Hartlepool History Then & Now

My Story by Joan Brown

MY STORY by Joan Brown nee Scott

In 1944 at the age of fifteen, I started work at the newly opened West Hartlepool branch of the Newcastle Trustee Savings Bank. The building in Church Street had previously been a shop and, as it was wartime, still had the large display windows and glass front door, a far cry from today’s reinforced Bank buildings. There was a telephone, no adding machines, and accounts were in 500-page ledgers, every entry written by hand. We soon learned to accurately add up long columns of figures, something I can still achieve in my 84^th year! After training time as a junior, I eventually served customers and tills had to balance to the halfpenny every night, or we stayed there until they did.

We had Savings Schemes with the Docks and several of the big factories, one I remember being Prices Tailors, who made the suits for Burtons. This meant hundreds of transactions of half a crown (two shillings and sixpence), and five shillings, had to be posted into each account in the ledgers every Friday. Saturday came, and hundreds of them were withdrawn again. The Bank was open all day Saturday and we had a half-day on Wednesday.

The Bank’s year ended on 20^th November, when interest was added to the accounts, and all the ledgers had to be balanced. We worked until midnight for as many nights as it took to balance, and were paid a stated amount of “balance money” no matter how long we had worked. As a junior, I received one pound, and the most I ever remember receiving was three pounds, just before I left in 1949. On joining the Bank, my salary was one pound per week, less National Insurance. I gave my mother fifteen shillings, and what was left was mine!

The manager lived in Darlington and travelled by train every day, and in the bad winter of 1947 he was unable to reach the Bank for two weeks. The staff then consisted of the manager, myself and Harry, who was the same age but junior to me. So, at the age of seventeen, I managed the Bank for two weeks with Harry’s help. The cash was balanced every night and the weekly report done and sent to Head Office as usual, although I had never done it before. When the manager returned, he shut himself in the office for a morning and checked everything I had done. On emerging, he said “Well Joan, I don’t know how you did it, but you got it right”. Praise indeed!

Women were always paid less than the men, even though the men may have been less experienced. It was a fact of life in those days, but one which increasingly rankled with me in later years when I frequently had to balance the cash for a male colleague.

Once a year, the Government Inspector came for a few days to check everything, and we were never given any prior knowledge of his imminent arrival. He was immediately recognisable by his elegant camel overcoat and brown trilby hat, and our hearts sank at the sight of him. There was a combined sigh of relief when he left, having found nothing.

Confidentiality regarding customers was naturally of great importance and not easily accepted by some family members. One of my aunts opened an account, and I served her, and she was very put out to find that I had not told my mother that she had opened an account!

I sometimes had to go to other branches on relief, and worked in Darlington, Stockton, Billingham and Durham. In 1949 I moved to Weston-super-Mare and worked for the Somerset and Wilts. TSB until 1963 and the impending arrival of my first son. Banking life was much easier, but I don’t regret the discipline of those hard working years in West Hartlepool. We had a lot of laughs too!