24 February 2022 The Birthday Journal with a petite Irish chef called Carol and eventually she allowed me to prepare salads, taught me how to make trifles and sandwiches. I felt I deserved something better, especially when the well dressed black girls who worked for the council came in and were being all uppity. Although I was working, I kept applying for jobs as a sales assistant, a few people I knew had glamourous jobs on Oxford Street, Bond Street and High Street Kensington and I wanted to look glam too, well dressed, made up and positioned behind the Calvin Klein counter. All I kept getting were well written, polite letters that said no. I eventually ending up at the Hammersmith andFulhamCouncil Café which seated over 200 council employees. One summer, I met a Nigerian girl called Yinka. I was doing night classes at the time and when we got talking and she found out I knew how to use a computer she asked what I was doing working in a kitchen. “Idon’t knowhowtouseacomputer, but I’m applying for administrative positions,” she said to me. The next day, we walked down to the Job Centre and I found a locum position in the same Hammersmith and Fulham Council. I was interviewed and so thrilled when the call came through that I’d gotten the position. This was the beginning of many great experiences and my ability to get into Croydon Business College whilst still working. My work was accepted as course work and this was such a blessing tome. In 1992, I was hired by the Shoreditch Project Team, out of over 100 applicants. The Shoreditch Project Team, working under Hackney College was in charge of the biggest further education project in the UK and they paid my fees until I completed college. My job was to manage the office, the consultants and liaise with directors and organisations such as the Bank of England. At one breakfast meeting, my boss Chris quoted something I wrote on my application form. I loved my job, and they were gutted when I resigned. I was on a Ghana Airways flight the day after graduation because of a difficult experience but it was all part of God’s strategy. I had no network when I came back toGhana. Being a bit of an introvert, I had not cultivated any friendships after school and this meant that I had to find my own way. Ghana had changed. It wasn’t anything like the turbulent 80s, shops were well stocked with food items and Josephine Maria Andoh Mother
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