Og's Blog Pt. 06

Og's Blog Pt 06

Og becomes a civil servant. Part 02

Author's Note: Because of the Official Secrets Act, this has to be regarded as a fictionalised account and names will be omitted or changed. Any names given will not be the names of real people.

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When I arrived for my second day the training officer was there. He apologised for not being there yesterday.

"Think nothing of it," I said. "Congratulations to you and your wife."

Over the next few hours he took me around the department's offices to meet again the people I had been introduced to yesterday. This time at least some of the names stuck. I was embarrassed when I met the most senior officer of all who I hadn't seen yesterday. Not only did he know my father, who was a similar high rank, but he knew me, from the time when I had been a child in Gibraltar. That surprised the training officer. He knew my father's name but assumed, despite it being a very rare name, that there was no connection.

He apologised again. He would be on leave from the Monday of next week to be with his wife and baby. He would come in for an hour on the Monday morning to meet the next trainee but thereafter for the rest of that week, we two trainees would be on our own. What he had arranged was that the two of us would cover the absence of the personnel ANSO who would be on leave. Normally the senior clerical officer would cover the role, but the most senior clerical officer had just resigned to take another job so we would have to manage as best we could.

For the next three days I would sit with the personnel ANSO to see what he did. As the senior of the two trainees (by a whole week!) I would be in charge with the new trainee learning from me - the blind leading the blind...

After that week we would start our formal training with a week's course at the Motor Transport Depot where we would be shown what they did and be expected to learn how to drive well enough to pass the Admiralty driving test.

I found that my amendments and reading of the BR on personnel practice was useful. The trainees' copy was now more up to date than that in the personnel section. As I sat with the personnel ANSO I also updated their reference book and was able to discuss with him the significance of the amendments which were mostly about employment law.

He and I were slightly worried that their most senior clerical officer had resigned. The next most senior was still fairly young and inexperienced. Of course she was not as young or as inexperienced as me, but I would be in charge and responsible for any decisions. His advice was that if there were any really awkward problems I should either consult the next senior officer or leave it until he returned the following week.

That might have worked but what he didn't know was that the next senior officer would also be on leave that week.

By the Friday afternoon I knew all the staff in his section by name and he had told me what their strengths and weaknesses were. The main weakness was lack of knowledge and experience and lack of seniority. Now the older woman had left everyone else were under 25. The youngest was 21. But I was 18 with a whole week as an ANSO. How would I and the new trainee cope? We had to.

The new trainee - I'll refer to him as Graham, not his name - had arrived at my flat yesterday afternoon. We had gone out for a pint at a local pub. Like me, he had taken and passed the written examination - 235 to my 247 but his interview had not been so good. He ended up at 198. Also, unlike me, he had already been a civil servant, a clerical officer in the Post Office in Central London. He was 26, substantially older than me.

I would be at work at eight thirty. He had to report to the Dockyard gates at 10 am where he would be met by the training officer.

I started work in the personnel office. The most senior Clerical officer, but still very young and inexperienced, was Janet. She sat beside me as I dealt with the routine correspondence which was very similar to that I had seen last week when sitting beside the ANSO in charge. With Janet's prompting I was able to do everything I was expected to do. The other staff were keeping their heads down, apparently working hard. They didn't want to attract the attention of a new manager who was an unknown quantity. They relaxed after the first hour as Janet worked with me and she and I were often laughing about some of the procedures which seemed arcane and pointless. At least they knew I had a sense of humour.

The training officer brought Graham in about 11 o'clock. I introduced him to all the staff, whose names I had remembered from last week.

We had barely finished that when the Marine Corporal who had brought me to this office yesterday morning rushed in bearing a letter. He saluted me and then Graham.

"Excuse me, sir, but this letter is urgent from Portsmouth City Council, They appear to be panicking. It was brought by hand by a young lady who is waiting at the gatehouse for an answer."

I opened the letter. It was an urgent request for a written reference for Mary, the senior Clerical Officer from the personnel unit who had resigned to take up a post with Portsmouth City Council. They had had a verbal reference but their procedures required a written one before her contract could be issued. She was at present on leave from the Admiralty, and starting at Portsmouth City Council on Friday but if her contract couldn't be issued TODAY her employment couldn't be continuous. That would have a drastic effect on her transferred pension rights and other entitlements.

"OK, Corporal, thank you," I said. "Tell the young lady to go back to her office. The reply will be delivered by hand to the City Council by 1 pm even if I have to deliver it myself."

"Thank you, sir. I knew you would be the right sort of officer."

He left, saluting again.

"The right sort of officer?" Graham queried.

I explained about my conversation with the Corporal yesterday about my courtesy rank of Major, Royal Marines.

"So I'm a Major too?" Graham asked unbelievingly.

"Yes, sir, you are," Janet said, "But this reference is urgent and I don't know what to say."

"You don't?" I was surprised.

"No, sir, I don't," Janet insisted. "In all my time here we have never been asked for a reference for a former employee because no one has ever left. Dockyard jobs pay more than almost any other employer in Portsmouth so why would someone leave? I doubt Mary would have known either."

"OK, Janet, so we have no precedent. We need some facts. Do you know why she resigned?"

"Yes, sir, everyone does. Mary is a married woman with two teenage sons. Her husband is a foreman in the dockyard. She had been recommended for promotion for three consecutive years and was expected to pass a promotion board easily to become an ANSO. But she couldn't accept. ANSOs have to be mobile like you two. If promoted she might be sent anywhere either immediately or within a few years but she couldn't leave her husband and sons. She applied for a job with Portsmouth City council that only pays a little more but she would have prospects of promotion and in the City Council any promotion would mean staying in Portsmouth. She put all that in her resignation letter."

"Thank you, Janet. Can you get her personnel file, please?"

Graham and I looked at the file. It confirmed what Janet had said. Her last three years' annual appraisals had been marked 'outstanding' with a firm recommendation for promotion. Each appraisal had been endorsed by the next senior officer with another recommendation and unusually the third level officer had added his own complimentary remarks.

Mary's resignation letter was exactly as Janet had said.

I drafted, and Graham edited, a reference. I said that we were sorry to lose Mary who had been an exceptionally good employee that we would have like to have promoted but we couldn't because she couldn't accept the mobility requirements of the higher rank. I said that we thought Portsmouth City Council should be grateful for having recruited such a talented employee and we wished her well in her new career.

When Graham and I had agreed the draft, and shown it to Janet who agreed that it was an accurate description of how Mary was regarded, I went into the typing pool which was also part of the personnel ANSO's responsibilities. That caused consternation. The personnel ANSO hadn't actually set foot in the typing pool for years and here was I on my first day. I insisted on being introduced to all the typists, some of whom were embarrassed at meeting such a senior officer even if I was 18 years old and younger than all of them. A senior typist promised to type my letter within a quarter of an hour.

When she brought it in to me, another precedent since the typists never normally entered the personnel office, I thanked her. I signed it and put it in the envelope.

At 12.30 I agreed with Graham and Janet that the two of them would go to the canteen. I would walk to Portsmouth City Council's office and deliver the letter myself and perhaps buy a sandwich on the way back.

During the morning, one of the clerks in the personnel office had made up our dockyard passes that showed our name, rank and department. They clipped on to our jacket pockets and should be worn whenever we were in the dockyard. A couple of years later those passes would have included a passport size photograph, but not then.

I walked the few hundred yards to the Portsmouth City Council Offices. I waited at the reception desk while someone from their personnel department was sent for. The receptionist had given the details from the pass shown on my jacket. A senior manager appeared.

"You brought it yourself, sir?" He asked.

Yes," I said. "Why not? You need it urgently."

"OK. Follow me and we'll see what has been said."

We sat in his office. He opened and read my letter. He seemed astounded.

"You know what this says?" He asked.

"Of course," I replied. "I drafted it myself and it has my signature."

"You honestly think this about Mary?"

"Not me personally," I said. I explained this was only my first day as a personnel ANSO. "But that is a summary of the considered opinion of her line supervisors for the last three years. We are very sorry to lose her but understand why she wants to work for you."

"Thank you," he said. "I have never seen such a complimentary reference about anyone. It looks as if we should be grateful we have recruited Mary. I will sign her contact this afternoon."

"I am sure you will never regret it," I said.

I didn't buy a sandwich. He took me to Portsmouth City Council's canteen and bought me lunch.

I met the same corporal on my return to the dockyard.

"You sorted out the Council in time, sir?" he asked.

"Of course, Corporal," I said.

"There is no 'of course' about it, sir," he said. "Most civil servants take their time. Perhaps you would be a good Major of Marines."

[Asides:

1.Much later on I was told how the Admiralty and most of the UK's civil service answered reference requests. Unless an employee had resigned to avoid dismissal (and that would be stated) the standard letter no matter how good the employee had been regarded was "Nothing is known to their detriment".

2. Mary wrote to me personally about ten days later. She had been shown my reference. She was surprised that I, who had never met her, could be so complimentary. I replied that my letter had been a summary of how she had been regarded by her supervisors and I wished her well in her new career.

3.Five years later I was forwarded a letter to my new posting from the Chief Executive of Portsmouth City Council. He thanked me for my reference for Mary and told me that since then she had been promoted twice to a senior position as a council employee. Every word in my reference had been demonstrated to be true. Mary was now undertaking a sponsored MBA and he expected her, before she retired, to be sitting in his seat. I forwarded a copy of that letter to go in Mary's file in Portsmouth dockyard.

4.When the ANSO returned from leave, Janet showed him the office copy of my reference. He agreed that it was an accurate assessment but that he could never have written it.]

The next week Graham and I went to the Motor Transport Depot about four miles from the dockyard. Graham had already passed his UK driving test and had a full licence. I hadn't. I had a provisional licence to ride a motorcycle. My sole car driving experience had been with a 1930s Buick around my Australian relations' farm in New South Wales.

During the morning Graham and I rode wartime Ariel motorcycles. Before lunch we had to weave in and out of a line of traffic cones without stalling or falling off. We did and we had passed the Admiralty test for motorcycles.

In the afternoon Graham passed the Admiralty test easily. I had to have a bit more instruction. The test was to drive a small Ford van around the yard, changing from first gear to second, and then third, and back down, double declutching for the move down into first. The last part was to reverse into a space between two heavy trucks, a space large enough for a third heavy truck. I had passed.

The result of those tests was that both of us could drive any Royal Navy vehicle as long as it was blue with RN or Royal Navy on the side as directed by an officer. But we were officers so we could direct ourselves. Despite civilian restrictions on a suitable age (usually 21) to drive a heavy truck or public service vehicle, an Admiralty driving licence meant I, aged 18, could drive any RN vehicle of any size, including traction engines, steam rollers and buses.

On the second day we were show how to check a vehicle over before driving it. We should check fuel, oil, water, tyres, brakes and lights. We were then expected to check a range of vehicles, some of which had known faults and then how to rectify those faults and the possible causes.

During the afternoon tea break I rode the old Ariel motorcycle again. It was larger and more powerful than a civilian learner could ride but probably no faster. I rode it into the deepest recesses of the yard. Right at the back, in a corner, was a wrecked truck trailer. The back axle had collapsed and the whole thing was tilted. But there was something large on it covered with a waterproof sheet. I got off the motorcycle and peered under the sheet. Whatever it was, it was a sleek rounded item. I thought it shouldn't be abandoned in the yard because it looked expensive.

When I returned to the office I mentioned it to the depot manager.

"It looks new and unused?" He queried.

"Yes," I said. "It also looks expensive."

"OK. Show me."

We walked over to the corner and two mechanics climbed on the trailer and removed the waterproof sheet. Whatever it was, it was mounted in a wooden framework and there were significant part numbers and instructions painted all over it. Apparently it had been there for about six months since the trailer had been brought in as beyond repair.

The depot manager made notes of the writing on it before the mechanics recovered it again and we walked back to the office. He rang the dockyard and after being referred to several telephone numbers finally got an answer from a very excited submarine depot commander.

"Guard it! Don't let anyone near it! We'll be there as soon as we can!"

The depot commander arrived in half an hour with a large truck and a mobile crane. It was soon loaded to be taken away. He wanted to know who had found it. I was pointed out.

"Thank you," he said. "We have been hunting this for months. It is a top secret new sonar system we're supposed to test and the only one in the world. The Russians would pay a fortune for it. It cost about £50,000 so you have saved the Admiralty your salary for the next twenty years. It was coming from the Admiralty's new warfare development unit but disappeared en route and no one knew where it was. We've been panicking, thinking someone had stolen it, but it has been sitting in a secure yard for months."

The rest of the week at the Motor Transport depot was interesting but boring. There was no canteen on site so the staff either bought packed lunches or went into Portsmouth to the Post Office canteen in the City Centre. Graham and I could borrow whatever vehicle was serviceable and easy to get at. For the first three days we borrowed the small Ford van. On the fourth day the van had been collected by the unit that owned it. There was a new vehicle that had been delivered for the RN decals to be applied, which they had been. Why not? Graham drove it into Portsmouth and parked it outside the City Hall while we had lunch in the Post Office canteen.

When we went back to the vehicle it was surrounded by worried looking policemen. They were relieved when we announced that we were going to take it away. The sergeant in charge saw our ranks on tour dockyard passes and saluted us.

"Please, sirs, next time give us some warning before you park that."

He pointed at the vehicle. We had driven a bright yellow aviation spirit tanker adorned with prominent 'no smoking' signs and 'danger!'.

We apologised, sheepishly, and drove back to the depot.

The next lunchtime we paused. The vehicle nearest the entrance was a tank transporter complete with tank. We didn't think it would sensible to try to drive that and park it in Portsmouth City Centre. Instead we used the two ancient Ariel motorcycles.

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The next week was fairly boring and a sample of many weeks to come. We were with an ANSO whose section was responsible for ensuring there was always an adequate supply of a range of naval stores. Most of the ANSOs were doing similar work. The only difference was the sort of stores they were responsible for. There would be variations in lead times for restocking and the sources, but otherwise the work was similar and the sort of work we would be expected to do when we had finished our training.

But on Friday we all became aware that the shit might hit the fan in a serious way. The Cuban Missile Crisis was building up. If it exploded into nuclear war, Portsmouth dockyard would be a prime target for a nuclear attack. Over the weekend every Royal Navy ship that was ready for sea, and some that really weren't but could move, had gone out to sea and dispersed. All that was left was the reserve fleet of elderly obsolete warships but even those had skeleton crews to man the anti-aircraft guns that would be useless if we were attacked by missile.

On the Monday morning there was a crisis meeting. The War Book - one of the BR books that I had updated on my first day - was consulted.

Every dockyard officer of ANSO or equivalent rank and above was to go to the underground bunkers below the hills to the North of Portsea Island. There they would survive a nuclear attack and be ready to deal with the aftermath.

There was even a role for the most junior officers in the whole dockyard - Graham and I - of two and three weeks' seniority. We were regarded as expendable. Our role was to sit on top of the Dockyard's signal tower armed with a map table, a telescope and protractors. We were expected to record every nuclear bomb that fell and work out from the height of the mushroom cloud and the distance, just how large it had been. We had two telephones. On one, we would speak continuously to the people in the bunkers. When we stopped speaking we would be assumed to be dead and nobody would leave the bunkers until the radiation level was safe. We were given a King James Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare to read aloud. The other telephone would be for non-urgent communications.

Graham and I instantly appreciated that any nuclear device aimed at Hampshire would be unlikely to be far enough away for us to measure the yield. It would be likely to fall on our heads. As the meeting ended we were told that Tuesday morning at 11 am would be a trial run, unless the shit hit the fan earlier. If it did, the dockyard's air raid sirens would be sounded and everyone except we two should head for the bunkers as fast as possible. We two would be in charge of the whole dockyard until the drill was over, and if a real war started we would be responsible for everything left until the others could emerge - if we survived which was unlikely.