Britain’s longest-serving PA named

The search for Britain’s longest serving PA has culminated in the announcement that the winner is executive assistant Avril Dibbens. The longest serving, current, full-time Ministry of Defence civil servant can now proudly add this title to her long list of career achievements.

August 1962 is when Ms Dibbens began working in the typing pool at the Admiralty Surface Weapons Establishment in Portsmouth (she’s now based at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in Salisbury). Given that her career started in the year of the Cuban Missile crisis, in the midst of the cold war, it’s safe to say that there are plenty of memorable moments that she will never be able to discuss. Luckily, this honour isn’t so hush-hush.

She is “both delighted and amazed”, she says, to have come out on top, having responded to an article calling for nominations for the longest serving PA by Diversified Business Communications UK, the event organiser behind the Office show to mark this year’s National PA Day celebrations on Tuesday, 8 October.

The national campaign, which was launched to highlight the important contributions and commitment that long-serving members of the PA profession make to UK businesses, received over 60 submissions throughout the month of August. Whilst several entries were close, Ms Dibben’s 51 years of service to the PA profession was always going to be a hard record to beat.

“Last year I was recognised as the MoD’s longest serving, current full-time employee, which was an achievement in itself,” says Ms Dibbens. “But I am completely overwhelmed to find out that, potentially, there is no other PA/EA in Britain who has been in the role longer than myself.”

Whilst her role may have altered “dramatically” over the years, the former national typewriting champion says her enthusiasm for the job has never diminished. Certainly, she’s witnessed many changes throughout the decades – but none have revolutionised the office more than recent technological advances. Ms Dibbens remains unperturbed, and is, she says, still as “keen to continue [her] professional development and adapt to new technology as [she] was in the 1960s”.

To celebrate her achievement, Ms Dibbens was at the Office show at Olympia, London, where she appeared at a specially arranged opening day photo shoot along with several of her fellow long-serving PAs on 8 October at the Starwood Hotels stand, 4048.