Week 6 (Feb. 5-11): Earning a Living

Back when I first began researching my family history, I was fortunate to be able to have several long chats with relatives about their lives.  Several chat were with my Great Uncle Russell Clark, and below is a transcription of a conversation we had about his early working life.

At the age of 14 I gained my “Merit Certificate” and that gave me the opportunity to take on a full time job. Frank Marriott, a vegetable grower in Centre Road, Bentleigh offered me one and so I went working in his garden. Fifty six hours per week, milk a cow night and morning before breakfast, mow a large lawn Saturday afternoon before being allowed to go home for the weekend. Ten shillings a week and my keep. I had a hut away from the main house and near the large shed where horses were kept and chaff etc. stored. I had a “crystal set” which was a wireless but in order to get any stations one had to have a long aerial suspended from something high. I was lucky because I ran a wire from the top of the double story feed shed down to my hut. With the crystal set right I could get both 3DB and 3LO. I was made!!!! I spent four years with Frank. I had my 18^th Birthday there and my Mother purchased a bicycle for me. I believe she paid five pounds for it. From then on I was able to ride home on occasions and later on again I rode to work every morning and I kept wonderfully fit. Hurlingham Park was next door to where we lived and I played football there for the Brighton Vale Football Club and actually captained the side for a season.

My brother Lennie (one year older) was apprenticed to a butcher. Meekhams was their name and they had a shop on the Nepean Road near Union Street from memory. As time went by I used to do some part time work for them. I would unfold “Heralds” and “Suns” (newspapers) place them flat in a pile then roll them up and tie a string around them. They were used in the shop to wrap the meat. I got threepence an hour for that, not much but enough to get me into a matinee at the Brighton Theatre on a Saturday afternoon.

However I eventually left that job at Marriott’s garden and started work at the “Metropolitan Gas Company” where I remained until the outbreak of the Second World War. I then rode my bike from Brighton to South Melbourne, riding along Nepean Highway to Elsternwick, down towards Elwood and across to St Kilda, along the beach to nigh on Port Melbourne where the Gasworks were located. Those days we worked on a Saturday morning so a long ride on the bike six days a week. I used to also get some overtime working some evenings and again on a Saturday afternoon to earn a little extra. At the age of 21 years I was earning the princely sum of four pounds six shillings and eight pence per week. To supplement this payment I had by then joined the Militia and when I was due for annual holidays (one week per year, later to become two weeks) I arranged for my holidays to coincide with an annual Military Camp at the Mobilization Stores at Seymour. This was also a paid job. So I would have my break from the Gas Company and spend that time “under canvass” doing a supplementary paid job. This was all to earn extra income.