Viv Albertine, singer, the Slits
My first job: Minicab leafleting all round Finchley in London. It was scary, wandering the streets at night, door to door. I was so terrified my mum used to come with me and wait at the end of each street. I had no idea how to work hard, no self-discipline. I’d shove leaflets in the bin and had a stack in my bedroom that never got delivered. I never thought further than a week ahead until I was in my 20s.
My big break: It was more like lots of threads coming together. Our mothers were born in the 1940s and grew up unable to express themselves. They raised a generation of militant girls – we would pursue what we wanted, and not bow to the pressure of doing things like owning a house. So the term “big break” is kind of misleading. Young people can go on for ever waiting for a big moment, but it was lots of little things that led me to pick up a guitar in 1976. It was a crazy thing to do. Loads of boys played and thought I was ridiculous. But I did it anyway.
My next job: I’m writing another book. It’s not as big as the last one. This is more meditative: it’s about how the small things in life can be extraordinary too.
Lennie James, actor
My first job: I worked as a freezer boy in Bejams the frozen-food retailer, in Wandsworth. I was 15 and my job was to stay in the warehouse, which was ice cold, and constantly fill up carts full of frozen stuff, to be taken to the shop floor by people who were allowed into the warm.
My big break: The first time I noticed a difference in how I was treated was when I walked into an audition after Civvies. It was a show written by Lynda La Plante, about ex-paratroopers trying to make it in civilian life, and I was one of the six paratroopers. Lynda then wrote another miniseries for Channel 4 called Comics, and she offered me a role straight away because of my work on Civvies. I felt I’d shifted to another level. I still have to go to auditions – everybody does – but there are more things I’ve been shortlisted for. It’s very rare, whoever you are, that you are the first choice for a gig. It’s shocking the number of things about which you think: “I can’t imagine anyone else doing that role.” Then you find out Tom Selleck was the first choice for Indiana Jones, or that Steve McQueen and Sly Stallone were considered for Beverly Hills Cop before Eddie Murphy.
My next job: I’m about to get on a plane to Atlanta to shoot zombies in the head. The writers are still working on the sixth season of The Walking Dead, so they haven’t told me how long I’ll be there – I’m packing a bag I can use for three to six weeks. But I’m used to that. As long as there’s a washing machine, you can survive.
David Hockney, artist
My first job: I never really had a job. I have always just painted. It’s what I am still doing.
My big break: It was John Kasmin buying pictures from the Young Contemporaries Exhibition in 1961. He bought Doll Boy and some of my other pictures, and paid me about £40. I was in my second year at the RCA, so in my third year I’d become a rich student and could buy cigarettes in packets of 20, not the usual tens most students had.
My next job: I will be coming to England in May for my show at Annely Juda’s in London. It’s called Painting and Photography.
Gina McKee, actor
My first job: I did a TV series called Quest of Eagles in 1979. I was 14. I was in the Youth Drama Workshop and someone came to see us and asked me to audition; I was the only one who got handpicked to audition. It was a brilliant learning curve. If I remember correctly, it was about this boy whose father dies, and on his deathbed he tells his son about a rare Polish icon that he has to find – and he also discovers that the secret service are after it, plus some baddies. I played the boy’s best friend.
My big break: Things changed for me when Our Friends in the North was transmitted, and there was another change – particularly outside the UK – when Notting Hill was released. It’s always hard to tell, but the opportunities grew after those projects. Gail Stevens, the casting director, asked me to audition for Our Friends in the North. I had three auditions, and my final recall was a screen test, which was terrifying. They wanted to know what I’d look like in the 60s, so I was made up by this wonderful makeup artist. But she only had a black nylon wig that looked like a Cher wig, so I looked like a drag artist.
My next job: I’m about to start rehearsing The Mother at the Ustinov in Bath. It’s a brilliant French play by Florian Zeller. It was really successsful in France – it won the Molière award for best comedy. We haven’t started rehearsals yet, but it’s described as a black farce, so we’ll see how we get along.
Ken Loach, film-maker
My first job: In the school holidays I worked in the Jubbly orange drink factory in Nuneaton. I got ripped to shreds by the women on the production line – all us adolescent boys did. Any youth was verbally abused for his lack of physical attraction, or insinuations about his manhood. I remember being bright red most of the time. I got 15 shillings, or a pound a week, to wheel stuff about; this would’ve been 1953 or 54. It wasn’t much more than pocket money.
Then at 19, I started national service for two years, in the RAF, rising to the dizzy ranks of senior aircraftsman. I typed equipment schedules for two years then volunteered to go to the far east. They sent me to Nottingham. Coming from the West Midlands, it was certainly east.
My big break: When I was at the BBC, I was asked to join The Wednesday Play group. It came on after the news at 9.15pm, and the point was to be as provocative and contemporary as the news. The BBC was quite provocative in those days – it became well known for its radical stance. The Clean-Up TV pressure group, with Mary Whitehouse, was formed largely because of what we did.
There were four or five directors making programmes full-time. It became notorious because we did things like Cathy Come Home and Up the Junction, which tackled what were thought to be daring subjects.
My first one was called Tap on the Shoulder, about London’s underworld and gangs in the 60s. It was a comedy, really, but it opened the door to socially engaged drama – that was our brief. If I hadn’t been asked to join the group, I wouldn’t have been able to do the things I’ve tried to do since. I don’t want to overblow it, but it was quite a groundbreaking thing.
My next job: I’m scratching around with the writer I work with, Paul Laverty, to see whether it’s worth going round the course again. It’s a job for the younger man really. We thought we’d done the last one, but we’re feeling there are stories still left to tell. Things are so horrific for a lot of people now, a whole set of experiences are being bypassed by politicians as the election conversation gets narrower and narrower. The level of poverty is so destructive. But it’s always a matter of finding the right character.
Ghostpoet, musician
My first job: I was a painter-decorator in a hostel for ex-offenders and ex-drug addicts. I blagged it through a friend of my mum’s, who was the caretaker – she mentioned it to my mum, who just said: “Yeah, he can paint!” I couldn’t. I had to learn as I went along. I was 16 or 17.
Needles were the weirdest thing for me to come across at that age. It was always odd when you were emptying out rooms and saw drug paraphernalia. You had to be careful not to get stabbed. I’ve always had the attitude that I’ll give anything a go. It gave me a bit of money, so I just did it.
My big break: I was living in Coventry after my degree, working for a car insurance company by day, and making music at night. I posted anything I thought was decent on MySpace. Without even knowing it, I was networking. A friend I made on MySpace knew someone at Gilles Peterson’s label, Brownswood, and they asked for more demos. I thought: why not, no skin off my nose sending a few tracks through. A week later, they asked me to come to London. Gilles was really nice. He asked how I made my music, then at the end he said: “Let’s put a record out on the label.”
My next job: I’m doing a big European tour in May, then summer festivals – Blissfields, Parklife, a fair few. I just want to get my stuff out there.
Sue Johnston, actor
My first job: I was a tax officer in Liverpool at 17. I hated it so much: to be confined to an office was hell on earth. I felt sorry for the people who came in with complaints: I used to hide all their letters, then get hauled in by my boss.
I also did a drama class at the Liverpool Institute at night. That was my first step into acting, and we formed a group who went round old age pensioners homes with our sketches and songs, carrying our props on the bus. Looking back, it was horrendous.
I’d also go to the Cavern Club to see the Quarrymen – who became the Beatles – and Gerry and the Pacemakers. A job came up at Brian Epstein’s record store, Nems, and I left the tax office. The bands were in all the time, and I got to know them well. Because of all that, I drifted off my goal for a while.
I always had jobs in school holidays. You didn’t ask your folks for money because you knew they didn’t have it. I left school in sixth form to act. I had no idea how to do it. This burning desire took me on a very, very long route, but I got there in the end.
My big break: I suppose it was Brookside. I’d been doing theatre for 20 years, but I had to leave because I’d had a child and was on my own. I nearly gave up and became a drama teacher, but thought I’d give it one last crack, so I got an agent.
I got four episodes in Corrie, playing the betting shop-owner’s wife. Then my agent said: “There’s this new soap, it’s going to be the new Corrie – do you want to meet Phil Redmond?” He interviewed me and I got a callback. I went to this building site – which was Brookside being built. We had loads of improv sessions with other actors, mixing and matching husbands and wives and kids, then one day Phil said to a bunch of us: “You’re my Grant family.” That changed everything. I moved near the set and got my son into a local school. We all had to learn fast – it was exciting to be there at the beginning of something so groundbreaking; it really moved soap opera to a different level. It was my lifesaver.
My next job: I’m bobbing in and out of Downton Abbey, which is a joy, but not very demanding. I have some lovely scenes with Dame Maggie. It’s a wonderful ensemble, and they’ve got such a bond.
Grayson Perry, artist
My first job: It was a paper round – my stepfather bought a newsagents when I was 16. He paid me the grand sum of £8 for 24 hours a week. That was pretty poor wages, even in 1976. It was rather exploitative, though he framed it as “earning my keep”, waking up at 5.30am before I got the bus to school – oh, and giving up my weekends. I also had a dog-walking job, but that paid even less.
My big break: I sometimes feel I rose without trace. I didn’t have a massive moment, but my big break was probably when a curator called Marjan Boot at the Stedelijk museum in Amsterdam found a couple of my vases in the storeroom – they’d been bought by the director, but never even properly labelled! After her chance encounter, we met and got on, and a year later she offered me a solo show at the Stedelijk. I was already 40 and had a good back catalogue. That was my first institutional show, and it got me a Turner prize nomination.
My next job: I’m just finishing off my House for Essex, which is all looking on schedule. Then I’m doing a show at the Turner Contemporary in Margate in May called Provincial Punk, which concentrates on my earlier work.
Ashley Walters, actor
My first job: When I was a teenager, I worked in WH Smith in Sloane Square on the newspaper stand. I’d just finished filming a movie called Storm Damage for the BBC. I worked there for four months, then the film came out. People would buy a paper, then stop and say: “Aren’t you that guy on the TV?” I didn’t like working there. There were a lot of rude people – some wouldn’t even say hello. But it was an experience I needed, to understand what working life was all about.
My big break: It has to be Bullet Boy, which came out in 2004. Saul Dibb, the director, wrote it with me in mind. I was in prison while he was writing it. I came out and faced all this backlash in the media – being classed as a gun-toting gangster. I met Saul and he said: “Only you can play this part.” I was reluctant at the beginning, but it was well received. I won the most promising newcomer at the British independent film awards, and it restarted my career.
My next job: I’m filming an eight-part drama for the BBC called Cuffs. It’s a police drama set around the lives of a police response team in Brighton. It’ll be out in the autumn.
Caitlin Moran, writer
My first job: My first regular job was working on Melody Maker at the age of 16. I’d finished writing my first novel by then, and was waiting for it to be published, and had got into music by listening to John Peel and getting CDs from Wolverhampton Central library – the way you could listen to music for free before Spotify, but which also meant bands got paid; which was, I think it’s fair to say, a better system for encouraging working-class talent. But here I go being all Marxist again. I just wrote six sample reviews and sent them off to Melody Maker. I speckled the envelope with Lemon Essence from our kitchen – the only perfume available – as I’d heard that pleasant, uplifting smells could be an important way to make a favourable subconscious impression. It did the trick – they gave me regular work. Enough to start buying cider and begin a terrifying smoking habit.
My big break: Winning the Dillons Bookstore young reader of the year competition when I was 13. I won a £250 voucher but, more importantly, one of the judges – Valerie Grove of the Times – was intrigued that I’d called myself “home-schooled” on the entry form, and came to interview me for the paper. When the piece ran, she said I was talented and that I could really write, and that was it: I just needed one person to tell me – to give me permission – and I was off. I started writing my first novel the next week. It’s why I always accept being a judge on a writing prize. I know what it’s like to be on a council estate in the middle of nowhere and how you need to feel London, the media and “the grown-ups” are asking you to take part. If you’re not posh or connected, you need to be invited. Just once. And then you bite their arm off. You’re ready.
My next job: Well, like an excessive idiot, I’ve given myself four next jobs, and am having to regularly dose myself from a pipette of Valerian nerve tonic to deal with it. I’m adapting How to Build a Girl for Film4, but also working on two other scripts. Me and my sister Caz are working on the second series of the sitcom Raised by Wolves for Channel 4. I’ve spent this month doing my standup tour in the UK, which goes to the US in July. There’s a second compendium of journalism, Moranifesto, in which I lay out my political manifesto for the world while also telling amusing stories, eg the day I accidentally tried to break into Kate Moss’s house, then ended up getting pissed in Benedict Cumberbatch’s house while forcing him to do impressions of Sherlock and Smaug, then realised I’d “done some period” on his sofa. And then I start the second novel in my trilogy, How to Be Famous, in the autumn. When you get invited in and they start saying, “Yes, we would like you to make TV shows and films and write novels and play to 1,700 people in Manchester,” you go, “Yes! I will do this!”, because you know most people from where you’re from don’t get asked. There aren’t any other women like me. And there should be.
Lesley Manville, actor
My first job: I had a Saturday job in a hairdressers in Hove, washing hair. I certainly wasn’t destined for that kind of work. At the age of 15, I made a very independent decision to leave school in the middle of my A-levels.
My big break: Meeting Mike Leigh in 1979. We met when he cast me in a play at the RSC. The play never saw the light of day – it got cancelled. So he said: “You’d better come and do something else for me.” Then we worked together for his film Grown Ups at the BBC. It was the first time I played an interesting character that wasn’t just a sweet young thing. I started acting at 16 and did any job that came along – from panto to Emmerdale to children’s TV. I did all sorts of strange things. If I hadn’t met Mike by fluke, I don’t know what I would have ended up doing.
My next job: I’m in the middle of reading scripts. I’ve just done a pilot of a series called Mum, which I’m hoping will be commissioned. It’s a gentle comedy about a woman who has just lost her husband and is looking for the next chapter of her life – and about all the extraordinary people around her.
Roy Williams, playwright
My first job: It was in McDonald’s. I was in the last year of school and broke. A mate had worked there and put in a good word. I was so restless – I knew my heart lay in the arts. I was the worst cashier, the worst burger-flipper in all of London. When you started at McDonald’s, you got a green badge as a beginner. When you’re good, you get a yellow badge. I stayed on green – and gave up after three months. I didn’t get sacked, I just didn’t go back. We sort of fired each other.
My big break: Having my first play, The No Boys Cricket Club, produced at Theatre Royal Stratford East in 1996. I wrote it when I was 26 – it was based on my mother’s experiences of growing up in Jamaica and coming to England. You see a woman in her 60s who goes back in time and meets her younger self and tries to stop her making the same mistakes. It’s a Field of Dreams/Back to the Future type thing. I’d written it in my final year at Rose Bruford drama college. They suggested I send it to Stratford East for feedback, and the theatre did a reading of it and put it on. I was blown away. It was directed by Indhu Rubasingham and she was very insistent that I be there as much as possible during the rehearsals, so it was a real learning curve.
My next job: Another series of my afternoon radio drama, The Interrogation, for Radio 4. It’s a simple premise: two cops spend 45 minutes interviewing a suspect and you slowly get an idea of why they did what they did. It explores the choices we make and addresses themes such as masculinity, homophobia, racism and class. I knew the original producer, Jessica Dromgoole, and she asked me for radio ideas. They commissioned it and it came back. Now I’m on series four.
It was a dream to end up in this position. The climate is tougher now for all of us in the arts, what with austerity and the cuts. But I knew it would be like that going in. Making a living in the arts world is tough, and you’ve got to be made of stern stuff if this is the life you choose for yourself.
Paul Abbott, screenwriter
My first job: I had about 26 jobs. I worked in factories, in antique stores, I was a barber, furniture remover, everything. And I couldn’t hold a job down. I can’t stand still – thankfully, as as a writer you don’t have to – you’re on to the next scene. My first job was when I was 16, at Lambert Howarth’s shoemakers. There were whole families who worked in these factories, all the way up to the grandchild and grandpa working together. That’s where Clocking Off came from. I was working on hessian mules. I used to have to put a heel on a spike – you’d spin it with your foot and spray it with glue. But in the first week they turned the industrial fan off so you’re high as a kite on ethanol from the glue and your eyelashes get glued to your face. It was a little trick they played on apprentices. I was a student, which was even worse.
My big break: My breakthrough came when I was 23. It was a radio play that Alan Bennett sponsored. Somebody knew where he lived, so I wrote to him and said: ‘Would you sponsor my play?’ He said: ‘Good you didn’t send the play, you sent the letter first,’ and agreed to look at it. He said: ‘It’s not the masterpiece you think it is, but I’ll certainly put my name to it.’ It got made, then I got commissioned to do a Monday Night play for Radio 4, and it got repeated on Saturday so that was two-and-a-half grand. It paid for a whole year’s rent. Until then, writing was a hobby. That’s when I realised I was a writer. The play was called David and … Who’s Goliath? It was a lot like Shameless, and it’s embarrassing to listen to now.
My next job: I’m working on a new show with Tommy Schlamme, the co-creator of The West Wing, in the US. It’s called Blabbermouths, and is a fiction about reality TV. He’s a such a beautiful bloke. We haven’t sold it yet, and it will take a year to write. We’re also working on the second series of No Offence. Series one is just about to start on Channel 4 and we don’t know if we’ll get a second, but we have to start writing it now, because if you wait for them to tell you you’ve got it, you’re fucked. And I’m working on my first animation – about obesity. It’s called Patsy Clinger’s Near-Death Cookery Course. It’s a six-part animation series, and I haven’t sold that yet either.
Paulette Randall, director
My first job: It was in Brixton Market at a shop selling “toilet requisites”, as the sign had it. I loved it – I started when I was 11 and worked there on and off until I was 18. We sold all sorts: bubble bath, toilet paper – and bad wigs. I didn’t realise until much later, but it was like a theatre. There was always some drama happening on a Saturday morning with all the families coming and going. I’d gone to the market for years with my mum, but moving to the other side of the counter, I found a world I didn’t really know existed.
My big break: I went to Rose Bruford college of speech and drama, and then set up a company with two other women: Theatre of Black Women. It was what it says on the tin. We wrote and performed our own pieces and did workshops to finance productions. Then my first play was in the young writers’ festival at the Royal Court, directed by Danny Boyle. I said I wanted to get into directing, and Danny told me to talk to the Court’s artistic director, Max Stafford-Clark. We had a two-hour meeting. Max told me to go away and think about it all, and then he took me on as assistant director when I went back. He was great to learn from in terms of pulling a script apart, and getting out of a writer the story they are trying to tell. From the Court I went to Bolton Octagon. I didn’t even know where Bolton was! It took for ever to get there. The job was in the winter – I’ve never been so cold. The atmosphere was so different. The Octagon was a fortnightly rep when I was there. Virtually no new writing, all tried-and-tested shows: Shakespeare, thrillers. I directed Wait Until Dark. That was my first main-house show.
My next job: I’m going to Rada for the first time ever. I’m directing a new piece called Obama-ology with the students there. It’s about a young man who goes off on the voter-registration drive in Cleveland leading up to Obama’s first stint as president. It’s quite funny and quite stylised – the writer suggested that it’s done in a sort of Brechtian, comedic way. We shall have a go and see if that holds water.
Norman Foster, architect
My first job: I worked as a clerk at Manchester Town Hall. I prepared the wage packets for all the corporation’s employees, from cemetery workers to park wardens to school teachers. I did hundreds and hundreds of envelopes, and the last one had to tally exactly. I remember there were perforations in the envelopes to help people count the coins once they were sealed. During my lunchbreaks, I would go out and explore the great buildings of Manchester. Even now, I can describe them in nitpicking detail.
My big break: It was 1956, I was 20 and had just finished doing national service with the RAF. After some months doing odd jobs, I got a place at Manchester University’s school of architecture. It was undoubtedly the big turning point in my life – just getting in made me so happy. But even though I’d made it through on merit, having shown an interest and an ability to draw, I couldn’t get a grant, since I didn’t have any A-levels or anything like that, having left school at 16. Where I came from, that’s what boys did. So I had to support myself by doing part-time jobs. I sold ice-cream and made crumpets in a bakery, but the most terrifying job was working as a bouncer at a very rowdy cinema. Someone beat up the manager once. I chased the guy, tackled him and brought him back as the police arrived by bike. Coming from this background, and having this sort of experience of university, has shaped my attitude – and I know I can easily work on several things at once.
My next job: I spent this morning working on the new international airport for Mexico City. It will be an extraordinarily dramatic, cathedral-like structure, incredibly light with no straight lines. It will be one of the biggest airports in the world – but not actually the biggest. That’s Beijing. We did that 10 years back.
Jason Williamson, Sleaford Mods
My first job: I worked in the raw meat section of a factory in Grantham that made ready meals for M&S. I got expelled from secondary school for piercing my mate’s ear and spent a few months on the dole, so I got a job there before I took my GCSEs. I worked on the mince. I’d get massive sacks of pre-packed meat and put it into little 20g tubs that would then be sent to the cookhouse.
My big break: Meeting our manager Steve Underwood. He runs an underground punk label, Harbinger Sound, and we played a festival he put on in Nottingham called the Rammel Club weekender. We caught his attention and he asked us if we wanted to put a record out. That was enough to get us on to the gig circuit – from then on we were getting offers left, right and centre.
My next job: Hopefully just keep writing music. I’ve written a few articles. I’m in the process of doing a book of short stories for Bracket Press, which will hopefully be out next year. It’s based on