What’s a teenager?

It might be strange to think about a time not so very long ago when the term ‘teenager’ didn’t exist. Now we accept it, but in 1940s Britain young people aged between thirteen and nineteen lived a very different life to the life they might live today.

School leaving age was fourteen, with many leaving at thirteen. Their priority was to get a job – often unskilled – to bring in money to a household that would inevitably be struggling to pay all the bills. Popular jobs for young teenage boys might be as a butcher’s or baker’s boy, cycling around their local area, delivering goods to families. It’s likely that young girls would have been relied on to help with household chores, washing, cleaning, cooking and perhaps looking after younger siblings. The war years saw a significant rise in women taking jobs in a wide range of occupations, leaving…