Then I saw an advertisement in the paper for ABC television, that was going to open in Teddington.  I started there on 4th May ’59, but I gave my notice in, because I thought they were going to open a bit earlier, but they didn’t, or they didn’t need us, so I did get myself a little job in Bayers, which was in Eden Street, next to what is Heal’s upstairs.  I was there for a month and I was addressing envelopes and sending out paperwork to doctors, where they were holding these meetings at various hotels.  I did that for a month and I thoroughly enjoyed it, because I could type, I’d been totyping classes… at the end, I’ll always remember this, I’d only been there a month, they got me a collection and bought me some silver charms for mybracelet.  And then I went to ABC.   

Is that what became Thames Television?   Yes, we were merged in ’68 with Rediffusion. 

And what was your job at the ABC? Punch card operator! And gradually, it got more modern and it went to VDUs, basically the same.  I was doing all sorts when I first started there; it was to do with the advertisements, the commercials on the television, so we typed all the paperwork for that and worked the machines that went with it.

Later on, I went to Artists’ Payments.  Because I used to work on the shows, I was an usherette on the television shows as well. I used to enjoy that, but I gave it up after a while, because watching the Benny Hill shows, it was all on screen, it had all been pre-filmed and I thought, I could be doing something better on a Sunday evening than this, so I gave it up.