Chapter Three

     In those days, there was no financial help either as grants or loans for University studies. I celebrated my sixteenth birthday on July 4th, 1937. Two weeks later; I left school for good, armed with a Matriculation certificate from the University of London with a distinction in mathematics and several certificates for commercial subjects from the City and Guilds Institute. Within the month I was recruited for a post in the City of London with the Scottish Provident Institution, a life assurance company. I was to work in the Cash department, sending out premium notices, checking on payments and becoming a dogsbody to the predominantly male staff. In 1937, women were barely accepted in the business world of the City but things were changing and I was the first female they had employed to appear in the Front Office, permitted to deal with the public,

      However, to show my more humble position, I had to wear the regulation overall in a hideous maroon, whilst all the male employees wore smart city suit and ties. One excellent by-product of my time in the Cash department was to learn two important things from my boss, Mr. Mitcham. The first one was how to tackle cryptic crosswords which I have continued to enjoy as favourite pastime ever since and the second one was to write in the space where a stamp was to go, the future date of posting of a letter or card prepared in advance!

     Very soon I had decided that working in the Cash Department was extremely boring and unchallenging. I decided I would prefer to train as an actuary where my mathematical skills could be used. I realised it was a very elite career and few women managed to train for it but I decided to let the powers that be know of my intentions. Sadly future world events changed all that.

     I was mesmerised by daily life in the City of London. Since we were in the building adjoining The Mansion House, we witnessed many interesting sights – the annual Lord Mayor’s Show for example. I particularly remember the State visit of Monsieur Georges Bonnet, obviously a controversial French politician since a group of Frenchmen who were alongside me were shouting vociferously “L’assassin, l’assassin!” Years later, I met a Canadian Sergeant during the war whose father had been a colleague of this politician, associated with the Stavinsky scandal, causing his father to leave the country with his family and emigrate to Canada.

     Lunchtime in the City of London was a magic time for me. I would cross the road to the Royal Exchange, eat my packed lunch as fast as I could and then go out past the Bank of England to Throgmorton Street and the Stock Exchange. I wandered amongst the milling brokers and jobbers, dealing shares in the street whilst I soaked up the atmosphere. It was exciting and bred in me a love of share dealing, which has stayed throughout my life. I did not realise then how the war would later bring me in close working contact with many of those same brokers and jobbers I would see during my lunchtime wanderings.

     I was to spend nine months travelling to the City, first on a train to Finsbury Park and then on the antiquated City line to Moorgate. I carried an impressive hog’s skin briefcase, present from my father, filled with my lunch of sandwiches and a piece of fruit together with a suitable book to read in the train. I chose a book that I thought would impress my fellow travellers. I recall lugging the heavy tome of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom for over a month with this intent.

     Early in 1938, out of the blue, the former German Master from school telephoned my parents. He had just formed the School Travel Service and he was suggesting that perhaps I would like to join his emerging company to help plan and co-ordinate school trips overseas. He made a proviso that I first should spend at least six months in France and then six months in Germany to perfect those languages. With my mother’s encouragement, I had no hesitation in accepting. I was then almost seventeen.

     My mother and I scanned “The Lady” magazine, a well-known source for advertisements for “au pairs”. In those days an “au pair” was not the general dogsbody of today but someone who taught English to the children of the family and who lived as one of them. Our very first application brought success and by May 1938 I was on my way to Contrexeville in the Vosges Mountains, to the home of Monsieur Marcel Boucher. Not only was he the mayor of this well-known spa town but also a member of the Chambre de Deputés (a French Member of Parliament) and also the French champion fencer!

     I was sent rail and boat tickets. Giving in my notice to the Scottish Provident, in no time I was making my way via Paris to the eastern border of France, with Germany just across the River Rhine, a few Kilometres away. Another adventure had begun.

My First Job

Bridging the Centuries 

By Eileen Younghusband