FIRST DAY MONDAY 10 AUGUST 1964
By David Palethorpe
Sixty-two years ago today, I started my working life as a straight from school fresh-faced fifteen-year-old apprentice electrician with the National Coal Board at Silverwood Colliery.
Yes —for those of a younger generation raised through the comprehensive school system- back in 1964 you could leave school at fifteen and go straight to work.
I am the product of a Secondary Modern system — designed to prepare boys for industry, manual labour, or the armed forces.
A system in which girls were going into retail, offices or nursing.
Grammar school was for the GCE achievers;
University for the lucky very few.
In Rotherham, alongside neighbouring Sheffield, coal and steel meant jobs were plentiful.
Full employment wasn’t just a phrase — it was a reality.
I still remember the details of that first day.
I had to arrive at Silverwood by 6am, carrying a document signed by my father (not my mother, of course – that level of equality was still sometime off) confirming I was to be “indentured” for four years.
Indentured was for those who aren’t aware was in simple terms an agreement, a commitment that I would remain in my apprenticeship for the full four years.
Compare that with today’s three-month “apprenticeships.”
So on that Monday morning I set off at 5am, walked two miles, (cue the Monty Python Yorkshireman sketch) caught the trolley bus (ticket price: four old pence, or 1.5 new pence), and arrived both nervous and excited to begin my working life.
For context: Manfred Mann’s Do Wah Diddy Diddy was at the top of the charts, Sir Alec Douglas-Home was Prime Minister, and Lyndon B. Johnson was President of the USA.
The day itself?
A non-event, really.
A van ride to the Coal Board workshops for induction.
Weeks of bench tools, electrical theory, mining safety.
Thursday was day-release at Rotherham Technical College.
Pay £2 11s 6d a week
I clocked off at 4pm.
Not dramatic — but for a 15-year-old it was the beginning of a working life that would last over fifty years, cross industries, cross organisations and involve more than a few “first days.”
But this one, the very first one is the one I’ll never forget.
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