Jump to content

First wage packet


Recommended Posts

I will guarantee that most people will remember their amount in their first wage packet, Mine was £37.40 per week, which was twice the dole money I was being paid then. I worked on building sites as a YTS labourer, and I hated it. it was working in the Manchester area, I was up scaffoling in a thunderstorm, and the guys said we were ok, until a building nearby got struck, then it was every man for himself down the wooden ladders, in January to March, it was bloody freezing, I was 18 & had the P155 taken out of me by the other kids on the scheme, as well as the qualified workers. It took me three years to get over it, but it did give me time to cycle.

I eventually started work in Theatres (Operating, Hospitals), and on my worst MONTH, I got £199.99. Then I had to travel up to Blackpool from Salford, picking up my mates at Barton & Preston for study days.

When I went on the agency, my first weeks pay was £350.

What was your first wage? £sd for yorkies.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites


£15/day picking half a line of potatoes (experienced pickers got a whole line and £30/day) during late 80s summer holiday. Picking fruit and being paid by weight picked was much easier but not as much money. 

My first adult wage was £220/week as a squaddie in training. 

"When in deadly danger, when beset by doubt; run in little circles, wave your arms and shout"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

68 1/2p per hour working on the tills at Tesco Xmas 87. I was so desperate to get off and party New Years Eve that rather than enter the amount spent on the carbon paper thing you had to put on the credit card and swipe in the machine I instead entered 18:22 (the time as i was off at 18:30). The customer was too honest for my good and went to customer services with his over £100 of shopping and the credit card receipt and I got a rollicking.

Not only was i only paid 68.5 p per hour but i had to buy my uniform of black trousers, white shirt and black tie from the shop (at no discount) which used about 2 days money

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Bleep1673 said:

£2 per week for delivering papers in the morning, and Manchester Evening News in, well, evening. Chandos Grove newsagents

Did that as well aged 13/14 had 2 huge bags of Sunday papers to deliver did one bag down the hill then 1 in opposite direction (pretty flat) got £3 the lot but great tips at Xmas form the big houses (the ones that got a collection of Sunday papers and things like Harpers&Queen which weighed a ton)

Living in the country the round was geographically big for the amount of properties and involved cycling along national speed limit country roads whilst the locals sped past madly

Link to comment
Share on other sites

£6/8 shillings as an apprentice painter and decorator in 1967 bloody hard work being used and abused by tough builders for about 4 years.

Through the fish-eyed lens of tear stained eyes
I can barely define the shape of this moment in time(roger waters)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pre working

Paper round was £0.12.6d (62.5p)

3 nights working in a chip shop made £1 a week +plus a bag of chips per night.

Potato picking £0.10s (50p) per day and a shopping bag of taters.

£2.16.4d. 

Then I got an apprenticeship @ £4. pw. 

68d stamp left me with £3.12.4d net. Mam gave me 2d which it took to £3.12.6

£1 for clothes, £1 for savings for holidays, £1 pocket money, 5s for a record player on hp  ( when that was paid for I bought a tape recorder) and 7s.6d for bus fare.

I have often paid two NI stamps. I worked overtime when it was available at RR. If it was'nt I found another part time occupation. I worked part time at Warwick Uni in the bar in the Students Union for 4 years. Other work inc working on the M6 when it was being built, potato picking and digging a trench for a wall at a local Sikh Gurdwara.

In my mid 40's I decided to cut out the manual labour and took a course in Chiropody. I qualified and started my own business at 48. I worked part time as well as my day job for 5 years until I was made redundant when the whole division was shipped off to Canada.  I was offered a job there.

I am 72 in January and have cut down to 2/3 days a week.

The only time I ever claimed benefits was when  a week before my redundancy I fell and ripped my ACL completely off my knee. I couldn't drive and so could not work in my "new" job. I was paid the princely sum of £19 per week. After 3 weeks of this I arranged for my patients to come to me. I informed the DSS that I was restarting work and had signed myself off. They told me it would affect my benefits. I laughed and told them if I was only being paid £19 despite having paid 2 N.I stamps most of my life they could stuff it where the Sun doesn't shine. 

I have paid my share of N.I dues and continue to pay tax.

Ron Banks

Midlands Hurricanes and Barrow

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Bleep1673 said:

£2 per week for delivering papers in the morning, and Manchester Evening News in, well, evening. Chandos Grove newsagents

Did that as well. Sundays were a pain with all the supplements etc. Wednesdays even worse though with radio and TV times. I was nearly sacked though for reading one fellas "Parade" mid round!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, ckn said:

£15/day picking half a line of potatoes (experienced pickers got a whole line and £30/day) during late 80s summer holiday. Picking fruit and being paid by weight picked was much easier but not as much money. 

My first adult wage was £220/week as a squaddie in training. 

Bloody hell, money went up a bit, I think I got £105/week in early '89 when I joined up, I had gone to join the RAF as they were paying more for equivalent ratings in my qualified area but it was mainly due to the fact I was fascinated with military aircraft since a nipper. 

My first actual wage of any sort was £1.31 to deliver 189 free newspapers (got more for the leaflets), it was only 24 pages big back then, not the monstrosity they are now, that was about 1982, I continued to do it even up until I left college as I could nail it in under an hour* - despite the shouty terrier that ripped it out my hand at the letterbox every week and the big ###### thing at no.79s  that just gave you this horrible stare like it would bite you in half in a nano second but never did, ]that dog properly gave me the collywobbles!

I also sold Avon whilst at college with my gf, easy money that compared to been flogged in a hot kitchen?

*by that time it was paying more per hr than working in any restaurant as a commis chef/plonguer!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Denton Rovers RLFC said:

Bloody hell, money went up a bit, I think I got £105/week in early '89 when I joined up, I had gone to join the RAF as they were paying more for equivalent ratings in my qualified area but it was mainly due to the fact I was fascinated with military aircraft since a nipper. 

My first actual wage of any sort was £1.31 to deliver 189 free newspapers (got more for the leaflets), it was only 24 pages big back then, not the monstrosity they are now, that was about 1982, I continued to do it even up until I left college as I could nail it in under an hour* - despite the shouty terrier that ripped it out my hand at the letterbox every week and the big ###### thing at no.79s  that just gave you this horrible stare like it would bite you in half in a nano second but never did, ]that dog properly gave me the collywobbles!

I also sold Avon whilst at college with my gf, easy money that compared to been flogged in a hot kitchen?

*by that time it was paying more per hr than working in any restaurant as a commis chef/plonguer!

I joined in 1989! That £220/week was the gross income, I remember it because the annual salary for an untrained adult recruit was £11,500/year at the time, I joined just out of school after my 18th birthday. 

"When in deadly danger, when beset by doubt; run in little circles, wave your arms and shout"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

£23.50 a week on the old Youth Opportunity Programme, replaced by YTS. Had to give me Mum £10. This to camera drains for North West Water, as was. 

Eventually got a pay rise to £25.00, I think. Certainly makes you value your money!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

46 minutes ago, ckn said:

I joined in 1989! That £220/week was the gross income, I remember it because the annual salary for an untrained adult recruit was £11,500/year at the time, I joined just out of school after my 18th birthday. 

I think you're mistaken, no way could it have been that amount, that's equivalent to over £5/hr and I know for a fact that a Class IV private was not getting that amount back then and certainly nothing like that in civvy street either.

I'll dig out the historical record so we can see who is right ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Denton Rovers RLFC said:

I think you're mistaken, no way could it have been that amount, that's equivalent to over £5/hr and I know for a fact that a Class IV private was not getting that amount back then and certainly nothing like that in civvy street either.

I'll dig out the historical record so we can see who is right ?

Hmmm... I remember it well as we were repeatedly told in training that we weren’t worth the £220 a week we were being paid. I also remember it being over £10k as it was WAY more than my mates were getting paid.

"When in deadly danger, when beset by doubt; run in little circles, wave your arms and shout"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, ckn said:

Hmmm... I remember it well as we were repeatedly told in training that we weren’t worth the £220 a week we were being paid. I also remember it being over £10k as it was WAY more than my mates were getting paid.

well I found the '93 pay review and the starting wedge was £8k (so would be about what I thought from 4 years previous) so you if you were led to think you were going to get 11k as a nig in 1989 they'd fed you some line??

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Denton Rovers RLFC said:

well I found the '93 pay review and the starting wedge was £8k (so would be about what I thought from 4 years previous) so you if you were led to think you were going to get 11k as a nig in 1989 they'd fed you some line??

I still have my pay slips somewhere. Probably in the attic. 

I was on the 9yr contract that paid more as well. 

"When in deadly danger, when beset by doubt; run in little circles, wave your arms and shout"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First 'casual' job was a milk round for an hour a day, usually less, before school. Paid £13 a week.

First payslip came from temp warehouse work. Can't remember the amount but it was £3.20 an hour for the nightshift.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎11‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 23:59, Bleep1673 said:

I will guarantee that most people will remember their amount in their first wage packet, Mine was £37.40 per week, which was twice the dole money I was being paid then. I worked on building sites as a YTS labourer, and I hated it. it was working in the Manchester area, I was up scaffoling in a thunderstorm, and the guys said we were ok, until a building nearby got struck, then it was every man for himself down the wooden ladders, in January to March, it was bloody freezing, I was 18 & had the P155 taken out of me by the other kids on the scheme, as well as the qualified workers. It took me three years to get over it, but it did give me time to cycle.

 

Not cut out for the tough world of construction then Bleep ?

I started work at 16 laboring on building sites as a summer job for £30 a week, one of the most enjoyable times I've ever had. You needed a thick skin as the banter was what most people would call extreme but it certainly toughens you up for the real world. The pranks that were played on people were like nothing you'll experience anywhere else, particularly if you were one of the professional trades like plumbers or electricians. Plumbers knew that if they didn't complete the installation of any new toilets in 1 day then by the time they got in the next morning they would fine their shiny new toilet 'full' and would then have to clean it out by hand before installing it. Similar for electricians, if they didn't manage to run all their 1st fix cabling in 1 day or if they left their plans lying around showing the cabling routes then the labourers would lift up the floor boards to go to the toilet, carefully relaying the boards and then sit back and laugh as the electricians then had to thread their cabling under the floor the next day through their mess.

And woe be tide if you left any items of clothing lying around, boots & jackets were regularly glued or nailed to the floor or wall.

I worked a couple of summers for Eddie Cunninghams building firm alongside former players like Tommy Cunningham and Roy Haggerty (Haggy was still paying for Saints at that time in the late 80's). One of my best memories was playing (supposedly tag) rugby at lunchtime with them using a house brick as a ball. Even tag rugby for Haggy involved taking your head off or trying to break your ribs with the brick with a hard pass

Oh the days !!!

St.Helens - The Home of record breaking Rugby Champions

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/11/2019 at 17:47, Trevorkfevfan said:

Did that as well. Sundays were a pain with all the supplements etc. Wednesdays even worse though with radio and TV times. I was nearly sacked though for reading one fellas "Parade" mid round!

Sundays were a pain. Especially one delivery was only just broad enough for a Sun, but on a Sunday he had a Sunday Times with all the additions, and he never tipped at Christmas

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I was 16 years old and started at Wakefield MDC the Monday after I left school which was no mean feat in 1980 with high unemployment.

My first monthly payslip showed I earned £164 at around £1.20 an hour.

I went out and bought a red, yellow and blue hooped polo top, some bright red jeans and red shoes with white piping and went out drinking around Cas.  I felt like a fashion guru until back at work on Monday a female colleague came over and said she had seen me in a pub and that I ‘looked like an explosion at a Dulux factory’.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.