Anyone want to share memories of their first job.

My first job was in the office of the local Co-Op back in 1966.My wages for the week were the princely sum of four pounds, fourteen shillings and fourpence, I have never forgotten that amount.I then had to hand over two pounds to my mother for my keep.How times have changed.

My first job was a summer holiday job at Harrods. It was in 1961 and Harrods would not let anyone under 18 work as a sales assistant, so even though I was 18 in the August I worked as junior in the Budget Coat department. Dogsbodying for the sales staff and Manager. I had great fun and the coat buyer gave me (and my sister) a HUGE discount so that we could buy a coat from the sale stock after the sale. I was paid £6.50 and paid £1.50 a week for my season ticket and £1 to my mother, who said although she didn't need the money she believed that if I was earning I should contribute to my keep.

My first proper job after I left university in 1964 was as an Articled Clerk (graduate trainee) in a firm of Chartered Accountants. I was paid £10.00 a week, paid £2.50 for a season ticket and £2.50 to my mother. I was bored rigid, the training was poor and the work worse. After 6 months I left. The moral of that story is never accept a job through someone you met at a party!

I started work at 19, after a year studying commercial languages, in 1961 in the translation office of a communications company which laid cables for telephones etc. under the sea. We were three girls about the same age in one office and our boss in an adjoining room was a posh, stern but fair lady way past retirement age who spoke every language and called us her 'gels'. We had basic French, German and Spanish and dictionaries for every European language and mostly translated incoming correspondence and Miss M would check all our work. Our office was opposite Bush House and after we did some out of hours translating for someone in the BBC we were taken to lunch in the Bush House canteen and I thought that was the best thing that had ever happened in my life. We had electric typewriters supplied and serviced by IBM and since it was always cold in the office, one day I leant back with one hand on my typewriter and put the other on the small radiator behind me and received an electric shock which knocked me out and triggered a period. IBM later sent me a bunch of flowers. These days I suppose one would sue...

P.S This was in 1953 and I earned £2 and ten shillings per week.

I was lucky enough to have a Saturday job in a pet shop when I was 13. But upon leaving school just before my 16th birthday I started work in the office of a big dairy company, on the switchboard... It was SO difficult! I put endless calls through to the wrong department. But they quite liked me so sent me to secretarial college to learn shorthand and typing instead. I then became secretary to the boss and stayed there right up until 6 weeks before my first child was born. But I will never forget the fiasco of that switchboard.

My first job was a waitress at a Wimpy cafe in the centre of the city (Leicester) which I loved because a lot of young lads would come in for a burger. We also got a free lunch and if they were cooking doughnuts, you got a warm one straight out the cooker thing they made them in, yummmmmm. My first ' proper' job was as an office junior where I had a big imperial typewriter that you had to really thump and everything was typed in triplicate. The office manageress was a formidable woman, her hubby worked on the factory floor and she was effectively his boss. They used to pick me up in the morning and give me a lift to work, so no sickies for me lol. I can't remember the wage, but I only stayed for about 6 months then got bored and wanted to earn more money so got a job in a factory. In those days you just phoned up for a job, went in for a chat and if they liked you that was it. Not like today when you have to fill in CV's with your life story, go for interviews with anything up to about 3 people, maybe do a presentation or some group thing then wait days to find out if you got the job!

Hi, this is my first post, have been enjoying reading all your experiences so thought I would add mine too.
My first job was in Burtons Tailors on a Saturday afternoon where I made a cup of tea for the wives accompanying their husbands while they were measured for a bespoke suit. (left or right sir?!!) it paid 10 shillings and I loved earning my first wage. My proper job was in a bank, (first pay in 1968 £29 -a month )where I eventually became a Manager, which is a bit ironic as I gave up maths in the 3rd year and still don't have that sort of brain, although I'm a whizz on a calculator !

Oh what memories! My first job aged 13 in a cafe wiping tables and washing dishes on Saturdays. But I lied that I was 14 as that was the legal age limit. I progressed to 'Woolies' also on the sweetie counter for 10/6d. My first full time job on leaving secretarial college 1n 1966 was for a small independent oil company as office junior. The wage was £3.10s pw which was good money for the day, even better that I received luncheon vouchers for 7/6d a week. I gave my mum £2 for my keep.

I was RAF kid aand spent my teenage years in rural Norfolk. Earned big money pucking blackcurrants on the farms. We were paid 2 shillings a bucket and use to make £1 10 a dayat weekends. Went to college and did a secretarial course and then got a job in the typing pool with all WRFs a d eRned £3 10 a week. Still did my fruit picking at weekends. After 6 months I got a transfer with the civil service to London and lived in a civil service hostel in South kensington. Had a a great time, it was the swinging sixties and I was luving it!

My first job at age 19 was in a children's nursery during the summer break. It had to relevant to my studies. It was a complete eye opener as I had no experience of small children!I got to wash the sand in the play pit, take the children swimming, cook lunch during the local council shut down [a feather in my cap, we never had any waste], painting and my favorite, story telling, plus washing, dressing and changing. It changed my life forever and I missed them all so much.

I had a Saturday job at WH Smith earning £1.17 (old money) per day !! This was late 60's. No computerised tills then, all had to be added up manually. When I left school in 1971 I worked for a firm of Patent Agents in London. I started on £17 a week. I stayed there til 1976 when I had my first daughter. I made a very good friend there and we are still in touch, although she now lives in Italy.

I remember being sent onto the factory floor for a screw,

Dress shop as Saturday girl - 15/- per week!

At almost 17 I left school to work in a bank. Was obviously underpaid as I only earned £7 per week in 1965 or perhaps that's the difference between working in London and out in the sticks.

Autocorrect!!@!! I typed Jaxie

Jamie, yes do tell us the next instalment. And anyone else too

My first job was in a second hand bookshop run by a complete eccentric who lived above the shop. I was the junior and did dusting and cleaning for the shop and his flat! I arrived at work at 8am and he would take me and the other assistant for breakfast at the cafe up the road. He paid for all of us to have a massive fry up, swimming in grease, which we thought was lovely (healthy eating hadnt been invented then!). My duties also included making tea and sandwiches, shopping, and after a couple of months I was allowed to work the till. I wasnt in the least worried about effectively being his housekeeper and he was the kindest man in the world, completely obsessed by books, there were more in the flat than the shop! His delight was to crack jokes and make puns and I can remember the whole shop doubled up with laughter to the extent that quite a few customers used to come in not to buy books but to be cheered up.

My first job was as an office junior on a magazine. I earned £3 10s. a week. I made the tea, typed invoices and several days a month, used to spend the whole day rolling up the magazines in brown paper wrappers to take to the post office.

Another of my jobs was to take the 'copy' to the typesetters at the other side of the town. I remember the noise, the smell and the sight to this day, of the hot, silvery molten lead being poured into the forms (this may be spelt fourmes I think) and the men standing in rows picking out letters and putting them into long wooden trays.

My first fulltime job was working for the DHSS, checking forms that people had filled in and writing out cheques to go with them. I earned £6 a week, and the cheques were usually for more than that, but I didn't mind as they had families. That was fifty years ago.

I was an office junior for a Quantity Surveyor. I started on £5 per week. After six months I resigned. The boss said he'd double my wages if I stayed. I was thrilled and agreed. Then his secretary got very cross as that was what she was earning. I was called back to the office and told they were accepting my resignation after all. I never got to the bottom of why he offered me so much money in the first place.

I also worked at Woolworths on a Saturday. My job was wrapping all the Christmas parcels and I loved it. I made each parcel a work of art and it was worth it to see the smiling faces. Not high pay just a few pounds but it all helps doesn't it.

I had a Saturday jon at C&A when I was 14 or 15. I hated every minute of it but I got 17/6d for the day and they had a nice canteen! My first 'proper' job was as an office junior for which I was paid £3.18s.6d. per week which came in a brown pay packet. How excited I was on pay day. I got the job due to a kind teacher at school. I suffered with crippling shyness and was bullied quite a bit. I had done a typing course at school and was reasonably good at English. This teacher took me aside one day and said that a company opposite needed a junior and she had suggested me. Bless her.

I started work on 1st January 1962 (no day off then) age 15 years and 2 months. I had been going to evening classes for shorthand typing but my first job was in the filing department of an insurance company in London and I earned £5 a week plus luncheon vouchers. My weekly season ticket was half price at 10 shillings until I was 16. I gave my mum £1.10s a week. I progressed to the typing pool and then a shorthand/typist for the claims department. I loved working in London - lunchtimes down Petticoat Lane buying remnants to make clothes or walking down to the Tower of London.

As a student nurse I earned £22/month in 1972 out of which I had to pay for food etc but not rent in the nurses home.

It didn't go far in London (£78 booklist for first year ?) So my parents would pay £1.10s for my coach fare home once a month. I remember my mother telling me I looked peaky so I needed to eat steak (!). Little did she know we lived on boiled cabbage soup and toast for the last week of every month.

My first job, in 1958, was in. Solicitor's office. I earned 3.10s a week. I had to get into the office first and light the coal fires in the four partner's offices. I moved on from there to a bank where I earned 5.00 a week, an absolute fortune. I was paid monthly and bought a new pair of shoes almost every payday.

I started as a receptionist in the Doctor's surgery for £6 a week during school holidays, and on the Christmas Post when I was training to be a teacher. Started teaching in 1975 but I can't remember what I was paid... maybe £125 a month?