Did you have a Saturday job when very young and was was it

At 15 I worked as an usherette at the Gaumont State cinema in Kilburn in northwest London. I had a torch to show people to their seats and then during the interval I stood at the front selling tubs, choc ices and Kiora orange from a tray suspended round my neck. I worked every Friday evening and Saturdays alternating days and evenings. My dad would come to collect me when I was working at night because Kilburn wasn't the best of areas. I gave it up and got a job as a Saturday 'dogsbody' in an hairdressers when the evenings interfered with my social life . I can't remember what I earned but it probably went on clothes and makeup.

I worked in a grocery shop just along the road to me, I did Saturday afternoons and sometimes an hour after school, for the princely sum of £1 a week, what did I do with that money well, friends and I got the bus to nearby Kingston to browse the makeup in Bentalls Granny Somerset known to us as "Bent tools"

I worked with a very nice lady in the shop who was endlessly patient with one customer when he came in weekly and took an hour over choosing exactly the same fruit cake every week. I would mention that we had quite a few of what were known then as "mental asylums" in my home town. I believe, although I didn't know then, some of the men were in such places due to shell shock they weren't dangerous just mentally damaged. The manageress who employed me was marvellous with this chap who would come in for his Saturday purchase, if she wasn't serving anyone else she'd tirelessly go through all the ingredients with him, he wanted the ins out and outs of the composition of the cake.

I think I was about 14 or 15 when I worked there, I don't think there were any hard and fast restrictions about being at school and having a Saturday job. I think many of us had these part time jobs, we were saving up for a school trip to the Oberammergau Passion Play, somewhere along the line we realised there would be little scope to meet any boys there, so we changed our mind and went to Benidorm instead, not with the school I might add, but with a couple of willing parents, not mine, who vowed they'd never do it again

I cleaned cars in a car show room every Saturday morning in the late 60s when I was a student.... 4 hours for a £1! I also did leaflet deliveries, worked on the Christmas post, as a hospital auxiliary and in a laundry during the holidays.

I used to work in my mam’s little transport cafe after school during the week from the age of 14. When I was 15 I used to serve fuel at my dad’s garage and also worked at the cafe any spare time that I had. I also used to clean the cafe on a Sunday morning and got 17/6d for the job. All of this came in handy back in the 1960s for buying clothes, records, makeup etc. When I look back now I never had a minute to myself and I loved every minute of it, especially serving fuel to some really dishy lads! I used to feel so important!

My teen working didn’t go well I was so so shy it was really hard for me I went to work in a coffee bar and the owner a real nasty piece of work was shouting at me in front of customers and telling me off for not watering the milk down enough I was scared of the noisy frothy machines and after my first Saturday I told my mum I would never go back I even refuse to go and tell them and collect my days wages Ten Bob mum had to go I was 14/15
Then I went to Marks and Sparks and that lasted a bit longer but they were older people who totally ignored me I didn’t know what to do or where to go and no one helped me One day I cut myself quite badly on a piece of broken glass that was holding some stuff up I got no sympathy and was rushed out of the store and was told to ‘not let the customers see any blood’
I went from there to potato picking and that was much better I could work hard on my own without being in the public eye
Strangely enough all the rest of my working life was very much in the public eye and although I am always a shy not very confident person I have made a huge acting job of my life and everyone sees me as very full of talk and confidence
Funny how you can change your outward self isn’t it

Saturday and holiday job at Bentalls (department store in Ealing) on the gifts and novelties counter. Loved it and proved so good at selling that was offered the chance to train as a buyer. Didn’t pursue this but still enjoy selling at annual church jumble sale!

The princely 15/- a day was very helpful in a hard up household and taught me the value of money, and working with older people and meeting the public were both valuable life skills. I am sorry that it is so much harder for youngsters to gain this experience.

Just remembered - it was the days of the booths for people to listen to the records first. Oh, what fun!

I was never without a Saturday job from 13. First in Woolie’s in Morecambe for 10/6 a day then Littlewoods on the bacon counter, until I happened upon the most wonderful job for me, Saturdays and holidays in the local record shop, selling all the latest records in 1963/4/5 to the boys! I loved it until the dreaded day when I was told to go to the basement to Classical records! Someone asked for Rimsky Korsakof and I was lost!

Saturday job in a local bakery, behind the counter, and it certainly improved my maths and mental arithmetic! My wages were £1. At the end of the day I was sent home with unsold bread, cakes and pies.

So that Mum could work in the Lincolnshire fen fields, singling beet, lettuce etc, back breaking work but always cheerful with other women , saving for our first TV , then fridge and to replace the Baby Belling, us children joined them preschool & in school holidays, eventually getting our own work from around age 8.
Seasonal picking was allowed for children also from about 11 , so filling 56lb bags of broad beans (as big as me) and getting that few pence, finally bought my first clarinet.
At 14 I ‘promoted’ to cycling the four miles at 5am on a Saturday to get the bus from Boston to Skegness for the dark & nauseating 22 mile journey ( we didn’t have a car so travel sickness prevailed) to Butlins. Permanent ‘colleagues’ were denigrating & resentful : ‘four eyes’, ( glasses) ‘useless students’ etc but the pay was fantastic , for a day of chalet oven & toilet scrubbing ( I always got the ovens, my experienced middled aged partner simply using the carpet sweeper) I satisfiedly bussed & cycled the long journey home, with a completely exhausted body and 19/9d.
Later came even higher echelons.... of Woolworths ( again 19/9d minus 3d ‘stamp’, then Shoefayre, and a holiday Filing Clerk in a factory in Boston. Finally The White Hart Hotel as an early morning before - school chambermaid, also after school evenings in the Steak bar and weekend Weddings etc not only completed my long term ‘Board & lodge ‘contract with my parents in order to stay at school after 15 but also supplemented my Grant for my first year at University. My Mother ( clever and frustrated with her life & how things were for women then) resented my going , saying I’d ‘turn my back on my roots’ and ‘get above myself’......but I can honestly say the necessary and formative work ethic not only continues as it did , in shaping my life, but one of the many aspects of a very basic rural upbringing for which I will be forever grateful.

First job at 14 in a chemist for the princely sum of half a crown!
Then at 15 it was Sayers
At 16 a gown shop in Liverpool
After that it was always hairdressing salons as I was at college training to be a hairdresser

In 1958/9 I had a Saturday job at Kendals (as it was then) in Manchester.

I was in the knitwear department and had my first introduction to cashmere. Couldn't understand why it was so expensive.

My department boss was a real tyrant and docked wages if you were one minute late. Consequently, we all turned up really early!

I worked in a local independent bookshop. My responsibilities were re-stocking the Ladybird books display, fetching the regular staff's lunch orders from the local takeaway, and cleaning the staff room.
Another job was in the local Wimpy Bar but I used to get into trouble for being too generous with the fruit in the knickerbocker glories!
My husband had a summer holiday job on a farm, castrating piglets ??

I worked in a fruit and veg van Fridays after school and all day Saturday when I was 12,in the summer I worked in a burger van and after the holidays I worked in the same van outside the school at lunch time.By 14 I had a job in a cinema shop ,and selling ice cream from a tray at interval.The manager left and I started to do the books at the end of the day .I worked every day after school .Iloved working and thats why I left school at 15 .

Our school was very adventurous in those far off days. The teachers would take us to Brittany. My parents said : "if you want to go, you pay for it yourself" {NB, those were the days}! So like op, had myself a Saturday job in a hairdresser's aged 14, saved and saved. Had a simply wonderful time and never looked back. We are off to Brittany in May this year - first time back in 60 years [probably changed a weeny bit since then]!

I badly wanted some high platform shoes and my mum said no way was she buying them.So off I went and got a Saturday job in a hairdressers.The owner was a bit of a tyrant and initially I was in the basement washing and wringing towels and mixing colours,but eventually got let loose on heads of hair,From there I went to work in a soft furnishings shop.All great formative experience.I feel sad that it's so much harder for teenagers to find Saturday jobs. I loved earning my own money.

At the age of 12, I had a paper round.
14, I worked in a chemist shop every Saturday.
15, I babysat for 3 separate neighbours.
At 16, I left school on the Friday, started full-time work the following Monday (1975)

I worked in WH Smith's on the tills on a Saturday. Everything had to be added in your head I was very quick and accurate !! I worked there in school holidays too. I earned £1 17 shillings and 6 pence on a Saturday. Sounds ridiculous now. Did enjoy it though.

I was a Saturday girl at a florists - and took two buses to get there. We had to put out boxes of bedding plants first thing, water them and put them back inside at the end of the day. In between we prepared the flowers - trimming the stems and giving them to a senior assistant to display in the window. It had to be done quickly and we'd get told off if we weren't fast enough. Then sweeping, tidying and making tea. We were too junior to use the till or deal with customers. It wasn't that nice and was badly paid.

I also had a Saturday job in BHS at the time it was in my town. Loved it. Remember starting just a couple of weeks before Christmas and at that time you had to count everything up in your head. The slippers I remember were all a penny from the pound and when the customer bought more than one pair for some reason I got all flustered counting how much they were due me. Silly I know but at the time when you are so young it was quiet daunting. I thought I was always good at maths but it did fluster me. So enjoyed the job though and the uniform I had to wear. Those were the days

Reading your post charleygirl5 reminded me of my husband saying you can’t buy cigarettes in hospital shops years ago, and I had said to him I’m sure years ago they did sell them. I have just had that confirmed so I was correct,

I started with a Sat job in BHS for about a year. The next job was one summer holiday at the factory which made the plastic containers for airline food. Then I got a lovely job - working in the Library! I was able to do that for summer holiday - and sometimes other holidays for a few years till I started to teach. ( I still tidy bookshelves and have the books all in line!!)
The best fun was working one Christmas in the sorting office of the PO. They were great at paying too and gave you wages every few days instead of making you wait till Christmas Eve!

I was at boarding school so could not work on Saturdays. For 4 weeks during the summer break, I worked in a local hospital shop selling cigarettes and sweets etc. to cover annual leave- earning the princely sum of £2 a week. I spent that money on clothes.

Paper round first, then washing up at a restaurant on Saturday afternoons, finally worked whole days when I turned 16 at a wallpaper shop. I also worked in the holidays at a variety of unskilled jobs through the sixth form and college till I was 21. Then got a job teaching as that is what I trained to do.

Saturday girl in a local department store in the lingerie and corsetry dept. I got 10/- and 50p after decimalisation. When the boss realised I was sometimes on my own and had to do the till and tôt up the cash at the end of the day, he gave me one pound for those days.

All my classmates in the other high st shops were paid much more but my parents wanted me to work at the posh place.

It's boarded up now.