In lieu of what they now call a gap year, I worked as a hospital porter at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, in 1973. The porters' room divided into two factions, young men such as me, in late teens or early twenties, and older men, over fifty. The latter group had all served in the forces during the war. Apart from George, a communist guardsman, I don't think any of them had seen shots fired in anger. Jack, for example, had, if he could be believed, spent the duration of the hostilities in every brothel east of Suez; Stan had spent it, as he spent most of his shifts, asleep; Jock, a rebellious Scot, had been in the glasshouse; Tex, an American, who was probably no more Texan than me, but that was what we called him, had passed it cheating at cards; Harry, the intellectual of the group, read from 1939-45; Joe applied himself to learning the art of breaking wind on demand.
I saw a great deal in those ten months: dead bodies, frightful injuries, people in extreme pain and distress. I learned from the older porters all the tricks and dodges of the old soldier. Among the rules that governed their life were that one should never pass up an opportunity for tea or sleep and, above all, one should never volunteer for anything. If the head porter ever entered the the porters' room to call through the miasma of Player's Number Six and Joe's emissions to ask for a volunteer, and one of us young bucks put themselves forward, they would chant, like a Greek chorus, 'never volunteer for anything'.
I despised this maxim but, when unemployed, as I have been too much recently, I've found it hard to be enthusiastic about voluntary work. I approached several local employers, but, when I made it clear what skills I had, they backed away rapidly. The two that offered anything only had work that would have bored me, and turned me into a disruptive menace. This sounds awfully big-headed, I expect, and after I retire, I doubtless will volunteer. In several fields of intellectual activity, an enthusiastic and educated amateur can still make a contribution. But as a substitute for real paid work, no. This big society notion that library services can be provided by any willing volunteer is a dangerous lie.
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