How did people leave home at 15…

[Holdinguphalfthesky]

… move to London and start working as a music PR? Just reading an interview with Mariella Frostrup and it says that’s what she did. Even back in the 70s, how would someone have done that? I seem to remember in Caitlin Moran’s book How to be a Woman, she also walked into a job in music journalism at a very young age.

Is it unreasonable of me to ask how they did it? What’s being glossed over in the retelling?

Have to say I know my DD wants to stay there after college and we can't do the whole subbing thing going forward so going to be interesting.

I left home at 16 (which was 55 years ago!). At first I lived in a bedsit in my home town and then (still 16) moved to London where I worked in a department store, Bourne & Hollingsworth at the 'wrong' end of Oxford St, which had a hostel for its female staff in Gower Street, Bloomsbury, which was only a short walk away from the store. Living there was fantastic.

I dont know TBH.I mean I get that it was easier then to get a job and small bedsit.However MF is a smart cookie ,and was probably "in the right place at the right time kind of thing" She probably got noticed and got ahead .My cousin was accepted to the FO ,and worked abroad for many years.She had left School at 15 with no formal qualifications at all! Her hubby was similar .Both had attended good private schools .I think rents then were lower too.My Cousin lived in a shared house ,and I was horrified when she said she shared a bathroom with some others.The young guy on the landing strolled around in his underwear! I was only about 17 then!

Great thread.
Re Mariella Frostrup, Julie Burchill and the others who tell a good tale, I expect there was a bit more to it than arriving in London and becoming a feted person immediately. Maybe they had a friend or relative and slept on the sofa for a couple of weeks while they tried to find a job. They're probably missing out some of the story, like the shop jobs and toilets mentioned by others on the thread, and just highlighting the bits they prefer to remember and would like us to know. They may have done their glamorous jobs as a sort of side hustle a couple of days per week whilst working shifts as a typist the rest of the time. What they clearly had was self-confidence, good looks, youthful energy, drive and ambition etc to tide them along, plus maybe a push factor driving them away from home.
@Ithinkofawittyusernamethenforgetit In the late 80s I also had a friend who was a ballet dancer living at the YWCA hostel opposite the British Museum and I used to sleep on the floor next to a pile of their blood-stained pointe shoe tights. Maybe we passed each other on the way to their delicious cook-outs in the basement kitchen, of one pea each.

In the 70s, 15 year old were definitely treated more as adults than as kids. It wasn't that many years earlier when kids could leave school at 12 or 14. My gran got a job (by accident!) At 14 in the 1940s.

From a position of ignorance, and knowing nothing about her early life, I would guess from her accent that she did not grow up in poverty.

Perhaps daddy lent a hand.

In the old days, there were lots of jobs for unskilled young people in cities. I used to get holiday jobs with no difficulty, and be paid around the same as anyone else. I bought a motorbike at 16 and a car at 19 on student jobs.

Oh and there was alot of lying about your age - ie omitting to tell people - documents were not checked walking into jobs, jobs were paid cash in little brown envelopes with your hrs and the calculations on the front and that was if you were official etc. The creative industries like music were also even more lax

As a PP said I agree we might start to see more Rising Damp and Man About The House-type rental arrangements where the landlord lives in

My Dd moved out at 17, 7 years ago.
She moved into the flat her bf shared with his brother, and a year later they got their own flat where they still live.

My mum moved out at 15, got a job (I think a telephonist ) and rented a bedroom in a house and saved for her own flat. My dad did a trade qualification and worked from 15 living with men he worked with. They got married and bought a house at 20. That was late 60’s.
i moved out at 17 and had a live in job. My Dsis didn’t move out until 23 and my mum was unimpressed! (Mid 90’s)
my DDs moved out at 24 and 23 when they bought their own houses. I had no intention of rushing them.

14 was my first job, I think it was fine but was v lucky with my employers even tho they were a small mom and pop style place

Oh wow! The evenings we sat on her bed darning the pointe shoes. Then out clubbing. Yes the basement! Well you’ll be jealous to know my mum used to cook her individual hotpots on a Sunday which I’d drive over to put in the freezer on a Monday after work - parking right outside 🤣
It is a great thread.

Its true that youngsters these days seem more mollycoddled than back in the 70s. No being ferried around in parents cars, we walked or got the bus. Going into pubs at 15, as long as you looked old enough and gave a convincing date of birth you were in. Most of us had holiday/weekend jobs so had money to spend.
I will say though that the country was safer back then, very few cars, no maniacs speeding on the roads. Drugs were rarely heard of, apart from the occasional unfortunate who had died of an overdose.
People generally obeyed the law, the incentive to do that was the threat of Borstal, and few were crazy enough to end up in there. On the other side though, was lack of safeguarding children, any adult could give you a slap around the face if they decided you needed one, tell your parents and they would shrug and tell you that you probably deserved it...
So it was good and bad in equal measure, I would say

DM left home and went to live with a distant relative in London at 16 (1960s), after a couple of years she moved on to Rome…

Definitely social attitudes. Most young people didn't go to university back then but after O levels went to technical college to learn a skill (with me it was shorthand and typing...on a manual typewriter 😄) or just got a job. A handful of my friends did stay on for A levels and uni but usually their parents had been. I along with a lot of other young women got married early and had children in my 20s.
I do think parents were not as overprotective back then as they are now either!
I think some aspects of life were better back then, a slower pace of life for one thing, and people seemed to be nicer to each other. I think that may have been because we were still a post war generation and I think people are less selfish in times of war. I may be wrong!
I think I missed out though, on Uni and having fun. I did end up going in my 40s but it wasn't the same experience! I also think that young women have much higher standards than we did back then, being more financially independent and not having to rely on a man!

Accents can easily be adopted to be fair @PigletJohn my own grandmother moved to London at 18 (when coming of age was 21) dropped her strong Durham accent and learnt shorthand before working as a secretary, moving out during the war to Cornwall as a Nanny. Grew up as the daughter of grocers and sister of miners

I left home at 16 to work in music in London, in 1996. I called around recording studios asking if they needed a “tape op.” I got paid £60 a week.

i rented a bedsit above a kebab shop in Bermondsey for £30 a week.

In answer to the OP, because they could!!!!! Nowadays, if your child left home at 15 you'd have social services on to you. No 15 year old these days could get a job that would support them financially, as by law they have to be at school. That means they couldn't pay rent, so they quite simply couldn't leave home to work.

30 years ago it wouldn’t have been shocking

33 years ago when I had just turned 16 (a month before), I went abroad to work as a au pair for 3 months - I could have stayed but came home.

my friend moved out to boyfriend’s house when she was 15 and started working in supermarket when she turned 16.

another friend at 16 went to live with aunt for college

Not as exciting as music business and we all at some point went back to education/training. 2 of the 3 of us never lived at home again.

i don’t know any 15 /16 year olds who moved out and paid all the bills straight away.

Don't know about Mariella Frostrup but a mate of mine is from the same place in Wolverhampton as Caitlin Moran, and knew her, and says the stories she tells about her upbringing and early career are all massively embellished.

My friend’s df and dsm threw her out at 16 because she was 5 minutes late getting home.
Fortunately her bf’s parents let her stay in their home whilst she got herself a job and eventually a flat. That was over 40 years ago.
She’s the toughest person I know.

Really, in 1996? I rented a studio in West Hampstead in 1996 for £500 a month (£250 each between me and my boyfriend). I know that's a much poncier area but £30 for an entire bedsit does seem very cheap even so!

The school leaving age had only just been increased from 15 to 16 and I gather that in those early days a lot of schools etc didn't chase it up if children left at 15. According to wikipedia her move to London also coincided with the death of her father.

This is just beautiful

Thank you for sharing - he sounds like he was a wonderful man and friend to you x

Nah, we had fast, busy roads in the 90s, and people took plenty of drugs, but kids weren't mollycoddled then like they are now.

People complain about the cost of living and not being able to afford housing, but baseline living standards and expectations are so much higher than they were a few decades ago. Of course it costs more.