Being a Legal Secretary

I am going to keep writing about my jobs because, to be honest, I can't come up with much else, and at least it's something blogwise. If anyone wants to ask us a question, or even set an essay question I'm game, because it's better than the watching The Simpsons again, which seems to be on an endless loop repeating themselves, not that that stops the kids watching them. I used to love The Simpsons, but now I know all the jokes, so I am more into 'Family Guy'. If you want a guaranteed laugh, watch this.

Once I had quite a good job as a legal secretary. I will keep the name on my blog to get a bit of a revenge because she really is a little monkey and something of a madam, not that I'm sure she will be worried about me slagging her off on a blog in front of two people, and she remains blissfully unaware of this non-event anyway.LOL

When I first came to Hull I lived in Cottingham and got a job as a legal secretary for Gwynth Drury, Solicitor, Cottingham. She worked everyone really hard for £2.70 per hour (in 1993) while swanning around in a white jeep and going to Beverley Races. She also had to have her sheets changed everyday by the staff and generally behaved in a queenly fashion. On the other hand, she was quite feisty, and had taught herself law after bringing up a family, so I suppose you've got to hand it to her. Mrs Drury had something of a reputation among other solicitors in the area for being a bit of a maverick, and ran a very successful practice, mainly I think, by keeping the costs down. The very weather beaten sign to the practice hung by a thread and used to bang about in the wind. I notice it has only very recently been painted. However, if were to make a Will I would certainly go to her for it as you wouldn't get any cheaper.

I am going to suggest to Eleanor to go into Law as solicitors really do make a lot of money. I used to type out the wills. Basically this is just a template and Mrs Drury used to spend about five minutes changing a few words after a consultation and the typist did all the rest. As far as I could see, a lot of the work is like this, and for which the clients are charged disproportionate amounts. Sounds good to me, if you are the solicitor. I found it quite interesting typing out these wills, as it a bit of human interest. I sometimes did conveyancing, which is just buying and selling houses and is very boring, but again the typists were doing a lot of the work dealing with the clients and the nitty gritty.

I got married to Mark while working here and because his Mam also worked there in the Will section where she did clearing of houses, quite a lot of our furniture originally came from house clearances, which accounts for some of the eccentric mix of our decor. For instance, I keep my clothes in gentleman's maghogany 'tallboy' dating from the War.

I also remember sending everyone a postcard from my honeymoon in Scotland in Ullapool saying 'Cold in the tent and we are having to wear jumpers at all times' which for some reason people apparently found very funny. Also I remember being on the phone to Mark in the office at the same time his Mam was leaving work to come round to ours' and saying 'Your Mam's coming round. Quick, tidy the house.' which was also quite funny and made people laugh. I, however, was being perfectly serious. LOL

Mrs Drury is a little monkey as it were because she did that age-old thing of blaming the powerless staff for any mistakes that she had made. I once got called into her office for a dressing down in front of some clients about a mistake which she had made and for which she blamed me, the typist, just to save face!! Also, when she found out I was pregnant with Jack started making my life nigh on impossible by picking continuous faults with my work, because secretly she did not want me to carry on working there (even though she had previously thought I was a good worker, and in fact the £2.70 was "good wages for her") because then she would have to pay me statutory maternity pay!!! I admit that Mrs Drury and I had a falling out over this and when I got home I was desparate for a fag but because I was pregnant with Jack (and in fact had a textbook pregancy and drank Eisberg instead of wine and bought a twenty five pound computer screen to shield him from any minute amounts of radiation) showed supreme self control and had a banana instead. However, he still was born with something wrong with him. What does all this mean? Who knows.

The thought of all this obviously still gets my goat many years later. I am not a misanthropist, am in fact a sterling individual full of goodwill to all men, but I sometimes find it hard not to be in view of the low behaviour I often have to tolerate in others.LOL