Christine Vial’s interview
Christine Vial Transcript transcribed by Valerie Fisher
March 15th, 2023. Anthony Fisher interview with Christine Vial about her experience of working in industry in Enfield.
Anthony
You live in Enfield?
Christine
I live in Enfield, yes.
Anthony
I am surprised they say to ask this question but what is your date of birth?
Christine
29th July, 1949.
Anthony
I know you have a sister.
Christine
I have a sister and a brother and my sister will come up in the interview as she was also working at Reeves. There’s me, then my brother and then my sister. My brother lives at Whitstable on the Kent coast.
Anthony
But you were actually born in East London – is that right?
Christine
Yes, I am actually from the East End. Where I spent most of my growing up was in Bethnal Green, which is absolutely the East End; although technically before that we lived in Finsbury Park when I was very little – Keats is supposed to have been born in Finsbury Park – and then we moved to Bethnal Green – sound of Bow Bells etc. – so a proper cockney. And then we moved to Edmonton in 1966, we were living in an over-crowded council flat in Bethnal Green and in order to get a bigger place we moved out to Edmonton where they had built new council accommodation, so that’s how I moved to Edmonton.
Anthony
Can you tell me about your education.
Christine
I went to Virginia Road primary school which was in Bethnal Green and then I passed my 11+ and I went to Skinners’ Company School for Girls which is at Stamford Hill.
Anthony
Was that a trade union guild?
Christine
Yes, the Skinners’ Company. They used to come to the school; we had Founder’s Day once a year and all the nobility so to speak of the Skinners’ Company would turn up in their robes which were all lined with ermine, because they were skinners, and their mascot was the silver lynx and they would come into the hall where we had an organ – it was quite a posh school as you may gather. I passed my 11+ and would have gone to one of the local grammar schools and one of the teachers at the school who kind of thought I had some kind of extra potential or something arranged I went to Skinners’ which was the posher grammar school.
Anthony
And was there a strong Hasidic Jewish population there then?
Christine
Yes, in Stamford Hill very much so at Skinners’ we had Jewish assemblies, there were Rabbis walking around, there was a Jewish society, they used to have days off for the Jewish festivals but, of course, I was from the East End and the East End was very Jewish then so there was nothing particularly unusual about that. I moved to Edmonton before I finished at Skinners’ so my last year I was living in Edmonton.
Anthony
Did you go on to further education?
Christine
No, I hated school, I did very badly and although I stayed on to the 6th form, and I left and did all kinds of different jobs, two of which I will be speaking about today and I went and did my degree as a mature student. I went to Middlesex University about ten years after I left school, went and did my degree, got a First Class Honours, did an M.A., did my teacher training and went to teach in Further Education. A favourite story of that is where a school friend of mine met at that point our old headmistress and she was talking about who she was still in touch with and said she was still in touch with me and I had just finished my M.A. and as my old headmistress said, “I would never have thought that Christine was the kind of girl to get an M.A.” I said no, you didn’t, did you, because you thought I was far too rebellious and anti-school and the only thing I was ever good at was being in school plays and writing for the school magazine.
Anthony
What sort of jobs did you do after leaving school?
Christine
I had lot and lots of different jobs because it was a time when there was plenty of work. I did all sorts of things: Library, Stay Flex, then I worked in the Civil Service for a few years, then after the Civil Service I tried a couple where I went in for a day and didn’t like it and walked out – you could do that sort of thing then. Then Reeves, then library again and then I went to University and then went into teaching in Further Education and Adult Education.
Anthony
So your teaching career was in Adult Education?
Christine
Yes, never liked school; would never teach in a school.
Anthony
I believe you also worked as a social worker, is that right?
Christine
I also did training as a counsellor, that was part of when I was teaching and I have always been interested – I did lots of voluntary work, I was a Samaritan, I was involved in voluntary advice giving and support and so on and later I trained as a counsellor so I have also worked as a counsellor and have also taught counselling skills. I think perhaps actually, backtracking, I think one of the things that was a backdrop to the period I’ll be talking about which is when I had all these different jobs including Stay Flex and Reeves is that actually the thing that was most important to me was the other things I was doing because I was involved in Andromeda Commune in Edmonton and we ran a hippie shop and we were protesting about climate change and we were running gigs and we had a magazine so really all those sorts of things.
Neal and I didn’t meet until after I finished my degree which was in 1980. I was going out with various people but was kind of fancy free.
Anthony
The first job I would like to talk about is Stay Flex.
Christine
It was my first job after I left school, as I was saying I didn’t like school, I didn’t do terribly well, I left and the first job I had was actually working in a local library which is not at all surprising because I have always been a passionate reader and writer and I worked there for about, maybe, a year or so and then the librarian, who was very nice, left and was replaced by a librarian who wasn’t very nice so I decided to leave so it was an era when there were a lot of jobs. I always needed to work, there wasn’t money in our family, it wasn’t like you could be sitting around not working, but there was always work. So I decided I wasn’t going to put up with this very strange woman who had become the librarian and so I thought I’m going to move on and this is when I came to work at Stay Flex. Now, Stay Flex which manufactured iron-on interlinings that’s the fabric you use in collars and cuffs and lapels and so on to stiffen them. They had a factory in the Clavering Estate, industrial estate. Now the reason I went to work there was very simple, it was really near my house. We were living in the council estate at the bottom of Bounces Road and you could walk to this place in about fifteen minutes or something and I just wanted a job and it was near. I was also very busy, I did a lot of youth theatre, I was in the Enfield Youth Theatre at this time, I just wanted a job to earn some money. I have to say it was a job I was most unsuited for because it was working in the laboratory where the R&D laboratory and it was as a tester for the new products and my capacity to do anything involving equipment or science is actually in minus figures. But just literally – needed a job, there was a vacancy, it was really near my house, they wanted someone who could start. I do remember they asked, you had to have O level Maths and English and a Science and I had Human Biology and I said does that count as a science and went “Yes” and I was in. That I can remember. So I remember a very big building, there was a factory and where we were was on the top of the building were there were offices and then there was a big open space with big sort of like benches down the middle of it and there were four of us who worked there as the testers and in the offices there were admin staff and also the scientists/technicians whoever were working new improved ways of adhering this fabric and our job, for the four of us, was to test the products and write a report on each one and they’d bring out the materials and we’d do things like cutting them up and putting them in the machines to see if they stayed and they had a big, big room next door with industrial washing machines and ironing boards and commercial pressers and so on and we had to test them in that. And then you’d write you know, “It fell off” or “It bubbled” or “It did xyz” and you’d give the reports in. The factory was underneath and we didn’t usually have anything to do with that but occasionally you’d get sent down. I can remember a few times you’d be sent down with some report or something to give to somebody down there.
Anthony
What year was this?
Christine
Probably about 68; it’s 68/69. I can’t remember exactly but I left school in summer 67, I worked in the library for, probably, about a year so that brings us to 68. It was when I was 19/20.
Anthony
And how long were you there?
Christine
A few months, just a few months. It was a miracle I was there a few months to be honest because I was really not very good at doing it. It was as boring as Hell and I was rubbish at doing it because I couldn’t work any of the machines and I was always getting things wrong but was nice though was the other women who worked there were brilliant, really really brilliant and it was just such a great atmosphere and I can remember them all very vividly. There was Rose who was older woman and she was a real local Edmontonian, she was a grandmother, I know she had grandchildren and she lived just round the corner so a bit like me she was there because it was near and then there was Dorothy who was an older woman who’d taken early retirement and this was like a job to top up her pension and then there was Una who was Dutch and she had married an English guy, Peter, who she called Pater and she was younger, I think she had young children. We were very disparate, as I say I was probably 19 because I was 20 when I went to the Civil Service, all very different, all got on really well, huge laugh, lots of fun, lots of socialising, kept in touch afterwards but I was unspeakably awful at this; the worst thing I did was when I did something wrong with one of the industrial washing machines and flooded the place and everybody must have known it was me because I was the only one who was that stupid but everybody kept shtum and didn’t land me in it and just went, “We don’t know what happened, what could have happened? We don’t know, We say nothing, we saw nothing.” Then came the Time and Motion men, I don’t think you get time and motion men any more, but there they were with their clipboards and their stop watches, literally, and it’s not a surprise that after they had a look at us they decided that we don’t need four people to do this job, three people will be sufficient and fortunately for everybody because I was the last one in it was very easy to get rid of me, clearly I should have gone because I was useless but that’s what happened. So very sadly they said you’re going to have to go and I never planned to stay there long anyway and if it hadn’t been that they were such lovely people that I was working with I would have probably wouldn’t have stayed even as long as I did but it was a great laugh except when I flooded the place, that wasn’t a great laugh. And so we parted ways quite amicably, they were glad to get rid of me, I was glad to go but I was sorry to leave the people that I worked with.
Anthony
Were your work colleagues scientists?
Christine
The women, we were all just untrained. There was a scientist who worked in there who was obviously developing different adhesives and materials but we were all – and I’m just trying to remember – I think in a sense that everybody like me – although they were very different from me – were looking for a job that was local, that was straightforward, that had sensible hours, that you could do and go home whether it was to your kids or your other activities or whatever. I know that when I went they asked for English, Maths and a Science but I would be – the two older women had been there for a while, I doubt that they would have had those qualifications because I would have thought that going back – I don’t remember exactly how old they were but – Rose was probably in her 50s and Dorothy perhaps in her 60s – so I think that was probably a recent thing. Una may have had some kind of something but I think that for her I’m pretty sure she had young children.
Anthony
And those days there was a differentiation like a barrier between the office and the shop floor, I experienced it and I have never understood why so where did you fit in, do you think, in a laboratory?
Christine
It was definitely quite a separate environment because although the factory were below we never had anything particularly much to do with that except that I can remember being sent down occasionally with some piece of paper to give to somebody, but that was really quite rare, so we were at the top, we had a nice environment, I mean I can see it now, it was very nice, it was all glass, lots of windows and we were in the middle with the benches and then there were some offices at the front. There were lots of windows, it was very light and airy and I do not think it was like that down in the factory, which I imagine was not. It was quite a divide. I don’t know whether the scientists and technicians went down to the factory but we certainly – there was a sense of it being our own kind of world.
Anthony
Yes, there was always a sort of emotional divide as well as the physical one, the office looked down on the factory and then factory workers thought the office were snobs and not doing very much; a bit useless. There was this strange butting against each other. I just wondered if you felt that there.
Christine
No, I think the divide was between the factory and then our department which was Research and Development and I think although what we did certainly wasn’t more complicated than what they did, whatever they did, but there was definitely a sense – I mean we didn’t have a sense of superiority because to be honest, I mean, the four of us working there were not that sort people. We came from different backgrounds, Rose was very much working class from Edmonton, I came from the working class and was living in a council estate so we didn’t have that but I think in terms of the company as a whole, I think it was seen as more the elite department because this was about research and it was about leading the way and so on. We obviously were the lowest of the low in that department because we were just the technicians but it was a nice atmosphere. Not just the four of us but the other people who worked in the office and so on but it definitely had a sense of being its own world and the factory was there and you knew it was there and we personally didn’t have any problems with it but there wasn’t an interchange and there wasn’t any – I have no recollection of their being anything like a staff canteen or anything like that. It’s interesting because it’s such a long time ago I’d even forgotten that I’d even worked there; it’s such a long time ago and I’ve done so many things and I was thinking about that and I was thinking I really, really don’t remember there being a canteen and yet I vaguely think there must have been.
Anthony
Was it a big company? Do you know how many people worked there?
Christine
No, no I don’t but it was large and that’s why I am thinking in retrospect that there must have been some kind of canteen.
Anthony
Was there any socialising, were you encouraged to go down into the factory?
Christine
No, no, I was trying to remember what we did for lunch and I have a feeling that we may have either brought lunch in or because we all lived very near by we may even home for lunch because we could have done that but I’m really sure I never went into a works canteen.
Anthony
Was there any training offered to you at all?
Christine
No, I think it was little bit like a day, you do this and then the other girls – they would have been called “girls” of course then, “the girls on the bench” and I think there was a very quick like “Here’s where everything is and the girls will show you what to do.”
Anthony
And the product – it was adhesive wasn’t it, ironed on. I think I went into the factory once because I have a recollection of it being very messy with the emulsion, which was the medium, everywhere. It may be a false memory but I think I have been in there. All my life I’ve made cleaning chemicals.
Christine
Yes, you might well have done.
Anthony
Did the owners, the directors, come and see you at all?
Christine
No, I don’t remember that.
Anthony
And you wouldn’t have known who the owners were, I suppose.
Christine
No, I don’t think there was anything like that.
Anthony
Because they were innovators; in those days the concept of interlining was new, wasn’t it?
Christine
Yes, it was, and I can see that where we worked was very open plan, with windows and whatever so that must have been quite recently built because it clearly wasn’t the “dark Satanic mills” it was quite light and airy and pleasant. So, yes, I think they were definitely seen as a bit cutting edge and that was part of this emphasis on the research and development.
Anthony
So you knew where the product was used because sometimes people make things and don’t actually know where they are going.
Christine
When I think about it, it is part of a wider context, the development of clothes and the diversification of clothes. In the 60s when people had more money, you’ve got youth culture, you’ve got all sorts of things happening where there’s more, more time and money going into things like that and so they would have been part of that expansion of clothing.
Anthony
They had a very good fashion design place, didn’t they. Did you ever see the university people or polytechnic people?.
Christine
Not at the time, no. I ended up going to Middlesex, that’s where I did my first degree but no, my memory of it is of quite a little bubble almost, that there we were in this thing and everybody was nice and it was a nice environment and the only problem was I couldn’t do the job, I was just so terrible! It has that feel in my memory of just there was this bubble and we were all getting on and actually what we were doing – it was like a lot of jobs that people do, particularly if people are working class, people are women looking to fit in with child care – all those sorts of things, an incredibly boring job but was a job which was accessible, it’s not surprising we were all women, let’s put it that way. I’m sure the policy wasn’t just to have women but I can see why it would be women and there wasn’t a sense that you could develop into something more.
Anthony
So it was full time?
Christine
It was full time. I don’t remember but I imagine it was 9-5, it was straight forward hours and I often used to be late as well even though I lived just round the corner but I’ve never been great at getting up in the morning.
Anthony
Was there overtime?
Christine
I don’t remember anybody doing overtime although there may have been and thinking back to that particular batch of us I just have that feeling that, despite our diversity, what we all shared was this that it was a job that was simple, that it was local, that was easy to do and fitted in with whatever our other commitments were. So that although our commitments were different, Rose was doing a lot with her grandchildren for example, I was busy putting on plays and so on.
Anthony
It obviously suited the Company as well.
Christine
Yes, so it was mutual and I don’t remember there ever being anything about “you can be trained, you can do something more interesting” or whatever, I think it was this is a rather dull job that potentially might suit some people, probably women to do and that did suit us at that time and it did suit them. People were nice, I remember the other people there, the scientists and the office all being – a nice atmosphere. There were jobs I went in this period where I left after a day because I felt “I’m not doing this,” and useless at it or don’t like it or don’t like the people and I stayed because it was a nice atmosphere and we all had a good time.
Anthony
Where did you go when you left there?
Christine
I think that’s when I went and worked in the Civil Service in London. That was because a friend of mine was working there and told me they were recruiting and I thought I’d have a go. That was how it was, I didn’t have any career plan, my real focus was doing things like social activism to be honest and that sort of thing. So I then worked at the Ministry of Agriculture, I got accepted there; I was in London and I worked there for about three years. Very good time, liked it there; I think the people you work with makes a lot of difference, lots of nice people. I was very involved in the trade unions; I was a shop steward on the first ever trade union strike for the Civil Service. I walked down Whitehall with my shop steward armband on and I can remember somebody in a bowler hat with an umbrella hitting me with his umbrella; that’s how hostile some of the feelings were that the Civil Service should go on strike.
Anthony
What did you do in the civil service?
Christine
I was – what did they call me? – I was working in the department – and I have to say they always love this in my family – it was a department to do with potatoes and given that my mum is Irish, so I’m half Irish, everybody thought “You couldn’t have found somewhere better.” And it was to do with the supply of potatoes and it was working with the Potato Marketing Board and potatoes going into storage and it was a very big thing particularly because back then potatoes were such a staple and making sure there were enough potatoes was actually really important. And we had several major things go on: one was about spina bifida and people with green potatoes.
Anthony
That’s why it is prevalent in Ireland.
Christine
Yes, very big thing, I mean questions in the House of Parliament and I drafted the answer to the questions. It was actually quite an interesting job. I used to take minutes at meetings and I used to do these wonderful graphs about the supply of different sorts of potatoes that were in storage or weren’t or were running low. I can see on the board – all by hand because obviously this was back in the year when you weren’t doing things with computers and I had my coloured pencils and I did these wonderful graphs about the supply of potatoes.
Anthony
Did you do shorthand for the minutes?
Christine
No, no. I never ever went anywhere near being a secretary since a) I didn’t want to be and b) I would have been useless partly because c) I’m dyslexic which nobody knew then – which I know now – but I think the fact I couldn’t spell anything ever meant that nobody ever thought I could go down that route.
Anthony
I know that green potatoes caused a high incidence of spina bifida in Ireland, was it the same case in England?
Christine
There was a whole investigation into if it was and putting out warnings against people eating green potatoes, I mean they wouldn’t be totally green but if they had green on them and so on. So yes, it was one of the big things I remember in my time there that there were questions asked in the House and I was very pleased that I was drafting the answer to give to the Minister.
Anthony
Yes, that was a very serious responsibility.
Christine
So there was that. That’s one of the things, the other one would be very active in the trade union; it was the time of the miners’ strike, I mean a lot of political hot beds which has always been my thing. I’ve always been quite radical and political, leading the strike and – one thing I do remember which I often tell people about how times have changed – one of the things we did in the union was campaign for women to be able to wear trousers to work because when I started working there you weren’t allowed to wear trousers. Having lived quite a long time you look back and think, “Wow!” This is not in the Victorian age, this is 1970 and we campaigned to say, “Smart wear, of course,” and that was changed.
Anthony
Well done. And was there more interaction between people, more than in Stay Flex?
Christine
Oh yes, very lively with the union obviously and I first worked at the department’s offices in Horseferry Road which were just opposite the Civil Service Club so we would be over there every lunchtime getting a cheap lunch and drinking and playing the juke box, it was very lively, really good. Then I loved to the offices in Pall Mall, one of the other things of that was it was the time of the I.R.A. bombings in London and a bomb went off outside the building that I worked in and it smashed all the glass in, including the room where I worked, all the window came in and great shards of glass. I had a day off that day, so the story was always that being half Irish someone had been on the ‘phone to me to say, “Have a day off tomorrow,” which, of course, they hadn’t ,it just so happened that I had had a day off.
Anthony
Where you questioned about that?
Christine
No, no, but you think they might have, because it is actually true because when I came back to work the next day – Thank God there was a warning and nobody got killed or anything – but when I came back to work, I mean, all the windows had blown in in our office and there were big shards of glass all over the place. If you had been there you would probably have been killed.
Anthony
They were fearful times.
Christine
Yes.
Anthony
So how long were you there?
Christine
I was in the Civil Service for at least about three years and then they moved me to another bit and I didn’t like it there. It was still in the same department but in another office in another location and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the people there, I didn’t like what I was doing, I was very happy where I was, the Civil Service had a policy that you had to be moved every so often and I’d managed to stay where I was for longer than you were supposed to anyway and I just didn’t like the new bit, I didn’t like where it was, I didn’t like the people, wasn’t lively, wasn’t interesting and I thought, “I’ve had enough now.” It used to be great, I used to go to the National Gallery in the lunch hour and I just thought, “No.” I did say to them that I didn’t like it here, can you move me somewhere else and they said, “Yes,” and then they didn’t so I thought it was the time to move on. Which I did.
Anthony
To where?
Christine
To Reeves in Lincoln Road. World famous makers of artist’s paints. And, like Stay Flex, it was just looking for something to tide me over while I worked out what I might do. And I went to Reeves because my sister was working there and my sister, she’s seven years younger than me so she’d not long left school and she was working in the post room at Reeves and she must have known they had a vacancy in the sales department and said, “Do you want that?” so once again it was something that was local, straight forward, get a job and earn some money while I do whatever else I’m doing. At Reeves I was working in a section of the sales department and what we were doing was is we were putting orders on to punch cards for the main frame computer. I think at times what I’ve lived through in history. Yes, the giant main frame computer that was in it’s giant huge separate room that had to be kept chilled because otherwise it didn’t work and men in white coats would be in and out of this room doing who-knows-what because we weren’t allowed anywhere near it. What we did was when the orders came in, mostly on forms, I have a feeling that also people ordered by ‘phone as well, and we would write that down, I think it was both but specifically we had to translate the order on to the punch card so that they could then be inputted into the giant main frame computer that we knew of but weren’t allowed to have anything to do with.
Anthony
That was a keyboard activity was it?
Christine
Do you know I don’t remember that – I can see the cards and I’m trying to think how did we do the cards and I’m honestly not sure. I’m not sure whether we did it by hand or we wrote on them or whatever. It’s amazing what you can or can’t remember. I can see the cards and I know we’d be there and we’d get this order form for 4 thingies of Azure and you’d have to look up what the code was and then the code had to go on the card and I’m not quite sure how we did it. I tend to think we were doing something by hand but my memory is slightly blurry. That’s what I think, I could be wrong.
Anthony
Was the card pre-printed then?
Christine
We had the cards and we did something to the cards. My memory of the actual logistics of how we did it was a bit vague. I can just remember we would have the pile of order forms that came in either by post or being taken over the ‘phone, we’d have the catalogue with the numbers and sometimes it was complicated because you had to get back to people because they wouldn’t explain properly what they wanted. You’d be thinking, “What is this”, or they’d be several similar things and they hadn’t said each it was and somehow then it went on to the cards. There were the cards, I can see the cards, and you’d do a load of cards and then somebody would come and take a bundle of cards from you and then it would disappear into the magic room but literally how we did the cards – I don’t actually remember a keyboard but I have to say I am not sure how it was done. And there were four of us again, strangely enough; four women again and we were in this corner of the bigger salesroom where there were other people doing other things to do with sales, which I’m not quite sure what it was and then there was the factory. It was much more integrated than Stay Flex, there was much more people going in and out of different parts and I, perhaps, particularly did because my sister was working in the post room so she would go round the whole thing and sometimes if I could skive off I would go and walk round with her for a bit of a break and I remember the lovely Renee, a lovely, lovely lady who ran the post room and was really terrific. The women I worked with in my bit unlike Stay Flex they were very dull, they only used to talk about doing house work so I didn’t really last at Reeves very long because, unlike Stay Flex where everybody was interesting to make up for the dull job, this was a dull job and they were dull people.
Anthony
What ethnic groups were they?
Christine
They were all white British.
Anthony
Was that the same at Stay Flex?
Christine
I can’t tell you at Stay Flex. There may have been other nationalities, or ethnic origins, in the offices and so on because I can’t remember those people in the same degree but the four of us there were definitely four white women and so it was at Reeves. Reeves would be – I worked out – I think Reeves – this was about 1973 I was at Reeves – and I think my sense of the office was it was white people. I can’t guarantee every single person but certainly the four of us were in the coding bit and I certainly have a feeling – whereas when you were going round then you found more ethnic diversity.
Anthony
So the factory could have been more mixed?
Christine
Yes, my sense is that the factory was more mixed.
Anthony
I imagine it as having a glorious smell because I love the smell of oil paint.
Christine
Yes, and I know one of the things they did, you used to able to buy, very cheap, sets that were not quite right for sale, I remember that and I remember buying stuff because I quite like art and there was much more coming and going between the different places. That’s more my sense whereas Stay Flex was – there was the factory and we were literally on top.
Anthony
I used to drive past Reeves factory on the way home and I remember it being all on one level.
So there might not have been too much division between the factory and the office?
Christine
It was all on one level so if you like the architecture or the geography is kind of the ambience, isn’t it, so there is much more in my memory a sense of coming and going, different people from different bits. I think it was the computer people who were in their room or perhaps rooms with the main frame. It was one of those things, isn’t it, you had giant rooms for computers, it’s like the difference; now you have the ‘phone in your hand and it can do far more than that giant room could do. But that was the special bit, the people who could do things with the main frame computer. In terms of hierarchy, I have a sense of them being the ones who were a bit special.
Anthony
They must have been because in those days computers were – people didn’t understand them so the people who did must have quite separated. Did you talk to the computer people at all?
Christine
Well, I don’t remember there being a lot of chatting. All I can remember was when we had done the cards and then we batched them up, obviously you had to get through so many, we weren’t quite on piece work it wasn’t quite like that, but obviously if I’d spent too long skiving off going round whatever then obviously your bath of cards wouldn’t be as thick as it should be and then somebody would come and pick them up. I don’t know if the person who picked them up was one of the geniuses in the white coat or whether some underling used to come and pick them up. I honestly don’t remember that bit. I just can remember you had your desk and there would be your Out tray that you’d put your batch of cards that you’d coded that were ready to go into the computer room and somebody would come and take them.
Anthony
Reeves made pencils as well, didn’t they?
Christine
They did, it’s funny you should say that, I nearly at one point did work in a pencil factory.
Anthony
In Tottenham? Venus? Off Brettenham Road.
Christine
Thank you, just as you said “pencils” I just remembered. I think it was after Stay Flex. I just had a flash of going for an interview at a pencil factory, I can’t even remember what I was going to do and me thinking, “Oh, my goodness, I don’t like this. I’m definitely not going to work here.” I don’t even know what I was going to do, I just remember going and walking through the pencil factory bit to the offices. I didn’t like it.
Anthony
The journey is very oppressive. One of our customers is there on the old estate and I don’t like going there.
Christine
Reeves made lots of things, lots of different arts supplies, not just the paints.
Anthony
Did you have a sense of the colour and the smell?
Christine
Yes, yes, and I think everybody was very proud of Reeves, that would be one of the things I would say. Reeves and Windsor & Newton were the two big artists’ paints people and when you think Neal, my husband who is a artist, who was in America, knew about Reeves and Windsor & Newton and they had their paints; so there was a sense of being quite proud of producing something that was world renowned and having a reputation and having a history.
Anthony
The pigments, if they were ground there, have to be ground on triple roll mills and things which are quite noisy. Was there a lot of noise?
Christine
No, I think that bit must have been not too near the office because I think I would have remembered if there was a lot of noise because I am quite sensitive to noise. So possibly it was structured so that the noisy bits weren’t near where the offices were. No, I don’t remember hearing a lot of noise from the factory part although I can see grinding of pigments would be.
Anthony
Knocking-off time – did everyone go home on bikes because it was quite central there, wasn’t it.
Christine
Yes, I’m quite trying to remember. I don’t have any memory of bikes. I do remember we used to go to the pub, there was a pub that was almost over the road, quite near where I live now, so I remember a lot of people going to the pub sometimes at lunchtime. I don’t remember bikes.
Anthony
So how long were you there?
Christine
I was only there quite a short while, that was only a few months because, oh dear, they were dull the women I worked with; although it was quite a nice place to work it was only intended to be something temporary anyway and they were very dull. They would be talking about the weekend coming up and what kind of cleaning they would be doing. It was alright when I could escape to the post room but I just moved on and, in fact, then I went and worked in another library in Wood Green, which was lovely – one of the nicest jobs I’ve ever had and I was there for about three years and then I went to do my degree as a mature student.
Anthony
Whereabouts in Wood Green was the library? I am trying to place it.
Christine
It used to be – if you think where the tube station is – there was a very large old building opposite that was the library. That had just been closed down and the library was in a temporary building just up the main road that would go down to Tottenham. It was an old warehouse or something and the library was in there on a temporary basis while they were building a new library as part of the new shopping centre on Wood Green High Street.
Anthony
How long were you there?
Christine
I was there probably for about three years. It as a lovely job, one of the nicest I have ever had.
Great. Books. Lovely people, useful, libraries are social centres for so many people. They would come in and ask for help with all kinds of things, not necessarily anything to do with books.
Anthony
So you left for university?
Christine
I had been thinking for some time that I would go and do a degree, I’d been doing some qualifications in evening classes and, although I was sorry to leave Wood Green, the push was that the new library was going to be opened and that was like o.k. there’s going to be a big change, we’re all going into the new library, some of the staff are going elsewhere, there’s going to be different staff, this is the moment to go and do your degree. I’d got the qualifications, I’d got my place and I went.
Anthony
The evening classes you did; what were they for?
Christine
I did an O level and an A level in Sociology I think I said earlier, I didn’t do terribly well at school, didn’t like it. Also of course, when I was doing my A levels I broke my ankle and was in hospital for a long time, I forgot that. That didn’t help. So I came out with an A level in Literature from school and a few O levels but not anything very impressive and I didn’t even want to go and study then anyway. So I did an A level in Sociology and an O level in Human Rights or Politics or something so I had enough to apply for a place at Middlesex.
Anthony
Which campus was it?
Christine
The first one I went to Ponders End and then in the final year I was at Tottenham, a campus in White Hart Lane. Trent Park then was basically teacher training.
Anthony
What subject were you studying at university?
Christine
I did Humanities majoring in Literature and Philosophy with Women’s Studies as a minor subject. I got a First.
Anthony
Well done!
Christine
I am very proud of that, I have to say.
Anthony
And you went into teaching in higher education after that?
Christine
Yes and then I did an M.A. I did my M.A. in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia where I studied with Malcolm Bradbury at the time when he was really, really famous because The History Man adaptation of his novel was on the B.B.C. so he was famous as having established the Creative Writing M.A. anyway and then there was all this stuff about his B.B.C. adaptation and he was being interviewed for things and so on. So University of East Anglia was very much in the news. It was fantastic.
Anthony
Where did you live?
Christine
I lived in a bed-sit, I didn’t live on campus, I lived in a student house in Norwich and it was quite an experience. Malcolm Bradbury was a lovely, lovely man who had no issues with being famous or anything but who was the typical absent minded professor. He used to get on a bus and not know where he was going, I mean this is absolutely true. He was teaching one of the modules and nothing was on the board about when or where or what so I went and found the secretary to say what and she said, “We don’t know because he is so disorganized.” So I went and found Malcolm and got it sorted out and it was on the board and everybody went, “Oh God, that’s amazing because normally it never happens because he never gets it together,” and you think, “Really?” That’s absolutely true. Lovely man, just completely in a world of his own. It was just so funny. And he was great, it was quite an experience being there, it was a very famous place particularly at the time.
Anthony
It was a year there, was it?
Christine
Yes, I did my M.A. there for a year. And then I did teacher training for Further Education for a year in a college called Garnet which is in South London. Not many places do teacher training for Further Education.
Anthony
Where did you teach?
Christine
Well first I was in Kent, I taught at the College in Dartford and I was there for five years and then came back here and I was teaching at Hertford Regional College in the late 80s and that’s where I taught for a number of years.
Anthony
So you retired from there?
Christine
Yes, I had to take ill health retirement and so I then taught there part time after that for quite a long time as well, I was running the Access to Higher Education programme that was quite a good thing there and Counselling Skills and so on.
Anthony
Where were you living?
Christine
We were living in Bush Hill Park and I used to get the bus, sometimes Neal would take me or pick me up, particularly if I was teaching an evening class. It wasn’t the most convenient but it was o.k. I was there far longer than anywhere else.
Anthony
Well thank you, that was interesting.
1 hour 9 minutes