Partners
Jeanette
My dad was awful.
We went through all sorts of traumas with him. And we had a wicked stepmother as well.
All very ‘Cinderella’. I had to get a job as soon as I could. I had to earn money to keep him in beer and fags.
He had a pub and lost everything. He eventually went off to South Wales to escape his debts. So I was on my own living in a bedsit at 16. I went to youth employment and they said we’ve got nursing, the army, or a job at the local public library.
So I went for the library.
And my old school teachers, they gave up their lunch breaks to help me study for A levels at the same time. That’s how I did it.
Some things are in you from the start aren't they? I’ve always had a love of books. They’re old friends. And I loved reading and wanted to teach kids to read.
I met Bernard at the library. We were friends for two years before we went to a Communist dance in Bingley. I mean, I’m a raving Socialist but the Communist’s were rubbish dancers. However, the food was good.
I had five jobs at one time.
I had to have a timetable on the wall.
Work meant exhaustion.
Dark rings down to my boots.
But I loved it because you could do something.
In any mining place,
there was no work for women really.
I mean if you've got no washing machine and cold running water, and you’ve got all the pit clothes to wash.
Well, you’re not gonna have time are you.
And the tension...this awful job down the pits. Working all those hours. Danger every minute.
Stephen
I lived in my bedroom a lot. I didn’t like going downstairs.
I were about 11. My dad stopped my pocket money. So I got a job at the market.
I then worked in kitchens.
One day somebody didn’t turn up and I got sent out doing Silver service – peas and carrots.
Jobs have come and gone. I’ve just got on with it. One job, I had to sort trays out of millions of screws.
All day just doing that.
That was the most boring job.
But the hardest thing is getting the job in the first place.
The hardest job I’ve ever done is being a dad. Not being able to read to my kids. That hurt but I can do that now. I’m joining the Labour party. Everyone complains, but at least I’ll know I’m trying.
I were a janitor.
I could clean for more than 12 hours.
Either acid, bleach, chemicals, general cleaning or hoovering.
They gave me a list I memorised.
I learned the warning signs and a guy helped me if I got stuck with the reading. I was my own boss and didn’t need to be in a set place at one time.
It got me out of the house. I stayed until I had health problems.
I went into the pub one week and someone said,
“What you doing in here, you don’t work? How can you come in here?”
I’ve been volunteering for 6 years. He said that isn’t work. “You’re scrounging.”
But I work 10 hours now.
I went back in with my first wage and this guy said the same thing.
I said I am working, and volunteering, so you’ve got no need to pull me down. Everyone needs to start somewhere.
Dennis
The family across the street where I lived tried to tell me the Royal Family had blue blood. I said don’t be so bloody daft.
Nobody’s got blue blood.
We’ve all got red blood.
Even the bloody Royal Family’s got red blood.
I remember telling the whole family that.
They were bloody convinced they’ve got blue blood.
I put them right.
So I went into politics when I were 4.
When I was a union man I had a job in the pit.
I weren’t skiving on the pit tar.
Even when I was president of the Derbyshire NUM I worked in the pit.
1970. I got elected, and six o’clock the day after I went to work. I didn’t have two ha’pennies to rub together.
I hadn’t got a bank account.
I hadn’t got a car. We hadn't any money. I went to work because I didn’t know when I was going to get paid in Parliament. Nobody sent me a letter saying turn up on such and such a day. I just had to keep looking in the papers to see when swearing in started. So I kept going to the pit.
I worked in an industry where everybody’s life depended on everybody’s else. If you didn’t go to work you didn’t get paid.
So I’ve adopted that technique in Parliament.
I went with a set of ideas.
I’m in there before eight o’clock before the doors open. There’s about 16 drinking places in Parliament and I’ve never been in any of them It’s not because I’m puritanical, but if you smelled of beer at the pit head you where turned away.
And rightly so.
Adi
I could always get a hands on job.
I’ve worked at McDonalds, I’ve worked on building sites, I’ve been a spray painter, a gardener, a tattooist,
a Slaughterhouse man, and a warehouse assistant. There are jobs but conditions are poor.
12 hour shifts, four on, four off, then nothing.
I’d seen the warehouse going up.
I went for a 12 week job with a nought contract.
They said I might get a full time contract at the end of it.
I was designated three aisles to work.
The machine I worked were 12 metres up in air.
High as two houses.
Picking a ton-weight.
Take this pallet from A1 to D5.
All day long picking pallets off a shelf and putting others on another shelf.
Up in the air, people look this small.
I wondered what my lass was doing.
She was always in my mind. I had photos of all three kids on my vehicle so they were always watching me.
When you’ve got a family, a home, you’ve got overheads, and you haven’t got enough money coming in to go out, that’s when it starts getting really, really, really bad. And when we were there, there was definitely no trust in the place, and no unions. I suppose, if I was in a union I would never had been laid off for two weeks and then not given my job back.
Serena
I’d been a carer for my mum since the age of 14.
But I had helped her before then.
I needed a change. Fed up of being in the shadows, the thought persisted.
Would anybody support me? Would anybody offer to help me? Would anybody even care?
I saw no way into such a closed world. My grades weren’t good. But I’d made my decision that same night, I wanted to try and get into the college. I want people to know who I am.
I want them to see me as me. I want this to happen.
