John Clough

John Clough was born in 1969 and started working for Abbey National in 1987 in the Milton Keynes branch. He progressed to Mortgage Advisor, then Kempston Branch Manager, then a branch in Lloyds Court and then into Fraud at Head Office in 1992. His personal highlights were the early days in Fraud and getting the union involved to improve partner-rights over pensions. He’d recently moved to part-time working.

His work involved making sure customer’s cards work, ensuring compliance with the card-schemes, liaising with the Complaints Department and working on new projects.

When Santander took over, Head Office was flooded with Spanish people and new controls were brought in. It was a big change and people were nervous.

He worked from home during lockdown and returned to the old Head Office two days per week. He was impressed with Unity Place at a ‘discovery day’ and now works there. He doesn’t think a return to full-time in the office is likely. It’s very modern and well thought out, but noisier because of the wooden floors. There’s an amazing bakery downstairs and a barber that he uses. He wasn’t involved in the project, but they asked for viewpoints.

He feels Unity Place as a venue may have a tricky location, but people will come if it offers what they want because most people have to drive to social occasions anyway.

When he started in 1987 he was unsure of his sexuality and Abbey National was very conservative. He was good at lying about his personal life. It was 2008 when he talked for the first time about his partner. Now there’s the Embrace Network and the lanyards.

He lived in Milton Keynes until 2004, then he and his partner moved away to somewhere fresh. Now he lives in Surrey, but stays with a Milton Keynes relative on Tuesday nights.