This Friday, our routine is going to be altered somewhat. Yesterday morning which is generally devoted to shopping had to give way to the delivery of the new 'floor' hospital bed which is going to be delivered and installed for Meg. This bed was commissioned by the OT team on the basis that it will be a safer bed for Meg to use because if she does get too restless during the night, the worst that she could do would be to roll onto the floor. The OTs seem to think that a hospital bed with sides could present some dangers and hence this new piece of kit in the fullness of time will tell us whether this piece of hospital furniture will prove to be beneficial. This morning, my son has offered to sit with Meg whilst I go off and do the shopping that is normally done the day before but I will endeavour to race around and get it done quickly.
After documenting my experiences at the National Lending Library which was my first 'proper' job, I thought it might be interesting to recall the weekend/vacation job that I pursued for several years which started off with the washing of dishes at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate. This was a 4-star hotel, ceding the position of 'top dog' to the Majestic Hotel which was quite nearby. I suspect this position in the hierarchy of hotels came about because when the Headingly Test was being played, the England team were generally put up at the Majestic whilst the touring side were lodged in The Old Swan whilst their well-heeled supporters seemed to drink equally well in both establishments. My mother secured me the job by the simple expedient of phoning around the large hotels when I was 15 in 1960 and evidently, there were vacancies for casual labour at The Old Swan. This became a significant part of my life as well as a much needed source of income and I performed in a variety of jobs in the hotel, about which more later. But to wash dishes, we donned a white linen apron which quickly became stained but we claimed a newly laundered one every day. The dish washing machine consisted of a large tank with vertical revolving brushes - when the plate was inserted, it was spun around and quickly cleaned and one learnt that you could even detect egg yolk through the sensitivity of human fingers. Evidently, nothing as nandy-pandy as gloves were ever used and they would have got in the way. The detergents was incredibly simple consisting of two large empty fruit tins punctured with a mass of holes and then filled with blocks of green soap. The dishes once thrown one by one into the machine were then placed upon a wooden rack and when this was filled up, it was then inserted into an adjacent tank of water kept at a boiling temperature by virtue of a steam pipe that bubbled steam into the bottom of the tank. After immersion for about half a minute, the racks of plates were removed and they were so hot that they were generally quite dry after 2-3 minutes, In practice, one became quite expert at judging all of this. Evidently, the plates had to be cleared of left overs and this waste went into some large dustbins that were essentially pig swill and were collected each day. Of course, we were fed a main meal in the middle of the day and for this one approached the chefs who were working nearby and they plated up a plate of food (the same as the guests naturally) and you ate it by sitting at a steel counter staring at piles of empty plates. For this the rate of pay was 2s 6d (12.5p) an hour but to bring this up to current day price levels you would generally have to be multiply by about 100 in round figures. We generally worked eight hour shifts but these could be a little shorter if all the day's work was done but also longer if the hotel was very full and there were large numbers of dinners served. My fellow workers were generally middle aged women with families complemented by some of us school students (and in this respect, the care industry today is not too dissimilar) On occasions, we were detached to an adjacent area which was charged with washing cutlery and for some reason, this attracted a higher rate of pay of 3s 0d (15p) an hour. Adjacent to the room in which the dishes were washed was the 'still room' In the still room, beverages such as tea and coffee as well as fruit juices and breakfast cereals were produced and evidently this really came into its own at breakfast times. There was a bread slicing machine and occasionally we had to slice bread incredibly finely to make melba toast under a hot grill. In the still room, there was sone old lady who must have worked there for at least 20 years and probably dating back to the wartime years. I can remember being shocked to the core by the manager, a huge 'bear' of a man who had organised an Army Catering Corps earlier in his career, marching into the still room and announcing to the old dear 'Woman - you are inefficient - get out!' and she was sacked on the spot just for getting on a bit in years. To our eyes she was no less efficient or inefficient as the rest of us but that was management for you. Some of my fellow workers told me that about a year or so before I started working (in 1960), in response to a temporary financial crisis, the management reduced everybody's pay from 2s 6d an hour to 2s 3d an hour (12.5p down to 12p) whereby all of the staff walked out and stayed out for the morning before the management relented and restored the old pay rate. Our immediate line manager was an incredibly handsome 21 year old who really had Adonis looks - in fact, upon hearing that he had become engaged most of the waitresses burst into tears as they all harboured secret desires that they might marry him. This young man was evidently destined for elite hotel management because he was sent on a gastronomic tour of Europe and I heard him chatting in fluent French to a guest on one occasion. But he was a very good manager for us, being clear and direct with no 'favourites' and he earned our respect and loyalty. But I shall continue with more of this tale at a later date.