In spite of one particular uncalled-for sick comment made to my last submission, I am still going ahead with this narrative as I firmly believe that 99.9999999999% of readers are genuine healthy individuals. This is for them and not the vindictive ones.
That particular comment was so abusive that I deleted it immediately, and I would do so again.
Please note: The events I am describing do not relate in any way to the order in which I wrote my stories. I wrote those when odd recollections caused me to remember these events, and I subsequently composed stories round them.
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In my last chapter I said that I had been appointed as a headmaster in a primary school in the South of England. Until then only the largest schools had secretaries, but a new system meant that we were also entitled to have one in the future. Until then, as a teaching Head, I had been able to bring in a supply teacher for two afternoons a week so that I could attend to some of the administration. Most of the admin, though, had to be done after school hours in my own time. But this new post of secretary would also be for two half days per week, and I felt it would probably be easier if we were to make it on the same afternoons so as to be able to communicate better.
I duly advertised, and obviously I received a number of replies. These varied, of course, from completely and obviously incompetent applicants to some who seemed to really fit the bill.
I managed to short-list these applicants, and duly wrote to the others informing them that they had been unsuccessful.
I saw each of the short-listed candidates in turn, explaining to each that they were only one out of the final six candidates, but promising that I would let them know by the end of the week.
I saw these applicants in the evenings, this being the time which suited all of us, and would have been happy with any one of the first three I saw. They were all fairly young, and were all parents of children in the school. The next one I saw was slightly older, but seemed quite competent. Then the next one proved disappointing, and I immediately dismissed her from my list, although I said nothing to upset her at the time.
But it was the last one who really made me say to myself, "This is the one". She had been a school secretary prior to moving into the area with her husband, and seemed extremely competent. She also made me look at her twice, mainly because whilst we were speaking together she sat quite nonchalantly with legs crossed, causing her wrap-over skirt to fall back until she was displaying far more of her thigh than was usual in those days. (This was well before Mary Quant and her mini-skirt era.)
I could not help looking, and I must have made her aware of my interest there, for she smiled, looked me fully in the eye, and said, "Sorry if I am distracting you."
She then pulled the material together, but as she remained with her legs crossed a slight movement from one of them immediately caused the same thing to happen again as the material fell away from her thigh, but this time even further causing the stocking top to appear. I was silently hoping for a further movement which might (hopefully) cause it to fall further and reveal her suspender or naked flesh!
Anyway, the interview continued, and as I said, she was obviously the most competent applicant, even forgetting the added interest in her that I now had.
I told her, there and then, that the post was hers, and that I hoped that she could start the following Monday. She was agreeable to that, and so we said good-night, and I got down to writing the letters to the unsuccessful candidates.
On the following Monday morning, therefore, we were all assembled in the staffroom and Mrs. Steadman was introduced to the others. ("Call me Mary, please, while we are in the staff-room at least," she asked, and we all agreed but also affirming that her full name would always be used outside that room.)
I had already explained to her that we had no separate room for her to use as an office, but she said she would be quite happy to share mine until such time as we could make arrangements for a secretarial room.
Again, we had no secretarial desk, either, and the only furniture she could use was one similar to mine -- a table and chair, although her table had on it the telephone and the typewriter which she would be using. So I was able to look across at her and without apparently seeming to do so I could once again gaze at that display of hers, now a little more obvious than in the interview, owing to the fact that without even crossing her legs the split in her kilt allowed it to fall open, so that I was treated to a lovely display of inner thigh and stocking tops when she seemed unaware of having her knees slightly parted, as she used to do whenever she was typing.