. . . . A tip-top secretary!

 

 

Talking to a secretary in the building who enjoyed her work and was

relatively well paid, it came to me that I should try to reclaim the

typing and shorthand skills I had had twenty-five years ago. So after

five months I packed in watering the plants for the lumberjacks, and

set about finding a cheap typing/shorthand course. Many courses

were advertised, mainly arranged in the evenings at local schools.

They all guaranteed that the student would, or could, be a tip-top

secretary in a remarkably short space of time. I doubted whether I,

myself, could learn any new skill in eight to ten weeks, dimly

remembering that in my original pursuit of secretarial training it was

hard work to get the requisite speeds in nine months, to say nothing

of nine weeks. Enquiring at smart secretarial schools the terms for

brushing up rusty skills, I was informed that for the sum of £800 or so

I could enrol for a ten-week refresher course. I settled for the College

of Further Education which offered a suitable typing course for the

sum of £29 for two terms, twice a week, in the afternoons. The

shorthand refresher was more difficult. I had learned the original

Pitman which, it seemed, was no longer taught. 

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All varieties of new

quick writing were available, but I felt I simply could not tackle them.

In middle age the decline of the brain cells results in waning ability to

memorize, and I was one of those who couldn’t even remember

much in the past when I had the full quota. So, I advertized for a

private teacher who could still teach the shorthand I had learnt in

the 50s. I found one who had retired to a nearby town. We

negotiated, and for the next nine months I drove to her house every

Wednesday morning for tuition. The morning session took an

established routine whereby Mrs H. and I would discuss and view the

gardens’ progress since the last week, make coffee, and then retire

to the dining room for dictation. 

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Unfortunately, I have a deaf ear for

vowel sounds and this, in shorthand, is a complete disaster. The

outline’s placing on the page is indicated by the correct vowel sound

and if you cannot grasp this properly a sentence which should be, for

instance: ‘The rut in the road’ could read ‘the rat in the raid’. The

disasters that might ensue are obvious. However, some shorthand

returned from twenty years repose and with Mrs H’s encouragement

and some hard work I managed to set down eighty words a minute,

then decided that was probably the limit of my shorthand abilities.

In May 1982, armed with a certificate stating that I could type

thirty-five words a minute without mistakes, and persuading myself I

could, if pressed, manage eighty a minute in shorthand, I started

searching the papers for a suitable job. My job requirements were

that the post would be with quiet, pleasing people, in an historic

building or similar (the sort of office that Barbara Pym’s characters

would work in) on a bus route. 

 

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