A Career? What’s a Career?
Anne Lord
Having left college education at the age of 16 to get married and have a baby, I was a late starter in the work place. By the time I was 20, Michael and I had our first home together - without in-laws that is - a rented two-bedroom house in Penrhys, and Paul had started school. So mother-in-law, Audrey decided that it was time for me to start working, she would take care of ‘the baby’ after school and in the holidays. I hesitated, I lacked confidence, what could I do apart from housekeeping and childcare? Audrey knew. I was informed that there were jobs going in a factory in nearby Wattstown, I was to get down there first thing for an interview.
The factory was a converted chapel manufacturing the metal hinges for ladies purses. I got the job, well the foreman who interviewed me, had a crush on me in infants school. Start on Monday he told me. Making purses sounds very innocuous, but believe me the women who worked there should have been paid danger money. My job was on the riveting machine, hand and foot co-ordination was a must. I once lowered a rack of naked purses into a bath of acid, it took two of us to do that. The polishers wore several layers of tattered, everyday cloth gloves to protect their fingers from the grinding wheels, and the thought of using a soldering iron terrified me. When I described these jobs to my parents, my dad said you can’t work there, I’ll get you a job with me in Porth Textiles. On the Friday I told them I wouldn’t be in on the following Monday. My career as a factory worker lasted one week.
The temporary job in Porth Textiles, Llwynypia, which made Christmas trees and decorations, was much more to my liking. I was in the office compiling lists of products, by hand, for entry into their new-fangled computer, which occupied an entire room. My first day, was Derby Day at Epsom Races, so they held a tote. The new girl won! Not a bad word was said to me but if looks could kill! They offered to keep me on, but I had previously had an interview at South Wales Blinds just down the road where they made blinds, a job had become available there, so after just a month, I began my third job.
I was there for five years, I loved it. There were four of us women in a cubby hole of an office just off the factory floor, two of us were the Dispatch clerks, the other two comprised the Returns Department. The Sales Department was situated in a Portakabin across the yard. It was great there, everyone, office or factory staff all seemed to be on level pegging, despite differences in salary, we were all one big happy family. And what characters there were, Jack one of the men in packing, was also Safety and First Aid Officer, his answer to whatever ailed you was TCP, most efficacious in every case, from cut fingers to sore throats. Then there was Colleen who had hormonal troubles, leaky boobs, though she had been sterilised. She would complain during lunch time in the canteen, that she found it embarrassing especially when her husband Ronald, reaching over in bed, touching her left breast, would murmur “Oh darling!” We all wondered what her right breast was called. I left on maternity leave, and sadly, never went back.
There was a short hiatus while Matt was a baby. When he started school at three, I took an intensive course in conversational Welsh and as a bonus I passed my first GCSE in Welsh language. I became a pre-school teacher for a few years, the children were fine, the parents a pain. I helped set up and worked as administrator in Penrhys Credit Union, the first in South Wales. I volunteered at Llanfair Uniting Church, Penrhys, from the beginning, I’m now Vice-Chair of the Sponsoring Body.
When the GP’s surgery opened in Penrhys I was one of the receptionists, yes folks, I was a dragon lady for 15 years, first at Penrhys, later at Ferndale Medical Centre, and finally at its sister surgery in Maerdy. Those fifteen years will fill a chapter of their own.
I resigned my post of receptionist, to become full time carer of Den, my partner of almost thirty years. He suffered with Frontal-Lobe Dementia. I’ll write a chapter about him too, one of these days. He died in Ty Porth Residential Home, in 2015.
In May 2019 my mother came to live with Matt and me, and spent the last year of her life there. Mam died on the last day of August 2020, she was 90 years old.
At last, I am free to do just whatever I like, whenever I want to. Thanks to Den, to my step-dad, John and my mother, I have enough money not to have to worry about paying bills, I can spend on holidays or whatever little luxuries I feel I deserve, trips to the theatre perhaps. I’m not wealthy, but I am comfortable, I am grateful that they had the forethought to pay into pensions etc. I won’t squander their hard-earned money, I want it to last the rest of my very long life.
My career? What’s a career?
A Career? What’s a Career? Part 2
When my friend Sharon asked what our theme was this week, I replied “My Career – I haven’t had a career”. “Of course you have,” she rejoined, “you were a doctor’s receptionist for… how many years?” “Fifteen.” Yes, I was a dragon lady for fifteen years, but I was a nice, friendly dragon, I wasn’t horrible to anyone, though quite a few patients were horrible to me. When you take up a job in the medical profession, no matter how menial, you are under an obligation to keep patient confidentiality. So, what can I write about those fifteen years, at Penrhys, Ferndale and Maerdy Surgeries?
Dr Choudrey was taking evening surgery in Penrhys, one Friday evening, when a rather agitated young man came in demanding to see the doctor immediately, he had a form he wanted signed. The place was packed, “I’m sorry,” I began, “that’s not possible, but if you leave the form with me, and come back later, I’ll see what I can do.” A patient came out of the doctor’s room, and the young man walked straight in. “Anne, Anne!” the doctor called. “I didn’t send him in,” I said, as I followed the bloke in.
“Look, Doc, just sign this and I’ll go.” The doctor refused, saying that there were patients waiting. A lot of shouting and swearing ensued, but the doctor was adamant and wouldn’t sign the form. I just stood there between them, sort of guarding the doctor. Eventually the man turned on his heel, stormed out of the building, shouting and swearing all the way, giving the glass door a vicious kick as he went past. Dr Choudrey and I both took a deep breath. “Send the next patient in,” he murmured. I did so. Safely back behind my counter, one of the patients came up and asked, “Is the doctor alright? That nutter had a knife in his pocket.” I assured her that the doctor was fine. I wasn’t so sure about myself. Why hadn’t she warned me about the knife before I went into the doctor’s room? The waiting room was full that night, at least ten or twelve people, not one of them had come to our aid.
I was proud and pleased when a young father returned to the surgery one day to thank me for advising him to take his son to A&E with a burn to his hand. He had been looking after the child alone, when he heard a scream, the toddler had touched the screen on the fire, the grid marks were clearly visible on his tiny hand. The rule I had learned about burns was that if the wound was bigger than a postage stamp, get it checked. This hand was so tiny I thought it should be looked at, with no doctor or nurse on site I advised the Dad to walk down the mountain to Llwynypia hospital, from there he was transferred to the burns unit in Morriston Hospital, Swansea. They told him it was a serious burn, and would have been worse if he’d left it any longer.
I think they were the most stressful fifteen years of my life. I didn’t realise quite how stressful until a few years after I’d left the job, when a member of my craft class, decided she knew better than I how to construct the project and got me so confused and wound up I couldn’t make it myself. I felt so agitated I told her jokingly, you’re not coming next week. And then I thought this is how I felt almost all the time when I was working.
It wasn’t all bad, at the beginning I was excited to be doing something different, learning new things. It was a brand new surgery with brand new staff, we were all enthusiastic and everyone a pleasure to work with. Then sadly the GP, there was just one at that time, was diagnosed with leukaemia, we had one or two locums who were also great to work for. Sadly, Dr Shaw died and a more permanent solution had to be found. The GPs at Ferndale and Maerdy Surgeries decided they would take on Penrhys Surgery as well.
That was fine at first, but gradually things changed. Staff had to work at all three surgeries on a rota basis. Some of the girls didn’t know how to handle the Penrhys patients, who could be very different to those they were used to. I found it difficult to adapt to the other surgeries. The workload was increasing, financial cuts led to redundancies, forms and procedures were frequently changed by the Health Board. If I hadn’t resigned so that I could care full-time for Den, my partner for close on thirty years, who was suffering from Frontal-Lobe Dementia, I probably would have gone on working there for many more years, but in a way, it was a relief to finish.