So, there
isn’t a lot of photographic evidence from my DWAS Exec time just lots of words
and documents and columns and circulars. Plus all the old Exec minutes are too ropily printed to reproduce in a readable form here. Instead this is an updated account of
my tenure, originally published in 1990 but with some bits re-written recently.
How I ended up on the Exec was more by
accident than design. There had been trouble in our Merseyside Local Group (MLG)
and I called in Robert Moubert, then Local Group supervisor to assist. As it
turned out, he didn't really have any inclination to get involved which led me
to believe that perhaps I could have done a better job. Perhaps this was my
first mistake! When I heard that the post was about to become vacant I wrote to
the Society Co-ordinator David Saunders offering to take over. I received a
reply to say that the post would have to be advertised but in the meantime
would I be interested in becoming an admin assistant. So I did. I was seconded
to the Co-ordinator’s department even though he already had four assistants. I
can’t even remember what we all did except sit around in David’s ramshackle
house, laughing a lot and drinking tea. The highlight would be David standing
in his kitchen door shouting into the garden “Queenie!” I should explain
that was the name of his cat. Anyway when we did do some work for me it mainly involved
putting things into envelopes, sorting out labels and membership cards, that
kind of thing with fellow assistants like Alec Charles and Bill Baggs. We had a
laugh; Alec wound David up just to annoy him with petty criticisms and poor
Bill once got a right telling off for missing a departmental meeting. Just like
school!