OLDEN PAYDAYS
Ron’s 1940s wage slips found under floorboards he fixed
THERE probably won’t be many retired chippies who can tell you what they earned on a job more than 70 years ago…
But 91-year-old Ron Howlett can – after being handed pay-slips from the 1940s that he used to fix some wobbly floorboards on the dancefloor of a hotel. And one from 1946 showed he earned £3, 18 shillings and 3 pence. They were found by builders demolishing the property and returned to the dad-of-four.
Ron’s daughter Jill Marven, 64, said: “It’s incredible to think they’ve been there for all those years. The slips had been folded and used as packing pieces and some had nail holes in them. I found it touching my dad was the last person to touch them and it was him who made those folds.” Ron used eight payslips at the Cliff Hotel in Harwich, Essex, where he still lives. Apart from showing he got paid two shillings and two pence an hour (about 11p today), they also reveal he got nine pence a week “dirt money” – extra cash for filthy work. The dockets were given to the former hotel’s manager John Wade, who passed them on. He said: “It’s lovely they’ve made their way back to Ron.”