Coming to the end of his TOPS training course, Malcolm had to find a place for six months with a business who would accept him as a novice, but they would not have to pay his wages. He was not having much success until shortly before the due date when a chance remark with a former colleague found him a place offered with the builders of retirement flats, McCarthy and Stone at their head office in New Milton. They were in the early stages of installing computers so did not have much expertise. He was taken on in the Estimating Department so that if his computer skills did not work out, he could revert to his former skills as a Quantity Surveyor. He joined the company for a twelve week period commencing on 12 December 1983.

The company's office was located in Queesway in New Milton and they built retirement flats throughout the United Kingdom. They had some Burroughs B21 microcomputers on which they ran 'Estimator' software to price their building projects. They also had a mainframe computer but Malcolm did not have any dealings with that except for the potential of linking with the microcomputers at some future stage.

Malcolm set about familiarising himself with the computer. His advantage at this job was that, although he was new to computing as a career and had never seen this brand of machine before, he would always be one step ahead of those he was working with. He quickly got to grips with the system and was given a brief to computerise some of the department's activities. Malcolm proved valuable enough to be offered full employment before his twelve week free placement was completed and he was taken on as Systems Analyst on 25 January 1984 at a salary of £8,300.

He continued to work in the Estimating Department. Although he had been bullish about the feasibilty of some of the new programs the company hoped for, it soon transpired that most of these were not possible at that stage. He did get to fully understand the workings of the system and started to make it more efficient, however, disaster struck one day when he inadvertantly wiped out the entire system on one of the machines. He found that there had been no facility left with the company to restore any computer that crashed but he managed to negotiate with the supplier to provide the necessary backup discs without cost.

To start with, Malcolm worked on the second floor near a window at the back of the building and overlooking the railway line. This suited him as he liked to look at the trains. It was much later that one of his colleagues told him that others in the office were aware of this although Malcolm had tried to keep it covert.

The company purchased a few more computers which Malcolm set up then trained the users and was available for support when required. This kept him busy and he was not so involved with the Estimating Department apart from helping to maintain their Estimator program. The company purchased the Multiplan spreadsheet software and Malcolm quickly became fully adept with it. On the instruction of the Operations Director he developed a suite of tables which produced a monthly report on progress for each of the company's regions. On one occasion this led to difficulties for Malcolm. Soon after starting, Malcolm found that one of his colleagues, Richard Allgood, also lived in Verwood so they made an arrangement to take it in turns to drive each other to work on alternate weeks and, as there was no public transport available for their journey, they relied on each other. One Friday evening, the Operations Director told Malcolm that he wanted a complete set of the reports before he went home that night. Malcolm knew that it would take a long time but his pal Richard agreed to wait for him. The job took much longer than Malcolm anticipated which did not amuse Richard much, then, by the time the reports were presented the director had gone home.

On 13 February 1985, Malcolm was transferred to the newly created Computer Department which would manage the installation of more computers and software within head office and also set up new systems in each of the regional offices. Malcolm was well organised for this and had set up a well structured procedure to install, support and maintain the systems. Before work started on the regional offices, a new member of staff was brought in, supposedly to assist Malcolm, however, after some initial confusion between the two of them, it transpired that Malcolm was expected to work for him.

Work in the regional offices went well and Malcolm enjoyed the challenge. He always went with a colleague who would assist with the training. Usually they would travel by car but occasionally fly in the company aeroplane. One such trip to Glasgow was hair-raising as there were strong crosswinds when approaching the landing. Malcolm was seated next to the pilot and was alarmed as the plane came in almost sideways, but it landed safely. As for driving, the word had gone round the office that Malcolm was a cautious driver so his partner on the first journey was not looking forward to it. However, it transpired that he 'did not hang about' much to the preference of his passenger.

As more machines were installed it took more resource to support the users when they had problems with technical failures or difficulty in understanding how to use the computers. Malcolm was tasked with creating a system of dealing with these problems and set up a helpdesk whereby someone would always be available to assist and resolve problems. The challenge was that this would be done over the telephone so a certain amount of skill was required in order to diagnose the problem before it could be fixed.

Malcolm's ability to organise and deal with people was recognised by the Operations Director and he was offered the post of his Private Personal Secretary but this did not suit Malcolm's interests.

Malcolm's manager told him one day that he was due to get a company car. As he was happy with the car he already had he asked if he could have an allowance instead. It soon transpired that Malcolm was entitled to neither and they should not have been offered. In another instance, it was becoming clear to staff that there was a disparity in their salaries so Malcolm challenged his manager about this but was told that he was already earning more than his colleagues. Malcolm was soon able to disprove this and, coupled with the lack of benefits within the company which was making huge profits, decided that he should look for another job. He had seen anadvertisement for work with the Midland Bank in Southampton but on a different system to that which he was familier. A chance comment to one of the visiting computer engineers alerted him to the fact the bank did have many computers the same as he currently worked on. Malcolm applied and got the job. His colleagues were envious of the far better remuneration package that he would be getting and wished him well. Before he left on 9 May 1986 he made the Finance Director aware of the misinformation that was being put out about pay and benefits which, apparently, was acted upon soon after.