), I’m still horribly inexperienced. I am, one might say, a deep shade of green.
What about the women of the Closing Room? They span a broad range of ages: most in their 30s and 40s, some in their 50s, and a small number in their late-teens and 20s. Many are related: “That’s my daughter, over there”; “There’s my Auntie Sally”; “Maureen’s my cousin.” That sort of thing. And, oh, two or three of the young ones are, to my eye, absolutely bloody gorgeous - a fact that makes it difficult for me to relate to them because I’m weirdly scared of them!
I am shocked, too. Some of my flock enjoy regaling their colleagues with lurid details about, “You’ll never guess what happened last night.” Talk about an eye-opener: “The daft bugger gets back from the pub, pissed, says he’s gonna show me a good time and then, silly sod, tries to come across to the bed with his pants round his ankles. Pissed as a newt! Trips up, knocks himself out on the end of the bed. Laugh, I nearly died.”
Are women really like this? Clearly some are. But the young beauties tend to just avert their gaze and keep their secrets.
Many of the menfolk that the women so often talk about work in the Lasting Room on the other side of the factory. Visit the Lasting Room and you see a few pin-ups on display but, counter-intuitively, the men are far more shy than their womenfolk.
Perhaps there’s something to be brought across from the Lasting Room to the Closing Room? The chap you ask shakes his head. Instead, he tells the new young lad to deliver it. The 16-year-old walks into the Closing Room and, immediately, the noise level rockets. Wolf whistles. Shrieks. Shouts of, “What have you got in there, love?” “Come over here, dear.” “Bet you’ve got a nice one.” And the young lad beats a hasty, embarrassed retreat.
It gets particularly raucous when one of the young beauties is to be married. The women clear one of the trolleys used to transport the components of the uppers, and decorate it with streamers. Pride of place goes to a porcelain chamber pot in the bottom of which is painted a wide-open eye which is then topped with an inch or so of translucent yellow jelly. Geddit?
The young bride-to-be then goes up and down the rows in the Closing Room and gifts of money are placed on the trolley. She wheels the trolley through the rest of the factory, including the Lasting Room, and people place their gifts.
It occurs to me that this sort of ritual may have gone on, in different situations, in different forms, for centuries. Was there an equivalent, I wonder, back when the young lass would have been in the hay field helping gather in the crop, or in the milking parlour tending the cows? Whatever, it’s a nice idea.
… and the works’ canteen
There is also a bonus that I had not anticipated. Lunch. It comes as a complete surprise, on my first day, when I am introduced to the management canteen. No, canteen is too downmarket a term, restaurant would be more appropriate. The smart room has a dining table that can accommodate up to eight people, and there is a small, comfortable seating area. It’s where, every working day, I meet my fellow managers. The typical daily turn-out is five or six of us.
“What’s on the menu today?” asks my Production colleague. “Halibut,” replies the kitchen lady. Mr Production, grey-haired and avuncular, nods approvingly and puffs on his pipe. For me, what follows is an entirely new experience - a substantial, beautifully cooked halibut steak. This is living!
Over time, I learn that lunch is also an opportunity for a range of conversations …
… for work feedback …
Mr. Production says, “We need to get a better throughput of a couple of the patterns. I’ll come and see you at three o’clock and we can talk about how best to achieve that.”
… for diary scheduling …
Managing director, Jack, says, “David, we need to go to Grantham tomorrow to do some time and motion exercises on the new pattern range. I’ll pull up outside your home at 6 o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll explain what we need to do en route.”
… to address broader issues …
“There’s a general election in March. Will Harold Wilson get back in as prime minister? What do we think about that?”
Looking back down the tunnel of time, this all amounted to an effective, collaborative leadership system of a type that is all too often missing these days.
And yet …
Although there were good features to the job, and the people were supportive, I still felt dissatisfied. So, yet again, I decided that this work was not right for me for the long term. Trouble was, I seemed to be only too good at deciding what I didn’t want, but had no clarity about what I did want.
The realization, when reviewing this period of my life, that I was such an idiot is extremely depressing. The really stupid thing was that because I felt incapable of sorting out what we might term the Big Issue - i.e. vocation, if any, or, failing that, best role choice - I switched focus to Small Issues: specifically, in this instance, the fact that I was tired of my Austin A30 and wanted a better motor car. Big deal, huh?So, who get motor cars? Sales reps, of course.
With hindsight, this was a ridiculous way to try to resolve anything, but it’s more than half a century too late to worry about it. However, it does make one wonder whether there is perhaps something to the idea that we unconsciously find our way towards things regardless of our avowed intentions? Or is it perhaps that we back-rationalize everything to justify where we end up?
Whatever, back in 1966 I thought the sales rep route would be worth a try. And who were the top candidate firms for that role? My researches, using the Daily Telegraph newspaper to guide me, suggested Lever Bros, Procter & Gamble, and Mars Petfoods.
Soap opera - Prologue
As things turned out I didn’t need all three. Procter & Gamble sufficed. I approached them and was told that they normally only recruited graduates, but that they would see me. So, I found my way, as instructed, to Nottingham and to an address on The Ropewalk.
There I sat down opposite Sandy Macdonald, the District Manager, who scared the bejasus out of me. As I later learned, he was a very kind chap but, initially, he kept that fact well hidden.
By this time I was a seasoned cigarette smoker so, when Sandy proffered a cheroot, I readily accepted it. He extended a light. I moved the cheroot tip into the flame, inhaled … and, you guessed it, exploded in a violent coughing fit. I frantically tried to appear unflustered throughout the rest of the interview.
I can’t remember whether Sandy told me there and then that I had the job or whether it was left in the air. Whatever, I subsequently received a letter offering me the job of sales representative, subject to the results of a medical, and telling me that I would take over a territory in the Cotswolds, with Banbury at its centre.
So, rather ungratefully when I think back on it, after less than a year, I resigned from my job at the shoe factory and prepared to start my role with P&G just a week after my twenty-first birthday.
I heard nothing more about the policy of needing a university degree. In fact, I subsequently found that there was at least one other chap without a degree in my own unit. Derek Millicheap, who was formerly a police officer in Sheffield, was one of two officers involved in what became immortalised as The Rhino Whip Affair. As I understand it, he and the colleague were found guilty of using excessive force against a bunch of villains, and were dismissed. Sandy obviously disagreed with the police authority approach and thought that Derek had delivered the kind of justice of which he approved. And, truly, Derek was a lovely chap.
Thank you for reading.