how did you spend your teenage years

Weekends I did babysitting jobs earning up to £10. Weekdays I was waiting for my school years to end. Finally 1978 arrived, I left school and got a job within the week. From 16 I worked full time. Saturdays I would be earning extra money still babysitting, I opted to save wasn't much for club life. For the last 3 years of my teenage years, I worked and lived away from the family home twice. I then returned to my hometown and secured a role as a full time nanny. Then my life changed at 20, it was called Love. I left school with no qualifications, but always had a willingness to learn and gain experiences.

tanith

1963 left school got a job at C&A Marble Arch my wages were £4.10sh after work Saturdays and at lunch times my friend and I would run up Oxford St to the HMV record shop and listen to the latest records in the little booths, then on the way back we would try all the posh perfumes in Selfridges god knows what we smelled like after trying on loads we couldn’t afford most of them.

C&A my favourite shop to buy trendy clothes in. Sad it closed its British stores, but a joy to see it thrives in Prague. My husband shopped twice at the store, and thats saying a lot he hates shopping for clothes.

I was at school in my teens, then university. Spent a lot of time in musical and theatrical interests. I went with a group of friends to every production of the local repertory theatre. My health was not very good, so I did miss quite a bit of school, but I didn’t really mind. My friends came to see me and I was quite spoilt, I think!

I didn’t have a paid job until I was 24, when I finally got my last degree. Until then I lived on grants and scholarships.

I got a Saturday job in C&A when I was about 14 with my friend, Diane.

I spent my teenage years buying trendy clothes (which were cheap), make up, being a fanatical Beatles fan, buying every magazine I could with them in, me and my friends joined the fan club and sent them letters, getting tickets for their concerts, as well as tickets for other groups of the time. Happy days in many ways.

I travelled to college daily by train 30 miles each way, not a lot of time left for fun. I moved into the Nurses Home in 1964 and made up for it. Interesting to note we received some butter and sugar each week as part of our wages.

Getting bullied because I am disabled at school. That was a fun 5 years 🤬

But I meet my husband when I was 16 he was 18 . We had 29 years and married 22 when he died

Not everyone had happy teenage years.

A lot of studying and ,in the later years, a lot of boozing and dancing interspersed with getting a degree. Oh it was a wonderful carefree time ,especially once I left home at 18. Flower power and singing.

Whiff. I feel for you. I was badly bullied at senior school as I lost my teeth aged 11. School was a bit of a nightmare.

From age 14 - 16 had various Saturday jobs so I could afford to go to discos (how old fashioned does that sound now!). Went out at least 3 times a week. Age 16 left school and started full-time work at the Town Hall as a trainee secretary, and felt like I was earning a fortune (£48 per month!). Bought my first LP with my first month's wages and opened a current account and thought I was the bees knees because I had a cheque book 😅 . Met my husband when I was 15 (been married for 49 years) so spent later teenage years 'courting' (another old-fashioned saying) and swapped discos for the pub and local Bier Keller. Happy days.

Married to my darling husband age 16.

First darling daughter age 17.

My teens were not great, I also was bullied at school and would tell my parents I was sick so I didn’t have to go. My dad had heart disease, diagnosed in his thirties, so I helped out at home as much s poss and got Saturday jobs so that I could get new clothes and shoes because with my dad’s illness money was tight.
One thing I loved in my teens was going with friends to town Saturday night and hanging around until a bunch of boys we knew showed up then we would hop on a bus to a nearby city and go dancing at The Golden Palms.

I found out the truth about my background when I was 14. Utterly miserable after that. I left school at 15, started office work, they sent me to secretarial college. Stayed in the same job until I got married at 21, had a baby a year later.

I had a good Baby sitting thing going in my mid teens. I did very well with that while I was doing my O levels. At the same time when I was nearly 16 yrs on a Friday night and Saturday's I had a Supermarket job in Waitrose it was one of a few stores outside of London, they paid more per hour than my peers got. I was so lucky to have a good little income for a teenager.
This helped pay for my makeup, bus fares into the City (when I went "boping") with mates plus the occasional gig at the Guildhall to see a big (at the time) name's.

Had a great time, I achieved my O levels ... I eventually got a full time job with training at my local Hospital, as the "baby" of the department, then I had even more fun!

Further back, my mother wanted to be a nurse so used to go and help in our local hospital in her early teens then went away to train at 16. At the nurses’ home she had to share a bed and be in by 9 every night.
One night she returned late with the boyfriend she would marry. She was haemorrhaging with the tuberculosis she caught at work, which finished her career.

When I was 14, I got a Saturday job in a household shop (toiletries, cleaning things, etc). I had to have a work permit for that (1973). I left school on a Friday, aged 16 (1975), and went straight to work the following Monday, as a Junior Clerk in the N.A.A.F.I. offices. Weekends were for going out, buying clothes and records.

Had a job as a paper-girl, at the age of 13 . Lugging the shoulder bag up the hill at 6 in the morning. !
At 14 I always had a Saturday job
Boutique, fish and chip shop
and selling fruit and veg at the local markets.
. I saved and bought myself a record player.
Week-end evenings I was always out and about enjoying beeing as free as a bird !

Rebelling.

Being wild. Getting into trouble at the university of life. Now old and wise.

My teen years were the best ever! I loved school and did well. From abt 12, despite travelling two hours to school and always getting my homework done, I found time to go to my local Youth% Club 5 nights a week where I met my first real boyfriend - we were together for 3 years! I got my first job at 12, delivering the evening newspaper, then a Saturday job at Pauldens (which became Debenhams) on the Easter Egg counter. I was a nightmare and the older ladies were unpleasant to me. At age 13, I and two friends went to a local cotton mill to ask about summer jobs. They had no vacancies but the MD was just saying goodbye to a visitor who was the MD of the local sweet factory (the one that makes Love Hearts!) and he instructed his driver to take us up there and take us to the Foreman. We rode in a Rolls Royce!!! And we all got jobs on the production line making chocolate brazil nuts for the Christmas season. I did three years there and loved it!

I also found time to learn to play the guitar at my local Youth Club and spent most of my teens in folk clubs, either in a group, a duo, or singing alone. I did several gigs with well-known folkies including Mike Harding, Leonard Cohen, Ralph McTell and Jake Thackray. I rarely got paid! Lots of these sessions were in pubs and even at age 15 I often drank babycham, cherry B and later bacardi and coke.

My first job after leaving school at 16 was as a bank clerk. I was paid £360 a year and my mum had £5 a week.

I left school as soon as I finished my Highers and went to work in ‘Darling’s Dungeon’, a newly opened boutique in the basement of Darlings, a large Edinburgh clothing store. It was a fantastic few months while I tried to save a bit of money before starting university in Edinburgh. We had to work until 8pm on Thursdays. I lived at home with my parents in Dunfermline at that stage and I still remember the mad, unladylike dash down to Haymarket to get the 8:12 train back to Dunfermline, arriving out of breath, hot and dishevelled. Ah…those were the days when I could actually run.

Saturday job at Bentalls in Ealing Broadway from 15 to 17, then my secretarial diploma got me a job with the BBC. By then I was orphaned and financially on my own so there wasn’t a lot of spare cash, but a friend had a relative who worked at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and got us free tickets; at one point we had seen everything on the commercial central London stage! I have very good memories of that time in my life despite not being able to afford lunch by the end of the month.

Kate1949

I got a Saturday job in C&A when I was about 14 with my friend, Diane.

I spent my teenage years buying trendy clothes (which were cheap), make up, being a fanatical Beatles fan, buying every magazine I could with them in, me and my friends joined the fan club and sent them letters, getting tickets for their concerts, as well as tickets for other groups of the time. Happy days in many ways.

I was a fanatical Beatles fan too! I still have my fan club membership card. I remember going to see them many times and being at LHR when they came back from the US.

At 16 I had a Saturday job in the local library, which I loved. Spent the money on clothes and seeing bands on Eel Pie Island. We went to parties and out with boys and just generally have a great time. Left school at 18, post A-levels, did a secretarial course, then worked a year then university. Loved all of it. Great times. (Mostly)

Left school 1973 went to uni same year. I had fab teenage years,parties and great music,involved in loads of sport,and various youth organisations. Worked summer,Christmas and Easter holidays.Still got many of my school friends

Went to school, worked every Saturday and school holiday. Went out with friends, left home at 17 to go to University and worked full time after that as well as bringing up my family.

Riding horses, reading about horses, working with horses…..until I was 16. Then I entered Cadet Nursing training. You had to be 18 to do SRN training. We were paid £7.01 a week, but ate out in town on our college days, bought new clothes every other week, and went to a music club one night. I paid my Mom £4 a week, and walked everywhere, whenever I possibly could.