

### The Opportunities of Youth

Copyright © Don Phillips 2005

Published by Don Phillips at Smashwords

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to all the trainees of the Special Unit of Avon County's Youth Opportunities Scheme. They know who they are.
Prologue

This book is a comedy, but the reader needs to understand a little of the background of Youth Opportunities as they were known.

In the late seventies the Thatcher Government determined for once and for all to destroy the power of the Trade Unions who they felt were holding the country to ransom and to be fair, the majority of people in the country at least half agreed with her. However, what the Thatcherites actually achieved with their monetarist policies was the destruction of the countries manufacturing base, which slid rapidly downhill and has been diminishing ever since. Apprenticeships and other types of trade learning practically vanished overnight as companies cut down on all possible expenditures and then went to the wall in droves, buried under an interest rate that finally topped out at eighteen percent as Thatcher determinedly pursued her policies.

There is no doubt that this did severely curb Union power. However, it also removed the livelihood and job opportunities of thousands upon thousands of school leavers. This was especially true for the less able kids who had relied on jobs in the manufacturing industries. And so in Avon County, now vanished from the face of the earth, ACYOPS was invented, Avon County Youth Opportunities Scheme, to give these unemployed kids something to do. The idea was that they should be paid a minimum wage by the state and placed with kindly employers who would teach them the ropes in return for their prepaid labours. In other words free workers from the government in return for giving them real world experience. Some, the more able, were put straight with employers. The rest were first of all put with Supervisors in groups to learn such skills as building and painting and decorating.

They practised on community halls, church halls and other buildings whose owners were very happy to have the work done, however slowly, for only the cost of the materials. To carry out this work of placing and administrating YOPS a whole new department was needed by most County Councils and then they had to be staffed. For old builders whose bodies were giving out before retirement could rescue them, it was a godsend and these people did a good job in teaching a difficult client group how to survive on a building site. Other private schemes were also sanctioned in all sorts of areas of employment. Some were incredibly good, but many were just bloody awful.

In all these schemes the sponsoring body had complete freedom in the matter of choosing staff and no common criteria was ever issued by government nor were the qualifications claimed by the applicants ever really properly checked.

Many schemes had absolutely nobody who had any experienced in training youngsters for work at all and many supervisors were taken from the ranks of ex-teachers. This was not very successful as this group had tended to spend six years training to be teachers only to find what a difficult job it is to teach thirty or more teenagers at a time, especially if they had not the slightest interest in your subject. These people then abandoned the teaching profession for anything they could get their hands on, including ACYOP. Because they had been to teaching college for six years learning a job they now discovered they didn't want, they found themselves fast approaching thirty and totally unsuited to placing sixteen year old kids into the world of work that they themselves had never experienced. None the less, despite their rejection of the teaching profession dozens of these failures, I can use no other word, were employed to become ACYOP supervisors with absolutely predictable results.

Finally there was a group of youngsters that nobody knew what to do with. These were the special needs trainees, as they would be called now. In those days we were less politically correct and a lot more honest. These kids were known in the trade as the Sad, the Mad and the Bad. The sSad were the educationally subnormal, yes, that is how they were called then, and those kids who had found themselves in care for some reason or other and without a normal home. The second group were the Mad and they were the ones who for some reason were out of kilter with the rest of the world. Teachers and parents had given up on them and they were left in limbo. The last group were the Bad. Those kids who had crossed swords with the law and had been offered the choice of a custodial sentence or ACYOPS.

Of course it was not quite as clear-cut as that. Some kids fell into more than one category while others embraced all three. Sent along by Social Services, Probation, Police, schools and any one else who had a school leaver they did not know what to do with, these were the clients of the Special Unit and these are the kids around whom much of this story revolves.

By now some of the more politically correct among you will be getting jumpy at my continually calling them kids. Well we tried all the politically correct titles. We tried calling them clients and we tried referring to them as Youths and Young Persons. They laughed at us and said it was bollocks, so we went back to calling them what they called themselves, Kids. I had over seven hundred pass through my hands. Six hundred and ninety six of them were saveable. Four of them should have been shot. Not a bad ratio really.

Chapter One

For whom the lights flash (Somerset, February 1982)

He was thirty-six years old, tall and faintly tanned from a recent weeks holiday. He was in good physical shape with all his own hair and teeth and was reasonably good looking. His light grey suit, dark blue tie and polished black shoes told you he was not a manual worker although he sat at a table in the empty factory canteen. He was watching a set of coloured lights blinking on the far wall by the menu board. The yellow and green were not active, but the red, white and blue were pulsating on and off, on and off, on and off. A bit like this company he thought, although it was becoming rapidly more off than on these days. Their latest heating pumps were a disaster and as they seized up all over the country, usually when the weather was at its wettest and coldest, plumbers were deserting the company in droves. No plumber was going to continue buying a product that ensured at least one call out within the guarantee period and a disappointed customer on five out of ten installations. They were particularly losing out in the hard water areas where the design almost ensured a breakdown the minute any calcium started to form. This unfortunately included most of the housing estates in the north of England and in particular Manchester and Liverpool. Not a part of the world where a plumber, however practised in the art as most were, wants to piss off all his customers on an annual basis.

He heard footsteps echoing across the floor and looked up to see Derek Killick approaching him. He nodded and indicated the seat opposite. Killick pulled the seat out and sat down.

"Your lights are up you know, Tony, have been for nearly fifteen minutes."

Tony wondered if Killick thought he was blind as he was only sat fifteen feet from the said lights and was practically facing them. Derek Killick ignored his sarcastic and exaggerated raising of one eyebrow and taking his pipe out of one pocket and a plastic tobacco wallet from another, proceeded to fill it. He did this with slow and careful movements of a man wishing to portray that he knew the secret of getting an even and steady burn.

Killick came from a Scottish naval family and his father had been a full naval captain, although of nothing more exciting than an oil supply ship, as Derek had revealed one day at the golf club when he was in his cups. Never the less, his family had a four-generation history in the service. The full set beard and the pipe gave him a feeling of keeping up the family tradition although it turned out that he himself had decided after an incredibly short period of time that the navy was not for him and was now taking his accountancy papers. Several times in fact as he kept failing various parts, which was why at the moment he handled the collection of debt and the foreign transaction payments in a small corner of the Accounts Office?

Killick also felt that the beard and pipe gave him a gravitas that his bright red hair would have denied him with a beardless face. He was right about that. He got the pipe going and sat back watching his work colleague with an expression of bemused interest on his face. He didn't know why Tony was hiding in the canteen and ignoring the lights signal that showed some one wanted him, but he knew he would find out sooner or later if he were patient. He crossed one ankle over the other knee in a typical Killick pose, placed a knowing look on his face to hide the fact that he was actually very curious to know what was going on and puffed out clouds of aromatic blue smoke.

Tony had nodded to show that he had heard him, but apart from that just carried on turning the plastic cup from the vending machine of what passed for coffee, around and around in his fingers. The bloody machine had turned out a mixture of tea and coffee again resulting in an evil mix that even a man dying of thirst in the proverbial desert would have found difficult to swallow. He put the cup down with a sigh.

Tony Filton was well built man with a full head of wavy, dark brown hair and grey eyes and although he himself could not at first understand it, he had a way about him that attracted the opposite sex of all ages. He had enjoyed this until he heard two of his office staff discussing it one day when they didn't know he was within hearing range. It seems they thought he was such a nice person.

This was an opinion did not please him greatly as he had always thought they liked him because he was sexy and that to be called nice was probably the worst thing that could happen to you. Nice people were usually nice because they had a completely innocuous personality and he would rather be thought an interesting bastard any day. Ever since he had overheard them he had been a little brusquer in his dealing with his office staff in an attempt to change their opinion. The jury was still out on whether it was working.

At five feet eleven inches he would have made a good rugby half back, although his chosen game had been football. Until a few years ago that is, when a badly broken wrist had driven his wife to threaten him with all manner of nastiness if he didn't give up the game and grow up. He had over three months to think it over while he underwent two bone grafts on his smashed wrist. He had capitulated. Thinking about it now he realised that he had capitulated on a lot of things with Tas. Tasmin Pearling had been an only child and very used to getting her own way.

The silence between the two men stretched into several minutes. Killick was relighting his pipe and having finally got it going again sat back in his chair, ankles crossed and arms folded, puffing peacefully and giving a fair impression of an old steam locomotive. Being an ex-Naval Officer of however brief a period, Killick often liked to act as if he was on the bridge of a destroyer, calmly directing things while others panicked. However, the red beard and hair were ample warning of the temper that lurked within him, as had been seen when the tool room apprentices had made a large key from sheet aluminium and attached it to the rear of his diminutive and very ancient Fiat 500. Having driven it twenty-two miles home before he discovered it, which included driving through the heart of Taunton, he had failed to see the joke for some weeks before he eventually laughed (hollowly). In the meantime the apprentices had kept carefully out of his way. Tony, who had put them up to it had never confessed. He removed the pipe and examined its now even burn with critical eyes.

"Well, what are you going to tell me that is so sensitive that you cannot come over to the office and tell me about it? John Duggan will go mad when he finds I am missing you know. Its now nine o'clock and I had only been here fifteen minutes when I got your phone call. He will give me hell when I go back. It is month's end this week."

Tony gave a faint smile. The thought of the diminutive little pipsqueak who was the company's Chief Accountant, having a go at the redheaded and fully bearded, six-foot ex-naval officer sat in front of him, was really quite humorous.

"Did you tell anyone where you were going?"

There was a shake of the head from Killick. Tony put two ten pence coins on the table and indicated the battered machine against the wall.

"Better get yourself a coffee, Derek. You might need it when you hear what I have to say."

Killick looked shocked.

"As bad as that is it. You feel we may want to take our own lives, do you."

He indicated the coffee machine. Tony gave a tired grin and waited until Killick had banged and kicked the machine into producing what passed for coffee. He brought it back to the table and stared at it with a look of disbelief on his face.

"What you have to tell me must be really bad if you think I will want to drink this after I hear it. This stuff makes the local river water look drinkable, and that is sixty percent mud."

Tony nodded and then sat up straight with his hands flat on the table in front of him.

"Out of the blue there was a Senior Management meeting suddenly called last night, at four forty five."

Killick snorted to show what he thought of the phrase, Senior Management.

"So that is why little John Duggan was running around all afternoon like a chicken with its backside alight. He was backwards and forwards to Mike Rutherford's office like a bloody yoyo." (Mike Rutherford was the company's MD) "So what's it all about?"

Tony was the Sales Administrator and as such was part of the Senior Management set up. This was a really a historical accident as his position within the Sales Department did not merit his inclusion. However, two years before he had been the Personnel Manager and had been entitled to a position on the Senior Management team until the last round of redundancies had made it no longer necessary to have a personnel department, according to Group. After all, the company had shrunk in the last two and a bit years, from nearly fifteen hundred to just under nine hundred employees and a full Personnel Department was now a luxury. But a grateful Mike Rutherford, relieved that Tony had handled the last round of redundancies without major strife and bloodshed, had then transferred him to the Sales Department as the Sales Administrator, but reporting directly to him.

This was in the hope that at last he would be able to receive some straight information that would enable him to make some meaningful decisions, hence Tony's continued inclusion on the Senior Management team. The upshot had been that the information and statistics that Tony supplied him with, had led to the then Sales Director being fired.

The job of the Sales Director had then, to Tony's everlasting amazement, been given to one Robin Welsby-Green, previously the Export Sales Manager. In Tony's view, anyone who spent the majority of his time swanning around the world in Club Class, who's expenses were the equivalent to ten ordinary reps and who was shifting less product than any single UK rep, was unlikely to make the hard decisions needed to make the changes required to halt the falling sales graph, and so it had proved. He also thought that Welsby-Green was an overweight, underhand shit, but that was just his personal opinion. One of Welsby-Green's stipulations on taking the job had been that Tony from now on worked for him. End of meaningful statistics for the other Directors, as all information now ran through Welsby-Green and beginning of a very hard time for Tony.

It would not be an over statement to say that Tony didn't like Welsby-Green anymore than he liked Tony, which was not at all. However, they had not yet had the courage to throw him off the Senior Managers board, as he was the only member with any knowledge of employment law left in the company. Killick knew all this as they often played golf together and like all golfers spent the time in between the shots putting the company they worked for to rights.

"Well come on then. Lets have it, for Christ's sake."

Killick was getting impatient.

"Well although the meeting was called at a very short notice it seems that I was the only one surprised by that. As I went through reception and up the stairs to the boardroom, Grace on the switchboard remarked that she had wondered when it would be my turn to be called and how many of us poor buggers would be going this time?"

He nodded grimly as Killick sat up straighter.

"When I walked into the boardroom I was the last to arrive. Nobody, and I mean nobody, would look me in the eye."

He put down the coffee cup he had been playing with for the last ten minutes and told Killick all about it.

When he had entered the meeting and said good afternoon no one had answered him and he had felt his survival nodes jump. Even Andy Mattison, the Works Director and perhaps his closest colleague in the company when he had been in Personnel, if Mattison could be said to be close to anyone, would not look at him. Mike Rutherford had said that now they were all here he would like to get the meeting under order and he took his place. It was short and sweet. They had to make further cuts and this time they would have to include Chiefs as well as Indians. Could everyone go home and think about it tonight and he would call individuals back in the morning to discuss their ideas for cutbacks. Tony had sat back and watched them all leave and they couldn't get out fast enough. As the last one left he had turned to speak to Mike Rutherford, but that gentleman had scuttled back to his office through his private door from the Board Room. When later he had asked Rutherford's secretary, Pat, if he could see him, she had told him that he was leaving immediately for a meeting in London with Group and did not have the time to see anyone. He came to the end of his story and sat back, pushing the hardly tasted cup of coffee away from him. Killick was grinning at him.

"So that's it. Is that what you called me for and asked me to traipse up here? What are you worried about then? They will probably ask you to approve it all to make sure they haven't left themselves open to an Industrial Tribunal. You know how Group feel about those."

Tony shook his head.

"Derek, the only people who left that room smiling and laughing were John Duggan and Robin Welsby-Green. Welsby-Green actually asked Duggan, within my hearing and with no attempt to keep his voice down, who he was taking the opportunity to weed out."

Killick went pale. He had a wife and two small girls under school age.

"Yes, I thought you might get it eventually."

Tony leaned forward on his elbows.

"Tell me, Derek, who are the two people in this organisation who most often produce figures and statistics that piss their Boss off?"

He watched the light dawn in the others eyes. He answered the question himself.

"That's right, you and me. Now do you understand why I asked you to come up here?" He pointed to the wall. "Ask not for whom the lights flash."

They sat there in the empty canteen, who's staff had been victims of the last round of cuts, until ten thirty and only a couple of maintenance men looking for somewhere quiet to skive, wandered through. Different light combinations came up flashing and then went, always reverting to Tony's red, white and blue, while they sat and discussed what they would do next for a living. Then, fed up with the game, they decided to head back to their own offices. They walked around the outside of the production sheds to the front of the site where the two-storey block of offices were situated and climbed the stairs to the first floor. As they arrived at the top of the stairs they bumped into an agitated Wilf Randles, UK Sales Manager, poison dwarf and willing bearer of any poisoned chalice.

Wilf was Robin Welsby-Green's self appointed acolyte and people had been know to ask how his back stood the strain of constantly bending over to lick his boss's arse. Balding and with a long mournful face, Wilf went into his usual routine of waving his hands around like a broken puppet and bending at the knees to make his five feet five inches seem even smaller in the hope that no one would hit him when he had to say something they did not like. Wilf did not like personal confrontation. He preferred to talk someone else into committing the actual murders his nasty little soul required and for him to be here now, meant that Welsby-Green had sent him. He sort of waved about from the waist, swinging his arms around like a poor imitation of Al Jolson, looking very agitated. The black shiny shoes and the double breasted suit combined with his features to make him look like a well dressed Mr Punch, only the hat was missing. From his agitated manner he had obviously been looking for Tony for some time. A sick smile was flashing on and off as if it couldn't make its mind up if it should be there or not.

"There you are Tony, Robin wants you. He's been looking for you everywhere. You are to go to his office at once. At once."

The words came out in a breathless rush as his five foot, five inch height was towered over by the other two. It was only the fact that Wilf supposedly had three kids that convinced Tony he was real sometimes. He ignored him and went on with making arrangements to meet Killick for a drink in the pub at lunchtime. Wilf's voice took on a tone of panic and exasperation. How could they ignore a summons from a Director?

"Tony. Didn't you hear me? Robin is looking for you and wants you to go to his office at once. He has had your lights up for two hours."

By now Wilf was bobbing about so hard a neutral observer would have thought he was desperate for the men's room. Tony turned, and reaching out patted Wilf on the shoulder, Wilf flinched back in alarm.

"Wilf, why don't you go and hide in your office until all the bloodshed is over. You know you don't like being at the executions yourself." He indicated Killick. "Derek and I are making some important arrangements about the future we no longer have and the last thing we need right now is a little turd like you interrupting us." The words were covered by a big smile. "So run along like a good lad and tell Welsby-Green I shall be about another five minutes."

Wilf looked at him with a shocked expression, opened his mouth as if to speak, then he closed it again, and scurried away down the corridor to report to his Director. Derek Killick watched him disappear through the double doors at the end of the corridor with amused contempt on his face.

"Welsby-Green must have told him to go and find you, because he would never have the nerve to come and look for you on his own. He usually keeps well away from any confrontation. That is one of the reasons we are in trouble you know. A big client only has to lean on Wilf and he is in there, pleading the case for them to have a bigger discount."

"You don't have to tell me Derek, I'm the one who produces the statistics, remember? I will see you in the pub at lunch time." They parted.

Tony walked along to his office and picking up a cardboard box that he had packed the night before and put it on top of his desk. It contained all his personal things. He opened a drawer and took out a separate, smaller box that contained his memo recorder, his company car keys and the spare keys to all the various branch offices and storage depots for which he was responsible. Picking up both and taking a deep breath he walked out through the sales office, giving his staff of six girls and their supervisor a smile he didn't feel and noticing from their reaction that they had guessed what was happening. He walked the twenty yards along the corridor and without knocking entered the office of Robin Welsby-Green's Secretary.

"Morning Daph. I understand from the Muppet that Robin wants to see me."

Daph giggled at the use of the sales girls nickname for Wilf Randles, but then went serious.

"Tony, I don't think its good news."

He smiled at her. Considering what was about to happen to him he seemed to be smiling an awful lot this morning, but Daph was a nice woman who deserved a better boss. She had just spent ten months watching her husband die of some nasty illness and with two teenage boys to support she needed this job. It was good of her to try and warn him.

"It's OK Daph, I think I know what its about and if I'm right they are probably doing me a favour. I was getting a little fed up with producing work that just goes in the bin, you know."

He walked towards the door and then stopped and turned back.

"You should be all right though. Anyone who feels he is as important as Robin does, will hang on to his Secretary until last."

He went to go on and then stopped and lifted a hand.

"Sorry. I should have said next to last, because his Granada Ghia is naturally more important."

Walking across the office he banged on the door and entered before she could warn the occupants he was there. A small conference table had been placed in the middle of the office in the space in front of Welsby-Green's oak effect desk. Behind it sat two men.

Mike Rutherford, the MD, was a small and dapper man. When he had taken the job some two years earlier he had been a thruster. Two years in charge of a company that was losing market share like water running from a bucket with a hole in it had changed all that. One of his first acts on being appointed had been to give all the senior staff a salary increase to bring them up to par with the industry standard. He had innocently imagined that this would weld his team together behind him. They were certainly behind him, but human nature being what it is that was only so that they could shelter from whatever flack was going while maintaining the correct position to stab him in the back, if and when the opportunity arose. The other man was not small and dapper.

Robin Welsby-Green was an inch less than six feet and weighed around eighteen stone. He had a wide double chin on a head that tapered sharply as it reached the short, blonde curly hair. The facial expression was usually rather sanctimonious and was adorned by a pair of large, horn-rimmed spectacles and he looked rather akin to a grown up Billy Bunter.

Since he had become Sales Director, Welsby-Green had shown he was a natural bully who liked to chop people's feet away from under them if and when he got the chance. Several good salesmen had been given their marching orders after believing him when he asked them for their honest opinions. Add to that his natural arrogance and what you had was something akin to a malignant Michelin Man. Tony detested him, but it was mutual. Welsby-Green thought Tony was a jumped up oick who should never have been promoted from the foreman's job he once held. That said his sudden entrance had caught both occupants of the office by surprise and they both looked up with a start. Tony plonked himself down in a chair.

"I understand you've been looking for me," he said, putting both boxes down on the table, "I saw Wilf in the corridor and he said there was some sort of problem?"

He had decided to enjoy this as much as he could. Mike Rutherford seemed a bit rattled and defensive, but Welsby-Green's wattles went purple with anger.

"Where the bloody hell have you been? I've had your lights flashing for two hours."

Tony gave him a slow and insolent smile knowing it would anger him and hoping that it might advance the date of the heart attack that was surely awaiting the other in the not too distant future. He kept it there for several seconds and had the pleasure of watching the other's complexion grow even darker before he answered.

"Yes, I know you have, but there is no law that says you have to get out of the tumbrel and run to the scaffold."

Welsby-Green put both hands on the table and started to rise. It took a large effort.

"What do you mean?"

Tony lifted his hand to stop him and turned to the MD.

"Mike, can we get on with this without the histrionics? What I need to know is when, and how much?"

Rutherford looked acutely embarrassed, but then nodded as he pulled himself together.

"OK, Tony, its like this. The terms are dictated by our parent company, Advent Engineering and you know what that means, no negotiating." He took a deep breath. "Its the statutory minimum I'm afraid, and the official date of notice of redundancy is April the first."

He didn't seem to notice the ironic black humour of that date, but there again he too was an accountant by training so it wasn't surprising. He carried on oblivious to the small grin that found Tony's mouth.

"That is six weeks from today exactly, but you then have to work your notice period and as you are Senior Staff, that is three calendar months, making nineteen weeks in all until you go."

He lifted his hands in a surrender gesture.

"Sorry Tony, but you know I don't make the rules in these cases. It all comes from Group."

Tony looked up at Welsby-Greens smirking face and made a decision. Holding Welsby-Green's eyes he answered.

"Look Mike, I don't like those arrangements so I'll tell you what I propose instead."

This time Welsby-Green actually made it to his feet. He wobbled with rage.

"You propose. Who the hell are you to propose anything?"

Tony made pretence of deafness while looking meaningfully at Mike Rutherford. Rutherford interpreted the look and waved Welsby-Green to silence.

"Shut up a minute Robin."

For a minute Welsby-Green looked as if he was going to argue, but Rutherford saw a chance to clear his conscience and took it.

"Go on, Tony."

"I propose I clear my desk and leave today. You pay me my statutory money, plus nineteen weeks in lieu of notice at the end of the month and I will sign a waiver to say I will not take the matter to an Industrial Tribunal."

Welsby-Green exploded.

"Industrial Tribunal. What the fuck grounds have you got for going to an Industrial Tribunal. I decide who is needed in my department, not you or any bloody tribunal."

Tony smiled. He was beginning to enjoy himself. He didn't answer straight away, but kept the smile going for a few more seconds in the forlorn hope it would anger Welsby-Green to the point of an immediate stroke. When it didn't he decided to see if he could push it a bit further.

"I'm not talking to you, Robin. You are only a salesman and you don't understand how these things work. I'm talking to Mike, who does."

Mike nodded while Robin went purple again, but held his tongue. Tony went on.

"Well I suppose that your grounds for getting rid of me are that it will be fairly easy to spread my workload among other admin staff, put the Depots back under the regional Sales Managers and my in-house Sales Office under Robin."

Welsby-Green sneered; he had given this some thought.

"Not quite right, they will be under Wilf Randles as a matter of fact."

Tony laughed out loud.

"That is even better. I can prove that the reduction in the loss from the regional offices in stolen, missing and broken products for the two years that I have run them, would pay my salary at least three times over. I can also prove that Wilf Randles is only in this building three days a month on average and knows nothing about how the Sales Office actually works, as don't you Robin. "He paused. "I could also prove that the statistics I supply should be vital to the running of the company if you took any notice of them. Apart from all this is the fact that you still have nearly nine hundred people working here and I am the only qualified Safety and Training Officer on the staff not to mentioned qualified Personnel Manager."

He smiled at them both again.

"I reckon it would be cheaper to let me go than fight that case don't you? And you know Group, Mike, they like to get their way, but they hate bad publicity."

He sat back and waited looking straight into the other man's eyes. After a short pause Mike Rutherford nodded.

"OK, Tony, on your way, mate, I'll get wages to give you a ring one day next week, so you can come in and agree the arrangements for payment."

He stood up and held out his hand.

"Sorry about this, but I do wish you the best of luck for the future."

Tony stood, picking up his boxes and they shook hands. Welsby-Green weighed up the situation quickly, noticing that his MD was quite happy with the arrangements, and being happy with at least getting rid of Tony, he also stood, and gluing a plastic smile to his face held out his hand. Tony put the smaller cardboard box in it. Welsby-Green frowned.

"What the bloody hell is this?"

"Just the bits and pieces that I have been holding on your behalf, Robin. Dictaphone, depot keys, etc, just sign the receipt on the top and I'll be off."

Welsby-Green stared at the piece of paper and then the contents of the box.

"But I haven't checked it yet."

"Give it here."

Mike Rutherford took the paper from his hand, signed it and gave it back to Tony with a grin on his face.

"You were ready for it then?"

Tony nodded.

"Yes I was, Mike, and to tell the truth it's not before time. I have hated working for this devious bastard and I don't envy you the task of trying to run this company in the next three months with him to rely for sales."

H ignored the sounds of fury coming from Welsby-Green and was at the door when he turned and made his parting shot at his ex-boss.

"By the way, Mike, I have left a complete breakdown of the last years sales, by rep and by region, with your girl. It might tell you where to take action next time."

He turned and left the room, enjoying the murderous look that Welsby-Green sent after him.

It was some two hours later that he was sat in front of his Bank Manager. They knew each other quite well as they both belonged to that small bunch of nutters that have chosen archery for a pastime, Tony mainly to strengthen the injured wrist. They got on tolerably well, although apart from archery shoots they had only met once before in the Bank, when Tony had borrowed the two thousand pounds he needed to buy the red MGB GT his wife had fallen for.

"Well, Tony, it looks as if you have about five and a half thousand coming in if what you tell me is correct, so you should be all right for a few months. Your mortgage is only ten thousand and on top of that your wife works for an oil company I believe. They usually pay quite good money, so with no children, if you don't have too many other debts, you should be all right."

"That is why I came to see you Raymond. We only have that small mortgage and the two thousand loan we took out with you for the purchase of the car and I want to pay that off the car loan as soon as the money is in my account."

Raymond had attended some minor public school and it showed. Although the Bridgwater branch was not a large one he always wore a pin striped suit with an impeccable Windsor knot in the old school tie and a starched white cotton shirt. Tony was surprised he didn't turn up to shoot dressed like it.

"My dear man, you don't have to do that you know. I am sure you will get another job fairly quickly. After all, you are Personnel trained are you not?"

Tony held his temper with difficulty. It hadn't been an easy morning and dear Raymond wasn't making it any easier. No wonder the Medland Bank was in trouble with its foreign debt if they wouldn't let you pay them off when you had the chance. He took a deep breath and started again.

"Raymond, I am thirty eight years old and I have just lost my job. My chances of getting another one in the same field in this area are nil, Personnel trained or not. Since things started to get tough at least five local companies that would have had me like a shot five years ago, have all but closed their Personnel departments. That means going at least to Bristol to get work and that City has always had a higher than the average unemployment. The only other alternative is to move to another part of the country. That would mean my wife giving up her job and she gets a good salary at British Oil, so that is a non starter."

He looked Raymond in the eyes.

"Are you following all this?"

"Yes, yes of course."

Raymond's beautifully tonsured head bobbed up and down over the top of his beautifully cut suit and school tie.

"Then in that case can we stop pissing about and agree that I pay off the car loan as soon as the money is in the bank."

Raymond jumped.

"Oh, yes, yes of course. Sorry, but I do have to make the offer, you know. We have targets to meet at the Medland for all types of transactions." He began to look quite pleased with himself. "I'm doing very well with VISA cards this month, but the old straightforward loans are well down."

He gave a depreciating little smile as the penny dropped.

"I suppose a lot of that is to do with the recent local rises in unemployment. A sad business."

He put on his sad face. Tony was amazed.

"Are you telling me that they expect you to meet a target on personal loans even though local companies are falling over all around you?"

"Of course. It's in times of trouble that people need loans and we are in the business of supplying them." He frowned slightly. "As long as they have some collateral to cover them of course. House or something."

His expression said that he could see Tony was just a child in the way of the financial world.

"But that is hardly what I would call good advice, Raymond."

Raymond shook his head sadly at the others ignorance.

"Tony, I would have thought you would understand this with your background. Good advice doesn't come into it. This is business."

He sat back like a well-dressed headmaster who has just passed a gem of wisdom to a particularly thick schoolboy.

"Yes," thought Tony, "especially if you are not meeting your loan targets."

He stood up and thanking Raymond left the Bank and went to meet his wife and Derek Killick in the pub

Chapter Two:

A long hard day (June 1982)

"Tas, do you know where I put that tie I had in my hand just now."

Tony was walking around their bedroom picking up things and looking underneath them, the impending interview was making him nervous to the point of distraction. His wife's voice drifted back up the stairs along with the delicious smell of frying bacon.

"The last time I saw it was draped around your neck."

He looked down and there it was. He knotted it in a careful Windsor, he hated the slipknot method of tying ties as they always came loose and made it look as if a bloke was waiting for the gibbet. He brushed some more imaginary dust from his best suit and went down to breakfast, which Tas put on the table as he walked in. Tas was a brunette of around five feet five inches, thirty-four years old with a good figure. She was usually supportive of her husband, but in the matter of his redundancy from Grunwold Pumps Ltd, in his view she had been remarkably offhand about the whole business.

Having herself worked for the same oil company since leaving school and at a higher than average salary for the work than she would have received from any company not in the oil business, he felt she did not really understand how it feels to be chucked on the scrap heap over night. He had been for eighteen interviews now, all for less money than he had been earning before. Never the less as the market was becoming flooded with redundant office workers and people were practically asking for a degree in maths for someone to work the office photocopier. He smiled at Tas.

"Thanks lover. I'll go back to cooking it tomorrow, but a nine fifteen interview doesn't give me a lot of time when I have to get all the way over to Taunton after I drop you off."

He punctured his poached egg and spread it evenly over his piece of toast.

"Are you nervous of this interview, Tony?"

"Yes, but only because I really would like a crack at this job. It would be nice to be doing something to help people for a change, rather than trying to steal their customers and then making your own staff redundant when that doesn't work."

Tas shook her pretty head in confusion.

"But Alcoholics Anonymous. You hate drunks. Look how you feel about your old man."

Tony's step father was a consummate piss artist who not only got legless with monotonous regularity, but then liked to go home and start violent arguments with his wife, one of the reasons Tony hadn't visited them for nearly eight years. They regularly visited Tas' parents, but he drew the line at the "Old Man."

"Its not Alcoholics Anonymous Tas, its the Southdown Council for Alcoholism. I will be coordinating the efforts of all organisations in the County who are involved in trying to reduce alcoholism. At least, that it said in the job description."

"But you like your wine with the rest of them."

She gave him her "get out of that" smile.

"I know I do, but the difference is that I don't let it screw my life up. I don't beat my kids and I don't come home drunk and give my wife a hard time."

She snorted.

"That is because you don't have any kids and you bloody well wouldn't dare to start on me."

He choked on a piece of toast that went down the wrong way as he tried to answer this and then panicked that he had sprayed egg all over his clothes. He grabbed at his handkerchief and carefully removed the debris. What had brought that little outburst on?

"You stupid beggar. What are you trying to do to me? If I had choked on that bit of toast I hope you know enough about first aid to have removed the blockage."

She smiled sweetly and shook her head.

"No, darling, but your notice period doesn't run out for another few weeks yet so I could have claimed your death in service benefit. I would have missed you of course, but it would have helped me enormously to get over the loss."

He got up and took his plate to the sink. Up until now it had never bothered him, but recently with Tas' complete lack of sensitivity over his redundancy he had found his mind dwelling on it. What was wrong with her and why the hard-arse act all the time? He shook it off and made light of her remark about death in service benefits.

"I don't know how I have survived eight years married to you, I really don't. Come on, or we will both be late."

He picked up his briefcase and headed for the front door.

He had driven the car out of the garage and was sitting waiting for Tas to get her backside out of the house when he noticed that the quince bush at the end of the drive had been flattened. Swearing under his breath he went to investigate. Tyre marks! That Brummy Pratt from the corner house had backed up over his garden again. Right! That did it. It was time for drastic action. He headed back to the garage.

They lived in a hammerhead at the end of the cul-de-sac and the gardens were all open plan without hedges, fences or gates. His neighbour, unlike Tony, never backed his old Cortina into his drive. He just screamed in forwards and then abandoned it. In the mornings however, for some reason that Tony could never fathom, he didn't back out into the hammer head proper although god knows there was plenty of room. Not him. He always backed around into their drive, often running over the edge of the garden where they had the quince bush. When faced with an angry Tony he always denied it, but Tony knew it was him as he had checked his tyres and the pattern matched.

This was the third occasion the poor old quince had been run over and he was getting more than a little pissed off about it. He stormed into the garage and collected a four foot piece of angle iron that used to be one their back garden fence posts before they had the wall put up, and a two pound lump hammer. Taking off his jacket and putting it on the bonnet of his car he placed the angle iron near the middle of the bush and proceeded to hammer it into the ground right next to the quince bush until only eight inches or so was standing proud. He stood back and examined it. Nothing showed. He gave a satisfied smile and took the hammer back to the garage. Returning to the car he yelled in the direction of the house for Tas to get a move on. Her voice coming through the car window beside him caused him to jump and then to flush. He climbed into the car.

"Are you going to warn him that you have put in a nuclear deterrent to stop the phantom quince bush killer, or are you going to let him find out the hard way."

Her voice said plainly that she favoured the former course of action.

"Sod him! Let him find out the hard way. It will teach him to respect other people's property."

Tas chose not to argue. He started up the MGB and drove away harder than was necessary. Tas shook her head.

"God, Tony, I'm glad you don't have an important interview every day. I don't think I could stand it."

They drove on in silence until they reached the depot where Tas worked. After getting out of the car she put her head back through the window to give him a second kiss.

"Good luck, darling."

He smiled and tried to ignore the knot of tension that was forming in his stomach, but couldn't. He nodded his head to her and pulled away.

He reached Taunton in good time and for once found somewhere to park in the same street as the address on the letter he had received. He checked the number, but that did no good as none of the neo-Edwardian buildings that made up the Taunton Council offices bore any numbers. After all, their staff knew where all the offices were, so sod the public. After walking along the row of imposing buildings for a good ten minutes while wondering how much of his exorbitant rate bill was spent on their upkeep, he eventually spotted the brass plate stating, Southdown Council for Alcoholism, ring and enter. It was affixed to one Taunton's smaller and far less imposing municipal buildings about three hundred yards from the Main Council Chambers and backing onto the park. As he had half an hour to kill he went into the nearby park to spend twenty minutes relaxing in the sunshine and composing him self. Opening his briefcase he took out the letter again, hoping for some clue as to what kind of person they were looking for. It was a very short letter.

Dear Mr Filton,

We have received your application for the position of Coordinator to the Southdown Council for Alcoholism and we are quite interested. Could you please attend this office for a preliminary interview on Thursday, 2nd June 1982, at 10-15 am.

Yours Sincerely

Robert H. Alderton (Major)

Coordinator

The title had worried him a little. While he could understand that the good Major may well be an excellent organiser, unless he had been a Padre he wondered about the amount of understanding and human kindness a life in the army had instilled in him. He could imagine the major marching all the local drunks down to the canal with their bottles of red wine and furniture polish, or whatever it was they drank an then lining them up shouting, Hup, two, three, throw, two, three, cured, two, three, Dissssmissss. He also knew that having himself missed National Service by a whisker, he was in no position to judge what he hadn't experienced. However, the husband of one of Tas' best friends was a Sergeant in the Army Air Corps and another neighbour was a Major with NATO and Tony thought they were both completely insensitive buggers. In fact as far as the Major was concerned he sometimes worried that he may be relying on him to keep the Russians at bay. He wondered what the bloke would do in the event that things got nasty. Probably try to reason with them and get them to understand that it just wasn't what decent chaps did, dropping H bombs on each other, while the Sergeant would probably be too pissed to fight them if his performances down their local when he was on leave were anything to go by.

Thinking about them took him back to this morning's conversation with Tas. He hadn't found the conversation very funny and her complete lack of support or sympathy was beginning to annoy him. He put it down to her background. Tas had not attended the local secondary modern like Tony. In Hemel Hempstead, where they had both attended school, there had been only two Grammar schools, one for boys and one for girls in those days before coeducational schools. Tas' father was a scientist at the local veterinary college and had sent Tas to private school until she was eleven, from where she had waltzed straight into the local girl's Grammar. Tony on the other hand had passed his eleven plus, but had been called for interview at the boy's Grammar School. He needed a parent to accompany him and as his mother had been terrified of meeting the Head Master, his stepfather had gone with him.

Unfortunately the interview had been for three o'clock and that meant that his father had had time for a pint or three before they left. All the way there he had told Tony that if they accepted him it would cost a fortune in school uniforms and gym kits and hinted darkly that anyone who attended Grammar school was letting down the working man. Tony's stepfather was a conductor on London Transport's Green Line coaches, which meant that in his view he had already reached the top of the ladder without ever going near a Grammar School.

At the School they were made to wait at least fifteen minutes before they were shown into the Head's oak panelled office. The head himself actually wore a gown. Tony was so nervous of what his Dad might say that he made a complete hash of the interview and even at the tender age of eleven, knew it. But it was his father that put the tin hat on the matter. When the interview was ended the headmaster had said they would be hearing in due course. Slightly tipsy or not Tony's Dad realised that this probably meant Tony would not be accepted and asked why they could not have a decision there and then. It had ended as these things often did with Tony's Dad, with him telling the Head how he had fought a bloody war for buggers like him and now he was denying his son a place in his lousy posh school.

This was not entirely true as he had spent all his time at some rail depot in India and never heard a shot fired in anger, but it was what he always came out with. Tony's face had burnt with shame all the way home as his father continued with his theme at the top of his voice despite the looks he was getting from other people. Tony never made the Grammar School.

At Corner Hall Secondary Modern he had been put straight into the "A" stream class. The only advantage of going to the school was it was only five minutes away from his front door. Two and a half if you ran and the wiser first year new kids always ran all the way there and all the way back home before the fourth year kids got hold of them.

It had been the same when he left school. Because of her educational background, British Oil had accepted Tas despite her having only gathered one GCE in social science and one in English Literature. Tony, who had GCE's in English language, English Literature, Maths and Science had been rejected by the town's highest payers and had eventually taken an engineering apprenticeship with a local manufacturing company. The money was lousy and he was expected to work on Saturday mornings. He stuck it out because his stepfather had signed the apprenticeship forms, but he hated it. He spent most of his time on a fly press and knew this was not the training that would get him a decent job. He bitterly regretted not taking the Careers Officers advice and opting for office work.

The two of them had met at a youth club dance when the rock group he and his brother James ran were playing at a Saturday night dance in a local youth club. It had not been a great start as Tas had just been recovering from influenza and had only been allowed out by her mother if well wrapped up. This had meant a woollen tartan wrap around skirt, red woollen tights and a big green roll neck pullover. She had looked like a badly wrapped Christmas present. Tas' friend was going steady with the band's drummer and they had spent the half time break with the two girls. Tony had teased Tas about her clothes and she had not liked it.

The following week they had been playing at Tring town hall for the Valentine's night dance. Tas had turned up in a full skirt, high heels, and a figure-hugging sweater. Tony was smitten, but it had taken him a long time to talk her around after his laughing at her the week before. They had courted for about four years before marrying. Tony had known the band would have to go when the wedding bells rang and had not rushed at it. Tas got impatient and took to telling him about some of the good looking blokes in her office that were always asking her out, but the clincher had been her parents.

At the age of fourteen Tony had found out to his relief that his drunken father was in fact his stepfather, his real father having disappeared during the D Day landings. They had never told Tony about this as it transpired his mother had never got around to marrying him. It explained why the school, his Doctor, the Town Library and several other organisations had him down as Tony Collins, his mother's maiden name. It said much for the innocence of the early sixties that he had never twigged this until his mother had tearfully taken him aside and explained. His stepfather wanted to formally adopt him and Tony was bright enough to realise that if he followed his inclination and said no, his mother, his brother and three sisters as well as he himself, would cop hell during the ensuing fallout. He had given in and signed the bit of paper and forever after was to expected to be grateful.

Tas' parents were different. Unlike his own parents who liked to put every one they met in a social category, they only seemed to care about what he was like as a person. They welcomed him, his band and his friends to their house at the drop of a hat and made him feel he really belonged to a family for the first time in his life. He took to calling Tas' mother, Mum. He would never realise it, but his decision to ask Tas to marry him was more than a little based on his liking for her parents. Three years after they were married Tas had been asked to transfer to the West Country. It meant an upgrade to Senior Clerk for her and as she already earned about a third more than he did he had given up his job to go with her. He had found when he got there that there was a real shortage of qualified engineering staff and had been able to choose his new employment from several offers made to him. He had selected Grunwold Pumps and had worked quite happily in their tool room.

Five years had passed happily and then one day during the lunch break he had been looking at the notice board in his lunch break when he had spotted a vacancy for an Assistant Personnel Officer advertised. The notice made it quiet clear that they did not expect to find a suitable candidate in house as it went on to say that the job would also be advertised in the local paper. Tony was fed up with being a tool room turner and thought he should apply. After all, he had the right paper qualifications they were asking for. He had talked to Tas about it and she had been very definite.

"Whatever you think is best, but you are daft if you do not apply. You could do it stood on your head."

He had decided to go for it. He had taken the new suit he had bought for his brother's recent wedding, thankfully a nice charcoal grey, in a plastic dry cleaning bag along with the shoes, shirt and tie that went with it. Half an hour before his allotted interview he had spotted Terry Colburn, the Personnel Manager, in the foreman's office, obviously making some excuse to be there so that he could look Tony over. At the time he was turning a cast iron spigot and was covered in black dust. Fifteen minutes before his interview he shot into the washroom and showered and changed, appearing for his interview looking so different that Terry Colburn had not even recognised him. However, Colburn had been impressed with his efforts and he had got the job. As the company operated a closed shop within the manual trades it had caused a degree of animosity from his ex-Union colleagues that he had changed sides on them, but in a year that had disappeared. Then two and a half years after his appointment Colburn had gone to work for an American company and Tony had stepped into his shoes.

His reverie was interrupted when the clock chimed and he jumped, the park suddenly coming back into view before his eyes. It was nine o'clock. Putting the letter back into his briefcase, he checked his tie was straight and his cuffs all right and leaving the park walked the two hundred yards to the Council's office. There he rang and entered, as the sign commanded.

He found himself in a lobby at the foot of a set of stairs in almost complete darkness. The reason for this is that a self-return spring had closed the solid front door behind him before he'd had time to look for a light switch. He was still fumbling about in the dark feeling for the switch when a door at the top of the stairs opened, allowing down a little light and revealing enough for him to see he was facing the wrong wall.

"Hello, can I help you?"

The voice was female and more than middle aged. He turned his head away from the wall and peered up the stairs.

"Er, yes. I have an appointment with Major Alderton. My name is Filton, Tony Filton."

"Ah yes, Mr Filton. You are a little early, but do come up."

The door closed again plunging him into darkness once more. He resisted the sudden temptation to find the front door and leave, but only because he stumbled over the bottom stair first. He felt his way cautiously up the old wooden stairs, going cold every time one squeaked and wondering what the woman felt about some one who could not carry out a simple task like find a light switch. After about three minutes he knew he had reached the top of the stairs when he saw a gleam of light under a door. He pushed it carefully open and found himself in a light, airy office space that was surprising large.

Sitting at a desk in the large main office was a pleasant looking woman in her fifties while through the large window behind her the park could be seen drowsing in the warm morning sun. Through a corridor he could just see into another office through a partly open door. A man in his mid thirties could be glimpsed sitting to attention on a hard, straight-backed chair and Tony guessed this must be one of the other candidates. It seemed a very pleasant working environment and a great improvement over his last office with its magnificent view of the car park and the dual carriageway beyond. The woman looked up from her typewriter and smiled.

"Hello, Mr Filton. I thought you had changed your mind for a while there."

He read the name board on the front of her desk.

"Hello, er, Miss Wright. I'm afraid I let the door close behind me before I found the light switch." He shrugged. "Not a very good start I'm afraid."

Miss Wright put her hand to her mouth in dismay.

"Oh dear. That is my fault. I was supposed to switch the light on when you rang the bell, but it must have been already on and I went and switched it off."

Tony wondered if Miss Wright came with the position.

"Never mind. I made it safely up the stairs so no harm is done. I would appreciate it if you could have it on for the return journey, though."

Yes of course."

Blushing furiously she got up and going to the door at the top of the stairs flicked the switch down. She came back and giving him a nervous smile returned to her typing. Tony felt a sudden compassion for her. After all, it must be just as unnerving for her to sit here watching a stream of strange people pass through, any one of whom could be her new boss. He looked around the office.

It was huge and doubled up as a display area with racks of different leaflets and an area to one side with a coffee table and half a dozen low chairs. It was light and airy and not at all what he had expected, as he was aware that it was situated over the tractor sheds for the Parks and Gardens unit. He had noticed that when sat in the park killing time. This must be the old hayloft converted into offices with another door and stairs down to the street outside the park.

The murmur of voices down the corridor rose in level and it was obvious from the scraping of chairs that the interview was over. A tall young man of about thirty-five came out accompanied by an older gentleman. The older man ushered the other to the door, assuring him that of course they would let him know the outcome as soon as possible and then letting the door close, turned back into the room. He looked at Miss Wright and shook his head. She glanced across to see if Tony had noticed the obvious signal before he could look away and she once more blushed furiously. The Major then turned to Tony.

"Mr Filton, I presume." The voice was crisp and firm.

Major Alderton was a very polished individual. About five feet seven inches tall, he was dressed in a light grey, hand tailored suit of some shiny and obviously expensive material. He wore what looked to Tony like a genuine silk shirt and a regimental tie, tied with a slipknot. Highly polished, brown lightweight shoes and a Rolex watch and gold signet ring completed the ensemble. He was plump to the point of sleekness with almost a full head of silver hair that was swept back in wings over both ears. His facial skin was as smooth and pink as a baby's with plump cheeks and a small double chin. Yes, the word to describe him was sleek. Tony wondered if the silver BMW 520 he had parked behind, belonged to the Major and made a small bet with him self that it did. He gave his practised "Personnel Smile" and firmly shook the offered hand.

"Good morning, Major. Nice to meet you."

As the Major had shaken his hand a waft of expensive cologne had drifted up.

"And you, Filton. Do come on in."

He led the way into his inner sanctum, which had the same identical view of the park. The office was extremely well furnished with everything in teak and leather except for the visitor's chair. The Major caught his look.

"Sorry about the chair, but I find it keeps visits short and to the point."

His own chair was deeply padded in what looked like black leather.

"Drink?"

"Thank you. Can I have tea please?"

"No, no old chap, not do you want a drink. Do you drink?"

For a minute Tony was lost until he remembered where he was. Then the penny dropped.

"Oh, I see, do I drink? Alcohol you mean?"

The major nodded. Tony could see no point in lying about it and he wasn't sure the Major would believe he was teetotal even if he claimed to be.

"Yes I do."

"Much?"

"No, not really."

He was one of the lightest drinkers in his skittle team every Monday night and he couldn't remember the last time he had been legless. Yes he could. Just after he and Mattison had made three hundred people redundant, one nice sunny summer afternoon one and a bit years ago and about three days before they all went off on holiday. Christ, he had been pissed that night.

"How much?"

"Moderately, Major, moderately."

"Quantities, old chap, quantities."

This interview was not going how Tony had expected and he wondered what exactly the Major based his interview techniques on. It was certainly different to any method he had ever seen in over five years in the business. Still, better answer.

"Well, let me see. Mondays I play skittles with the local team. That is two pints of beer if we are at home, as I can walk there and two halves of shandy if we are away and I have to drive. Wednesdays we do the shopping at Sainsbury's and we always take a bottle of their own-brand champagne home. Half an hour in the freezer and its ready, sort of gets us through the rest of the working week."

He caught himself.

"Not the alcohol you understand, but spoiling ourselves, as it were. Lastly we go out for our supper on Friday's to one of the local pubs and usually have a couple of glasses of house wine with our meal."

He sat back and waited.

"No drink in the house?"

"Pardon?"

"No drink in the house? You know, whiskey, brandy, gin, vodka and that sort of thing."

Tony pretended to give this question serious thought while he tried to work out just how much input the Major would have in choosing his successor.

"There may be some stuff left over from Christmas, but that is mainly port and sherry, that sort of thing, although I think we used all the sherry in cooking if I remember rightly. We don't drink any spirits"

He gave a small smile and wondered if he would be asked about his ability to do the job. It seemed not, so far. The Major sat back in his chair and relaxed. He smiled and brushed his hands one at a time along the silver wings of his hair to make sure they were still in perfect position.

"Well." He let his breath out with a rush. "Glad to get that bit over. Always embarrassing to have to ask a chap personal questions like that, never liked it even when I was in the Regiment. Always feels like prying to me."

He put his hands back on the desk satisfied that his hair was still glossily perfect and allowed Tony to admire the well manicured fingernails.

"Now, let me tell you about the position. After all, it is my job to brief you so that you can answer the panels questions more concisely." He beamed. "What do you want to know?"

Panel Questions? Ah, this was just the preliminary then. Tony decided he could relax a bit.

"Perhaps you could tell me how the Council came into being and exactly how you coordinate it?"

This question obviously pleased the Major.

"Of course, of course."

He made a steeple his fingers under his chin while he gathered his thoughts together.

"Well, there were all these different organisations looking after these alcoholic Johnny's and they were all duplicating each others work, you see. So the County Council gave me the job of sorting them all out."

He paused and gave it more thought.

"That is it really. Been doing it for the past five years, but now the Memsahib thinks we should retire." He smiled. " Next question."

Tony was beginning to wonder if the Major really was getting over ten thousand a year to sit in this nice office all day, or if he had just bumped into some devilishly clever new interviewing technique that he had never heard of before. He decided to play it safe.

"What about clerical backup?"

He had been going to say assistance, but felt that backup had the kind of efficient military ring the Major would appreciate. He did.

"Good question. Margaret, that is Miss Wright, comes in every morning from eight thirty to one thirty to deal with the correspondence and typing, etc. Don't really need anyone in the afternoons as I usually save that for field work."

"Field work?"

"You know the sort of thing, visiting the chaps and lassies at the sharp end. Building morale and letting them see they are not forgotten."

He stared down at the desk with a small frown on his face.

"Very important, morale."

With so little feed back Tony was beginning to flounder.

"So who would I, that is, if I were successful, who would I report to?"

The Major looked puzzled at the question.

"To the Council of course."

Tony realised that he may be about to blow it here, but felt that he had to press on.

"Err, could I ask who is on the Council, do you think?"

"Well it's made up of all the people from the different organisations working with the alcoholic Johnny's."

Suddenly all was clear.

"Oh I see. They have formed a Council of all the different organisations and they decide policy, and then your brief is to coordinate everyone to the agreed policy."

"Exactly. Didn't I say that?"

The Major looked a little surprised.

"Well, not in so many words, but I think I've got it now."

"Good. That is it then for this morning, panel interview this afternoon. Lets go and see what slots are available, shall we?"

He got up and strode into the main office leaving Tony with his mouth open.

"This afternoon. No one said there would be two interviews in one day. What if he'd had another arranged?"

He caught up with the Major by Miss Wright's desk. She was consulting a timetable.

"Two fifteen is free, Major."

The Major beamed.

"Two fifteen OK with you, Filton?"

His tone said that it ought to be if he wanted this position. Tony thought, "Sod you" and made a show of opening his briefcase and consulting his diary. He held it away from the Majors sight so that he could not see that there was only the one entry in it.

"Yes. I'm glad to say I can fit that in."

"Good man. Report back here a two o'clock and Margaret here will take you over to the Council building. The Panel will see you there."

He held out his hand.

"Good luck.

As he shook the proffered hand Tony reflected that the Major would probably have said exactly the same thing just before going over the side on D Day. He smiled a farewell to Miss Wright and headed for the door. He was very relieved to see that the light was on.

Outside in the sunshine he pondered on what to do. It was now around ten fifteen and he had four hours to kill. He had time to go home and change his shirt if he felt like it, but that was another couple of gallons of petrol. He decided to ring Tas, tell her he would do the shopping today, and find out if they needed anything out of the ordinary. That should take a good hour. Then he would buy this month's Practical Photography and find a quiet pub in which to eat a ploughman's lunch while he read it for an hour or so. Better stick to tonic water this time, wouldn't want to face the panel stinking of bitter. That decision made he went to find a phone box.

After fighting his way around a crowded Sainsbury's he had stacked the shopping in the back of the MGB, parked it carefully in the shade to keep it all fresh and then gone to find a nice quiet pub for lunch. On the way he bought a copy of the West Country Press to look through the Situations Vacant page. It was cheaper than a magazine and more practical. He had about fifteen applications going at this time, but felt that he had to keep applying until he found himself another job. He had been trying only to apply for those jobs that he felt he could do well or that specifically intrigued or interested him. No point in dashing around all over the option chasing jobs that he had little chance of getting, or that he would probably hate if he did get them. Consequently he kept well away from anything to do with Sales, which cut out over fifty percent of the available positions. He had exhausted all the larger advertisements and was looking through the columns of minor jobs, dinner and lollipop persons wanted etc, when a small, boxed advertisement caught his eye.

VACANCY

The County of Avon require a Supervisor to work in the Special Unit of their Youth Opportunities Scheme. The successful person will have a training background and will be currently unemployed. They will enjoy working with young persons.

He opened the briefcase and taking out his writing materials wrote off immediately to the address given, which was a junior school in Weston Super Mare. He didn't have a clue what he was letting himself in for, but the job intrigued him and that was one of his criteria for making applications. He had just closed his briefcase and was preparing to spend the next half hour reading the rest of the paper when he heard a strangely familiar voice ordering a large whiskey. He peered out around the edge of the high backed wooden bench on which he was sitting and there was the Major. He watched as the man swallowed the whiskey in two gulps and indicated for a refill. The Landlord obviously knew him well, for when he brought him the second drink he asked him what he wanted for lunch today.

Tony was in a quandary. He did not think the Major would take kindly to one of the candidates for his job discovering that he drank well over the legal limit before making his afternoon visits and he felt it would be best to leave before the man spotted him. The problem was that the Major was between Tony and the only exit from the bar. He looked around. The only other door he could reach unseen said Toilets, in neat gold letters.

Picking up his briefcase, he slid out of his seat and through the door. Once through the door he discovered he was in a small vestibule. To the left were two more doors in the same gold lettering, marked Gents and Ladies. A third door was marked private and he could hear the sounds of the pub's kitchen behind it, while a fourth door was not marked at all. He tried the handle of this door and it opened out onto a small back yard with a high wooden fence, full of neatly stacked aluminium beer barrels. He crossed the yard and tried the gate on the far side.

Locked! Of course it would be or the local lads wouldn't bother to buy their beer in the bar. They would come down with a van and nick it by the firkin. He looked around. There was no other exit. It was climb the fence or go back through the bar and face the Major. The hell with it, he would climb the fence.

Fortunately there was a second stack of empty barrels against the fence so putting his briefcase on top of these barrels he gingerly climbed up onto the first layer. They were obviously empty as they wobbled a bit, but no disaster. He clambered carefully up onto the next layer, praying that none of the barrels behind the bar would run dry, bringing the Landlord into the yard for a replacement. So far so good, he thought although the final layer of barrels was going to be far more difficult.

The yard was only made of roughly poured concrete and although the bottom layer of barrels only had rocked slightly under his weight, by the time he reached the top layer, they were wobbling about alarmingly. He gripped the top of the fence that now came only to his waist and looked up and down the narrow alleyway that was now revealed to him. It was empty except for two small girls who had stopped playing with their dolls pram and were now watching him with big round eyes. He smiled at them his best favourite uncle smile, but their expressions didn't alter.

He turned back and picked up his briefcase. He wished he had never started this, but it would be even more difficult to go back than to carry on, as the barrels were now extremely unstable. Laying along the top of the fence on his stomach with his right hand that was holding the briefcase hanging down into the alley, he pushed of with his left foot, relying on the grip of his left hand on the top of the fence to bring him to the upright position as he dropped. Two things happened.

The push off from his left leg was the final straw for the empty barrels and the whole pile collapsed with the sound of thunder. His left hand did as planned and swung him around to the upright position, but when he let go to drop the final two feet to the floor he only fell a couple of inches before being jerked to a stop with a force that felt as if it had broken his neck. The problem was there clearly to be seen about six inches in front of his eyes. His best tie was wedged between two planks leaving him literally hanging by the neck. He thanked the Lord he hadn't used the slipknot that morning.

The sudden lack of oxygen as his eleven odd stones hung on his own tie, gave him the strength of desperation. Dropping the briefcase into the alleyway he gripped the tie with both hands and drawing up his legs in front of him, pushed backwards with all his strength. For a moment nothing happened and he vowed he would never buy another expensive tie. Then there was a sudden tearing sound as the lining gave and he flew backwards to land on his back in the alley some five feet below. For a few seconds he lay there with closed eyes, severely winded. When finally he opened them there were two small, angelic faces looking down at him with curiosity.

"You all right, Mister?"

He nodded, too stunned to speak.

"Didn't you have enough money, then?"

This, plus the sound of an angry voice in the pub yard as the Landlord came out to investigate the commotion, galvanised him into action. Scrambling to his feet he picked up his briefcase and sprinted the thirty or so yards to the end of the alley and out into the noise and bustle of the High Street, his sudden entrance causing a few people to stare at the dishevelled and decidedly dusty figure that had burst from the alleyway. As he arrived at the kerb a taxi was just dropping a fare and he dived into anonymity of the back seat while the cabby was giving the previous occupant his change.

"Where to then mate?" The cabby glanced back and then did a double take. "You know you've ripped your tie."

Tony resisted a sarcastic answer and produced a pound.

"Take me to the nearest place where I can get a wash and brush up will you?"

The cabby looked surprised.

"But that is only just down the road, Guv, you hardly need a taxi."

"Please," said Tony, holding out the coin while looking anxiously back at the alleyway, "just drive."

"OK mate. It's your money."

The cabby drove some fifty yards along the High Street and then stopped again. He pointed to some black iron railings that denoted the entrance to a Victorian underground lavatory.

"There you go then. Wish I had more customers like you."

He leaned back and opened the rear door.

"Don't forget your brief case and I should stay away from that one in future. Looks as though she's a bit of a handful, or her old man is."

This last was too much for Tony and he cracked. Muttering "Balls" under his breath he slammed the door as hard as he could and turned around to find himself face to face with a stout old lady carrying a Marks and Sparks bag. She had heard him swear and looked at him as if he was the scum of the earth as he scurried away down the steps of the underground convenience.

The washroom attendant was most helpful and produced a set of antique clothes brushes and a damp sponge to tidy up Tony's suit and also a pair of scissors with which to remove the torn lining from his tie. While the man went about this work Tony washed his hands and face and used a paper towel to restore most of the shine to his scuffed shoes. At the end of ten minutes he looked reasonably presentable again and giving the attendant fifty pence he emerged back into the sunlight of the real world. He reflected that this was becoming a really expensive interview one way and another. Passing a post box he remembered the application he had written in the pub and after dropping it in, turned and headed back to the Major's office.

This time when he rang the bell and entered the lobby he did not allow the door to close until he had located the whereabouts of the light switch. Switching the light on he then closed the front door. He was just about to put his foot on the first stair when the world was again plunged into darkness and the door at the top of the stairs opened a crack and then closed again. Thinking Miss Wright had thought the stairs devoid of human life and the ringing of the bell the prank of some youngster; he groped his way back to the switch and clicked the light on again. He had taken one step towards the stairs when the light went out a second time. With one thing and another he'd had enough. This time he sat down on the bottom stair and waited. The door at the top of the stairs opened and a gasp of annoyance drifted down to him before it closed again. He sat tight. The light came on once more and still he did not move from his seat. He heard the door open and a grunt of satisfaction from the top of the stairs followed by a gasp as Miss Wright saw him sitting there.

"Mr Filton! What on earth are you doing there? Why didn't you come up?"

He gave a small smile.

"Hello Miss Wright. I did try, honest Indian I did, but some one kept switching the light out."

He indicated the front door.

"Have you ever thought about putting a small window in this? It could save someone's life one day. Yours," he thought, "if the next person is less patient than good old Tony"

She gave a nervous little smile.

"I was just coming down to meet you as we have to go to the Council Chambers for your interview. I am sorry about the muddle with the light and I will pass your idea on to the Major."

This last remark made Tony wish he had kept his mouth shut. The Major did not look like the kind of man who took advice very well. He allowed Miss Wright to precede him out of the door and they both stood blinking in the bright June sunlight.

"This must be one the best Junes we have had for ten years," she said. "I cannot remember the last time we had such a good start to the summer."

He kept his answer short.

"Yes." his mind was elsewhere. "I wonder what is wrong with Miss Wright that she hasn't been Mrs Right by now? She must be in her mid Fifties although she is quite a pleasant soul. Maybe with her record of switching off lights at the wrong time no potential suitor ever lived long enough to marry her before breaking their necks on the stairs."

He realised she was talking to him.

"So you see it will be quite a large panel."

He came to with a bump as he realised that she had been talking to him for some time without him realising it.

"That is her problem then, totally and instantly forgettable."

He made an effort to concentrate on what she was saying, but she had evidently finished for now. They had arrived at the main entrance to the Council Building and inside he was shown into a large sunlit room with full-length windows in which three other people were already sitting. In the manner of interviewees everywhere they studied him carefully without actually letting on that they were looking and he was acutely aware that his tie and shoes were not at their best. By some magic trick, as he entered the room and gave the other candidates the once over, Miss Wright had turned into a different woman. She was now about thirty, slim, blonde and exquisitely dressed, and looking much more like a professional secretary as she flourished a clipboard at him.

"Name please?"

The voice was cool and distant. Her realised the vision was addressing him with a look of impatience upon the exquisitely made up features.

"Filton, Mr Tony Filton"

He said it in a clear voice to impress upon the other candidates that here was a man who was not cowed by a little thing like an interview, even if his tie had seen better days.

"Please take a seat, Mr Filton, I am afraid we are running a little late, but the panel do hope to see everyone today."

He was already walking towards a vacant chair when this last sentence stopped him in his tracks.

"Hope to see everyone today? Hope! How bloody late were they running?"

He turned.

"Miss!" but he was too late, the door was closing.

He thought about it and then decided he had enough for one day. No one was going to keep him hanging around on the chance they might interview him. He went in pursuit and caught up with her just as she entered an office marked, Rachel Watts, Admin Coordinator.

"Miss Watts!"

She turned and looked at him in surprise and then continued to her desk, not choosing to look at, or speak to him until she was seated behind the impressively large desk.

"Mrs Watts, and you are in the wrong room, Mr Filton. The other room is the waiting room."

She turned her attention to the papers on her desk. He put as much sarcasm into his voice as he could manage.

"As I am not a total cretin, I do understand that, Mrs Watts."

He emphasised the Mrs. She looked up at him as if this last statement had come as a surprise to her, but he ignored it and plunged on.

"What I want to know is an estimated time for my interview. I started this day at ten o'clock having been given the impression that I was only attending an informal first interview. I have now been in Taunton for four hours and if I am to spend even more time here I want to know that at some witching hour I am not going to be told to come back tomorrow."

He took a deep breath and waited.

"Do you want me to remove your name from the list of candidates?"

She raised her eyebrows and gave him an interrogative little smile. He took another deep breath and counted slowly to ten, while he lowered himself into the chair in front of her and then he slowly let it out. He smiled back at her. One of the smiles he used to save for when he was telling the Shop Stewards Committee that the company could not comply with their requests on this occasion. He kept it there nice and neutral while he recalled the name on her door.

"Look, Rachel." She stiffened at the use of her Christian name. "I realise that these confounded interviews have probably blown your whole timetable for today, but life is sometimes like that."

He now gave her his what a reasonable guy I am smile.

"However, I would like some indication of whether or not I will be interviewed today and if so, at what time."

The smile disappeared.

"Otherwise, when I am having a quiet drink in the pub tonight, I will have to tell Councillor Tenant just what a terrible day I have had. If you look at my application form you will see that he lives two doors from me." He rose. "If you could bring me that information in the next ten minutes I will be in the waiting room with my fellow sufferers."

Giving her a small nod of his head he turned and left. On the way down the corridor back to the waiting room he smiled as he remembered that the only time he and Councillor Tenant had ever exchange words had been a few years earlier, when he had told that gentleman that he would not be voting for his party and would he please keep his leaflet as he had all the waste paper he could use. He had never agreed with door to door canvassing and thought only someone as basically stupid as a politician could believe that it would actually make a favourable difference to the way people voted. The result was that the eminent County Councillor had never spoken to him again. Ah well! That would teach him not to disturb people in the middle of a World Cup match preview.

He had been back in the waiting room for just nine minutes when Mrs Watts came in. Without looking at anyone, she made an announcement in a voice that sounded as if the statement had been rung out of her.

"We have changed the timetable and Mr Filton will be next, on account his having another interview elsewhere, later on this afternoon."

She turned and swept out of the room without another word before anyone could protest. The others glared at Tony, but nobody said anything. He felt cheerful for the first time since he had seen the Major in the pub and smiled back at them with some satisfaction.

The Building they were in was the usual neo-Edwardian style of all the council buildings in Taunton. High ceilings with full-length windows letting in the June sunshine were making the room extremely hot and Tony was glad when after five minutes Mrs Watts opened the door and called his name. He hadn't heard anyone pronounce his name with that much loathing since his Art teacher at school. She spun on her heel and strode of down the corridor at a rate of knots, forcing him to lengthen his stride to stay with her.

"The famous Filton charm didn't work on this one, Tony, good job you're not into blondes in a big way."

She halted at a pair of large double doors and knocked. A male voice bade her to come in and she opened the door and announced him.

"Mr Filton."

Tony walked into the room and Mrs Watts closed the door behind him. For the third time that day he thought his eyes were playing up. The only light came from the middle of the three full-length windows on the far side of the room, where the strips of sunlight coming through the Venetian blind illuminated a solitary chair. The other two windows had the heavy drapes firmly closed.

"Come in and take a seat, Mr Filton."

The voice came from what looked like a row of shadows, but as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he could see they were a row of silhouettes sat behind a long crescent shaped table.

"There must be over a dozen of them," he thought as he walked towards the chair and sat down. The blazing sunlight immediately blinded him, forcing him to squint in order to see at all. "Sod this!"

He stood up.

"Excuse me, but I am afraid that now the sun has come round a bit I cannot see any of you from here. May I move it back a few feet?"

He did so without waiting for an answer and then sat down again.

"That is better."

It was, but not much. He was no longer blinded, but with the only light coming from behind them he could still not make out the features of the people in front of him, even to the extent of which were male or female.

"Are you ready now, Mr Filton?"

"Yes Chairman."

"Right, let me introduce you to the Panel. On the far right is the Reverend Bartholomew. No Mr Filton, my right. Next to him is Mrs Babcock of Social Services...." and so it went on.

At the end of the interview Tony had no idea how he had got on as even without the sunshine directly in his face he could still not make out enough of the features of any the panel to get any clue to their reactions to his answers. He wondered if all the priests were Catholics and that they had set the interview up, yearning back to the days of the inquisition. He himself was a confirmed atheist, but he had seen enough films to know that the way this interview was being conducted was remarkably like a confessional. When it was over they thanked him and he had left. Mrs Rachel Watts studiously ignored him as he passed through the outer office on his way to the street.

"So, do you think you have a chance?"

Tas was sitting back in a deck chair on their small and totally enclosed lawn, sipping a glass of cold white wine and enjoying the warm evening sun.

"Damned if I know, Tas, it was such a weird day all around that I can't really tell you how it went. After the morning and lunch time, not to mention an hour in Sainsbury's on Pensioners Thursday, and you would not believe how vicious those little white haired old ladies can be when they are driving a shopping trolley, I was too shell shocked to really take it all in. You cannot imagine how strange it is to talk to people when you can't see their faces clearly. You get no feedback at all." He took a sip of his wine. "Still, I am not sure I will cry if I don't get it. It seemed a really strange set up to me."

"Perhaps that's because its local government. You know what wallies they are. Sat in their nice safe jobs and spending our money while they jaunt off on their jolly ups to twinned towns."

Tony switched off. On the subject of local government he knew Tas' views backwards and felt he could safely drift away until she stopped talking without missing anything new. He noticed that the lawn needed cutting and that the fence could use another coat of preservative.

"So when will you know one way or another?"

Tas was back down from the hobbyhorse.

"By the end of next week, they said."

"Well that is pretty quick compared to most of the interviews you've had. How many replies are you waiting for at the moment?"

"Three results of interviews, but this week I have put five more applications in the post."

"Never mind then love, you are too bright not to get something soon. You will just have to be patient won't you? Top my glass up, will you?"

She held out her glass, problem solved.

Chapter Three

A different experience (July 1982)

The envelope marked Avon County Education Department surprised him as he had not to his knowledge applied for any teaching posts. He checked again and it was definitely addressed to him, posted in Bristol. He opened it.

COUNTY of AVON YOUTH OPPORTUNITIES SCHEME.

(A Person Power Services funded Scheme)

July 27th 1982

Dear Mr Filton,

Re Application for the position of Supervisor (Special Unit)

Thank you for the interest you have shown in the position of

Supervisor, Special Unit. I would appreciate it if you could please attend for a preliminary interview and chat, where I hope we can both find out a little about each other and decide if we would like to further the acquaintance.

Could you please be at St Jane's Infant School, Weston-Super-Mare, at two fifteen on Friday 16th June, when I will look forward to meeting you? Please use the side entrance.

Please confirm your ability to attend by ringing Miss Angela Banks on W-s-m 342571.

Yours in anticipation

Susan Mandelow (Mrs)

Manageress, Special Unit.

It was signed in a bold and clearly legible signature.

He smiled to himself. "Of course. I had forgotten the application I had written the day of the Great Escape from the pub yard." He gave a shudder at the memory and looked again. It was a nice friendly letter although to the point. He picked up the phone to confirm the appointment, might as well give it a go.

It was still blazingly hot with the temperature in the high seventies when the day for his ACYOP interview arrived. It had started badly with a letter telling him that he had not got the position with the Southdown Council for Alcoholism, this after waiting for two weeks more than the promised one week for the news. It then rubbed salt into the wound by going on to say that although on this occasion the panel had not felt able to award him the position, the County would be pleased to receive applications from him for any other vacancies to which he might aspire. Reading between the lines Tony came to the conclusion that the County's Personnel representative had favoured him for the job, but had been outvoted by the Vicars and the other people that looked after the Alcoholic Johnnies. Still, a miss was as good as a mile.

He'd found the school just where the girl on the other end of the phone this morning had said it would be. He pulled into the car park, which at one time had been the front playground until the increase in motor traffic on the road outside had made it too dangerous and the staff gratefully accepted it as their car park. He parked on the end of a row of cars, which had seen better days and got out. The Red MGB looked very out of place sat there with the rusty Marinas and old Volkswagen Beetles etc. He locked it carefully and walked along to the side of the building and the entrance he wanted. On the way he read the various bumper stickers.

DON'T BLAME ME I VOTED LABOUR. (Five of these).

STOP THE BLOODY WHALING. (Only one.)

TEACHERS ARE HUMAN TOO. (First time he had seen that one. Was it true)?

He remembered his own schooldays and decided if what the sticker said was true, things must have changed. In his school a white line had been painted one yard from the railing that separated the boys playground from the girls and anybody caught crossing it after their first warning, were instantly sent for the cane and book. It was a popular sport among the older boys to toss the new kids across this line and wait for the teacher on playground duty to pounce on them. Consequently after their first day at "the big school" over one hundred and twenty first year kids never went within twenty yards of that white line and the teachers ignored the whole situation. Oh well, perhaps things had changed. He didn't know any teachers so could not make a judgment.

It was an old school built in the Victorian era out of local stone, like the majority of buildings in the town. The doorways and windows were all very tall and arched while the ceilings were wooden panelled and vaulted. The smell of wood and chalk dust took him back nearly twenty five years and if it had not looked so small to his now grown up eyes, he would have thought he was back in his own junior school.

The doorway led into a corridor with two doors of to the right and a set of stairs to the left. The walls were painted dark green up to about five feet from the floor and only then, when you got above the possible reach of dirty little hands, did the magnolia take over. At the end of the corridor was a desk that sported a small notice declaring it to be reception. Sat at it was a blonde girl of about twenty who appeared to be wearing only a white overall. At least in the middle where the two buttons were missing and the material parted, all he could see was flesh peeping through. He approached her trying hard to ignore the gaps in her clothing. She looked up and smiled at him.

"Mr Filton?"

He smiled back and nodded.

"Yes."

"I thought it was you. You sounded like a suit man on the phone this morning."

He was immediately on his guard, but managed to give her one of the smiles he reserved for charming young ladies.

"Is the suit a mistake then, do you think?"

"Oh no. Personally I like to see a man in a suit, but not many people around here wear them."

She gave him the benefit of her own smile, which she obviously kept for the benefit of nervous interviewees. After what she had said it didn't help one little bit.

"If you would like to wait in there, Mrs Mandelow will see you soon. She's just in with our Manager at the moment."

She indicated the last doorway that he had passed and he turned back and entered it. Inside there were several low chairs and a coffee table that Oxfam would not have hesitated to refuse. The rest of the floor space was being utilised by half a dozen teenage girls who appeared to be making paper dolls from old newspapers and then painting them. Two of them looked up and smiled, but the other four carried on with what they were doing. They were all smoking. He picked up a magazine from the table. From its title, Nursery World, it didn't promise to enthral him but it gave him something to do with his hands. The girls were all dressed in extremely short skirts or skin-tight jeans. They were all kneeling on the floor in various poses and it seemed to him that if he just sat and watched them working, he would be instantly branded as a lecher by anyone entering the room. Best to ignore them he thought and tried to get interested in the magazine.

"Come for an interview then?"

The speaker was a longhaired blonde girl. From her darker eyebrows the hair was evidently dyed to its almost golden colour. She was dressed in three-inch high heels, a white low cut satin blouse and a short and very tight, black skirt with black tights. She was wearing a fair amount of make up and looked at least twenty. Through and over the top of the thin material of her blouse a pair of fully developed breasts could be seen straining at her red lace bra. She plonked her self down in the chair opposite him and made a half-hearted attempt to pull the skirt down enough to cover the matching red lacy panties that were suddenly on view. She abandoned this futile effort and turned her attention back on Tony.

"You're about the sixth one today, I reckon. You want a fag?"

He had to smile.

"Yes, I am here for an interview and no, I don't want a fag. I've not long given them up."

The girl gave him a look of admiration and leaned forward so that he could get an uninterrupted view down her cleavage. It really was worth looking at, but at this point in time, not what he needed.

"How long?"

"Pardon!"

He tried to look at her while avoiding seeming to concentrating on the lace knickers and the straining breasts, but it was bloody difficult. He wondered if this was part of some test and looked around for the two-way mirror.

"She said how long have you given em' up? You know, the fags."

A second young female had come up and was kneeling on another chair staring at him. To his immense relief she was dressed in a tee shirt and jeans, had no figure to speak of and actually looked as if she had just left school. With an inward sigh of relief he turned his full attention onto her.

"About eleven weeks ago when I lost my job. Strange how much easier it is to say that to a kid rather than a grown up. Why is that, I wonder?"

She looked at him.

"Was you sacked?"

"No, I was made redundant." He went on to explain. "That is what they call it when they don't have enough work for everybody and they have to let some of you go"

"I know what it means, I ain't fick." Her bottom lip came out and a frown appeared on her face. My dad says that is so they can keep the best workers and get rid of the Wankers and the trouble makers."

She gave him a knowing smile as she blew smoke down both nostrils. The blonde in the red lace bra sprang to his defence.

"Oi Julie, don't call him a Wanker. I think he looks like a nice bloke."

A chorus of "Yeahs" made him turn his attention back to the vamp, only to discover that the whole group was now taking an interest in him. They were grouped around him like flock of little budgies. All bright eyes and colours, breasts and tails.

"Are you coming for a job ere' Mister?"

The speaker was a dark headed girl with deep brown eyes that looked wide and innocent.

"Yes, I am."

He was beginning to enjoy the attention. After all, it was now them watching him, not the other way round and it showed anyone that walked in that he had an affinity at least with teenage girls. On second thoughts perhaps that would do him no good at all. A dark haired, slightly swarthy man, with a brown cord bomber jacket and blue jeans came in and went to the far end of the room where a kettle stood on a table.

"Good afternoon, girls."

It was a decidedly Brummy accent. It reminded him that this morning he had found his quince bush protector bent almost double, although he wouldn't have thought to check if he hadn't seen from the bedroom window his neighbour hammering the rear valance of his old Cortina back into shape.

"Hello, Mike, are the Land Use boys with you? It was the vamp that asked the question.

"Sorry Karen, but its just me here. Will I do?"

He didn't turn around as he said this and so missed the face that she made at his back. Out in the hall Tony could hear a woman's voice talking to the receptionist and prayed that Mrs Mandelow had arrived. The girls had begun to drift back to their painting at Mike's interruption and Tony breathed a sigh of relief. Just then Angela came in.

"Mr Filton, Mrs Mandelow is here now. Can you come with me please?"

He noticed again that the overall she wore had the two middle buttons missing and she had to hold it together across her body. She saw his look and explained.

"I was helping the girls with some paint this morning and they spilt it all down my dress. Its round at the launderette and I'm only wearing this until it comes back."

She was going steadily more crimson as she spoke. Tony looked her in the eyes.

"Angela. The other week I went for an interview at Taunton Town Hall and the young lady there was properly dressed and very smart."

He watched her colour even more before he went on.

"However, she was an absolute bitch and I much prefer the way you welcome people, overall without buttons or not."

She gave him a big sunny smile and he knew that if by some chance her opinion was sought, he had her vote. She led him up the stairs, giving him a chance to admire her legs, long and attractive and led him into a small room on the right. It contained three desks, a set of card racks on one wall and a woman who stood up as they entered.

"Sue, this is Tony Filton. He drives a sports car as well."

Sue Mandelow smiled and held out her hand while he was trying to work out how Angela had found out the sports car was his.

"Does he now. Come on in Tony and have a seat." He shook the proffered hand and took the offered seat.

She was not at all what he had expected being somewhere around forty and very tiny, no more than five feet. Taking in her colouring, a smooth light olive, he would have said that she was of Italian origin. She was a little plump, but was one of those women that could not possibly have been anything else. She had a vibrancy and attractiveness that immediately radiated out to him and he instantly decided to like her, a rare thing for him on a first meeting. Her clothes were, to say the least, unusual, made of some filmy green material and fashioned into an Edwardian style flapper outfit complete with matching scarf around her neck. In his ignorance of the staff of Avon County's ACYOP Scheme he decided she was a little overdressed for the occasion, an opinion he was later to revise, and wondered what sort of interview this was going to be.

"Remove your jacket if you like, Tony."

"Thank you."

He gratefully took it of and once sat in his short-sleeved shirt he felt instantly more comfortable.

"Tony, my name is Sue Mandelow and I am the Unit Manager for the Special Unit for the whole of Avon. We have read your CV and it obviously impressed us or you wouldn't be here. However, all your experience to date has been in the commercial world. Why do you want to leave it?"

She sounded more nervous than he was, but she had gone straight in to the heart of the matter. He pulled his thoughts together and responded.

"Up until two years ago I didn't, I was very happy as a Personnel Manager, it suited me. However, when your company starts to get into trouble you have to cut your cloth to what you can afford, I was transferred to the Sales Department, and I hated that. "Christ, doesn't a bloke get to know what the job is about before he answers questions on his ability to do it?"

It seemed not.

"Why?"

"Because I found I was working wit a bunch of egotistical, lazy people who were more interested in what car they were getting to drive than selling anything." He caught himself. "Whoops, that slipped out. She must be better at this than I thought."

"I see. Well you don't pull your punches, do you? Tell me, what do you think you can bring to this job?"

He was ready for this.

"Most of that experience of the commercial world. After all, I started off working a centre lathe on the shop floor and ended up on the Senior Management team. You get to know what employers are looking for after that sort of history. You know, experience of the real world of work which has to help in this business."

And so it went on. It seemed to Tony that she was asking the questions in such a manner as to show him the answer she wanted and he was not sure if this was deliberate or because of a lack of experience in interviewing. Whatever the reason it was a great help. Sue, they were definitely on first name terms by now, finally looked at her watch and said that it was half past three and time to call a halt as she had to get back to Bristol. By this time it had become a conversation rather than an interview.

"One last thing, Tony. Your accent, what is it, South African?"

He was stunned. "South African?" Had he heard that right? "I beg your pardon?"

"Your accent. Where is it from?"

The penny dropped. It wouldn't do to have a potential black hater in the organisation when Avon had a substantial West Indian minority. Better put her mind at rest. He grinned.

"No, it's not South African. My father comes from Cumberland and my mother comes from Camberwell, in London. I was born and raised in Hemel Hempstead, which was an overspill town for London. Most of my schoolmates came from Bow and Popular and I have lived in the West Country for fifteen years. The accent has got a bit mixed by now I suppose, but I never thought it sounded like a South African."

She hurried to assure him.

"You don't, not really. It was just there was an accent there I couldn't explain."

"Yes I bet."

But he let it pass. They went back down the stairs passing Angela at her desk who smiled at them, and then out through the building. It was only three thirty five, but it was deserted.

"Poets day on Friday." He thought to himself. "Piss off early tomorrow is Saturday. If I were manager here I would stop this. It can't do the kids any good to think that you don't have to work on a Friday afternoon."

Sue had stopped at a gold coloured Fiat X19 and was unlocking the door.

"What a smashing little car. My wife wanted us to have one of those, but I am afraid that they are too small for my long legs. That is why we bought the MGB."

He pointed to it, but it was unnecessary as it was the only other car in the car park, except for the old Morris Marina with the, don't blame me, sticker.

"At least Malcolm is still here."

"Who?"

"Malcolm. You will meet him in good time. He is the Area Manager."

"Well," thought Tony, "So she did notice they had all pissed off early."

"Well goodbye, Tony. Thank you for coming in to see me and I will be in touch with you early next week to let you know what is happening. Any days you are already booked?"

"Considerate." He though. "They usually think you are so bloody desperate for their job that you would even cancel your mother's funeral to get it."

"Any day except Thursday, please, Sue."

He had very little on the cards for next week at this point in time, but she didn't need to know that.

"OK, see you soon."

She stooped to get into the Fiat but then stopped and turned.

"Look, you ought to know that the woman you would be working for here already has someone else in mind for this job. I don't want him and that is why we took the unusual step of advertising in the local paper as well as the Job Centre. I just thought you ought to know that."

While he was still absorbing this nugget of information with his mouth slightly open she slid into the drivers seat and was gone. He watched her drive away and then walked over to his car. Someone had left a note under the windscreen wiper.

This part of the car park is reserved for the use of the educational staff. The number of your vehicle has been noted and will be reported to Mr Gains. "Who the hell was Mr Gains?" Please bear in mind in the future that your presence in this car park is allowed as a favour and abuse will not be tolerated.

One Miss Fielding, Assistant Headmistress, had signed it. Looking around the car park Tony could see several other similar leaflets lying on the ground and guessed that Miss Fielding was on a crusade. He would park more carefully next time. Then he realised that he was strangely confident that there would be a next time.

They were sat in The Woodsman, drinking wine and waiting for their ham and egg pie and chips to arrive. It was their usual routine on a Friday evening not to cook at home, but to go out to the pub and let some one else do the work. Since he had been out of work they had not been to the Woodsman very much as an economy measure, but tonight when he had collected Tas he had said that he would like to eat out as he was too hyped up to stay in. He was watching the traffic going by on the road outside when he realised that Tas, sat across from him, was speaking to him.

"So what is the job about then, Tony? It can't just be sitting around talking to nubile young girls."

There was an edge of sarcasm in her voice and Tony realised he had made a mistake in telling her about his experience with the girls.

"Well, I think I could handle that bit if it paid enough." He ducked as a beer mat winged its way across the table towards him and quickly answered her question. "But it's about finding kids a job for a year with a private employer to get some work experience."

"Like the girls you use to take on for your lot, you mean?"

"Not quite. Those girls were bright kids who were only on the dole because there are not enough jobs for them."

She gave him a puzzled look.

"So what's different about the ones you will be working with?"

He hesitated, knowing that it was going to be a difficult half hour or so and then plunged on.

"Well my kids won't necessarily be bright. In fact some of them will be pretty thick, or if they are bright, then they will have had their collar felt by the Law or come from a broken or foster home, or be all three at once."

He ran out of breath, subsided, waited, and was not disappointed. After about ten seconds of complete amazement Tas got her mouth closed and began to laugh. She put her glass on the table quickly as she was in danger of spilling wine down her dress and then collapsed in helpless hysterics along the wooden bench on which she was sat.

"All right, Tas, calm down, people are looking at us"

This was an understatement. The whole bar was peering at them curiously. Tas ignored them and fumbled in her bag for a tissue to mop the tears of laughter from her face. It was nearly thirty seconds before she was in control enough to speak.

"You, as a social worker? You, the person who thinks that football hooligans should be locked up and the key thrown away? You, who think that parents should be made to pay for the damage their kids, do. You are going to go and persuade people like Robin Welsby-Green to give them a chance in life?"

She collapsed again and fumbled in her bag for another handkerchief to wipe the tears away. Tony started to grin. It was bloody funny when it was put like that. He went to the bar and got two more glasses of wine to allow Tas time to recover herself. When he came back she was still sniggering.

"All right, Tas, its not that funny."

She snorted.

"It is you know. Are you going to grow a beard and wear cords and sandals?"

He snapped at her and went into sanctimonious mode.

"Look, Tas, I may be conservative in my view of hooliganism and vandalism, but be fair. I have always pointed the finger at the parents." He now went into his highly indignant mode. "You on the other hand have a load of prejudices that are based solely on what you read or see on the television, not from any experience of real life. Your attitude to the Social Services for instance." He was getting pompous now. "You assume because you have never needed to use them, that the whole organisation is staffed by bleeding hearts wearing knitted pullovers and anoraks. Have you ever stopped to consider you might be wrong and that some of them could be normal people doing a bloody difficult job, eh! What...?"

He looked over his shoulder in the direction of her pointing finger. The whole of the throng at the bar, including the girl holding their order, was listening to him in sudden silence. He felt the blood rush to his face and he stood up and pushed his glass towards Tas.

"You carry that." He took the plates from the girl. "Its such a nice evening I think we will eat this on one of the outside tables."

He ignored his wife's muttered aside about sharing it with the flies and the midges and walked towards the door. Twenty minutes later he had a full stomach and was feeling much more benign towards the world. He was explaining to Tas why he thought he would get the job.

"From what Sue said I think they have trouble getting people with the right experience. They are only allowed to take people who are already unemployed and the right people are not always available when you want them. So you end up employing the nearest you can get. It's not surprising when you consider the salary. Also, up until recently the only people available to them with any background in training were ex-teachers. So the kids are leaving a school full of teachers that have not managed to make them employable and then gone straight back to another load of ex-teachers who are supposed to reverse that in one year. I think that alone gives me a good chance."

Tas focused on the practical.

"How much is it? The salary?"

"Not that much. Only five and a half thousand a year."

"Can we afford to live on that? You were getting nearly nine in the last job." Her manner said it concerned her. "That only just over half as much."

He felt in his pocket and produced a bit of paper.

"Look, I have worked it all out. If you take into account the fact that I will be in a lower tax band, the bottom one to be precise, and that I will pay much lower National Insurance and Graduated Pension payments, there is not such a difference as it at first looks."

He handed her the paper and she studied it.

"But according to this you will only be about twenty percent worse off when your salary will drop by forty percent?"

He nodded.

"That's right. The reason is the different tax band and the lower stoppages."

"But that means that as I earn the same as you did before you lost your job, they are taking nearly twice as much away from me in stoppages as they will from you." she scowled. "That is not fair."

"Well it used to happen to me as well, you know."

Tas was not to be placated.

"Oh yeah, well you seemed to have ducked out of it now and left me to carry the load of paying for all the useless twits that call themselves the government."

She stopped dead as a light dawned somewhere inside her head.

"Its done so I can pay for people like you to swan around the County getting jobs for all the deadbeats and tearaways who don't want them anyway." she screwed his sheet of calculations up and threw them in the gutter. "Christ, Tony, now I will be keeping you as well as the rest of them."

She drained her glass and he could no longer keep the grin from his face.

"Well if that is the case you are making a profit. I will be getting more than you will be paying in, so you will be ahead for the first time in your life."

She leaned across the table and glared at his smug face.

"Listen, mister. There's a flaw in that argument and when I have worked out what it is I am going to stuff you with it. Now lets go home and have an early night. I need my sleep now that the country has another Dosser for whom I have to contribute."

He parked his car this time on the end of the row of bumper stickers and wondered why they were being blessed with such good weather in this, the first summer he'd had the misfortune to be out of work. Sue Mandelow had rung him the same evening on the day of his first interview to confirm they would like to see him again at the same place on the following Tuesday morning. Tas had said she didn't think she could afford for him to be successful, but she had hugged and kissed him all the same and wished him good luck. He walked down to the side entrance and nearly stopped in his tracks. Nine or ten youths were lounging about outside the door, half of them with skinhead haircuts and all of them wearing dark blue reefer jackets and Toe protector boots. They moved aside when he said excuse me and looked at him with frank curiosity. As he once more entered the chalky atmosphere of the corridor he couldn't avoid hearing what they said.

"Gotta be CID".

"How do you know he's CID then, Lightning?"

Lightning answered, sounding smug.

"Cos he's got a suit on, ain't he. None of this lot wear suits do they and we know all the Social Workers and Probation Officers."

There was a pause while the second speaker digested this information and then, "Well they ain't got nuffing on me this time. I ain't daft enough to get nicked again before I've been to court for the last lot."

Tony walked on down to the reception desk where Angela was on the phone. Through the glass partition behind her he could see into the section of the building still used by the junior school, where a group of six year olds, boys and girls, were taking a dancing class. He wondered at what age they transformed from that to the hulking youths he had seen outside. Once again he was grateful that they didn't have any kids. Angela put the phone down and smiled at him. Today she was wearing a skirt and jumper that were gapless.

"Hello, Tony. They will be with you in a minute. They have finished with the other bloke and they are just having a cup of tea before they start on you, would you like to wait where you did before."

She must have caught the look on his face because she giggled.

"Its all right. Karen and the others are with their play groups in the mornings."

He nodded and wandered into the room he had come to think of as The Harem. It was empty of girls, but two men were sat at the work surface where the kettle lived, drinking tea, one of them a very dark skinned West Indian, the other with the straw coloured hair and ruddy complexion of a West Country farmer or builder. He said good morning and they both nodded. He didn't want to sit in one of the low chairs so he wandered around the walls, which were covered in drawings that looked as if they had been made by five year olds. He wished they would hurry up and call him, as the silence between the three of them in the room was almost tangible.

He heard footsteps and looked up to see a striking brunette in her early thirties standing in the doorway. She was staring at him with a cold expression on her admittedly beautiful face and he stared back in fascination.

She was bands of colour from her head to her toes. She wore knitted tights with individual toes that were banded in inch wide strips of primary colours. Over those she wore what looked like a cotton tee shirt except that it had long wide sleeves and came down far enough to form a mini skirt, a short caftan really. This too was banded in primary colours and was pulled in tight at the waist with a bright yellow plastic belt. On her head she wore a tam-o'-shanter banded in Rastafarian colours and the whole ensemble was finished of with luminous green Dr Scholl sandals. She was stood with one leg akimbo, holding one arm of her sunglasses to her lips with the other hand on her waist. She kept this pose for about thirty seconds while she stared at him, before placing her glasses back on the top of her waist length, pony tailed hair. Tony turned to the two men to see their reaction, but they were both reading the Sun with their backs to the door. When he turned back the woman had gone. More footsteps led him to the renewed hope that Angela had come to rescue him and so it transpired. She led him up to the stairs to the door of the room where he'd had his first interview and knocked. Sue Mandelow opened the door and smiled at him.

"Thanks, Angela. Hello, Tony, come in and I will introduce you to the others."

She led the way into the room. There were two other men in the room and they were about as different as it was possible to get.

"Tony this is our Scheme Coordinator, Commander John Jameson."

Commander Jameson was a tall, thin gentleman of decidedly military bearing. He wore a charcoal grey suit with a white shirt and a navy blue tie and his shoes were so polished that they looked like glass. Tony glanced around and sure enough over the back of a chair in the corner of the room was a black umbrella. He was disappointed in his search for the bowler hat, however. They shook hands and told each other how pleased they were to meet you. Sue turned to the other man.

"This is our Area Manager, Malcolm Gains."

"So this was the Mr Gains on the note under his windscreen wiper."

It looked as if Malcolm and the Commander had gone to extreme lengths to be as different as possible. Malcolm was dressed in a dark brown and very baggy, cord jacket and trousers that didn't quiet look like a suit as they were in slightly different shades. Under this he had on a lumberjack style shirt that Monty Python would have been proud of and on his feet, opened toed sandals without socks. Only his eyes and teeth were visible as a large and shaggy beard obscured the rest of his features. Tony went into shock.

"And you already know me, of course."

Sue was wearing what looked like the double of her previous flapper outfit but this time in a light blue. The other difference was that this time the scarf was worn tied around her head and hanging down over one ear.

"So you see, Tas it was the most surreal interview I have ever had. I mean, I have had some interviews with the Union's Shop Stewards that I found hard to believe, but this was something different. They didn't really ask me any questions. Sue just went through my interview with her the previous week and I confirmed my answers. Malcolm said nothing, but smiled a lot and the Commander only came to life at the end of the interview, when he suddenly stood up and shook my hand and said that if I decided to join them he was sure that with my commercial experience I would be a great asset. It was worse than weird."

Tas waited to see that he had wound down before speaking.

"So are you going to take it?"

"Oh yes. I wouldn't miss it for the world."

She gave a small frown.

"If you want to do it, Tony, its fine by me, but you be sure it is what you really want. If you get fed up with it in a couple of years and want to go back to the real world, it might not look that good on your CV."

He grinned.

"Then I shall have to do what I did during my rock group period before we were married, when I had five jobs in a year."

"What's that?"

"Lie about it when I compile the CV."

And so he phoned Sue Mandelow and told her he would take the job. However, he had some tiny reservations about the woman who he had discovered would be his new boss. Cheryl Baxter sounded as if she could be a right bitch if Sue thought it necessary to warn him about her before asking him to accept the job. Still he had one advantage. He knew she had wanted some one else for the position and he also knew Cheryl Baxter was not quite right in the head. If she were, she would never have worn those green doctor Scholl's sandals with such a colourful outfit.

Chapter Four

The Induction, July 1982

The letter had said report to the Henry Winfield Junior School in Winfield Road, St Paul's, Bristol at 10.00am on Monday morning. Tony had left in good time to complete the thirty-five odd miles into Bristol, which turned out to be a good decision. He had already been right around St Paul's twice and having had no luck with asking passers by where Winfield Road was he suddenly had a brainwave. Abandoning the car on a yellow line he dived into a nearby newsagents and bought a detailed map of the city centre. Back outside he beat the approaching traffic warden to his car by fifty yards and drove off quickly, wondering where that bugger had been hiding when he was asking directions. At the old ruined church in the city centre he stopped and examined the map. There was a list of roads down one edge with a map reference and he soon found Winfield road. He memorised the directions, first right into Downside Road, second left into Chaltham Street then first right into Winfield Road, easy. He put the map down on the passenger street and drove off.

Three minutes later he was sat in his car in Winfield road, right outside the newsagents where he had just bought the map. He looked around in some exasperation. The road was only some one hundred yards long, but of a school there was no sign. A voice in his ear coming through the open sunroof made him jump.

"Its still illegal parking you know, even if you are still sitting in it."

He looked up and saw the same traffic warden standing there looking down at him through the Webasto sunroof, pencil and ticket book poised. He decided to play the rescued citizen.

"Good morning, Warden, am I glad to see you. I thought I was going to be driving around St Paul's all day looking for this place, but I bet you can point me in the right direction."

The warden swelled visibly.

"Where is that you are looking for, then?"

"Henry Winfield School, but I can't see any school in this road."

The smile faded from the Warden's face to be replaced with a frown.

"Oh, I see. One of that lot, are we?" He sneered. "I might have known if you can't even find the place."

Tony decided that he had humoured the bugger enough.

"Look Warden..."? He made a show of reading the man's number, "four seven two. I wonder if you could just point out the school for me and then I won't have to report you to the station for being obstructive." He gave one of his Personnel Smiles that didn't reach his eyes. "Bite on that, you horrible little fascist," he thought.

The warden bristled, but then subsided and became more amenable.

"Certainly, sir, its that building there."

He pointed to where a green corrugated iron fence, some eight foot high and cut with spikes on the top, completely enclosed an old stone building of which only the gothic style windows of the top floor could be seen. It looked more like a prison than a school. He turned back to the now grinning traffic warden.

"Are you sure that is the Henry Winfield school?"

The warden shrugged.

"Go and read the sign if you don't believe me."

Tony nodded and climbing out of the MBG crossed the road to the large double gates on which a sign had been erected.

The Henry Winfield School,

Avon County Youth Opportunities

And

Avon County, Special Education Unit.

Do not obstruct these gates.

He was about to peer through the small square hole in the corrugated iron of the gate when they started to open outwards, causing him to jump smartly out of the way. As they parted they revealed two youths dressed in the ACYOP uniform he seen in Weston-Super-Mare, of dark blue donkey jacket, jeans and boots. When the gates were fully open the two youths ran back to a white mini bus and jumped in. The bus then drove out through the gate followed by a small convoy of four brightly coloured and very ancient, Citroen 2CV's. The last one stopped and a tall, fair-haired man wound down the window and spoke to him. He was wearing a brown cord jacket, a six foot long yellow scarf around his neck despite the warm day and large badge on the lapel of his jacket bearing the legend "I am thirty"

"There are a few spaces now if you are waiting to get in. Don't forget to close the gate behind you or we will all lose our radio's before lunch."

He roared off. Tony came out of his shock and headed back to his car. The traffic warden had gone, but on his windscreen was the dreaded plastic envelope with his parking ticket inside. "You bastard." He muttered, as he folded himself back into the car and drove carefully into the school.

The car park was what had been the playground of the school and his first look instantly took him back to his own schooldays at Corner Hall School for Boys. (He had never had an entirely satisfactory explanation as to why it was called Corner Hall as it was half way up a steep hill and situated between the local Junior School and the Hemel Hempstead Football Club ground. What it had to do with halls or corners was beyond him). This playground made an awkward parking place because in the manner beloved by Victorian builders a large toilet block had been built squarely in the middle. That was another thing that took him back to his own schooldays. The necessity of getting wet any time you wanted a piddle and it happened to be raining.

The front part of the car park was jammed full with a variety of old bangers and he squeezed the MGB through the gap between the toilet block and the school to the rear of the playground hoping to find space there or at least room to turn around if there was none. There were a half dozen places free and he took the precaution of backing the car into the space that seemed to offer the best chance of avoiding being blocked in when the 2CV's returned from their foray.

The MGB was twelve years old and he had bought it from a neighbour whose son had died while on army duty. It was British racing green and had the nice chrome bumpers instead of the later black plastic variety. Tony had always admired it and was really delighted to get it, even if it had cost him the last six hundred pounds left from his redundancy money, as he and Tas needed two cars now they worked in different counties and he didn't see why he should buy a bloody mini. As he got out of the car a youth of about thirteen came out of a side door in the ground floor of the school. He lit a fag and then wandered over to towards where Tony was rescuing his briefcase from the back of the car.

"That your car then, Mister?"

Tony looked up at him in disbelief. "Did he think he was stealing the briefcase?"

"Yes, of course it is." This said with some asperity.

"All right. Keep your hair on. I only asked."

At this moment a short dark haired man in a chequered working shirt and denims appeared at the side of the building.

"Kevin. You've got three seconds to put that fag out and get your backside back in here."

The youth turned at the sound of the man's voice.

"Aw Dave, I was only having a quick drag. You know I hate bloody drawing."

He carefully put the cigarette out, putting the dog end back in his top pocket. He grinned cheekily at Tony. "Cheerio mate." and headed slowly for the door.

"You hate everything, Andy. Now move your arse." The man turned to Tony. "If you want the ACYOPS office, its at the top of the stairs around the front. In the boys section of the school." And he turned and went back through the door before Tony could reply.

He hefted the briefcase and started off around the side of the building. Again, as in his old school, the boy's section was upstairs. Access was by a broad flight of steps through a large arched doorway with BOYS cut into the stonework above. The girls much smaller entrance was around the side of the building where he had just come from and he reflected on the chauvinism of the Victorians. Going up a short flight of steps he found himself in a corridor with double doors at the far end. Against one wall was a coffee machine of the same uncertain age and vintage as he had last seen when talking to Killick back in the Works Canteen, God knows how many weeks ago. A group of youths were stood around it looking as if they were waiting for someone, but they didn't acknowledge his good morning. He pushed through the double doors and there in front of him was a counter behind which was a desk, occupied by an extremely attractive woman in her thirties and with a notice bearing the word Reception in front of her. The woman looked up as he put his briefcase on the counter and opened it.

"Hello. Can I help you?"

She gave him a warm smile. He instinctively smiled back.

"Good morning. I'm Tony Filton reporting for induction. I'm sorry I'm a few minutes late, but I had a bit of difficulty finding the place."

The woman frowned.

"Didn't we send you a map?"

"I don't think so. Unless its this." He produced a sheet of photocopied papers that were almost completely black.

"Oh my god, I am sorry, Mr Filton. The girls seem to have made a bit of a mess of that, don't they? Never mind, you're here now."

At that moment a rather fat woman in her early twenties came out of an office door next to reception. She had long dark hair done in pigtails and was wearing what looked like some sort of gymslip. Tony immediately thought of Billy Bunter's sister. The receptionist called to her.

"Oh Grace! Do you know who is in charge of the induction this morning?"

The fat woman stopped and walked back to the desk.

"How the hell should I know, Sandra? I'm only a Unit Manager. Why should anybody tell me anything?"

She turned to the double doors behind her as the group of youths on the other side, obviously bored with waiting, started what sounded like a football match with a coke tin. Grace wrenched the doors open with a ferocity that threatened their hinges.

"Listen, you lot. Pick that tin up, then go and wait in the car park. This is an office not a bloody playpen."

The youths stopped and looked at her. Then one of them started to whistle quietly. The others grinned and then joined in. It took them a few seconds to get synchronised and then a few more before Tony recognised the tune. Then he got it. Amazing Grace. The fat woman went bright red and turned to Sandra the receptionist.

"They are Keith Derrick's kids aren't they? Where is he?

Sandra was keeping her face straight with some difficulty.

"Yes."

"Where is he?"

Grace was shouting now to be heard over the whistling.

"I believe he is in the Land Use office with John Jeffries, Grace."

"Right. I will soon sort that bastard out."

She stormed off. Sandra allowed the grin to come fully to her face and then let it die again as she tuned to the youths.

"If you lot are not down by your van in ten seconds I shall ring Keith and ask him to come and move you."

The youths fled and she turned back to Tony.

"I think its best you go to the rest room until I can get someone to see you, Tony isn't it? It's just through there. Its marked Staff Only on the door."

He went in the direction indicated beginning to think that he had made a mistake taking this job. He found himself in what was obviously the old Assembly Hall. Under the high vaulted ceiling it was big enough to take the thirty odd desks that were in it and still leave plenty of room, half the desks being occupied by people who all seemed to be on the telephone. On two sides of the central room were doors that led into what were the original classrooms. These were all labelled. Land Use, Coordinator, Special Unit, Stationary/Stores and Staff Only. He headed towards this last one. Inside the rest room two other people were sitting looking at old copies of magazines. One was a man in his late twenties, although he was almost completely bald, wearing a collarless blue and white striped shirt and jeans, while the other was a woman a few years younger with short mousy hair. She was dressed in a dark blue leisure suit that did little hide a rather dumpy figure. Both wore trainers. They looked up when Tony entered and then stood. The woman just looked, but the man was made of sterner stuff, came around the magazine table, and shook Tony's hand.

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Paul Robins and this is..?"

He waved his hand at the woman who gave a nervous smile.

"Jean Davies."

Tony was encouraged by the friendliness of the reception.

"Tony Filton, here for induction."

The man blinked. He looked down at Tony's suit, which he was already beginning to regret wearing, with a puzzled expression on his face.

"Oh sorry, thought you had come to see us. We are here for induction as well you see."

"Sorry. I'm just another foot soldier I'm afraid."

They all sat down again. Paul gave the suit another look and then asked the question that Tony could see was bothering him.

"What did you do before you came here then? You know, work?"

Tony knew the answer was not going to meet with approval. He had already spotted the tattoos on Paul's knuckles that read Left and Rite with one letter to each finger. He may have led a bit of a sheltered life, but he knew quite well that such poor workmanship was usually only found in Borstal or Prison. Not that the man's past worried him, but he didn't feel he would have much time for an ex-Personnel Manager. They had been probably turning him down for jobs on account of those tattoos for years. What the hell, he would tell him anyway.

"Well for the last two years I've been in Sales Admin, but really I'm a Personnel/Training Manager."

Paul nodded as if it were no more than he expected.

"You will find this a bit different then. Hardly a suit job, is it?"

Tony shrugged. Paul was obviously a bit pissed off about mistaking Tony for someone in charge because of his suit and briefcase and was trying to recover his act. He counter attacked.

"What did you do then, Paul?"

"Well, I have been taking a degree with the Open University for the last couple of years, chemistry, but I've also been working on the buildings now and then."

Tony turned to Jean who answered the question before he could ask it.

"I was a teacher, but I didn't like it so I have been looking for something else for the last year. You have to be out of work for at least a year to work here, don't you?"

This was news to Tony and he resolved to ask Sue Mandelow about it. If it was true, how the hell did he qualify? In the meantime Paul was obviously puzzled.

"What didn't you like about teaching? I wish I'd had the chance to be a teacher."

Jean looked at him as if she hoped he would drop dead. Her answer when it came was muttered.

"Yes, well you are a man, aren't you? It would be different for you."

Paul thought he saw the light.

"Oh I see. The male teachers gave you a hard time did they? Why didn't you go to the Head or the Union? They would have soon sorted them out."

Jean gave him a withering look.

"It wasn't the other teachers, you berk. It was the kids. You try keeping order with a bunch of thumping great sixteen-year-old boys. Every time you have to pass a group in the corridor they try feel you up and in class they just sit and laugh at you. The bloody girls are just as bad. They just encourage them."

It was spat out with some feeling, but Tony tried a tentative enquiry.

"Do you think it will be any different here, then?"

"Oh yes. I'm going to be with the Placement Unit. They get the brighter kids and you just have to find them work placements and then visit them now and then to see its all going all right. If its not and they are a pain in the arse I am told you just give them to the Special Unit." She smiled brightly. "What are you two doing?"

In unison Tony and Paul answered.

"Special Unit"

Jeans blushes were saved by Sue Mandelow's appearance in the doorway with a tall blonde man in his early thirties.

"Paul, Tony, Jean, I see you have met each other. This is Paul Mittons. He is the Senior Supervisor for the Special Unit here in Bristol and he has pulled together your induction programme for this week. I will leave you with him."

She turned and left. Paul Mittons did not waste time doing anything as passé as shaking hands or saying good morning. Into their offered hands he placed a timetable.

"You will report here every morning at nine o'clock and ask for your guide for the day, their name is printed at the top of the page. Today it is Rod Owen so lets go and meet him straight away, shall we? He is in charge of the Construction teams for Central Bristol."

He turned and left, leaving them to scrabble for their various briefcases and handbags before trooping after him like a bunch of school children. Out in the main hall he stopped at one of the thirty or so desks at which a completely bald man with a full set beard and moustache was talking on the telephone. He caught his eye and indicated the trio waiting obediently behind him. The man nodded and Mittons walked off without a word. Paul turned to Tony and whispered to him.

"Welcome to ACYOP"

Tony grinned at him. It seemed the situation had pulled them together and he was forgiven for wearing the suit. The man at the desk put down the phone and stood up. He was no more than five feet, five inches tall so it didn't make a great deal of difference to his overall height. He looked up at the two nearly six footers in front of him and held out his hand.

"Rod Owen, I'm the Senior Supervisor for the Construction Unit. What we do is have six kids with a skilled supervisor. Usually a tradesman who's getting a bit long in the tooth to keep up in the real building trade and who's looking for something easier to take him to retirement. Then we find them a project, painting and decorating or actual building work. The kids then do all the work under the instruction of the supervisor who instructs them in the various skills required. Of course we have to pick the jobs a bit. Nothing too difficult and nothing in competition with the commercial sector or the Unions kick up stink because we are stealing jobs their members could be doing. However, the churches are always glad to have work done for just the cost of the basic materials that they usually wouldn't be able to afford any other way, even if they do moan a bit about the time we take to finish the job."

It was delivered in the manner of a person who had said it many times before, but Tony was impressed. It sounded like a good way to train the youngsters. Nothing better than for them to be able to say afterwards, we did that. Rod Owen continued.

"This morning we are taking you out to Seagate Farm. It is an old stone built farm and outhouses. The local parish council own it and we are doing it up as a meeting place for them, lots of different skills there to see. Are you ready?"

They nodded; glad to be moving at last. Then Rod's phone rang. He answered it and nodded a few times before he put it down.

"Sorry about that. We have had a break in at one of the sites and I have got to go and talk to the police. Can you find your own way to Seagate Farm? Its out in the Hallrod area of the city off the Bath Road." He indicated on a large map on the wall behind his head. "Share a car will you as they object a bit to paying two lots of mileage when it isn't necessary. Cheerio."

And he was gone. Jean looked at the other two.

"I haven't actually got a car yet. I am waiting for Mel's boyfriend to get me one."

Paul noticed Tony's look and explained.

"Melissa Corwood is in my unit. Her boyfriend's got a small lock up and he specialises in supplying 2CV's. He buys them up cheap over in France half a dozen at a time, gets them running and through the MOT and then flogs them. He also converts them to right hand drive if you really want him to. Mel is his agent, so to speak. She offered to get me one, but I already have a car. I don't suppose you want one do you?

Tony remembered the line of 2CV's that were leaving as he had arrived and shook his head.

"Does he always paint them such bright colours?" he said.

Paul grinned at him.

"Melissa does the painting by hand. She was an Art teacher before she came to us. Different, I think is how she describes them."

Tony nodded.

"Yes, I think different describes them quite well."

They picked up their bits and pieces and all trooped back out and down the stairs to the car park.

"Shall we toss for it to see who gets the mileage?" said Paul.

Tony thought about the minuscule back seat in the MGB that was only just big enough to take his briefcase and shook his head.

"No. Lets go in yours today."

Paul led the way to an old, dark green Morris Minor with a split windscreen and walking around to the passenger side he unlocked it. Jean, thinking this was a display of male gallantry, went to climb in the open door, but Paul beat her to it and scrambled across to the driver's seat. He then indicated for Jean to climb into the back and Tony then got in next to Paul.

"I don't dare open the drivers door or I might never get it closed again. It fell off in the High Street last month and I got Mel's bloke to tack weld it shut. It's a bit inconvenient, but at least it stays with the rest of the car now."

He suddenly noticed Tony's highly polished MGB parked over near the corner of the car park.

"Now that is what I would like, but it would be a bit inconvenient now we have the baby. That must belong to some visiting Probation Officer. If we got the same salary as they do we could all afford MGB's instead of old Morris Minors and 2CV's? It's not fair really. We have these little tearaways all week while they only see them once a fortnight and get paid three times as much as we do."

Tony decided this would not be a good time to own up that the car was his. Let them find out.

The Morris Minor rattled and shook its way across Bristol to Seagate Farm where they drew up in what had once been the farmyard and all scrambled out of the car. A gang of four youths and a Supervisor, who was built like Sylvester Stallone, were erecting a long wooden, three bar rustic fence. The fence already ran two hundred yards from the farm entrance to the buildings and as the road disappeared over a low rise it was not possible to see how much further it had to go. Tony wondered if some of these lads would spend their whole year doing just this. The supervisor stopped what he was doing as they approached and taking out a highly polished tobacco tin proceeded to make himself a roll up. He lit it and grinned at them from under a fringe of curly blonde hair as they came up to him, the blue eyes full of mischief.

"Induction tour, is it then?"

They all nodded, shuffling their feet as new recruits do when faced with someone who already knows the system.

"Thought so, you all looked too lost to know what you were doing."

He applied his lighter once more to his roll up, which had gone out and drew smoke down into his lungs while Tony felt his own recently smoke free lungs expand in sympathy.

"Who did you come to see, us or the Construction gang?"

It was Jean that answered him before the other two had a chance. She took a step forward and laid a hand on the other's muscular forearm.

"We do have to see the Construction team, but we would be very grateful if you would tell us what it is your team are doing. You see this is our first day and we know very little about how it all works and I am sure you could explain it all beautifully."

Tony merely grinned at all this while Paul muttered to him under his breath.

"Christ, she has gone all wet knickers over a bit of beef cake."

It was not said quietly and Jean threw him a look that would have struck him dead on the spot if he had seen it. Tony decided it was time for a bit of Personnel tact.

"Hi. I'm Tony, that is Jean and this is Paul. As you guessed we are on induction and because of circumstances beyond our control our guide has had to go off somewhere else and leave us on our own. Tell me, how long have you been building this fence?"

Gently releasing his arm from Jean's fingers the blonde Adonis turned to his lads, made a gesture of smoking a cigarette to them and they downed tools, and ambled away to the farm buildings. He turned back to them.

" I'm Garth Barlett of Land Use. We take sites that have been neglected and try to restore them to their former glory, as it were. This job has been going on for about eighteen months and will last as long again, but each gang only does about three months here and then goes on to something else. We have only got a couple of weeks to go and then our team is off to build a bridle path through Hobson's Woods over in Harefield and another lot will take over here. You couldn't keep these buggers here for a whole year not even if you chained them to the fence. They get bored you see."

"How do you like your job, I mean working with teenage boys all the time?"

Jean had managed to make the words teenage boys sound like a disease and Garth caught it.

"They are all right as long as they know who is in charge. Most of them have horrendous backgrounds and some of the stories would make you cry, but it is no use letting any of that influence you when you have a job to do. If they ever get a proper job the Boss is not going to make a lot of allowances for them just because their Dad use to knock them about." He waved an arm in the direction the lads had taken. "They need to know that."

He dropped the end of his roll up in the dirt and stamped it out.

"Come on. I'll show you where the Construction team are working."

He led them of towards the buildings. They passed along the front of what used to be stables from the look of them and around the back of the building. He explained.

"This used to be a farm, but for the last twenty years has been allowed to go derelict. Then the local Council bought it out, as they wanted a recreational area in the middle of the Seagate Council Estate. The farm buildings came with the land and they want it done up as their meeting place. A Council Chamber up in what used to be the storage loft and what used to be the living quarters and the stables in the downstairs part turned into separate rooms for playgroups and mothers groups etc. We have been at it for two years now, but lack of money and other problems mean it will be another two years before it is finished. The Construction Supervisor is called Bill Frogget by the way."

They turned a corner to the back of the building as he was talking. Up the side of the building was an unfinished stairway built of brick. Halfway up was a man laying terracotta tiles on the top of each step while down the bottom six youths sat on the ground looking bored. Garth called out to the man.

"Bill, these people are here on induction. I will leave them with you now and get my lot back to work before they all nip off while my back is turned."

Bill stopped work and glared down at them.

"How the bloody hell am I supposed to get this job finished on time when all I get is bloody interruptions?"

The words were addressed to the world at large as he put down his trowel and came down the stairs.

"Rod Owen sent you did he. I have told him I don't have time to spend talking all day if he wants this job to be finished on time, not with a bunch of useless kids like this I don't."

He indicated the six youths who just stared at him and then looked away. Paul stepped in.

"I thought the idea was that they did the work and you supervised."

Bill snorted.

"Them? I have shown them until I am black in the face and they still don't know one end of a trowel from the other. If I let them loose on this Councillor Bayliss would soon moan that the work was not up to scratch and who would be blamed then? I would. Its all right for Mr Bloody Owen, he doesn't live in the same road as the councillor." He waved his arm at the youths. "All this lot are good for is making the bloody tea and then its usually cat's piss."

Tony thought to himself that if he worked for this berk, cat's piss is exactly what he would get in his tea. He walked over to the boys.

"What do you think of ACYOPS then, lads?"

They looked at him with deep suspicion on their faces.

"Who's asking?"

"I am. This is my first day as a Supervisor and I would like to know what you think of it."

In the background he could hear Bill telling Paul and Jean of the problems he was experiencing with the rubbish kids they sent him to do the job. The boys looked at each other and Tony and then one of them stood up and walked across to him. The others remained where they were sitting with their backs against the wall. The lad looked back at them once for moral support and then turned back to Tony.

"Well, I only came on ACYOPS because my brother is on it and he said he liked it, see, but he is with another gang and they have a younger bloke teaching them. That old prick," he waved an arm in Bill's direction, "only let me have one try at laying bricks and then he told me I was a useless Wally and took the trowel away. It ain't fair we reckon because I bet he was just as bloody useless himself the first time he used a trowel"

The others all nodded their agreement and the youth continued.

"I have to stay here because my old man would kick up if I left the scheme, but usually kids only stay here for a few weeks before they get pissed of and leave. You don't learn nothing from that old Pratt."

Tony wished he had kept his mouth shut. The last thing he needed was to start a mutiny on his first day. At the same time he hoped to God that things were not as bad as this in his area when he eventually got there. He rejoined the others just in time to here Bill saying that if they had asked all the questions he would like to get back to his stairs now. They wandered back to the car and climbed in. Garth and his lads were back at work and he gave them a wave. Paul started the engine of the Morris and then turned in his seat to talk to the others.

"What do we do now? From what Rod Owen said I thought we would be here all day. If he is off talking to the law about some break in he could be gone for hours. What shall we do? Go back to centre?"

Tony checked his watch.

"Its half past twelve. Why don't we drive back into the City Centre and find a pub where we can have some lunch? I could do with a pie and a pint."

The other two were silent, just looking at each other. It was Paul who broke the silence.

"Look, Tony, its obvious that you have had a good job before you came here, but me and Jean have been out of work for over a year. Until we get paid at the end of the month I don't think we will be going into any pub for our lunch."

He opened his document case and showed Tony what it contained, a packet of sandwiches and a flask. Tony looked at Jean and she just nodded to confirm what Paul had said. Tony fought the desire to blush at his own crassness, and lost.

"OK guys. Lets find a nice little shop where I can get a bottle of lemonade and some food and then we will drive out to somewhere nice and green and have a picnic, and if we feel like it we can tell each other how we came to this particular strange occupation."

The other two smiled and nodded and Paul put the car in gear and drove out of the Farmyard.

They returned to the Centre at 1:30 PM only to find it deserted except for a girl, who was obviously a trainee, manning the reception desk. With barely a glance at them she informed them brusquely that everyone was over the pub and carried on reading her magazine. They trolled across to the pub across the road and sure enough it was full of weirdly dressed people in their late twenties/early thirties, but none of them were recognisable to them. Paul got quite niggled at this stage and started muttering to himself something along the lines of piss ups and breweries. Jean pretended she couldn't hear him and suggested they went and waited in the staff room where they had first met this morning. Tony was feeling some sympathy with Paul's attitude and thought perhaps he had better start on the job hunting trial once more, but for the time being he just agreed with Jean and persuaded Paul that her suggestion would be the best plan of action. They had been sat in the staff rest room for about half an hour when Paul Mittons happened to glance through the door. He stopped dead and then came in.

"What are you lot doing in here, I thought you were supposed to be out on the sites learning about the Construction section?"

Tony went to answer, but Paul got in first.

"I don't know when you last went to Seagate Farm, mate, but there is not enough going on there to keep anyone learning anything for about more than ten minutes. You call this an induction? I would have learned more about Construction trying to rebuild my back garden wall than wasting my time pissing about up there."

To Tony's surprise Paul Mittons gave a big grin. It totally transformed his stern features and made him look about a boyish twenty-five instead of a glowering thirty-five.

"Bad as that was it? Never mind. Come through to the main office and I will fill you in on how the place really operates and the differences as to what we are supposed to do and what we actually do."

"So you see, Tas, as Paul Mittons puts it we can find kids a job doing anything they want as long as it is not against the employment laws and the employer knows what he is letting himself in for."

Tas snorted.

"So you mean that if some little crook is brought to you after being caught stealing cars and says he wants to work in a garage you will try and arrange that."

Tony nodded. Tas' mouth dropped open and then snapped closed.

"Bloody hell, Tony, I don't believe it. What garage owner in his right mind would employ a kid who might start nicking his customers cars?" She stared at him. "Or don't you tell them that?"

He shrugged, put out by her scathing attitude. When he continued he was on the defensive. It was even worse than Tas thought it was. He decided to come clean.

"According to Mittons, we as Supervisors are not allowed to tell the employer anything at all about the kids background unless we have their permission."

He held up a hand to stop her further outburst of disbelief.

"However, the way around it is that we tell the kids that we will try to find them a job that they want to do, but in return they must be honest with the employer about their previous convictions or we can't help them. Otherwise you could imagine the problems we would have if a kid did steal a car from his workplace and we hadn't told them he already had twenty two convictions for the same offence."

She shook her head in complete disbelief.

"And you think that knowing what they are getting they will still take them on?"

He shrugged again.

"I know it seems unbelievable, but they do and it's not just to get a free pair of hands. The Special Unit in Bath has forty kids placed out at the moment of which twenty three have come from the Probation Service."

She shook her head sadly.

"And I am bloody keeping them."

"We are bloody keeping them." He said gently.

Without answering she picked up the remote control and switched on the television, conversation at an end.

After the first bad day the induction had gone quite well and they were not left hanging around again. There had been one dodgy moment when Paul had finally discovered that the MGB belonged to Tony and had made a few comments about the unsuitability of the car for lugging scruffy and often unwashed teenagers around the county, but by then he and Tony were getting on quite well so it didn't last long. Tony pointed out that the car was twelve years old however good it looked and then took him for a troll around the City Centre with the roof right back and they did a bit of posing in front of the lunch time crowds of office girls. Paul maintained that the only reason Tony had the car was because from a driving position, where his backside was only a few inches above the road, he could see up most of the miniskirts they passed. Tony conceded it was part of the attraction.

On the last Friday afternoon of induction they had gone to visit the Probation Service offices for Central Bristol. The fact that Sue Mandelow accompanied them for the first time in the fortnight gave them some idea of the importance placed on this visit. At Careers and Social Services they had just been given a contact name and left to fend for them selves. The Probation Service for this area was housed in an old, detached Victorian house, the only one on a tree-lined avenue that had not been converted to flats and bed sits. The original large hallway had been boxed in to form a small office and reception area and a plump and pleasant soul in her mid fifties greeted them.

"Hello, Sue. Rupert is expecting you. Go straight up to the common room and I will let him know you are here."

They trailed up the stairs behind Sue and along a short corridor full of doors with names on them and finally into what had at once been the front master bedroom. This was full of easy chairs, about half of which were occupied by fairly well dressed people drinking tea and eating biscuits. Suits and Twin Sets would not be frowned on here. The occupants were all listening to one of their colleagues who was obviously telling a story about one of his clients. As the speaker was facing the doorway he motioned for them to help themselves to tea and biscuits before continuing with his story. Tony was the last into the room and sunk down in one of the easy chairs out of the way in a corner of the room. The talker was once more back into his story.

"Anyway, you know the problems we have had with old Moulton in the past. They should never allow these lefties to become Magistrates in my view. Well, this time the beggar was hoist with his own petard. Having asked for a full report from the Probation Service the bloody-minded old coot then totally ignored what it said including our recommendation that a custodial sentence was the only alternative. He merely fined the damn fellow fifty pound and costs, which there is no chance he will ever pay and released him back into our care."

He smiled all around the room, confident that he had his audience in the palm of his hand.

"Anyway, as is usual he gave the plaintiff the benefit of his advise on how a man only becomes successful on hard work and gave the example of his own rags to riches story. It was all said very modestly in the normal Moulton manner. The chap obviously took what he had said to heart because three days later he took a friend along to Moulton's house while he and his wife were at the theatre and completely emptied it of everything valuable. Police caught him eventually, but by then most of the family heirlooms were long gone."

Polite laughter and admiring glances were aimed at the speaker, who having finished his story turned and gave his attention to the visitors.

"Ah, Susan. How nice to see you. These are your latest recruits are they, come to join the good fight?"

Sue stood up and almost curtsied. She turned to the three of them.

"These are Jean Davies, Paul Robins and Tony Filton. This is the Head of Probation for Central Bristol, Rupert Merton."

They all struggled up from the depths of their easy chairs, but Rupert Merton did not offer to shake hands, he merely inclined his head to them and indicated they should remain seated. He was a tall slim man in his mid forties and would not have looked out of place dancing attendance on one of the royal family. His suit was immaculate, his hair an even mix of dark grey and silver and his manner polished. In fact, Tony thought, the whole place looked more like the office of a successful law firm than a Probation Office. These thoughts were still going through his mind when he realised that Rupert was actually including them all in what he was saying to Sue and he focused his attention.

"So you see the number of our clients that fall into your sphere is less than twenty percent of our grand total and only a small number of them we consider would benefit from your little scheme. However, we do concede that you do have your uses and we have had our successes, Eh Susan!"

Susan smiled and nodded and Rupert smiled around the room at his staff in a paternal fashion. Just then the door opened and a totally different figure came in. He was dressed in a red and white striped tee shirt and blue denim jeans. His carrot coloured red hair was tied back in a pony tail and both of his pale and freckled arms were covered in beautifully executed tattoos of practically naked women entwined with giant snakes and dragons. He looked to be in his late twenties. Rupert beamed and called to him.

"Ferdy. I say, Ferdy." He turned back to them. "You must meet Ferdy."

The young man came over to them and stood looking down at them with his hands on his hips. They all abandoned their cups and saucers once more and again struggled to their feet this time to be met with a firm handshake and a pair of smiling grey eyes. Rupert clapped his hand on the young mans shoulder.

"This is Ferdy and he is our little experiment. Ferdy has a degree in sociology, but decided when he left university that he could make a better living from burglary. That mistake cost him two years of his freedom until they finally released him to our care." He gave a self-indulgent smile. "I suggested to the powers that be that as Ferdy is an intelligent chap and had obviously seen the error of his ways, why didn't we make him a Probation Officer."

He waited for their reaction and was greeted with three open mouths. Rupert gave a shout of laughter.

"Don't you see? Poacher turned gamekeeper. Ferdy can talk to the clients from a level playing field as he is an ex-convict himself."

He gazed at them and they shook themselves and gave what they hoped where enlightened gasps of amazement at Rupert's brilliant concept. He beamed at them and continued.

"Of course he is only a probationer in both cases, if you see what I mean."

Ferdy's gentle smile had not changed during all this. It was Paul that recovered his voice.

"I see. That's brilliant. Tell me, if this is successful do you see all future Probation Officers being recruited because of their criminal experiences? I mean, it would make sense if they knew where their clients were coming from, if you see what I mean?"

Paul gave Rupert the smile of a hungry piranha. Rupert quite obviously did not see what he meant and glanced at the tattoos on Paul's fingers while he tried to decide if he was asking for a job or taking the piss. His ego decided it must be a job Paul was after and he moved quickly to quash the idea.

"I hardly think so. I think every large office could have a junior member who has criminal experience in order to show the world that we are primarily into rehabilitation and not, as many unenlightened think, only punishment. But I do not think the public would ever agree to what you are suggesting." He glanced at his watch and then gave them a thin smile. "I must get back to the grindstone."

They were dismissed. As they all trooped out of the room Sue grabbed a couple of the Probation Officers to introduce them to Paul, who would be working in the City Centre while Jean and Tony went downstairs and climbed into Paul's Morris Minor. When he joined them some ten minutes later they drove back to the Centre, agreeing on the way that Rupert had been a condescending pillock and that they hoped he wasn't representative of the entire service. Unfortunately they were to find he was not unique.

Chapter Five

In at the deep end, August 1982

He drove into the car park and again parked on the end of the row of cars with their bumper stickers. He wondered if he should get one to show solidarity with his new colleagues and pondered on what it should say. He discarded "You can trust the Liberals" and "Good old Enoch" as being effective, but hardly subtle. He finally decided on a play on an existing sticker that he felt was sure to raise a few temperatures in an industry that seemed to be staffed almost entirely by ex-teachers. "Don't blame me I had a lousy education." He was still smiling at this when he became aware that someone was trying to attract his attention from the main school entrance. A grey haired woman in her late sixties was pointing an outstretched arm in his direction, the outstretched forefinger on the end of it quivering with indignation.

"You there! Yes you! This is not a public car park you know. Only the staff are allowed to park here."

She withdrew her arm and stood glaring down at him from the advantage of the top step. Tony remembered the piece of paper that had been left under his windscreen wiper on a previous occasion and racked his brains for the name. "Miss Farthing? No, Miss Fielding." That was the name. He turned on the charm and went towards her. He stopped at the bottom of the short flight of steps and smiled at her.

"Miss Fielding, I am so pleased to meet you. My name is Tony Filton and as of today I am afraid I do work here. I suppose you will be seeing my little car here quite a bit from now on."

Miss Fielding looked at his suit and the car and then back to his suit again. She put her head on one side and looked at him with a mixture of suspicion and disbelief.

"Are you telling me that you are with ACYOP?"

She said the last with unmistakable contempt. He made a depreciating shrug.

"I am afraid so."

Miss Fielding glowered at him.

"Our agreement when your lot took over that part of the building was that you should be allowed to park no more than ten vehicles here. Now there must be over twenty of you in and out all the time with those vanloads of louts, smoking and swearing in front of the children. I shall have to talk to Mr Gains about this."

Without another word she turned and stormed into the building. Tony let his smile, which was becoming strained, fade away, collected his briefcase from the car, and trudged of around the side of the building to his own entrance. "Welcome to St Jane's school", he thought to himself.

He entered the shady cool of the building and looked around him. In the large room immediately to the right were about fifteen youths standing around in small groups while a hand full of adults stood to one side in earnest conversation. The youth he remembered as Lightning looked up, saw him in the entrance, and nudged the youth next to him to attract his attention to Tony. When the second youth saw him standing there a look of panic crossed his face and he moved quickly to go and stand behind another group in the corner out of Tony's line of sight. Tony gazed towards the reception desk, but no one was there. Then the man he remembered the girls addressing as Mike saw him standing there and leaving the others he came over to him. The Brummy accent seemed stronger than ever.

"Can I help you, mate? The school entrance is around the front if it's them you're looking for."

Tony shook his head.

"No I'm not looking for the school. I join the Special Unit here today, but I have no idea where they are. Can you tell me where I can find Cheryl Baxter?"

Mike turned around to the other three adults and called across to them.

Gordon, Archie, Cec. Any of you seen Cheryl Baxter this morning? This bloke is joining the Special Unit this morning and he is looking for her."

The other three came over. Two of them Tony had seen before when he had come for his second interview. They had been the ones reading The Sun. The third man was short and thin and Tony immediately mentally christened him Jed the Ostler. Like the line in the famous poem The Highway Man, he sported a head of hair coloured like mouldy hay and seemingly cut with garden shears, as it stuck out from his head at all angles. The eyes were pale blue and dreamy, as was his smile. He held out his hand.

"Welcome to the madhouse. I'm Gordon Blake." He to indicated the other two that Tony had seen before. "This is Cec Goodwell and this is Archie Cumberbatch. They are Construction Supervisors and I am with the Land Use crowd."

Tony shook hands with the other two. Cec Goodwell was in his late fifties, but still had a full head of wavy blonde hair and the build of a wrestler. Archie was taller, slimmer, and very black. Tony put his age at about forty. The introductions had just been completed when Angela walked in. She nodded to the others, gave Mike a warm smile and then turned to Tony.

"Hello, Tony. Cheryl Baxter rang me at home just as I was leaving. She won't be in for a few days and asked me to show where you will be living. Would you like to come with me?"

She turned away and walked towards the door, stopping suddenly and turning back into the room.

"Oi, you lot."

The voice was at parade ground level and it stopped the noise of conversation dead. Angela looked around the assembled youths some of who looked away sheepishly.

"One of you little buggers nicked my pump on Friday. If it's not back on my bike by tonight I will be stopping the cost for a new one out of all your wages. I have asked Malcolm and he agrees, so you better make sure it comes back."

She swept out of the room and along the corridor. Tony followed the long and lovely legs up the stairs and into the room in which he'd had his second interview. There were three desks in it. Two of them were placed on each side of the room as you entered it and were facing each other. The third was directly in front of him but facing the rear wall with its sash window. Angela indicated it.

"That's your desk." She looked puzzled. "It was facing the other way on Friday"

Tony looked at the desk and felt the first stirrings of anger begin inside him.

"Tell me, Angela, What is keeping Cheryl Baxter away for a few days, is she sick?"

Angela blushed and lowered her eyes. She gave an apologetic shrug.

"No, she's not sick. She has taken a few days leave." She caught his look and hurried on. "Its not Sue Mandelow's fault, Tony. She didn't know about it. You see we all book our holiday through Doug Westlove our administrator. You are supposed to clear it through your immediate boss first, but Doug doesn't check up on you. It's a sort of trust thing. Sorry, but Roy Stone will probably be in later. He is the other Special Unit Supervisor."

The anger was full blown now. So this nasty cow was giving him the treatment was she? Not only that, but she was leaving a twenty year old girl to deal with any crap that might hit the fan. He turned to her.

"You get back to your desk and I will sort this out. After all, I am a big boy now."

She rewarded him with a smile and fled.

He spent some fifteen minutes rearranging the furniture to his liking and putting out his diary, pencils and desk tidy when the door of the office opened and a man walked in. Roy Stone was a big man. Just over six feet tall and seemingly nearly as broad and he dominated the room. As well as his sheer physical size his unruly, blonde hair also made him seem a lot larger than life. He stuck out a meaty hand on a forearm covered in freckles and bearing the tattoo of a sinking Galleon. He grinned at Tony.

"You must be Tony Filton. I'm Roy Stone, welcome to the Special Unit. Cheryl can't be here today so I will take you around and show you the ropes. That you're MGB outside? Good, we'll go in that. My old Cortina is like an oven when it's hot and it doesn't have a sun roof."

Roy, it turned out was an ex merchant seaman and over the next three days was as good as his word. He gave Tony a lot of useful information and introduced him to Careers, Social Services and the local Drop-In Centre, where, he maintained, a high proportion of their kids could be found if they went missing from their jobs. He introduced him to the card system with its colour coding to show who referred various kids and explained the rules for obtaining placements. Then on the Thursday, when they were having a quick half in a pub at lunchtime, he gave him the news.

"I know it's not your fault me old mate, but you do realise that you are caught right in the middle of a nasty little war."

"You mean between Sue Mandelow and the enigmatic Mrs Baxter?"

"That's right, mate and as far as Cheryl is concerned you are with the enemy."

"Its hardly my fault that they gave me the job rather than one her cronies is it?"

Roy shrugged.

"Don't take it personally. Its just that if you succeed it proves that Sue was right to go over Cheryl's head, so as far as she is concerned you are in her way."

Tony sat back in amazement.

"You mean that she is going to try and get me the sack."

"Not as such. I think she feels that if she makes you feel an outsider you will give up and go back to where you belong. Cheryl can be a right handful."

Tony took a sip from his glass and studied Roy's profile. Why was a great muscular bloke like him acting as a messenger for this woman because there was no doubt that was what he was doing? He tried a different tack.

"Gives you a hard time as well does she?"

Roy's head swung towards him.

"Me? Why should she give me a hard time?"

Tony thought it was time to do a bit of fishing.

"Well I get the strong impression she is a bit of a man hater this Cheryl. You know the type. Cut everyone's balls off and then we all start equal. I will not be a sex object just because I am a woman. I can't believe she is doing this just to get at Sue Mandelow and she has never even met me so it must be that."

Roy gave a little smile to himself and shook his head gently as he stared into the bottom of his empty glass.

"You are way of line there pal, believe you me."

Tony to gave a little smile. "Got you, you bugger. You're shagging her." Tucking his discovery away for future reference he turned to Roy and spoke casually.

"Did you know I used to be a Personnel Manager?"

Roy nodded and then caught himself.

"Sue told me."

"You bloody liar." thought Tony, but kept the thought to himself and continued out aloud.

"The most interesting thing was negotiating with the Unions. You see only about four years before they made me Personnel Manager I was working on the shop floor and I was a Shop Steward. Then all of a sudden I was the bloke on the other side of the fence. I still played skittles with some of the lads and I can tell you that at pay talk time I used to get some stick. Some of those blokes would have tarred and feathered me at the very least because they saw me as a traitor to the cause. Do you understand what I am saying?"

Roy looked him in the eyes and Tony saw the light dawn. He nodded.

"That's right. If twelve hundred workers hating my guts didn't make me leave I don't think Miss Baxter has got much chance, do you? Perhaps you should explain that to her if ever she decides to discuss the subject, but I would try and keep out of the cross fire if I were you. No point in picking up a bullet meant for someone else."

Roy Stone tipped his glass to drain it and then put it firmly down on the table.

"Let me give you some advice, Tony. When you crossed the wall last time you moved from the focs'l to the officers quarters and you could afford to wave two fingers at the lower ranks. This time you are trying to go the other way and you won't find that so easy. Take my advice mate and start applying for a job you can do." He stood up. " I shan't give you a hard time, but don't expect me to stick my neck out for you either. I got a wife and two kids to keep. Come on. Cheryl told me to hand some of my case load over to you to get you started." He gave a savage grin. "She even told me which ones."

Chapter Six

The plot thickens, August 1982.

Tony was sat at his desk at precisely ten past nine on Monday morning. He had been with the special unit for two weeks and had still not even seen Cheryl Baxter let alone spoken to her. He had twenty-five kids in placement and he had seen them all twice. They were obviously not used to this as when he had called again in the second week they had reacted with surprise in all cases and even alarm in a couple. What was wrong they wanted to know? When he had told them he was just doing his weekly visit the idea seemed to come as a revelation to them and their employers. This did not sit quite right with Sue Mandelow's instruction that all his trainees should be visited at least once a week. He had asked Roy how often they had been visited and had been assured he and Cheryl had been doing the rounds regularly. From the reactions he had been getting Tony did not believe this. He doubted if either of them worked more than fifteen hours a week.

He continued filling out his notes and laying out his visits for the week on a sheet of A4 when the door opened and without knocking a short skinny male who appeared to be in his mid twenties walked in. He said nothing, but sat on the edge of Cheryl's desk, which was just inside the door. He was dressed in scruffy shirt that had no button on one cuff and hung open, a pair of indescribably dirty old trousers and a pair of desert boots from the toes of which the suede had long since vanished leaving them a shiny dark brown. He had not shaved for a couple of days and could have just popped out from the Salvation Army hostel for the homeless.

"Can I help you?"

The man looked up at Tony briefly and then bent sideways to read the top sheet of paper in Cheryl's in tray. Tony waited for him to speak, but it was in vain. He wondered if he was a trainee or a trainer because with this outfit it was sometimes hard to tell. He then wondered if he had escaped from somewhere or if he was one of those sad bastards who hang around junior schools ogling the kids. This last seemed to fit the look of him, but in the last month he had found out that looks were deceiving. He tried a different tack.

"If you are here to see Roy or Cheryl I have no idea when they will be back"

The young man looked at him again and actively sneered before going back to reading Cheryl's mail. Now Tony may have been trained not to react to personal slights, but this was too much for him. He dropped his notes into the lower drawer of his desk and slammed it shut with enough force to make the other jump.

"I asked you if there was anything I could do for you" he said, gratified at the others reaction to his little display of violence. "If not I wonder if you would leave as this is a private office."

Getting off the desk the man nodded to himself as if he had been found right in his assessment of something. He walked across the floor and stood in front of Tony's desk.

"You must be Filton" he sneer was back in evidence, "Cheryl said you were a cocky sod."

The penny dropped for Tony. This was one of Baxter's cronies. He leaned back in his chair and locking his fingers behind his head stared hard at the scarecrow in front of him. Something in his manner must have warned the other as he backed off a step despite the fact that there was a solid wooden desk between them. Tony used a voice that was far more reasonable than he felt.

"I am Tony to my friends and to everyone else I am Mr Filton," he said. "In your case it would be Mr Filton."

The man got his sneer back a third time.

"I don't call people who go around stealing other people's job, mister."

For a moment Tony was lost and then he remembered that Cheryl had had some one else lined up to sit in this chair, obviously some one who this scarecrow knew. He stayed reasonable.

"I didn't steal anyone's job. I went for an interview, it was offered to me, and I took it. That is how it works, you know."

A sudden ferocity crossed the others face. He screamed at Tony.

"That was my fucking job. Cheryl said so."

For a minute he was speechless. Cheryl Baxter wanted to employ this down and out to go around persuading prospective employers to give trainees a chance. Unbelievable. He laughed. It was cruel, but he could not help it. His voice reflected his incredulity.

"You?"

The other was close to tears now.

"Yes me," he shouted, "and when she has got rid of you I will bloody have it anyway so don't you laugh at me, you bastard."

This had gone far enough. He picked up the phone and rang down to Angela.

"What was the name of the bloke Cheryl wanted instead of me'" he asked when she answered.

"Alan Folent," she replied. "I thought he was up there with you now."

Tony looked up at Alan Folent with a grim expression on his face.

"If he shows up here again do not let him up the stairs to this office unless one of us is here and then you check with us first. Is that understood?"

"Yes Tony", she said in a small voice, "but Cheryl always said to let him in."

"Bugger Cheryl," said Tony absolutely sure that one of them would report his remarks back to her. "Alan Folent does not work here and has no right here and I do not want him in this office. If Cheryl chooses to have the little shit hanging around with her then that is her business, but I do not want him. Is that clear?"

"Yes Tony"

He went to put the phone down and then realised how unfair he was being.

"Do you know where Cheryl is today?"

"She is at a meeting in Bristol"

"Give me the number I will tell her that myself."

He wrote down the number she gave him and hung up. Alan Folent was looking at him with murder in his eyes. Tony pushed back his chair and stood up. He walked around the desk and went to the door, which he opened wide.

"Off you go Alan and if I find you in this office again without permission I won't hesitate to call in the law to have you removed."

Folent glared at him but knew he was beaten. He went out through the door keeping as far from Tony as he could. When he was safely past and down the first two stairs his courage came back.

"Fuck you, Filton, fuck you."

Tony heard him repeating the phrase at the top of his voice as he went past Angela and out of the front door and across the playground come car park. He wondered if Miss Fielding had heard him in her own inner sanctum and decided that she must have done. He sighed and picking up the phone dialled an outside line and then the Head Office number. When it was answered he asked for Cheryl Baxter and as expected he was told that she was in a meeting. He had already worked out his strategy and said he was from the Weston-Super-Mare Probation Service and needed to talk to her urgently. He then waited a few minutes until he heard her voice.

"Hello, this is Cheryl"

He was stopped for a moment, as he had not been expecting the breathy little girl tones that came down the line to him.

"Hello, who's there please?"

He recovered.

"Sorry to disappoint you, Cheryl, but this is Tony Filton." He heard the sharply indrawn breath. "Don't hang up or I may have to come in and disturb your meeting. I am only just down the road."

The lie tripped easily from his tongue. This time the voice was more of what he had expected and an angry woman had replaced the breathy little girl.

"What the hell do you mean calling me out of a meeting to answer the bloody phone. How dare you pretend you are from the Probation Office?"

Tony grinned to himself. Time to put the boot in.

"Now you listen to me Mrs Baxter. I have been with your outfit for a month and working from the same room for a fortnight and you have been avoiding me." He went on before she could respond. "I can live with that because I am a big boy who can work without direction, but there are a couple of things we need to get straight."

He knew his anger was showing through, but to hell with it. He went on.

"I can put up with silly little games like having the desk turned the wrong way around once a week and I can definitely put up with you not wanting me on your team, but if you send that little shit Folent around here again I may just lose my temper. That would mean that I would let Sue Mandelow know that most of my trainees have never met you, let her know that you never lock this office at night despite the fact that we have sensitive files here and also let her know that you allow that little creep Folent and God knows how many more weirdoes free access to the building so they can read those files and our mail. I shall further let them know that today's little chat is the first time we have ever spoken to each other and ask them if it is normal for new employees to be left entirely without any supervision whatever for more than a month."

He ran out of breath. There was silence on the other end of the line so he plunged back into the attack.

"I shall be in the office from nine o'clock tomorrow morning until half past ten. If you want to resolve this without bloodshed I suggest you be here or I will do the hard way."

There was ten seconds of silence and then the little girl voice was back when she responded.

"Tony, I think we may have got off on the wrong foot. Roy and I have been so overworked lately that there has not been time to do all the things that should have been done. We will all meet tomorrow and sort things out." She waited a few seconds." Is that acceptable to you, Tony?"

This time he waited a few seconds. The about face had happened far too quickly and he suspected a trap, but what could he say having just been granted exactly what he had asked for. He settled for gruffness.

"Well it will not be before time will it?" And he hung up.

For the rest of the day half his mind was on tomorrows meeting. He suspected she was including Roy to ensure he was outnumbered but on the other hand it made perfect sense to have the whole unit there. He wished desperately that he could be a fly on the wall when Cheryl rang Roy to tell him about their conversation or perhaps she would be doing it later that day across a pillow. He decided not to worry about it and went out into the town to find a garage that would give a job to a kid who had stolen numerous cars.

Chapter Seven

The Meeting, September 1982

Tony was torn between getting to the office early to get him self mentally ready for the meeting with Cheryl and Roy and getting there later. In the end he settled for later. That would mean that they would be waiting on him instead of the other way around and after all, if they were setting him up they would not have waited until this morning to work out the details. Consequently he picked up Wayne Douglas first and took him out to the garage where he had arranged for him to work. Wayne was one of the shortest kids Tony had ever seen. His probation Officer was fond of saying that Wayne's record was at least twice as long as he was.

He parked outside and telling Wayne to stay in the MGB he went in alone to make sure that Ron Peters had not changed his mind overnight about having a member of the criminal fraternity working for him. Ron had not which pleased Tony as Wayne had some twenty-seven counts of taking and driving away against his name. After spending a few moments passing the pleasantries Tony went out to get Wayne.

The car was empty. No sign of Wayne to be seen. "Done a runner at the prospect of actually working for a living" thought Tony. He was surprised because when he had picked Wayne up this morning he had been better turned out than Tony had ever seen him so he had thought the kid really wanted this job. He stared up and down the street, but there was no sign of him. He was just about to turn away when he spotted Wayne's head bobbing up into view in the passenger seat. In a car as low as the MGB he must have been practically on the floor to be out of sight earlier. What on earth was he doing down there? The answer hit him like a brick. Looking under the dashboard to see how the wiring went on the MGB. Looking to see how easy it would be to hotwire Tony's car, the little sod.

In a few giant strides Tony was at the side of the car. Leaning through the open sunroof he grabbed Wayne by the hair and actually lifted him off the seat so that his now bulging eyes were at roof level.

"Listen to me you treacherous little Git," he breathed in Wayne's ear, "if this car ever goes missing I will be round to your house first thing and I will hotwire you to the bloody mains. Do you understand?"

He lifted the kid an inch higher for emphasis and then dropped him back onto the seat. Opening the door he grabbed him by the front of the shirt and roughly pulled him out of the car.

"Give me one good reason why I should take you in there?" he hissed. "One good reason when I have just caught you working out how to hot wire my own bloody car?"

He shook Wayne and then released him. Wayne looked at him like a frightened sparrow. He brushed at his wrinkled shirt front and now wildly sticking up hair.

I wasn't doing that Tony, honest. Christ, anyone can wire one of these, but I wasn't doing that, honest. I was looking for me lighter. I dropped it and was looking for it."

Tony glared at him and then knelt down next to the open door and examined the foot well. Nothing. He put his hand under the seat and felt all between the seat runners. Still nothing. He straightened and locked the car, anger beginning to fade. After all he knew what type of kids he was getting involved with when he took the job. He turned to Wayne who still looked apprehensive.

"All right Wayne you can have the benefit of the doubt, but if this car ever goes missing you will be my first port of call. Come on."

He walked towards the garage with Wayne galloping to keep up. The interview went quite well. Ron Peters was impressed with Wayne's knowledge and after the usual lecture on time keeping and reliability told him report for work at eight the next morning and would he mind being a little tidier than he was now. Comb his hair and wear an ironed shirt maybe? Wayne gave Tony a resentful look, but just nodded.

After he had dropped Wayne off at the Drop-In centre Tony went to the school and parked. He took his briefcase out of the back and climbed out of the MGB. As he did his foot hit something in the foot well? He looked down. It was a disposable lighter. It must have fallen on his side of the transmission tunnel. Wayne had been telling the truth. He grinned when he remembered Ron Peters telling the kid he should dress better and carefully put the lighter into his pocket until he could decide whether to apologise to Wayne or just bin it.

When he got into the office Cheryl Baxter was sat at her desk writing on a pad of foolscap-lined paper with bright green ink. She had already filled in two sheets and was on her third. This morning she was dressed in a tight thin cotton Tee shirt under which she wore no bra if he was any judge and he was, a pair of sequinned black velvet hot pants that looked to have been sprayed on and red patent leather, knee length boots.

Tony wished her good morning as he passed on the way to his desk by the window, but got no reply. There was no sign of Roy. "In your own good time, Cheryl," thought Tony, and started to write up the placement he had just made and fill in the placement card. He then picked up the phone, called the probation service, and asked to speak to Malcolm Sawyer. When he answered he let Malcolm know Wayne was accepted at the garage. He then rang down to Angela and told her so she could keep her records up to date. Finally he rang Social Services and spoke to Reece Jones. He had never met the man, but he had left a message about a kid he had that he wanted Tony to meet. Tony agreed to call round to his office some time that morning. In the meantime Cheryl kept on writing.

Tony was in a quandary. He knew this woman wanted to get him out and he knew she had a screw loose. Anyone who could just ignore a new subordinate for a month had to be just a little off the wall. He wanted to shake her up and sort things out for good, but the little girl voice she turned on when he had spoken with her on the phone worried him. In his experience, and as an ex-member of a rock band he did have some little experience; women who used little girl voices were the most dangerous kind you could come up against. Raise your voice just slightly just once and they would dissolve into tears at your rough machismo treatment of them. In the meantime they could pull all sorts of nasty tricks beneath their cover of little girl innocence. Tony decided he would kill her with kindness.

He walked across the room to her desk and put his hand over the top of the page she was diligently covering with green ink. She stopped dead still and remained like that for several seconds. He watched her facial expression change from annoyance to trepidation as she looked up at him opening her eyes as wide as they would go.

"Knew it," he thought. "One angry word and she would be prepared to burst into tears of wounded innocence. This is one devious woman."

He gave her a gentle smile and shrugged.

"Sorry if I startled you, but you were so far into your writing it was the only way I could think of to get your attention." He kept the smile in place as he continued. "Roy does not seem to be here and you seem to be very engrossed in your writing," he indicated the growing pile of green covered paper. "I have an appointment at Social Services I need to go to. I will only be gone for half an hour or so and then I can return and we can start the meeting, if you have finished that is."

She just looked up at him. He smiled again keeping her attention on his face while his right hand worked. "Kill the bitch with kindness," he thought. He switched off the smile, went back to his desk, and picked up his jacket and briefcase. As he turned for the door she had her head back over her pad writing.

"See you later."

There was no response and he left. At the bottom of the stairs he told Angela where he was going and the number he could be contacted at and that he would be back for his meeting with Cheryl when she had finished her writing. He had decided he would always cover his back with this woman.

At Social Services he skipped up the stairs to reception. It was manned as usual by Anna and Glenda. They were both in their early twenties and Tony always gently flirted with them. Anna was about five feet two inches and very Celtic princess with the dark wavy hair that came down nearly to her waist and large grey eyes. She also had a fairly prominent nose which Tony felt suited her character, but which Glenda had told him one day that she hated and was saving up to get it altered. Glenda was taller and all English Rose. Shoulder length dark blonde hair and a good figure, she was usually dressed in woollens and pleated skirts with knee length sheepskin boots. The look always reminded Tony of the flower power era and the sixties in the King's Road. He liked both girls a lot and had been pleasantly surprised at the Social Services interface with the general public after all the bad press and publicity it seem to get on a daily basis. The press view was not his experience. Anna saw him first.

"Hello, Tony. Go straight on down the corridor as Reece is expecting you. His is third on the left and it has his name on it."

Anna had been on her annual holiday and Tony had not seen her for a fortnight. He looked carefully. Something had changed. Good God. She had had her nose job done. He realised he was staring and knew Anna had seen him. She waited. He went to turn away and then turned back to her smiling.

"Good holiday, was it?"

She nodded, still looking a little wary. He nodded back.

"I thought it must have been. You looked positively radiant this morning."

Anna's face broke into a big smile while she flushed slightly. Behind her back Glenda was aping someone being sick at his remarks. Tony ignored her and turned away to the office.

Reece Jones turned out to be a very Welsh man in his early forties. His build and obviously broken nose said ex-rugby player while his accent said South Wales and the valleys. He wore a suit with a tie and a very tired expression. He glanced up when Tony tapped on his door.

"Hello there, who are you looking for?"

Tony pointed to his nameplate on the door.

"You. I'm Tony Filton."

Jones looked at his suit and tie with what was evidently some surprise. Then he nodded as though some memory had hit him and smiled.

"Yes, I heard you were a suit man. Dressed like a salesman was what they actually said."

Tony was a bit put out by this and it showed on his face. Standing up Reece Jones grinned and held out his hand.

"Don't worry about it Tony. She said the same thing about me when I told her that the placement she had found one of my kids was rubbish. When she said the same thing about you I thought we might get on quite well so I gave you a ring. Have a seat."

Tony nodded as the penny dropped.

"Cheryl Baxter."

Reece nodded again.

"Right in one. She is a strange one that woman."

Tony wanted to ask this likeable Welshman more questions, but he had only just met him. He decided on caution.

"I have only met her once."

Reece grinned.

"Freezing you out is she Boyo? She did that to your predecessor you know. Jane Grant was a lovely girl and made to work with young people, but Cheryl didn't want her. She gave her the cold shoulder treatment and then the injured surprise when the girl finally complained about it." He waved a hand. "You know how it goes, if a person cannot work without supervision in this job then they had better find another one. I do not have time to run a busy office and nursemaid one of the staff. She lasted three months before she quit." He turned to Tony. "That sound about right."

Tony nodded slowly.

"I thought so. Give you a lot of difficult kids to start you off, did they?"

Tony shrugged.

"The kids weren't too difficult, but the placements were shit. Most of them were with bloody farmers. They were working them far beyond their hours and letting them drive tractors would you believe? One even had a kid working on Sundays for five bob an hour."

He stopped realising his anger at what he had found had made him forget where he was and use some of the words he had brought from the shop floor with him. Reece Jones was laughing.

"It's OK, Tony. Three of those kids were mine and they are much happier now. The one at the golf course has been taken on full time you know."

Tony spent half an hour with Reece and they parted as old friends. Tony agreed to come to his office the following Monday to meet a kid that Reece said was afraid of ACYOP and would not go to the office or join one of the Constructions gangs of kids. He was small, not very bright, had no mother and a shiftless drunken father and was very vulnerable, could Tony do something. Tony had said he would try.

Ten minutes later he was just going back to his office when as he entered the playground/car park an old Volkswagen Beetle finished in light blue and rust and with the headlamps adjourned with painted black lashes to make them look like eyes, made him jump swiftly aside. Cheryl Baxter was driving it. Tony gave a sigh and walked on, so much for the meeting. When he entered the office Angela stopped him. She looked worried.

"Tony, did you tell Cheryl where you were going?"

Tony nodded.

"Well she made a right fuss down here telling Malcolm that you were supposed to be at a meeting, but you had gone out while she was on the phone without saying a word and not come back."

"Did you tell her where I was and give her the telephone number I gave you?"

Angela was not far from tears. She did not want to be in the middle of this.

"She said that you should have told her. She said she has been waiting half an hour for you. She said she was who you reported to not the blood receptionist."

He grinned at her.

"Don't worry about it. Does Malcolm want to see me?"

Angela shrugged.

Tony turned and crossed the main hall to where Malcolm's office was situated. His Area Manager as far as Tony could tell took no part in the running of the various sections and confined himself to administration and PR functions being an ex-Social Worker. "I bet they were glad to get rid of him too." Thought Tony.

He rapped on the door. Malcolm was sat behind his desk and jumped at the sound. Tony walked straight in and sat down. Malcolm started to say something, but Tony held up his hand.

"I understand that Miz Baxter has just thrown a wobbly during which she had a bit of a go at Angela?"

Malcolm waved his hands about as he struggled to find something non-aggressive and neutral to say. Tony did not wait.

"Has she made an official complaint?"

Malcolm winced.

"Not exactly official, Tony. More of an informal comment at this point in time."

"You mean informal until such time as she wants to make it formal when she will remind you of the problems she has had with me?" Tony said softly. Malcolm squirmed.

"I don't think she intends to do that, Tony"

"Bollocks! Come with me Malcolm."

He stood and left the room. Malcolm struggled to his feet and followed him.

"We don't want a scene, Tony."

"We are not going to have a scene." Said Tony

At reception he collected Angela and all three of them climbed the stairs to the Special Unit room. The door was locked and as he fished out his key Tony thanked god he always carried it or the bitch would have been laughing all over her face when she had heard about him stood there unable to get in. He unlocked the door and then put his arm across it so no one could enter.

"I am sorry you two have been involved in this. Today I met Mrs Baxter for the first time. I said good morning to her and she did not answer, but carried on writing. I spoke to her twice more during the hour we were in this room together and she never ever responded. Finally I told her that I was going to Social Services for half an hour. The important thing is that I gave her my card with the name of the person I was going to meet and the phone number where I could be contacted. When she did not take it I tucked it under the corner of her blotting paper holder."

He moved his arm and let them into the room. They all went to stand by Cheryl's desk. There tucked under one of the corners of the blotter was one of Tony's cards. Written on it were Reece Jones name and telephone number. Tony turned to Angela.

"Thanks, Angela. You had better get back to reception."

When she had gone he turned to Malcolm.

"Look, Malcolm. I don't mind working unsupervised. I don't mind working on my own and setting up my own placements and making my own contacts. I'm a big boy. But I object most strongly to people lying about me and I object even more strongly when they use a hardworking and innocent girl to give weight to their lies."

He thought this last was plastering it on a bit thickly, but you fought fire with fire.

"This woman does not want me here and is doing her level best to get rid of me." He smiled. "The problem is I like the job and I am not going."

He lifted his hands palms up.

"This means that you have a problem." He ignored Malcolm's startled look. "You know that I am in this office everyday. You know Cheryl is never here. You know Roy is never here." He waved at the wallboards with all their client cards. "You know I have twenty seven kids placed. You know Roy has only twelve and Cheryl has eight who are all placed in just two toddler day centres, so you know who is doing the work." He smiled. "The new boy."

He paused and watched as Malcolm looked at the card racks and around the office. He picked up the card from Cheryl's blotter. The card he had slipped there just before he went to see Reece Jones. The card he had slipped into the corner of her blotter while she was staring up at him wondering if this was the time when he would lose his temper and she could go into her frightened little girl act. He dropped it into the top pocket of Malcolm's corduroy jacket.

"I think you need to talk to her Malcolm and explain that I am not going anywhere. I think you should tell her that it would be in her interest, and yours, if she could stop her little games and get on with her job. I think you should tell her it is not on to involve your staff, I mean Angela, in her little vendettas. I know I can rely on you Malcolm as it is in your interests as well as mine to let me get on with doing the best job I can. After all, according to Angela, Special Unit placements are at their highest ever at this point in time.

He took his hand away. Malcolm patted the pocket where the visiting card had been placed. He looked like a man who was being put in a place he did not want to be. Then he nodded a couple of times and left the room. Tony followed him to the top of the stairs.

"Malcolm. You won't lose that card will you?"

There was no reply. Tony walked back into the office and closed the door behind him feeling well pleased. He went to his desk and sat down. There in front of him on the desk were about four sheets of foolscap paper closely written in bright green ink. He shuddered.

"Bloody woman." He grabbed his jacket and went off to find a ploughman's and a pint.

He sat in the pub and read through the four sheets of foolscap. It was quite amazing. It was the sort of thing that if it had been produced in a psychiatrist's office would have had the writer invited to stay for a while. It started off with the whole of the first page telling him how to do his job. It was accurate and it followed the party line completely to the letter. The only problem was that it was written for a four year old and it was a bit late now. He had been here for six weeks and had nearly thirty kids on his rack.

He turned to page two. This gave all the names of all the social workers and probation officers for their area. Tony actually already had these lists as they were typed and given out freely by the organizations concerned. Cheryl must have sat there and copied her own list down. It went on to tell him that he must make an appointment with the head of each office to introduce himself and thereafter make a weekly appointment to visit each office to see if they had any clients. He shook his head in amazement. "Did she really think he had been sat there with his thumb up his rectum awaiting her words of wisdom before he could act? Did she really think he would still be waiting to be told what to do after six weeks? The woman was mad."

Page three was all about how to set up a placement. What to do and what not to do. He speed read through it and then turned to page four. This page was quite different. In block capitals two lines high it was headed COMPLAINTS. It went on to list four farmers who had actually rang Miz Baxter at home to tell her how her new colleague had taken their trainees away without any warning whatsoever. There was a paragraph dedicated to each giving the reasons why it was such a valuable placement for the unit and why we should continue to work with these dedicated people. The final paragraph was more or less an instruction to return their missing trainees to these placements before the end of the month.

Tony sat and thought it over. He had met his boss this morning for the first time in the six weeks he had been employed here. His boss had sat in his office for an hour and at no time had spoken to him, but had written him out four pages of foolscap in bright green ink which she had put on his desk and just left, only stopping on the way out to try and drop him in the shit with the area manager. He could not let this go by and say nothing. He finished his lunch and went back to his office.

Malcolm took on a hunted look when he appeared in his office doorway. He had not enjoyed the previous encounter and had slid back into his office as soon as Tony had left. Now Tony was back and from the look on his face there was going to be more trouble. He blinked and scratched at his beard, crossing and uncrossing his sandaled feet. Tony handed him the four sheets of foolscap.

"These were left on my desk. I think you should read them and then I would like you to date and initial them."

Malcolm's mouth fell open.

"What for?"

"Because at some point that lunatic is going to tell someone higher up the chain that she gave me full written instruction when I came here. I need your endorsement on each of those sheets so that I can prove that I never met, or had any dialogue with the woman until today."

Malcolm shifted nervously in his seat keeping his hands as far away from the papers as he could. Tony sat down in the chair in front of the desk.

"Look, Malcolm. I have been here six weeks and you have had no complaints about me at all. You are able to leave me to get on with it and hide away, er, I mean sit in your little hideaway here and do all the administration without having to worry about me. True?"

Malcolm thought carefully about that and then gave the smallest of nods. Tony continued.

"The woman is a fruit cake. You know it and I know it."

Malcolm looked alarmed again but Tony held up his hand to calm him.

"However, I am going to carry on like I have for the first six weeks when I have had no supervision whatever. I am not going to involve you in this business at all, but I am going to take it up with Sue Mandelow as a Special Unit problem."

Malcolm's face cleared.

"However," it clouded again. "If the fruitcake says she gave me all this crap six weeks ago I will have trouble proving she did not. So all I want you to do is sign and date them so my arse is not hanging out in the wind. That is all you have to do."

Tony's face smiled, but his eyes said he was going nowhere until Malcolm complied with his request. Malcolm knew he was between a rock and a hard place. If he signed the papers he was involved, but if he didn't and Tony decided to kick up a fuss then he was involved anyway. Best to do what Tony asked and hope it would all settle down. He signed and dated the four sheets of paper. Tony's smile was genuine this time.

"Thank you, Malcolm."

He left the office and went across to Angela's reception desk.

"Angela, do you do shorthand as well as typing?"

"Yeah, Why?"

"Good. Take this down will you." He waited while she found a pencil.

To; Miz C. Baxter.

CC; Sue Mandelow and Malcolm Gains.

From: Tony Filton.

I received your several pages of information that you left on my desk this morning. Of the first three pages I have no comment to make except to tell you that they are merely repeating what I was told during induction. The last page in which you instruct me to return trainees to several placements is a different matter. I removed the trainees from those placements because their official case officers and I felt the trainees were being exploited and that the placements were not acting in accordance with the aims and ideals of ACYOP. Because of this I am unable to supply further trainees to any of these four placements. If you would like further information on exactly where these placements were failing in their obligations to the trainees I shall be more than happy to furnish it.

He grinned at Angela who grinned back.

"I wondered when you were going to fight back." She said.

Three hours later he was in Sue Mandelow's office. She stood up as he knocked and entered.

"Hello Tony, how is it going?"

"The job is fine, Sue and I am enjoying it. I do have one little problem though?"

He handed her the memo and waited. She read it in silence. When she had finished he handed her the four sheets of foolscap. She only had to look at the green ink and it was obvious that she knew the author. She read it through while Tony went and got them what passed for coffee from the machine. When he got back to the office and put down the cups she handed him back the papers. He told her about Cheryl's efforts to stir the manure that morning and how although it was the first time they had met she had blanked him and just left the stack of paper on his desk while he was out. Sue listened with her face getting longer and longer.

"How in hell did you get Malcolm to sign and date those?" she asked.

"I promised him bloody warfare in his regional office if he didn't and peace if he did."

"Peace? After all this." She indicated the memo and papers.

He smiled at her.

"You may have forgotten it, Sue, but at the end of next week I am off on a fortnights holiday to Greece. As Cheryl has taken no notice of me since I got here I assume she has taken no notice of my holiday dates. The last thing I want is for her to find out so she can go around and blow all my placements while I am away. So I am going to tell them all that you are my contact while I am away or if any of the kids fall of the twig. That will give me peace of mind, it will give you a couple of weeks to decide what to do about this bloody woman and keep my kids safe from disruption. When I get back I will phone you at home on the Sunday evening and you can bring me up to date."

She wrinkled up her nose while she thought.

"If I call her up on this now the shit will hit the fan especially as she is now a Union rep would you believe? She may come to me about this memo, but I can brush that aside. It is up to you to decide if a placement is good enough, anyway. Not her."

She stood.

"You enjoy your holiday."

Thank you Susan, I will.

Chapter Eight

A bit of a Shock, October 1982

Tony drew his leg back into the shade as he felt his ankle start to tell him it had been in the sun too long. He groped in the beach bag for his watch; it had an all-metal strap and in the heat of the beach was not comfortable to wear. It said one o'clock. He looked over at Tas who seemed asleep in the other recliner under the giant beach umbrella. He put his hand over hers so that she would awake gently. She opened her eyes.

"It's one o'clock Tas, do you want to start lunch or do you want to leave it for a bit?"

Tas orientated herself and gazed around.

" Is the wine cold?"

Tony smiled.

"It has been in the sea for three hours so I reckon it is as cold as it is going to get, but I doubt you could call it chilled."

"OK then."

Tony slipped on his beach shoes. The temperature of the sand at anywhere around midday could be savage. You could watch people get up from their shaded beds and sprint down to the water. A slow walk would have been more dignified, but incredibly painful. Coming back when your feet were wet you could actually walk across the sand. He went down to the sea and waded out to where half a dozen corks bobbed on the surface of the sea. He reach under the water and clutched the length of twine that was tied to the neck of the bottle of white wine they had bought at the little shop on the way to the beach and brought it to the surface. It was about what would have passed for room temperature in England. He carried back to their umbrella.

Tas had been busy and by the time he got there had two plates ready with the tomatoes, feta cheese, olives, bread and sliced meat they had bought along with the vino. They adjusted their recliners to the upright position, made sure they were both in the shade and settled down to eat.

"Why do the wine and food taste so much better here than if you buy the same stuff in England?" said Tas.

Tony knew what she meant, but did not know the answer.

"Ambience? Was all that he could come up with?"

Tas sighed. They ate in silence both of them soaking up as much of the atmosphere as they could. This was their last day in Rhodes, their last day on the beach of this holiday. It was a Friday. This meant that they would get home at about five o'clock tomorrow and Sunday would be spent in mowing lawns that had been unattended for two weeks, getting holiday clothes into the washing machine and generally sorting out all the things that would be needed for work on Monday. Both knew by experience that by twelve o'clock on that day the holiday would just be a distant memory although neither mentioned this in an effort not to spoil this last day. Tas wiped the juice from a large peach from her face with her hand and sighed with contentment. Then she looked directly at Tony.

"You really like this new job of yours, don't you?"

He was surprised at this as they had an unstated agreement that work stayed in England and did not come on holiday with them. Not in any serious manner anyway. He looked as Tas' face and knew this was serious. He nodded.

"Yes".

Her face remained serious and he waited for her to start on about how he could get a far better job than this and earn a lot more money.

"I like my job too you know?"

This was said without looking at him. He considered that for a moment before he replied.

"I know you do and I have never believed any different."

She looked at him directly now.

"I have been asked to take a secondment to London. I will be there for three months. It is a practical work assessment in which I have to work and train at the same time. If I am successful I may be promoted."

"Good, if that is what you want?"

She looked troubled.

"If I get promoted I will have to leave Somerset and could be sent anywhere."

He felt the blow to his inner core and all the breath left him. They had moved to Somerset to leave all the stress behind and it had worked. They had a good life they both enjoyed and here she was telling him that she was prepared to chuck in that quiet life for a promotion. He blinked and wondered, no realised, that this was the cause of her sudden change of attitude towards him. He also realised that as the biggest earner in the partnership she felt she had the right to do what she wanted. He didn't answer for a bit while he thought about it. Tas obviously felt the need to prove her self and who was he to argue with that. She deserved the chance to see how far she could go. Whether or not she would actually want to go if the opportunity presented itself he had no idea. The fact he had no idea shocked him. The fact that he had not realised she felt like this shocked him even more. He took a few more seconds before he felt ready to answer. Then remembering how she had encouraged him to spread his wings he lifted his head and smiled at her.

"OK Tas. Give it a go. See if you can do it and give it your best shot."

She smiled in delighted surprise, leaned across, and kissed him. He smiled back hoping that his inner misery did not show. Leaving Somerset was not and never would be on his radar until he was ready to retire.

For the rest of the day and all evening Tas was full of life and laughter while Tony had to force himself not to slide into a mood. This was made even harder when Tas told him that she had to give her boss her answer the first morning back and that if it were yes she would be off to the London office the following week. The whole thing was made worse by Tas' obvious happiness about it all and he wondered if it would have happened if they had been able to have kids. But if Tas had got pregnant as soon as they were married they may not even have made it to Somerset. The cost of a couple of kids would have restricted their options enormously. Also, it had been his desire to move, Oz had gone along with it, and chucking up her job had moved with him without complaint to a place she knew absolutely nothing about. By the greatest of good luck her company had at the last moment found her a job at the regional depot in Bridgwater. So he owed her. Still, it chewed away at him non-stop despite his openly smiling manner.

Chapter Nine

The Training Course, October 1982

"I will see you next Friday evening then," said Tas as Tony lifted her suitcase up onto the train for her. She kissed him quickly and hurried off to try and find a seat. Wishful thinking on the morning commuter train to Bristol and they both knew it. Tony stood and watched the train pull out before leaving the platform and returning to his car. He drove out of the station and took the old Bristol road. By coincidence he had a weeklong course at the Filton Polytechnic on Health and Safety. He had explained patiently to the Health and Safety man for the whole ACYOP scheme, Derek Riddles that he was actually running health and safety a couple of years ago for a company that at that time had some two thousand employees. Derek had just nodded and handed him the course notes and classroom details.

"Listen Tony, with one exception, me, everybody scheduled to take this course has explained to me why they cannot or need not take this course. If I let just one of you buggers miss it they will all want to. See you at ten o'clock next Monday morning."

Tony took the papers and nodded.

"OK Derek. I'll be there."

Derek was a medium height slim man in his fifties who in normal life seemed practically invisible. He appeared to have had any sense of humour he had ever possessed surgically removed although Tony understood that doing his job, among the likes of the Cheryl Baxters of this world, would not cause him much hilarity. Tony had recently turned this built seriousness to his own advantage. Whenever he was given a new kid by Cheryl, and he now had thirty-four, if he did not like the placement they were in he would ring up Derek for helpful advice. When he told Derek of a kid who was working in a placement he thought was exploiting them, he would ask Derek for clarification of the rules. He would then take that clarification to the placement and explain what had to change. As the placement had not been given any details of what they could or could not do this usually resulted in a bit of a set too.

The placement provider would either be very contrite and apologetic, only one of those so far, or angry and apoplectic, six of those. Either way it worked out well for Tony. Either the placement started to take their responsibility seriously or they told Tony to shove his scheme and he moved the trainee out to a different placement and always informed Derek by memo of the outcome. Derek began to like Tony as one of the few supervisors who took him seriously. Cheryl had been furious every time he took a trainee out of a placement and would ring him up and demand he took the trainee back. Tony would refer her to Derek.

The first couple of times she had then lied to Derek about the placement turning on her little girl voice and asking him if he really believed that she, Cheryl Baxter, Senior Supervisor would possibly have placed some child in her care in an unsuitable placement. The second time she did this Derek had rung Tony to ask him about it. Tony had asked him if he was busy the next morning. When he said not really too busy Tony had suggested he might like to have the morning in the clear clean air of Weston-Super-Mare. Derek could have a look at the placement and then Tony would buy him a pub lunch.

It was actually the first time he had actually met Derek face to face, but the man's telephone manner had told him that Derek would play everything by the rules. He welcomed him into his office when he arrived and asked Angela if she could get him a cup of tea. They swapped work experiences of when they had both had "proper jobs" and got on quite well. Tony's guess that Derek was fed up of the lack of respect for his position by a group of bloody failed teachers was exactly what he expected and wanted and he sympathised with the difficulties of getting cooperation from a bunch of people who had never worked in industry or even the real world. When Derek had finished his tea Tony took him to see the placement.

This was a pig farm. It was probably the filthiest pig farm in Britain if not the world. It stank so much that you could smell it the moment you turned into the drive. It had three hundred pigs in two long buildings that were actually old wartime Nissen hut barracks. The pigs were fed on swill made up of all the chuck outs and leavings from the various schools and hotels, which in Weston were legion. The two brothers that owned the farm spent much of the day collecting this waste in a small open backed tipper lorry. This lorry then backed up a ramp and tipped their loads into a large steel, lidless container. This was the swill cooker. It was heated from below by gas and once it had been topped up with water was lit to boil up the swill. When the swill was considered ready the container was then tipped over by a chain driven arrangement to deposit the swill into a channel that ran downhill to the two huts. There was a swivel gate that allowed you to direct the stream of swill into whichever hut you wanted.

On the way over in the car Tony had asked Derek what Cheryl had told him about the place. Derek said she had been very enthusiastic about it stating that it was a modern pig farm owned by two young forward looking brothers. The trainee was learning from people at the cutting edge of animal husbandry and what was even more important, he enjoyed the job.

Tony knew that the last statement was true. The trainee started at seven in the morning, which was one hour before the permitted time and ran the swill cooker until one o'clock. After this he would go to the pub over the road and the brothers would buy him a sandwich and a couple of pints. For a sixteen-year-old lad who came from a very poor area of the town it was heaven. He was paid twenty-seven pounds fifty by the government to go to work. He was practically his own boss while he was there. He was finished work at one o'clock when he was fed and given two pints of beer. Tony had not told Derek about the pub or anything else. Only that he was a bit concerned about the safety of the place.

When Tony stopped the car and they stepped out into the yard he avoided looking at Derek. He allowed the place to speak for itself. Derek stood there frozen for nearly half a minute and then visibly shook himself. He walked forward towards the ramp where they could see a figure operating some machinery. It was Peter Rose, the trainee, tipping the swill down into the channel that fed the pig houses. He looked up and saw them

"Hello Tony, if you want Dave and Mike they will be back in a bit. Can't stop as I have got to get this lot tipped out so they can tip the new stuff into the boiler."

Tony raised a hand in acknowledgement. Derek had recovered himself and was stalking around the edge of the boiler making sure he stayed at least a metre from the edge. Peter operated the chain drive and brought the swill tub back to the level position. He stepped over to them casually walking within a few inches of the edge of the tub, smiling. Derek went up to him and asked just as casually if he was alone and Peter said yes, most of the time. Derek asked him if he could show him how everything worked. Peter glanced at Tony who nodded and off they went. They were gone for nearly thirty minutes during which time Tony wandered around taking as shallow breathes as he could and wishing he had not given up smoking, anything to cover the smell of the place. He knew he would have to go home at lunchtime and change if he wanted to make any visits in the afternoon. And put his suit into the dry cleaners. As he was mulling this over Derek and Peter came back and a battered and filthy small tipper lorry drove into the yard.

If the smell had been bad before it was now even worse with the arrival of some fresh material. Dave and Mike Farrell got out of the cab and walked over to where they stood. Tony had only met the brothers once before when he had first visited the place. He had told them they should not leave the kid alone with such dangerous machinery and their response had been amazement. They had been doing this for years. Where was the danger?

He started to speak, but Derek got there first. He explained who he was and why he was there. It was his job to do spot safety checks of placements and that was what he had done. He explained without any histrionics why their farm was not a suitable placement and when they started to protest went through a lengthy list of health and safety regulations they were currently breaking and would have to put right before they could have a trainee. Tony listened and realised that what Derek was actually saying was that the whole place should be pulled down and rebuilt from scratch. The brothers went into shock, but because of the calm and controlled way Derek had handled it there were no fireworks. They walked away a bit, chatted together, and then came back. Dave had obviously been elected spokesman.

"How much do you buggers pay our Peter, then?" The accent was pure Somerset.

Tony responded.

"Twenty seven pounds fifty a week."

They both looked stunned. Mike found his voice first.

"Is that all? Jesus Christ that is bloody robbery."

Tony defended it.

"It is a training allowance. It is more than the dole and it is to subsidise his learning how to do a proper job in a proper environment."

Dave came back in.

"This is a bloody proper job. This is our bloody living."

Derek's turn again.

" We know that, but we are responsible for his safety. If he fell into that unguarded boiler while you were out getting the next load we would all be in the dock."

They considered this for a moment. Dave leaned close to his brother and whispered in his ear. Mike looked at him for a while and then nodded. Dave turned to Derek and Tony.

"Its Friday innit. You take him back to that school of yours and sign him off your scheme." He looked at Peter and held a hand up before continuing. "When they have done that you go down to the employment office and tell them you just got a permanent job. Thirty-five quid a week, alright?"

Derek started to tell them their premises were still breaking the law, but Tony put his hand on his arm to stop him.

They were in Tony's office after a pub lunch when Derek said it.

"You knew what I was walking into didn't you. Why didn't you warn me what I was walking into?"

Tony smiled.

"I am sorry about that, but my guess was that sweet little Cheryl had told you about what a big bad monster I was and that she was giving the impression that she thought I was just making a scene to get at her. Helpless little Cheryl."

Derek nodded.

"Yes, I suppose that was about it. I don't suppose the lying sod had ever been to the place and that Roy set it up. It looks like one of his, but that kid is still in danger you know."

Tony shrugged.

"That kid is as happy as the rest of the pigs in that shitty place and because of you and me at least he has a real job. He is their responsibility from now on and if you are really worried I am sure you can find someone to ring up and share your worries with. As for me I have got a kid a job, lost a risky placement and stopped the beautiful, but wicked and twisted Miz Baxter using one of my trainees to get at me. I think that's a good result."

"Mrs Baxter"

"Pardon?"

"I said she is Mrs Baxter. Her husband is a art teacher at one of the Bristol Comprehensives"

"Poor Bastard," said Tony with heartfelt sympathy.

Tony was still thinking about the incident when he swung the car onto the slip road for the M6 and headed for Bristol College. He had three months of this only seeing Tas at the weekends and looking after himself all week with just the television for company coming and he wasn't looking forward to it. He vowed to pop into the Library in Weston to join and get some books out to keep him occupied in the evening. It had to be better than television or becoming a regular down the pub. As it was he only went to the pub on skittles night and Fridays with Tas for a meal and that was enough for him up until this point. Of course he could start playing snooker two nights a week, but although he enjoyed that he did just for relaxation while Tas was around at Janet's sharing the gossip. It was that or spending the evening talking to her husband, Peter and he didn't think he could stand listening again to his tales of life in the army air core..

Filton College appeared and Tony found the right car park and left the MGB there. He then concentrated on finding the right room. It was on the top floor and was a corner room. This made it nice and bright. Most of the ACYOP staff were sitting in their chairs reading one of the tabloids or in about half of the cases, The Guardian, or The Socialist Bible as Tony had heard it called once. Derek met him at the door and told him to sit anywhere. Tony noticed with a smile that the front row of desks was empty just like in a real school.

He settled in, opened his brief case and then took out a pad and a couple of pencils for making notes. It was very quiet in the room considering there were nearly forty people there. Tony glanced towards the lecturer and realised he had met him before. He had actually come to Grunwold Pumps to do probably this same course for the shop floor supervisors. He tried desperately to remember the man's name. Harry something. It was something very ordinary. "Harry Smith, no, Harry Jones." He remembered the slight Welsh accent. The man looked up and saw him, but took no notice. Then his face recognition software must have kicked in because Tony knew he too was wondering if they knew each other. Derek stepped up to the front of the room and started the proceedings

"OK everyone it is ten o'clock and time to get started." He turned to his right. "This is Harry Jones who is the Senior Safety lecturer for Avon County Council. What he doesn't know about the subject is zero. I know some of you are here under protest and some of you already have a good knowledge of health and safety, but if you do this job you have to attend the course. Best try and get something out of it."

One or two were still looking at their papers. Derek got military.

"Now put the bloody papers away or I shall mark you down as absent because you might as well be if you are reading the paper."

He stood and stared them down until the papers were put away. Then he turned again.

"OK Harry, all yours."

"Do we have to sit in these chairs all week?"

The speaker was a long thin man dressed in a checked shirt and corduroy trousers. He was a Guardian reader and the Union Convener. Tony knew this because on Sue Mandelowe's advice he had joined on his second morning of induction. This too had caused great mirth from Tas who had asked when he was going to make up his mind which side he was on. The man's name was Robin Foulkes. Behind his back most people referred to him as Robin Redbreast because of his political leanings. Harry Jones looked at him.

"Well yes, I suppose you do."

"They are not padded and a whole week sat on these will cause distress to those of us who are lightly built. I think they should be changed."

Harry Jones realised that this was a face off and responded.

"Then I suggest you fold up the donkey jacket you have on the back of your chair and use it as a cushion. I will wait for one minute while you do that and then I am afraid we will have to start without you."

Foulkes knew that he was stymied. The jacket was already looking pretty tired as it was. Also it had been provided by Avon County so he was out of argument. He shrugged and left the jacket on the back of his chair and Harry Jones got to work. Tony realised that some months ago such stupid and juvenile behaviour would have amazed him. Now he just expected it and was thankful that none of his kids were being taught anything by Pratts like these.

Jones was good at his job and had done it often enough before to know how to work a reluctant audience. He started off with some contentious statements that were calculated to raise hackles and cause anger. His subject was why the legislation was actually necessary. His view was that people were idle and lazy and took short cuts, which led to dangerous practises. He seemed to blame the whole act on this and kept it up for several minutes until in the end one course member could take it no longer and challenged what he said. He ignored her and continued to speak.

"Answer the question," shouted a voice.

Other voices joined in. Harry stood and looked at them as though surprised. He waited for the noise to run down. He pointed at the girl who had first questioned what he was saying.

"I think it was you who asked the first question young lady. Would you like to repeat it?"

The woman was a little disturbed by being picked out, but repeated her question. They were sat in four rows as the first row only held Tony. Harry ignored the first row and counted the course members. Forty-two. He went back to the front of the room.

"OK the nearest ten people to?" he hesitated and the woman said "Grace."

Tony realised that it was amazing Grace from his first day of induction. Harry Jones said,

"OK. The nearest nine people to Grace join her and you have ten minutes to decide why what I said was wrong. Oh Yeah, elect a spokesman to stand up and speak for you at the end of the ten minutes. If you want to you can move your desks so that you can all see each other because we may have to do this again if you are going to disagree with everything I say."

This was a direct challenge and the scrape of furniture buried all other sounds. Harry Jones waited until the noise level dropped and then addressed the rest of the room who were by now looking left out. He raised his hands for attention.

"Anything else I said that you like to disagree with."

Hands shot up like it was a class of ten year olds facing a quiz on Walt Disney films. Two minutes later Harry Had four groups of what had been reluctant supervisors fiercely debating which had been the biggest load of bollocks he had uttered and why. Harry gave a little smile and walked over to where he sat. Tony gave a rueful grin.

"Worked on our supervisors Harry, but I didn't think it would work on this lot."

Harry smiled at him.

"I can't remember where we met"

"Grunwold Pumps," said Tony. "Four years ago."

"Tony Filton," said Harry. " What on earth are you doing with this lot?"

Tony was about to respond when someone grabbed his arm. It was the receptionist from head office.

"You used to be in Personnel, Tony. We need you."

She pulled him over to her group and introduced him while Tony wondered that if she knew all about his past who the hell else had read his CV:

By eleven o'clock the course was in full swing. Harry's method was to give the groups problems regarding health and safety and then let them argue it out among themselves until they had an answer. Then each group put up a spokesperson to give their point of view. The other three groups then question the presenting group if they felt the need to and they invariably felt the need to. Then the next group presented their answers and went through the same process. Harry just refereed and kept them on course. It was all going well when Cheryl Baxter walked in. It was quite an entrance.

Cheryl was dressed in what Tony could only describe as a shepherdess outfit. It was cut very low at the front as usual but was considerably shorter as her many layered skirt finished just a little higher than midway between knee and crotch. On her feet she had high heeled, open sandals and on her head a small woollen hat. In her hands, held out in front of her like she was a bridesmaid, was a bunch of flowers and over her shoulder she carried a large bag.

She walked up to the nearest group and appropriated a desk and chair, which she moved into the centre of the room. She placed the bunch of flowers, which it turned out were in a small vase on the front of her desk. She then unzipped the large shoulder bag. From it she took out a bowl, a spoon, a small pack of cereal and a carton of milk. She put the cereal into the bowl, poured on the milk and then sat down and began to eat. The rest of the group had noticed her by now, but most of them decided the best course of action was not to get involved. Cheryl continued to eat steadily while watching the action of the various groups with a small smile and shaking her head in disbelief. When she had finished she wiped out the bowl with a napkin and returned everything to her bag. She then picked up the bag and the flowers and walked out without a backward glance. That was her one and only appearance at the course.

Throughout the rest of the week Tony had to fend of various questions about Cheryl. After all he worked with her didn't he. He stayed as neutral as he could explaining that he had only met her twice and had never actually had a conversation with her except one time over the telephone. They all found this very hard to believe at first, but he merely pointed to her behaviour during her thirty-minute attendance at the course. Left unsaid was that anyone who could behave like that was not quite your normal personality. The good thing was that Tony's isolation was over. He may have to work alone, which he actually preferred, but he know knew over forty of the ACYOP supervisors on first name terms. For that alone it had been worth attending.

On the Friday night he had stayed in Bristol to meet Tas off the London train direct and save her changing trains in Bristol to get home. On the drive back from Bristol he had listened to her eager chatter about head office and the various places the other staff had taken her for lunch everyday. They were about five minutes from home when she finally asked him how the course went. He said how he had made a lot of contacts with the other supervisors and the he told her about the Cheryl Baxter incident. He had expected some laughter, disbelief or even amazement. What he got was thirty seconds of silence followed by.

"I shall be glad when you leave that madhouse."

They drove the rest of the way home in silence.

Chapter Ten

Abandoned, November 1982

When he arrived at the office on Monday Morning there was a note on Tony's desk in Angela's hand telling him Cheryl would there at ten o'clock and could he wait for her. Tony had a meeting at Social Services at ten o'clock with Reece Jones and he was damned if he was going to break it for Cheryl Baxter who, if she arrived at all would probably be late. He thought about it and wondered what form of deviousness the woman was up to now. He knew she had been disciplined for not attending the training course, but he also knew that she had pulled her little girl act and claimed she was under severe stress at home. This had not saved her completely, but had pulled the punishment down from a written warning to a recorded verbal warning. Derek had told him about this and had not been pleased about it.

He picked the phone up, rang Reece Jones, and asked if they could move the appointment forward to nine. Reece agreed and Tony went straight round there.

When he got back Cheryl was sat at her desk reading something. She looked up and gave him a big sunny smile.

"Good morning Tony."

Tony felt his hackles go up. If she was being nice what was the witch up to? He nodded.

"Good morning Cheryl. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

He had not seen her since her brief appearance at the training course. She smiled again and showed what she had been studying. It was a road atlas.

"Have you ever been to visit the Social Services office at Clevedon? They run the other half of this area and as that is part of our patch you really ought to get to know them."

Tony frowned. That was Roy's patch as far as he knew some twenty-five miles away. He had Weston and half way up to Bristol while Roy had the other half. Theoretically Cheryl's job was to overseer everything with a few placements of her own just to keep her hand in and provide backup for him and Roy. He smelt a rat. She saw his hesitation.

"I know that is Roy's area, but you should know it as well. What if Roy was ill or left? You and I would have to cope until things got back to normal. Besides Sue thinks we should all know each others jobs and patches."

Tony relaxed. So that was it. Sue had told her to do it and after her recent run in with Derek she had decided she had better toe the line.

"OK, who's car do you want to use."

She gave him another sweet smile.

"Oh I think we had better use my old banger. I hardly think your car is appropriate for me to arrive in."

Tony bit his tongue. This snide remark confirmed his opinion that Cheryl's sudden amiability was not the genuine article. He collected his jacket. Cheryl stopped.

"Tony could you leave the jacket here? A full suit makes us look so formal don't you think?"

Tony shrugged into the jacket.

"I have just spent the last hour in Social Services here Cheryl and they all wear suits, even some of the women, so I don't think it will send them the wrong message."

Her sudden scowl, quickly smothered told him this had not pleased her.

They got into Cheryl's old clapped out Beetle and the first thing she did was turn on the tape player and switch it up to full volume. Tony guessed this was to prevent small talk and although The Beach Boys would not have been his choice he thought he could stand it for the twenty minutes or so it would take to reach Clevedon. He tried to block out the noise and concentrate on the problem that Reece had just given him.

The new referral, David Jones, was designated educationally subnormal. Below average height and build he had just left sheltered schooling and just like that would now have to go straight into coping by himself in the big bad world for the sin of having reached the fine old age of seventeen. He lived with his father on the local council estate as his mother had pissed off years ago. His father was a habitual criminal who had spent half of the last thirty years in prison.

Reece had told him that the father was of above average intelligence, but chose to follow the criminal life. He found being in prison easier that being out as everything was provided and he could spend his time reading and relaxing instead of having to work for it. Every time he got into debt or found life getting difficult he would commit some minor crime and go off to prison for a while for rest and recuperation. Reece warned him that the father would be more difficult to cope with than the son and expressed sadness that a fellow countryman should have sunk so low. He obviously took this very badly.

Tony had told him that he would take the kid and try to find him somewhere he could work without being bullied. He thought about the local golf club. He had a couple of other kids working there who were in similar circumstances and thought if the kid could cope physically the it might be the answer.

He realised they were entering Clevedon when Cheryl switched the music down. The pulled into the edge of the road and parked on a double yellow line. Tony assumed that Cheryl realised this and climbed out of the car. Cheryl did likewise and locked it. Without a word she started off down the street and Tony had no choice, but to trail after her. About one hundred yards later she turned into a modern building that had Avon County Social Services written on it. She went up to the reception desk. The woman behind it smiled.

"Can I help you?"

Cheryl smiled at her.

"I would like to see John Hughes."

The woman shrugged.

"Sorry, but he is in a meeting at the moment. Can you come back in an hour?"

"No" said Cheryl and turned to leave.

Tony was flabbergasted. He made a quick apology to the woman, gave her one of his cards and said he would call John Hughes later in the day. He turned and went after Cheryl. He caught up with her at the car. She was crumpling up the parking ticket that had been under one of the wipers. She looked around and saw the warden who had just placed it there. She walked towards him and tossed it into a litter bin some two yards from where he stood. She gave him a great big beaming smile and walked back to the car. She unlocked the driver's door and put one leg into the vehicle. She turned to Tony.

" I have to go to Bristol now. You can catch the bus back to Weston over there."

She slid the rest of her body into the vehicle and starting the engine drove off and left him standing there. For a moment he just could not believe it. He counted slowly to ten and while doing so realised that this was a turning point. Then he went into the local tobacconist and changed a pound for various other smaller coins. He walked along the street to a pay phone and went inside. He dialled the ACYOP head office number.

"Avon County Youth Opportunities," said the voice. "Bloody trainee," thought Tony. "Just my luck."

He thought for a moment.

"Can you put me through to Sue Mandelowe's phone please."

There was a moment's silence and then the trainee came back on.

"Mrs Mandelow has someone with her at the moment I am afraid. Can I take a message?"

Tony felt the frustration strike him like a fist. He struggled to remain calm and then he felt the iciness that sometimes came over him when he was really angry and was suddenly calm.

"Please tell Mrs Mandelow that Tony Filton needs to talk to her urgently about Cheryl Baxter and it cannot wait. If I cannot talk to her then she has my resignation as of now."

There was a moment a silence on the other end and Tony felt sorry for the girl trainee, but thought it would give her some wonderful gossip to share with the rest of the clerical trainees for the rest of the day. She recovered.

"Just a minute Mr Filton."

There was another pause and then Sue's voice came on the line.

"Tony, what the bloody hell is going on." She sounded annoyed.

"What is going on Sue is that mad witch Cheryl Baxter brought me over here on the pretext of meeting the Social Services personnel and then drove off and left me here without transport. I want someone here to pick me up within half and hour or I will get a taxi and charge it to ACYOP. Then I will write out my notice and deliver it to you in person, as I can no longer work with this crazy woman. Either she goes or I do and I don't much care which it is. I will be outside the Social Services offices in Cleveland for the next half an hour."

He hung up and went to sit on the bench at the bus stop Cheryl had pointed out. The wind off the Bristol Channel was icy and it reminded him of how the Baxter bitch had tried to get him to leave his jacket at the office. The woman really was crazy. He had been there twenty minutes and thinking he would have to find a cash point before he could get a taxi when he saw one of the ACYOP minibuses coming along the street. He stood and waved to catch the driver's attention. The minibus pulled into the bus stop and halted. Tony opened the front passenger door and climbed in.

The driver was a stocky and very fit looking man of under average height. He was in his mid thirties, balding, had a full, closely cropped beard and looked more than averagely fit. He spoke.

"Tony Filton? They said to look for a guy in a suit. Car broken down then?"

He held his hand out and Tony shook it, tensing his hand for what he knew was going to be a stronger than usual grip. It was.

"Keith Derrick, Land Use Unit. Sue said to take you back to the office. Have you arranged for the tow truck for your car?"

Tony nodded. He was not prepared for this to be all over ACYOP until he was ready.

"My car will be fine, thanks Keith, who is looking after your kids?"

Keith smiled.

"There are two groups of us working at an old farmyard a few miles from here renovating it for use as a City Farm. Unusually for an old ruin it has a phone, which is why I got the job of picking you up. My mate can handle both groups for an hour or so. What unit are you with?"

Keith was driving the minibus as though it had a Ferrari badge on the front instead of Ford and Tony would be glad when they reached the office. He took his eyes from the road long enough to tighten the seat belt and answer.

"Special Unit."

Keith nodded as if he had seen the light, while at the same time overtaking a bread van regardless of the bend and the double white line.

"The bloke with the MGB. Saw it when you were up here on induction, nice car."

Tony sighed. People seemed to know more about his old MGB and his clothing than they did about him. Keith thought for a moment.

"You work with Cheryl Baxter, don't you?"

Tony nodded and Keith continued.

"You be careful there mate. I know she looks very shaggable, but take my advice and keep it in your trousers. Not worth the risk that one. She could get you into trouble."

Tony nodded and bit his lip. The thought of shagging Cheryl Baxter had never entered his head. Strangulation and dismemberment of her had crossed his mind frequently, but definitely not shagging. After this nothing much more was said and Keith concentrated on breaking all previous records for the trip from Cleveland to the Bristol Office.

After Keith had dropped him at the gate Tony walked up the stairs to reception. The receptionist who Tony now knew was called Sandra, looked up and froze.

"News travels quickly," thought Tony. "The Trainee must have blabbed."

Sandra made herself smile.

"Hello Tony, Sue is expecting you. She is in with John Jeffries and you are to go straight in."

She smiled again and pointed into the main hall of the school. Tony followed her pointing finger and crossed the main floor walking between the various desks to John Jeffries office on the far side. Everyone kept on working away and only a couple of people he had met before gave him a nod. Obviously Sandra had a closer mouth than her trainee. There was a piece of paper taped onto the door with Jeffries' name on it plus the original legend etched into the glass that said History. He tapped on the opaque glass of the door and waited. It opened almost at once and Sue Mandelow stood there.

"Come in Tony and meet John Jeffries."

Tony entered the office. Behind the laden desk was a large man in his late fifties. He had thinning hair and glasses and his dress told Tony that an office was not his natural environment. He was more of an outdoorsman. Jeffries stood and shook Tony's hand before collapsing back into his chair, while at the same time indicating another chair to Tony. He folded his hands over his large stomach and looked at Tony.

"OK tell me about it. All of it."

Tony looked at Sue who nodded in return. Using as few words as possible and keeping it entirely unemotional Tony went right though it. When he had finished he gave a small shrug.

"I think that is everything, but the main point is this. I have put up with this woman's madness and deviousness for over three months. In any industrial or commercial environment she would have been fired weeks ago. I thought I could outlast her until you all realised what was happening and fired her, but that has not happened and as far as I can see it is not going to happen. This morning I suppose was the last straw and I have had enough. I can live with her not wanting me in the job, but eventually her petty spitefulness will get to me when I least expect it and I will do something stupid. That of course is what she wants. Apart from that I feel that I am not getting any backup from any other quarter and you people would rather I went away and stopped rocking the boat than get rid of this lunatic who really does have some enormous mental and emotional problems. You must have heard about her performance on the training course?"

No response.

"This is my limit I am afraid. If I have to keep working with Cheryl Baxter I will hand in my notice. Over to you."

John Jeffries chewed his lip.

"How many kids you got?"

"None."

"No. How many trainees have you got?"

Tony was a bit confused. He had thought the question was asked to show him that childless people did not understand teenagers. He realised that he was getting a little paranoid and forced himself to relax. "Ice cold Tony. Pretend he is the Union's Convenor. Ice Cold."

He made a show of counting them up on his fingers.

"Thirty two."

"You can't handle that many and do the job properly, Tony. Fourteen is the maximum recommended"

"Yes I can. Cheryl Baxter gave me more than that the day I arrived. Half of them were with farmers who were exploiting them. None of them had seen anyone from ACYOP for two months and I had to transfer eight of them to other placements. If you want to know why ask the Safety Officer."

He paused.

"I reckon I could take up to forty if I had to, but that would be the limit."

Jeffries looked askance.

"What about the requirement to see them every two weeks to check up on their progress?"

"I see them all every week to do that. I see the kid first, on his own, to see how he is getting on and what he has been learning and then I talk to his immediate superior. It takes half an hour. Every other week I take the kid out of the building to a cafe or we just sit in the car and just talk to him. The placements did not like that at first, but they got used to it when I explained that kids do not tell you the truth when their workmates are in earshot. Doing it like that you soon know if everyone is happy and if there are any problems." He shrugged. "Most of the kids like what they are doing. If they don't I move them before it becomes a problem. Most of the time it is because they just don't like the work or there is a clash of personalities. I give each kid two moves before I start getting heavy about work is for money and sometimes you have to work with people you do not like much."

He shrugged again.

"After all, I know what that feels like."

John Jeffries sighed. He looked at the ceiling for a moment. When he looked down Tony was holding out a sheet of paper. Jeffries looked at it warily.

"What is that?"

"It is a list of all the placements I have got trainees in. Why don't you ring any three and check up on how satisfied they are?"

"There is no need for that Tony, I am sure everything is alright."

Tony looked at him for several seconds.

"No you're not or you would not be giving me that line about too many trainees. My guess is that is what Baxter has said." He put on a little girl voice. "Tony doesn't understand how fragile some of these kids are, John. He treats it like an industry. Get them placed and on to the next one. The whole thing is overstretching him and will end in disaster when several of these kids all crash at the same time."

Jeffries sat up straight. Tony had evidently touched a nerve.

"She might be right."

"How can she possible know about it when she only has eight trainees, all of whom are placed in just two kiddie nurseries. When has she ever experienced several kids falling off the twig at the same time? I have been running at least twenty, that's the number Miz Baxter assigned to me in my first week, since I got here. That is over three months. I took a fortnight's holiday a month ago. None of the kids fell off the twig and I bet if you asked her Baxter does not even know I was missing for two weeks."

Tony could see that this had hit home. He softened his approach.

"Look Sue, John. I am happy here as long as I can keep Baxter off my back. I am a professional trainer and from what I have seen there are very few of us in ACYOP. If you prefer the Baxter approach just tell me and I will resign. After all, I cannot go to the Union as it seems Baxter is now my Shop Steward" He took a deep breath. "It is like this. Get her off my back, and by that I mean completely off my back, move her somewhere else, or accept my resignation. Nothing else will work."

He stood up, but Jeffries held up a hand to stop him.

"You are a Union member?"

Tony smiled.

"When I started here I was told that Cheryl Baxter had wanted someone else for the job. Armed with that knowledge I joined the Union on my first day of induction."

Mandelow and Jeffries exchanged looks. Tony knew that something was up, but was past caring. He stood up.

"I am going to find a type writer in the office and type up my resignation. I will leave it on Sue's desk and wait to hear from you. If you want me to stay you know what is needed, if not you have the resignation. I would appreciate knowing by Friday."

He stood up and left. From outside he saw Sue Mandelow had taken his seat and was leaning across the desk talking urgently to John Jeffries.

As Tony walked across the hall of the school most of the desks were empty as most of the staff were across the road in the pub, at what was euphemistically called lunch. He looked around, as he needed a typewriter. He saw a woman who had given one of the talks at his induction, Anne Jones. He remembered her name because when she was giving her talk Paul, who already knew a lot of the staff in ACYOP had nudged him.

"Anne Jones," he said, "best arse in ACYOP:"

Tony had looked at the woman. About twenty-eight, more pale and interesting than sexy, but in the tight trousers she was wearing he could se that she did have a great bum. He had then forgotten the whole incident, but now he saw she had a typewriter on her desk. He approached.

"Hello, Anne isn't it. You gave a talk at our induction."

She smiled back at him.

"Hello, you're the MBG man I think."

She had a soft Irish accent that was at odds with her surname, but looking down at her hand he saw she wore a wedding ring that explained it. He tried the charm approach.

"Southern Ireland I think, but I am not good enough to pinpoint it exactly."

Her look said she knew he was turning on and it didn't bother her one way or the other.

"That is about what I would expect from an ex Personnel Manager. What are you after?"

He was gob smacked. Had his CV been zeroxed and passed around to every bloody staff member. His face told her exactly what he was thinking. She laughed.

"They broke the rules when they employed you Tony and had to get permission from the County Council because you hadn't been unemployed for more than a year. It went to the Union and you only made it by a couple of votes. One or two of the shop stewards were definitely against it, but I understand you are proving them all wrong." She smiled again. "I am glad about that because we have too many bloody teachers here already and another one was not a good idea."

Tony was speechless.

"That Pratt that Cheryl Baxter wanted for my job was a teacher?"

His voice squeaked on the last word. Anne nodded and then qualified it.

"Oh he didn't finish the training. He was OK until he had to actually go into a school and face some teenagers and then he just fell apart. Of course he is Cheryl's cousin so I expect failing as a teacher may run in the family."

Her voice was not exactly friendly. Tony absorbed this.

"You and she are not exactly friends I take it."

Anne pointed to a small frame on her desk that Tony assumed had a picture of her husband or other family member. Anne turned it to face him.

It had a cheap gold medal of the kind schools give to eleven years olds that win the high jump. It had a cup embossed on it. Underneath that was a brass plaque upon which was engraved,

"For having the best arse in ACYOP."

He couldn't help it. He tried not to, but that only made him snort. Anne glared, but then softened.

"It was started by the Land Use crowd, you know Keith Derrick?" Tony nodded. "They came in in January and put a notice on the wall saying that there was going to be this competition and people were encouraged to vote for the woman who best fitted the description. Amazing Grace went ballistic and they had to take it down. We all thought that was the end of it, but they put it up again in the gent's toilet. The management must have known, but they let it go, probably even voted. Then one Friday in the pub over the road they came in and announced the winner. I wasn't even there as I was at Social Services that day. I came in at three and nearly every bloke in ACYOP was in here. I had to fight my way to the bloody desk."

She paused as if remembering.

"There it was this little plaque. I picked it up to read it and everyone started clapping. Then Keith Derrick pushed through the crowd and gave me this great big bouquet of flowers. I blushed so much I think it must have Actually reached my arse, but what can you do? I put a good face on it and made a short speech about how honoured I was and then they all clapped again and went home."

Tony pointed to her ring finger.

"What did your husband say?"

"He was delighted. He works over in the Council offices. Over there they have a Golden Spanner Award." She explained. "Given to the girl most likely to tighten your nuts. He has been boasting about it ever since."

She looked up at him from under her eyebrows.

"Your Supervisor was the only one who was really not happy about it. She said first that it demeaned women. When that go no reaction she started on only certain types of women get treated like that by men. The type they think might be available if you flatter them enough."

She gave him the same look again.

"I had a short talk with her in the ladies toilet. She denied it all of course, but I think the thought of having to remove my award from her own arse persuaded her to call a halt to the propaganda. Now what is it you came over here for?"

Her direct approach sent him back to what he was doing here. He borrowed the typewriter and a sheet of paper and an envelope and typed out his resignation, including the reasons. Then he sealed the envelope and left it on Sue Mandelowe's desk. As he left he lifted a hand in thanks to Anne Jones and went down to his car.

Tony didn't tell Tas about it when she phoned him that evening. He knew that she would have encouraged him to find another job and he liked this one. He left it alone thinking that by the time he picked Tas up on Friday evening one way or another it would all be resolved. For the next four days he would carry on as usual.

Chapter Eleven

Chalk and Cheese, November 1982

When Tony walked into the office the next morning Angela handed him a note. It was from Reece Jones. He had two kids he wanted to talk to Tony about. Tony added them up and realised this would make thirty four trainees and that as he might not be here in a few weeks he should think twice about taking on any more. He picked up the phone and rang Reece. He agreed to be in his office in ten minutes. On the way out he left the details of where to find him with Angela and walked round to the Social Services office.

Reece looked as tired as ever, but he smiled and offered Tony a cup of coffee. It came from the same kind of machine as the one that had been in the canteen at Grunwold Pumps and Tony politely refused. He took a seat at the side of Reece's desk and waited. Reece was sorting through some papers on his desk and not finding what he was looking for. His desk was barely visible under the paperwork.

"You look as if you have got your hands full this morning, Reece. Do you want me to come back this afternoon?"

Reece looked up.

"I doubt that would help Tony, I will probably have even more by then."

"Bad week, is it?"

Reece continued without stopping his search.

"Bad week, bad month, bad year."

He sounded at the end of his tether and his lilting Welsh accent was stronger than normal. Tony leaned over the desk and put a hand on his arm to get his full attention.

"Just tell me about the kids, Reece, and we will worry about the paperwork afterwards."

"OK."

Reece gave up the search and sat back, He picked up his coffee cup from the desk and took a swallow. He grimaced. Tony knew the feeling. Reece turned his swivel chair towards him and started.

"The two kids I have got for you are as different as chalk and cheese. The first one I told you about you have met, but his father prevented him from coming back after the last time. You remember, the one who accused me of exploiting his child for the good of some rich golf playing Conservatives?"

Tony remembered. The man was very intelligent according to Reece, but preferred not to work for his living. He was a Welshman and it hurt Reece to admit to an Englishman that a fellow national was such a waste of space. Tony had told him of a few English locals who were equally as bad, but that had not consoled him. Tony had put the kid down the golf course with the green keeper, but that had been a mistake. Two of the other kids had teased him unmercifully and the poor little sod was not capable of handling it. His father had found out and delighted in going round to Reece's office and causing a stink. Tony nodded.

"Wayne Davis."

Of his thirty odd kids five of them were called Wayne. It often made Tony wonder how the kids themselves sorted it out. Go into any classroom and shout Wayne and at least four kids would answer.

"Well he has changed his mind, the father that is, but only because the Job Centre said it was YOP for the lad or he would lose his dole money. That was a bit of a shock and he now agrees we can try another placement, but he wants to meet you first. He says he is not handing over his Wayne to some professional child exploiter." He sighed. "You don't have to do it if you don't want to, Tony. I know it is beyond and above so to speak."

Tony stared at the tired Welshman.

"How many cases have you got running at the moment, Reece?"

"Eighty Four."

He suddenly sat up straight and Tony knew he regretted the weak moment of tiredness that had made him give Tony an answer.

"Shit", said Tony, "eighty four? Christ Reece, how do you manage it? Eighty bloody four?"

Reece gave him a tired smile.

"Its not so bad normally, Tony. At the moment I have several playing up at once. That is why I called you."

He shrugged apologetically. Tony held both hands up in a gesture of surrender. He could not imagine handling that many different types of cases with all the legal difficulties and responsibilities they involved and the press willing to take you apart at the first sign of a mistake. He felt like a fraud with his thirty eight kids.

"Don't you apologise to me mate. I don't know how you manage it. Give me the address of this caring parent and I will call round when I leave here."

Reece suddenly found what he had been looking for when Tony came in. He picked up the file, opened it, copied down an address on a piece of paper, and handed it over. Tony read it. 86, Charleston Gardens. It was on one of the council estates at the back of the town, but it would be very hard to keep up mortgage payments on a private house if you spent half of your time in prison. He tucked it in his pocket.

"What about the second kid?"

Eighty-four cases? He was really eager to help this poor beggar in any way he could. Reece sat back, picked up the coffee, looked at it and put it back down. He frowned slightly.

"Do you know Frederick's Transport? They are based here in Weston and you often see their lorries about."

"Are they the red ones with a charging goat motif?"

You could not forget those lorries if you had seen one. The charging goat painted on the doors was a fearsome creature. Reece nodded and smiled.

"Yes, and very appropriate it is as well for a couple of reasons. Firstly the family have been in the business for some fifty years. The grandfather started it forty years ago, he had four wives and six kids so he was a bit of a ram I suppose. The eldest son took the company over after the old man died after a brawl in a pub, he was sixty at the time, but they are that kind of family. Why talk to someone when you can punch him?

The eldest son was another hard man and he expanded the business so that it was more than just a local firm. He brought it up to forty odd vehicles at its peak. Then he too died in strange circumstances." He shrugged. "It was supposedly an accident. A load fell from a forklift truck and killed him. That was six years ago. His own eldest son was driving the forklift at the time so the rumour mill started the story that he had killed his old man to get his hands on the business. God knows he also had a reputation for violence. Even the local rugby club had to let him go because he caused such mayhem on field with late tackles and crafty punches and gouges and the like. Anyway Georgie, that is the son's name, had two bothers. The first was a couple of years younger than him and he too worked for the firm. The youngest was what is usually called an afterthought and is just seventeen now."

He stopped for a minute and then carried on.

"You have to know all this as it is local history anyway and I want to be straight with you. The first thing that Georgie did was fire the older of the two brothers and chuck him out of the company so he had no challengers. He now drives for some outfit in Bristol. He also ran the company on a different line from his dad who, although he liked a punch up down the pub, was hard, but fair with his drivers. If anyone argued with Georgie or made a mistake he just thumps them, or did."

He shrugged again.

"He is not a tall man, but he is as broad as he is tall and has a really nasty streak. It is rumoured that he pulled a lot a dirty little trick to steal business from his rivals and was not above the sabotage of their vehicles."

Tony held up his hand.

"I hope you are not telling me that I have to make a house visit to this bloke."

Reece smiled.

"No Tony, but you would be safe enough if you did. Two years ago Georgie was coming out of his local rather the worse for wear when he was run down by a pickup truck which was later was found to have been stolen in Bristol earlier the same night. His back was broken and he now runs the business from a wheelchair. He is still a nasty bit of work, but no longer capable of inflicting any physical damage himself."

He picked another file up.

"This is Kevin Fredericks, the youngest of the brothers and he is the one I want you to talk to. I have known Kevin since he was thirteen. When his dad was killed and his brother took over the business, his mother did a runner to Spain with one of the drivers she had known for years and Kevin was parentless. That was when I got involved and he lives with his aunt now. He is a really good kid which makes it all the more difficult to know how he got mixed up in this?"

"Mixed up in what, Reece?"

"Brawling in a pub."

Tony raised his eyebrows. It sounded as if the kid was just following his genes, but he didn't say that.

"Lots of teenagers get into fights, Reece. For most of us it is part of growing up."

Reece's look told him it was a bit more serious than that. Tony sighed.

"OK Reece. Just tell me what he did."

"Well, he and some of his mates were playing pool in his local pub last Friday week. They go there every Friday, have a couple of pints, and play pool." He glanced up. "Yes I know he is under age, but you now how it is. Anyway, a soldier in uniform came in with a couple of his mates in civvies. They had downed a few somewhere else before they got there and were already pretty drunk. Anyway, they decided they wanted the pool table so they told Kevin and his mates to, well, in Kevin's words they told them to Piss Off. Kevin said no and the bloke in uniform chinned him."

He turned his eyes to Tony.

"Kevin got up still holding his cue and smashed it round his head hard enough that it broke the cue. They had to call an ambulance."

He shrugged. Tony thought a moment.

"The soldier started it, yes?"

Reece nodded.

"And Kevin hit him back with the first thing that came to hand, yes?"

Another nod.

"How bad was he hurt?"

Reece looked at the paper in front of him.

"Fractured jaw and concussion. He was released the next morning."

"Who decided to prosecute them?"

"Not them, him. They only took Kevin to court."

"Why? They were both involved and the other, older bloke, a professional soldier, started it."

Reece wriggled a bit in his seat before answering.

"The other bloke was a Royal Marine just back from the Falklands. He had been decorated for bravery to boot. A real hero." He said the next bit really quietly. "And Kevin was the bloke who head butted the police sergeant and broke his nose."

There was silence for several seconds while Tony digested this, then.

"He broke the police sergeant's nose with a head butt?"

"Yes."

Tony suddenly thought of something.

"Why are you involved in this, Reece? This should be coming from the law or Probation, not you."

Reece shrugged again.

"I like the kid Tony, and I think he has had a rough time of it. Jade Meadows, his Probation Officer, is new and is not yet ready for this in my view, so I told her I would talk to you first."

"Eighty-four cases and you are getting involved in this as well." Tony sighed. "OK Reece, I will go and talk to what's her name?"

"Jade Meadows."

"OK Give me her phone number."

"It's the local Probation Office."

Tony stood and so did Reece. They shook hands. Tony went to turn for the door and then stopped.

"You are a good bloke Reece and they are lucky to have you, but if you burn out by taking too much on you will be helping no one. You could have just given this Jade my number."

Reece nodded.

"But then I would not have been sure you would take him unless you knew some one thought him worth the effort."

Tony looked directly at him.

"They are all worth the effort, Reece. At least until they prove differently. See you soon."

He left.

Eighty-six Charleston Gardens was in the middle of one of Weston-Super-Mare's two large council estates. As soon as he entered it Tony was filled with a sense of nostalgia for his childhood. Houses in blocks of four all covered in pebbledash. The only difference here was that these houses had an alleyway through the centre of each block so that so the middle two tenants could get access to the back doors without having to walk past the kitchen windows of the neighbours. In Tony's street to get to the back door you had to go right through the house or up your neighbours path and past their back door. The fences were even the same and Tony remembered how they had always used four of the front gates as the bases for a game of rounders played with an old tennis ball and a piece of two by two that someone's dad had chiselled the corners from and rounded out one end for a handle. He was eighteen before he found out tennis balls should be white not grey.

The streetlights were even the same. They had originally been gas lamps and had been converted to electricity. They all had the cross piece under the glass lamp holder for the lamp lighter man to lean his ladder on. He smiled. When he was a kid the bin men, known as dustmen then for some reason, would also clean up any rubbish the kids had left in the street. On one particular day there was an old bicycle tyre on the pavement around one of the lamps. It had got there because the night before they had had a competition to see who would be the first to get it over the lamp in one throw. It had been left there when one of the kids had finally managed it and they had all gone home. The chalk line that had been the throw line was still on the road.

The bin men had looked at this tyre and scratched their heads. One of them tried to throw it up back over the lamp holder, but the crosspiece defied his efforts. Then two of them had tried shouting one, two, three HUP and throwing it together with one on each side. This had failed as well. Twenty minutes had gone by and there were by now about a dozen of the local kids sitting on the kerb at a safe distance laughing hysterically and calling out advice. The bin men were not seeing the funny side of it at all and were muttering dark threats about what they would do to the little bastard who had put the tyre there in the first place.

Finally the driver, who had been spending the time reading a newspaper, left his cab. This was quite an earthshaking event as nobody, including any of the bin men, had ever seen the driver of a dustcart leave his cab except to get a cup of tea at the café or to take a leak. The driver walked up to the lamppost and examined it. He then looked up at the lamp head and the cross piece for some time. Then he called the other three over and spoke to them for a few minutes before getting back into his cab. The kids stopped giggling, wiped the tears from their eyes and awaited developments. The driver started the engine and backed one rear wheel of the dustcart on to the pavement. One of the bin men waved him back until the rear of the lorry was some six inches from the lamppost. The man who had been seeing the lorry back climbed up the ladder on the rear of the lorry until he was just about two thirds of the way up the lamp post. He nodded to the other two who stood each side of the lamppost and lifted the bicycle tyre to head height. The man on the ladder then easily lifted the tyre past the crosspiece and over the lamp holder and threw it into the interior of the dustcart. Cabaret over. The other dustmen went back to collecting the bins and emptying them into the lorry.

The kids were disappointed the show was over, but not yet finished. The following week the lorry came around the corner at the top of the road and stopped at the first houses. They all stared in disbelief. Every lamppost had a tyre over it and some had two. There were no kids in sight, but giggles from behind the different garden hedges could be clearly heard. It took the bin men one hour to clear the tyres and empty the bins all the time threatening in loud voices what they would do to those "bloody kids" when they caught them.

One week later the dustcart again came round the corner at the top of the road and once again every lamppost was dressed in a tyre or two. It had taken the kids all week to find them from various dumps, sheds and other places. They were all behind the hedges waiting for the fun to start, but it was not to be, this time. One of the bin men went to the cab of the lorry and opened the door. He reached in and came out with a pair of bolt cutters, which he waved triumphantly in the air. He walked up to the first tyre and easily cut through it. He waved it at them.

"Not this time you little buggers."

The game was over.

Tony grinned at the memory and drove slowly along the road looking for number eighty-six. The estate was just as he remembered his own. Some of the front gardens were beautifully maintained, full of flowers and shrubs and manicured lawns, some were just tidy, some were vegetable plots and some were jungles. He saw one that had grass and other vegetation higher than the fence and his heart sank. That had to be eighty-six. He checked the number next door as the jungle had no gate, just a gap where it had been. Eighty-six. He sighed and closed the Webasto sunroof on the old dark green MGB.

He went to the boot and got out the steering lock he kept there, fitted it and made sure both doors were also locked. The car had cost him six hundred pounds when he had bought it from a woman whose son had been killed while on active service in Germany. His helicopter had crashed while on a routine training mission. She had charged him about half of what it was worth after putting him through an oral examination of why he wanted the car and satisfied with that, had extracted a promise that he would not sell it for at least two years. Tony had felt honoured that she had trusted and believed him and nothing would have parted him from the MGB. He had spent another couple of hundred having the wheels and bumpers and grill re-chromed and had then taken it back to the bereaved mother for her approval. She had cried and hugged him.

He walked up the front path and knocked on the door. The man who opened the door was dressed in a pair of old sandals and plimsolls without socks. He had a black beard streaked with grey that needed a trim, long hair down past his shoulders and deep set eyes under black brows. He was a Celt from his toes to his scalp. Over one nipple he had the word Mild tattooed and over the other one, Bitter. From the poor quality of the tattoos, a professional had done neither; Tony surmised they were prison art. He looked Tony up and down, taking in his suit and went to close the door again. Tony put his foot in the door. The looked down at his foot and then indicated behind Tony with a jerk of his head.

"Look at the garden, will you. What the hell do you think you have that we can afford to buy?"

Tony held his hands up showing his empty palms.

"I am not selling Mr Davis. I am here to talk to you about getting your son Wayne into a work placement. I'm Tony Filton."

He handed the man his card and waited while he read it. Davis took his time and then turned it over and glanced at the back.

"You must make a lot of money exploiting our kids if you can afford fancy cards like this."

The Welsh accent was so strong that Tony thought it must have been being done deliberately. The man had been in England for at least three decades. He took the card back from the man's hand. He paid for these out of his own pocket and he was damned if he was going to waste one of a Pratt like Davis. He realised that he did not know the man's first name, but that didn't matter. Better to keep it formal with this one. He put the card back in his pocket ignoring the man's comment and went on the attack.

"Reece Jones tells me that you need to get your son on the Youth Employment Scheme as the Dole Office are about to cut his benefits. Mainly I understand because you pulled him out of the golf club placement."

This was unfair because the kid was being bullied there, but Tony had met a lot of people like Davis and being fair was not in their nature so you were best to treat them the same way. Davis bristled and went to say something, but Tony beat him to it. He pointed next door where the neighbour had suddenly appeared in the garden to examine his already perfectly pruned roses. Davis glowered at his neighbour and then opened the door and let him in.

Tony had been in a lot of council houses having been born in one. Even so he was shocked. The front door led into the hall and a set of uncarpeted stairs. Davis opened the door into the front room or lounge. It had one bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. There was one old armchair with the stuffing hanging out at various places, a paraffin heater, the room stank of paraffin, a kitchen chair and a packing crate with a black and white television stood on top of it. There were no curtains or any other furniture in the room. On the kitchen chair watching the television was a tiny male figure who looked no more than twelve. Wayne Davis. Davis senior sat down in the armchair and looked up at Tony. He made no attempt to turn the television down or off.

"So what have you come to tell me?"

After more than three months of Cheryl Baxter's stupid games Tony found his previous well of patience no longer existed. He went over to the television, examined the control panel and switched it off. Davis looked surprised.

"As this affects Wayne far more than you I think he should hear this as well. He can go back to Jackanory when we have finished. OK"

Davis went to lean forward and switch the set on again.

"You do that Mr Davis and I am out of here. I do not work for Social Services and I do not have to put up with the shit they do. You want to hear what I have to offer or not? If its yes leave the bloody television off for ten minutes, if its no switch it back on and I will tell Social and the Job Centre you were not interested."

Davis gave him a thunderous look, but he had taken the message on board as he sat back and folded his arms. It was freezing in the room despite the use of the paraffin heater and how he sat there shirtless, was way beyond Tony's understanding. Tony continued, but this time speaking to Wayne.

"You like gardening, Wayne? I have a small nursery in town that needs some help. The owner needs a hand and is looking for someone who wants to be a gardener. It would just be you and him. No other kids. Are you interested?"

Wayne looked interested, but looked at his father. Davis senior smiled to show Tony that the kid would do what he told him to do. Tony turned his attention back to Davis Senior.

"I can take him down now if you like for an interview. If all goes well he can start tomorrow morning and I will sign him on as though he started this morning so he will get a full weeks pay on Friday."

This was cheating and bribery and Tony knew it, but technically he could defend it. If the kid went for interview today it could justify it as his first days work. Wayne looked at his dad. Davis knew he had no choice.

"Better go and get your jacket."

Tony stood.

"Thank you, Mr Davis that is a good decision. The other thing that would help is if you do not start visiting Wayne at work. I understand you used to do that at the golf course and that probably led to the other lads picking on him. I will monitor him closely for the first few days so he will be alright."

Davis, ignoring him leaned forward and turned on the television and the interview was over. Wayne came back into the room with his jacket and they left the house. His MGB was where he had left it and was unharmed. Wayne was staring at it with his mouth open.

"Are we going in that?"

"Yes"

Wayne beamed and climbed into the car.

The small nursery Tony had chosen was right in the middle of town. It invisible to all intents and purpose as it was in the middle of a block formed by two roads of shops and two more roads of housing. There was an entrance between two of the shops just big enough to drive a van into. Once through the entrance there was a small storeroom and office, while an enormous green house filled the rest of the space. The two streets of houses had quite long gardens on the southern and western sides so the place got plenty of light for plant growing which was mainly cash crops such as tomatoes and cucumbers. John Bingham, the owner was a widower in his sixties who ran the place all on his own since his wife had died. If he had not approached them, Tony would never have suspected the existence of the place never mind using it as a placement. Once he had met John, however, he knew this would be a perfect placement for one of his slower and less able kids, one of the Sad in fact.

He called out and John appeared from behind some foliage. He introduced them briefly and then watched as John put his arm around Wayne's shoulder and the two of them walked away down between the rows of plants, John explaining and Wayne nodding. John suddenly remembered he was there. He turned.

"Its okay Mr Filton I will take Wayne home when we are finished. Thank you for everything."

Tony nodded and turned to go He didn't like to guess at how placements would turn out until before they had proved themselves, but the signs on this one were excellent.

Tony didn't like anything about the probation office in Weston. He didn't like the way they always assumed they knew more about life than he did despite the fact that they were all graduates and apart from some student jobs, had never been at the coalface. He also didn't like the way they assumed that he was there just at the end of a telephone eagerly awaiting their call. He also didn't like the lectures they gave him about exactly what the would be trainees problems were on the strength of a Social Services or police report they had read and he didn't like the way they lied about their clients problems and background if they thought that would make Tony keener to take them. For their part they were unhappy that Tony wanted the full background on anyone they referred to him when that nice Roy and Cheryl had never thought it necessary. After all, they were an arm of the court and ACYOP were well, just a bunch of do-gooders. No offence, but what did they know about the law and how it should be upheld. The consequence was that Tony and most other supervisors always felt a sinking feeling when they had a call from probation. On this occasion he walked into their office, a converted five bedroom semidetached house in one of the better parts of town, expecting the usual reluctance to tell him anymore than rank, name, and offence of the client, except on this occasion Reece Jones had already spilt the beans. He wondered how the story Probation gave him would gel with theirs.

He walked through the car park that had once been the front garden of the house noting that unlike any ACYOP office the cars were all less than three years old. He rang the bell. The glass front door was kept locked presumably because sometimes Probation Officers sent their charges back to court when they did not toe the line and their clients took exception to this. The door buzzed and when the receptionist saw who it was and he was let in.

Jade Meadows was a surprise. As Reece had told him she was new he had expected a graduate. Someone in their mid to late twenties. This woman was over forty. She had come down from her office at the receptionist's call and because of her age Tony had not realised who she was until she had spoken.

"Tony Filton?"

"Yes, Jade Meadows I presume."

He held out his hand and the woman gave it an unusually firm handshake. She beckoned.

"Come on up."

When they entered her office a teenage boy was already there. He had short blond curly hair and was about five feet seven with a row of earrings, five in all through his left ear. He was quite tidily dressed in jeans, and a checked bomber jacket and apart from his build did not have the look of a hard case or a delinquent. He stood up when Tony walked in and he could see that Reece's description was accurate. The kid was built like the proverbial brick toilet. Jade meadows waved Tony to the other unoccupied seat in front of her desk while she remained standing.

"Tony, this is Kevin. Kevin this is Mr Filton. Kevin Tell Mr Filton how you came to be here. I am going to get a coffee so you have ten or fifteen minutes to talk things over." And she left the room.

Tony was quite shocked. Probation never usually let you meet the kid until you had agreed to take them and then it took weeks to sort out the true story from the official line. He thought he could work well with Jade Meadows however new to the job she was. After all he hadn't been there six months himself yet. He raised an enquiring eyebrow at Kevin as soon as the door closed behind the woman. Kevin squirmed. Tony spoke first.

"Look Kevin, it is my job to get you a job on the scheme. It is pretty important to you too as if we don't you are going away for at least six months to a Young Offenders Institute and they are not nice. Now we are not supposed to tell employers what your crime is, but I have found that if we don't, most employers won't have you. To get around it the best thing is for you to voluntarily tell them about what you did. Employers seem to like that and it forms a basis of trust between you both. Do you understand all that?"

Kevin nodded, studying his hands in his lap.

"Well come on then."

The kid sighed and then started his story.

"We was in the pub playing snooker when these three blokes came in, pissed they was. Cidered up" He glanced up to see if the last had registered. It had. People drunk on cider were invariably drunker and sometimes more aggressive than the normal drunks. "We was only halfway through our game and they said they wanted the table. We told them they had to chalk their name up on the board." He looked directly at Tony. "It's the rules, everybody has to do that." He continued. "The one in uniform said, Fuck the rules." Kevin coloured. "I'm only repeating what he said." He hesitated. "Then I said, well fuck you too mate. Then he punched me in the face."

He looked Tony directly in face.

"He was taller than me and a bloody Royal Marine and I was shit scared he was going to do me over so when I got up I hit him with the cue before he could punch me again." He appealed now. "I didn't start it Mr Filton, honest and he was a soldier and ten years older than me."

Kevin ran out of steam. Tony let a few seconds go by and then quietly asked.

"And the police sergeant."

Kevin looked angrily up at him.

"He asked for it. He has been after my brother for years, but Georgie was too clever for him. When he saw me he was really happy." He imitated the sergeant. "Well, well, well, if it isn't young Kevin Fredericks. Bad blood will out I always says." He glowered. "He went on like that for ages taking the piss. I know Georgie has done a few things, but that's not my fault."

He looked at Tony for confirmation of this and Tony showed his agreement.

"Then he made me take off my belt and shoelaces before they put me in the cell so I couldn't hang meself. I thought that was it, but then he told me I had to take out me earrings. I said they didn't usually come out as I kept them in all the time. He made the two other coppers hold me in an arm lock and then he just pulled them out by brute force. It was agony."

"So you head butted him?"

"Yeah, well he put his face right in mine and said see, they did come out. I was so bloody angry I just smashed my head against his nose."

He looked up at Tony.

"They beat me up for about half an hour after that until I fainted and then they chucked me on the bed and left me there." He shuddered. "I thought I was going down in that court, I really did." He turned to Tony. "Can you really get me a job?"

Tony shrugged.

"What do you want to do?"

Kevin thought for a bit.

"Nothing to do with lorries. I want to learn about building so one day I can start my own company."

Tony realised the kid had given him the answer.

"Look Kevin, I don't think I can get you into a proper building firm until some of the fuss dies down about you putting a Falklands Hero in the hospital." He held his hand up as the boy's face fell. "But I can get you onto one of our project groups. They spend their time renovating old buildings and you would learn a lot. If I put you there for six months and it all works out fine then I could probably move you on to a private builder for the rest of the year."

The boy was all attention. Tony explained.

"It is run by a bloke called Cec Goodman who is a plaster by trade, but also knows a lot about the building trade. I will go and see him tomorrow and if he is in agreement you can start next Monday."

The door opened and Jade Meadows walked in. Her timing made Tony wonder if the place was bugged. Kevin turned to her with his whole face alight.

"Mr Filton is going to get me a job with one oh his building teams."

Mrs Meadows smiled and said, "That's good Kevin. You can go now while Mr Filton and I discuss it a bit. Come back on Friday at ten o'clock."

Kevin nodded and headed for the door. He turned as he left.

"Thanks, Mr Filton."

Tony gave him a small smile and nodded. When he turned back Jade Meadows was staring hard at him.

"Can you do that?"

Tony nodded again.

"Yes I think so. Despite what he has done I don't think he is a bad lad. I have taken a couple of kids from the Construction groups that they couldn't deal with so it is about time they returned the favour."

"And if they don't?"

"I will have to get him placed with a local builder, but what with the story in the gazette that will be a bit harder and might take a little longer."

She nodded.

"OK Tony, I can call you Tony can I?

He grinned.

"Better than Mr Filton, Jade?"

She smiled back and after again promising to keep her informed he left.

For the rest of the day Tony spent his time trying to convince Brummie Mike that he ought to give the kid a chance with one of his Construction groups, preferably Cec Goodman's. Finally Mike said that if he could convince Cec to take him he would not stand in his way. Tony then had to go out to the church hall where Cec's team was working and go through the whole thing again. Here he got lucky. Two of the kids had been to school with Kevin Fredericks. They both said he was all right as long as you were not on the other side in a rugby match. They also confirmed that the sergeant he had nutted was a right nasty bastard who none of the kids liked. Finally Cec said he would give Kevin a week's trial. Tony went back to the office and phoned a delighted Jade Meadows. Tony stressed to her that Kevin was on a week's trial.

The following Monday Tony picked up Kevin and took him to Cec Goodman's project getting there at ten o'clock as agreed. Cec asked the kid a few questions about what he wanted to do with his life and seemed satisfied with the answers. Tony kept out of the way while this was going on and chatted to the other lads who poured him a cup of tea. The mug looked as if it hadn't been washed for some time, but the tea was good. Then Cec brought Kevin over to the other six kids in the project. The ones who knew Kevin smiled and acknowledged him. The ones who didn't also smiled at him, if a trifle nervously. After all, if he had downed a marine and broken a policeman's nose so what could he do to them? Cec introduced him all round and gave his usual short lecture on teamwork and no pissing around. Then he picked up a one-metre length of electric conduit that lay conveniently to hand. Flexing his big workman's shoulders he put a bend in it. He handed it to Kevin.

"Let's see you straighten that out completely then."

Kevin took it and struggled for a few moments before Cec took the tubing off him.

"Have to build you up a bit by the look of it. I'll tell you what I told the rest of them. Any fighting or bullying in this group and I will bend a bit of that tube right around your necks and send you home with it there."

Kevin looked shocked, but the rest of the kids all started laughing and he realised that Cec's bark was probably worse than his bite.

Cec saw Tony to his car. Tony shook his hand before leaving and smiled.

"How often do you pull that trick with the conduit?"

"Only with the ones who look as if they might be a handful."

"Has anyone ever straightened it out?"

"Don't be daft, Tony, of course not. Straightening it is completely different from bending it, as you can't get the right purchase just using your hands. Didn't they teach you smart young buggers any physics at school?"

He grinned from ear to ear as Tony climbed into the MBG and drove off. They could do with more blokes like old Cec.

Tony was also happy, but for another reason. Late on last Friday afternoon Sue had rung him up to say he was not to worry about Cheryl anymore, as she was no longer his Supervisor. When he asked who was his Supervisor Sue told him that for the time being he could report straight to her or if she was unavailable his office manager. Tony knew there was no chance of him reporting to Malcolm, as he would be retired before he got a reply or a decision. He had tried to press Sue on who would be replacing Cheryl, but she would not be drawn. She just said the organisation would be making some major changes.

He had told Tas about it when he had picked her up on the Friday night from the station, but she had just said if that meant she didn't have listen to him moaning about Cheryl Baxter anymore then that had to be a good thing. As for how her course was going she was unusually reticent, just saying couldn't they leave work behind for this weekend. Tony was happy to agree and they went and had dinner in their usual Friday pub. When they got home Tony produced the bottle of Spanish Cava he had bought in Sainsbury's on the way home to celebrate his freedom from the Baxter. He told Tas that she didn't have to drink it if she didn't want to because of the connotations it had to his job of work. She punched him in the arm and fetched two glasses.

By bed time the bottle was empty and they were both in the same armchair, Tas sitting on his lap with her head on his shoulder. When Tony realised she was asleep he knew that the rest of his plan for the evening was a goner, but he could always switch off the alarm clock and they could have a lie in the morning.

Chapter Twelve

The Move, March 1983

Tony Filton was a happy man, He had his wife back home and Cheryl Baxter was long gone from his life. It turned out that Tas had passed her training course and had been offered a promotion. The problem was that she only got it if she moved. On offer were Aberdeen or South Wales. Aberdeen was out of the question. It was cold and dark in the winter and Tas thought if she couldn't understand a word of what Alex Ferguson said on the television then Scotland was not for her. As for Wales!

When they had first moved to Somerset they had been quite restricted for cash. Someone had offered to lend them a tent and advised them that there were some lovely camping sites in the Brecon Beacons. They had packed the boot of the Triumph Spitfire they owned in those days with all the camping gear and crossed the bridge into Wales.

When they had started the journey the sunshine had been bright and warm. By the time they had reached the camping ground the day was dark and cloudy. As they set about putting up a tent for the first time in their lives it had started to rain. By the time they had finally got it erected and secured properly it was teaming down. They had sat in the small cramped space of the tent staring out at the rain and they could barely make out the lights of the washrooms set at the edge of their site some hundred yards away. After ten minutes of gradually getting colder and colder Tony had had enough.

"Its only eight o'clock. We can't sit here just listening to the rain all night. Let's put our jackets on and go and find the local village pub."

They spent another ten minutes struggling to get dressed in the dark and cramped confines of the tent and then another ten minutes finding the torch, as this area of the Brecons had no street lighting. Then they were off.

The pub was only about half a mile from the campsite, but by the time they got there, their shoes were soaked through. Tony pushed the door open and it revealed a warm and nicely lit bar complete with roaring fire and about twenty customers, all talking away in the singsong Welsh accent of the region. People looked up as they came in, but didn't take too much notice of them as they made their way to the bar. Tony put a fiver on the bar.

"Can I have a whisky and soda and glass of red wine please?"

The barman looked at them as if they had just flown in from Mars.

"We don't do spirits or wine. You can have draught bitter or bottled beer."

The bar had gone quiet. Tony noticed the sudden silence and looked around. Everyone suddenly started talking again, but with a difference. This time the language had changed from English to Welsh. Tony felt Tas tug at his arm. He turned.

"Why are they all talking in a foreign language, Tony? I am sure they were speaking English when we came in."

"I know. They are giving us a message. They don't like the English."

He put his fiver away and turned for the door. As they neared it the language went back to English.

At the campsite Tony unzipped the tent and the shone the torch through the door. It was full of water probably because they had made a mistake when they were erecting it in the half light. He looked at Tas.

"Go and sit in the car, Tas."

He handed her the keys and set about pulling the tent pegs out of the ground. It took him ten minutes only, because he didn't pack anything away properly, he just rolled it all up into a ball and then jammed it all into the boot of the Spitfire along with his soaking coat and shoes. Then he closed the boot, climbed into the driving seat and driving in just his socks with the heater going full blast, headed for home through the driving rain. They were home some two and a half hours later. Half an hour more and they had hot showered and changed into dry clothes. The gas central heating was throbbing nicely and the fire was glowing. A bottle of red wine was open on the coffee table and they were starting to relax. Wales and camping were forever more, mutually forbidden subjects.

As a consequence Tas had decided to forgo the offer of promotion and stay in Somerset. Tony was very careful not to say a word about it except to express his pleasure at having her home again. The other bonus was that Tas stopped talking about him finding another job.

He was in his office catching up with his trainee reports when the phone rang. It was Sue Mandelow. As usual she started straight in without any Preamble.

"Tony? Sue here. Two things I want to talk about."

"Hello Sue. What are they?"

There was a pause as she was obviously reading something on her desk.

"First thing you will be moving office in a couple of weeks. We have agreed that you will move up to the old Weston College building. Can you ring Evan Williams who is the administrator up there and go and make an appointment to visit and look at your new premises?"

She gave Tony a number, which he scribbled down. Sue carried on.

"Secondly we have had a cancellation here for an Adventure Week. You know what they are."

It was not said as a question. Tony rapidly racked his brains, but nothing about Adventure Weeks was in there.

"Sorry Sue, sever heard of Adventure Weeks."

"Buggar. Look I am a bit pushed at the moment so can you ring John Jeffries and he will explain it all to you. All I can say at the moment is there is one available now and if you can find twenty trainees you can have it. Don't forget to ring Evan Williams."

She rang off before he could answer.

Tony thought about it and wondered why on earth he was doing this when they had an office manager sitting on his backside most of the week doing what appeared to be absolutely nothing at all. He decided this was going to be dropped in Malcolm's lap. He waltzed down the stairs passing Angela's empty desk, through the assembly hall, and into Malcolm's office. No Malcolm and no sign of his coat or any other possessions. If fact the desk was completely clear and no one would have known that Malcolm had ever been there. He went back out to Angela's desk. It was still empty, but the sound of a flushing toilet gave him a clue as to where she was. Angela appeared stage left closing the toilet door behind her. She gave him her usual brilliant smile.

"Hello Tony, looking for me?"

Tony smiled back. He liked Angela.

"Hello Angela, looking for Malcolm actually, have you got any idea when he will be in? His office looks like the Mary Celeste."

"Oh. Didn't anyone tell you?" He's left. Got a job as administrator with some charity worried about badgers somewhere up North."

Tony knew his mouth was hanging wide open and made a serious attempt to close it. He was stunned.

"But he was here yesterday morning, yesterday lunchtime in fact. I spoke to him."

"Yes' I know he was. He got the letter telling him he had the job yesterday morning and spent yesterday clearing his desk and tidying up any outstanding items." She paused. "Didn't he say anything when you spoke to him?"

Tony shook his head.

"Not a bloody word. Nothing." He frowned. "How can he just up and leave? My contract says there has to be a months notice on each side."

Angela smiled at him.

"Yes I know it does, but nobody takes to much notice of that you know. After all this is not a permanent job is it? Its right that the County have to give us a month's notice because we have mortgages or rent to pay and notice is necessary, but they don't usually expect the same from us especially when the job is up in the north of Scotland and Malcolm has to find a house and a school for his kids."

"Kids? Malcolm is married?"

He was amazed. He had never dreamt that Malcolm might be married. He couldn't imagine Malcolm actually pulling himself together long enough to ask a woman to marry let alone imagine that one would actually say yes. And as for getting his leg over he just could not imagine Malcolm sweet-talking any woman.

Angela was openly laughing at him now.

"Yes. Malcolm is married. He has got six kids."

"Six kids?"

Tony's voice had gone squeaky. Malcolm not only married, but with six kids! Malcolm who found it hard to say good morning to people had managed to get his leg a minimum of six times. He was stunned. He turned for the stairs and his office wondering if Malcolm knew how cold it could get in the North of England. He would have to find something warmer to wear on his feet than those ratty sandals he usually wore, socks or no socks. He shook his head again as different pennies dropped. That was why was it was him that had to talk to William Evans about the new premises when he was just a supervisor, the lowest of the low. He walked to his desk and picking up the phone dialled the number that Sue Mandelow had given him. It was picked up immediately and a strong Welsh accent came on the line.

"Weston-Super-Mare College of Further Education, William Evans speaking."

"Hello Mr Evans. My name is Tony Filton. Sue Mandelow asked me if I could talk to you about the office accommodation you are going to provide for us."

"Hello Tony, I am a bit busy at the moment and cannot leave the office. Can you come up here?

"Where exactly are you?"

William Evans explained how to get to his part of the college and Tony took a few notes before he realised he knew where Evans was located. It was a huge old-fashioned building up on the cliffs on the back road from Weston to Bristol. He had thought it was derelict as the new Weston College was situated about a mile from this place. He asked about parking and having been assured they had some, picked up his briefcase, and went down to his MGB. Angela was talking to Cec Goodman as he went by her desk and he nodded to him and threaded his way through the gang of trainees and out into the car park before Cec could button hole him about one of his kids who was ready for the real world.

Tony climbed out of the MBG in to the empty car park and looked around. The building was Edwardian/Victorian and it dominated the cliff top on which it was sited. The front of the building was practically all windows, which were set in sandstone frameworks. They started two feet from the floor and went up to within a foot of the ceilings. He had been there once with Tas to go to an art exhibition and knew that the old classrooms were spacious and airy. He wondered if there was any individual office space or if everybody would be expected to share. He rather favoured the latter. He followed William Evans instructions around to the side of the building and came to a stone porch and doorway that in area was nearly as big as his current office. Through the porch was a small vestibule, which contained a set of stairs climbing up to the second floor and a door to the right with a plaque with William Evans, College Administrator written on it. He knocked. The strongly accented voice from his earlier telephone call answered.

"Come in"

The door was slightly ajar so Tony gave it a shove and walked in. The man behind the desk looked medium height and had Celt written all over him. He had a full set beard, a full head of hair despite the fact he was probably in his mid fifties, and eyes so dark they looked black. He stood and held his hand out.

"Mr Filton, nice to see you. I am William Evans, but please call me Bill."

Tony smiled.

"Anthony Filton, but please call me Tony"

"Have a seat."

Tony sat in one of the chairs in front of Bill Evans desk, placing his brief case on the floor beside him. As he did Evans' phone rang.

"Excuse me, Tony"

Tony lifted a hand to show he understood and Evans answered his phone. The conversation was about College matters and Tony allowed his eyes to wander around the walls of the office. It was quite a decent sized room at least as big as the one he shared with Roy and Sandra, but the walls were full. Right behind the desk was a large Welsh flag complete with dragon. To each side of that were some posters advertising a well know brand of beer with the legend "Never forget your Welsh" printed on them.

One wall was dedicated to photos of the inauguration of the Prince of Wales and his following career. A third wall was covered in pictures and posters of the Welsh Rugby Union team most of them showing groups of players holding up the same trophy which Tony took to be that trophy cup of the annual rugby tournament between Wales, Scotland, Ireland, England and France. He couldn't se the fourth wall because it was behind him and was reluctant to turn around and see. He did not realise Evans had finished his call until he spoke.

"Greatest rugby team in the world. You a rugby fan Tony?"

Tony knew when go with the flow.

"Yes indeed Bill. I never miss a televised game if I can."

Evans went into a kind of daydream. He pointed at the wall.

"I was actually at most of those games. I am a lifetime member of the Welsh Rugby Union Fan Club."

"Wonderful."

Evans smiled as if in fond memory and knocked his closed hand against the front of his chest.

"Yes, makes you really proud to be Welsh when you see those boys run out"

Tony allowed his sale office persona to take front stage.

"You must really enjoy going back in the old country."

Evans smile got broader.

"I have never missed a game."

Tony allowed the sales office training in him complete freedom.

" Now they have the Bridge it must make it so much easier to go home for the weekend and take in the game while visiting your relatives."

Evans looked shocked.

"Whole weekends? Look here Tony do you know what weekends are like in my part of Wales?"

Tony realised he had moved into an area of danger and cursed himself for giving in to the sales office persona. He went for honesty.

"No Bill. I have to confess I do not."

"I will tell you then," he visibly gathered himself. "Firtsly the Welsh Language Society have insisted that every sign in Wales should also be shown in Welsh. That I can live with except some of the silly sods then go out and deliberate spray over all the English language on the signs and as I, though a true Welshman, do not speak more than ten words of Welsh I have to ask some bugger which road to take. Secondly, where I come from they do not serve alcohol on Sundays. That means that unless you take a drink with you then you go without." He continued. "Now I can live with that, but my mother and most of her friends are Welsh Baptist true believers so if I take as much as a half of bitter on a Sunday I get this stony silence that continues until I leave." He shook his head. "Lastly, my wife is from Bristol. Yes I married an English girl so I will be down on all counts. Drinking on the Sabbath and married to a foreigner, so you see apart from going to Arms Park in Cardiff for the rugby I haven't really visited Wales itself for nearly twenty years."

He paused and pulled himself together with a visible effort.

"Right. Lets go and look at the accommodation so you can see if it will be enough for your staff and where you are going to put them."

He reached behind him and took a set of keys from a keyboard.

"My staff?" thought Tony. "Perhaps I better just go and look at what is on offer and keep my mouth shut. I am not doing to well so far."

He stood and followed Bill Evans out of the door.

Chapter Thirteen

A bit of a surprise, April 1983

Tony had looked at the accommodation and taken notes. It consisted of two rooms. The first was a large classroom and he worked out that if he laid out desks around the wall and then two back to back in the middle of the room he could get twelve in, although the middle desks could not have phones unless they were allowed to take the floor up to put the line in. Bill Evans seemed to be a bit nervous about giving a go ahead for this. The second room was a funny size. Long and narrow it had room for two desks. One at the far end from the door, probably for the Unit Manager and the other one could go against either wall half way down. It could be used for interviewing trainees or any one else such as staff applicants or future employers away from the turmoil of the main office room. It had less privacy than the current offices, but Tony did not see that as a negative. After all we are all in the same business and if we are all in the same room that would not be a bad thing. Locked filing cabinets would take care of any privacy issues.

He had Angela type all this up into a report and this itself caused a problem. There was a knock on his door and Angela walked in. She held up the notes he had given her.

"Tony, is this private?"

"How do you mean?"

"Is anyone else allowed to know about this?"

"Hang on Angela."

He rang head office and asked for Sue Mandelow. Not in. He asked for John Jeffries. Not in. Sandra asked if he would like to speak to the scheme administrator. He said no. It wasn't in his interests to drop Sue Mandelow or John Jeffries in the deep doo doo. He turned back to Angela.

"Lets assume this is highly confidential until we can get hold of one of these people."

Angela smiled.

"Ok Tony."

Tony sighed.

By three in the afternoon he had all his notes in his hand, nicely typed up. He picked up the phone and rang Bristol. Sue answered her phone this time.

"Hello Sue, I have been to see the new offices and have all the details here. Do you want me to bring them up?"

"Hang on Tony."

He heard the phone hit the desk and then he waited for over five minutes until a slightly breathless Sue came back on the line.

"Tony, are you in your office?"

"Yes."

"Can you come up here straight away and bring any details you have with you?"

He thought about it.

"Well I have two appointments to see trainees this afternoon, but I can cut them short and be in Bristol in about ninety minutes."

"Can't you cancel them?"

"No Sue, I can't."

There was another moment's silence.

"OK Tony, lets say we meet at three o'clock. That will give you time for a bite of lunch and I can get things arranged this end. Come to John Jeffries Office."

She hung up. Tony put the phone down and then sat back in his chair. Something was up he was sure of it. His problem was he had no clue about what it was. He had an idea. He went down to Angela's desk. It took him ten minutes to persuade Angela to do what he wanted her to do, but in the end her own curiosity got the better of her and she agreed. Tony went back to his office and arranged to have his two trainee visits brought forward an hour.

When he returned he went straight to Angela's desk. She looked up from what she was doing and the look on her face told it was not good news. He raised his eyebrows in a questioning manner. Angela took a deep breath and started in.

"I rang Sandraa like you said. She said she has known we were going to move for several weeks as the school has told the Education Department they do no want us here anymore. Malcolm was supposed to have it sorted out by now, but when they rang William Evans this morning he told them Malcolm had never contacted him. That is why they asked you to go over there."

Tony nodded. Typical Malcolm. One had to feel sorry for any poor badgers he was supposed to be looking out for. He looked at Angela and her body language said she still had some more news. He r body language also said he wasn't going to like it. He asked her quietly.

"What else did she tell you?"

Angela's voice was little more than a whisper.

"They have been interviewing people for Malcolm's job all morning. We are going to get a new boss."

Tony thought about that for a bit. Angela tried to cheer him up a bit.

"Well at they just can't be any less effective than Malcolm was and at least we know it won't be Cheryl Baxter."

This brought Tony up short. Up until now he had been able to run his trainees in exactly the way he saw fit to do it. His immediate supervisor, when he thought about it, he had only actually spoken to face to face on at the most five occasions. His area manager about the same. That was about to change. He knew full well if he was taking over the area as Area Manager he would want it run his way and that included trainees working in gangs on building sites, trainees in individual placements and trainees who were in any other situation. Then he thought of something else and shuddered. When his trainees missed a day and had no reason he stopped their wages, as that was what would happen to them in real life. He knew that in the rest of Avon County this was not custom and practice as the bleeding hearts did not believe in following the practises of the real world. So if he got some bleeding heart as an Area Manager he might find he could no longer fit in and do the job the way he thought it ought to be done. He foresaw trouble if that happened and thought his best plan was to buy the local paper on the way to Bristol and check the situations vacant. At least Tas would be pleased he thought. He was wrong about that.

He pulled into the Bristol car park at five minutes and found a gap among the brightly coloured 2CV's. There seemed to be more of them than ever. He heaved his briefcase off the passenger seat and carefully locked it. As he turned towards the entrance he saw Paul's old Morris Minor looking abandoned and forlorn on the other side of the playground. He hadn't talked to him for weeks.

As he mounted the stairs to the reception area Sandra saw him coming and picked up her phone. By the time he entered the main office Sue Mandelow was waiting for him at the doorway to her office. He nodded and went to enter and as he did he saw Paul in John Jeffries office looking very serious. He turned to Sue.

"Paul in trouble then?"

She looked next door through the glass.

"No. We restricted the applicants for Area Manager in Weston to people who had been on the scheme for two years or more. Paul objected and took it to the Union. They upheld his complaint and started beefing and to be honest it is easier to interview the one or two who have been here less than two years that want an interview, than get involved in a Union hassle, so John is interviewing him. I should be in there, but I need to talk to you. I am surprised you never applied"

Tony looked at her.

"I didn't know."

"Oh, but Malcolm and the Union both knew and were supposed to tell everybody..."

She stopped, and then shook her head.

"Well I can believe that Malcolm just didn't want the hassle as he was leaving anyway, but the Unions should have told you. I guess they didn't out of revenge about the Cheryl Baxter thing."

Tony sighed and put his briefcase on Sue's desk.

"What Cheryl Baxter thing?"

Sue now sighed.

"Well we could not fire Cheryl because it would have come down to your word against hers because Malcolm would not have got involved knowing he was thinking of leaving us and she was a Union shop steward, so we transferred her to wages. We are changing the command structure you see and Cheryl's level of authority will no longer exist. So as we know she would be a lousy placement office we invented a position that she was capable of doing, but where she could cause no damage. She resigned after three days and the Union is now suing us for constructive dismissal. As you are quoted in her case files as the person who engineered it all I suppose the Union conveniently forgot to let you know you could apply for the job."

Tony was speechless. He wondered how much money was wasted on this sort of bollocks throughout the County Council. He knew from experience that Baxter did not have a case and would never be able to prove anything. He also knew from experience that the Union could wind things out so far that the solicitor's bills would be higher than any award they might get. He turned to Sue.

"My advise is to tell her she can have three months wages in lieu of notice if she withdraws her claim and just resigns. Tell her if she says no that you will see her in hell before you pay her a penny. She will be gone in a week. Now what about this meeting you brought me up here for."

Sue looked into John Jeffries' office and saw that Paul had gone. She tapped on the glass and Jeffries waved them in.

Tony spent about half an hour explaining what the new building was like and showing the floor plan he had drawn up for laying out the desks. John Jeffries looked at it and then started to edit it with a red biro.

"Look Tony, things are changing. The Special Unit will cease to exist at least in name and the Land Use and Construction teams will be held at two of each. Instead of several different units that are little fiefdoms there will be those four teams, six Placement Officers an Area Manager and a Secretary.

The placement officers will be responsible for all referrals to the scheme and with the Area Manager will decide if each kid can go straight to a commercial placement or needs time in one of the teams or some other sheltered environment like a play group, nursery or somewhere else suitable. Every body will report directly to the Area Manager who will report to Head Office. By the way, now that you know about the job why haven't you applied it?"

Tony smiled.

"If you only wanted people who have been here more than two years that is what you are going to choose no matter what the Union says."

Jeffries looked at Sue who looked away. They then talked over the move to the new building and to Tony's surprise he found they were going there in just two weeks. That meant that British Telecom would have to be contacted to put in the necessary phones and allocate them the original numbers to prevent absolute chaos. John Jeffries rang them from his office, told them what the problem was and gave Tony's name as the contact much to his surprise. At four thirty they thought they had a working plan. Jeffries asked Tony to excuse them for ten minutes and he went out to talk to Anne Jones.

At a quarter to five he was about to return back to the office to get his briefcase, he wanted to get out of Bristol and on his way to Burnham-on-Sea before all the other offices kicked out and the traffic started to jam. As he said goodbye to Anne Jones, John Jeffries walked out of his office and pinned a piece of paper to the notice board. Knowing all about the interviews that had been going on everybody still there despite the fact it was Friday and they crowded around the board. Several of them turned and stared at Tony. Jeffries then turned and walked over to Tony and put a piece of paper in his hand. Tony read it.

Tony Filton has been appointed Acting Area Manager of the South Avon Area for a period of three months. At the end of this time he will either be confirmed in office or the position will be re-advertised and open to all members of ACYOP.

Signed John Jeffries (Assistant Controller)

He looked at Tony.

"I know this drops you right in at the deep end Tony, but I would be really grateful if you could at least give it a go. I think you would be a great Area Manager." He smiled. "And it will really piss off Cheryl Baxter."

Tony looked at him for about ten seconds and then he smiled.

"OK John, How much extra a year is it and do I get it from day one?

Jeffries smiled back.

"Its another two thousand five hundred a year and yes it is from day one on the understanding that if you are not suitable you go back to your old rate and job title and if you resign in that time your months notice is at your old rate."

"It's a deal."

And they shook hands. Tony walked out well aware of the stares of surprise from the rest of the staff, especially Paul whose face was like thunder. As he passed her desk Anne Jones raised her eyebrows and pulled the kind of face that said well what about that then? He smiled back and escaped down the front steps to his MGB.

Tas was on his knee again and they were drinking red wine again.

"So did you have no idea at all that this was going to happen?"

"No and I don't think they did either. They had allowed for Cheryl Baxter to go and even Roy as well, but Malcolm caught them all by surprise. Added to that they were rewriting the whole staff reporting system anyway because the one they were using was crap. You really cannot have people reporting to two different lines of command. I just don't think they knew what to do. I was bloody lucky I arrived when I did or I would never have even known about it until my new boss introduced himself."

He realised that Tas' attention had drifted away. He nudged her. She kissed him lightly on the cheek and snuggled down further into his lap.

"Tony, now you have had a fifty percent pay rise do you think we could afford to go to the Greek Islands again this September."

Tony thought about the sort of evening a yes answer would bring him and he liked the Greek Islands a lot anyway. He kissed her back.

"I don't see why not, Tas. I don't see why not."

Chapter Fourteen

Once more to Wales, June 1983

Two months had gone by. The move to the new premises was over and thankfully things were settling down. The Land Use and Construction teams were the same as ever, but everything else had changed. They still had two of the original placement staff operating for what were termed normal kids, but it was pretty obvious that Tony could no longer look after more than thirty of the old Special Unit kids and run the area. To make things even more difficult Angela had asked to transfer to the placement unit.

They could hardly refuse. She had been sat at the receptionist position for over two years and deserved a chance to move on. As Roy Stone had not been seen at the office since Cheryl Baxter's resignation this left Tony short of a Receptionist/Secretary and three placement Supervisors. They advertised the posts internally, at the local Employment Office and the local Drop In Centre. To his complete amazement they had over one hundred replies. He had rung John Jeffries and had been told to run some preliminary interview and cut them down to three possibles for each post, then John would come down, and together they would interview them and pick the best candidates. He also told Tony that he had an older guy from the Bath unit who might well make Tony a good assistant. He could run the office, give Tony a lot more time to liase with the referring agencies, and set up new placements. He could get Bill, Bill Morgan that is, to call in tomorrow. Tony said what about this afternoon? And John Jeffries said he would see if it could be arranged. John was as good as his word and ten minutes later the phone went. It was Bill Morgan. Tony arranged to meet him at the office at three o'clock. The rest of the morning was busy. He saw two new kids who had been referred by Social Services, arranged for a service on one of the Land Us, Ford Transits and then went to visit some of his kids. He had lunch in the pub and got back to the office at five minutes to three.

Angela was still holding the reception fort until the new receptionist was chosen.

"Hello Angela. Has a bloke called Bill Morgan put in an appearance?"

"Hello Tony. Yes he is here. He is cleaning out the teapot at the moment."

"He is what?"

"He's cleaning out the tea pot. He said it was thick with tannin and you could never make a decent cup of tea with it in that condition. He went off to clean it up"

"How long ago was that?"

"About five minutes or so."

Tony was gob smacked. He wondered how seriously any private company would take somebody who came for what was to all intents an interview and decided the teapot was not clean enough to make his tea. A suspicion jumped to the front of his mind. Angelo saw it coming.

"No Tony, He is not a bloody teacher. As far as I know he was an Administration Manager for British Telecom before we got him."

Tony realised his newly found prejudice against the teaching profession was probably becoming a little too well known, probably because of his reaction to the Jody Flood case.

The first he had heard about Jody Flood was when the Careers teacher of one of the local comprehensives had phoned him. It seemed he had this girl who he just could not get anywhere with. She came from a broken home and he thought that their experience, ACYOP that was, with damaged children might mean that poor young Jody would have a better chance if they took her. Under careful questioning the Careers Master informed him that young Jody was of average intelligence, although her attention span was a bit short, was reasonable well mannered, but did not get on well with other girls of her age group probably because she was rather taller than the other girls, rather plain and did not go in for girly things like make up and pop stars and preferred outdoor activities. Tony asked how she got on with boys and was told Jody was the type of girl who would rather kick a football about than discuss fashion. He got Graham Good who ran one of the Land Use teams to interview her. Graham took her on and that seemed another problem solved.

Three weeks later Graham came into his office in a sweat.

"I just had to take one of my kids, Terry Ash, to the hospital. He has got a fractured arm and severe bruising."

Tony could see he was very upset and tried his best to calm him. Graham was unusual among the Land Use supervisors as he was not a macho man, but was quite sensitive and fairly gentle with his kids. He sat Graham down and asked Angela to bring him a cup of tea.

"Relax Graham. Your gang works out in the wood and fields. Sometimes accidents are going to happen no matter how well you look after them, especially with teenagers. You know how they like to show off to each other. Now tell me what happened."

Graham shook his head.

"It wasn't an accident. Jody Flood did it to him."

Tony knew his mouth was falling open, but couldn't help it.

"What? Why?"

"I don't know. Jody and two other kids were painting a section of that new fence we are putting with some wood protector and I was with the other three drill out the next lot of post holes. You can't leave them to use that machinery on their own. They could seriously injure themselves if you don't watch over them."

Tony realised that Graham was justifying leaving Jody and the others on their own when justification was not really necessary. Painting a fence at ground level was not thought to be a particularly hazardous job as far as Land Use jobs went.

"Where are the rest of your kids?"

"Outside in the van except for Jody. She did a runner."

"Bring them in, then go back to the hospital, and see how the lad is."

Graham went out the door and two minutes later came back in with five trainees all dressed in the scheme uniform of donkey jacket and Toe protector boots. Tony led the way into the small office and sat down on the edge of his desk. The silence built for a few moments and Tony allowed it to.

"Which of you two were with Jody and...?" He never knew the injured kid's name.

"Mickey. Well his name is Gerry really, but we call him Mickey because he has got these big ears."

The speaker stopped suddenly as he realised what he was saying, but Tony ignored it. If the kids themselves saw nothing wrong with the casual cruelty they inflicted on one another who was he to interfere. His job was just to make them employable, not angelic. He waved for the kid to continue.

"What happened?"

"Jody kicked him in the balls when he wasn't expecting it and when he fell over she stamped on his arm. Vicious cow."

He had not met Tony's eyes during any of the conversation and the others all cast their eyes towards the floor when he looked at them. Something was going on here that was for certain.

"Why would Jody do that and why didn't any of you big brave lads help Mickey, er, Gerry when Jody attacked him?"

The kid looked shocked.

"Take Jody on. She's a bloody nutter. She does martial arts at evening classes. Take her on? No way."

The other kids all nodded their heads vigorously. Tony wondered what was happening here. This girl was not the product advertised by the school's Careers Master when Tony had spoken to them.

"Did you go to the same school as Jody?"

Three of them nodded.

"Was she like this at school?"

They nodded again.

"Did the staff know about it?"

More nods and then one of the team who had not said a word until then spoke up.

"They had to ban her from doing any sports because she kept hurting people. That's why she was doing martial arts. They said it would," he struggled to remember and Tony helped him out.

"Channel her aggression?"

"Yeah, that's it."

Tony took a deep breath. He had always wondered how setting aggressive kids to beat the crap out of each other could calm that aggression. He knew kids that had boxed when he was at school that would still punch your lights out now if you pissed them off enough. He asked them the question.

"And did it?"

They were looking straight at him now. The same kid, probably the accepted leader of their little band, answered him again.

"No. That's why they were going to expel her out because she beat up one the younger kids up pretty badly."

One of the other team members who had not said a word until then joined in.

"Yeah, just because the poor little sod happened to walk into her shagging for fags behind the sports hall."

You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. The speaker knew he had crossed an invisible line and tried to become invisible him self while the rest of them shrank down into their Donkey Jackets. Tony suddenly understood what had been happening. What he now needed to know was why the sudden violence. He waited until one or two of them were prepared to look at him again. Then he stood up to take advantage of the fact they were all shorter than him.

"OK. What really happened?"

They looked at each other and nudged each other.

"You tell him."

Finally their seeming leader gave a big sigh.

"Well it's like this. We was well pleased when Jody joined the group. She is a bit of a weirdo and a bit ugly, but we all knew she, you know, shags for some fags." He shrugged. "Ten fags actually." He looked at the others who nodded him on.

"To be honest its been going quite well. Only two of us smoke, but we all buy twenty fags a week to give to Jody for, well, a bunk up. Two each a week."

Tony just stared at him. He was trying to come to terms with what persuaded a girl of only just sixteen years of age to have sex ten times a week for a total of one hundred cigarettes. It defied belief. He suddenly realised the team were all staring at him and he brought himself back to reality.

"OK, what went wrong?"

"Well Terry never went to our school, he comes down with Graham every day from Bristol. Last week he had Jody, but when he gave her the packet there were only eight fags in it." He shrugged. She told him the next time there should be twelve fags in it or he wouldn't be shagging anybody for a long, long time, if ever."

He looked around for support and the others nodded.

"We told him to be careful because she could be a violent sod, but he never believed it. This morning he had her and when he gave her the packet it only had three fags in it." He shook his head and shrugged. "It was his own bloody fault. We did warn him."

"What happened?"

"Well the first thing we knew we heard her say to him about where were the other nine fags, I suppose she included the two that he owed her. The silly bugger just grinned at her. She threw the fag packet up in the air and while he was watching it she kicked him right in the bollocks."

He couldn't resist laughing and the rest joined in. With some difficulty he pulled himself back.

"By then he was on the floor holding himself." He looked around for confirming nods to the rest of the team. "Then she stamped on his arm twice." He voice got a little louder. "It was his own bloody fault. Now Jody's gone and we are all in the shit."

Tony let it go quiet while he thought it through. Then he made his decision.

"Do you all live in Weston?"

There were a chorus of Yeahs.

"Then bugger off home all of you. Today is Thursday and there will be no work tomorrow so you can have a long weekend. Graham will pick you up on Monday as usual and by then we will know what we are going to do with you." He walked to the door and opened it.

"Are we going to get sacked, Tony?"

I don't know. Probably not if your telling the truth. Now go home."

They filed out.

The result of that interview was that Tony rang Social Services first to let them know what had happened. Then he visited the school after making an appointment with the Headmistress. At that meeting he explained to her what had happened and stressed the fact that as an organisation, ACYOP could not work with people who withheld vital information from them. The Headmistress replied that as professional educators the school could not give out specific information to any non-professional anybody who asked for it. This pleased Tony and he was then able to tell her that if that were the case in future they would only accept trainees from the school if Social Services were to recommend them. The tightened lips told him he had won this one. His absolute distrust of teachers was confirmed. Nobody should be allowed to teach until they had worked for at least two years in the real world.

He came out of his reverie as a short man in his early fifties came into the room carrying a gleaming teapot. He ignored Tony and walked to the corner where they made tea. He put the teapot down and turned.

"There you go. You willed be pleasantly surprised at the improvement in taste now all that old tannin has been removed."

He noticed Tony.

"Are you Tony Filton? Bill Morgan."

He held out his hand and they shook.

Bill Morgan was a bit different to anything Tony had seen at ACYOP. He was very laid back to the point it seemed that he couldn't actually believe he was working there. Tony himself had often had that feeling during the Cheryl Baxter period, but he had only been here a under a year while Bill Morgan had got over two years in. They had a long conversation during which although he didn't actually say it Tony got the feeling that Bill also could not believe some of the people that ACYOP actually employed. Bill had a lot of time for John Jeffries, but felt that as an outfit ACYOP were not always very professional. Tony listened and grinned inwardly while wondering how professional Bill Morgan was after two years in the Bath office. Tony had been there once and it had seemed absolute bedlam to him.

"Why do you want to leave the Bath office Bill?"

Bill looked at him as though he was mad.

"Have you ever been to the Bath office?"

"Yes."

"Well what did you think of it then?"

Tony was a bit stumped. Did he tell the truth or prevaricate. He prevaricated.

"Its your office, what do you think of it?"

Bill looked stunned.

"My office? I am there three weeks and it's my office? I don't think so."

Tony sighed. Not another cock up. He lifted his hand in supplication.

"Lets start again. Give me a brief outline of your time with us to date."

"Nobody has told you?"

Tony started to laugh. Bill looked surprised and then peeved and finally began to look angry. Tony waved his hand at the other to relax and finally got himself under control. He asked the question.

"Bill, how much has anyone told you about me?" He continued, "Officially I mean. How much do you know about Weston and what has been going on the last few months?"

"Well I know you got Cheryl Baxter sacked."

Tony sighed. It was just as he had thought. Bill knew nothing about him but gossip and rumour and he knew nothing about Bill at all.

It turned out that Bill had spent nearly all of his time at ACYOP in the East Bristol office. There he had been doing the job that John Jeffries thought he could do here. Bill freely admitted that at fifty-eight he had no ambition to climb any further up the greasy pole as he could retire in eighteen months when his BT pension would be payable. He had left BT when they had offered him a redundancy package he could not refuse and taken the ACYOP job for a bit more money and so that he would not be stuck at home all day alone doing the housework, as his wife was still working as a canteen manager at Marks and Spencer in Bristol. He said he could run the office and see to all the details of the area such as vehicle maintenance and repair and acting as a go between with the agencies that the clients came from. He could not type and was not prepared to work the switchboard all day. He had spent three weeks in the Bath office because John Jeffries thought he could straighten their administration out. After three weeks of it he told them he would rather stay at home and do the ironing than go back to that. Tony told him a shortened version of the Cheryl Baxter story during which after some of the weirder bits he looked at Angela who just nodded. They then agreed they would both give it a month and see how it went. Bill would start work in Weston on the following Monday. A good day as that was when JJ as he called John Jeffries was coming down to interview the prospective staff. Tony had an assistant.

John Jeffries arrived on Time and had a woman with him He introduced her to Tony as Diana Blackwell. She was less than five feet tall had a short blonde cap of hair and was slim to the point of thinness. She also had incredibly brilliant green eyes. John gave her over to Angela to fill her in with what was happening in the Weston office while he and Tony went into the smaller office. Tony got straight to the point.

"Who is the woman John?"

"Her name is Diana Blackwell."

"I know that, John, but what is she doing here?"

John put down his briefcase and took a seat. Tony remained standing.

"She is a placement officer in Central Bristol, but she lives here in Weston. She heard about your vacancies and asked if she could transfer down here to be closer to home."

"Is she any good?"

John looked hurt.

"Of course she is."

"So if I phoned Anne Jones she would tell me the same story?"

There was a silence. John finally broke it.

"Well I don't know. She hasn't been with us as long as you have as she only joined us three months ago. As far as I know she is OK as I have never heard anything different." He sighed. "Look Tony, this shake up we are doing means we have to lose some staff, a whole row of lower middle management in fact. The Union say, and this time I agreed with them, that where we can transfer people rather than sack them we ought to do it. The changes have worked well out for you so don't you think we should help a few of our existing people instead of getting in all new staff?"

Put like that Tony had no argument.

"Ok John, I'll give her a go. Where did she work before she came to us?"

"Well she had been out of work for six months following a serious operation, full hysterectomy actually, but before that she was a teacher right here in Weston."

Tony closed his eves and slowly counted to ten. When he opened them John Jeffries was laughing at him.

"Her husband still works there teaching higher mathematics to sixth formers so she knows all about your recent run in with their Careers Master."

He shrugged.

"Diana doesn't want to go back to teaching as it turns out. Don't know if that is because after six months off she has realised that eighty percent of the kids have no interest in Geography and History or if its because she doesn't want to work with her old man anymore?"

Tony had one question.

"If she doesn't work out can I get shot of her?"

Of course you can as long as you follow the disciplinary code to the letter."

Tony laughed.

"Why don't you just say no, John?"

He went over to Angela and picked up the list of people they had short listed for interview. Nine for what were now only two Placement Officer vacancies and three for the Receptionist/Secretarial post. He and John were doing the first interviews, but Tony had decided that as the receptionist job would be reporting to Bill most of the time he and Angela could handle those. When he had informed Bill of this decision he had been surprised, but from the way he went into an immediate huddle with Angela, Tony could see he was also pleased. Tony also told him if he chose a wrong un' he would be responsible for sorting it out.

By lunchtime they had seen them all and chosen the two they considered be best suiting for the post and then repaired down to the pub for a ploughman's lunch. Once they had been served they were eating and chatting away when John dropped the bombshell.

"Did you sort out those kids to go on that adventure course like we asked you?"

Tony with his mouth full of bread, cheese and pickled onion nodded.

"Good. Who are you taking with you as the other Supervisor?"

Tony managed to contain the explosion of half eaten food to the area of table in front of him and keep his suit clean.

"Me? You never said anything about me going."

John shrugged.

"Well I couldn't, could I? We didn't even know that you were going to be managing this area when Sue asked you to get a list of names, did we?"

"What has that got to do with it?"

"We have to have one senior person with every group, that's what it has to do with it. In Weston that is now you and Bill and I don't see Bill kayaking, caving and abseiling, do you?"

Kayaking, caving and abseiling, Tony put his fork down and sighed. If there were three things in the world he had no urge to do it was that three. Christ Almighty, He had always thought you had to be mad to do any of that stuff. He sighed again.

"Where are we going to do these wonderful things, John?"

John looked surprised.

"I thought you knew. It's the Brecon Beacons. Its only about three hours from here by coach and we get a discount because of the kids." He laughed at Tony's expression. "Cheer up Tony, you will probably love it."

"Who else is going?"

"Well this is a joint thing with Eat Bristol Area. At the moment we have Keith Derrick and Mae West, don't laugh Tony, that is her name, and you and whoever else from this area wants to go. I think Diana Blackwell is keen."

"How many kids are we taking?"

John thought for a moment and then said we can go to eight for each supervisor."

Tony thought for a moment.

" Is Keith an a real outdoor type?"

"How do you mean?"

"Don't piss about John, he drives like a lunatic so I assume that risking his life jumping off mountains and going down caves is what he likes best."

John shrugged and nodded his head. Tony sighed.

"Is he shagging Mae West?"

John choked on his shandy and pumped his chest with his fist.

"Right," said Tony, "Just as long as he doesn't want us to make up a foursome. If I have to work with an ex-teacher then I will, but I am not bloody sleeping with one."

John put his empty glass down and looked at his watch.

"I have to get back to Bristol, Tony. I will leave you to break the good news to Diana and will send you down the details and dates on Monday with Keith Derrick. You can get to know each other before you go off together. He rose and picked up his briefcase. Then as an afterthought he reached into his pocket and gave Tony a sealed envelope.

"Oh I nearly forgot to give you this." He took a thick envelope out of his inside pocket. "Bloody rules and regulations for adventure supervisors." Thought Tony and put it into his inside pocket.

Tas was hysterical. The tears were running down her face and she was unable move. Tony sat there if not exactly glaring then definitely not amused. "Its not funny, Tas." Tas broke into a fresh peal of laughter. "Yes it is. Its hilarious." She snorted. "A hole week of caving, canoeing and what was the other one called." "Abseiling." Tas slid even lower in her chair. "That's where you jump off a cliff and hope the rope doesn't break isn't it?" "Ha bloody ha," said Tony. Tas continued to snort into her tissue. "And in Wales," she shrieked. "The Brecon Beacons. Your favourite place on the whole planet and doing everything you never wanted to do" Tony began to fear she might choke and went over to pat her back. Tas nodded her thanks and began to recover. Then she took a look at his face and went off again into helpless laughter. Tony sighed. "I am going down the bloody pub." He left the room and took his coat of the hall peg. He closed the front door behind him and as he walked away up the drive he could hear Tas still laughing. He decided the would stay in the pub until closing time and hope Tas has laughed herself into an exhausted sleep long before he got back.

Then he heard the front door open and shut behind him, turned, and waited. Tas came trotting up the drive putting her coat on. She was still wearing a broad smile, but it was under control. They walked along in silence for a bit until they reached the pub. They ordered drinks and found a quiet corner. Tony was still in his suit and as he sat down he felt the envelope that John Jeffries has given him at lunchtime press against his ribs.

"Might as well get it all over in one go," he thought, as he knew Tas would get a fair amount of amusement at whatever the envelope contained if it was regarding the Adventure Week. He took it out of his pocket and opened it, pulling out the contents. The top of the pile was a leaflet obviously selling the adventure course. The rest seemed to be various photo copied papers on what ACYOP required of its supervisors during one of these course. He was reading through one of them when he realised Tas was holding a slim sealed envelope to him. He read what was typed on the front.

Tony Filton, Private and Confidential.

He opened it and read it expecting it to be some agreement he had to sign to say he understood and agreed to all the rules and regulations he had received in the well-stuffed envelope. He read it twice with Tas trying hard to crane her neck enough to see what it said. It was a sheet of A4 and obviously a copy of an in-house notice.

This is to confirm that Tony Filton has been accepted as the Area Manager of the South Avon section of the Avon County Youth Opportunities Scheme, reporting directly to John Jeffries. We wish him success.

Signed: John Jeffries

He handed it to Tas. She read and turned to him. "Well done Tony, Congratulations and if I may say its well deserved. I'll get some more drinks in to celebrate." She stooped and a slow grin spread over her face. " I expect this means that you can now look forward to these adventure weekends on at least a yearly basis.

Foot Note: I hope you have enjoyed this book and I thank you for reading it. If it gave you pleasure perhaps you should look at my other two books currently published at Smashwords, Cocaine and Vengeance. Both are thrillers rather than humorous so you might like to download the sample piece of each of them. I am sure that if you do you will enjoy it enough to purchase the complete novel. Lastly can I ask all readers that if they have enjoyed a book take a few minutes of your precious time to write a short review? They not only help others to decide if they will buy the book, but if they are constructively written they help authors to write better books.

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