When I started with HM Customs and Excise in the dim and distant past, I was but a child in arms back in November 1972.

I was proud of being employed as a public servant, even though I was being employed as un-established machine trainee, this grade was lower that AA. I bet many people don’t even remember this grade.

I was only 18 years old when I entered the department and thought I would not stay too long, because back in those days if you left before you had completed five years service you would get all the pension that you had accrued as a lump sum.

Back then, the pay was still not as good as the private sector. I lost money joining Customs and Excise, but the job was secure and if you worked till you were retiring age you would get a good index linked pension.

Back in the early 70’s you knew that there would be promotion opportunities in the future because anyone above HO (then known and HEO) had to retire at 60 or re-grade to EO until they were 62, then re-grade to AO between 63 and 65 and then everyone had to retire.

My first job was a fast keyer, which meant you had to complete more than 11,000 key depressions an hour as well as having a good sick record until they made you established.

Once you were established you could then go for a proficiency allowance which would increase you salary by a whole pound a week.

For the allowance you had to continually prove over an eight week period you had to have a consistent keying rate of over 14,000 key depressions an hour with less than a two per cent error rate.

If you dropped below that level you had to start your eight week period all over again. Once you had been given your proficiency, your key depressions were monitored every week and if you fell below the proficiency level you lost your allowance and would have to start your eight week qualifying period once again

I also remember that you were allowed a ten minute loo break twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. If you went over that time your supervisor wanted to know what you were doing.

In those days people were very grade conscious as you had to call anyone a grade higher that you, and in my case that was not hard because everyone was, by their title Mr, Miss or Mrs. and then their surname.

Your SMO (Senior Machine Operator - once again the grade is now obsolete) was your supervisor and their word was law. I was being constantly being told off for talking to the lady who sat next to me, even though we both could key and talk with a error rate of less than two percent. In the end they moved me and my companion to the front row of desks so they could keep an eye on us. It was worse than school we were treated worse than children..

There was no flexi working you had a choice of starting at 07.30, 08.00, 08.30 or 09.00 finishing at 15.30, 16.00, 16.30 or 17.00 respectively and you had a fixed hour for lunch. Once you had decided your start time you could not change it and if you were late you had pay deducted. Oh, you finished half an hour earlier on a Friday.

Over the years the pay, conditions and how you were treated were improved by the negations of the different incarnations of the union with the full support of the members. That is until recently.

From what I can see the Department is taking the improvements that the union have worked so hard for over the last 30 years plus the Department is trying to erode in a matter of a few years and take us back into the past. The past was not that happy a place.