• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

What was your first full time job, and first wages?

rowan

rowan

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,462
Location
Tamar Valley, West Devon
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
My first full time job was in 1970 as a GPO International Telephonist, no direct dialling abroad in those days! I worked in London, opposite St Paul's Cathedral and remember walking up to the top one lunchtime in my brand new very high heeled platform sole boots, nightmare!
I was 15 and my weekly wages, collected in cash every week, was £8! I gave my Mum £2, a weekly season ticket from Barnehurst (Bexleyheath) to London was another £2 :wideyed:, £2 for clothes, usually from Petticoat Lane on pay day, and £2 for spending money, make-up, fags and canteen tea/lunch breaks - the canteen served as a private dating club for the hundreds of young telephonists and engineers who worked there, happy days! ;)
I worked in 4a, found this on google! http://www.lightstraw.co.uk/ate/main/faraday/faradayicc1.html
 
Last edited by a moderator:
1979 left school on Friday and started at British Steel on Monday.
Around these parts you basically had two options the steelworks or the pit.
If my memory serves me the wages were £21 per week and from that you had deductions taken for your overalls being cleaned, union dues, a small sum towards the sports and social club and deductions for tools as well.
 
First job was as shorthand typist working for the Ministry of Agriculture in 1971 weekly wage was £19 - can remember wondering what to do with all that money!!
 
Sancho panza said:
1979 left school on Friday and started at British Steel on Monday.
Around these parts you basically had two options the steelworks or the pit.
If my memory serves me the wages were £21 per week and from that you had deductions taken for your overalls being cleaned, union dues, a small sum towards the sports and social club and deductions for tools as well.
Click to expand...

I've always wondered how employers got away with charging employees for the tools they needed to do the job?! Do they still that now?
 
julie56 said:
First job was as shorthand typist working for the Ministry of Agriculture in 1971 weekly wage was £19 - can remember wondering what to do with all that money!!
Click to expand...

That was good money in those days! I only stayed with the GPO about 7-8 months after discovering I could earn twice as much elsewhere, so my next job was also £19 a week, I thought I was so rich! It opened up a whole new world of late closing on a thursday night in Oxford St and Biba in Kensington :D
 
Hi rowan, similar to you, trained as a GPO telephonist, in September 1974, on ordinary switchboard, console ( very new and system then) Directory enquires and the emergency console, asking for emergency services., 999. If I am right in remembering the wages, I think it was about £12.00 per week and some pence then, very exciting for a 16 year old, and I had to sign the secrets act too :) But 6 weeks before starting my 'proper job', I worked at the AA, Automobile Association as a temp in the Projects department, just to earn some money and keep busy. Loved it :happy:

RRB
 
I started work in 1986 as a trainee manager at a wood merchant. My starting salary was £4K a year and I thought I was loaded :D
 
rowan said:
I've always wondered how employers got away with charging employees for the tools they needed to do the job?! Do they still that now?
Click to expand...

As an employer now I wish I could lol it would save me a fortune.

If I recall correctly we were issued with a steel tool box containing a hacksaw two files a hammer a scribe and a centre punch these we got for free but any other tools from there on in we had to purchase.
I must admit there's some merit in the idea as you would take great care of your tools knowing that it would cost you to replace them.
 
Junior stenographer (shorthand typist) with Glaxo Laboratories (now GSK). Wage was £7 1s and 3d, plus 1s 4p per day lunch allowance.
 
Depends what you mean by "job", as I had a succession of holiday jobs, starting in the early 70s with grouse beating in the Scottish Borders for ten bob a day. Basically, you walked about 10 miles a day, in glorious scenery, driving the grouse towards a succession of butts (concealed areas for shooting from, not an Americanism for one's bum :)).

In my opinion we should have received danger money as well, since many of the people shooting were either very inaccurate shots - I heard lead shot whistling over my head on several occasions :eek: or, particularly in the afternoon, were quite, erm, refreshed, with the result that they weren't sure which of the two birds they could see was the one that they should be aiming at :). I think it's probably subject to a bit more elf & safety control nowadays.

Not to everyone's taste, I am sure, but it was a glorious outdoor activity, great exercise and we were each allowed a brace of grouse to take home at the end of the season. Most of the beaters were local village kids and weren't interested, but we ate the two I took back to where we were staying (a farm belonging to family friends) and they were delicious. Most of the grouse ended up on the tables of expensive restaurants in the West End, although I believe many just get buried nowadays, which is a shocking waste.

First proper job was working as a general admin dogsbody for a charity in Central London in 1978. I can't remember exactly what I was paid but it was about 15 quid a week, I think, plus a little overtime for evening work occasionally.
 
jay hay-char said:
Depends what you mean by "job", as I had a succession of holiday jobs, starting in the early 70s with grouse beating in the Scottish Borders for ten bob a day. Basically, you walked about 10 miles a day, in glorious scenery, driving the grouse towards a succession of butts (concealed areas for shooting from, not an Americanism for one's bum :)).

In my opinion we should have received danger money as well, since many of the people shooting were either very inaccurate shots - I heard lead shot whistling over my head on several occasions :eek: or, particularly in the afternoon, were quite, erm, refreshed, with the result that they weren't sure which of the two birds they could see was the one that they should be aiming at :). I think it's probably subject to a bit more elf & safety control nowadays.

Not to everyone's taste, I am sure, but it was a glorious outdoor activity, great exercise and we were each allowed a brace of grouse to take home at the end of the season. Most of the beaters were local village kids and weren't interested, but we ate the two I took back to where we were staying (a farm belonging to family friends) and they were delicious. Most of the grouse ended up on the tables of expensive restaurants in the West End, although I believe many just get buried nowadays, which is a shocking waste.

First proper job was working as a general admin dogsbody for a charity in Central London in 1978. I can't remember exactly what I was paid but it was about 15 quid a week, I think, plus a little overtime for evening work occasionally.
Click to expand...

I'm very anti-hunting and shooting, especially when it's just for fun or if they're just buried or left to rot, what a disgusting waste of life. Not so bad if what you're hunting is to be eaten though.
But I can imagine your job being out in the wilds would have been lovely.
There's a lot of pheasant shooting around here and I often see landrovers dropping of a load of beaters, I could envy them the job if it didn't end in so many deaths :(
 
Sancho panza said:
As an employer now I wish I could lol it would save me a fortune.
If I recall correctly we were issued with a steel tool box containing a hacksaw two files a hammer a scribe and a centre punch these we got for free but any other tools from there on in we had to purchase.
I must admit there's some merit in the idea as you would take great care of your tools knowing that it would cost you to replace them.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's true.
 
Robinredbreast said:
Hi rowan, similar to you, trained as a GPO telephonist, in September 1974, on ordinary switchboard, console ( very new and system then) Directory enquires and the emergency console, asking for emergency services., 999. If I am right in remembering the wages, I think it was about £12.00 per week and some pence then, very exciting for a 16 year old, and I had to sign the secrets act too :) But 6 weeks before starting my 'proper job', I worked at the AA, Automobile Association as a temp in the Projects department, just to earn some money and keep busy. Loved it :happy:

RRB
Click to expand...

They made such a big thing of signing the OSC didn't they? We spent most of our time on the switchboards but occasionally we'd do a shift in the Ticket Cab, where we'd sort out the hundreds of tickets created for all the calls into little pigeon holes, very boring, or work on 'Advise Duration and Charge' (ADC) where we'd work out the cost of a call for people who asked us to when booking their overseas call and then phone them back to tell them how much it was. Can't remember any of the charges now but it was very expensive!
I think the best thing about the job (apart from meeting so many boys!) was that if you were GPO trained you were considered the best and could get a job anywhere :smug:
But I was very glad to finally get away from switchboard work, never really liked it.
 
rowan said:
I'm very anti-hunting and shooting, especially when it's just for fun or if they're just buried or left to rot, what a disgusting waste of life. Not so bad if what you're hunting is to be eaten though.
But I can imagine your job being out in the wilds would have been lovely.
There's a lot of pheasant shooting around here and I often see landrovers dropping of a load of beaters, I could envy them the job if it didn't end in so many deaths :(
Click to expand...
I don't entirely disagree with you - killing for the sake of killing is pretty pointless, and killing animals that have been reared and husbanded purely so that they can be shot by people with lots of money seems downright obscene to me. The best that I can say about grouse is that they are pretty free range, unlike most commercially-reared pheasants. Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, grouse shooting provides employment for people in parts of the country where there isn't much other work around.

I object to hunting: not because foxes get killed (they are vermin, and have to be kept under control somehow, particularly in areas where they prey on livestock) but the whole panoply of dogs, horses and people in costume conspiring to chase a wild animal and then (usually) watch it get torn to death by a pack of dogs is something that I find deeply unpalatable. Added to that, I was a country lad in my youth and the arrogance of hunters, who seemed to feel that they had a God-given right to trespass on and trash your property, had to be seen to be believed. Not my favourite people.....
 
My first job was at a printers. I was trained to do most things within the place.
My weekly wage was £8.6s 0d. This is in 1971. The Monday after finishing school, no summer holidays.
Gave my mum £3 and spent the rest on clothes and fags, going the pictures or the local discos.
Never had real money in my pocket before and new fashionable clothes.
 
Hay & Harvest labour. Wages were good but hard work! ~£70pw (plus hares/pheasants/woodpigeons) Took a couple of weeks for hands to toughen up!!

One year we had problems with a GSD worrrying sheep1! Boss took it (and another) out with one shot and a
"At least he died happy" comment
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I started in 1972 as an apprentice gas engineer I was on £4·50 a week. My mom had £2 a week for my keep, I used to spend at least £2 a week on girls and beer, the rest I just wasted.
 
Lynn1 said:
Junior stenographer (shorthand typist) with Glaxo Laboratories (now GSK). Wage was £7 1s and 3d, plus 1s 4p per day lunch allowance.
Click to expand...
Oh you've just reminded me, I got luncheon vouchers too - what a great thing they were
 
Back
Top