My older sister let me get to my 14th birthday before she announced to me, and our parents, it was high time I got off my backside and started working. After all, she had started grafting on a market stall selling fruit and veg, in all weathers, when she was 12, so she felt it was well overdue for me to be in gainful employment, when I wasn’t at school that is. I’ve never been a naturally confident person, unlike her, and at that time, I wouldn’t have said boo to a cute and fluffy little gosling, let alone a fully-grown goose.
The thought of a weekend/holiday job was terrifying. My big sis practically dragged me to a shop where she had previously been on the staff to see if they had any openings for me – and they did. READ MORE: The 20-minute drive just west of Hull that can take more than an hour by bus 'Why we could give Gogglebox’s Jenny and Lee a run for their money' That Easter break in my home town of Bridlington ended up being the making of me.
I was employed by the John Bull seaside rock shop – a family-run confectionery emporium now more than 110 years old – and, based in a little back room, I bagged sticks of different flavoured lettered rock into bargain packs to sell to eager holidaymakers and daytrippers, who snapped them up as fast as I could parcel them. A fateful August Bank Holiday saw me “promoted” to counter work, with no time to ring in the purchases in the old-fashioned tills, as too many customer hands thrust their purchases at not enou.
