Royal Bath Hotel Bath Hill

A Memory of Bournemouth.

My first job was at the Royal Bath Hotel in 1956 where I learnt all aspects of Office Work for 2 and half years. Boss was called Mr Dagley, and there were 12 of us in the Office. I was a very nervous 16 year old having just left Parkstone Grammar School for girls, and my first job!!! The first day, I was assigned to help the wages clerk, and was asked to tot up the columns of figures - no problem, as I was good at mental arithmetic - BUT - I managed to spill a bottle of ink all over the sheet of wages!!! Career almost over before it began. I was mortified as you can imagine. Happy days though - we had a lot of laughs. Always had to wear either grey, brown or black - not my best choice, as I had worn grey for five years as the school uniform. We had a big old Gestetner Copying machine to do the menus for the hotel - quite a messy job with large tubes of black thick ink. Also you had to be very careful of the stencil that you typed - not to tear it! The 'Boss Lady' (can't remember her actual name but she owned the hotel I think) had to be called 'madam', and I was terrified of ever bumping into her in any of the corridors of the hotel. She was terrifying. I was also terrified of the telephone, and tried to make sure that I was not anywhere near it if it rang!! Anyway, my years there stood me in good stead for the rest of my working life. From there, I went to work in Brights Department Store for another 2 years, until I felt like another change - you could always get another job in those days. It was good growing up in Bournemouth.