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1st ever Issue of the RM Mag...


JJ73

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This may be going off thread (well actually it is) Regarding wages, my paper round was paid at 12/- (60p) and I also got 10/- (50p) pocket money in 1964 but had to do some small jobs. I bought Meccano Magazine, Model Railway Constructor and Railway Modeller at around 6/- for the lot, possibly a bit less. The rest went in a tin with Mallard on the lid until I could amass enough to buy what I wanted for my Hornby Dublo 3 Rail layout (8'6" x 4'). As time went by the railway gave way to racing bikes and I became club junior time trial champion. Then cars came along with a wage of £7 per week for 45 hours. I got married and trains were back on the menu and I bought about 6 rail mags a month, both model and real. By then I had started to earn £36 a week and had a mortgage and all the trappings of my married life. Magazines were around £1.90p ish. Then back to bike racing and earning about £42 a week. Finally I retrained and my last hourly rate was £25 in 2005 Mags were around £3 ish and I bought just a few. I had lots of free money by then to buy what I wanted and went way over the top with model purchases. One year just before retiring I was earning over £30,000. In recent years I have pulled right back with all mags at some £5 plus each and with Choo Choo purchases due to what I consider to be far too expensive. I still dabble in both mags and model purchases but only for things I really like. Today my interests are cars and railways but only railways I have a magazine subscription to and never buy a car mag. I did buy myself a brand new Jaguar XE R Sport which cost 6x what I paid for my house in '73. It just shows how things increase in price.

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My first job in 1959 in the cashiers dept of Legal & General (Fleet St) paid a salary of £250 p.a. = to £4.81 p.w. Tube fare from Finchley Central and lunches didn't leave much over for a social life.

 

 

Working Howard, we were not far apart (distance wise) - in 1962 I started work in a set of Barristers Chambers in Lincoln's Inn - £5.00 per week plus my underground season ticket paid for (Bounds Green to Holborn). I was into aeromodelling in those days, so Aero Modeller was a monthly purchase. I did have a 3-rail Hornby Dublo layout on a board in my bedroom. I continued working in Lincoln's Inn and for a short time Gray's Inn until 2009 when I retired - earning a little more than £5.00 per weekjoy. To think some of us are now paying for a monthly magazine what we used to earn in a week - how times have changed.

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Joined as a Junior Rifleman at Winchester in 69.

Weekly wage, 6 guineas. (Yes the Army payscales still used guineas !)

Food and accomodation charges were stopped, along with tax and National Insurance.

All boy soldiers were only allowed £1.10.0 shillings a week, the rest had to be saved in your Post Office Savings Account, or sent home.

Loved every minute of it ! smiley

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Much the same as Joe, as a RAF apprentice in 1960 I was on 2 Guineas a week of which ten bob was held back as top up for going on leave every 3 months.

At age 17 is went up to £3/10/0 then at 17-1/2 it shot up to £6+.

late 60s out in Cyprus my wage was topped up by marriage allowance and overseas allowance to a mighty £27 a fortnight, hardly an increase at all.

Then the military salary kicked in around 1970 and suddenly I could afford to buy a house on mortgage at £7k.

As a kid late 50s I can well remember picking up Dad’s wages from the pit office and having to check the envelope contents against the written amount. The envelope had holes in to check the coppers and a corner missing so you could count the note. He was on £16 a week then, not bad money in those days for a miner.

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That envelope you mention for wages was standard for all my first jobs except my first nursing career. That was paid into the bank. When I left it was a cash payment back in an envelope until I became management. That was the time I got married. Not much responsibility with production planning for 4 large paper machines and over 200 men to organise via foremen. Then BOOOOOM the EU basically shut us down with regulations about our product. I then eventually decided to get back in the NHS and trained again in General Nursing ( Psychiatric previously) Eventually becoming a senior in critical care. Retired at 57 after non stop study in my spare time for various courses. I must admit I miss non of it now just the pals I made.

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