worst holiday job..no gap years then..

My first Saturday job was in Woolies on the haberdashery counter. At 16 I had a summer job in the shop on a local caravan park. The following summer I waitressed in a seaside café. God did we earn our money. However, I met a girl that is still one of my closest friends 40+ yrs later.

I was 15 on the 4th September and it was, go get a job. I passed the interview to be a telephonist. There was a 3 week wait for my placement. My Father being what he was, said: your not sitting around for 3 weeks, find something. Local Printers were looking for someone to start an Apprentiship for a Bookbinder/ Hand Sewer.
I loved it. Did my Apprentiship, and never looked back. These people became my Family and looked after me and taught me so much.
I met my first love there who was into sailing, where I was introduced to a whole new different world.
I often look round me and think: not bad for a council house girl from Woolwich. lol. And all because my Father said: go get a job.

I also had a Saturday job in Woolworths from the age of 13. I earned 13/6d and it never went up in two years. Never a Saturday off unless the store was closed over Christmas. I would go home exhausted after a full day standing behind the light bulbs and wiring counter, under a display of hot bulbs and light fittings. Then, I would have a power nap in the bath and go out dancing at the church youth club for the evening!

Night shift packing ice cream. It was very cold.

I had it easy compared to most of you. A neighbour was a violinist in a professional orchestra so rehearsed most days and I babysat! I was paid two shillings an hour and bought all sorts of 'unsuitable' clothes that my mother wouldn't let me have. You know the sort of thing - bell-bottom jeans, mini skirts, PVC coats.

In the cafe of the swimming baths with my friend, which is a joke in itself because I had to cook and people actually paid good money for the food I produced. The worst thing was we had to get there before the baths opened (we weren't good at getting up) and the horrible old harridan who was in charge made us scrub the steps up to the cafe with a nail brush.
She would then inspect them to make sure we had done them properly. It was all very 'upstairs downstairs' and I got an inkling of what life as a housemaid must have been like. I can't even remember what I was paid.

Two holiday jobs .One was working at a Harvest camp. We stayed in a boarding school and were taken to the farm jobs everyday in an open lorry. We lifted potatoes, picked runner beans, planted daffodil bulbs ( with a horse plough ) marigold seeds and picked the flowers off anemones to make them produce more. That was all very interesting. The other job was in a canning factory. We slept in tents and the worst job was the conveyer belt of cooked peas where you had to sit and pick out the cooked caterpillars, daisy heads and anything else that shouldn't be in a tin of peas! Strigging frozen blackcurrants for jam ( we did it with a fork ) wasn't much better.