R Steve B introduced Allison, noting Allison's experience and perspective different from his. Allison worked with locals 'Brits' whereas Steve's class was half foreign from around the world.
Allison was in London England from September 1985 to the summer of 1986. She worked for Westminster Council in London during that time.
Getting the job in London at that time was the easiest and quickest job she ever got. She didn't know until she arrived whether she would be allowed to work because she didn't have a parent or grandparent from the UK. However, no restrictions were put on her passport on arrival at Heathrow. In London she went to the Job Centre and explained her situation and was given a choice of 3 short term positions. Two in retail and one at the council. She started the next day at Westminster Council.
Allison worked in the Housing department. She started at the basic filing and general clerical jobs, then moved to balancing rents as a double check. Then she started collecting rents and balancing.. She sat in a booth for her area of estates 'Maryleboone'. She compared it to the image from the old 'Scrooge' movie and Bob Cratchet's station. They had huge ledgers that all collections were marked in by hand. It was going back in time. At some point in the afternoon you balanced using an very old fashioned crank calculator.
Her co-workers were great. One older fellow loved to joke with Allison and his wife always made her bread pudding (which is more like fruit cake which Allison loves). He would bring her a hefty slice regularly.
One time he came over and told Allison he had to go down her drawers. Allison was taken aback and everyone laughed and he explained he had to look in her desk drawers.
Once in a while Allison would have to travel in the Tube to another office with him. He said he would knock her up. She explained that that phrase had another meaning in Canada. Allison was told she has an expressive face and was often the but of a joke.
There had been IRA bomb threats on the Tube and Allison at times was nervous about using them but the locals thought nothing of it. They were used to the threats.
Allison at that time felt uncomfortable using the term 'loo'. So her boss said to use toilet and not bathroom as the two are different in England. A bathroom is separate from the toilet and bathroom is where you wash up.
As Christmas was getting closer she was told she would likely be let go, that Council wouldn't want to pay her for the holidays. But she was kept on.
Christmas was an experience. Everyone brought in bottles of alcohol on Christmas Eve and the party started at 11am. It was her co-workers ambition to have her try various drinks from all over when they found out she hadn't tried many. When she got home she said she felt like she was walking on a cloud.
In the new year she started to act as a witness to civil weddings. which meant she got to go up to the beautiful grand room. The building was 400 years old. She normally worked in the basement and a 2nd world war unexploded bomb had been removed. The grand room was decorated with fresco's and paintings and she felt she was in Buckingham Palace.
Another job she had was organizing a 100 year old birthday party for a council tenant. It was Council practice to do this. This lady was in hospital when she turned 100 so they delayed the party until she turned 101. She was a fabulous old lady, complete with an ear trumpet. It looked like a big gramaphone she held to her ear. You had to yell into it. But if you yelled too loud she said she wasn't deaf and if you were too quiet, she would remind you she was deaf. She wanted an afternoon tea with cakes and scones and 'posh' jam and tea and lots of Sherry. The party was a great success and the lady was a wonderful story teller. while she and her guest drank lots of Sherry.
Then Allison started working with the CAO. The Council had major problems with squatters. Basically if you squatted in an uninhabited flat and received mail for 3 months you could prove the flat was yours. Allison's job was to police these flats and organize repairs needed to the flats to make sure they were habitable. This was a new experience for Allison at age 24. Her experience was that all apartments had their own washrooms / toilet facilities. Not the case in London where the bathroom was often shared sometimes by 4 flats and toilets were also shared. Some estates still had outside toilets in 1985.
Allison shared her thoughts on rent collecting and squatters with the CAO, like using computers rather than big ledgers. The CAO explained about job losses if they went to computers and said 8 letters would be sent to squatters rather than 3 Allison had suggested.
Allison had to arrange contractors to fix and repair flats. In London the tradesmen never cleaned up after their work was done.
There was a Scotsman that Allison worked with who would refer to her as the American. She objected as she felt very patriotic in London. He would not relent saying we were all the same, until Allison referred to him as an Englishman, that they were all the same. He was a character and a big help to Allison particularly with the trades and getting flats repaired.
Her co-workers showed her the finer aspects of British culture like eating eels with mash and green liquor, green gravy from the eels. She couldn't make herself eat eels. Another was Guiness, served at room temperature as were most beers. She thought Guiness was like mud. She tried steak and kidney pie, but prefers heavy on the steak. She liked the ploughman's lunch and especially cream teas and hard cider.
She did comment on her questioning if she had made a big mistake marrying Steve but 37 years later still together. She suggested that it was her who gave in like shopping after dinner rather than on the way home because Steve didn't want to do it then. The sacrifices she made.
Very much appreciated.