Chapter 85

My first “Milk Round” job interview was with British Petroleum.

BP had a huge need for Chemistry graduates to work in many parts of their organisation, most of the junior posts at this time unfortunately being overseas after an initial training period in the United Kingdom. I didn’t really fancy going abroad so soon after University – even thought there were some very attractive salaries, often tax-free if you went to places like Iraq, the Gulf States or Saudi Arabia – so I was a little wary of committing myself. Julie and I had briefly discussed it when we were deciding which firms to apply to; if I did go to some ex-pat job, then she would stay in England getting her teacher training qualification, and we’d get married on my first long leave home, and she’d come back overseas with me. It wasn’t an ideal solution, as it could cause problems with her career development not to have completed her probationary teaching period in the UK, so my working overseas was definitely our least-preferred choice.

Oddly enough for my first proper interview, I actually felt quite relaxed. Perhaps it was that there was just one man, who sat in a chair opposite me rather than across a table, or he had ‘the touch’, but I was almost immediately put at my ease. The Viva panel had asked me much harder questions, and this chap seemed keener to recruit me than I was to work for his firm. I realised pretty quickly that my reference from the Prof had done its magic, in that BP actually wanted me to work for them, and I got to the stage when I was quite enjoying myself finding out more about how BP functioned as a company.

I had been right to be concerned about being asked to work overseas; my interviewer was perfectly honest with me and said that my first posting after training would almost certainly be abroad and unaccompanied; when I asked where, I got some possible answers that I wasn’t all that happy with – including Nigeria, only five years after the brutal civil war with Biafra, Aden just eight years after its hurried independence from Britain, or Malaysia, which Dad had always described as horribly hot and sticky. I thanked the bloke for being so straight with me, and told him that I was hoping to get married fairly soon and that I’d want to consider any other offers I might get first – and he was very decent about it. He did say that we’d be wasting everyone’s time and money if he made promises that the company wouldn’t keep, so he’d found being frank at the outset the best policy.

When I got back home, I quickly discovered that in Julie’s opinion I’d most definitely made the right decision in backing away – she winced when I mentioned Nigeria and Aden, as she too had grown up with the newspaper and television pictures that showed that their transition to Independence had not gone as smoothly as some others.

“There’s still ICI, Shell and Beecham, though?”

“Yep, so I think BP is going to be my fourth choice!”

“You can always try one of the others anyway; there are plenty more fish in the sea.”

There were indeed. We’d been amazed by the number of firms who appeared on the “Milk Round” lists that Prof had circulated to ask which ones we were interested in being seen by; I’d plumped for interviews with two in the oil business, one in the chemicals, and one in the pharmaceuticals. I hadn’t considered the food, ‘beauty’ or plastics industries, but there were loads to choose from if I did, and I suspected that I wouldn’t be penalised for missing their “Milk Round” interviews if my reference was that well-received. Some of my fellows had signed up for half a dozen interviews which was the most allowed; Prof had suggested an absolute minimum of two but didn’t want to get a reputation for wasting interviewers time with candidates who weren’t at all interested in working for their firms.

I climbed out of my interview suit, hung it up carefully so it wouldn’t get creased, and got changed into my normal scruffy student garb to go for a nice long stroll in the sunshine in Cathays Park, holding hands with my girlfriend. That was much more like it!

Sian and Malcolm had decided to go on a walking tour of Austria over the summer; they had huge fun planning it; Malcolm had written off and ordered some detailed local maps from Stanfords in Covent Garden, and they spent many evenings after our exams looking at the possibilities and working out the distances, and where they could stay the nights without breaking the bank. They even bought a German phrase book, and it was hilarious listening to them practice their language skills! We were all disappointed that they couldn’t find ‘My postilion has been struck by lightning’ or ‘My hovercraft is full of eels’, but they did tell us ‘Please call off your dogs’ which caused great amusement; we just hoped that they wouldn’t need to use it.

They brought back their newly-issued British Visitors Passports from the Post Office with great pride; they had gone through a sudden panic that they might need a proper blue Passport for Austria because of its proximity to the Iron Curtain, and were relieved to find that it was okay. The photos they had taken of themselves in the machine in the Post Office weren’t bad; Malcolm didn’t look like the mugshot of an axe murderer in the Police Gazette (as I normally did in machine photos), and they’d even managed to get a couple of quick snaps of both of them together.

The beginning of June 1975 was unseasonably cold in the UK; indeed there had been so much snow in Buxton in Derbyshire on Monday the 2^nd that the County Cricket match against Lancashire was called off for the day due to the pitch being more of a winter wonderland! It didn’t quite snow in Cardiff, but for a few days it most certainly wasn’t all sunbathing and sitting in the park weather either.

On the Wednesday, I had my interview with Beecham. They had fairly recently set up a big facility on the South Coast, at Worthing, which would certainly be a nice place to live, but I wasn’t sure if I would find pharmaceuticals all that interesting. The Beecham Group had many historic interests in pharmaceuticals like the classic ‘Beechams Powders‘; they were now also becoming major producers of penicillin and working on developing semi-synthetic antibiotic derivatives.

There were two interviewers this time, and I had to work a bit harder to answer their questions. They seemed to be hoping that I might have had a long-term hankering to work for them; they were a bit disappointed when I told them that I was interested in finding out how exactly up-to-date their research laboratories were, before committing myself. They did tell me that second interviews were indeed held at Worthing, so I would get a chance to look round if I pursued my interest.

It was only a little niggle that I had; as they had spent so much on their new building, would they be continually investing in the latest equipment, or would they be a few years before spending more money? It was quite an important question given the technical advances in fields like mass spectrometry in the past few years, and I wasn’t sure that my interviewers knew the answer, no matter how much they bragged about their new building. I did check that they had electric typewriters and modern photocopiers, so at least they were moving in the right direction.

Julie and I went swimming that afternoon out of habit; I told her about my interview on the way up to Maindy Baths. She informed me that she had actually been to Worthing, when she was about twelve or thirteen, to visit some distant relative (since dead) who’d retired there after India and Pakistan had endured Partition and gained Independence in 1947.

“It’s not a bad place, but I bet it can be grim in the winter, with the gales off the Channel. Mind you, the summers will make up for that. I’ve heard that the Sussex Downs are beautiful walking country, real olde worlde and unspoilt still.”

“Yeah, Nevil Shute talks about it really affectionately in a couple of his novels; I’d certainly like to see it sometime, though he was talking about just after the Great War, so it’s probably changed a bit since then.”

“So, do you think they’ll give you a second interview?”

“Probably; Prof has apparently written me up as a future Nobel Prize winner, and I don’t think that I disgraced myself with my manners.”

“Oh well, if you do go, I’ll come with you and spend some time wandering around town to see if I remember any of it. We’d probably bring down the average age by a couple of years if we moved there, and I don’t want to get old before my time.”

“You’ve got a point. Didn’t you once tell me that there’s no way you’d ever live in Torquay?”

“Yes, that’s a retirement town if I ever saw one. Okay, brilliant tourism strategy calling it the ‘English Riviera’ and planting the palm trees along the front, but everyone’s so blasted old fashioned. Just think, we could go to a tea dance with the oldies after work before going home at eight o’clock to drink our Horlicks and have an early night!”

We both shuddered at the idea. We were young, and it was hard to imagine that one day we’d be as old as our grandparents – and impossible to think that we’d enjoy the same things that their generation was reputed to do.

We had a good energetic swim and got the kinks out of our bodies; I bought us both a choc-ice on the way home to replace the calories we’d used. We took my white interview shirt to the launderette that evening together with a few other bits and pieces; I was very careful to iron it and hang it up before we went to bed.

There was a Referendum on whether Britain should stay in the Common Market on 5^th June; we were all still registered to vote in Cardiff after the two 1974 General Elections, so after breakfast on Thursday we wandered down to the Polling Station at St. Peter’s Church Hall to cast our votes.

Friday was my ICI interview. Imperial Chemical Industries was a huge firm with a broad range of products from paints to explosives via raw materials for plastics, solvents, fertilisers and pesticides, and I reckoned that I could have a varied and interesting career with them. They too had many overseas interests, and there would surely be a chance for Julie and I to try out the ex-pat lifestyle for a few years, if we fancied it.

To be honest, ICI were the company I most fancied working for.

I’d been really impressed with some of the research papers that ICI had published; they seemed to be doing ‘pure’ research as well as more product-specific, and my tutor had told me that they were very likely to encourage me to do some research of my own which would quickly allow me to gain a Ph.D. That was very attractive; it would boost my salary and employability.

This interview was different again from the others; there were two people there, one who introduced himself as a manager and the other a chap who’d joined them a couple of years earlier. They ran through the preliminaries very quickly, the manager said that they were more interested in how I thought my way through a problem, and they set up a couple of process scenarios and asked me to talk them through what was happening, where the choke points were, and to identify the various risks involved.

That part completed to their satisfaction, they then asked me a little more about my interests outside work. They chuckled when I told them that I was a regular viewer of ‘Doctor Who’, it turned out that they both were also.

“So was it Doctor Who that made you want to be a scientist?”

I thought about that for a moment.

“I’m sure that the Doctor, and my liking for reading science fiction, are all part of it, but I suppose that the defining moment was going out into the garden in my pyjamas to look at Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon.”

They looked at each other.

“Explain what you mean, please?”

I took a sip of water from my glass to buy myself a little more thinking time.

“I was fourteen then, so of course I did know that I wouldn’t be able to actually see them on the Moon, but I’d just watched the television pictures – our parents woke us up especially because it was such an important event – and I suppose I thought that the closest I could get to being a part of it was to look up at the Moon with my own eyes. I’m sure that being that young it was just an impulsive decision, but deep down I wanted to be part of such a scientific achievement, and that’s why I chose Science ‘A’ Levels.”

“You don’t just see the Space Race as a political thing; an alternative competition to the Cold War?”

I shook my head.

“I agree with you that the Space Race wouldn’t have happened without the politicians trying to compete against each other; they simply wouldn’t have made the money available even though they must have spent much vaster quantities on weapons, but all sorts of innovations and developments have taken place to make the Moon Landings possible; except this time most of them have immediate practical and commercial benefits – I haven’t done any research, but I bet a lot of the modern electrical goods like golfball typewriters, Xerox photocopiers, microwave ovens, portable television sets, eight-track stereo cassettes and so on owe an awful lot to NASA research, or at least to someone demonstrating that electronics can be a lot smaller than they have been. Take PTFE – polytetrafluoroethylene – my Mum now has a Teflon-coated frying pan. I know that DuPont discovered it years ago, before the war if I remember correctly, but to use it for non-stick cookware is a new practical application that nobody would have thought of without the Apollo programme. Yes, it all started off as part of the Cold War, but it’s been inspirational, and businesses have taken the ideas and run with them.”

That little diatribe earned me two big smiles.

“Have you ever seen anything our Research Division has published?”

“I read a paper last year that Dr. Twitchett wrote about iso-cyanates; obviously I only have a passing knowledge, but I was impressed with the thoroughness of the study, and it’s one reason that I applied to I.C.I.”

“You’re a subscriber to the Chemical Society Review?”

“Yes, but the student price is heavily subsidised; I doubt that I’ll have my own copy when I have to pay the full whack; I assume that most firms will have their own subscription and circulate it.”

“One more question. If you had access to a time machine and could go back and talk to one person, who would it be, and why?”

The look on my face must have given away my utter bemusement. What kind of question was that? He laughed.

“Okay, so that’s probably not a routine interview question. Do take a minute to think and then see what you can come up with.”

I pondered. Even with my penchant for reading science fiction, and having read a number of short stories about time machines, I hadn’t really ever thought about it. I did now.

“Apart from asking Bluebeard where he buried his treasure, I suppose I’d really like to have met Brunel. Some friends of mine live near the Clifton Suspension Bridge, and of course the “Great Britain” was brought back to Bristol four or five years ago for preservation – I’d very much like to talk to a man who could master so many engineering disciplines and achieve so much that other people said was impossible.”

He nodded wisely.

“That’s actually a darned good answer on the spur of the moment.”

He looked at his colleague, who nodded at him.

“We’re both going to recommend that ICI offer you a second interview; you’ve impressed us. Have you any questions for us at this stage?”

I remembered my manners.

“Thank you! I’m certainly still interested in working for ICI, and I haven’t received any other offers or made commitments yet. When am I likely to hear about the second interview?”

Well, the interview outcome was certainly worth taking Julie out that night; we very easily persuaded Vee and Fred to come out for a Student Special curry and then come down to the Jazz Club for some dancing.

We had a quiet weekend otherwise; Sian and Malcolm had gone to her folks, carrying much of her stuff so she was left with mostly essentials until they had found a place to live. That spurred Julie on to working out what she should take back to Exeter, and what she might need over the summer.

“Oh god, I’ll need some decent clothes for teaching practice; I won’t get away with ‘the student look’ all the time. I haven’t bought a new skirt since I was 17!”

“It mightn’t be a bad idea to take Vee for a wander round the shops; she’s got a pretty good eye for pullover and skirt combinations?”

“Yeah, Casanova, I’ve seen your appreciation - your eyes still pop out on stalks whenever she wears that tight green top!”

I laughingly pleaded guilty and threw myself on the mercy of the court.

Vee did look especially good in that outfit, and she knew it; her confidence only accentuated the visual effect of her figure. Sometimes when I saw it my eyes weren’t the only part of my anatomy that popped out – early on, when I was effectively ‘going out’ with all three girls, squiring them to various activities, Vee had worn it one evening when I took her to the Jazz Club – and when we got back to her room afterwards, she had used her petite and shapely body to thank me to the best of her ability several times. I still had fond memories of that night, even two years later.

I was honest in recommending Vee’s fashion sense; she also had a good eye for a bargain and wasn’t afraid to haggle. Julie said that she’d ask Vee about going shopping, and did so when we all had tea.

On Sunday morning, Julie phoned Sheila and Jen to wish them luck in their exams; she reported that all four were in good health and not too panicky, and that they sent their love. My girlfriend and I spent most of the day in Cathays Park sunbathing on the grass. Julie had rolled up her tee shirt almost to the swell off her boobs; she said that she hated having a totally white tummy. She was wearing her shortest skirt, and that was also rolled up as far as was decent. I’m sure that several of the pedestrians who just ‘happened’ to cross the grass near where we were did it to have a good letch; I was enjoying the view myself!

Monday was my final job interview; Shell was another oil giant with world-wide interests. I knew that they were in the later stages of connecting their Stanlow Refinery on the Mersey with deep water pontoons off Anglesey to deal with the modern supertankers; it was a big refinery producing a chunk of the UK’s petrol and much of our diesel and aviation fuels, and because of the major investment in progress, I was vaguely interested in working there; it wasn’t as big or complex as Esso’s monster at Fawley in Hampshire, but I didn’t know where I might have the better career opportunities.

I think I did okay; they were pleased that I had done some research into the company, but I didn’t make the connection with them that I had with ICI. So ICI was still my favourite.

Vee and Julie had spent that morning listing those of their set books that they didn’t want to keep – her paperback of John Donne romantic poems was definitely on the ‘keep’ list, and ‘The Canterbury Tales’ on the ‘sell’ one, and they’d gone down to their Department to advertise them for someone else to buy second-hand. They would only get a couple of quid as they’d bought many of them from someone else the year before, but at least that was something back, and less luggage to remove. It was just a shame that Sarah and Monica downstairs weren’t doing English!

With a lot of free time on our hands, and the absence of the first and second year students who were now undergoing their own exams, Julie and I decided to follow the twins’ recommendation and try out Badminton. After all, there’s only so much sunbathing and canoodling in the park that you can do, and we were conscious that we’d not done a lot of physical exercise recently.

She asked Monica downstairs about where to go and who to see, and came back all enthused. Neither of us had special sports kit; we both had our old school black plimsolls and shorts and teeshirts, but apparently being in the ‘right’ kit didn’t matter unless you were playing for one of the University College teams. So, on Tuesday morning we strolled up to the Sports Hall and borrowed some racquets and shuttlecocks from a fairly bored attendant who had very few customers.