That first paid job,,,

Been thinking a lot today and started pondering on my first ever paid job. Long long ago now!

It was potato picking at a farm in the north of England. We wore sacking aprons which were in essence large bags ( And almost no girls wore trousers in those days.( I certainly did not)

The tractor would amble along the row dragging a large metal egg whisk affair that turned the potatoes to the top and we each had our own section to gather, Fill the apron, go to the trailer and tip them in, back to the potatoes and so on.

At dinner time it felt very professional to sit in the bank with the two brothers who owned the farm.. cannot for the life of me remember what they called it, their snap, their bait, their ????

The farmer would employ only girls as he said boys fight

For this endeavour we were paid ten shillings a day.

That was the early 50s.

Wonder what others did as their first paid job and I don't mean chores in the home. We NEVER got paid for that kind of thing!

Sounds like back breaking work!! First paid job was part time in a taxi place, taking phone calls till the small hours, mostly drunk people, who weren't really sure where they wanted picked up!!!

Sounds ... interesting!

I don 't remember it being back breaking; kids were fitter in those days. Few cars etc..I always thought that had I been born earlier I would have so enjoyed being a Land Girl. Always loved being outside and working outside.

I can't quite remember but there were a few. Babysitting, of course...and then it was either a cook in a wonderful family run home retirement home ...or a small sandwich making business with another girl who, unusually for me, I can remember absolutely nothing about!

Plucking Chickens We lived in Wales then & one of the farms bred poultry. At Christmas they employed most of the village children to pluck the chickens before they were sold. Some of the boys had the job of cleaning all the innards out of them I remember all too well the damn feathers - everywhere!!! I dont think we ever complained about the job though - just got on with it. That was the early 60's Cant remember how much we were paid though. Probably not much. Next job was in the village shop on a Saturday morning. They did deliveries to all the surrounding houses & farms so I was taken on to pack the orders off a list that the women had dropped off earlier in the week. I was paid 10 shilling for the morning.

Mine was quite fun haha!
Got paid to draw up fun designs to go on T-shirts for different jobs at an engineering company