TYPIST-IN-CHARGE
Episode 6
Typing Room 305, Government Buildings, Wellington, NZ, 1960's
Mrs Rowley, Typist-in-Charge, sent me to the Child Welfare Division in the Dominion newspaper building to relieve there for a week or two.
"I've given instructions to the office that you are not to type abuse cases," she said.
I didn't really understand what she was talking about.
Later on, when I found out the types of terrible cases involved, I was so glad that my boss had kept me away from it all.
However, I still smile when I think of an overseas person who had written a letter to Child Welfare headed up "Dear Mr Bag-" The envelope was addressed "Mr P. Bag". Child Welfare's address was "Private Bag, Wellington".
Not only was I sent relieving around Education outer offices, but after my first year away from school, I was paid an extra 50 pounds per annum to be a dictaphone-typist. I wore head-phones on a cord connected to the dictaphone on my desk. There was a choice of a connected foot pedal to operate the dictaphone or a connected hand control which was a wide bar that sat in front of the typewriter, and I would bring my thumb down to buttons to 'stop' the machine, 'fast forward' or 'reverse' the tape. A taxi stand was in front of Government Buildings and often I would get their messages through my earphones. Knowing that one guy was going to knock off and get fish and chips for lunch was somehow exciting listening. The speaker of the very first job I typed from the dictaphone kept using the word 'period'. I typed the word 'period' all through the manuscript. It didn't seem to make any sense. Turned out the old-fashioned word meant 'full-stop', and was an instruction to me.
Dictators were supposed to preface every instruction during dictating with the word 'typist...'. For example, "Typist: I want the following set out in two columns, thank you." Otherwise a typist would be halfway through typing the instruction before she realised it was meant for her, and not to be typed. Sigh, paper to be pulled out of machine, new paper to be rolled in, job to be started again....
The secretaries to the directors were the elite of the typing force. They breezed into the typing room every now and then because their bosses had demanded they at least look busy and they should go and help out the pool (one secretary was quite vexed when told that knitting on the job was a bad image to project to the public). The secretaries rummaged through our pool's in-box and always took long drafts that were to be done in double-spacing. With a saint-like sigh they never forgot to announce, "I'll take this long job to help out." We basic grade typists sniggered because double-spaced drafts were the easiest things in the world to type. All of a director's most difficult typing jobs, like tables and columns, came to the pool.
However, there was one secretary's job I craved: secretary to the Director (Admin). For the first hour or two each morning, she would sit at her desk and read all the newspapers. If she saw any article referring to the Education Department she would clip it out, put it in a folder and give it to her boss.
Way before ex-supervising typist-in-charge Miss Hopkins, ended up in the 1960's typing pool as a retiree worker, she had been secretary to Dr C E Beeby who was Director (Admin) for a time, followed, in 1940, by Director of Education (the position was later given the title 'Director-General')
Dorothy Hopkins was on holiday when she was a young secretary. She was on the inter-island ferry going down to Christchuch. Leaning over the ship's railing and looking at the sea, she suddenly sensed a man at the other end of the railing, slowly shuffling his way closer and closer to her. She was frightened, staring straight ahead, not daring to look at the guy. He got so close to her that Miss Hopkins felt his arm against her coat sleeve.
She gave a yell, and raised her handbag to rain it down on this would-be pervert-
Dr Beeby grinned. "I'm glad to see you're a good girl, Dorothy," he said. "... prepared to defend your honour at any cost."
above: Miss Hopkins and me (Sheila's wedding, 1960's)
above: Dr C E Beeby
