North Promenade

A Memory of Cleethorpes.

The cinema at the left hand edge of the photo played cartoons and very short comedy  films in a half-hour program that played in a non-stop repeating loop. I believe the veranda next to the cinema was over the entrance to a penny arcade while under the second arcade amongst other places was a café that included a chip shop on one side of the entrance and a hot-dog stall on the other. These were identical to the one immediately adjacent to the cinema.

When I was 13-14 I worked at this café during school holidays. Though I did help out in the café itself mostly I operated the hot-dog window on my own but sometimes in the chip shop either selling the chips or making them in a room above and sending them down a chute to the shop. I worked from 10.00 am to 10.00 pm grabbing a sandwich or a drink whenever I could, 5 days a week but more often 6. For this I got the grand sum of 10/- a day (that's 50p). Often, if there was the custom we would work and extra hour until 11.00 for which I got an extra 1/- (5p). Today this would be classed as child slavery but I was quite happy there and loved doing it. My father, a schoolteacher, also worked there.