Part 3 of A Bit of This, and A Bit of That – Remembering 1978

Just in case you wish to catch up on the background to this story, you can find part one here, and part two here.

Fitted up with a car each, Wendy and I left Wolverhampton and headed off in different directions, with promises to “write soon”.

I had a friend of a friend who was a university student in Leeds. I’ve lost contact with him over the years, but no doubt he had an illustrious career as he was a promising student, civil engineering I believe. We had an interesting conversation in the local cafe one night, when I demonstrated I knew what a macadamised road was by utilising the sugar bowl, and he looked politely surprised. Goodness knows where I’d acquired that trivia.  Anyway, he was brilliant, he even wrote a book while he was still in his twenties – about mathematics I think.

I’d been to Leeds the month before on a weekend visit to him, and I wrote home to my mum about my surprise at the city. It was nothing like what my childhood readings of northern mill towns had led me to believe, but then, if you are brought up on a diet of Dickens, you are hardly likely to imagine picturesque places. So I commented that there had been a recent clean up campaign, and that the mixture of old and modern architecture was pleasant, great shopping, plenty of walking streets and so on. I reserved my greatest surprise for the discovery that only fifteen minutes drive from the city one found oneself amidst rolling green hills dotted with wooden beamed country pubs containing log fires and exuding charm and atmosphere.

With this image fresh in my mind, Leeds is where I headed next. When I arrived at the YWCA I discovered it was packed with university students. My student friend came to the rescue. Two of his classmates put me up on their couch for a couple of nights while I found a job and bed of my own.

I turned up at a temp agency the next morning, and the interview went something like, ‘we have a job for an audio typist at a local solicitor.’ To which I replied, ‘I can’t audio type,’ and they said, ‘you’ll be perfect for the job.’ Which I was, it turns out, although filing was not my star turn.

(Side Note: Remember those ridiculous job interviews where you had to answer “What do you like most/least about your job?” It didn’t matter how senior I became, I always answered filing for what I liked least – in the vain hope someone would do it for me.)

The solicitor I was typing for, Nigel Dixon, was a wonderful man and even invited me home to dinner with his family. Two weeks ago I had a photo of him, but I seem to have mislaid it in the study clean up. I’d been hesitating putting it up in any case, on privacy grounds, until I found this article on him in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner. It’s about him having taken up performing in musical theatre in his retirement!

My problem was accommodation. I found a tiny bed-sit, 4′ x 8′, in an attic room with no heating. Some days the temperature struggled to reach 2’C (35F). Sunrise – such as it was – occurred around 8-8.30am and the day was pitch black by 3.45pm. The house was in Headingley, close to the famous home of the Yorkshire County Cricket Club, which might have been nice, if I could see it through the fog. Some days the fog was so thick I couldn’t see the bus from twenty feet away. I had a little two-bar radiator that I had to keep running by dropping 20 pence coins in an electricity meter. Whirrrr – clunk – I heard that sound every few minutes as the inefficient heating churned through my hard earned dosh. I was cold . . . very, very, cold – but the worst thing of all was that the Yorkshire Ripper was on the loose. I loved my job , despite the lousy pay, but I began to feel lonely, vulnerable, and very sorry for myself.

So, even though the law firm offered me a permanent job, and even though the switch-lady was kind enough to invite me to hers for Christmas lunch, I decided to apply for some jobs where I might be able to feel more settled. And that is how my path led to Michael’s Nook Country House Retreat in Grasmere in the English Lake District – one the best beauty spots in England.

And that is when the fun and games really began . . . more in the next post.