Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

My mother’s ‘scrapbook’ includes an almost illegible, hastily handwritten CV (curriculum vitae) for my father, covering many years of work experience. It is almost illegible because my father wrote in a left-handed scrawl. In fact, when he attended George Heriot’s School in Edinburgh, the teachers would rap him across the knuckles if they caught him writing with his left hand.²

I should also point out that there is not always a direct correlation between my father’s CV and his testimonials. His handwritten CV uses two different colour inks, suggesting some kind of later editing. I will not attempt to make a definitive interpretation of the CV. I have included the handwritten and typed versions of the CV here, with the various testimonials so the readers can draw their conclusions. 

However, the secretary who typed the CV was also unable to fully understand my father’s handwritten copy. Evidently, no attempt was made to proofread it. Ironically, I ‘proofread’ the CV seventy years later, when it is no longer useful.

This was before the age of laptops, so proofreading was perhaps at a primitive stage. Moreover, employers then, as now, spent little time perusing CVs; they were unlikely to notice errors, or would clarify them orally at an interview.

The Typewritten CV

Interpretation of My Father’s CV

My father’s testimonials and certificates contain information about my father’s places of work, dates, and where he lived. Included, for instance, are the various boats he worked on and the various establishments he worked at.

One thing that emerges from this is that his education never seemed to end, as the certificates are dated from the 1930s to the 1960s. I can remember him coming home from work in the 1950s and 1960s; he would sit at the dining room table in the evening and do his ‘homework’ even though he was in his forties.

In other words, he attended various part-time courses while still fully employed, so he could pass his ONC and HNC engineering exams. I seem to remember my mother cynically saying that naval officers were offered a free university education with a salary at the end of the Second World War, but that my father didn’t take up the offer; this implies that he would not have had to sit at the dining room table for the next twenty years doing his homework!. I tried briefly to find information regarding free university education for veterans after the war but was unsuccessful. I’m fairly sure though that such programs were offered.

​Aside from this never-ending education, our family also had a phase of never-ending relocation. It can be observed how our place of residence became wholly dependent on his place of work. Whenever he changed jobs, we had to relocate.

Interestingly, he was married on 4 October 1940, some months after he enlisted in the R.N.V.R. Before this, he had worked as a civilian for the Admiralty at Rosyth dockyard. After the war, he continued his career in the Navy for about a year.

It is evident that he had numerous jobs in various places, initially as an apprentice electrician and later as an electrical engineer. Thankfully, my mother kept all of my father’s certificates and testimonials to provide us with more information. Given my father had a complex education and work experience, I will be discussing each step of his career in as much detail as is realistically possible in the next couple of chapters, beginning with his apprenticeship in Pratt Brothers.

 ² “The Children Who Were Beaten by Religious Leaders For Being Left Handed” The Devil sits on your left shoulder. The Right is the Hand of God. (…) Part of the standard discipline (…) meant reprimanding children for being left-handed. That punishment including beating the left hands of children with objects such as canes, sticks (…). To use your left hand was considered a cardinal sin. An indication of a tainted soul. https://phaylen.medium.com/the-children-who-were-beat-by-religious-leaders-for-being-left-handed-82e98a8048fe