Last month’s article requested items to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee this year and this prompted a memory of mine when I met Her Majesty, in 1968, in Queen’s Road, Reading. I had worked for the GPO and on marriage had to leave because they did not employ married women. I was given my insurance cards to take to Social Security. Each person would have a card for National Insurance stamps which were affixed weekly or monthly according to when you were paid and cancelled with a written date. These were returned to DHSS annually. A big change today, when national insurance contributions are taken at source.
Talking to the clerk there, I explained my position and she said that their new ADP department was looking for employees. My job initially, as Personal Assistant to the Head of the ADP Division of the Ministry of Social Security (Health was added later on) was to check and monitor the new building going up in Queen’s Road to accommodate an innovative computer. This venture was a joint project with the Ministry of Labour which would issue unemployment benefit and sick pay cheques.
The computer, when it was built, covered the whole of the ground floor, ran on tape, was kept at a certain temperature, and was a forbidden and mysterious area for most of the personnel except the programmers who were regarded with awe. Compare this with today when I wrote this article on my home computer and paid for my nephew’s wedding present all via the ether, not necessarily needing a building to house the computer.
Naturally it was a highlight for me, to liaise with Buckingham Palace and Westminster to arrange the visit of the Queen, Prince Phillip and Mrs Judith Hart, the Minister of Social Security. I didn’t actually speak to the Queen but was proud to have been the arranger of her visit and I have the picture supplement from the local paper to remind me.
Are there any other personal Royal stories out there we could use for the Parish celebrations in June? Please let us know.
Margaret Bampton