Your First Wage Packet

[Doon frae Troon]

Me,15 year old in 1963 getting £3 a week.
Working 6 days inc every weekend.
One weeks holiday a year.
60 hours in the summer, 40 hours in the winter.

Happy as a pig in phoo!

 

[stevie_r]

June 79, just turned 16 and found a job as the smallest, skinniest building site labourer in Britain - take home was £24 a week.

That was just to fill in until I joined the Army in the September, where, as I was under 16 1/2, I was on the astounding daily rate of £3.84 per day. Of that we got £7 cash per week and the rest was saved for you for end of term leave.

 

[rosecott]

22 shillings a week as a National Serviceman, had trouble spending it all.

 

[Big_Rick78]

I got a job at a printers the day after I left school. My first weeks wages was £175. Not bad for a 16 year old who got chucked out of school. I remember going home with loads of new clothes. Then went out and got drunk

 

[williamalex1]

Me 15 years old in 1962 my first pre apprenticeship as a plasterer £2, 7s 6d for 44hour 5 1/2 day week.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Other than my morning paper round - £2 a week - 7 day week 6am start (try that on a 15yr old today) - hall porter - Scotland's Hotel. 1976. £16 a week - 60hr week. Split shift 6am start getting rolls from the bakers for breakfast - 10:30pm handover to Night Porter - but time for knock round Pitlochry in the afternoon. Felt loaded, happy bunny and knackered.

 

[Doon frae Troon]

Hogan you didn't run into a guy called Andy Wylie about that time, wee[ish] chap, massively long hitter with a huge hook.
Big Starky would be the Pro then, he was a bit of a legend.

 

[Hobbit]

Nov '78, £65 gross, nett £45...

 

[teetime72]

£1,17s 6d for a 48hr.week as apprentice engineer.

£1 for board 17s 6d to spend (or it could have been the other way round),

either way it lasted all week. Money went a long way in those far off days.

 

[Chrisb83]

1997 14 year old- £2.50 an hour labouring for a local landscape gardener, thought it was great compared to a paper round all week. Saved the money to buy some addidas predator boots.

 

[bigslice]

1990 30 squid a week YTS jazzdrummer. still drumming away

 

[AmandaJR]

1980. One of the first crop of YOPpers (Youth Opportunities Programme) £19.50 a week flat rate - felt loaded!!

 

[DCB]

Started in August 1977 as a 1st year Technician Apprentice on £25.38 + £3.70 pay supplement for a 40hr week. Still got the paperwork for that job and the copy of the official secrets act I had to sign.

When I got that offer I turned down a 'job for life' with Ferranti that offered a paltry £15 for a similar position. We lived in an area where many people worked for Ferranti and they thought I was really stupid turning that down. Every time I pass the nice flats at the site of the old St Andrews works I tell myself 'that was a job for life'

 

[louise_a]

1969 in the office of the local Prudential. £360 a year, I got an extra £30 or having 5 O'levels.

The only job I had where I got to leave early and still got paid overtime!

 

[Doon frae Troon]

1990 30 squid a week YTS jazzdrummer. still drumming away

I remember taking on two 16 year old female YOP trainee green keepers in the 1990's.
Both were tiny, one was less than 5 foot. We had a hell of a job getting a pair of size 2 safety boots for her.
Both were quick learners and cracking workers. They also got on well with 'the men'.

 

[SocketRocket]

I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

Couldn't resist.

 

[williamalex1]

£1,17s 6d for a 48hr.week as apprentice engineer.

£1 for board 17s 6d to spend (or it could have been the other way round),

either way it lasted all week. Money went a long way in those far off days.

If i recall the price of a small bottle of mc ewans blue lable india pale ale [A DUMP ] was 7d in 1965. the same cost £4.60 now at a place i know.

 

[Khamelion]

16yrs old getting paid £30 a week on the college course I was on, 9 weeks later started my first job as a computer operator on £400 a month, can't remember if that was before or after tax, got a pay rise when i turned 17, still working in the IT industry.

 

[tyke]

1979 , 17 year old RAF Recruit, £14 a fortnight, was betteroff then than i am now

 

[daymond]

1961 trainee quantity surveyor in a small private practice. £2 or £3 per week ( too long ago to remember ). Five and a half day week. Saturday mornings were spent on the telephone switchboard, the old fashion type with jack plugs and holes. Every call had to be properly logged, not that there were many. Two weeks holiday. One day a week college at Bristol Poly.

Made sure I had six old pence in my pocket after the lunch break card session at college to pay for petrol in the Vespa to get me home twenty five miles away.

Not very good days would not wish to see it again.

Oh yes, no calculators, computers. Anyone experience the duo decimal system?