Sunday Blog 162 – 8th December 2024
Getting somewhere on time for me is often assisted when I have the arrival time noted as earlier than required. For example this week I had 12 in my diary for Christmas lunch, instead of the correct 1pm. That created a cheeky extra hour to wander around town, something I don’t do all that often.
I meandered past 95 William Street in the centre of town where Perth Building Society (PBS) used to be. I worked there in 1983 and as I stood at the entrance to the building where the ATM once was, I could almost see myself on that Saturday when they’d entrusted me with the keys to the main Perth branch.
Being thoughtless and 18, I’d been clubbing the night before, and imagined I would wake up on time without an alarm. At 9am I did rouse, however this was the time the branch was meant to be open. I hurled on my uniform, first rang a taxi (I didn’t have my driver’s licence) and second PBS, to let them know I was fifteen minutes away.
The wait for the taxi was agonising, but as my Leederville digs were very close to the CBD I was deposited there by about 9.15am. Yes, there was a queue of annoyed customers. I had to leave my handbag in the taxi as surety as I had no cash to pay the taxi driver’s fare. Debit cards were not a thing yet, or at least, I didn’t have a means to pay him other than cash.
Leaping from the taxi, I threw the keys to the supervisor who was waiting with her brow crossed and any expectations of my future potential crushed. No time to rest in the shade of her opprobrium, I rushed to the ATM to withdraw money for the taxi driver. He was still idling the engine, watching me keenly, not at all confident in my tacky eighties handbag as surety. I hurled enough cash at him and then rushed back into the branch to begin my Saturday morning shift.
I still had the giant spider earrings I’d worn to the club the night before. In my haste to dress, I’d forgotten to remove them. They jangled like pointed reminders of my utter unsuitability to be a PBS cashier.
They never entrusted me with the keys again.
In the 1983 photos of me in my PBS uniform (see above), I’m down to the last months of living at home in daggy old Scarborough before moving out to cool Leederville. I’m barely tolerating the effort to pose in my uniform.
2024 me stood and peered in to the large PBS space, now split in two and inhabited by a completely different financial institution. One side is all fancy-looking cubicles for people to discuss their banking requirements, with cashiers at the back for the straight forward stuff. I mentally conjured the long counter that we used to stand behind to help people open bank accounts. The cashiers did the deposits and withdrawals, calling from the back of the space to the long queue that was nearly always there. “Can I help you?” we would say, until I for one felt in need of some kind of psychological intervention.
How resonant it was to stand on the very same floor space again. To pay a visit to the past with the present me. And this, I realised, is part of my obsession with travel. I feel this resonance when I return to places I’ve been before (especially you, London, and you too, Greece). But the wonder is available at home as well, with enough blank time in the calendar.