[Margaret Pilkington]

I think the job market is vastly different to when I left school.(more years ago than I care to think about)
The boys would aim to have an apprenticeship with Howard and Bulloughs, or go on the railways...or even down the pit.
Girls would look for something in an office.......lots of my peers wanted to be shorthand typists, some wanted to be hairdressers, comptometer operators(no, I don't know what it is either).......shop work was also a choice.
Many of these jobs were seen to 'set you up'...if not for life, for a good long time.
These days there are few jobs that could be seen as 'for life'.......and young people today have different aspirations.
How many of your peers expressed a desire to go to University? It wasn't an option for the vast majority of us.........we were factory fodder, although there was laways the option of going to night school to further your education, but that took a lot of committment.
You had to really want to improve your lot to take that on.