INTERVIEWER
So, you went to Netherlee Primary School, and what happened after Netherlee Primary School?
ERNA
Well, I left school at 14. I was a year at Eastwood, the old Eastwood and then went into hairdressing.
INTERVIEWER
Which is why your hair is always lovely.
ERNA
No, I go to the hairdresser.
INTERVIEWER
But from the time I first met you Erna I was always quite conscious that your hair was very well cut. And so where did you work as a hairdresser?
ERNA
Oh, the one I worked for the longest was Lewis’s. I worked there on the third floor. There was thirty girls. They were mostly, nothing against religion, they were Catholic, and on a Friday, they would go up to the canteen and they’d say “ I Christen thee ‘fish’, and eat meat”. it was so funny. The man that brought me up, my father I called him, said to me, now you’re going to work with all sorts of girls, keep quiet, don’t say anything. Listen, and don’t say anything. And he was right because some of them were real……….
INTERVIEWER
I think you probably had your education broadened a bit.
ERNA
Yes, yes. But he said don’t open your mouth. Just listen. He was right and that’s what I tried to do.
INTERVIEWER
It must have been really busy though. I mean, 30 girls, I’m just saying you must have loads of people coming in.
ERNA
We did cheap perms and all sorts of things like that. It was good working in there because if you bought anything you would get money off as well and we also got commission on our work. So, you got a good wage and got anything like that.
INTERVIEWER
And perms were very popular.
ERNA
Yes, oh yes. 17/6.
INTERVIEWER
I’m not even going to work out what that is. I remember this lady who used to work for my mother and then she went over to work for my aunt, and she had her always had her kirby grips were like crossed. She had hundreds of kirby grips to keep her perm in place.
ERNA
I didn’t have that; I know they did that.
INTERVIEWER
I always thought it would feel uncomfortable and how you could sleep with all the kirby grips.
ERNA
I still sleep with them in.
INTERVIEWER
That explains your lovely hairstyle then. Absolutely. And so, did you enjoy, you sounded like you enjoyed working as a hairdresser.
