Secretarial Work in London

I have a file which contains a number of my mother's papers amongst which are the certificates she received for her examinations while at Sale County High School near Manchester. She was a bright girl. In those days to 'matriculate' a student had to pass exams in six subjects at age 16, including English and maths. Helen's certificate shows eight, three at Distinction level, but she also later passed Latin at Higher level.

Helen had a promising future but things were difficult at home so, instead of completing her Highers and going on to university, in 1931 she left school to join her older sister Christian at St James' Secretarial College in London. The college would only take her if she lived with a relative but Uncle Alf, her Aunt Dizzy's husband, had died in the spring, so she was able to stay with her aunt. Her father paid for her season ticket and she had 7s/6d a week for her lunches and all other expenses.

This reference from the college, provided to her when she applied for a job with the Colonial Office, states that she could take shorthand at the rate of 120 words per minute. The College helped students to get a job and, in 1932, she had an interview at the Asiatic Petroleum Company Limited (APCo) in Leadenhall Street as a shorthand typist. The salary was £2.5s per week and, once again, she was required to live with a relative. She started work at the beginning of June but her aunt Dizzie planned to return to Scotland so she and her sister Christian found accommodation at a hostel on the Embankment run by the ladies of St. Martin's in the Fields. The cost of 25s a week included breakfast and evening meal and all meals on Sundays.

From left: Noel, Helen, Christian

When George Wilson lost his job with Grahams in 1933, the family moved to London, to 39 Denning Road, where helen and Christian joined them, but Helen had already made up her mind to go abroad. APCo would only send girls over 25 abroad so she approached both South Africa House and Canada House, without success. Then, in February 1935, Helen received a letter from Ruth McElderry in Zanzibar. Ruth had worked with her for a short time at APCo and Helen had helped her through a break-up from a young man, so they had became good friends. In the summer of 1934 Ruth had gone out to join her parents in Zanzibar where her father was Chief Secretary, where she had helped with the secretarial work for him. However, she had become engaged and was coming home to collect her trousseau.

Ruth wrote to enquire whether Helen would be interested in applying for the new job of Office Assistant in the Secretariat, Zanzibar, which it had been decided must be filled by someone from England as the administration suspected that some of the locally-recruited secretaries were leaking confidential information.  She immediately wrote to the Chief Secretary expressing her interest and in May she met Mr. McElderry, who was on leave, at the Liverpool Street Hotel. He told her to apply to the Colonial Office, which she did, and in due course she heard that her application had been accepted.