OUR DAUGHTER LISA.   STARTING WORK.

I left school in May 1983 when I was 15 and started work at a Travel Agent on Herries Road called FRANKLYN TRAVEL

Hayley and I had several good friends at this time:

Nicky Beardow, in the centre of left photo and Suzanne Bedford, right hand photo.

Suzanne had a sister called Katie.

In the 1980's there were no mobile phones but there was a communication system called CITIZEN'S BAND RADIO.

Anyone owning the equipment could go on line and use it like the Chat Rooms of today. Each user would have their own call-sign name.

As a Christmas present in 1983 my parents bought us one of theses radios and my dad built it into a dual-controlled unit so that Hayley and I could use it in our bedroom:

This is the unit with dual transmitters and receivers. He also built into it FM radio, a reading lamp, a digital clock and even an intercom system so that we could call and speak to people in the lounge downstairs.

My call sign was REO, Hayley's was Happy Lady, Suzanne's LIPSTICK LADY, and Katie's VIDEO QUEEN

The only other way to keep in contact with friends was by the normal telephone and we had plenty of extensions around the house. The only problem was my father who was very strict with the use of them and how long we could stay on.

Well I said earlier that Hayley and I devised a trick to fool him. We would go upstairs and make a call to someone and ask them to ring us back. My dad would then have no idea we had made an outgoing call.

All three females in our family were keen sunbathers and at that time sunbeds were very popular but did take up a lot of room if you were fortunate to have one.

What's going on here?

Looks like one of dad's DIY ideas in our loft.

Hope he knows what he's doing, I can see his foot coming through the ceiling if he's not careful.

The finished job. A strengthened floor. fluorescent lights, a large carpetted extra room for a £600 sunbed.

Now I can put a tan on this white body:

One of my first proper boyfriends was a bit of a celebrity. He was RICHARD SHAW the son of the Sheffield United and England footballer, GRAHAM SHAW.

Graham Shaw made his debut on January 5th 1951 at Hillsborough against Sheffield Wednesday in front of a crowd of 65,784. Sheffield United won 3-1

He went on to represent England 5 times. He lived on Old Park Road, Beauchief and died in 1981.

My dad said the most memorable game he ever saw Graham Shaw play in occurred on 8th September 1951, again, against Sheffield Wednesday at Bramall Lane.  United beat Wednesday 7 - 3 and the headlines in the local Green'un that evening was  UNITED LAYTHAM OUT This was a tribute to a splendid game by United's centre half, HARRY LATHAM.

Returning to my career I changed Travel Agents and went to work for AIRFARE.

The company had several shops in Sheffield and I began at their branch in Netheredge and then moved to their Banner Cross shop;

The other Travel Agent's name was Julia.

Whilst working at Airfare I had a short fling with a young lad called BRECKON. Opposite the Airfare shop in Nether Edge was an Army Recruitment Office and that's how I met him.

I have no photo of him but I can give you an idea of the type of vehicle in which he came to see me at my home in Bradway. It was something like this:

Our neighbours would stare in astonishment when they saw it parked outside their homes.

In September 1984 I went abroad, again, with my parents to Lido De Jesolo in Italy. I took a friend with me called KAREN ALDER.  If you want to see what happened there either Click on dad's "100 Things to see and do" No. 18 or CLICK HERE.

At the age of 17 I had my first serious relationship. I met this lad at Fanny's Nightclub:

Nick Barrett. His family owned the plumber's merchants, Cowen & Barrett on Woodseats Road:

They had a huge house, at Millthorpe near Barlow, with an indoor swimming pool.

When I met Nick he was driving and Audi but changed it for one of these:

A Toyota MR2.

At this time I had my own, first, car:

A Ford Fiesta. The Jackson family now had 4 cars at their house in Bradway with not much on street parking.

At the age of 18 I became engaged to Nick Barrett which lasted for about two years.

A disagreement between us and his family caused me to terminate the relationship.

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