My first job was the International Stores in Thetford and the manager was Mr R. I got the job because Mr R was a neighbour, I lived in New Town at the time. I asked him if there were any jobs going and he said yes he would give me a trial. I worked there for about four/five years. It was quite an enjoyable job. Everything was not pre-packed in those days, you had to weigh up everything: rice, sugar, tea, butter, dried fruit, biscuits. You didn't have no pre-packed foods at all and if somebody came in and asked for a piece of cherry cake; there was big slabs of cake and you ‘ad to cut off to the nearest pound you could guess, wrap it for them. There was no calculators, no cash registers, you ‘ad to add all your groceries up in your mind and then tell the customer and then change the money. In those days it was pounds, shillings and pence. I left school in 1952 and that was my first job.
Question: Were you living in Thetford at the time?
Yes, I was living with my parents at number 8 New Town, which is in Thetford, which is still standing. I used to walk to work because it was only a few yards down the London Road and just in to King Street. I did have training with another member of the staff that had been there a long while and the wage was one pound and eight shillings per week. I had to give my mother the pound and I had the eight shillings for clothes and toiletries, amusement etc. etc. I used to save a shilling a week out of that. We worked from half past eight ‘til half past five, we had a hour for lunch, where we were allowed to pop home and get some lunch. Half past five the blinds were drawn and between half past five and six, everything we'd used during the day we had to replenish, like fill up all the tins and jars and bottles and weigh up more sugar, coffee and biscuits and things ready for the next day's trading.
Question: Did you get any privileges, did they let you take some home?
Oh no, no. You couldn't take anything home unless you bought it and the manager signed to say you'd taken it. All my friends were getting more than me, so I decided to go in to a food factory and at the time we had a food factory called Duncan's Canned Foods in Thetford. I worked there which was very hard work. It was from eight am. Half an hour for dinner, ‘til six pm. It was seasonal work where different fruits and vegetables had to be canned on the same day as they arrived in from the growers. Sometimes we had to wait and work late at night, perhaps ‘til about ten or eleven o'clock at night but the wages were a lot better. They were about four pounds fifty pence a week. I stayed there for a little time and then I went for a job as a waitress, with a friend of mine. It was a little restaurant called the Cornerhouse Café, which is now a Chinese restaurant. I did the sweet shop and the tobacconist side of it and my friend did the cafeteria. If she was busy, the owner who was Mr N, he used to say: "Go in and help Mary." We used to get tips and if we were lucky we'd get a few shillings a week extra on our wages but I can't remember how much wages we got because he supplied us with a mid-day meal. We worked from nine o'clock in the morning ‘til six o'clock at night. If he had any dinner parties out in the town at different venues and he was doing the catering, we ‘ad to go on and wait at night. We did get a little extra money for that but the wages were still very low.
I love meeting people and I preferred to work with the public in shops because in my later years, I did become a manager of a small grocery shop. We had a store in Thetford called Price Rights, which lasted a few years and I was the non-food manageress. Then I went back to the International and I became manager there until they closed down, which was about two years after I'd started there; when things in the town started to change and different shops took over different companies.
I lived with my parents, so I didn't have a mortgage or rent, I paid board to my parents, which was according to what job I had, the more I earnt, the more I had to pay to them. When I worked at the International and only got one pound eight shillings a week, that was in the old money. I used to give my mother the pound. Well then when I went to the food factory and earnt about four pounds something a week, I used to give her two pounds. Then as the years progressed, my parents got older and I took over a lot of the house keeping for them, so instead of paying them rent, I bought groceries and helped them towards their bills. Then I got married, that didn't work out. I went back and lived with my parents, so we continued the same there. When my children - because I've got a son and a daughter - grew up, my parents said they were too noisy, they wanted quiet at their time of life, so I managed to get a council house on what is now the Abbey Farm estate and I lived there for thirty-one years. I bought both my children up and worked in various shops and stores and then when I retired, my son moved out with his girlfriend, my daughter was with her partner and I was on my own. I didn't like living on my own, so I applied for a house here. I got the flat let here and I've been here nearly six years.
Well my health was pretty good condition until 1971. I had such heavy monthly periods, so the doctors kept close watch of me. In 1973 I had a full hysterectomy, which I nearly died because everything went wrong. I recovered from that and then in 1991, I had a heart attack and I had open heart surgery and a quadruple bypass operation. I've now got diabetes and arthritis but I've lived seventeen years from the bypass operation, which I count as borrowed time and so I live everyday as a bonus!
The pictures and dancing. We used to be able to go to the pictures for one and nine pence that's old money. We used to go to dancing, which used to be half a crown. In 1961 I won a Miss Thetford beauty competition, which I have photographs of that. My sister was runner-up and a young girl called Doreen Cater was my second runner-up. The next year we went to somewhere in South Norfolk for the area one and by that time I was already married and got one child. I didn't stand an earthly amongst all the beauties but at least I did win one.
Question: What time did you have off work, was it just weekends?
No sometimes we worked Saturday and Sunday. When I worked in the food factory and when I worked in shops, obviously I had to work Saturdays, so I just got Sunday. Nowadays they trade seven days a week. We did get bank holiday off and we did get a Sunday off but that was the only time a part from any illness time or holidays. If we were having a holiday we were entitled to but we had to work mostly a year at a job before we were entitled to a week's holiday.
I met loads of friends at work, various people and most of my friends are now deceased. Most of my girls that I went to school with are now deceased but some of the friends that I made at work are still alive and we meet each other occasionally.
