the Queens shilling

[Taff49]

how much was it when you signed up?

i got £12 and was expected to buy 5 coat hangers, wash/shaving kit, boot polish and brushes, dusters and a steam iron with it. not bleeding likely, even in 1989.

note, you need to have actually been in the forces to answer this thread.

 

[Grey_Mafia65]

16 October 1987 - £10

 

[Mexeman]

I can't remember getting any ex gratia payment on joining, mind you it was 1972.

 

[Donny]

£5 (I think) for me in 1978. I walked across the road in Queens Road Brighton and invested it in the pub.

 

[foggy_balla]

Fiver. Promptly blew half in local pub while thinking I was the dogs bollocks having taken the oath. Catterick a few weeks later soon knocked that notion out of me.

 

[ordinaryforces]

bus fare home and a Bible!! no shilling or the equivalent, cunts! can I claim?

 

[The_Snail]

16 October 1987 - £10

Yep. 25th Nov 1987 - £10.

Winmarleigh St, Warrington.

 

[Camberwell_Carrot_]

1970s. Nowt. Jack Shit.

To keep me in the loop, the pay statement kindly provided at the end of the first month advised me that I owed The Queen £3.40. I'd never been so well off.

 

[Bowmore_Assassin]

5 December 1986, London. 10 quid. Went to the pub.


Sent from my iPhone using ARRSE app

 

[Artemis1]

1995, 25 notes I think. Feckers didn't tell me it came off my first pay!

 

[Oddbod]

January 1976 a £1 note & a shiny 5p.
Wasn't taken out of my pay either but then again I had just signed up to be a crab........

 

[ex_donkey_man]

1995, 25 notes I think. Feckers didn't tell me it came off my first pay!

How did you cheek that one? I signed up on the 5th Jan 1995 and sure I got £15! But I know it wasn't bloody £25. I thought the original idea behind the Queen's shilling, was you got half a days pay. Or did you join as a Rupert?

 

[J2429]

Chatham 1979, £6.50.
Bought a magazine on the way home and spent the afternoon in bed.

 

[SpannerSpanker]

Cant remember, but i do remember after 14 weeks of basic training at brats that after being paid my weekly 15 quid or whatever it was, that the money i had in the bank after all the shite i went through in training was a measley 140 odd quid which really pissed me off with the leave being over Xmas.

 

[exmunkey]

Can't remember but I spent more than I would have got paid getting wankered in the Clarence pub in Whitehall afterwards

 

[Benjamin1876]

Lucky me, when I enlisted, as part of my initial issue of kit, I was given a safety razor and two blades, a cake of soap and a nail brush, a sewing kit, two boot brushes, a toothbrush, a soap container, a small metal mirror (to be also used, we were told, for signalling) a comb and hairbrush, but no coat hangers, but then again, I joined the Australian Army, where we also got two new razor blades and a cake of soap every payday as we were paid.
I had to buy my own blanco powder and brasso and huge tin of Kiwi polish at the canteen, plus a bottle of raven oil, as the boots they issued us were left over boots from WW2 and they were brown leather, and the Rising Sun hat badge was black (also left over from WW2) that had to be coated with brasso and burned to get the black paint off, then polished, and used a large part of the tin of polish to get the boots to a high spit polish shine, just so I could go and get them all muddy the very next day on the parade ground for the start of the first two weeks Bull Ring.

Loved it, and would do it all over again if I was young enough and had the chance to do so.

how much was it when you signed up?

i got £12 and was expected to buy 5 coat hangers, wash/shaving kit, boot polish and brushes, dusters and a steam iron with it. not bleeding likely, even in 1989.

note, you need to have actually been in the forces to answer this thread.

 

[goatrutar]

As a chocko I started off on about $50 per day. Nothing on signing up. Progressed up to about $62 per day after recruit cse and IET plus any field allowance.

 

[right-grumpy]

1981 £6, first pay statement -£28! I've still got the statement.

 

[Buzz]

I cant remember much change from two tenners even in 98, I still pity the juniors of the platoon who got even less pay than us "old men" who were all of 20, that gripped my shit in particular as they had to work as hard as the "men" for less money, do a mans work get a mans wage IMHO.

They used to hold back a big chunk in trust and give it to you on the leave periods, which made sense as one or two lads did not have a pot to piss in on day one week one and turned up straight from the childrens home or foster care with clothes in a bin bag and were effectively homeless before they came to the ATR and needed to be able to afford a decent B&B or similar. At that time there was a shortage in recruitment and they were hovering up anyone with a pulse who looked likely for the army, the ATR's were a mish mash of all sorts of cap badges with infantry platoons taking all sorts.

One lad I had to re-do his movement box for him the day we passed out as he couldnt read or write and most of the word "Catterick" was backwards or unreadable.

 

[basso]

It was a few shillings in 1956. I can't for the life of me remember the exact amount but perhaps ten bob sounds about right. It seems a meagre amount but money went a long way in those days and our expectations were a lot less. Beer, our major expense, was a few pence a pint and fanny was free. Ah, that's the life for a young bloke.