Old Prices

When I left school in 1967 I worked for Shell in their offices at the South Bank. I started on £10 pw and my now husband and I rented a flat in Islington. He was still at uni and we managed to save. Two years after he left uni we bought a house something which is unimaginable to today’s young people. Every time I travel by train I remember that in the early 70s I used to travel to Manchester for £1.50 return.

Saturday morning Odeon was 6d upstairs and 3d downstairs. My older brother and sister were give 2/- to take my younger brother and me so all 4 of us could sit upstairs where my mother thought we would be away from the 'rough' children Needless to say we all sat downstairs and had 3d each for sweets. Milky Way was 3d, a mars bar was 6d so we could never afford one. It must have been hard for mum to part with 2/- but I guess it gave her a child free morning which must have been precious. A hot dog was 1/-, I wanted one for years. When I finally got one in my teens when I got a Saturday job, I thought it was delicious but I think that was just because I’d wanted one for so long.

A packet of crisps was 3d. My busfare to work was 11d for a single. I earned £4.10.0 per week as an office junior in 1969. After six months I got a rise to £5. Once a month I would go to a lovely boutique with my friend and would buy something new to wear. A dress was about £10. My friends and I would swap clothes so that we'd have more of a selection to go wear. Work was the be all and end all for me as there were some gorgeous men there!

My first wage was £28 per month, pre tax. Season Ticket on the train from Walthamstow to the City was £1 per week, half my wage went to mum for housekeeping and the rest was mine. Whoopee! I was rich.

These posts are fascinating but it is a shame that they often don't state the year.
I am reminded of the time I was sent to buy fish and chips in London, probably 1960 or 61. I took the 6d change, but walking back home I was very worried as it did not look right and I was afraid my father would be furious with me for accepting a bad coin. When I showed him I was surprised that he was delighted! Turned out I had been given an old silver 3d piece which was apparently worth more than the 6d. Gosh life was SO confusing!!

I can remember late 1950's being sent to the village post office to collect the 'family allowance' - for the second child only - it was 40/- a week, so we left it for five weeks to get £2.

The other thing I can remember is going to the village shop to get a pot of marmalade for 1/6d - times have changed.

Fetching these things on my own under 10, along the busy main road, no pavement. Not so much fear in those days, or was it just a case of not so much news.

Yes I agree with school dinners being 5/- a week.

I had a Saturday job in a department store in 1966 - paid the huge sum of 99d a day - out of that had to come national insurance and the bus fare.

Started work in 1967 - told at college if we could manage to earn £10 a week we'd be doing well - I did but only just.

Always recalling silly things like these, but never written them down before - hope I can find them again.

Petrol in about 1966 was 5/- (five shillings) a gallon and we used to put 2 gallons in our bubble car and that got us from North West London to Brighton and back on a Sunday afternoon!

We got married in 1974. My 22ct ring was £19 and his 9ct ring was £13. Afterwards we realised a coincidence my birthday is the 13th and his is the 19th.

Bearing in mind it was the early 60s....I could pay to go in to the Youth club once a week, buy 20 State 555 ciggies (naughty!) and a bottle of coke...all for 2/6d!! The same would now cost about £12, not counting the entrance fee to a youth club! Worked in the local shop every evening after school, for 2/6d a week!! Did shopping for a next door neighbour for 2/- a week, sometimes 2/6 if she didn't have a 2 bob coin!!

Oh how I remember the 6s 8p singles! When we first got married we had a joint income of about £4,500, bought a house with a £500 deposit from my darling dad, and I had £6.00 each week for housekeeping, Our mortgage was £13 a month! We ate pretty well, entertained, didn't go out much as our jobs were pretty demanding and tiring , but we had pets and bought plants for our rather overgrown and neglected garden. When the children came along I gave up work and things got rather tight, but I do remember the £10 winter coat bought from Wallis that lasted for many years, and dresses for about £5 from lovely Richard Shops. Does anyone remember the TV ad jingle for Richard shops - something like 'lots and lots of pretty things to wear, go on pretty girl, make the world a prettier place'...or something like that! Incidentally I remember my mother having 30 shillings a week for her housekeeping and she had to be pretty clever with that - she always cooked lots of vegetables, lovely crisp roast potatoes, towering Yorkshire puddings, and we had one small slice of meat.

As a child in the 50s I collected Pixi Tales which cost a shilling each. I gave loads away as a teenager and am now trying to recoup all my missing issues to hand on to my grandchildren . Some are costing me up to £20 each off ebay! My first car bought in 1973 when I started work cost £75 and lasted nearly 3 years. My parents saved for 3 years to buy me that for my 21st. Before that, as a student, I used to clean cars in a car showroom on a Saturday morning for £1 for 4 hours work.

Enid Blyton paperbacks - 2/6d. Seemed a lot then ... but 8 for £1 .. wow!

My first job in 1957 after uni. (teaching in a London technical college) paid £1,000 a year which included the London weighting. I was engaged to be married and my future MIL never forgave me for that; she had taught in a North Country secondary school for 30 years and was still on a salary of about £900.

Persistentdonor it was 1964, and we also got luncheon vouchers of 3/- a day, a full dinner with a pudding with custard was 2/9d, so threepence change to get a chocolate bar.

Started work in 1962 in a bank, salary = £240 per annum = just under £5 a week. £3/10s dig money to Mum, 10 bob for weekly bus ticket, £1 for me to spend, which mainly went on stockings at 3/- a pair because the wooden high stools snagged our stockings every day. A boyfriend was an essential, otherwise I could not have afforded to go to dances or the pictures.

By the time I married, in 1966, I was earning £14 per week, having been awarded extra responsibility payments, which was exactly the same as my new husband - a Joiner. I sang with a folk group and he played in a band which brought in another £10 per week which we saved for big ticket items (no HP allowed).

I remember that on the way home from the Saturday morning shift, I did the week's big shop at the Co-op for around £3!

I remember going to the butchers for my grandmother, and asking for "a nice shoulder of lamb about 6/6d"

I have fond memories of going to the nearest town on the bus with my mother. The bus fare, which I was allowed to ask the conductor for, was 5d for Mum and 3d for me. Something that has gone down, I could travel free with my bus pass, but there is no bus from the village I live in now!

Started work in 1953, wage was £1.17.6d. Mother had the £1 the rest was mine....riches! A large loaf cost 7½d, a small one 3¼d. There was still rationing, the milk arrived by horse and cart and was ladled into your own jug.....presumably not pasteurised. Father grew veg on the allotment, jumpers, cardigans, socks hand knitted, when outgrown unravelled and re-knitted, summer dresses made by Mum. A yard of fabric 1s.11d The radio was our means of entertainment, you had to have a licence, with a visit to the local cinema perhaps twice in the month. Seat 1s 6d, 2s if you were up in the balcony. The library was free....I practically lived there. We walked miles, aged 8 I walked 3 miles to school and 3 home again at night in all winds and weathers. Mum could stop us in our tracks with one look, if you were out somewhere you knew you were for it when you got home.. We knew nothing else, so we were happy enough.

Also when DH and I were first married we budgeted £4.00 a week for food. We travelled home on the bus and for our £4 had food which was a struggle for us to carry the mile to our flat! It was all pretty enonomical - anyone else remember Brains (manufacturer’us name not content) faggots?

I remember taking half a crown for piano lessons each week in the 1960s. It must have been a real chunk of money for my parents but it paid off as I played in school assembly and for friends - although one occasion I played every bum note as for some reason I was extremely nervous which was highly embarrassing. When I was teaching I played the piano too and took singing lessons though I've never attained any musical qualifications. Since then I've played for myself for pleasure but have found that if you don't use it you lose it - so that's another New Year resolution on my growing list!!!

Totally illegal underage smoking from 1972 with ten Players No 6 from the village shop, price 10 1/2p. Took me until 1989 to shake the habit.

I was paid 5/- an hour in my first job in Glasgow when I was seventeen in 1969. It was double what other seventeen year olds were earning then, as I was working in the Danish Food Centre, run as an advertising stunt by the Danish Ministry of Agriculture to promote Danish food in UK, so they paid in accordance with the Danish trade unions.
Boy, was I rich?

I do remember filling my mini metro up with petrol - a full tank for £5! (Can't remember when that was though probably around 1982 ish.)

in 1960 I used to catch a bus, asking for a "Tuppeny 'apeny, 'alf" and buy 8 fruit salad or blackjacks for 1d.

My first wage packet was 10 guineas in 1967.