Binman, fish seller, travel
Six well-known faces tell Rachel Dean about summer work as teenagers
‘It taught me to interact with folk and deal with the public’
Lynda Bryans (57) is a journalism lecturer at Belfast Met. She lives in Belfast with her husband, Mike Nesbitt, and they have two sons, Peter (24) and Christopher (22). She says:
When I was around 15 or 16, I got my first job, working in a fresh produce shop. It sold raw fish, chicken and other frozen foods, then over lunch time it sold hot food like fish and chips and things.
I was looking for a job at the time and we were shopping nearby, so I just went in and asked. That was it.
I liked it because it gave me a little bit of money, which gave me a little bit of independence.
The thing I think it taught me best of all was how to interact with different folk and how to deal with the public — and also how to joint a chicken! I can joint a chicken into eight pieces very well. What a skill.
Thanks to a lady who worked there, I was also taught how to make fresh potted herrings and, in the days before digital scales, how to work out prices per pound.
I loved my job, but I may not have loved it so much on a Saturday morning when I had to get up early to go to work.
My parents were very supportive and they drove me to and from work because we lived a little bit away.
They were definitely encouraging because it taught me how to manage my own money, how to budget for things and to save up for things I wanted.
I can’t remember how much I got paid, but I can’t imagine it was that much — it was probably something around £5 or £10. I likely spent my wages on usual girly stuff like shopping in town.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do as a career and I didn’t even look at it as good experience for communication skills at the time, as I do now.
The one thing I did know though was that I didn’t want to work in a fish shop.”