https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/five-minute-memoir-salley-vickers-on-first-job-hell-8269500.html
Beginning:
When I was not quite 15, my dad, who was the kindest of fathers, decided that I should learn what ‘real’ work meant. He was a trade union leader, head of what is now the PCS – the Public and Commercial Services Union – having come to that brand of socialism via a youthful commitment to communism. His particular union served that branch of the public sector which included office cleaners. Indeed, it was his proud boast that he had been responsible for unionising the public sector cleaners.
I was lucky enough to have reached secondary school age during the period that state scholarships were made available to public schools. I had won a scholarship to St Paul’s, then as now one of the top girls’ schools in the country, but my father’s egalitarian principles had been tested by this piece of good fortune. My mother finally persuaded him that I should accept the place, but he was always concerned that I keep my feet on the ground and he never let me forget how the unprivileged had to live.
So when, that year, I asked for money to go on holiday, he said it was time I learnt to work for it.
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