My Saturday JOB
I was a Saturday girl when I was 15 at the Marks & Spencer Pantheon store in London in 1984.
My duties included the endless task of folding sensible shirts and jumpers back onto plastic frames. Sometimes I would be transferred to cosmetics which was the last time St Michael palettes of yellow and fuchsia eyeshadows were in fashion.
It was also where I got my addiction to M&S Fondant Fancies. But to get up to the heavily discounted staff canteen from the shop floor, staff had to use a non-stop paternoster lift, which I dreaded would be fatal if I didn’t time my jump right.
However, the lure of a plate of pink and lemon fondant treats and mini sandwiches for 10p at break time proved greater than my fears of getting my head crushed.
I remember being paid about £25 a week for my Saturday shift and two evenings, which was a fortune. Also, I got to buy food that had reached its sell-by date at the end of a shift for pennies.
We used to get lots of famous customers in the Oxford Circus store, but I remember Kenneth Williams used to come in regularly and, naturally for a Carry On star, buy crumpets!
Another early starter with happy memories of her time on the shop floor is reader Pauline Ferrier from Wigan, Greater Manchester. “I was 15 in 1969 when I earned my first cash as a Saturday girl at Woolworths. I worked from 8am to 5pm and earned £1.”
But it was hard graft being on your feet all day.
“We had to have an arithmetic test before getting the job to ensure we could handle money,” says Pauline. “And I look back and can’t believe what I had to do – serve customers all day, use the till, restock the counters, take a huge skip to the warehouse, then cash up at the end of the day.”
Staff also took it in turns to make the tea and toast for morning break, but despite the hard work, Pauline enjoyed herself in the store that finally closed in 1984.
■ How did you earn your first wage as a teenager? Email siobhan.mcnally@ mirror.co.uk