labour charges 1959

[grumpygrandad]

hello just looking at a labour chargees 1959,,remove re fit engine .£4.7.0

remove engine gearboxrom framefit replacementpower unit changing over all ancillarys£6.17.9 remove cylinder head and refit £1.12.8, remove exhaust refit complete new one £0.14.6 remove sump clean refit £0.10.11.remove rear axle refit and bleed brakes and adjust £1.16.3 remove front suspencion refit clean adjust brakes both sides £6.3.3 adjust brakes£0.7.3. to fit new brake shoes fron and rear £2.18.0 just a few examples of 1953 labour costs..taken from morris minor 1000 saloon and traveler, schedule of repaire charges.

[alanworland]

Wow! I believe some BMW dealers are charging £140/hour!

[MarkyB]

Sounds about right.
When I was "on the tools" many years ago I was getting paid 60p an hour for labour that was being charged for at about £5 an hour!
Citroen and Daf main dealer and they were always wanting us to work harder and faster.

[aupickup]

and 1953 wages

its all relative

my first house cost me £1750.00 in 1972

[grumpygrandad]

and 1953 wages

its all relative

my first house cost me £1750.00 in 1972

hello definatly 60/70s were realy the good old days at least for june and myself ,,grandad

[aupickup]

definately agree with you there

those years will never be repeated, its a shame the youngsters today missed out on them

[grumpygrandad]

hello i have 4 grandchilderen i realy fear for there futer if thing keep going as they are at the moment work/ finances / health care/ im sure i could go on ..grandad

[Blaketon]

and 1953 wages

its all relative

my first house cost me £1750.00 in 1972

My grandfather had a coal level before WW2 and used to sell coal for £1 per ton - top grade stuff for the gas works.

My other grandfather left Wales after the Coal Strike of 1926 (The bus company he worked for went bust) and he got a job at the AEC in Southall. I think he was on about £5 per week during the 1930s and his new semi detached house cost £550.

At about the same time, his brother in law (My grandmother's brother) was playing football for Manchester United and getting about £25 per week. He didn't stick at it and was never happier than when he was playing cards for money and "Winning".

[grumpygrandad]

and 1953 wages

its all relative

my first house cost me £1750.00 in 1972

My grandfather had a coal level before WW2 and used to sell coal for £1 per ton - top grade stuff for the gas works.

My other grandfather left Wales after the Coal Strike of 1926 (The bus company he worked for went bust) and he got a job at the AEC in Southall. I think he was on about £5 per week during the 1930s and his new semi detached house cost £550. hello i think coal is now at least £10.00 a bag now as for the house you wouldnt buy a decent set of gates for the drive,,grandad

At about the same time, his brother in law (My grandmother's brother) was playing football for Manchester United and getting about £25 per week. He didn't stick at it and was never happier than when he was playing cards for money and "Winning".

[Mick_Anik]

I don't know how everything continues to roll along - when I bought a house for 7,000 in 1978 I was on about fifty quid a week. Back in England a couple of years ago I got about 250 quid a week.....five times more. But the cheapest houses in the area were worth about 200,000, which is about 28 times more.

I suspect that greed has poked its nose into the proceedings.

[MarkyB]

£1 per ton sounds like a small fortune for the time.
Was that grandfather a wealthy man?

[grumpygrandad]

I don't know how everything continues to roll along - when I bought a house for 7,000 in 1978 I was on about fifty quid a week. Back in England a couple of years ago I got about 250 quid a week.....five times more. But the cheapest houses in the area were worth about 200,000, which is about 28 times more.

I suspect that greed has poked its nose into the proceedings.

hello i know politics shouldnt be on here but greed is not the average working man but BANKERS POLITICIANS ARE TOP OF THE LEAGUE,YES MOSTLY ALREAD WEALTHY PEOPLE,,GRANDAD

[Blaketon]

£1 per ton sounds like a small fortune for the time.
Was that grandfather a wealthy man?

He didn't come out of the level with much. He was working very long hours and his health started to suffer. As a result of his experiences, he lived the rest of his life as a miser. He died with a reasonable sum in the bank, after sixty years of scrimping but I'm afraid (Unless seeing figures on a bank statement gave him a buzz), he derived little tangible benefit from it.

[MarkyB]

Well the internet says:
The average wage in 1939 for men was £3 and nine shillings.
And I imagine digging out a ton of coal is no walk in the park.

If he'd been a businessman he would have employed other people to do the digging and paid them piecework rate of 10 shillings a ton.
And probably advertised unlimited earning potential.

[Blaketon]

He did employ a couple of men, though I'm not sure for how long. Perhaps he was honest to the point of being nieve but I'm not sure that my grandfather would have made a good spiv and there would have been plenty of men who would have known full well how long it took to dig a ton of coal and trying to pull the wool over their eyes wouldn't have been as easy as all that.

The system of paying men on tonnage was commonplace. Colliers, like my great grandfather, were paid on tonnage by the mine owners and they in turn employed men to work under them (My grandfather started by working for his own father on this basis). However that didn't mean they could sit back and watch the others sweat; they had to pitch in themselves. I suppose my grandfather's level was a similar thing on a smaller scale. My grandfather was a "Fireman" (Or Pit Deputy in more modern terms) and so knew how to use explosives and about driving drifts etc etc.