Paphos People

WHAT I COULD HAVE BEEN.....

Graham was an accountant. He had gone into the job when he left school in nineteen sixty age sixteen years old at the very Victorian office of Henry Gittings and co. Henry Gittings himself was still the boss even though he was eighty four years old.
The first day that Graham started old Henry sat him down in the office and at the end of the chat he gave him a blank ledger.
“I want you to keep a personal account of your incomings and outgoings. It will be good discipline for you. Good luck lad in your new career. Oh by the way the cost of the ledger will be deducted from your first pay packet!”
Graham worked hard and strived to always be accurate and efficient in his work. After one year the personal ledger was presented to the old man for inspection, it did not balance by one halfpenny, despite the fact that Graham was fastidious and always had a notebook in his top pocket. He noted down every penny that he spent and could only suppose that he had lost the aforesaid halfpenny. But that was hard to believe, because every night at bedtime he ‘cashed up’ his small change, cross checking with his notebook, it was never wrong.

“Very good Graham but do try and do better next year” was the old man’s only comment.

This was in the time before calculators or computers, adding machines were huge time consuming mechanical devices a good accountant could add up a column of figures in his head much quicker, and Graham could.

Unfortunately for Graham he had a problem passing exams, even though he knew the subjects inside out, when it came to putting it down on paper he just couldn’t do it. So becoming a qualified Chartered Accountant evaded him. Even though he was extremely good at his job producing perfect and accurate sets of accounts he did not have the qualifications to sign them off.
That had to be done by the boss, by this time old Henry had passed away and his son, David, who was aged sixtyfour himself, took over the business, updating and modernising the office. They started using ball point instead of fountain pens!
If you were a client of Henry Gittings, you soon realised who was the best man to deal with your business. Graham would make sure that you were claiming everything possible against tax and would argue with the taxman on your behalf usually winning the case for you. Unfortunately he was destined to be a foot soldier in the accountancy world, never an officer.

But Graham had another life, this was the SIXTIES and Graham had a passion. A passion for POP MUSIC!

As soon as he got home from work he got changed out of his suit into jeans and tee shirt, the gaudier the better, turned on his stereo unit and on went the music a selection from his thousand plus LP collection. He was a fan of any music that was good, Motown, Rock, Blues and even some classical pieces. He read all the music papers from cover to cover every week. All the information was locked in his brain for future reference when required.

If ever there was a Jekyll and Hyde character it was Graham.

He researched the music business in depth, not easy in those days, contacting management agencies under the guise of being a music correspondent for the local newspaper. In return he was supplied with details of artistes from England and America when and where they were touring and very often generating a couple of complimentary tickets.
He managed to blag his way backstage to ‘interview’ the stars he always researched his quarry and was able to have in depth conversations. He built up a huge amount of autographed LP sleeves for his collection of music memorabilia.
He had the Beatles autographs on four of their albums, as well as all the popular bands and artists of the day. Graham was in his element recognised and admitted backstage without question at most of the venues around the country.

Then every Monday morning at nine o clock it was back to the day job, soberly dressed in one of his office suits, quietly adding up rows and rows of figures, balancing them up to get them signed off by the boss. He lived his life as an accountant, never getting credit but saving up for things in a savings account which generated interest and meant that he paid less for the goods. On reflection he was a very talented man in both of his ‘lives’. But given the proper opportunities he would have preferred to have been a Pop correspondent.