By Harry Mottram: It was May 1980 and after spending the previous four years at art college in Taunton I left to experience the cold realities of a much-changed world. Unemployed, skint and with a wardrobe derived from clothes from charity shops I set out to hitch hike in search of a job.
I had enrolled in September 1976 in the ‘year of the drought’ when prog rock was giving way to punk and the Labour Government of Jim Callaghan was passing various social reforms on homelessness, child benefit and the police. All to be swept away after Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives won the general election in 1979. If you believe some, the 1970s was a time of decline, inflation and industrial strife – but the realities were rather different with much lower unemployment compared to today, stronger worker protection with large trade unions and wages proportionally higher. There were grants for students (no student loans) and for all young people with no income the offer of supplementary benefits and plenty of part time jobs for students. In the summer breaks I had taken work on a local farm picking potatoes, weeding carrot fields and bagging vegetables but now with a Regional Diploma in Graphic Design I was looking for a ‘proper job.’ What that job was I wasn’t too sure other than I assumed it would be in an art studio drawing ideas for household names like Benson and Hedges cigarettes, Hamlet cigars or even Playtex bras. My college portfolio of projects bore little resemblance to what work was actually like but with an unfounded sense of optimism I scanned the job sections of Creative Review and Campaign magazines in the library.
With my girlfriend Linda we hitch hiked up to York for an interview – hitch hiking was pretty standard then and with Linda in her pencil skirt and high heels we rarely waited long for a lift. The interview was at a small art studio in the city centre – but my heart fell as there were about 20 other students clutching the same A3 black portfolios as me waiting for an interview. It was the first of many failures to secure gainful employment. I went for a job as a gardener, then in a factory, two interviews in Exeter for artists, more jobs in London – this time hitching hiking up the M4 – and was offered a job as a receptionist at a solicitors firm in Twickenham for £90 a month saying I could play golf which impressed the chaps interviewing me. Rent for a bedsit was £120 a month so I had to decline. Things were looking bleak when my former flatmate Frank Holmes said a dark room assistant was needed at a graphics studio in Teddington. My idea of a dark room was from college where we processed 35mm black and white negatives – but this was rather different. It was my first introduction to a PMT machine – short for Photographic Mechanical Transfer – it was in the days before computers and desktop publishing when every piece of artwork was pieced together on art board before production for adverts, graphics or publication.
A logo, illustration, a headline or photo was placed under the lens, the size of the finished print was adjusted by two handles which operated a large camera. The lamps that lit up the artwork were switched off and A4 photographic paper or light a sensitive foil (transparent film) was placed under the lid of the camera and ‘click’ the image was shot. The paper was run through a developing machine in the darkroom and you waited a few seconds for the chemicals to work their magic and there was another piece of the jigsaw that made up an artwork in the studio – although it had to be dried, cut to shape and glued in place. That was paste-up artwork – the names transferred later to computer artwork such as cut and paste.
I initially slept on the sofa at Frank’s flat in Feltham but managed to get a bedsit in Kew on Mortlake Road – and then cycled to work through Richmond every day. After a few weeks Linda moved up to join me and we rented a slightly larger bedsit in the same road with a shared rather smelly bathroom and a noisy couple next door who seemed to murder each other every night – but at least it had a kitchen and a double bed. Linda had worked for Debenhams in Taunton and was able to transfer to the store in Oxford Street meaning a long journey by tube every day. She hated the work as she spent most of the day being asked where the toilets were and on which floor was the lingerie. In Taunton her job was as a data imputer – essentially typing up information into a computer and using that skill she applied for a new job near Feltham and a higher salary – but a long bus journey. Linda’s salary was higher than mine which never reached £180 a month – and was even lower when I was briefly laid off and I took a temporary job as a clerk in Pimlico for a few weeks.
My job in the dark room had one benefit – it was my domain – it was warm and I could listen to Radio 4. In the studio at Noemic Design in Teddington was Richard and Steve – also from Somerset College of Art and Technology in Taunton (SCAT) – and they joked that Noemic (named after the two directors Noel and Mick) should be renamed the final year of SCAT. It could be quite noisy with Radio One on in the background, lots of chatter and laughter, possibly a darts match in the corner of the office and cigarette smoke filling the air. There were stacks of Letraset, cans of 3M Spray Mount, a waxer for gluing the artwork together and drawing boards complete with pens, scalpels, set squares and blue pencils as well as ash trays – and no computers. Coffee mugs everywhere – supplemented on Friday afternoons with a bottle or two of beer. On the wall there were calendars and posters of Page Three Girls or maybe a science fiction book cover design by Roger Dean or a poster from the latest Roxy Music album. So different from how graphics studios were to become once Apple Mac computers appeared in the 1990s when silence befell the workplace and nobody smoked.
Life in Kew was enhanced in those days with Kew Gardens being free to enter – and it was only a short walk to Kew Green with its pubs, Georgian church and cricket pitch and Hampton Court Gardens (pictured) was close to Teddington by bicycle. With little cash left over from pay day I lived on a diet of peanut butter sandwiches and raisins as there was little for the essentials – cider, chips and cigarettes – and despite more interviews for better paid jobs I drew a blank. I even invented more O Levels and A Levels plus adding new illustration and photography diplomas and copywriting skills to my CV which increasingly became more impressive – but with unemployment over two million things were tricky. It looked like I was stuck in the darkroom for life – until a job came up in Somerset and I posted off my improved CV. It did the trick and I was appointed as a paste up artist at LJA Advertising in Yeovil. A pretty humble position in retrospect but finally I was out of the darkroom and sat at a desk – which at the time seemed a big deal. I bought a motorbike on higher purchase for commuting and Linda and I moved back to Taunton and left Kew, Teddington, Feltham and the bedsit with its rather smelly shared bathroom and the noisy couple next door who seemed to murder each other every night behind for good.
Part one of this story is at https://www.harrymottram.co.uk/humorist-writer/features-2/confessions-of-an-art-student/
For details for the work of the journalist Harry Mottram visit www.harrymottram.co.uk and follow him on FaceBook, Twitter as @HarryThe Spiv, Instagram, YouTube and God knows where else!
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