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W kerr fraser I joined the scottish home department in sah in september 1955 mother of the bride wedding dress as an assistant principal.My recollections of my first ten days are a bit fuzzy now.I signed the official secrets act and various documents about my pension and i received my towel.I was told i was on two years' probation.Then, or soon after, i was enrolled in the civil service nursing association which had its own nursing home in edinburgh.I also joined the civil service guild and was issued with a small card listing the shops in edinburgh which would give discount to members of the guild.This privilege was very attractive to someone just about to marry, but not long afterwards it was terminated as a result of a parliamentary question.This was before the days of private eye. I was taken to the registry and shown how to put papers on a file, number them and so on.The lady in charge was very much in charge:She had seen a number of ap's and was not, i suspect, impressed.She put me in the hands of two ladies, the misses sangster, who were identical elegant cocktail dresses twins and whom i have met a number of times since we all retired.They had no doubt put a number of bemused ap's through this training before me and did not treat me as any more bemused than the others, although i guess i was.They were very kind.It is my recollection that i subsequently learned the hard way that it was not for me to put papers on files but to send them to the registry for this to be done. I had a family friend, much older, who was somewhere in the office, and i had read a few references in memoirs to the conduct of government business, but the mysteries of files, minutes and the passage of papers up, down and across were just that mysteries.So were the acronyms and the ranks, the latter mystery being passed down to a later generation when, a little later in my career, i moved on promotion from being a secretary(Private)To be an assistant secretary and had some difficulty in assuring young, acute members of the family that my career was not in decline. When i arrived in sahNo decision had been taken on where i was to work so i was sent to sit for a morning or a full day with other ap's or heo's to see what they were doing.The only one i recall(And i hopeNone of the others see this and feel offended)Had a mound of dirty old files on his desk to assist him in finding out how to remove a judge and quite a senior judge at that.I was a lawyer by training so this made a big impression:It suggested that vast powers were being exercised by junior members of staff(The attempt to remove the judge failed).Each ap asked the same question"Do you know where you are going? "And the answer was the same"No". I realised later that the question wasNot entirely disinterested: AP's were moved around quite a lot, and Establishment Divisions wereNot always sensitive about letting probationers have advanceNotice of moves. I had been in the raf until a few weeks before i arrived so i was familiar with the idea of rank.I was taken to see some of the more senior people in shd.One i particularly remember was a handsome, very tall man with whom i subsequently had very little to do because i never worked on fisheries on which subject he was the great panjandrum but i remember him because on the table at his back was the biggest bottle of milk of magnesia i had ever seen.This gave me cause to think about what i was letting myself in for. After about ten working days i was taken to a back room on the fifth floor beside the gents' toilet to meet my first principal, mr whipp.I have the kindest recollections of mr whipp.He was in his fifties and had come to edinburgh from london in 1935 when the scottish office first opened its premises in drumsheugh gardens.He was a man of very regular habits.Each morning he arrived at 9.30, removed hat and coat and sat down to reach into the second top drawer of his desk and extract the cloth with which he polished his glasses.That done he reached for the top file in the in tray.Would that i had learned to emulate his systematic approach.His routine was broached twice a year when he arrived later than usual after a diversion to jenners' sale. Mr whipp was at the head of a small team which dealt with matters concerning the rating and valuation of property, not normally a subject to set the blood racing.But at that time the government had decided to implement some or all of the recommendations of a major report on the subject, so i found myself involved in the creation and passage of a major bill, quite a rare event for a scottish department in these days.This meant attendance at meetings with the draftsmen(In london of course), sessions of the Standing Committee in the House of Commons and involvement with briefing Ministers.It also meant contact from time to time with the head of the department who took a close interest in the bill.This was sir charles cunningham who lived in room 413(? )On the fourth floor.I had a high respect for my seniors at that time, but with cunningham it was awe, and i was not the only one. At that time there were four departments which operated with their own finance divisions and establishment divisions.Each head of department ranked as a deputy secretary and sooner or later became a knight.The permanent under secretary(Who ranked as a permanent secretary but had 'under' in his title because the scottish office had a secretary of state)Lived on the fifth floor alongside the secretary of state.I do not think i ever formally met sir david milne who was there when i arrived.All the heads of department were equal but we in s h d believed one was more equal than the others and that was cunningham.Everyone seemed to assume that when milne retired cunningham would move to the fifth floor, but what happened was sensational he became permanent under secretary at the home office. From early on mr whipp gave me first 'go' at drafting most of the replies on green folders, the ministerial correspondence.Most of these referred to the bill which dominated our lives.From him they went to the assistant secretary(Later the head of department)Who was the real expert on the bill, having been secretary to the committee which wrote the report on which the bill was based.The under secretary from time to time put amendments on the draft in green ink, and we then all waited to see to what extent the version sent forward to the minister by cunningham(Who dealt with all green folders unless he was on holiday)Bore any resemblance to what he had been given.To me it always seemed to be better;But for a rather different assessment of cunningham reference might be made to the memoirs of roy jenkins. It was early in my time with mr whipp that the office regained possession of dover house which had been badly damaged by a landmine which, we were told, landed on the cabinet office next door during the war. This heady experience of major legislation came to an end after 18 months with a move to the part of the office where i always felt most at home, police division.By that time i had become familiar with some, but not all, of the geography of st andrews house.From an early stage the windows in sah gave trouble.In addition to the draughts there was a noise problem.I think the trams which used to go down regent road had stopped by the time i arrived but even without them the traffic noise was a nuisance.Even where the windows in the conference rooms fitted reasonably well it was a choice between noise and stuffiness.And for those of us working high up at the back the regular arrival and movement of the coal could be a rowdy distraction. Every day i ate in the dining room on the top floor and watched with interest the(Limited)Variations of casual dress of my superiors at saturday lunch time.No watch was required on the other days of the week as we all(Save the ladies)Wore suits. As far as i can recall it was some time before i took a deep breath and asked for the services of a lady from the typing pool.Otherwise letters to be typed were written Evening dresses sale uk out by hand and sent to the pool.There were no dictating machines and no fax and when at last the fax came it had to be very carefully adjusted.If the machine was too hot, the product disintegrated like confetti as soon as it was touched.Bags of papers moved each night between sah and dover house, and if the deadline was missed for something of importance the sleeper list was consulted to see if anyone on it would agree to take the tardy product. And there were the office dances.Here my recollections are even more vague, perhaps because i deliberately put them out of my mind.I have drawn on the recollections of two or three ladies whose memories of these occasions are quite clear.The location was the charlotte rooms at the corner of princes street and south charlotte street.Later dances were held at the grosvenor hotel at haymarket.Wedding dresses, adapted or unadapted, were rare but remembered.Black tie was required and i have a half recollection of senior(And very handsome)Male colleagues in full evening dress with gloves.It was the occasion for the ap's(And still more the ap's new wives)To identify the senior people.That was as far as it went:Those i have consulted remember how very rank conscious the whole affair was.On this i add the comment of the father of one of these young wives, namely that this was typical of the home department:He was of the more down to earth, unstuffy lot in the department of agriculture.

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