South Bucks - Michael Bunce

At least that's what they called it when I left (and still do I believe) but when I joined the council it was known as Eton Rural District Council and at one point became Beaconsfield Urban District Council for a while thanks to local government dis re-organisation. I've often wondered if putting all three incarnations onto my CV would make it look more impressive... Nahhh....
The council offices once consisted of two adjacent houses in Windsor Road, Slough - Denmark House and Abbeyfield, which were joined together by an extension in the late 1950's, because quote 'councils should have offices of some dignity and not be

pushed into any hole or corner' unquote. By 2004 this had become 'old fashioned and inefficient'; the council moved to Denham and the old buildings demolished and replaced by a block of flats. A shame really, the old building had style and character and there was something special about working in a computer room with massive columns in the corners.
The council was my first job after leaving Windsor Grammar School - yes Grammar School but don't get the wrong idea - in those days there were three 'streams, A, B and C; entered the B stream my first year, when down to C stream the next and stayed there for the duration (except for that one morning I moved up to the 'A' stream before they discovered the mistake)

I started as office junior in the Treasurer's Department, and it did indeed include making tea for the Chief Accountant. Spent several years failing to become a CIPFA chartered accountant before the council acquired an ICL Distributed Resources System (a DRS 20 machine and several dumb terminals), and I borrowed the computer manuals to teach myself first BASIC and then COBAL. Developing a small system to record and retrieve the council's parking ticket data earned me a place in the newly-formed Computer Department (the Insurance Officer, three paper tape punch operators and myself). When they decided to go independent of the Tri-County computer service and bought their very own IBM System 38, I was the one who liaised with the department heads to establish the computer terminal requirements and locations, created blueprint diagrams for optimum cable runs, liaised with the cable company during installation and was responsible for assembling and installing all the terminals. For a while no-one recognised me unless I was carrying a large brown cardboard box with IBM on the side! All that remained after that was to teach myself RPGIII from the manuals and serve faithfully until sold off to Cap Gemini....