‘What my first job in an East Yorkshire shop taught me about life – and my teenage self’

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.

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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 enough staff. I had to tot up in my head and bag sugar dummies, cat-face lollies and candy versions of bacon, egg and sausage, faster than the speed of light.

I didn’t have chance to feel fazed by this sudden upturn in responsibility and it became permanent, for the five years of weekends and holidays thereafter. The open-fronted shop was a chilly affair on a New Year’s Day, I can tell you, with the bitter winter wind and sleet blowing straight in off the North Sea.

At some points I was bringing home more than my working mother, my pay packet reflecting late evening openings and overtime. One night I ended up bringing home all of the day’s takings, in carrier bags, on the bus, because I was in charge of locking up and the boss hadn’t been in to cash up.

The job brought all sorts of experiences – dealing with drunks, shoplifters (I mostly left them to little Marion, all 5ft nothing of her, who would chase them out with a sweeping brush), pesky wasps hollowing out the rock bananas, unloading vans and many trips down and up the cellar steps to store stock from our factory.

As well as opening and closing up the whole shop, mopping floors and arranging the window display, the boss also taught me how to do the shadow-lettering on the price tickets for all the rock novelties, toffee and fudge we sold. At times I was also left in charge of the keys to a holiday flat above the shop, and would let guests in and give them the lowdown on the accommodation.

All the while I was learning about team work and trust, as well as the rewards a hard day’s graft can bring, without really realising. I also discovered what I was capable of, despite lacking in confidence in myself (something that continues to be the case).

I also learned that a soft-whip ice-cream machine takes some careful handling. The first couple of customers I served when that got installed, before I got the hang of stopping it in time, were delighted with the super-size cornets they got for their money.

John Bull rock shop is the place my English teacher visited to deliver news of my A-Level results, an unorthodox move by him but one that set me on a path away from letters in rock to print in newspapers. The shop’s exterior has changed very little; the inside is different now and a recent visit revealed that rock fish, chips and peas have joined the eggs and bacon of my youth and that Dracula rock is now a thing.