how did you spend your teenage years

I started working in a corner shop on Saturdays for ten shillings when I was 15 . Then at 16 I was a hair washer, general dogsbody in a salon for a couple of years. I worked Saturday and school holidays for ten shillings per day but made up my pocket money with tips !
In the eight week holidays after A levels I was a temporary nanny to five children under ten! That was the hardest thing, as I didn’t drive and walking with five children was like herding cats! I cooked their meals and did their washing .
All very character forming and helpful in later life. I cut my own hair husband’s hair in lockdown!!

Well pably15 that's quite the question! I could probably write a book about it. Before leaving school, I already had worked several temporary/part time jobs from about age 12, in for instance, a deli, a bookshop, a ladies boutique, Woolco!, a petrol station, a cafe, a gents outfitter (a male person had to do the inside leg measuring!), an ice cream van and so on.

At school I was a bit of a rebel and the headmaster didn't like me belted me . I dogged school a lot (no wonder), went to venues meant for folks older than myself, radio shows (Electric Gardens) and the like. I did OK though academically, and my first 'proper' job I brought home about £5 a week - mum took half for my keep ("after all you've had enough out of us!")

I loved to go to the local discos and dancing, and then I learned to drive. Off I went! Exploring, fun, fun. Went to see bands, discos and so on. Throughout these years I was also involved with horses and, not to mention a boyfriend or two.

After failing to be accepted to train as a Social Worker, I decided to train as a Riding Instructor instead (bad mistake - very poorly paid profession and hard physical work although I loved it). I am still paying the price of pain after a physical life with horses although I retrained in a completely different subject later in life.

I recently found one of those little brown envelopes you mentioned pably my mum had kept it with my wage slip within.

Started work as a Saturday girl in Boots, just short of my 16th birthday.
I earned £1.34 p a day.
I used my first pay to buy a lovely bag that I used daily for the rest of my school days .
A bargain.
I was so delighted.
So little but so much xxx

yogitree

CarriadAgain Milk boys, Paper boys, Delivery Boys. In my area they would chap doors to wash cars, sweep up etc.

Shucks - I wouldnt mind that happening if it was something that was the norm. I've got a garden out there that could do with some sweeping up (which I could easily do - but errrrm.....I don't get round to it....and then I still don't get round to it).

CarriadAgain Milk boys, Paper boys, Delivery Boys. In my area they would chap doors to wash cars, sweep up etc.

I'll gop back & read others' stories as I love this sort of thread. I was miserable at school, I took O levels turning 15 and A levels turning 17. I loved it at home, I was a horse-mad farmer's daughter & really, we spent the best of our teenage years on pony & donkey-back, hacking along the many local lanes, doing all-day expeditions along bridlepaths to visit "non-local" relatives, giving ponyrides to the younger children, & talking, talking, talking.It was a lovely time of my life, despite school,& despite succeeding in those exams.

I hated school with a vengence - had a paper roumnd from age 13 then a Saturday job in the Greengrocers - decimalisation happend and I spent most of the day over many weeks translating the £p into Lsd - the summer I had a job disbudding carnations in a nursery (it was miserable work during a hot summer!) but it paid for my horse feed. I left at 16 to work in a bank (I picked that because they shut at 3:30 each day and I naively thought I could go home then!)

Slogging my guts out in a children’s hospital but I loved it and out living it up having fun and being “naughty “!
We got £12 a month but lived in nurses’ home where we got a warm room and food provided! Those were the days.

When I was 14 my mum left my dad and us for another man. So I had to learn to cook very quickly, I had a Saturday job at Woolworths so had a bit of money . I left school in 1966 just before my 16th birthday and went to Technical college to do a diploma in The Residential Care of Children. I was a housemother in a children’ home aged 18 then a nanny for a private family. Any money I saved, I would take the train from Brighton to London to shop at Biba and Bus Stop sales.

I managed to get into teacher training college in Leeds aged 19 as far from home as possible ! It was Carnegie School of PE and I loved it. I never lived in Brighton again !

Fell madly in love with a great guy when I was 14. Went to university on the back of his Lambretta when I was 16, graduated at 19, married at 20, still together after 59 years.

Lizzie44

Spent teenage years very boringly - mainly at home studying to get into university. My only let-up from studying was playing tennis (at school and at a local tennis club).

We seemed to have a lot of homework in those days, compared to the amount they're given now.

Spent teenage years very boringly - mainly at home studying to get into university. My only let-up from studying was playing tennis (at school and at a local tennis club).

I had a Christmas job at Woolies for six weeks on the Haberdashery counter, hated having to add the purchases up on a note pad. The strangest things for sale were false curls to pin confront of your ears and triangular shaped sticky backed chest hair, it was the days of medallion men. I also worked in a friends families shops and baby sat. My first job on leaving school at 16 was in Barclays bank I earned £44 a month.

School until 18, homework, cello lessons and practice, piano lessons and practice, Saturday orchestra rehearsals, Sunday Church morning and evening.
Then university and freedom!! Well, just a little; took my cello with me. so glad the piano wouldn't fit on the train!

Being a pain in the a**e - but, too be slightly fairer to myself, I was a very unhappy child. Oddly, I am generally a pretty happy person now, so obviously I must have grown out of it.

Two of my school friends had weekend jobs in Terry’s cake shop under the famous restaurant in the centre of York (long gone now). They were allowed to take cakes home at the end of the day so I went along in the hope of getting a similar job. I did get a job but in the restaurant kitchens making numerous Welsh rarebits! It was hot and sweaty and no cakes!

I also had a p/t job in the local chip shop from when I was 14. I was paid 3 shillings an hour cash in hand and that was good money back then. I averaged about £1.10 shillings to £2 a week which was almost as much as some people got full time. I continued to do that job all the time I was studying for my library exams. Flexible hours and a fish and chip supper after every shift.

I left school in 1960 and went into the civil service. I was paid in cash for the first 6 months of my probabtion but didnt last that long. I was sitting in an office reckoning benefit claims (manually) and hated it.

Left to work for the LA as a library assistant and spent most of my teen years qualifying as a librarian. My parents never knew how much I earned as I was paid by bank transfer and never told them my exact salary. I felt that every pound I gave for my keep went straight onto my sisters back. By the time I qualified and left home I was out earning my father by about 50%. He would not have been pleased to know that and I did not consider it my duty to tell him.

Had a paper round at 13, my bag was so heavy on mag day, I had to peel it off when I was done. 1966 I left school at 15 and got a job in the claims department at Britannia Assurance in Moseley, Birmingham .£4.19s 6d per week. £2.00 to mum then into C&A for jazzy blouses and twist dress ready to hit the town in the evening with friends. Fortunately avoided the IRA bombings of some of our favourite hangouts. We all looked old enough to drink and no questions were asked.

My first job, besides potato picking, was in the little cafe just up the street when I was 14. I waitressed there for a couple of years until they gave it up and then I went to the posh hotel in town doing breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. Silver service. My sister worked there too. This was only week ends and school holidays. I am an introvert so no partying or clubbing, especially as I lived in a small country town. My Mum did try to get me out of the house by making me go to the youth club with my cousin, but it didn’t take. One of my parents friends ran the junior football team and we were made to go to their “discos” in the village hall, boys at one side of the room and girls on the other! Band of Gold brings back memories of those. Then I went away to college and found my friends who I am still in touch with today.

I couldn't wait to leave school, but had to do a term in the 6th form as I failed my maths O level. Had a holiday job in a garden centre, or nursery as they were called in the 50s. I hated it, so boring pricking out seedlings. Then I got a holiday job at British Home Stores. I really really wanted to be on the record counter but ended up being the dogs body in the cafeteria. When I eventually left school at 16 I had no idea what to do as a job. My mother saw an advert for a lab technician in the local path lab and suggested I applied, as my favourite subject at school was biology. I got the job not having the vaguest idea what a path lab was. But I loved the work from day one. Wages £3.00 a week and mum had 10s of that for my keep and £1 which was put into a Building Society account for me. I remember seeing a jumper in a shop window and saved up for several weeks to buy it. It was still there and I was so overjoyed with it. It was hugely expensive £5!
A lot of dancing at a ballroom dance school, but all we wanted to do was rock and roll, much to the frustration of Marcina, the owner, who preferred the foxtrot. Happy days

I had a variety of jobs from 15 to 17 and then joined the W.R.A.C. I was in the Army for 2 years and then married a soldier. He was posted to the M.E. where I joined him after the birth of our Daughter, we came back when I was 22. My big adventure..

Hitchhiking with my bff all over England exploring different places. Then Barbara Mayo got murdured hitchhiking and I never did it again. Still remember her name.

Paperbackwriter There'll never be anyone like them in my book. I could bore for England about my Beatles escapades (and frequently do).

Meant to say that i’ve now been working for 45 years with at least another 8 to go.