I received some sad news recently. My friend, mentor and co-opted mum, Margaret Matthews, died. Sadly, I hadn’t seen her for some years, but we still exchanged messages at Christmas. Her death has made me look back over my working life and think about the personal and lasting impact of our colleagues.
At 15, I started as a ‘Saturday girl’ in the North Finchley branch of Boots the Chemist. In those days a weekend job in a top name high street store was a real get. I had been working on a market stall from 13. Boots was a step up: I got a uniform, I had set hours, defined lunch and tea breaks, paid annual leave, training and best of all, I got a staff discount – something that my whole family loved. I worked there on and off for 7 years, Saturdays and holidays. I left after graduation to pursue my career in the Civil Service. Margaret was there before me and worked on for many years after I left.
I loved working at Boots. I gained experience doing a whole variety of things: stock control, customer service, technical pharmacy stuff, beauty, photographic and technology experience AND people management – or how to work with others.
I credit this role with building my self-confidence. From day-to-day I was helping different types of people solve problems for their diverse needs. From finding what they need; helping them work out what medication is best for themselves, their child or their parent; to choosing a lipstick or a camera; through explaining we didn’t have something or, even worse, that we were no longer stocking something or (total disaster) it was no longer being made; and then putting in the effort to find a particular item in the stock room or another store. It was real life experience of thinking on your feet and maintaining a calm and friendly demeanour. Plus, let’s not forget, it gave me about £80 a month to do stuff, which as a teenager gave me real independence.
The customers were diverse, covering every kind of social demographic – pretty much everyone needs sanitary hygiene products or headache tablets at some point. That too gave me access and exposure to things outside of my limited frame of reference.
What I didn’t recognise at the time, and maybe only recognised this week, was how I formed relationships with all kinds of people on an equal footing. Most of the staff in Boots were women (including, for most of my time, the pharmacist and store manager – I was too young and under informed to realise that was unusual). Most of the team were much older than me. For most of them this was the job that paid for their lives. On Saturdays a cohort of us younger or more transient people working for ‘pocket money’ or to get by whilst at college or university. Yet, despite these very different motivations it was an inclusive environment. There wasn’t a divide between the people whose everyday life was working there and had been for a long time, who had all sorts of pressures – putting food on a family table, managing kids, caring for relatives and or studying – and people like me, who just rocked up on a Saturday.
I would guess that Margaret was in her 40s when we met. (I think it’s telling that I don’t know, as our relative ages really didn’t matter.) She worked in Boots part-time and had done for a number of years working around her family commitments. Why was she there? What were hopes and dreams and ambitions? Did I ever know? Did I ever ask? I did know she had been married (and remarried). She had a family and her pride in her grown up (compared to me) son and daughter shone through. I knew where they lived, the trials and tribulations of their lives from her perspective, as well as seeing her unending devotion to them.
What I didn’t have enough experience to know was how generous she was in sharing about her life. How she always took me seriously and treated me as an equal despite me being so much younger and less capable. She was respectful, caring and interested in me as a person and as a colleague. My nearly 50-year-old self has a much deeper understanding than my teen self and I now know she would have been carrying so many more worries and cares than me, but I was too young, selfish and inexperienced to even consider or think about those.
I am writing this as a tribute to her but also to get us all to think about the people in our lives. Each of us has a life story and a life outside of work. We don’t always (I certainly don’t) take the time to think, or even think to think about that. I truly feel Margaret was one of the people that shaped my values and attitude: I was treated with respect and dignity; I was treated as if I was worthwhile and had something to offer – and that’s something I’ve taken on as my benchmark I’ve had many jobs since where that wasn’t the case and I know now what a fortunate first experience that was.
My thoughts are with her family and I will attend her funeral in early October, but Margaret Matthews made a big difference to my life and I wanted to say that to a wider audience.