Summer Times is the Journal of the Old Scarborians Association

had tried to persuade me, as he had many
others, to go into teaching. At the time I
couldn’t think of anything less attractive,
possibly remembering how we had all played
up some of our masters. Prior to joining the
bank I had applied for, and been offered a
junior position at the “Evening News”. I sus‐
pect the excitement generated in 3L when we
put together a form magazine with the en‐
couragement of Gerald Hinchliffe, had proba‐
bly got into my blood and there mixed with
what was there already; my grandfather had
been an author. However, I turned down the
offer, feeling rather dejected that, at my inter‐
view I was only asked one question before
being offered the job—“How do you spell
“Rhubarb?”
I started work in the Bank in the days when
ball point pens were not permitted, and ink
had to be mixed from a special ‘light‐fast’
powder; and blotting paper, pen nibs and ink
had to be changed every Monday morning. I
well remember the then Manager, who lived
above the branch, panicking when he was
told the first girl ever to join our office would
be arriving in a week. “What shall we do
about toilets when Miss Scott arrives? We
only have one, and that one has glass in the
door panels.” The problem was solved by
sticking brown paper over the already frosted,
glazed door panels (possibly to stop Miss
Scott seeing in!), and allowing her to use the
Manager’s facilities in his flat.
In those days there were no Security vans
trundling round delivering and collecting
cash. If we had a surplus, as we usually did,
we did “swops” with other banks if it was
coin, or mailed it to the Bank of England if it
was paper. Dad’s Army really springs to
mind. We had to parcel up the notes, to a
maximum of £5,000, which was considerable
in the 1950’s, tie the parcel with string, add
sealing wax over the knots, address the parcel
to The Bank of England, then stick bright red
and white “HVP” labels all over the parcel. It
11
didn’t take O levels or even the 11 plus to
work out that this stood for “High Value
Packet”. Then, a taxi or sometimes the Man‐
ager’s decrepit car, took us to the Aberdeen
Walk Post Office where we queued to get a
receipt for our parcels of money.
In 1957 I was called up for 2 years National
Service. I had opted for the RAF, in which my
father had served during the war, but they
were only taking people who would sign up
for 3 years, and that would have meant losing
the guarantee from the bank of keeping a job
open for me. So the Army it was. I started
training as a Technical Assistant at Park Hall
Camp in Oswestry – there was no choice of
trade and we were all told what our training
would be, possibly from aptitude tests we
took. After 6 weeks of learning how to work
out the necessary angles and settings for the
distance and thus height that the guns needed
to fire (Norman Stoddard would have been
proud of me), together with square bashing,
bull, painting black lines round the edges of
the billet room floor, and, on one occasion,
painting piles of coal white for a Brigadier’s
inspection; then training with 25 pounder
guns but not being allowed to fire them as it
was the lambing season (we had to shout
“Bang, got you!” down a field telephone), and
receiving and answering many letters from
the delightful Miss Scott whom I had found
the courage to ask out whilst still in Scarbor‐
ough, we were told all our postings would be
on the Regimental Board the next morning.
When I got to the Board and pushed through
the crush, I read, “Fowler DG, Gunner, To 1st
Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery, Munster,
Germany”. Fear gripped me. I’d hardly ever
seen a horse, let alone ridden one! However,
when I arrived at the Regiment I realised that
the guns in those days were sophisticated
motorised American M44’s which were not
pulled by horses. In fact the only horse I ever
saw in all my time with the Regiment was the
Commanding Officer’s polo pony.