My First And Last Jobs In Hull

A Memory of Kingston upon Hull.

This is a photo of the Derringham Branch of the Hull Savings Bank where I started as a junior bank clerk at the age of 16 on 31st August 1965, probably around the time when this photo was taken. It certainly looks right. This was my first job after leaving Riley High School, just down the road from the bank. The heating in the building was powered by a big coal fired boiler in the cellar and one of my main tasks was to shovel coal down the coal chute and stoke the boiler, not what I had expected when I had applied for a job as a bank clerk and all this for the princely salary of £325 a year.
What a lovely buiding this was, especially in 1965. Polished wood panelling everywhere; solid mahogany counter; highly polished (and dangerously slippery!) parquet floors where the staff worked and a beautiful mosaic floor in the customer area with the Kingston Upon Hull three crowns crest set proudly into the mosaic. Sadly the mosaic was vandalised by builders in the 1980's when the floor was carpeted. The counter was equipped with "dip and scratch" pens and ink pots. One of my friends at the branch, who was not much older than me, would fill the ink pots each morning and slide them down the counter to me. I didn't always catch them and the mosaic floor ended up with several blue india ink stains.
I was moved to the Beverley High Road branch after about nine months. No more shovelling coal. One of my contemporaries based at another branch was a young lady called Angela Nicholson. I really liked her but I was much too shy to ask her out. Imagine my dismay when she was moved to the Derringham Branch to replace me! I wonder what became of her. In 1971, I went back to Derringham Branch as a cashier, working for a smashing manager, Jim Reveler. Jim had been a bomber pilot in the war and looked the part - a super bloke who took the time to teach me some great lessons about dealing with people. I stayed for a couple of years, during which I married my lovely wife Helen, who worked at the Southcoates Branch on Holderness Road (I had long got over Angela Nicholson by then!) There was lot of this inter-branch romance stuff.
Finally, in 1986 I returned to Derringham as the Manager for four very happy years before I was promoted to the main branch in Leeds. It was a dream come true for me. My abiding memories of my three spells at Derringham Branch, as Junior, then cashier and finally as manager, are of the lovely people who were customers and the wonderful colleagues I was privileged to work with, especially in my four years as Manager from 1986 to 1990, which were easily the most enjoyable of my 27 years in banking. What a team! Geoff, Ian, Bruce, Judith, Mary, Dawn, Lorraine, Angela, Carole, Sue, Jane, Debbie and many others, who made my working life a great pleasure. And of course, this lovely building. Happy days.