I was delighted when I finally left school at the end of October 1927. Now, at last, I felt I was a man. I was sure I would soon find myself a job and have money to spend. Every day there were long queues at the Labour Exchange of people looking for work. Those of us who had just left school had to go to the Labour Exchange for an interview with a group of officials, employers and teachers. There we were asked questions about our ambitions, how suitable we were for certain types of work and how well we had done at school.
After this, we were required to attend the Youth Employment Department every day to see if any suitable jobs had been found. If it happened that a firm was in need of a youth, then a number of us would be given a green card which we were to take to the interview.
I lost count of how many of these cards I received without finding a job.
Twelve months passed and I still had found nothing. On one occasion, my search had the surprising result of providing a very good job for one of my uncles. This uncle, who had been out of work for almost a year, was in his early thirties.
My uncle kindly offered to take me to the firm as I did not know where it was. When we arrived at the firm, the manager told us that he had found someone for the job just ten minutes earlier. However, looking at my uncle, he said: “We are looking for someone to operate a special machine, someone older than this boy. Are you interested?” My uncle accepted immediately. He worked there until he retired at the age of sixty-five. Eventually, I was lucky, and just because two people had the same name. In town there was a tailor’s called Brownson’s and almost opposite was a cleaner’s called Smith and Sons. Somewhat confusingly, the manageress of Smith and Sons was also called Brownson.
The boy left and the clerk was filling in a card for me to go to the same place. The manager had heard what the clerk had said and came and told her that it was not Mr Brownson who needed an assistant but Miss Brownson of Smith and Sons.
I am ashamed to say that I did not tell the boy any such thing – but I did get the job.