‘I’m assuming that you have a good job somewhere?’
‘Oh right, yes,’ I said, telling her about my work at the Department of Education, and her eyes lit up immediately.
‘Now, that’s a great career to have,’ she said. ‘Almost as good as working in a bank. You simply can’t go wrong with the civil service. They can’t fire you for one thing, even if times are hard and you’re completely incompetent. Daddy always wanted me to join the civil service but I said, Daddy, I’m an independent young woman and I’ll find my own position, and find it I did on the foreign exchange desk at the Bank of Ireland, College Green. But I always think the great thing about the civil service is that you can go in there at twenty years old, spend every day of your life behind one desk and before you know it you’re an old man and it’s all behind you and the only thing left to do is die. There must be great security in that.’