A few weeks after leaving school, the house now spotless from `making myself useful` I got my first job. It was a `YTS` at a fashion boutique in town, a Youth Training Scheme.
It was 1981, the start of a new decade. Fashions and music were changing.
The wage was low, hours long, I was on my feet all day and given all the jobs that either no one liked doing or were deemed beneath a full time Fashion Assistant.
I LOVED IT !!
I loved working in a busy town, the hustle and bustle, the clothes, the people watching, learning about merchandising, stock deliveries, sales targets, watching out for shop lifters and doing it all to back ground music from the charts being blasted out from the shop speakers !
Did I mention I loved it !
The Manager quickly warmed to me, I was fast on the uptake, didn`t need telling twice, was eager to please and showed lots of initiative, when she said jump and some only yawned or lifted one leg I practically pole vaulted into action.
I had been trained by a Narcissistic Mother after all.
I had been trained by a Narcissistic Mother after all.
My wage was £23.50 per week.
£10 for Mother
£10 for clothes, make up and toiletries
£3.50 for bus-fare and a daily treat from the newsagents kiosk opposite the shop.
Oh I was living the high life now.
I remember saving for a two piece suit I knew my Mother would love, I asked for it to be `set aside`. It was reduced and with a little staff discount, in 4 weeks I had enough.
She would like me now I was sure, I was able to buy her better gifts, I was paying board and managing to keep the house something like with my day off, `to-do-list`, surely at last I had it all covered ?
I proudly bought it home and presented it to her, she gushed with gratitude and popped it in her wardrobe. It was never worn. Several months later she announced it was too tight, because she had told me she was a size smaller than she was actually wearing at the time. It went in the door step charity bag, tags still on.
If she was in town she would sometimes drop by the shop, all beaming smiles, bearing sweets to share with `the girls`, her actress voice at full volume. This act didn`t marry well with the odd detail of my life at home, that I shared in conversation when we were in the staff room on our breaks, so naturally it was me that didn`t seem quite genuine, after all she seemed so lovely.
Oh I was living the high life now.
I remember saving for a two piece suit I knew my Mother would love, I asked for it to be `set aside`. It was reduced and with a little staff discount, in 4 weeks I had enough.
She would like me now I was sure, I was able to buy her better gifts, I was paying board and managing to keep the house something like with my day off, `to-do-list`, surely at last I had it all covered ?
I proudly bought it home and presented it to her, she gushed with gratitude and popped it in her wardrobe. It was never worn. Several months later she announced it was too tight, because she had told me she was a size smaller than she was actually wearing at the time. It went in the door step charity bag, tags still on.
If she was in town she would sometimes drop by the shop, all beaming smiles, bearing sweets to share with `the girls`, her actress voice at full volume. This act didn`t marry well with the odd detail of my life at home, that I shared in conversation when we were in the staff room on our breaks, so naturally it was me that didn`t seem quite genuine, after all she seemed so lovely.
The shop closed at 6 on Friday`s and Saturday`s and by the time we got out I had often missed my bus and had to wait at a dark bus-stop in a rapidly emptying town, the atmosphere in town centres in the 80`s soon changed when the shops were shut.
I can remember the Dad`s of most of the other girls where waiting outside the shop on the late nights to drive them home. Naturally my Father wasn`t one of them.
One night a girl my age was in with her snooty Mom, they messed about choosing dresses for ages after the doors were closed which made me late and so missing yet another bus by moments, they only ran hourly after that, I then had to wait a full hour in the rain and the dark, arriving home late and soaked and getting an earful because they were wondering where I was.
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