What was your very first proper job?

Aged 12 I collected glasses, then washed and dried them at my parent's pub. This was mainly during the summer holidays and weekends. Also helped with cleaning and replenishing stock.
At 17 I started work at Boots Chemists as a trainee dispenser which I really enjoyed, they were a good company to work for back then.
In my 30's I was a parent volunteer at my children's school then later a stand in lunchtime supervisor, which led to my becoming a support assistant for a disabled child.
In my 40's I studied for a degree and eventually became a primary school teacher.

My apprenticeship as a bookbinder which included hand sewing books, then at 18 I was taught to set up and operate the machines for sewing books. I loved it.

My parents made me leave school without A levels and would not support me for further study. I was a teenage cash machine to them. My first "proper" job (1960) was as a clerical officer in the (then) Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. I liked the atmosphere and the people but hated the work. I was adding up claims manually - no adding machines then. I am competent at maths but I have no interest in numbers and the work was deadly dull and boring. After 5 months I applied for a job in local government as a library assistant and subsequently went on to qualify as a librarian.

I was a dental nurse .... at just 16. I didn't go to college I was trained by the dentist. When my mum came as a patient she couldn't believe how grown up I seemed in my white coat and being all serious greeting patients at the door and making appointments. I suppose to her I was still her 'little girl!'

I went into an office at sixteen at a coffin manufacturers. I’d worked on markets since I was 12 so I carried that on every weekend as well. I was earning good money.

Teaching art at a boy’s school. Not allowed in the staff room as I was the only female. Hated it, glad when I got pregnant and had to leave.

Oh, I would have been good at that! I love wrapping presents! Me too Fanny!

Oh, I would have been good at that! I love wrapping presents!
It wasn’t exactly ‘proper’ but I was an artists model at Wolverhampton poly when I was 16. I kept my clothes on though, I’m spite of the lecturer asking me to do otherwise! The rotter.
It was over £10 an hour, which was a lot then. I think it was £16 if you took your clothes of.
I was a florist for a while.
I went to an agricultural college to train.
But I was absolutely terrible at it. Really bad.
You need to have very strong hands, and I don’t.
I was a menace with the till too. And I was terrified of the boss. I left pretty quickly

Wonder of Woolworths on the sweet counter did it for two years until I started in Insurance