Starting work
Interviewer: What did you start work as?
Jack Rowe: I wanted to be a carpenter but I couldn’t get in on that. Then I wanted to work in a foundry and I couldn’t get in on that.
Interviewer: The foundry in Wadebridge?
Jack Rowe: Yes, Ironses. Then my mother come from Bodmin, a hamlet just outside Bodmin, so I used to go there to spend my holidays with my grandparents. Loved it. I knew a lot about Bodmin. So a vacancy for a telegram boy came up. I left school one day and two days later I was in there working as a telegram boy. And I stayed in Bodmin then 10 years.
Interviewer: Ten years actually working for the Post Office?
Jack Rowe: I was a telegram boy for 3 years then I took my exams and got through, jumped over the postal side and went into Head Office upstairs. I used to hate it. Summer time locked up in an office!
Interviewer: Still yearning for the sea back in Port Isaac?