I left school in 1955 aged 16 went for a job interview with the Establishment Officer at St Andrew's House in Rm 365. I'd done a language course at school and was taken on as a CA. It was explained to me that the job was temporary and on a probationary basis to start with, but that I would be confirmed and would become "established" if my performance was considered satisfactory after 2 years.
It was a lovely building to work in - it was all very modern in the 1950s. Staff were issued with little hand towels for going to the toilet that were replaced every fortnight and carafes of fresh water were available every morning.
Civil Servants were well regarded in the 1950s and people looked up to you if you worked here. My starting pay was £3 per week at a time when the majority of clerical jobs in Scotland were receiving starting pay of about £1.50 - £2 per week. We had to go and pick up our pay on a Thursday, and it came in a wee brown envelope with the amount having all been worked out by the clerks in Pay Section. It was another 10 years or so before they started to work it all out on the computers.
In my first or second week I went along to the canteen for my break and the lady who was serving was my mum's neighbour. She looked surprised to see me and asked me what I was doing here. I said with a bit of pride that I worked here now, at which she exclaimed "YOU??" I was the talk of our street after that.
About 20 or 30 CAs started at the same time as me, and most of them went to work in the registry which involved filing duties. There were no photocopiers in those days.
My job was in the Library which was in the basement at the High School end of the building. The job involved indexing books and I also received the newspapers for the Secretary of State which were collected by the Messengers.
Messengers were old soldiers most of whom had been injured in the war. Prosthetic limbs and arms mostly.
I worked for the Librarian who was Ms Hanlon who was later awarded an OBE.
My EO was John Wheeler who went on to greater things. He oversaw the signing in book and you didn't want to get your name beneath the red line. If you did that you received a letter and a warning if you were late too many times. I was always on time, but I can remember some people getting sacked for it.
There were also a lot of COs in the Library. I think I was fortunate to have ended up working where I was because they were all nice people who looked after you, however I don't think all my CA colleagues were so lucky. There were a few scary people around, including a lot of old battleaxe-types who had never married, probably because of the number of men who had died during the war.
When you did get married you were paid a dowry. You needed at least 6 years qualifying service, and you received 1 month's pay for every 'established' year and a half month's pay for every 'unestablished' (probationary) year. I had about 10 years' service when I got married in the 1960s and so I received about a year's pay which I used to buy my first flat! You didn't have to resign when you got married, but you had to leave if you became pregnant (at about the 6 months stage). You could re-join the civil service later on, but if you'd accepted the dowry you had to start again at the bottom. The other option was to pay it all back, in which case you could revert to your previous grade.
Hours were 0845-1730 Monday to Friday except we got away at 1630 on a Thursday (which was pay day). We also had to work Saturday mornings. Even though we got away early on a Thursday with our pay in our pockets, we didn't go out socialising or anything like that. Going to pubs wasn't the done thing for young girls and lounge bars didn't appear until the 1960s anyway. There wasn't a huge amount of money to socialise with, but when we did go out we would go home for our tea first and then meet up later at the pictures or maybe go ice skating at Haymarket or Murrayfield.
There was a wee canteen in the basement (where the Emergency Room is now) where I had my first coffee made with milk, and my first mint Yo Yo. Coffee and chocolate were not as plentiful in the 1950s as they are today with food rationing having only ended in 1954. I used to go home for my lunch so I only used the canteen for tea breaks. We got one and a quarter hours for lunch. I can remember the canteen on the top floor which tended to be used by the bosses, but I didn't go there.
In the year after I joined I can remember C&As going on fire as did a shoe factory in Jeffrey Street. We all went up to the top of the East staircase with it's views over Edinburgh and watched the fires being fought and the roof of C&As falling in!
I left St Andrew's House after about a year in the Library at what was the start of the computer era. I went to be trained on the punchcard machines at Hope House and ended up working in SOCS on what was reported to be the biggest computer in Scotland at the time.