With the modern trend of going to university to gain those ‘so important pieces of paper’ there will always be those who are not academic enough to do this. Despite that though, they still manage to have a full employment and make a good and successful life for themselves and their families.
I wonder if anyone here on OFC found their lives went this way and might like to post their experiences of how their lives have been in respect of this?
My descendants keep on telling me that “of course, it was so much easier in your times, Free Schooling/Uni, full lifelong employers, good pension schemes , early retirement, Cheap Houses”.
They seem to miss the fact that you had to work the system to get any of that!
They, also, ignore the fact that we were more likely to do all of the home repairs & maintenance, ourselves, instead of paying for it!
If I was in charge of the world, I’d put in place National Service.
Not two years in the army but two years learning trades, cooking, painting, decorating, plumbing, electricals, etc.
Save a fortune, whilst, also, being able to fix all of my stuff, as well as their own
I passed the eleven plus and duly went off to the local grammar school where I was expected to do well. However, I soon discovered that academic study wasn’t for me, as all I really wanted to do was make things so I asked to be demoted into a lower stream where they did metalwork and woodwork and technical drawing and the like, but my pleas were ignored as I was deemed to be “too bright” !
This of course only served to have the opposite effect and I rebelled against the unfairness and eventually at the age of fifteen I borrowed £9 off my dad ( which ,by the way, he made me repay lol )to buy myself out of the last year of school which you could do then, for £3 per term. The relief of leaving that awful institution I feel even to this day and look back on it as the best thing that I ever did.
I immediately got a job at the local coal mine as an apprentice fitter but shortly after that I was offered more money in construction and found that was where my talent lay. After a stint in the army when work was short I returned to construction, eventually setting up my own business and had a full and satisfying life doing something which I was both very good at, and also thoroughly enjoyed. And I have never once looked back with regret…
Despite our differences concerning vaccines @Barry you are a man out of my own heart…
Although I only went to a secondary modern school I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
I loved working with my hands and joined a small engineering company and served a seven year apprenticeship. I loved working with wood and made many things in my spare time. I also tinkered about with engines, but my real passion was electrics. Learning all these skills has enabled me to tackle any job in the house. Electrical, plumbing, woodwork, painting & decorating and even roofing.
I’m glad that university was not an option after leaving school, how many skills would have been lost to academia? I persevered with engineering for 35 years until being made redundant, and after refurbishing all the woodwork and electrics on someones large bungalow single handedly, I bought a van and became a self employed courier and made lots of money…
Still love electrics and working with my hands though…
I would have liked to reached my ultimate aim of a doctorate, but my employer halted my progress at my masters.
I left school and went straight into a higher technical college that went by the name of The Brunel Annex which was all part of Acton Technical. As I was approaching the end of the engineering foundation course, I saw an ad for graduates wanted by a government agency. Although at first I shrugged the ad off as not aimed at me, one of my course lecturers insisted the agency would be mugs to pass me over with my aptitude, so I wrote a long and detailed application even though I was nowhere near up to the standards being sought. I was called up for an interview and within days I was offered a sandwich employment/education position where I would be expected to knuckle down to deep learning and also follow training to serve The Crown. After several years of uni and departmental training/education/work I found myself serving The Crown as a professional civil servant with a civil engineering discipline. . . and the rest as the saying goes is history. I would have liked to have progressed all the way to my doctorate, but my training/careers branch insisted my masters was as far as they were prepared to fund my further education.
I served The Crown until I accepted early retirement at 60 (principal grade 7*) due to health reasons.
For someone who floundered and was bullied at junior schools (the dirty filthy yid) I didn’t do too badly considering my poor early start.
Well, I did an electrical engineering degree which I suppose would be academic. A lot of applied mathematics and physics. But I still got my hands dirty.
The practical approached cannot be beaten. If news of a failed steam boiler reached my attention, I would amaze many by going on site and calling for a boiler suit, then climbing through the bottom ‘man hole’ to inspect for myself. I have also been know for rolling the odd tube into an endplate myself just to indicate I did now how it’s done properly.
I went to a secondary modern school as I didn’t pass my 11 plus.
Did a few jobs before I got married, Worked with horses, then worked in several shops in retail, never food shops though. In those days there was no problem getting a job in most areas. I loved shop work, I found I liked interacting with customers & helping them. Still do, though Covid has scotched that now.
There wasn’t such a push in those days to get enough qualifications to go to university.
I passed my 11 plus, but went to a Secondary Modern, as there was no bus service from my village to the local-ish, Grammar School. I left school with one CSE in Tec Drawing. I hated school & even today feel it stopped me from wanting to learn.
All I ever really wanted to be was a Bricklayer, which I did an apprenticeship for. Then I worked in civil engineering for a couple of years after completing my apprenticeship.
At about 20, I became friends with a mental health nurse & decided on a change of career, I took & passed an entry exam & was due to start my training when a charity, who I volunteered for, to gain nursing relevant experience, offered me a job in a childrens home & training as a Social Worker. It was a 3.5 year position funded by a company. So I never became a nurse, but instead gained a degree whilst working. Later deciding to become a driver gaining both my HGV1 & PSV licences & driving everything from Sewage tankers, to oversized & high value loads, to open top buses. I also spend a couple of years trade plating high value cars & commercial vehicles (coaches, buses, HGV’s even little 7.5 ton vans,) around the UK.
@Tiffany The reason there wasn’t any push to go to uni in those
days tiff was because we couldn’t afford it, the banks of that
time deemed that we didn’t earn enough to repay the loans !!
Credit in those days was almost impossible to get unless you
owned something the banks could snatch back to sell !!
Most of the working class never owned their house and so
could not use that as co-lateral !!
Donkeyman!
So true Donks. If my employer had not fully sponsored me, I could not have gone to uni. It was just sheer luck I picked up a discarded newspaper left on the bus leaving Acton for home, or I would have not seen the ad that set me on the road to good employment.
In the late 70’s whilst an apprentice Bricklayer & thus on reasonably low wages, a friend & I brought a few houses, did them up & sold them on, all on the banks money. We never had any problems getting the loans, I think the biggest was for a property worth £8000, plus £2000 for materials & £1000 for legal costs etc.
I also brought a couple of motorbikes on bank loans too, as it was cheaper than HP.
@Gee3 , The reason for the easy loans was because it was
houses you were buying Gee, but more power to your elbow,
You took the chance and made good!!
Donkeyman!
the above is the short list. I also worked as a head barman in a large seaside bar, as a nighclub doorman. I did bingo calling. Worked on a Caravan park doing maintenance. Spent a few years doing vehicle recovery work. Ran a mental health rehab unit, worked for a special needs school as a support officer.I spent a couple of years as a hypnotist & worked as a sexual health outreach worker & spent some time as an environmental officer for a large farm.
Some of the jobs were part time, some were seasonal & thus I was able to do something different in winter, others were weekends only, like door work & civie engineering meant I had periods where I was between jobs/contracts & then I did high access work, so spent some periods walking around on scaffold poles at 200 feet plus.
My parents owned their own house, from 1936. OH & I bought our house too back in 1966.
Don’t think it was cost so much as the fact that you could get a job easily or an apprenticeship & not many actually wanted to study for years, they wanted to be out earning money they could spend.
@Gee3 You come across similar to my eldest son-in-law who now has his own transport business. He was a fairground roustabout with many strings to his bow until he met and married my daughter M. That did not sit too well with me, so he left the family business and with my help set up with a truck and started hauling. One became three lorries and now there are many + cranes in his depot. I’m no longer a silent partner having handed my 49% holding over to my two grandsons who are also now in the business.
