I promised in an earlier post that I would write about my first job. After graduating from Secondary School and obtaining my Higher School Certificate, only one option was opened for me, finding my first job. I would at that time love to go to University but Mauritius had no University then. I would have to go abroad typically England for higher education but my family was unable to afford the cost.
The school system in Mauritius was the same everywhere in the British Colonies as I later found out in Hong Kong. Higher School Certificate was Form VII and School Certificate was Form V. Form V is Grade 11 and Form VII is grade 13 in Canada.
Finding a job was not an easy thing particularly an office job, recommendation and referral from some prominent persons were essential. The local newspaper did not even have a Job Search Section. Fortunately for me my younger sister was at that time being courted by a nice lad who had the good fortune of having as Godfather a Senior Government Officer. I was asked to prepare a Resume which the Godfather passed on to the Ministry of Finance under his recommendation, I was not even interviewed but if I did it was probably just to say hello. I got a job as Clerical Assistant in the “Registry” of the Ministry of Finance, hooray with a monthly salary of Rupees 200.
The Ministry of Finance was the most important Ministry just a level below the Governor and was located in the “Government House” which was the most important building on the Island. The “Registry” was located in a large room with high ceiling on the ground floor to the left. The room accommodated five staff, the Chief Registrar and four Assistants whose desks were positioned in a sort of semi circle facing the desk of the Chief Registrar. This set up was popular in the Colonial days, I saw the same set up widely used in Hong Kong establishments. The door and one window were kept open to allow fresh air through, we were glad that we had a large ceiling fan to keep us from boiling during the hot summer months. The Chief Registrar was a nice man in his late forty, a little bald on his forehead, very serious in his job, a little bit nervous at times, his name was Mr. Dosa. The clerical staff including myself was quite international in composition, one Hindu boy, one Hindu girl, one Muslim and one Chinese.
Government House just as it was when I was working there in 1965 at the Ministry of Finance
Across the room from us was another much larger room separated by a small corridor. That room accommodated six or seven Officers. Next in line on the hierarchy was the Deputy Financial Secretary, Mr. Bunwaree, an older gentleman in his fifty, with thick glasses. I thought that he must have gone through a lot of higher education than any of us under his command. He occupied a large room on his own, just like us with a large ceiling fan. The top man was the Financial Secretary, an appointee from The Foreign Office in London England. His office was somewhere on the first or second floor of the House but we dared not venture close to his office vicinity.
At that time Dr. Seewoosagur Ramgoolam was the Minister of Finance with an office down the Hallway, we did not however have a lot of interaction with his office. Dr. Ramgoolam was knighted by The Queen when I was still working in his Ministry and we all felt very proud of his Knighthood. Subsequently in 1968 he became the first Prime Minister of Mauritius when the Island gained independence from Britain.
The role of the Registry was to take care of all the correspondences coming in and going out of the Ministry of Finance. All incoming letters were personally opened by Mr. Dosa who after reading them would pass on to one of the four Clerical Assistants to record them in a large registry book. The letters were then divided among the four Assistants. Our role was to read the letter and file it in a new file or an existing file. On the cover of the file were two columns: “Date” and “Send To”. We marked the date and put the initials of the Officer who was to deal with this letter. The file was placed in an “OUT” tray on our desk. From time to time one of the “boys” who were messengers for the Ministry would clear the tray and deliver the file to the respective Officer. In the event that an Officer was unable to deal with the issue, he would pass on the file to his Superior Officer for action by again making use of the “Date” and “Send To” columns. Some important issues were sent to the Deputy Financial Secretary and the Financial Secretary as necessary. At the end of the day some files might come back to us and it was our responsibility to file and lock them away in a cabinet.
All replies from the Ministry as prepared by the Officers were sent to the “Typing Pool”. This was a large room with four or five female typists. When the letter was typed the typist would fill in the “Date” and “Send To” column on the folder cover and the file placed in the out tray for the messengers to take them away. The typing pool was quite noisy comparatively not just because the girls would be chatting at any available occasion but because of the tapping sound of the manual typewriters. So their room was quite a distance away from us.
An Olympia top of the line 1960’s typewriter at the Typing Pool. It was indeed noisy.
Certain letters were confidential and they would be handled personally by Mr. Dosa, the Clerical Assistants were not to be involved. Letters which were addressed to other Government Departments were hand delivered twice daily by our messengers, or immediately if it was of utmost urgency. Confidential letters would be sealed. It was the duty of the messengers to seal the envelope under the watchful eye of Mr. Dosa. The messengers were quite good at the task, involving melting a red wax stick and impressing the seal of the Ministry on the molten wax before it hardened.
Confidential letters were sealed by melting wax and impressing the seal over the molten wax before it hardened
There were four or five “boys” in the Ministry with a Head Boy. They did not have any serious education and were not able to read, write or speak English or French. We communicated with them in the local Creole language. They did however recognize the “Initials” of the Officers on the file cover to enable them to do their job. The boys did not have a room of their own but hanged around the corridor between our room and the Officer’s room. They did not have the luxury of a ceiling fan. There were a small desk and two chairs in the corner but except for the Head Boy none dared to sit while on duty. The boys’ job was mainly to bring files from one party to another, seal confidential letters, post letters, hand deliver documents, some personal errands for the Officers and last but not least to prepare morning and afternoon tea for the Officers precisely at 10 am and 3 pm respectively. On the corridor wall near the desk there was a series of buzzer which the Officers when requiring a boy assistance would trigger by pressing a button located under their desks.
Sometimes certain documents or files had to be sent to His Excellency The Governor whose office was in his residence at “Le Reduit” in the outskirt of town a half hour drive from Government House. Those documents and files would be placed in a metal box with lock. The box would be hand carried to the “Secretariat” office located adjacent to the Government House. The Secretariat had the duty of delivering mail to the Governor and every afternoon at a prescribed hour, the Government car would take the mail to “Le Reduit” under the escort of a Police Land Rover. At “Le Reduit” the staff held a duplicate key to open the box.
“Le Reduit” the official residence of the Governor of Mauritius. Originally built in 1749 on a 240 acres lot as a fortress, destroyed by cyclone in 1892, rebuilt and renovated
Occasionally His Excellency The Governor would pay a visit to the Financial Secretary at Government House. On these occasions we would be anxious to get a peep at the Governor, as he stepped off from his Rolls Royce, elaborately and pompously dressed in a white Military outfit with a large prominent hat with white feathers, white gloves and a sword hanging from his waist.
That was the good old days when life was simple.
This was how impressive formal and pompous the Governor was