I should be so lucky

Memory can play tricks on all of us if we allow it too, and the rose-tinted spectacles can be donned and waves of nostalgia can make the past seem much better than it actually was. That old Shakespearean theme of the bad being interred with bones, something like that. So it is with the 1980s, if you look back now it all seems so bright, optimistic and positive, when it reality it was a time of massive structural change that was atomising our communities and paving the way for the fractured and broken country we have now. But there were good things happening to me.

Not that I was thinking too much about it as 1988 dawned. Life seemed quite positive as finally I got my opportunity to move to the back room and work as part of the Lending and Securities teams. This was where the fun in the branch seemed to be, most of the people working there seemed actually to enjoy being there, and a lot of laughter was always radiating from the room, in quite stark contrast to the rest of the branch, which always seemed a bit downbeat and lacklustre. 

Quite soon after moving into the team it was December, which involved my first office Christmas party. It was held at a hotel somewhere down in South Kensington. The passage of time, as well as the amount of alcohol I consumed that night have combined to delete the exact location from my memory. There was a lovely meal, everyone had put their glad rags on, and we all danced to the hits of the year. I don’t remember those exactly, except for it being the first year that Fairytale of New York came out. That is one thing that was definitely better back then - music. More invention, variety and edge. Although I’m sure there was a lot of dross then too.

 I do remember how the meal degenerated into a huge food fight between the Cashiers team’s table and that of the Lending room. Now, I was used to “student antics” and had come from a state school background where people were not afraid to go on big drinking sprees. But this behaviour was at another level, and I was both shocked and delighted. The air was literally full of food, most of it raining down at great velocity and precision onto the heads of the cashiers.

The Number One Cashier (their team leader) started to complain that things were getting out of hand, so our team leader (in reality an Assistant Manager not much out of his 20s) told us to stop, and said he’d go and have a word with her. I thought this would pour oil on troubled waters, but by saying to her “why are you such a boring old XXX” it actually poured petrol onto the fire. Uproar ensued and the Senior Manager of the whole branch had to be called in to broker an uneasy peace and stop the mayhem.

Looking back at that incident it encapsulates so much that was different about the workplace back then. There were rules, there were policies and there were expected standards of behaviour. But people didn’t really care as much about the underlying reasons for those things like they do now, and although it might have seemed like fun at the time, that food fight was a symptom of a lack of respect that some colleagues had for others. The world is definitely a much better and kinder place in many ways now.

Through 1988 I learnt, through a mixture of formal courses, my Banking exam studies, and on-the-job experience, how to lend money, take security and pursue customer debt. It was a really fun year, but I was also keen to progress to the next stage of my training programme. Back then I was a different person, all I thought about was getting on, getting promoted and moving up. So it was that in October of that year I moved on to Kensington High Street Branch to take a role as a Manager’s Assistant. 

One thing that was definitely better back then was the ability of young people to buy their own property, although the government of the time had done its best to muck this up by creating a credit bubble that sent prices soaring that year. I bought my first flat in South London at a stupidly inflated price and moved in around the same time as I started at Kensington. I remember it took about three weeks to get a landline connected, and though brick-sized mobile phones did exist, their cost was out of reach for almost everyone back then. The only way anyone could contact me for those three weeks in those pre-internet days was by writing me a letter. Different times as they say, and another example of how much better things are now, despite all the pressures that come with instant communication and social media.

I was only at Kensington for six months but I did really love the experience. The work was very interesting, and one of my peers became friends outside of work, playing squash on a regular basis. If only we had got straight into cycling, I would still have functioning and intact knees. But it was a very 1980s game and we played almost every week until our paths diverged geographically some years later and it was no longer possible to keep doing it.

I also left Kensington about a stone heavier than when I joined, largely due to the fact that the branch was next door to a McDonalds. I think there was also a KFC up the road. At 24 I thought I was immortal, and having been brought up in a village and town where the only takeaway food was the local chippie meant this was like Pandora's box for me. Nobody was that health-conscious back then. Maybe it was the culture, maybe it was our youth, but it’s interesting to see my younger colleagues at work now all making much healthier choices than I did then. 

All of that said, I had a sense of being very fortunate to have the opportunity that I had. I was being paid well, had my own flat, some nice friends and a good social life. The work was interesting and I had good prospects and despite some distant grey economic clouds on the horizon, things were looking reasonably positive. There was a generally optimistic vibe in the country. I felt pretty lucky.

Most of the branches of Lloyds that I have worked at have all closed now, including Knightsbridge. But I’m delighted to say that High St. Ken is still there, right next door to McDonalds!