What was life like for Jo Howell before she became an artist? Find out more in this overly honest personal reflection on carving out a niche in the North East.

In the UK, “graft” is an informal term that means hard work or effort. For example, you might say “He succeeded because of years of hard graft”. Synonyms of “graft” include “labour”, “work”, “industry”, and “effort”.

Google translate 2024

What jobs have you had?

I’ve had flipping loads of jobs. No, like seriously random jobs until finally deciding that I should be in the business of being me.

I won’t list all the places I’ve worked because that’s terrible reading. I will focus instead on the character building moments.

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Babysitting age 14 to 16 years

I used to read the Babysitters club books as a kid so I couldn’t wait to start babysitting or to create a girl gang and have adventures.

Disappointingly this was not the reality.

It was entirely uneventful. I ate pizza and made enough money to go to the cinema.

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Cash-in-hand, pizza shop age 16

Whilst at Sunderland College I got a job in a pizza shop up in a nearby town. The job was unofficial so I’d just get £25 in my hand at the end of the night. I think I got the job by seeing a note in the window.

Hindsight is a powerful thing. Looking back now I realise this job was extremely dodgy. I was good at it though and it was great having some coin for cigarettes and booze. I was a bit of a party animal.

Everything was grand until the Turkish owner had a couple of blasts on a joint at the end of the shift and went a bit dolallytap!

He started trying to stroke my face and trying to kiss me. He was in his 40s and rarely spoke. He was odd. Anyway the situation quickly descended into a Benny Hill skit where he was chasing me around the preparation table in the back room trying to cop a feel.

I ran out of the room and into the front of the shop where the CCTV was still switched on and recording. He had pulled the shutters down trapping me in the shop.

Putting on my biggest angriest mackem voice I told him he was on f**king cctv and he better pack in being a d*ck because I’d get people to kick his head in if anything happened to me.

He apologised and the debacle calmed but it was 1am in the morning and I had to get a lift from the owner back to my mam and dad’s house.

The road back was long, lonely and dark. He didn’t do anything else and he dropped me home but I was only 16 and he had scared the bejesus out of me! So as soon as I was safe behind a locked door, I started crying.

My dad woke up and I had to explain what had happened. He was livid. I never worked there again and I think my dad punched the guy in the face the next day.

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Call centres: 2001 – 2006

I worked at a few call centres. Usually managing around 6 months in each before I was completely sick of my life. Scripted, monotonous and mind numbing. Yet insanely well paid for my age and lack of skill.

The nuttiest thing from the call centres was the pervert policy. Twice a pervert got through to me on the phone and the number had been flagged as a nuisance caller. Heavy breathing, a husky male voice attempting to sound feminine. “What are you wearing?”

Sounds cliche but that’s what he said. The manager asked me to keep him on the line so they could record it and trace the caller.

I giggled and answered that I was wearing boring work clothes. A shirt, trousers and black shoes.

“Ooh are they fitted? They sound like they would be closely fitted to your body.” He was breathy and sounded like he was covering the microphone on his phone with his hands.

“Do you want to know what I’m wearing?”

“Not particularly, but I feel like you might tell me anyway.”

“My sweetie, I have the most sensational pencil skirt on. It has a silky pinstripe lining. Dorothy Perkins. It feels amazing.”

“Er… ok… sounds wonderful.” At this point I’m signalling to management that I’m running out of steam. I’ve never had to keep someone on the phone like that!

Next thing I know the guy is shouting “I’m on the phone mum! Shut up! I’m on the phone. Yes, fish fingers are fine for tea…” apparently at this point they had enough information to take the sexual harassment complaints further. At least that’s what they said. In retrospect management were probably just doing it for laughs!

Pervert callers. That and the incestuous nature of the call centre floor. Everyone was shagging everyone. Also there were a lot of very successful call centres sales people who mysteriously had very similar white moustaches.

I guess you break up the monotony by visiting Snow White on toilet breaks 😂

I made some amazing friends and met some crazy characters. I learned from this role that working on the phones was my idea of purgatory. I could feel my spark dying with every empty phone call. Not for me!

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Hospitality – bars, restaurants, pubs and clubs 2001 – 2020

I have been a bar bird or waitress on and off since I was 16 as well. I was much better at this and took pride in being clean, efficient and chatty. The very first job I had was in the only upmarket French cuisine restaurant that Sunderland has ever had.

Every meal was a precariously balanced tower of gourmet flavours. They showed me silver service and demanded high standards. I grew popeye-like muscles and to this day I can carry several plates on my arms with professional style!

The drug culture was a bit different in the restaurant trade. The classification of your drug of choice usually dictates your position in the kitchen hierarchy. Speed demons on dishes. Cocaine monsters are chefs. Waiting staff anything goes.

Liz the dishwasher was 5”1 and was most likely 90% whizz. She attacked the pots and plates like a champion. Bopping away to happy hardcore in her head. Really lovely but mad as a box of frogs.

The chefs were very fast and very angry if mistakes were made. Gordon Ramsay had absolutely nothing on these guys! After each large order on Fridays and Saturdays hefty lines of Charlie were wracked up on the warm metal service area. It was wild!

The pubs were actually more sedate in terms of after-work culture. It was still there but not as militantly done.

I liked face to face hospitality jobs. I was good at them and personable enough to make as much again in tips as I was earning in wages. Youthful beauty was definitely on my side then! I’d dread to think how little I’d make now!

I met my first boyfriend there. He was so beautiful to look at and luckily we didn’t do much talking. You may gather from my years of blogging that I am a lady of many opinions and I love to think deeply about important and difficult subjects.

Let’s politely say that we were definitely not intellectually matched! For our first date we went to the Odean cinema in Newcastle to watch A.I. After settling into our seats and about 30 minutes into the film he went to the loo.

Around another 30 minutes passed and he hadn’t returned. In my head I was wondering what I had done to cause him to do a runner. Maybe he’s having a poo? Or something else has happened at the bathroom?

I stayed to watch the rest of the film and ate all the sweets myself. When the lights went up at the end of the film I stood up and looked back at the cinema goers on seats. There he was 4 rows back sitting next to a woman.

He had forgotten where we were sitting and had opted to sit next to a woman who had slightly similar hair! It was so funny! What a mad date. Spent most of it on my Tod! (Own). Another time we had all gone out to Pzazz but I was underage and got turfed. Super embarrassing! He kissed one of the other waitresses in the club while I was on the last bus home.

We broke up a day or so after that but it was on the cards anyway because he was off to work in Africa.

I missed his beautiful face but not the patter! The patter was shan.

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Tent erector, Europe 2004

I wanted to get out of Sunderland. As far away as possible. Everything in the City was a mental health trigger.

I’d had a really rough year. I had miscarried my baby at 12 weeks and the experience threw me into depression. I was young and I had no idea how to grieve for a baby that no one had the chance to know. I tried to end it a few times but ultimately was too scared to do it properly.

I saw an advert for people to set up campsites in Europe ready for the summer season and I thought- that will do nicely. The interview was in Hertfordshire. I did the whole thing on my own and under my own steam. Got the job and two weeks later was heading to London to travel to Holland for training.

There were loads of other young people heading off for the training weekend. I’d been to Amsterdam on the mini cruise a couple of times so I was really excited to go there for the training. We were all sorrowfully disappointed when we arrived at the isolated and Spartan training camp outside of Eindhoven. We were so gutted that we decided to walk the 5 miles to the village to get a couple of pints and shots.

We were living the dream! We got back to camp just before sunrise. We probably had 2 hours sleep before we had to leave on the bus. The staff were livid! We all must have stunk to high heavens of booze! They drove this bus of sleepy drunk reprobates to Schipol airport where we all went our respective ways to different camps across Europe.

My journey was Schipol to Stanstead. 9 hours layover in the airport. A flight to Valencia and a 3 hour drive to the first work site. It was totally exhausting. I was assigned a bunk in a tent and crashed out until midday.

I met the crew and found out about the food arrangements.

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There are too many character building and extremely dumb decisions that follow the rest of the story.

Did you get this far? Do you want to know the rest of the yarn? I was 19 years old when I went to put up tents and clean caravans on the Costa blanca. I’m 40 next year and these job anecdotes may very well only be interesting to me.

Let me know if I should stick to cyanotype blogs or whether you also enjoy my more personal writings.

People say they buy the artist and not the art. I think I’ve had a few mad wanders around the sun!