Don Clive
Adopted 'Tammie'
There must be a number of members who started their working life at Fourteen, I did, I left school, St Mary's Aston Brook at Easter, at that time, you finished your schooldays at elementary school at the start of the next school holidays after you were Fourteen, Girls and Boys. This was 1946, there were plenty of jobs available for youngsters, incidentally, we were referred to as adolescent's then, that terrible American term 'Teenager' hadn't arrived here yet. My mother found me my first job, starting on the Monday after I left school on the Friday, it was at 'Berresfords Electric Store' in Dale End, after the usual preliminaries I was sent to their shop on Spring Hill, a very small establishment, the only other employee there reffered to himself as 'The Manager' and told me the things I had to do besides serve in the shop, "you'll answer the telephone" he said, he had a bad stutter, I'd never used a phone before, "and your job will be to connect up the accumulators for charging" that was better, we had a wireless at home that used accumulators, but he failed to tell me it was 'Negative' to 'Positive' and a couple of days later, when he went out for his Liquid lunch I decided to connect up that mornings intake of accumulators.... after the explosion, when I had switched the power on, I was sacked! The advert in the Evening Despatch said 'Strong Boy wanted for gun making' on the following Monday I started work in Weaman Street, no not at Webley & Scotts, one of the best known Gunsmiths in Brum, but right opposite, a firm that produced parts for the Gun Trade in a number of 'joined up' houses, I worked there for about a month, on a press, I still don't know what I was producing and it was so boring. My next job was with a 'one man builder' he lived in a back house in Aston, in Newtown Row end of Phillips Street, I knocked on his door as instructed at 8 am, "Right the first thing is to get the 'barrer' ready, this was his two wheeled cart that he carried his tools and building materials on, it was too wide to be pushed down the entry so had to be taken apart and carried down then re-assembled in the street, next came ladders a plank, shovels, sand and cement oh everything a builder would need, eventually we were finished, "Right," he said "Do you know where Farm Street, Hockley is?" I said I did, "Off you go then, Ill see You there".....He caught the Number 8 bus, I had to push that loaded cart up hill,then down again to Hockley, do a days work when he eventually got there, then push it all the way back late afternoon, carry everything back up the entry, dismantle the cart, and he still owes me for it, I never went back again! Job No 4 was much better, I got to wear 'My Sunday Suit', I answered an ad; for a 'Lift Boy' at Woodhouses The Furniture store, next door to the Forum cinema in New Street, they took me on, but since I was nearly six foot tall and the official uniform (including a small round hat and a tunic with buttons all down the front) was only suitable for someone about four foot six, they decided I would be more suitable in the office in Anne's Road, Handsworth, I did quite well there, it must have been about eighteen months later, the other three office men, including the Warehouse manager had gone for their 'Liquid Lunch' and I was alone with my sandwiches in the office when the door opened and a small man, wearing a 'homburg' and a coat with a fur collar stood in the doorway and said "Whooo's in sharge here"... 'The managers out, and were not taking anyone new on at the moment' I'd given him the stock answer I'd been told to give, he came right into the office, "Do you know who I am?" he asked "I'm Issac Wolfson, I own this......Business". My fifth job was at the Hecules Cycle Factory, Rocky Lane Aston Cross, I'd answered the advert for 'Packing Case Makers' saw the foreman, got the job, 'be here sharpe at eight on Monday' he said, I was, but another lad was standing by the clock when I got there, the foreman arrived with a broom stale in one hand and a homehade spoon in the other, "who was here first" he said, the other lad said he was, "Right, you have the spoon" and he gave me the broom stale, he took us to the department where men were busy making crate's and packing cases, he said "you see those Billy cans, when the men want a tea break you load the cans onto the broom stale, the tea leaves will allready be in, both of you go back to where I've just brought you from and you'll see the hot water urn, fill each can, and you stir them up". Thus I became 'A tea stirrers mate', the 'Tea stirrer' lasted a week then left, I took over the spoon and became 'The Stirrer' but finished the following Friday and I must now confess that I forgot to hand over the home made spoon, and still have it to this day! A few days later I started working at a hardware shop in Erdington and stayed there, happily until 1960. Don Clive