I gave Mum my first pay packet ...then got it back 62 years later!
FOR most people, the thrill of holding their first pay packet as a teenager is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
But history repeated itself for 77-year-old Michael Doherty, who found his unopened weekly wages in a drawer – 62 years after he handed them over to his mother for safekeeping.
He earned the money as a 15year-old apprentice builder in 1955. Workmates tried to tempt him into frittering it away in the pub but the sensible lad – who had left school only seven days earlier – gave his envelope to his mother, Margaret.
Mrs Doherty – now 104 and living in a care home – put the two pounds, 15 shillings and ninepence away for a rainy day.
Her son, from Greenock, Renfrewshire, discovered the money while clearing out her house.
He said: ‘She couldn’t believe they had been in the house for all those years.’
He added: ‘Back then, to a 15year-old, two pounds, 15 shillings, and ninepence was a lot of money – especially when it was your first pay after leaving school. Back then a pint was ninepence – when you look at it like that it was a lot of money.’
Mr Doherty, who has two great-grandchildren, intends to keep the envelope as a reminder of his first week’s work, saying: ‘It’s a good memory to have. It was nice for [Mum] to be able to see it again because she always says those were the best days.
‘When she had a hold of the pay poke, she had a tight grip on it, like she was thinking she was some sort of millionaire.’