Being a Saturday girl was life-changing for me - today's young need the same chance: Christa Ackroyd

And so the suggestion was if I wanted a pair I would have to find some way of buying them myself. It was the beginning of discovering a very valuable life lesson.

I set out at dad’s suggestion to find a Saturday job. In those days using the telephone was rationed, so it was not a case of ringing round but of going in person.

Second lesson don’t wear something akin to the jeans you so desperately crave. Look smart, be enthusiastic and above all be polite.

I trudged the streets of Bradford knocking on shop doors, calling in at restaurants and coffee bars until I entered, what was in my view, the greatest building Bradford ever lost, the gigantic soot-blackened, ornate, Kirkgate market.

I wandered through the maze of aisles stopping at the bustling stalls asking if anyone was looking for a Saturday girl.

Yes I know it’s outdated in both terminology and opportunity but that is what we called ourselves.

The boys tended to trudge the streets before school on paper rounds, also long gone. Eventually I found one who said yes they might be. It was quickly established at 14 I was only allowed to work a half day but if I got there the following Saturday at 8am they would give me a trial.

And so it was my first Saturday job was selling interlocked cotton underwear on one of the many stalls Baxendall’s ran in the market, including men’s underpants. I was terrified.

I needn’t have worried. It was long before the now thankfully defunct trend of showing your designer-labelled briefs above sloppy jeans. These were good sturdy old fashioned Y-fronts which I quickly learned would more than likely be bought by wives not by the men who would be wearing them.

I loved that job which on reaching 15 became a full Saturday. I would visit Pie Tom’s in nearby Rawson Market for my lunch with a glass of Tizer and Chelsea Girl and C&A during the week to spend my hard earned wage.

It took a month before I finally bought the said jeans. But it was one of my proudest moments. I was growing up.

It taught me customer relations (not everyone was happy), gave me the ability to talk to anyone, not to be shy, and to stand on my own two feet. It gave me freedom, an ever growing wardrobe , a sense of purpose and many, many laughs with people of all ages.

It was later supplemented by silver service waitressing at the myriad of dinner dance establishments in the evenings and at the nearby Italian restaurant which also taught me the best bolognese recipe which I still use, and that is to add chicken livers alongside an entire bottle of red wine for extra richness.

I made friends, learned the importance of punctuality and the art of negotiation when I ventured further afield to work at Boots the Chemist selling, would you believe, contraceptives then hidden away in a drawer.

Still only on Saturdays and in the holidays. I got there on the bus, and discovered the joy of putting in a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay.

And above all the fact if I needed money I had to earn it along with the respect of those I worked with and those I was paid to serve.

No longer. Now we are told for the vast majority of young people Saturday jobs are no more.

And before you start jumping up and down saying they don’t want to work, many of them do, thwarted by a jobs market which is tough enough finding full time employment coupled with increased National Insurance burden which means shopkeepers are looking for more experienced workers who can work longer and more flexible hours once trained.

Which is exactly why there are a million young people not in full time work, training or education.

We all need to learn we have to start somewhere and that is usually at the bottom, if you excuse the pun from someone who started out selling knickers.

How are they going to grow if there are not the opportunities to start small with smalls or any other avenues once open to us ? University is expensive and no longer guarantees a job at the end of it.

For decades many students supplemented what we must remember was a free grant by working part time in pubs and restaurants whose very survival is under threat and who can only just afford to keep the staff they have.

Yet that first job, particularly when you are deciding what your future career might be, was once a vital part of our personal development in an age when if you wanted something you could always find a way of earning enough to get it, without the need for the bank of mum and dad and especially without sitting at home believing the world owed you a living.

I have often said since leaving full-time employment that what that first job taught me was that there is no shame in humble work.

Quite the contrary. And if I needed to work now, as I do, I would willingly take a leaf out of my teenage playbook and knock on doors until I found some.

That is what my Saturday job taught me – if there are any out there.

I remember that feeling when I bought those Levi 501 jeans. I sat in the bath until they shrank not exactly to fit but until my legs turned blue along with the water as the dye ran out. But my sense of pride grew.

Dad could never understand my fascination for what his generation considered to be simple work wear.

Mum knew they symbolised not just a fashion statement but the start of growing up and taking responsibility for myself.

What is more I wore them for twenty years. I wish I had them now. Fashion has a way of returning, though I couldn’t fit into them and they would be called vintage.

But it was a vintage lesson I learned.

Not everything should be handed to us on a plate. Some things and worth working for and waiting for and in doing so they will be so much more appreciated and remembered with pride.

That is their true value and one which should never go out of fashion.