Transcript

Well my first weeks pay as an office boy was on old money 17 shillings and 4 pence, which is about 84-85 pence, or something like that, you can work it out, but around about that! And of course that was for a year – there was no rises or anything – that was it for a year. And travelling on these buses and such like, as I’ve already told you it cost 22 shillings and 6 pence, so seventeen and 4 pence was making a loss was it not. My mother wasn’t very happy about having to put the balance to send me to work! But when I went down to apprentice you got apprentices rate went up every year until you were either am improver or a journeyman, as I say I didn’t make that grade on the shop floor as it were. But going into the drawing office, you served an apprenticeship until you were 21 and then you did an improvers course, as it was called until you were 26, so you weren’t fully qualified draughtsman until you were 26! But the pay went up and up and up. When I was 21 I was getting around about £10.50 a week and we were paid weekly in those days it wasn’t monthly or anything like that. But being on the staff, as I was then - you used to get a bonus at the end of the year – December we always used to get a bonus. I think it was only a couple of quid, or £2.50 y’know, but it was good I mean that was good money in those days and when I actually left, when I was nearly 27 I was getting about £13.50 and the job I went to – I went to the top dollar - £17.50! That was it – that was the top rate that was being paid at the time. But that was – the money was quite good when you considered a lot of my mates that went to work in the pit – they went onto top money as soon as they went to the pit, but they were still on that same rate all the rest of their lives – that was it!