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

It was a percentage of the contents of the meter that was returned. The gas meter was set at a certain price for gas which was a bit over what the actual price was. This was so that you almost never ended up owing the company money. The bloke would look at what you had actually used and the actual cost and there was usually a difference which was given back to the householder. At the same time, if it was needed, the meter was adjusted to allow a different amount of gas per shilling or whatever.

When I was a 17 year old 6th former drop out in 1990, I worked 6th months in an industrial laundry. Four of us stood in a row, feeding pillow cases and tea towels into the giant steam press. When the bed sheets needed to go in, three of us pulled it taut, fed it in and one of us, usually me, had to climb on top of the steam press and help the sheet along the way as it otherwise would start to shift too much.

Sometimes I was at the other end of the steam press, folding all the dry (and hot!) linen into the wheeled trollies. You had to be quick!

I left as I had gained a college place but most of my colleagues were middle aged women who had been there a long time. I wonder if these kind of industrial laundries still exist and/or how much is now automated compared to when I was there 34 years ago.

My friend took a factory job in the early 2010s.

She had to take six fabric circles and weigh them to check they were consistently weighted.

That was it. That was the whole job, all day. She worked besides a woman who'd done it for twenty years and is still going now!

In terraced streets, the knocker upper knocked on everyone's window. According to my grandmother who came from a cotton town and worked in t'mill

I work part time in a big laundry.. we have industrial washing machines and dryers, and big steam rollers fed by hand and pedal operated. The ironing (finishing) has to be done and folded by hand too.. No automation there!

Where I grew up, there was a rag and bone man called Valderee who used to walk the main road and make loud kissy noises at women queuing at bus stops. When Norman Wisdom came to make a film in the local town, the wife of my DM's boss, a very la-di-da woman, auditioned to be an extra and her DH boasted in the office when she was chosen.
When the film came out she was helping Valderee push his cart.

Speaking clock - ok not a person, but is it still available?
Also could book an early morning alarm call from ... I have no memory of where but telephone would ring you at the appropriate time.
Tea ladies with a trolley and iced buns etc.(I worked for Brooke Bond Oxo for a while and they had one)
There used to be a refreshment trolley on my train to and from Waterloo and you could get tea coffee kitkats and Train Cake. That wasn't very long ago but its gone now.

There used to be a refreshment trolley on my train to and from Waterloo and you could get tea coffee kitkats and Train Cake. That wasn't very long ago but its gone now

There’s still a refreshments trolley on the train from Paddington to Devon & Cornwall.

Yes! im pretty sure you rang 123 for the speaking clock (at the third stroke, the time will be... ) no idea if you still can though.
My dad used to arrange an alarm call most mornings, and can you remember making reverse charged calls, wasnt that through an operator?

Runner bean chaser
Banana straightener
Poo cleaner in a cuckoo clock
Striper in a paint factory

Data processors. When I was first a programmer back in the day, we sent our computer programmes to the DP pool who typed in the code for us.

It then compiled overnight and then we tested it.

The old computer system managers/ operators also don't exist now (there are data centre managers now). They used to load tapes and card readers and reboot the old huge mainframes that were the size of an old mini. 😬

They were also the people who would phone me up in the middle of the night to fix the programmes . I had to drive in to login as the internet had not yet been invented. 😬

Also from 1980/s office was the tea lady who came round twice a day with a big urn of tea, sarnies or cake. Ours WSs called Dolly. Dolly with her trolley 😬❤️😆

I still use proper shorthand

Part of a temping job I once had involved transferring invoices to microfiche.

I had a man come and sharpen my scissors just last week. He didn't do a great job to be honest...!

Sagger Makers Bottom Knocker

I'm old enough to remember someone on the programme “ What’s My Line “ beating the panel with this occupation in the 60’s or 70’s.
I just checked Google and the job no longer exists. Here’s what it says about it :-

“This role was associated with the British pottery industry in Stoke-on-Trent, where it involved stacking saggars into bottle kilns for firing. The industry has changed significantly since the 1970s, and many traditional jobs, including that of saggar maker's bottom knocker, are now a thing of the past.

A saggar is a ceramic container used to protect pottery during firing in a kiln.The name may come from the word "safeguard". The first saggars were likely created in China over a thousand years ago to protect porcelain from direct flames and wood ash.”

Typewriter repairers
Under parlour maids

@Jellykat That’s good to know! I know hotels and restaurants need their linen washed but was wondering how it was done now. Thanks for the update!

yup "Will you accept a reverse chage call from xxx?" and it cost more.

Not exactly jobs that don't exist any more but living in France, sometimes I am surprised by what seems to be perfectly acceptable job titles advertised on the ANPE or France Travail (job centre) website:

Factotum: This sounds terrible to me. It just means general purpose caretaker in a hotel or sometimes a private property but it's...it's...like a...something from 19th century colonial Africa.

Limonadier: Lowest paid waiter in a bar, sort of. Lemonade boy?

Nourrice for nanny. Icky wet nurse connotations.

Also, the specification that somebody should be "souriant(e)" or smily. The official meaning according to google is "aimable et gai."
How can you put that you should be smily, likeable and fun in a job description in 2024?

I quite like gouvernante for head of housekeeping in a hotel though because in my experience, she always is "The guv'nor" and an absolute dragon.

Stenographers still exit! Very useful too!

but vhs film rental clerks don’t aka blockbuster!

A friend used to install and maintain cigarette machines in pubs.......

Oh, I realise I'm commiting the cardinal sin here by quoting myself but I had to look it up and I wasn't imagining it, there was a 1988 film called, "The Kitchen Toto" about a British policeman in Kenya in 1950 who takes in murdered Black priest's son as a houseboy...

Toto...factotum...

My work used to have a "blackberry room" where a team would deal with work BB phones, they sometimes did other things, but 90% of their time was BB related. They stopped that about 6 years ago.

GP

My dad did this for the railway when he was about 14.