Ambassador wrote:I know you are no teenager but $6.95 per week are 16th century wages
17c actually Ambassador, but I look remarkably well for my age.
My dad was in the RAF and I was dragged around the world from the age of 4. I went to 4 different Grammar Schools in the same number of years. As soon as I made friends, we were up and off somewhere else. I swore I would never do that to my kids, hence the first two going to boarding school.
The last school I went to was some poshish girls school in London. The girl that was told to befriend me was called Conchita, I can still remember her ugly mot.
I devised a cunning plan to convince my parents it was my life long ambition to be a hairdresser and they swallowed it, hook, line and sinker and let me leave school when I was 15 years and three months old. I got myself a job as an apprentice hairdresser at the princely sum of $6.95per week or £4.50 in real money. I soon realised what a mistake I'd made when I was expected to be pleasant for stretches of up to 8 hours at a time and talk to old ladies who smelled of mothballs, in an effort to get a tip.
As part of my apprenticeship I was despatched to the Revlon School of Beauty in London to train to be a manicurist. I appeared to be quite good at this and my teacher told me she could get me a job at a top man's salon if I wanted. I should focus on feet, she said, and brush up on my massage skills, wear a low cut top and I'd make a fortune.
Men were the same back in the 17c, it seems, Ambassador!
After a year of washing dirty hair and painting peoples toe nails I made my escape and got a job working for the American Airforce in west London. I quadrupled my salary overnight.
That's when the fun started
I went to night school after I had my kids and got a shed load of GCE's and studied for my current job at UCL.
(that sounds impressive but it's the University of Central Lancashire
)