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Saturday jobs

I was a paper boy at Ryans on Kingstanding Road when I was about eleven, paid 2/6d a week for both mornings and evenings then moved along the road to Kirtons for a bit better pay,
Saturdays I worked for Bradford's Bread in Norton Street Hockley on a delivery van with a man called Walter Smith, the route was all around the Hockley Handsworth and Lozells areas, pay was 7/6d for the day, started at 7am by loading hot bread straight form the ovens into the van, finished about 5pm

Ps. Viv, your part time firemen comment reminded me, when I was at work proper the company who did our car respraying was in Summer Road Erdington, a man named Murphy, he employed the firemen from across the road to do the preparation work on the cars, filling, rubbing down the paint and the final polishing..
 
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Welcome Sargasosal. Yes hard to believe Woolies had fruit & veg counters. I also remember them selling groceries like tea, coffee, jam, sugar etc. Viv.
 
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In 1956 I worked at my aunts greengrocer & fishmonger shop on Litchfield Rd in Aston. Would go to the market on Saturday morning at 5.00am with my uncle to get fresh fish. For Saturday I got 7/6. then I moved in 1957 to WT Baker butcher on SoHo Rd, right opposite Boulton Rd. I cut & delivered meat on Tuesday, Thursday & Friday night and all day Saturday. I was paid 15/6 plus tips and some meat to take home every night.
 
Richarddye said:
In 1956 I worked at my aunts greengrocer & fishmonger shop on Litchfield Rd in Aston. Would go to the market on Saturday morning at 5.00am with my uncle to get fresh fish. For Saturday I got 7/6. then I moved in 1957 to WT Baker butcher on SoHo Rd, right opposite Boulton Rd. I cut & delivered meat on Tuesday, Thursday & Friday night and all day Saturday. I was paid 15/6 plus tips and some meat to take home every night.
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Shoot that was a god deal on the meat, who got to eat meat more than once a week back then ?
 
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Edifi,

The curse of the modern age. Jan will never buy pre-packed veg as they go off a lot quicker than the loose variety, especially mushrooms.

Nice Woolies picture, Ade. :)

Maurice
 
Not strictly a Saturday job but had a relief paper round at Job's in Broadstone Rd in Yardley ie when someone else was on holiday. This was followed with a job working with a Scribbans bread roundsman, "Nat" Nevin, around Lea Hall and Tile Cross. This started when I was twelve in 1953 until I left school in 1958. I know that initially I was too young to legally do the job and when I was thirteen became registered, can't remember with whom, and had to have a medical each year, I think at the local School Clinic and was only suppose to work very few hours each day, just had to hope that no one checked on you outside of the permitted hours. A bit of a nuisance but I suppose was to protect us from exploitation. In the later years used to drive the van, Morris "J" Series, don't suppose that was strictly legal either but I did have a license and "L" plates.
 
My first job, in 1967, was Friday evening for three hours and all day Saturday for £1. This was at a small supermarket, opposite the 'new Woolworths' on the Cov Road in Small Heath. I moved to Littlewoods for £1.5s for Saturday only, on the bacon counter.
 
Worked in a photographer’s shop 1962-64, from just turned the age of ten. Began 8.30AM to 6.30Pm, for ten shillings for the first year, and £1 for the second. Began the day sweeping-up outside the shop, mopping the doorway and, if necessary, polishing the store window; vacuumed front of store carpet. Made tea and coffee; swept and tidied the back yard and cleaned the toilet; ran errands; made more tea and coffee; dusted display goods; tidied store cupboards; made even more coffee and tea ...

Then worked as a gardener for just short a year - for the first six months I had to the cut the lawn/weeds with a full sized scythe, before my employer bought a Suffolk Punch mower, which I almost destroyed the first day!

After which I worked at a wholesale fruit&veg market, from 5AM until 4PM. My first day was spent loading/unloading lorries with 56lb, sacks of potatoes - spent the entire next day in bed, and most of the following week walking like a geriactic! By week five (and after a working a full week, during a school holiday) I was physically a different kid - muscled and taller. Good money too, earning a fiver plus, which wasn’t bad pay back in 1966, for a just turned fourteen year old lad. During that year I grew four inches in height, weighed near eleven stone, and looked like a junior Charles Atlas!

Opting for an easier life (?) I then worked at the local ‘Fine Fair Supermarket’ until I left school. This was great, has it had girls working there!

All of which was very valuable experience and taught me a great deal - mostly, that the old saying ‘hard work never killed anyone’ was a damned bloody lie, and best avoided whenever possible. Alas, it was another six years before I truly learned how to avoid it - a skill I’ve retained to this day!
 
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Haha that's a great story JohnO I totally agree with what you say about the physical work, I was the same after working at the fruit and veg shop it changed my appearance and made me a lot stronger it was like going to the gym everyday and really helped in any school sports I was involved in, tell you what though a fiver a week in the sixties you must have been the most popular kid in the street :):)
 
ade said:
View attachment 136002
This is the Woolies fruit and veg counter in the fifties, beautifully laid out as you would imagine from a big store like Woolies.
Picture posted on the Woolworth museum website
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Is it just me or have I have a bad memory ? I cant remember veggies all packaged up like that when I was young. Mind you mum always went to a little veggie shop that sold out of a bungalow just round the corner off coventry rd in Sheaf lane sheldon and it was all fresh veg.
Wendy
 
wendylee said:
Is it just me or have I have a bad memory ? I cant remember veggies all packaged up like that when I was young. Mind you mum always went to a little veggie shop that sold out of a bungalow just round the corner off coventry rd in Sheaf lane sheldon and it was all fresh veg.
Wendy
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My dad reckons when you bought anything the grocer always wrapped everything up in paper like fish and chips, nothing was ever pre -wrapped
 
wendylee said:
Is it just me or have I have a bad memory ? I cant remember veggies all packaged up like that when I was young. Mind you mum always went to a little veggie shop that sold out of a bungalow just round the corner off coventry rd in Sheaf lane sheldon and it was all fresh veg.
Wendy
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I don't remember Woolies selling fruit and veg. I remember the various 'slab' cakes they had where you asked for a piece to be weighed. Woolies was the best shop for a lot of things.
 
JohnO,

You've obviously never tried harvesting olives after rain on sloping ground (olive bashing as we call it). You ache for weeks afterwards! :)

Maurice
 
sospiri said:
JohnO,

You've obviously never tried harvesting olives after rain on sloping ground (olive bashing as we call it). You ache for weeks afterwards! :)

Maurice
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Not Olives, no, but acres of bleedin’ potatoes, and stone-picking too! Mind, I must admit that the fields were generally quite flat, so I’ll give you that one. The worse of it was having to occasionally work with a gang of overly excitable, feral women - they scared the hell out of me! It was their full time job, and they used to travel around the country in the back of an old truck. Similar female gangs existed until relatively recently, when they were replaced by foreign workers, who undercut their wages. It was not a case of Brits not wanting to do the work; they were priced out of the game.
 
Just on another thread and it bought back one thing I that was a Satuerday task for my mum, slice the bacon middle, streaky and smoked looking back on it its a wonder I have all my fingers, I could get that slicer jumping I would turn the handle so fast WOW.
 
I used to fetch errands for two women on a Saturday morning that was from about the age of ten , both paid me half a crown for my services , occassionally there were errands to be fetched during the week . I also used to help load coconuts onto two lorries belonging to two brothers commonly known as swagmen , they used to supply the nuts and goldfish and cheap packets of sweets to the fairs . There was no wages involved here but come the summer holidays, we would go with them and travel around places like Stroud and Hereford and Gloucester . My last year at school would find me Monday to Sunday each week loading a coach owned by the local grocer , he had converted it into a mobile shop and travelled around Sutton Coldfield a £1.00 a week I got for that . The only bug bear about it was the hours by the time he got back to the shop it was 8.30 , then he had to have his dinner which worked out I couldn't get to load the coach till about 10.00pm so most nights was midnight finish
 
My Saturday job was working for Corona pop from their depot in Kings Road, Tyseley. That would have been about 1970/71 when I was 15/16.

You started off canvassing door to door and got paid for every household you signed up - I don't remember how much. If you stuck with this (and plenty didn't) you got "promoted" onto a round delivering the pop. For this you were paid £2.50 per week with a bonus if your round took over a certain amount. This was considered good at the time but we also got to drink as much pop as we wanted on the round; we would call the half-drunk bottles "leakers" when filling in the paperwork back at the depot. I seem to recall that our competitors, Alpine, only paid £2 and their pop came in much bigger bottles so the work was harder.

I really took to it and ended up working in the school holidays and particularly at Christmas when things were really busy.

Like a lot of other people have said, I got more from it than just my £2.50. It was an introduction to adult life. This involved quite a few surprises for a lad who had been brought up by his widowed mother. I particularly remember being surprised by the behaviour of the drivers when they met first thing in the morning in communal room in the depot. I was genuinely shocked by the language; every other word seemed to be a swear word which was something I was not used to and certainly not expecting. There seemed to be a lot of "horse-play" as well which, like the swearing, was something I didn't know grown men indulged in. I got used to it though and was able to take part and became accepted as "a good lad" I think I got to like what I would now call the camaraderie that existed.

All in all it was a good experience for me and something I have always been glad I did when I was young.
 
Have to agree about the swearing. I started work for a Garage in town when I was still 14 and the behaviour of the older mechanics really surprised me. Being paid 1/6d per hour, of which bus fares etc had to come out of, left you little to hand over to your Mother in the unopened pay packet.
 
JoeF712 said:
My Saturday job was working for Corona pop from their depot in Kings Road, Tyseley. That would have been about 1970/71 when I was 15/16.

You started off canvassing door to door and got paid for every household you signed up - I don't remember how much. If you stuck with this (and plenty didn't) you got "promoted" onto a round delivering the pop. For this you were paid £2.50 per week with a bonus if your round took over a certain amount. This was considered good at the time but we also got to drink as much pop as we wanted on the round; we would call the half-drunk bottles "leakers" when filling in the paperwork back at the depot. I seem to recall that our competitors, Alpine, only paid £2 and their pop came in much bigger bottles so the work was harder.

I really took to it and ended up working in the school holidays and particularly at Christmas when things were really busy.

Like a lot of other people have said, I got more from it than just my £2.50. It was an introduction to adult life. This involved quite a few surprises for a lad who had been brought up by his widowed mother. I particularly remember being surprised by the behaviour of the drivers when they met first thing in the morning in communal room in the depot. I was genuinely shocked by the language; every other word seemed to be a swear word which was something I was not used to and certainly not expecting. There seemed to be a lot of "horse-play" as well which, like the swearing, was something I didn't know grown men indulged in. I got used to it though and was able to take part and became accepted as "a good lad" I think I got to like what I would now call the camaraderie that existed.

All in all it was a good experience for me and something I have always been glad I did when I was young.
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I did a couple of days canvassing in the school holiday around Acocks Green . On the third day I decided not to turn up. Having signed up several new customers I went back to get paid but the manager refused. Despite hanging around for several hours he still refused and I gave up. There was no official contract and nothing I could do!
 
My first Saturday job was at Turners in Sheldon - https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/sheldon.22415/page-18#post-606510. I got £1 but as my Mom had bought me a new bike she took 50p per week until it was paid off. When I left I got another Saturday Job at the Co-op, Tile Cross. I had to go to town for an interview and do a few tests and then make a trip to the employment office at the Yew Tree to get a NI number. The pay was a little better at 30s for a Saturday and If i worked a week I got around £13. I cant say I liked the job as it was mainly filling shelves. The welcome break was burning all the empty cardboard boxes on the waste ground out the back. I was too young to use the bacon slicer but was allowed to cut blocks of cheese but only with a cheese wire. On one occasion, when I was doing a full time stint in the school holiday the walk-in fridge/freezer had broken down in the run up to the weekend. An an engineer couldn't be found so the manager had had to leave the door open - apparently it would keep the food cooler until it could be repaired?? Well, I arrived early on the following Monday morning to find the manager scraping maggots off the bacon. I couldn't understand why he was doing it as it would have been easier to just drop it all in the bin. Then I saw him place it all neatly on the counter!

For several years I also had an evening job, of sorts, at Solihull Ice rink. My friend and I spent so much time there that we became unofficial ice stewards. We were never paid but as long as we were seen to be preventing people from sitting on the barriers,skating in the wrong direction or causing a nuisance the Manager, Walter Allen, was quite happy for us to enter anytime without paying (apart from Figure skating evenings on Tuesdays and Thursdays). Though I was under age most of my Saturday pay was spent in the bar - I'd order half of bitter and keep one eye on the entrance for unexpected police visits. If the police entered there would be a mass exodus from the far door leaving lots of empty tables and unfinished drinks. Most of us were under age but as long as we could pay no one seemed to care!
 
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mbenne said:
My first Saturday job was at Turners in Sheldon - https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/sheldon.22415/page-18#post-606510. I got £1 but as my Mom had bought me a new bike she took 50p per week until it was paid off. When I left I got another Saturday Job at the Co-op, Tile Cross. I had to go to town for an interview and do a few tests and then make a trip to the employment office at the Yew Tree to get a NI number. The pay was a little better at 30s for a Saturday and If i worked a week I got around £13. I cant say I liked the job as it was mainly filling shelves. The welcome break was burning all the empty cardboard boxes on the waste ground out the back. I was too young to use the bacon slicer but was allowed to cut blocks of cheese but only with a cheese wire. On one occasion, when I was doing a full time stint in the school holiday the walk-in fridge/freezer had broken down in the run up to the weekend. An an engineer couldn't be found so the manager had had to leave the door open - apparently it would keep the food cooler until it could be repaired?? Well, I arrived early on the following Monday morning to find the manager scraping maggots off the bacon. I couldn't understand why he was doing it as it would have been easier to just drop it all in the bin. Then I saw him place it all neatly on the counter!

For several years I also had an evening job, of sorts, at Solihull Ice rink. My friend and I spent so much time there that we became unofficial ice stewards. We were never paid but as long as we were seen to be preventing people from sitting on the barriers,skating in the wrong direction or causing a nuisance the Manager, Walter Allen, was quite happy for us to enter anytime without paying (apart from Figure skating evenings on Tuesdays and Thursdays). Though I was under age most of my Saturday pay was spent in the bar - I'd order half of bitter and keep one eye on the entrance for unexpected police visits. If the police entered there would be a mass exodus from the far door leavning lots of empty tables and unfinished drinks. Most of us were under age but as long as we could pay no one seemed to care!
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I worked weekends in the Skate Hire at Solihull Ice rink. Can't remember what the wages were but was great for meeting girls.
 
jmadone said:
I worked weekends in the Skate Hire at Solihull Ice rink. Can't remember what the wages were but was great for meeting girls.
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I think my first visit was in 1966 but you must have worked there before I started going regularly in the late 60s. In the early 70s there was an oldish lady on skate hire by the name of Nora. My uncle also had a part time job there too, sharpening ice skates. The general manager was Walter Allen and the man in charge of preparing the ice was Ron Harvey. Having become a member of the Solihull Ice Speed Skating Club I continued as an unofficial ice steward long after leaving school. My connection with the ice rink also led to taking paid evening work, sharing alternate evenings, with my mate, as a spotlight operator at the New Cresta Club to boost my income. Yet another place where I could get in for nothing whenever I liked - but that's another story and off thread!
 
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mbenne said:
I think my first visit was in 1966 but you must have worked there before I started going regularly in the late 60s. In the early 70s there was an oldish lady on skate hire by the name of Norma. My uncle also had a part time job there too, sharpening ice skates. The general manager was Walter Allen and the man in charge of preparing the ice was Ron Harvey. Having become a member of the Solihull Ice Speed Skating Club I continued as an unofficial ice steward long after leaving school. My connection with the ice rink also led to taking paid evening work, sharing alternate evenings, with my mate, as a spotlight operator at the New Cresta Club to boost my income. Yet another place where I could get in for nothing whenever I liked - but that's another story and off thread!
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The only name I remember from the workforce there was a guy named Harry. He worked in the skate hire and came from a fairground family. He ran a swingboat ride but that's all I can remember. I think I was there around 1964/65 and from there went to work for a friend's dad who had a fruit stall in the Bull Ring outdoor market.
 
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