How did you get your first job?

Hmm....... is that 'job' or 'real job'? My first paid employment was in a cafe in Bromley that was owned by the leader of our church youth group, the Young Presbyterians. I remember that he was called Ken Burnett and had converted from Judaism to the Presbyterian Church, which seems quite a leap..... It was a small High Street cafe which served mostly sandwiches and drinks, I recall though that french fries were also a popular menu item.

Several members of the youth group worked there, I guess Ken had a good supply of cheap teenage labour. Some worked in the 'wash up' room upstairs where there was a huge steaming machine. There they enjoyed the company of Gladys, a short fat lady whose glasses were permanently encrusted with potato starch spatters as her job was to peel the potatoes for the French Fries, a job she did all day long I believe! I remember the huge vat of peeled potatoes and her hands which were always soggy looking and blackened under her nails.

I remember she had a daughter who was of some interest to the boys from the youth club...... I worked behind the counter and had to pour coffee and tea and make hot chocolate and toast cheese sandwiches, I remember being very shy when it came to calling out orders across the cafe......'Toasted Cheese sandwich up'!!! My second job as a teenager was in Woolworths in West Wickham. I was paid 10 shillings a day -ten shillings was half of the 'pound' - the pound today is $1.80 so I guess I was paid about 90 cents a day! and worked on Saturdays.

Those were the days when customers picked up their goods from the counter and brought them to the till, so not only did you have to know the prices of the items on your particular counter, but you also had to be able to ring up the old cash register and calculate the total cost to the customer, no automated tills back then... nor any change calculator when you were given the cash, that was all mental arithmetic too. I honestly have no recall as to what counter I was on, tho' I remember it was in the middle of the store.

I used to go to and from work on my bicycle. We were paid at the end of a shift, cash in a little brown envelope. My first ' real ' job when I qualified as a physiotherapist was at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh. When I graduated, the decision had to be made as to where you would apply for a job.

At the time the Physiotherapy Journal had pages and pages of job vacancies, so it was really a matter of deciding where you would like to live. I decided it was time to make a move away from home, I had lived at home all through my training at King's College Hospital - I had commuted daily from Bromley by train to Denmark Hill. So I applied to the Western in Edinburgh and had to go for an interview. I went up from London on the overnight 'sleeper' train to be in time for my appointment in Edinburgh in the morning.

I stood at the bus stop at the west end of Princes Street waiting for the bus I knew would take me to the Hospital site, until finally some kind soul told me that the buses were on strike that day... I Imagine I hailed a cab, but I don't recall that bit. I remember a panel interview with, amongst others, a Doctor and the Chief Physiotherapist. It was all very intimidating, but I did get a job.

The Chief Physiotherapist turned out to be the most sneaky, unpleasant person I have ever worked for but the staff were fun and Edinburgh a great place to live... I suppose the job was also good experience to get under my belt. They were just beginning the first renal transplants at the time, which was very ground breaking and I also was able to work in their Neurosurgical unit which gave me a taste of what later was to become the area that I most enjoyed working in.

Lots of stories about my first job, but that's probably for another posting......