Occupations that no longer exist.

[Eyresandgraces]

I was changing the bed and remembered that in the 1970’s, so not that long ago, dh’s aunt was a tick turner for Fogarty’s.
She spent her whole working day turning pillowcases the correct way round and pointing the corners with her thumbs.
i can’t imagine such a monotonous job.

I found a list of old occupations but Tick turner is not listed.

A Tosher made a living by scavenging the Victorian sewers. Grim.

Please feel free to add any you can think of.

https://rmhh.co.uk/occup/a.html

Someone still comes to our door and offers to sharpen things. Sharpened my lawnmower one time.

Knocker upper also sounds like a guy who goes around impregnating women.

Not a job in the strictest sense but they definitely still exist 🙂

@DecayingRelic I trained as a medical secretary in the 80s and had to be proficient at shorthand. I worked for some consultants who preferred to dictate to me in between out patient visits. They hated the new fangled dictation machines but also wanted me on hand to chase up missing notes, x/rays, tests etc. At least the morning clinic letters were typed up in the afternoon.

I also worked for a consultant who dictated his book on the pathology of the heart. That was fun (not).

I temped as a uni student in the 90s by which time it was all audio with huge backlogs so much so that we had to record date of clinic and date letter typed. Most of the well qualified secretaries had left to take up better paid jobs in the private sector leaving temps paid at hourly rates plus fees to agencies in some areas. Cost the NHS more for an inferior service.

weavers - my mum was one in the fifties in Dundee. I am guessing it is all done by machine now. Machines were certainly involved in my mums day but lots of people were too who had to operate The Looms.

Another job my mum had around same time was a sweetie jar filler for Keillers in Dundee. She worked on assembly lines and they were allowed to eat as much sweets as they wanted. She said at first they all stuffed their faces then couldn't look at them after that.

What about coal merchants - do you still get them. They used to come round with coal to fill up the coal bunker.

NCR machine operator here too, when I worked in the bank pre computerisation.

I started out keeping the savings accounts- by hand in massive ledgers, using logarithmic tables and occasionally a slide rule to work out the interest.

That was my job 15 years or so ago in a big insurance company that had 3 wings over 3 floors. we were the 'Postal Admin Team" so we dealt with all the post, which included internal and external!

How about ticket sellers at railway stations. There used to be manned offices at each railway station where you went in and bought your ticket. Then they started phasing them out and put ticket machines in their place.
No idea what they have now. Probably a ticket you buy online and show on your smartphone or something.

Bigger stations still have ticket sellers in offices - we bought some like that this last weekend at counter they often also have ticket machine, and our station has e-ticket readers ticket gate.

IL has no ticket machine or office - too small they can still currently pay on the train though some staff argue about this - some stations near us though they did media and they have to buy on-line before traveling now.

Buses here instead of cash you can do card or ticket on phone - which as they wanted exact change is actually easier - you can still use exact change.

Yes my mum still has a milkman. And the Maineman comes round here in his lorry weekly selling ‘minerals’ .

In the same vein, what about people who offer to patch up the bottoms of pots and pans?

Not that long ago they were selling papers on the street in Belfast. Their call was “Sixth Tele” meaning the sixth edition (last of the day with the most up to date news) of the Belfast Telegraph.

A computer! Someone with a great head for figures who performed mathematical calculations, before the machines came along

My first job was counting the coins in the coffee machine

Switchboard operators still exist in every hospital. Apart from anything else they manage the bleep system, for crash calls, fire etc

I used to work for Directory Enquiries!

Yes we get deliveries.

Grocery vans - This little van used to come to our street and it sold basic groceries. We used to go in and get a 10p mixture. My mum always complained about how expensive he was for bread, milk and other essentials but I guess for housewives who were stuck at home and couldn't drive it was handy if you had forgotten something or didn't fancy the walk to the supermarket to get the groceries in.

We also had a van come round that sold fizzy juice and diluting cordial. I'm sure it was called 'Bon'accord' or something. I think they might have went on to become the corona man that everyone is speaking about (or maybe that got taken over by the corona man). This was in Scotland

Are there still paper boys and girls? In the 60s I had a paper round, had to be at the paper shop by 6 am to do the round before school. Hated Sundays with all the extra papers and supplements, the bag weighted a ton.

My great grandfather was an Oster, some where near Ols Street London I think.

Lighthouse keeper

This was actually a question on the Chase (the celebrity one). The question was "what is the job of a knocker upper" and within the three answers was "increasing the population". The celebrity looked completely perplexed and actually chose that as an answer, but I don't think they realised what it meant. Was quite funny that they didn't get the joke in the answer.

Many schools have one of those today
Go round and get the families up so that they can get their children into school.

The school I am Governor at had people going to get students to do their GCSE's last year (and every year), think its just teachers though

In the early 90s I was offered a job in the print room of a national newspaper. Thank god I did not take it, as it is pretty much non existent now.

Punch card reader. I trained in the 70s to read the texts that came through on a computer that was the size of a reasonably large office. The cards were all dots and numbers which needed to be put into coherent sentences!

@DanielaDressen
If walls could talk: an intimate history of the home by Lucy Worsley
London labour and the London poor by Matthew

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