LEAVING SCHOOL, FIRST JOB - AND A BLONDE


In my last year at St. Philip’s, before my eighteenth birthday, I didn’t have an idea about my future.  Did I want to go to university, or not?  During this year, several people from various professions came to talk to us about careers, including the headmaster of a local secondary modern school who said he would be willing to allow anyone thinking of becoming a teacher to join his staff and try out the teaching profession for a year.  I decided to take him up on his offer and, at the beginning of the autumn term in 1961, I became an unqualified student teacher at a rate of £31 13s 4d (£31.66) per month before tax, two-thirds of the pay of a newly qualified teacher and equal to £638 in 2014.


After the first three  weeks, I was ready to give up but my father advised me to stick it out for another month and then decide what to do.  By the end of the month, I was beginning to enjoy teaching, even if I never looked forward to 3b on Friday afternoon. Another factor in my decision to stay was that I soon began to go out with Rose, a newly qualified teacher who was an attractive blonde and just twenty, only two years older than I was.

National Service
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