National Insurance

This occurred in the late 80s.
My window cleaner colleague used to go to the Post Office every Monday morning and get 2 self employed stamps. I had suggested this to him several years before because he had got a little behind with his weekly stamps.
As seklf employed people we paid a flat fee of around £4.00 each week. At the end of the financial year we were sent another card and also sent an envelope to return the full card to the local Employment Exchange. In our case this was Grimsby. Each week one was supposed to stick the stamp on the place provided and cancel it with the date written on the stamp. This I did every week.
Well I guess it would be late spring I received a buff envelope. Nobody liked that colour envelope as it generally was bad news. This was no different. It was an offical letter informing me that as I had not returned my N.I card for the year ending April I was summoned to appear at their Grimsby Office to explain why I had not sent my card in.
There was a telephone number so I decided to call their office. As expected I had a young female office girl who just told me I had to appear. In that moment, I was so angry I told her that in no circumstances would I appear in person as I had done nothing wrong and if they wished to see me they would have to send somone out to see me. With that I hung up.
A couple of days later I had another letter informing me that a Mr. I forget his name would be coming to interview me on a date and time that was written.
I told my colleague what had happened and he immediately went to the Post Office and asked if they would write a letter confirming that each Monday he went and bought 2 self employed stamps. As the person at the counter remembered him she asked the Owner who wrote and stamped the confirmation that 2 self employed stamps were purchased each Monday.
I had been informed in that letter to have all relevant documents at hand also have my latest National Insurancs e card too.
Came the day the gentleman arrived on time and looked very officious with his brief case. He introduced himself and showed me his I.D. He was very abrupt and got down to business straight away.
He first asked me to produce my current N.I card. This I did and showed him that it was up to date with my stamps. He was surprised but before he could say anything else I produced the letter from the Post Office. His attitude immediately changed. First of all he told me that he could see that my card had the stamps attached each week as they were individually attached. He was also very pleased with the note from the Post Office. He then informed me that this was what he had been waiting for. This he told me was proof that Newcastle were at fault, although they would never admit it. He then opened his brief Case and took out my details. He showed me them and told me that each year everything had been normal and payments were 100% correct. He told me he understood why I had not gone to their office and he would probably have done the same. He then told me that there were 10 people in the area who had according to Newcastle had not sent their cards in. One farmer in a local village was one where he had to go to next.
Well he asked me to give him all the relevant details and gave me a receipt for my N.I card. He then told me that all that would happen is that Newcastle would eventually send me confirmation that I had paid my N.I stamps for that year. He would send out a replacement N I card that would start from the week following this weeks payment.
Sure enough I did get another card within days but it took about 5 weeks before Newcastle acknowledged that I had been credited with my last years N.I. stamps.
I did, however ask him that I wished to retire at 60. He told me what to do. He first said that officially you should have 49 years completed NI stamps, but as always with everyone there was a bit of a leeway. This was 10% so all I had to have credited was 49 years minus 4.9 years . As I left school at 15 this made it easy for me. He gave me the address of where I should write when I was getting near to my 60th Birthday. He said just ask for a forward projection to see if I would have sufficient credit. This I did and was told that at age 60 I would have sufficient number of years credit to qualify for a full State Pension. I retired soon after my 60th Birthday. More soon.