All through the Night

All through the Night ©

By Michael Casey

Last night I listened to the radio all through the night, BBC Radio4, I’m a bit of a news freak so I listened on and off through the night, it was the night of the EU Vote after all, 23^rd to 24^th June 2016. Totoro our cat joined me from time to time to discuss the implications of EU exit and the price of Whiskas, then she miaowed and looked at the moon from the vantage point of the top of my bed post. Her tail swishing this way and that like a conductor, conducting stars in the heavens, before she jumped onto the windowsill to press her nose against the glass.

So in the morning I was exhausted but pleased, I had followed the news, one EU vote and 3 political leaders upset. From a news editor’s point of view of view a perfect story. When you spend a night doing something it’s always great to get a result.

I used to work till 2.30am, the graveyard shift and then catch a 3am taxi home, then by 4am I was asleep in bed. I think it was those hours that helped us conceive our first child, who will hopefully become a doctor. The downside of such hours is that when I ended that job it took me 3 months to deprogram myself to sleep at normal hours.

I did in fact do 14 plus years of night shifts, the full deal, we did 10 hour nights and even 12 hour nights. There is a strange feel to working all through the night, ask any night shift worker. Be it doctor or miner or factory worker. My nights were in computer rooms, I could not work in an office nor in a factory so a computer room was a good compromise. I started back in 1978, yes nearly 40 years ago.

I’d come in and tidy up after the previous shift, mag tapes galore everywhere, we’d put our selection of music on the ghetto-blaster, REM was big all those years ago, it’s the music which was the best part of the night shift. We shovel paper, 2 part or 3 part continuous listing paper, or audit forms. I’d have to climb Mount Everest in the paper store room to get more of the correct paper. I’d have to tidy up there as well. It was 20 year olds in charge of a room full of computers, disk drives were as big as washing machines then.

All through the night we’d sling paper here there and everywhere, the ghetto-blaster fighting over the noise of the AC and the barrel printers, years later we got a dedicated print room, even later a monitor room so we were not in the paper dust and ink. It was fun and we enjoyed ourselves, 10 years like that I suppose, and yes I carried a lot of people, I’ll leave it to your imagination.

At 2am it was kicking out time from the night clubs, we were directly over one and could watch down into the Chinese Quarter, we were on Smallbrook Queens Way behind New Street Station, above Superfi, which is still there. So now you know where my misspent youth was spent. We all worked hard and sung and shout and let it all hang out while we worked on market research into alcohol sales. A job for life or 21 years in my case.

4 am in the morning we would watch the sun rise over the Blues ground, it was a Pagan ritual for us, I must have seen the sun rise 1000s of times, so in a way that was a privilege, seeing Dawn every morning. You also hit the Wall, not the same one as in running the marathon, though night shifts can be a marathon. No the wall , our wall was the Sillies, because you were so tired your body just had enough so you would laugh at anything, so we had a tea break until it passed.

Other people Normal people, never work a night shift, for them All through the Night, means a night of passion with Doreen from accounts, or a night at a party where they fall asleep in a heap with everybody else. The last man standing is dancing with that pretty Indian Police Girl, he works night shifts and she works them too. So there is a bond between them, whether she takes down his particulars is up to them, but she does have handcuffs.