above: August 1969. Me, with Mr Phillips, Director Science, CDU. My first day at my new job. Move-in day for everybody.
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Hi there
I'd run around like a demented bunny when I was preparing for my first day at my new job as Senior Typist (Display), Curriculum Development Unit, Education Department, Wellington. My main problem was "What to wear????" I had to look responsible and adult. I was 25 years old but in my mind I still felt a fake grown-up.
My mother had suggested I wear a trouser suit. Trouser suits were a new thing. At this time, there was a work rule about trouser suits. The top and the bottom had to match. After a time, this rule was interpreted very loosely. The mistake was made over the word 'match'. It was meant to mean that the same material should be used for both parts of the trouser suit, but over time and the next few years, 'to match' became interpreted as 'roughly the same colour'. Heavy sweaters, summer cardys, floral tops, all worn with trousers. As long as a rose pattern on a blouse had a green leaf to it, then that top was ok to wear with green pants. A few years' later, jeans crept in, and - hurrah - who cared any longer about matching material or colours? Whoopee, for individuality. (While I was still at the CDU, hotpants came in. I wore a lovely little purple jacket with matching hotpants!)
Anyway ... when I rolled up at 32 Hobson Street in the suburb of Thorndon - my first day on the job at the Curriculum Development Unit - there was a hive of activity. Perhaps there were twenty or so of us, and me the lowest on the totem pole. Oh, wait, no- there was a much older woman who had been the sole typist in previous premises. The CDU also had a new office assistant.
I set up my electric typewriter, opened up reams of different texture and sizes of typing paper and shuffled them into trays each side of my desk's leg-well. I checked the desk-front - yes, there was a modesty panel. There had been quite a kerfuffle when a typist had rolled up to relieve at our Accounts Division down Courtenay Place to find that the front panel of her desk had been knocked out. She was in an extremely tight mini skirt and as she later told us, rather indignantly, "There are lots of young men in Accounts..."
I brought out my star-shaped typewriter rubber, my green stencil fluid (it used to be red), and tucked my lunch away in a bottom drawer. Plomping down on the cushion that I'd stolen from Government Buildings, the one that was so comfortable I refused to go anywhere without it, I dramatically set my fingers out on the guide keys (asdf and jkl;). I was ready -
"Let me show you the kitchen," said Mrs Fraser, the basic grade typist (yah, I was the S E N I O R Typist). She led me into the next room. An old kitchen for an old house. Old oven, old ZIP water heater. cracked lino, chipped wooden cupboards and drawers..
"I bake scones at about nine o'clock," she said. "Then after lunch, at around two, I'll make - from scratch - some bacon and egg savouries for afternoon tea."
Huh? "Scon- ? Savouries? Wha-?"
Mrs Fraser told me that we would take turns to make the teas, week and week about. She would be baking and grilling and roasting ... things. And with nothing made up in advance. In the cupboards, I spotted mixing bowls, a beater, flour, sugar, spices, and so much more.
I stuttered, "um, I can ... when it's my turn, I can buy biscuits, right? And... and maybe current bread that I'll ... butter?"
Mrs Fraser shrugged. I guess she knew I would be no rival to her skills.
Over the two years I was at the CDU in Hobson Street, Mrs Fraser would spend longer time in the kitchen than she ever did at her typewriter ...
above: 32 Hobson Street (again). Side view, taken from Hobson Crescent. Kitchen on far right, back door leading into it. The typing/reception in middle, going toward front.
