" Saturday jobs", did you have one? And what about your chidren/ grandchildren?

Yes I had a Saturday job in the Wattle Tea Rooms in Henley near the river - Mrs Dudley ran it. My friend was doing Sundays and she got me the job. Set teas were 2/6d - slice of home made cake, one scone, butter (I had to make the butter pats with 2 wooden things) strawberry jam, and a pot of tea. I was paid 2/6d per hour for a 3 hour stint - so relied on tips to take me up to 10shillings!! I think I was about 14 years old and worked there for 2 summers until I left school and went to college. The cakes were a plain victoria sandwich , chocolate ditto, and her speciality - a chocolate swirl cake (mixture of the two) There was no dishwasher - so my task at the end of the afternoon was to wash and dry the crockery. I was fed a free tea - and sometimes took home spare scones as Mrs D made them fresh each morning.

The tea room was in a lovely old cottage and owner lived above. If I needed the loo, I had to climb a very rickety staircase to her bathroom upstairs. Needless to say both Mrs D and the tea room have long gone - now turned into a very chic house.

Gosh - that was 56 years ago...........

My son did a paper round in the village where we lived. He was desperate to earn some money but hated doing it. He used his bike - and when it developed a puncture (which it seemed to do rather often) he would grab mine and race off.

My daughter helped out after school in a local architect's office - photocopying drawings and generally being a dogs body. I seem to remember that the job didn't last very long - whether her decision or theirs I can't remember.

ahh - those were the days - I think I miss them...............

Mine was in a hairdressing salon and both of my daughter's had Saturday jobs I know from my younger relatives it isn't as easy to come by Saturday jobs now as red tape ( health and safety rules insurance etc) makes it difficult for them to find employers to take them on.

I always encouraged my four sons to find work on a Saturday and during school holidays. It provides a feeling of self worth. I notice that encouragement being given to the grandchildren too!

My first Saturday job was at Woolworths in Leamington Spa. I was 15, and worked on the biscuit counter. From there I moved to the Cadena Cafe on The Parade, working in the shop selling cakes and grinding coffee beans! A bonus of the job was the iced bun we were allowed coffee during the break. (I wasn't allowed coffee at home!) wanting to work more hours during the school holidays I moved to Burgis & Colboune higher up the parade where I became part of the office staff, working in sales dissection and operating the PBX switchboard. My, did I get in a muddle with connecting the callers to the right person! It took a while, but I succeeded in the end. I stayed there for over two years. This was a job which stood me in good stead fir the rest of my working life, graduating to Senior Administration of a multi international company. I retired at 61, and now enjoy retirement.

I had a number of jobs from the age of 13, fruit and veg shop, greasy spoons, then the new wimpy bar with things we had never heard of, yes burgers which you te without cutlery. I left school 2 weeks after my 15 th birthday and started work in London in the civil service where I was taught to type to the William tell overture...very fast.. Which all we girls had to keep in time with on an imperial 58 typewriter. I earned £4.50p per week and out of that had to pay for my season ticket up to London, £1.50. The sMe amount to mum for my keep. Mum made me save £1 a week too which left me with 50p for myself for tights makeup clothes and going out. Clothes were very expensive then too, so very different these days.
My girls also had Saturday jobs in shops or pub kitchens usually Saturday's. I think it's important that they learned the value of money. Although I encouraged them to actively save like my um did me, they never took it on board and though now fully grown, they never have got that particular good habit unfortunately.

I worked in the Boots "Fancy Goods Department" [applied to C&A which sounded more fun, and was more money, but they had no vacancies].
I used to give about a third to my Mum.

I also worked as the pianist on Brighton Seafront children's playground for two summers [aged 16 and 17] and got Sundays off and any day it rained.
I cannot remember it raining more than half a dozen times over those summers [1972 and 73]!

For putting out the benches and deckchairs, taking the money for the deckchairs, and playing the music for anything each child or 'Uncle Jack' [the compere] decided to sing, I was given £2 an afternoon. I often used to walk the four miles each way to save on bus fares.

My two children [now 23 and 25] both tried to get Saturday jobs, but couldn't find anything. Even the jobs with an awful reputation were fully staffed!

It was near-impossible to get them [unpaid] job experience, as required at GCSE level...
In the end one managed to do 10 Saturdays in a Music Shop - rather than a straight fortnight - and the other persuaded the local library to take him on. Later on they both, of their own choice, did voluntary work.

Unspent my teenage years in Norfolk. Worked weekends and holidays on the farms picking what ever was in season. Loved it. Got picked up early in the morning by a farm truck and finished at about two when we had made enough money and then walked home rather than wait for the truck

I had a job at a greetings card shop for which, when I started, I was paid the princely sum of a pound a day. I remember my then boyfriend asking me how much I earnt and when I told him he fell off his chair laughing as he was earning £12.50 a day at Unilever doing something in the office. However, it only firmed my determination to do something further in life as I was doing A levels to become a teacher, which I duly did.

I did not let me own children have a Saturday job as I said they had to put the hours into their school work to do as well as they could to give them a leg up in life. My daughter worked! My son didn't! No surprise there. But they are both working and paying their taxes now so all's well.

A pound was not so miserable a sum in 1973. You could buy a top in Chelsea Girl or three Penguin Classics. Most of my money went on books.

My daughter got herself a job in the local chippy when aged 13. I was not pleased, especially as I had to collect her at 11pm and she was mopping the floor. She refused to give up her job, and went on to work in a bakery on Saturdays. She did well at school and went on to Uni. I think she is just like her dad who always had part time jobs when he was a teenager.

The sweet counter and deli, Clara - you were obviously a star employee! My Saturday and holiday job was in Woolworths in Whitby and I was never promoted from haberdashery upstairs where the dull departments were. Mind you, we spent a lot of our time bailing out the cellar which flooded regularly at high tide. We were lent wellies and waterproofs and given buckets and shuttled between the cellar steps, filling the buckets, and the quayside opposite, emptying them back in. It always struck us as supremely pointless and I'm sure it was.

We had a good canteen and got fed well for free, which was a perk, and could take home bargains from the deli at the end of the day (no Sunday opening then, of course).

I remember one day when we couldn't function for laughing after a Scottish lady asked if she could have a wee poke. Apologies to Scottish GNers, but we were teenagers and had never heard that expression

I had a Saturday job in C & A. I remember tyranical supervisors and lovely canteen lunches. I earned 18/6d per day.

I had a Saturday job in libraries, then went on to become a librarian until I took early retirement almost 5 years ago! I worked in both public and academic libraries, and loved the work, it was constantly interesting and has left me with a huge store of 'useless information'. However, it's only 'useless information' until pub quiz night

Saturday job was Woolworths at 18 shillings less 3d for NI. My son started at 13 on a paper round then went on to weekend work in a chicken farm and was never out of work until he went travelling at the age of 21, very proud of him.

Forgot to say it was jewellery don't think any diamonds though !

I worked on market stall aged 14yrs loved it even when it was freezing loved listening to banter of other stall holders. I think I got 15/- mum agreed to give me same first pocket money I ever got ! I used to buy dresses from another stall they cost around 12/- my kids worked in shops .

I started working on the sweet counter in Woolworths on a Saturday morning at the age of 15. At 16 I was allowed to work all day and transferred to the deli counter which I preferred. At 17 I started full-time work as a secretary.
Both my children had Saturday jobs - my daughter in a local shoe shop and then a cafe and my son worked in Waitrose stacking up the fruit and veg. For a young lad he knew the name of every exotic fruit and vegetable and even received a bonus each year, he preferred working extra hours to going to college. My daughter worked every school and university holiday at the company where I worked and they even let her work for a month in Paris when she was studying French. She also worked in the canteen at Uni - she's not silly as she knew she would be fed!
I think early working has instilled a great work ethic in them both and when my daughter was made redundant from her job in radio she temporarily went back to pub work so that she could pay her rent in London.

Marks & Spencer and was paid 26/3d an hour, best paid job in town in mid-1960s

I had a few Saturday jobs. I started in a Hairdressers, washing hair and sweeping up. Then I went to Timothy Whites ( which was taken over by Boots ). And then I went onto Ravel shoe shop. As I lived in London I was lucky to work down Kings Road Chelsea in the 60`s.

My best Saturday job was in the local library. I worked with friends and I met the local grammar school boys . People would come in and expect you to know where the 'red and green ' books were!
Both my children had holiday jobs rather than work at weekends. My daughter was only 13 when her aunt asked if she would like three weeks work answering the phones and doing some filing. I gave her a packed lunch and travel money so I was out of pocket but she soon learnt the value of earning money and was able to buy her own car at 17. They both worked in every vacation from uni and when my son had a gap year of travelling he paid for it himself.
Apart from instilling values in them, I couldn't bear teenagers slouched on the sofa in front of the tv when I came home from work!

Saturday and after school jobs in newsagents and evening job as a barmaid once I was old enough. My children worked in Booths and also did bar work.

I was at boarding school so Saturday jobs were out, but as soon as I left school I went to work in a department store as a junior, for the summer and then spent most summers, until I started work after I graduated, in the retail trade. The exception was one very lucrative summer as a waitress in the Lake districct.

DS had very few jobs because, again, he was a weekly boarder at school and at university most of his summer vacations were spent doing fieldwork as part of his degree course. However, in his gap year he worked in the print room of a big local firm and he funded his post-graduate research by working in Tesco. He said at Tescos there was in inverse relationship between jobs and educational attainment. His manager had left school at 16, undergraduate students worked in the shop, MA students like him were storemen shifting stock in the stockroom, while the cleaner was studying for a PhD.

DD started a paper round at 13, her choice, then went onto waitressing, which she continued to do until she got a permanent job.

My first saturday job was serving in a little family owned shop in Bath. It was in an area that had an Affro Caribbean influence and believe it or not it was not far from the Royal Crescent , I was 13 years old. My sister lived 2 doors away from the shop so mum and dad let me do it but they didn't know what went on.

The Affro Caribbean culture meant the shop sold Yams, Pigs Tails , Rice. and other foods. The women scared me to death as they would get the Yam Knife, huge thing it was, and threaten me to pick out the best Pigs Tail. I knew it was 'just their way' but boy were they strong , scary women. The Pigs Tails were sold from horrible old rusty, smelly drum , the rice had the occasional dead or alive mouse in the sack. Happy days

I remember I would get hungry and I am totally embarrassed to say it now but I would pinch a pork pie and eat it in the cellar. I was so thick I use to shove the wrapper in between house bricks thinking they would never know. I am not proud of doing that but they never said a word, they must have been aware of what I was doing.

They were a very odd couple, really old and yet they had a son of about 2 years old when I worked for them. They called him their son and now my sister and I often say he couldn't possibly have been born to her , she was very weird.

When I was 15 I had a Saturday job in British Home Stores - before the time of adding up tills and you had to do your mental maths and you gave change by -adding on! We had actually been shown that at school too.
I spent one summer in a local factory making various sizes plastic pots - the smallest - called thumb pots - were used to put the jam in for the airline catering company. Then there were bigger pots. It was not a good job and the smell of melting plastic got everywhere. My mother voiced her doubts that I should do this work but my father said it would do me good and show me what life had to offer if I failed to pass my exams! !!
Then I got a lovely job in the local library - I loved that job and even now can find myself pulling the books out to the edge of the shelf and have them all neat. I did that for a number of holidays and right through till I finished college at 21. I also did one Christmas working in the PO sorting office - that was a great fun job and they paid you several times while you were there rather than making you wait till the end of the run. My sister was able to take the job the following year when they wrote to me.
DD had a job one evening and Sat morning in the local supermarket on the fresh veg section. Come Saturday lunchtime she was in- lunch eaten - and out for the bus in record time to spend the fruits of her labour!
DS delivered the local free paper and as the local distributed was a neighbour she gave him any extra rounds when someone let her down or was away etc.

I worked Sunday 6-2 in a newsagent/ grocery store
I got £6 which was pretty good, enjoyed weighing sweets and loose tobacco but the owner was over friendly and we were always relieved when he left after papers were done
He used to smoke big fat cigars in the shop and as a very large man would find any excuse to squeeze behind counter
Changed days now
My DD had supermarket jobs from 16as did youngest DS, Middle DS worked all days off, holidays with his dad from 13 and now they still work together full time

Mum didn't take "keep" money off me until I was working full time. My friend that I mentioned in my previous post and I both saved most of our summer job wages and went to London at the end of the season and had a spend up in C&A. We were 16 and it was our first train trip alone