Saturday job and decimalisation

The year is 1971 and I am 15 and a half. The half is important - well actually the quarter is important because that is the age you were allowed to work.

"old money" - pounds, shillings and pence

I had found a job in a supermarket in the nearby town on Saturdays and had been employed for three months when D Day came. That was the name that was given to the change over of our coins in the UK from pounds, shillings and pence to decimals. It was known as decimalisation. Although there must have been years of planning for this change the schools didn't seem to be focussing on this in my formative infant years and we were taught in what is now called "old money" so we had very little advantage over the rest of the population.  But I was helped by the fact that I was involved in the changing of all the pricing of merchandise the night before we went decimal - 15th February. Then the tins, for example, and tins are what I recall the most,  had purple inked prices on them that had to be rubbed off with alcohol to be replaced with a more advanced ticketing machine label with its new price.

clock

I enjoyed working in the supermarket most of the time but thinking about it does bring back some memories of pungent smells - the metallic, cardboard smell of the warehouse for instance. Then there is the time I left 2 minutes early and the giant mechanical clock on the wall showed 5.28 as the manager bellowed across the store - Susan Clow you are two minutes early, just as the numbers dropped and revealed 5.30! Did I scurry!

Another time after I had been moved to the canteen I was asked to take a cup of tea to the Manager's office. I knocked on the door and went in and declared that I had been asked to take a cup of tea up to his bedroom! Nothing was further from my mind - not a Freudian slip this - he was 30 years older than me...but he said "it must have been the come to bed look in my eyes". Was I embarrassed! More scurrying!

The canteen was a bit of a doddle. The only problem was finding a way to please the more genteel ladies
[don't fill it right to the top please..] and the rough butchers [what's this half a cup?] but I met a lovely Polish cook, did some cake making and was sometimes left in charge. Big plus - I could go early and still get payed - now what was it? 2/6 an hour in old money or 12 1/2 p in new!! I still managed to buy a watch with my earnings after a few months though...