Tuesday, July 24th .....

Last night was the regular meeting of the Board of Giant Steps. I’d had warning that it was to be the Election of Officers and I should be prepared to be nominated. In the end, I found myself Treasurer. Now, I’ve been Treasurer of organizations before but being Treasurer of Giant Steps doesn’t mean keeping a set of books and presenting monthly reports of Income and Expenditure. The books are kept by a professional bookkeeper (by the way, bookkeeper is the only word in the English language where three sets of double letters follow each other, oo-kk-ee) and the job of the Treasurer is to keep an eye on how the school is going and recommend to the Board whether particular financial decisions should be made.

I was told that my background as an accountant made me qualified for the job. What a joke! My accounting experience occurred in the early 1960’s and was more Charles Dickens than Price, Waterhouse. I used a fountain pen rather than a computer and always went home with inky fingers. In those days, the practice was double-entry bookkeeping where everything was entered twice, once in the debit column and once in the credit. There were three columns in our ledgers, one each for £, s and d. We weren’t allowed to use green ink which was reserved for auditors.

My first job was with a bus company and part of my duties was to count the money brought in by the drivers at the end of their shift. It was a filthy job and was mostly coin. A good day’s takings from one bag rarely reached £50. Of course, the driver might only earn between £5 and £6 per day. As a Trainee Accountant, I earned £10.4.6 per week. Luxury!

I then went to a department store where I really did keep the books. It was an old-fashioned store which still used a pneumatic cash transfer system. Every few minutes in our office we would hear the whoosh of a cylinder arriving from one department or another. One of the girls would open it, take out the money, put in the change and send it on its way back to the right department. In between doing this and gossiping, the four or five girls worked on what were called accounting machines – like typewriters but with a 3-foot carriage and dozens of keys.

One thing I do remember is that there are only two jokes about accountants. One is about the constipated accountant who couldn’t budget at night but managed to work it out in the morning and the other one is so weak, it doesn’t even make accountants laugh. I can’t help thinking that, if I had worked as a plumber for five years I would be just as qualified to be the Treasurer of Giant Steps.