I went back to paid work on 1 September 1992.
The job was part-time clerical assistant at Eastbrook Junior School in Havant. Nineteen hours a week, term time only. The hours matched school and nursery well enough to make the application possible, though not well enough to remove all difficulty.
Claire was six and already at primary school. Michael was three and starting nursery. Alan’s hours had returned to normal by then, but our finances had not. A second wage, even a part-time one, had stopped being an idea and become a requirement.
I had seen the vacancy in the local paper. The advert asked for office experience, typing, basic accounts and the ability to deal with parents and children. I had the first three. I had two children, which I decided might count towards the fourth.
At the interview, the headteacher asked why I wanted to return to work.
I gave the approved answer about using my skills and contributing to a school community. Both were true. I did not mention the overdraft.
The office contained two desks, filing cabinets, a typewriter, a telephone and more paper than I had seen since leaving Wessex Marine Supplies. There were attendance registers, dinner-money records, pupil cards, medical notes, staff forms and letters waiting to be typed. The school had fewer than three hundred pupils. Each appeared to require several pieces of paper.
I was offered the job three days later.
On my first morning, I dressed before waking the children. I had bought one skirt and two blouses for work. The skirt was dark enough to survive ink and lunch duty. This proved useful within the week.
Claire ate breakfast slowly because she knew I was watching the time. Michael refused the socks he had accepted the day before. Alan had left early for a job near Chichester, so I managed the departures alone.
We reached nursery first. Michael held my hand until his key worker opened the door, then went inside without looking back. I stood there for longer than necessary.
Claire noticed.
‘You’ll be late,’ she said.
She was six and already prepared to manage me.
I left her at school and arrived at Eastbrook eight minutes early.
Pauline Brooks was in the office. She was five years older than me and had worked there long enough to know which forms mattered, which forms only appeared to matter and which cupboard held the spare biscuits for staff meetings.
She showed me where to put my bag and gave me the visitor book.
‘Anybody who isn’t staff signs in,’ she said. ‘Anybody who says they’ll only be a minute still signs in.’
The first telephone call came before nine. A parent said her son would not be in because he had been sick during the night. I wrote the message on the absence sheet.
‘Which class?’ I asked.
She did not know.
‘Teacher’s name?’
She did not know that either.
She knew he was called Daniel and had brown hair.
Pauline found him from the address. I learnt to ask for surname first.
The morning went quickly. I counted dinner money, typed a letter about swimming lessons and took a message for the caretaker. Three children came to the office. One had lost a jumper, one had been sent with a note and one had forgotten why he was there.
At one o’clock, I collected Michael from nursery. He showed me a painting and asked what I had done.
‘Typing and telephones.’
‘Did you paint?’
‘No.’
He looked disappointed by the standard of my morning.
The first weeks were tiring. I had remembered work as a place where tasks ended. School offices did not support this memory. A letter could be finished, then a parent would ring about it. A list could be checked, then a child would join or leave. Dinner money arrived in envelopes containing amounts that did not match the figures written outside.
At home, the washing and meals remained. Alan did more in the evenings, though we had several discussions about what ‘doing the kitchen’ included. He thought it meant washing up. I thought the worktop and floor had entered the agreement without needing separate negotiation.
The children adjusted sooner than I did. Claire liked that I worked in a school, though she was disappointed it was not hers. Michael began nursery without difficulty. On Fridays, when I finished at noon, we had lunch together before collecting Claire.
The first pay went into the household account. I did not buy anything to mark it. The amount covered nursery, petrol and part of the mortgage. There was satisfaction in that, though satisfaction was not the word I used then.
I said the job was going well.
That was enough.
By Christmas, I knew most staff names, several parents and the children who visited the office often. I could find a pupil card without asking Pauline and could tell from the headteacher’s tone whether a letter needed typing that day or five minutes ago.
Returning to work did not restore an earlier version of me. The woman who had left Wessex Marine Supplies in 1986 had not managed two children, a mortgage and six years of household accounts. I was slower with the typewriter than I had been. I was better at deciding what needed doing first.