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First Job

A great story Robert, but like Loisand that's an end to my black pudding days :'(
 
I'll tell me husband about the Black Pudding - he enjoyed that when we over your neck of the woods. Great story!
 
I was a junior clerk at the Birtannic Assurance Chief Office in Moor Green Lane my wage was £11.61. It is now converted to luxuary appartments.
 
My first job was at 'Newmans' in Hospital St. They made the "Briton" door closers. I spent months drilling holes in the plates that were used to screw them to the door and because of the suds that were used as a lubricant, I got dermatitis, so the moved me to the assembly shop. I think I could still put one of those things together with my eyes closed, even after forty years. What a boring job, and I only earned 2 pound sixteen shillings and sixpence. I stuck it out for six months because they kept promising me that I would get an apprenticeship as a Toolmaker, but one of the old guys told me that they said that to all the new lads. So I left, and my brother got me a job with him at British Pens where I did get an apprenticeship as a Toolmaker.......I really wanted to be a surgeon though.
 
First job as office junior at solicitors Edge and Ellison,5 Waterloo Street.

A couple of years later went to the 'Plato' works of David Hollander and sons ,electroplaters on the corner of Caroline Street and Northwood Street.
They sent me to the Remington Rand college in Albert street and I trained on an accounting machine,the forerunner of the computer.

The owners were the Hardidge family,wonderful employers with good family values.They were later taken over by the GUS catalogue chain.
 
:angel: Alberta I wonder if we worked in Caroline St at the same time... We may have passed each other on our way to and from work... I was at A.D.Hayes as a 'Telephonist & Receptionist' 1963, 18/19 Caroline St. I hated it there though, as the office staff were very snobby and kept saying I should speak all the time like I did when answering the phone and talking to clients... Yeah right, and then get a clip round the ear from Mom at home for thinking I was better than the rest of them.

Funny though, I still have what my daughter calls 'My telephone voice' :2funny:

Chris :angel:
 
That telephone voice Chris could sound like a Bell :2funny:
 
Chris, I left in summer 1963 when I was expecting my first son.

One of my duties was answering the telephone when the telephonist was at lunch.
I was always being told off for saying OK,the office manager pointing out that this was England not America.
Loved the switchboards.the one at the solicitors was the sort with plugs an the end of cables and' eyes 'with numbers for each extension.The one at hollanders was more modern with switches.Both, if I remember correctly ,were 5 lines and 20 extensions.

We played awful games when we were bored.

We would call eg. the maternity hospital and the dogs home and then open up the lines together.Each thought they were the one receiving the call from the other and sometimes got very irate .looking back it was very silly but we were only teenagers.

I too developed a 'telephone voice' which I still use today.
 
:angel: Alberta it seems as if we may well have seen each other then in passing, as I worked at Hayes from May 63.
My switchboard was the same, with plugs at the end of cables and 'eyes' with numbers that popped down when a call was in operation and up at the end of a call, although I had 10 lines and 40 extensions. I played around when bored, phoning random numbers and putting the radio to the speaker when the number was answered. That wouldn't be so funny today, with the 'Hang on -Hold' music they play while your waiting 20 Min's to be told to press another choice of buttons, did your one too and agree very silly really.
We would call eg. the maternity hospital and the dogs home and then open up the lines together.Each thought they were the one receiving the call from the other and sometimes got very irate .looking back it was very silly but we were only teenagers.
Click to expand...
Oh to be young again :)

Chris :angel:
 
"Number Please"

"Your time is up, do you wish to pay for further time?"

"What exchange Do you want?"

"Operater...... What number do you require?"

Those were the days :)
 
YES I REMEMBER MY FIRST JOB IT WAS DAWS THE FISHMONGERS ON WARWICK ROAD IN ACOCKS GREEN .THE BUILDINGS HAVE LONG GONE . BUT I CAN REMEMBER , CLEANING OUT FISH , CHICKENS , RABBITS ETC. AND HAVING A BOWL OF WARM WATER TO WARM MY HANDS AFTER SERVING THE FISH FROM ALL THAT COLD ICE AND THEN HAVING TO WASH THE VAN AN OLD BEDFORD DORMOBILE IN THE FREEZING COLD WITH COLD WATER AND THEN PAY DAY I THINK I HAD ABOUT £ 3.10S
JOHNEDWARD
 
My first job was at Abbotts of Lozells, it was on Lozells Rd at the corner of Wilton St. The owner was named Harry Sheasby, the Chief Salesman was Mr Clark, he lived in Lozells St, Mr Sheasby lived in Erdington. I worked there for 3 years until I was called up for my National Service. Mr Sheasby wanted me to go back, but I went to work for the Post Office Telephones instead. He wasn't best pleased.
 
was this a furniture shop as we bought furniture from a shop in Lozells road 1969 when we moved to Aldridge the name Abbots seems to ring a bell
 
Hi John. Yes indeed it was a furniture shop. It was right opposite the site of the former "Lozells Cinema" which was of course destroyed by enemy action in WWII.
 
thanks Barrie we bought our first dining room suite from them and a couple of fire side chairs and of course the bedroom suite small world ain't it
 
Robert,
Just read your story and I thought it was wonderfull. Only someone with the actual experience of being there could possibly have used words to paint so vivid and enthrawling a picture. Well done.
Regards.
 
Robert,
sorry for being so late in reading
your story, but I too was at one time a coffin maker
and Nov 5th the kids used to come
and ask if we had any empty boxes :2funny:
 
My first job was at T. Elvins & Sons Builders...Soho Rd Hockley Brook.. in the decorating section.. Remember being put on the C&A job in town... this was 1965.. £4.00 pw :( so was happy moving those counters about in c&a To find the odd 1/2 dollar 8), also worked at the cannings factory and (posh) at the cannings household in Handsworth wood...  Days when I was at Elvins yard I looked forward to dinnertime where you could get an enormous all day breakfast for One shilling and sixpence....at the cafe a few doors away (next door to the palladium cinema...then amusement arcade).....Still decorating today .. but working for myself now  O0
 
Hubby worked at T Elvins in 1959 and he says that the cafe next door was owned by Pat Roach the wrestler. The manager was Bill Brown.
 
rowan said:
Hubby worked at T Elvins in 1959 and he says that the cafe next door was owned by Pat Roach the wrestler. The manager was Bill Brown.
Click to expand...

Facinating to hear that Rowan.. You did mean the decorating manager at elvins was Billy Brown? What a character he was... He always had a fag hanging out the side of his mouth, ha ha! he actually told me off for stopping for a drag.. you should keep it in your mouth like me he snapped then you wont have to stop painting!! he was serious tooo... oooer  happy days.  It was 1965 when I got to use the cafe, by then there was a greek family running it.  Tho  i'm 56 now an erm those little grey moments are staring to happen..... ;)
 
Not so sure about Pat Roach owning the cafe, in 1959 he would have been 21/22 years old, seems a bit young to be owning a cafe?
 
:angel: May be his family owned it Jerry, pehaps someone could look it up in one of those great ' Kelley's ' or something similar!
Just a thought!
 
Dennis.

Loved your remark......any empty boxes. Kids, dont you just love em.

Robert
 
First job was with Peerage Brassware in Witton as a "finder" (think it would be called a junior storeman today) pushing a trolley round collecting items ordered by their customers and taking them to despatch dept for delivery. Amazing the variety of stuff they made, crucifixes to candlesticks, plaques to pistols. Worked there for 3 months before going to Brooklyn Tech
 
My first job on leaving school in 1949 was at A.Berck Ltd., in Hockley, cannot remember the name of the road. I was a junior Secretary(posh eh!) We made small oil cans, and our main customer was F.W.Woolwoth and sold for 3d(old money)when they were known as the threepenny store.
 
As a young apprentice back in the 50s, I recall being sent to the drawing stores to get a short curcuit diagram for the job we were working on. HO was my face red when I found out what a short cuicuit was!!!
On another occation a friend and I were sent to the tool stores to get a couple of Birmingham screw driver?
ANY ONE KNOW WHAT THAT IS? :-\
I will never forget LOL :2funny:
ASTON
 
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