Whilst driving home the other day my mind wandered back to my time working for the DHSS ( Civil Service ) in Wimbledon, London SW19.
I've no idea why this came back to my mind it was after all an awful long time ago. But for a few minutes I enjoyed the challenge of trying to recall my colleagues and the layout of the office.
I've listed below my recall of those years at the office in St Georges Road - please accept my apologies if you're not mentioned on the list below, my memory isn't what it was.
Feel free to comment, update or correct me - I'd love to hear from any of you who stumble upon this simple Blog.
Steve - former CO ( Clerical Officer )
Early Days
I think I joined the Department of Health & Social Security in late 1979, maybe around November time. I know I started "A" levels at school but had soon left. I would have been 17 when I joined, my first full time job.
Starting work is a great eye opener - here I was surrounded by a sea of new faces, many of them old enough to be my parents, people from all over the UK and beyond.
The first week or two was spent working in the Registry section. Remember this was the pre computing age so paper was king. The office was full of filing cabinets holding individual files for each claimant of Supplementary Benefit. The Registry section had the task of trying to keep all these bits of paper and files in the right place. I remember starting the day down in the post room opening the deluge of daily post ( pre email ). Lots of incoming correspondence from claimants all of which had to be date stamped and then matched to their file.
Here I met young colleagues like Russell ( always keen to big up his Irish roots ) and Julie, both maybe a year or two older than myself. There was also Dave M a tall guy from Corby with a mop of blonde hair. Dave was a biker ( I had a little Yamaha 125 at the time too ). In the Registry office ( top floor ) I can recall a few more faces but can't recall their names. The phone switchboard was also in here managed by Pat. Pat always sounded a bit nasal and seemed a bit out of breath.It struck me as being very busy on the switchboard with lots of lights flashing away on the control panel with stroppy claimants hanging on - I didn't envy Pats job. A few months later young Tracey joined the Registry team too.
Assessing
After a couple of weeks of Registry I started my Clerical Officer training. My job was to assess a claimants entitlement to "Supp Ben" ( Supplementary Benefits ) - this involved knowing a load of qualifying rules and benefit monetary values, scribbling them down and then doing the maths to work how much extra benefits they were entitled too. Real money for real people so best get it right. I can remember doing a lot of training with Helen the training officer. Helen was a very attractive young woman ( remember I was just 17 ), maybe in her mid 20s. Very confidant and always very smartly dressed. She may have been the HR officer too. She had her own small office up on the top floor. I can remember an office party ( maybe Xmas ? ) where the booze was on a table in her office - I sat down and took the opportunity to drink far too much whisky and coke as an experiment to see how much I could drink - I've no idea how I got home but I do know I was very hungover the next morning.
Having passed this training I joined Bob's team. Our job was to review claimants benefits if their circumstances changed or if the government changed the rules or benefit rates - plenty of manual calculations. Bob was an older man maybe around 60 or so. He was fairly abrasive and had only limited patience. I can recall him muttering about senior management - he didn't appear to be enjoying the job but then again I suspect he had probably been in the civil services for eons. I'm not sure what happened to Bob ( maybe he retired or moved on, I can't recall ) but I know he was replaced by a much younger chap called David.
David was maybe 25 or so. He was very different from Bob. Much calmer and more considerate to his staff. He often wore short sleeve jumpers - he was perhaps a little old for his age - 25 but going on 45 ! He took the photo of me below. Photography was one of his hobbies and occasionally he'd bring his camera to work. We spend much of our lives at work but how many photos do we have of us at work - with hindsight it would be good to have a few more.
photo circa 1981
There was space for three others in this particular team - people came and went but I can recall Keith, Helen, Eddy and Krishna. Keith struck me as a real Londoner, maybe late twenties, very confident, long curly hair and a beard. He would smoke small cigars occasionally. He had a partner and young kids. Eddy was a very tall guy and I think he came from Hong Kong. He was a quiet bloke with long dark hair and wore glasses, maybe in his early twenties. Eddy was "cool". Krishna was from India. She spent a lot of time helping me learn the job and was kind and supportive to me. She wore beautiful saris and had long hair tied back in a pony tail. She would often talk about her children. I also remember a bloke called Clive - maybe early thirties, wavy hair - he had a BMW motorbike.
Other colleagues
The DHSS office in St Georges Road Wimbledon was a modern little office building perhaps over four floors. Also up on the top floor was the big bosses office. When I first joined Bob's team I was sat pretty much right outside that office. The boss was a mature white haired woman, I think she was Welsh and her name may have been Gwen but I'm not sure about that. She rarely spoke to me but when she did she was polite but I was told she could be pretty fierce in private. I can only recall her in my early days at the DHSS, I've no idea if she remained the boss during my 2 1/2 years in this job or if she moved on.
Much of the top floor was open plan office space - I can see two other teams up there. I think one was the "LR" team - Liable Relatives. There job was to trace absent fathers and try and get them to pay maintenance for their kids. This was run by a woman called Tess, maybe about 30 - slim attractive, curly shoulder length hair. Others in her team included Liz, Jane and Lynnette. All very confident women.
There was another team up here too but I can't recall there role or title - one member was a bloke called Rob - maybe mid 20's, long hair, large sideburns and open neck shirt ( it was the late 70s ) - amiable guy always keen on the ladies.
I rarely went to the floor below - from memory this held the finance team and the fraud team. Occasionally I would take stuff down to the fraud guys. We would sometimes receive post telling us all about their neighbours who were on benefits but also working, sometimes they would send in photos of their neighbours working. I can recall three guys in the fraud office, all had beards - maybe it helped them look discrete in their undercover observation role ! Steve, Jerome and Ian. Steve was a large guy with a thick black beard, Jerome was an Irishman with a goatee and tash, Ian had slightly wild hair and a red beard. All three had little time for a youngster like me.
Next floor down was the first floor where the public came to make their benefit claims. As a young 17 year old it took me a while to understand where Supplementary Benefit fitted into the bigger picture. Wimbledon has an Unemployment Office where the unemployed would go to sign on and receive unemployment benefit. There was also a National Insurance Office for those off work through sickness and to receive sickness benefit. Our role at Supplementary Benefit was to top up those benefits or to pay something if the other two offices refused to pay or if he claimant was a single parent. As such we often had to send claimants off to the other two offices to make a claim first of all or collect form XYZ. Many of our claimants were not happy bunnies and could get abusive and aggressive.
Staff working with the public were behind toughed screens. The furniture in the public waiting area was all screwed down to the floor. The chap on the public front desk was called Paul. Paul did a great job in difficult circumstances. I got the impression he had done this role for many years - he knew all the claimants and they knew him. Most of the time this worked well but some claimants would go nuts when told that their benefit claim was rejected or payments suspended. Sometimes we had to call the Police to come and escort them from the building.
Also on the first floor was the initial assessment team - their job was to interview new claimants to try and verify the claim before assessing what payment ( if any ) they were entitled too. Sometimes claimants would come in seeking a one off emergency additional payment ( someone stole my money etc ). When I started this team was run by a woman called Jenny. Jenny was a large lady, very knowledgeable about claimant rights and benefits and not afraid to tell claimants bad news.
The only thing I can remember on the ground floor was the post room and a lift.
Time moves on
After a year or so up on the top floor working in Bob / Davids team I was transferred to the Initial Assessment team, ie interviewing the public face to face. Claimants were no longer remote names on files or voices on phonecalls but right there in front of me. I spent sometime working alongside Paul on the reception desk learning how to deal with the public first of all.
The Initial Assessment team was run by Liz. Liz was a good manager to work with. She was maybe in her late twenties and came from Lancashire. She was pregnant whilst I was in her team. Other colleagues were Lynnette ( from LR ), young Sarah and others whose names I've forgotten ( sorry) . We had half a dozen interview booths with toughened plexiglass between us and "them". I know that sounds terrible. Most claimants were reasonable but others could be rather nasty with threats to get us as we left work. By now it was the early eighties and with Mrs Thatcher in power we had a lot of social turmoil and rising unemployment - times were getting tougher.
I enjoyed working on the Initial Assessment team. Some of the claimants were a bit dodgy - they had no payslips, they had no rent book, they had no ID documents, nothing to support their claim. Occasionally people would try to make multiple claims, or claim they were single parents ( but would arrive and leave with their partner ). Things didn't always stack up so sometimes we'd seek advice from our colleagues in the fraud section. The job could be pretty intense at times.
I recall plenty of liquid lunches. Just down the road was a Youngs pub ( local beer made in Wandsworth ) - we could often rustle up half a dozen of us for a quick pint or two.
Around this time I started going to see live music up at The Marquee and The Electric Ballroom in town, first ban I saw were The Pretenders, others included The Cure, Spizz Energy plus Dexy's, The Beat and The Clash.
After two years of life in the DHSS I felt the need to move on, it wasn't my idea of a long career. I applied to join the Met so left the world of "Supp Ben" in the summer of 1982. After the 26 week training period at Hendon they posted me to Wandsworth where I met many of the very same "claimants" once again - it's a small world.
If you were working at the DHSS in Wimbledon London SW19 between 1979 - 1982 then please send in your comments / updates / corrections- thanks
Steve
