I recall with a certain fondness that in the early summer of 1980 my mother, faced with the prospect of her son with 3 months of time on his hands having just finished 1st year in secondary school, packed me off to my grandmother in Courtmacsherry with a list of chores as opposed to jobs to complete. They weren’t overly onerous just enough to keep me occupied and out of trouble, cut the grass, weed the garden, paint the walls, wash the windows.... The list seemed endless but in reality it was fair work for my £0.50 pocket money each week.

My Gran however had a more entrepreneurial spirit and she encouraged me to spread the menial chores out over the course of the summer and to go away and find a "real paying job" for myself. And so I did, proud as punch I became a self employed "Perry Winkle Picker". In my first week I picked just over 6 stone of the little shellfish in the 5 or so mornings that I did it and walked away with my first pay cheque of £6.25.

To me at the time there was nothing much to it, you picked in the morning or evening depending on the ebbing tide, a bucket load was about a stone weight and you got £1.00 per stone. You kept them fresh all week by watering them in salt water each day, (this helped keep the weight up as well) and a man in the van would arrive on Friday morning, weigh them, pay you and take them away. It was really good money for hard work, I still had a most of each day to myself and each weekend I was loaded. Would I eat them? Not a chance these were exported to France they'd eat anything over there even snails!

As one summer rolled into another my "career" in the fishing industry moved onwards and upwards, deck hand on the angling boats preparing rods and opening beer bottles for Dutch Anglers. Then I moved on to working as a commercial fisherman on a "day boat" with my Grans neighbour Pat "Charlie" McCarthy catching boxes of mackerel, cod and shooting strings of lobster pots. There was no great plan or science involved in my "progression" through the lower ranks of the fishing industry. Our family was not in the industry, there was no family business to take over although my Grandfather was on the Lifeboat. It was simply the only work available for a young teenager in a seaside fishing village at the time. By the time I was 18 I had spent 6 summers in the industry in some shape or form, I didn’t really think or feel that I was learning much along the way, no surprise as I hadn’t planned to learn anything much, certainly nothing that would be of benefit to me in my chosen career Accountancy.

Interestingly though over the years I have accumulated a good number of clients in the fishing industry. These range from fishing boats to wholesalers, retailers to processors etc. Little did I know that my efforts as a “Perry Winkle Picker” back in 1980 would be the foundation stone on which I would amass the knowledge to become an Accountant to the industry all these years later. When I meet a client or prospective client they appreciate that I have "served my time" in their industry, toiled and tolled the way they did, early mornings, late nights, baiting pots, mending nets, getting sunburned and soaked and digging hooks out of hands.

They respect the fact that I understand them, having studied their industry at the University of Life!

And so I pose the question what was your first summer job, does it still exist today and was it of any benefit to you later in life? We’re keen to hear your stories.

Incidentally Perry Winkle Picking still goes on today. It's interesting to compare the rate of pay now and them. A decent well organized picker would pick a bucket in an hour, that’s 6kg for which you'd get €3 per kg- €18 for an hours work, double the minimum wage! Back in 1980 converted I earned €1.27 an hour, big money at the time given my mother was giving me €0.63 a week for doing the chores.