My First Job adapted from a short story by David Lodge
At the age of seventeen and three-quarters in 1952, I got my first job, selling newspapers
and magazines off a little barrow on Waterloo Station. It was a temporary job, to fill in a
few weeks between getting my A level results and going to university. The next Monday
morning, I presented myself, promptly at 8.30, at the bookstall, a large green island in 4 the
middle of Waterloo Station. Waves of office workers arriving on suburban trains surged across the station area as if pursued by demons, pausing only to snatch newspapers and
magazines from the counters of the shop for the next stage of their journeys by tube or
bus. Inside the shop, in a cramped and stuffy little office, seated at a desk heaped with
invoices and ringed with the traces of innumerable mugs of tea, was the manager,
Mr Hoskyns. 10
He asked me how much change I would give from a pound to a customer who had bought three items costing ninepence, two and sixpence, and a penny-halfpence1 , respectively. Suppressing an urge to remind him that I had just passed A level Mathswith-Statistics with flying colours, I patiently answered the question, with a speed that seemed to impress him. Then Mr Hoskyns took me outside to where two youths loitered 15 beside three mobile news-stands. These were green-painted wooden barrows, their steeply-angled sides fitted with racks for displaying magazines and newspapers.
‘Ray! Mitch! This ’ere’s the new boy. Show ’im the ropes,’ said Mr Hoskyns, and disappeared back into his office.
The ‘ropes’ were simple enough. You loaded your barrow with newspapers and 20 magazines, and trundled off to platforms where trains were filling up prior to their departure. There were no kiosks on the actual platforms of Waterloo Station in those days, and we were meant to serve passengers who had passed through the ticket barriers without providing themselves with reading matter. The best trade came from the trains that connected at Southampton with the transatlantic liners whose passengers always 25 included Americans anxious to free their pockets of the heavy British change.
A Next in importance were the express trains to the holiday resorts and county towns of the south-west. The late-afternoon and early-evening commuting crowds, cramming themselves back into the same grimy carriages that had disgorged them in the morning, bought little except newspapers from us. Our job was simply to roam the station in 30 search of custom. When our stocks were low, we pushed our barrows back to the shop to replenish them. At the end of the day we took our money to be counted by Mr Hoskyns and entered in his ledger.
‘What’s the highest amount you’ve ever taken in one day?’ I asked, as we left the shop, pocketing our meagre wages, and prepared to join the home-going crowds. 35
‘Ray took eleven pounds nineteen ’n’ six1 one Friday,’ said Mitch. ‘That’s the all-time record.’
I set myself to beat Ray’s record the following Friday. I still remember the shocked, unbelieving expressions on Ray’s and Mitch’s faces as Mr Hoskyns called out my total.
‘Twelve pounds exactly! Well done, lad! That’s the best ever, I do believe.’
The following Friday was my last on the job. Aware of this fact, Ray and Mitch 40 competed fiercely to exceed my takings, while I responded eagerly to the challenge. Recklessly we raced across the station with our barrows, that day, to claim the most favourable pitch, beside the first-class compartments of departing express trains; jealously we eyed each other’s dwindling stocks. Like foreign street-traders we accosted astonished passengers and pestered them to buy our wares. 45
At the end of the day, Mitch had taken £15 8s 6d1 , Ray £20 1s 9d1 and myself £21 2s 6d1 . I felt suddenly sorry for them both. The future stretched out for me full of promise while for Ray and Mitch the future held only the prospect of pushing the barrows from platform to platform, until perhaps they graduated to serving behind the counters of the shop – or, more likely – became porters or cleaners. I regretted, now, that I had won the 50 competition for takings, and denied them the small satisfaction of beating me in that respect at least.
1 ninepence, two and sixpence, and a penny-halfpence
eleven pounds nineteen ‘n’ six
£15 8s 6d
£20 1s 9d
£21 2s 6d –
all are examples of money used in England before 1971
Text Two
Should My Teen Be Working Part-Time?
Will A Job Affect School Work? by Glynis Kozma
It’s 7am and I am just about awake. It’s cold and not quite daylight outside. As I fill the kettle, I see the newspaper girl ride up to my neighbour’s, sometimes with a dog in tow. I know exactly how long she has to finish her round, walk to the bus stop for the school bus, and be wide awake for double maths. I don’t know how she does it.
Across the country, boys and girls are delivering newspapers to earn themselves a fiver. 5 We’ve come a long way since they cleaned chimneys1 – but is it a good idea for your child to have any part-time job when they are in full-time education?
My first Saturday job was in a fabric shop where I was expected to advise customers on the correct amount of material they’d need for a pair of curtains or a dress. To say I was out of my depth is an understatement. I had nightmares about women all over the north 10 wrestling with fabric that wasn’t fit for purpose. I suppose it was character building.
Viki, a 38-year-old mum from Cornwall, recalls, ‘From age 15, I had three jobs: stacking loaves for a bakery in the morning, doing a newspaper round on Sundays and working at a pharmacy evenings, weekends and holidays. My mum was widowed young, had three girls and we needed the money to keep us going. I did well in my A levels and went to 15
a good university.’ Even if finances are not an issue, Viki strongly believes in teenagers working and expects her own children to do so when they are older.
But competition for university places is tougher than ever – A*s are the order of the day and GCSE grades count too. Is it worth your child potentially risking their chances by having a part-time job? 20
Why work?
I doubt if there are many parents who don’t support the idea of their teenager earning money: they learn to save and budget; it encourages independence; it improves social skills; they learn about commitment and responsibility and they might make new friends. Or better still, as my friend Helen told me, ‘My niece has just saved her waitressing wages 25 and bought her own iPod. ‘
So, which job?
Which job, if any, is best? A paper round sounds tempting – hop on a bike, walk round a few streets before school, and earn anything from five to ten pounds. The reality is different, however. Your child might have to get up at 6am, lose an hour’s sleep, and on 30 winter mornings they will be out in the pitch dark, with all the safety issues that raises.
• Be realistic. If your child is struggling to keep up with their school work, are they going to be able to cope with the demands of a job?
• Every child is different. If your child is super-organised – bag packed the night before, homework ticked off, sports kit always ready and waiting – well, they will be fine. 35 But if, as in many households, the mornings are manic, do you need the pressure of a paper round as well?
• Maybe consider other jobs which avoid the early morning start. Babysitting, dog walking, pet sitting, car washing, working in a stables, and gardening are options. When your children are over 16 they can join the shelf-stacking brigade 40
in the supermarket. Some stores are happy for teenagers to work one day a week. Others require a full day and two evenings until 9pm or later. That’s a big commitment on top of GCSEs or A levels. Would your children cope? Would you cope? If you aren’t on a bus route you might have to taxi them there and back. 45
It’s great for teenagers to have part-time jobs but, speaking as a parent who has been there, never underestimate the impact it may have on your time, and on their studies.
1 We’ve come a long way since they cleaned chimneys – in the nineteenth century in England, children were employed to clean chimneys.
Questions
SECTION A
The following questions are based on Text One and Text Two in the Extracts Booklet.
You should spend about 40 minutes answering the questions in this section.
Both texts are about part-time work. In some countries students do part-time work
while they are studying.
Read Text One in the Extracts Booklet, adapted from a short story called
‘My First Job’.
1 In the first paragraph, the writer describes Mr. Hoskyns’ office.
Give two details of his office.
(Total for Question 1 = 2 marks)
2 In paragraph two, the writer seems to impress Mr. Hoskyns.
State one way he does this.
(Total for Question 2 = 1 mark)
3 Using lines 20–33, in your own words, describe what the writer had to do each day.
(Total for Question 3 = 3 marks)
4 In lines 40–52, the writer describes his experiences on his last day at work. In your
own words, explain what his last day was like.
(Total for Question 4 = 4 marks)
Now read Text Two, ‘Should My Teen Be Working Part-Time? Will A Job
Affect Schoolwork?’
5 In paragraph one, the writer gives some of the problems the newspaper
girl experiences.
State two of them.
(Total for Question 5 = 2 marks)
6 Identify two part-time jobs which have been done by either the writer or Viki.
(Total for Question 6 = 2 marks)
7 In lines 22–26, the writer makes some points about the benefits to teenagers of doing
part-time work.
In your own words, identify two of her points and give a quotation from the text to
support each point.
(i) Point
Quotation
(ii) Point
Quotation
(Total for Question 7 = 4 marks)
8 In lines 28–31, the writer describes what paper rounds involve.
In your own words, give two positive points and one negative point the writer
makes about paper rounds.
(Total for Question 8 = 3 marks)
9 Using lines 32–44, in your own words, explain what advice the writer offers on
part-time jobs.
(Total for Question 9 = 3 marks)
Refer to BOTH Text One AND Text Two to answer the following question.
10 Which text is more successful at presenting the writer’s experiences of part-time work?
You may choose either Text One or Text Two but you must explain your
choice carefully.
Give two reasons why you chose this text and one reason for not choosing the other
text. You may wish to comment on the writers’ language and techniques.
You should support your points with evidence from the texts.
(6)
