Annette talks about her career and working life, including her work with WEA at Wensum Lodge in Norwich.
I left school and went straight to university in Glasgow, studying Geography, Philosophy, all sorts of things, but of course when I left, what to do next?
Somebody gave me the advice to apply to the civil service, which I did and eventually I was selected as an executive officer, but not in Scotland as they’d no vacancies so I was posted in London.
I worked in Her Majesty’s Stationery Office which we all know about through publications. I’d no idea what they did but I landed lucky as I was in a commercial environment rather than the Inland Revenue or DHSS. I was taught to buy all the paper, envelopes that the civil service requires.
What I did not appreciate was that the government policy was to disperse civil servants out of London and of course I had joined a department that had been pointed up. So within about 18 months I had moved to Norwich, which at first I found quite difficult after London, but settled and I have never left.
I have spent my working career from 1968 to 1997 in the stationery office doing a variety of jobs. I finally became the personnel manager, so, interviewing new recruits, managing careers, a lovely job and I enjoyed it.
Again, the government had decided to privatise the stationery office so the next big event in my life was being made redundant, because I didn’t want to work with the people who were taking over.
So I accepted graciously a redundancy package, had a little brief holiday and then someone suggested that I apply for part time work at County Hall which was near to where I lived.
Adult Education and a move to County Hall
I duly applied and was accepted on a temporary basis, initially to just do admin work for the director as she was looking for a proper secretary, so I filled in for about six months. I was then employed as a data inputter to a little group, three of us, and our job was related to internal audit which made sure that everything that went through Adult Education was fit for scrutiny. That we were spending money correctly, budgeting properly and I was there for about seven or eight years.
Then a time came in Adult Education where changes were happening, and the first thing that was mooted, among other things, was that internal audit was no longer required, so in theory our jobs disappeared. But being a permanent member of staff I was moved over and did clerical, support work for groups who did group work teaching basic skills.
Wensum Lodge – the hub for Adult Education in Norfolk
What I learned from Adult Education here in Norfolk, when I joined in 1997, was that you had 15 branches all over Norfolk, based in schools mostly and centres of Adult Education at night, but of course Wensum Lodge was the hub. That was where it was all managed from.
You had a mixture of managers at Wensum Lodge and then all the different managers at the outskirts but of course they were able to access all the facilities at Wensum Lodge.
At this point I only worked at County Hall spasmodically, because the director spent most of the time as Wensum Lodge, which meant that basically my base was at Wensum Lodge.
I worked in the music house, and we had a tiny office right at the top. They were idiosyncratic little rooms, the room that I worked in really was tiny and in the apex of the old building.
Any work that I had to do on the ground floor was three floors down, so it was a regular process going up and down stairs.
But it gave me the opportunity to mix with people who were helping lots of different groups. There was help for people who wanted to learn numeracy and literacy to get into the employment system. A whole programme came in from the government to help mothers, so you’d have a whole raft of women helping other women get into the nursery system.
Offices were made in strange places, at one time there was an area that branched out from the main building that was in fact bedrooms, because at one time Wensum Lodge hosted weekend residential courses. We were expanding and they needed more office space centrally.
It did mean that a lot of people were coming and going from Wensum Lodge, they could meet students from Norwich who they needed to interview or discuss their curriculum. You had a layer of people who managed curriculum, how to teach French? How do we teach English? It was an amalgam of lots of skills and in addition it was a social centre.
You also had a group of people who worked at a branch in say, Eaton or Hellesdon and their base could be at Wensum Lodge on a short term basis, what we would call hot desking now. There were also centres in Norwich, Aylsham, Kings Lynn and Great Yarmouth, and they were all part of a huge education network, operating locally and managed from Wensum Lodge. So there were lots of comings and goings, and a variety of people coming into the building on a daily basis.
But then it got to about, it must have been 2004 and another government policy change, and the immediate change that you could see was that things were going to be rationalised and finding out what was needed and what was not.
And that contraction went on until I left in 2008. I looked the other day and there were 16 centres of education and I would question how many there are now.
There was also Jurnet’s Bar which was used at night for social events and they had a dining room you could have lunch there. It’s an under croft, and an ancient part of the building. I wouldn’t say that it was the focal point as there was a pub further up the road. But socially I knew people who had partied in Jurnet’s bar.
As I came to the end of my 11 years there I could see things contracting, they gave the dining room up, there was always the bar there, you had lovely facility as it looked on to the river.
When people were doing their course, in the break they could have their coffee by the river if it was a lovely day. And all of that created a different atmosphere to going into a school room for two hours. It was a very pleasant environment.
It was handy because it had parking, so students and staff could all park there at one point. The retraction of facilities meant that a basic, practical thing like the car park disappeared. Now that’s a practical matter, it’s important if you’re a busy woman working part time and you need somewhere to park quickly when you go to work.
What happened in maybe a lot of organisations and happens still is that the management are probably forced into rationalisation, you know making studies of what we do which is a good word for saying that we’ve got to cut our costs. We have to restrict what we can offer and that’s a terrible thing for the management. But it’s worse for the workers as they are well aware and I think that all of them put a brave face on it.
WEA – Workers’ Education Association. Based at Wensum Lodge and the move to alternative premises
As I said, being in the building I could see what was going on and I discovered WEA, the Workers’ Education Association. And what I discovered was that there were these magnificent 10 week courses studying subjects such as renaissance Italy or Anglo Saxon history, everything under the sun. And I thought, I’m only working part time and finish at 2pm, I can go to classes after I finish, So gradually I started joining afternoon classes and then they had evening classes. There was a wonderful class about sewerage in Britain, magnificent, lovely stuff.
By the time that I had decided to retire in 2008 I knew some of the voluntary committee and they had kept an eye out and said, ‘You’re retiring, would you like to help?’ So I joined and helped to prepare the annual courses at Wensum Lodge.
Time went on and the facilities in winter were sometimes a bit chilly, the heating didn’t always work in the main hall. There were also little difficulties, confusion over dates, and eventually we as a committee decided to move our venue for the main courses.
More people were coming to work at Wensum Lodge and I think that we were perhaps secondary in the interests, I don’t say that they treated us badly but we were secondary to the main stream of work. So the committee decided that they would look for another premises and we moved our day classes along to the Kings Centre further along King Street.
For about four or five years we kept the days schools there, at Wensum Lodge, on a Saturday. As I said earlier, it presented a social centre and had reasonable surroundings, the big hall as long as it was heated, and the river to enjoy on your break. So the facility was beneficial but only became available for us on a Saturday. So we moved on, I’m afraid and eventually we withdrew altogether.
We found, not by chance, along King Street nearer to the Rose Lane end, what had been the Lads’ Club, and had been a centre for years. It had been a centre pre and post war, a place for youngsters to go, there was boxing, training, basically a public facility. It was taken over by an evangelical church and they gutted it. And they needed income to support their church and created cleverly a lovely little restaurant café, and had rooms of different sizes for conferences and study and that’s where we came in, we could hire out learning areas, we used the main area which had all the facilities.
Initially we just had day schools there, up until 2012 Saturday schools were still at Wensum Lodge and then we moved. Not to Kings Centre because Saturdays weren’t available, so we moved into the city. The Masonic Lodge offered us a place at one point, and we went to Anteros at Fye Bridge, so we have used city venues for a Saturday but King Centre became our centre until quite recently.
Up to the time that I left the choice of courses was pretty broad I would say, it was a biggish brochure for Adult Education and it is only as the years have gone on that the choice has got narrower and narrower and the focus has concentrated on the vocational.
I think that the area that has probably suffered most is ‘interest’ you know, literature, art history, things like that. But pottery, jewellery, certain things hung on because they had the facility there, so they survived.
But the government they, you know, they have to build skills and I can see where we would not figure largely in that.
Highlights of my time at Wensum Lodge
What I found as somebody who had come from a commercial environment really, that it was an education environment.
All these people had different skills, some were from the teaching profession, and they did a good job for a section of the community that you often forgot about, people who can’t just sit down and pass an exam and go to university, they needed basic help and support.
There was a really good range of topics and it was not a very expensive education, it was a good facility for the community.
And they were good fun to work with, you know we’d good fun. I think that working in a building that was never meant to be for offices, you’d a camaraderie, you know, who’s going for the tea, down two floors, and up to a certain time it was a relatively happy place I would say.
The things that I really enjoyed were the courses that I went on. Very skilled people offering their services, lovely, interesting courses. So I benefited from it. Along with another member of the committee I did one course with one particular tutor who was an external tutor for UEA [University of East Anglia] At that time you could do external courses and we did two years of renaissance art, paradise. At that time you could have built up to almost a degree if you had done different sections. That’s all gone now.
My reaction to the closure is dismay, it’s the most historical, important bit of Norwich. Dragon Hall, I mean people all over the world know about Dragon Hall. You’ve got in that a wonderful potential, I don’t say that it’s got to be used for learning necessarily but don’t let it die or pulled down, it can’t be pulled down.
There must be some way that we can make use of it profitably as well as useful for the community, I don’t know how though, it’s not going to be easy but it must not be allowed to go.
It’s just wonderful and it’s been adapted over the years so it can be adapted again, I’m sure.
Annette Conn talking to WISEArchive 18th September 2024 in Norwich. © 2024 WISEArchive. All Rights Reserved
