Kendal Oral History Group aims to compile a picture of earlier times through the recorded memories of the area’s older residents. Mr B. Kitching was born in 1936. He was interviewed in January 2001:

WE HAD two headmistresses whilst I was at Castle Street School - Miss Hewitson and then Miss Cliburn, a delightful woman.

When I was ten, I sat what was called the eleven-plus exam, a sort of watered-down Mensa test, at the Allen Technical Institute, which I passed despite being poor at mathematics or, as my mother used to call it, ‘sums'.

So I went to Kendal Grammar School wearing the school uniform consisting of green blazer with the Kendal badge over the left breast, red-and-white school tie, grey trousers and socks, plus a cap with the school badge. If you were caught going to and from school incorrectly dressed you were put in detention. If you had two detentions, you were given extra work to do, and three detentions - you would be given the cane by the headmaster.

I left school with two GCEs - English language and French - and got a job at the Provincial Insurance.

I started as a claims investigator, which meant quite a lot of my time was investigating claims at places like Croppers, going to see pieces of pavement that people had fallen over, doing sketches of scenes of accidents, taking photographs and interviewing witnesses.

When I first started dictating my reports, you fit round a revolving drum a sheet of what looked like carbon paper and it was a very precarious business.

If you didn’t get it in line, it sounded alright to you but, when it got to the typist, it was all jumbled and a lot of long letters had to be re-done.

We went over to a number of different hand-held dictating machines, which were ideal.

The Provincial were very good to the staff. On the Golden Jubilee year, I was given a £10 bonus and I bought my first record player from that.

In addition, all the staff and pensioners were conveyed by bus to the Gaumont Tower in Morecambe for a free buffet meal and dancing and entertainment.

Peter Scott, the president of the company, actually came round and met every individual member of staff and came back to meet those, like me on holiday, he missed the first time.

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