Page 33 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

I passed the interview and entry test and so began my career in retail on the
DIY department, with a weekly wage of £17.50 cutting timber on a large desk
saw and spending most of my time operating a hug cash register that rang
like a church bell with a cash draw that would jump open and take aim at
the nether regions.

The store sent me to day release college where, desperate to prove that I
wasn’t an abject failure after all, I attained highest marks in my year in the
supervisory and management studies exams.

I enjoyed the life at Lewis’s and was among the youngest Assistant Managers
appointed around my eighteenth birthday. I worked long hours starting
earlier than most and finishing later, which was to become a ‘workaholic’
trait I have struggled with all my working life.

The Personnel manager was a former Regimental Sergeant Major called John
Ridge. He was a very stern fellow with part of his hand missing from a war-
time injury. Stern as he was, I was fortunate that he liked my work ethic, but
he often counselled me that I should find the balance between working to
live and living to work. I was to reflect on that advice many times in the years
that followed, but I have always struggled to get that balance right.

Back in the eighties, the retail
trade was dominated by the
female of the species, with more
opportunities opening for ladies
than lads. Compared to more
skilled professions, retail wages
were on the low side.

I had begun courting a girl who
started at Lewis’s on the same day
as me. Her parents were strict
Catholic, and I was, well
nondescript in religious terms. I was
not the favoured choice for a
boyfriend for their girl, let alone a
potential husband. When she was
ordered to leave home or give me
up, she chose me. We moved into
our first home in a co-ownership
flat in Erdington, on the north side
Figure 14 Lewis's Ltd Department Store - B'ham of Birmingham.

We married in October 1979 both aged 19. In hindsight we were too young to
know our own minds let alone settle down. We were always broke, and we Page33