My job as the pub 'slave' sweeping up rat droppings aged 13 was the making of me. Stupidity that prevents teens getting into work is a scandal - and I know who's to blame: CLARE FOGES

By CLARE FOGES, FEMAIL COLUMNIST Where the f***ing hell is my sauce?’ The head chef strode around the kitchen bellowing at the poor staff, including me, a pot washer, fingers a-wrinkled from hours of scrubbing pans. This terrifying man – prone to Gordon Ramsay-style outbursts – was looking for a red wine jus which he had been cooking for hours. As his volcanic outburst reached Vesuvius levels, I froze, remembering the large pot of stuff I had recently poured down the plughole, thinking it wasn’t needed. Glug, glug… gulp. On the verge of tears I confessed my crime to the chef, who exploded – and sacked me on the spot. I was 12. Soon after – at the ripe old age of 13 – I got a job in a restaurant in Surrey where, as ‘pudding girl’, I was required to stand in a cupboard for nine hours and make Peach Melbas. When allowed out of my vertical coffin I did the lowliest jobs, like sweeping up rat droppings or getting behind the kitchen units to scour off black grime which was probably older than me. They nicknamed me The Slave, a title used most enthusiastically by the 14-year-old kitchen boy, who was clearly delighted that someone was now on a lower rung of the ladder than him. ‘Slave! The bogs need cleaning!’ These days the idea of a child working like this would probably ring alarm bells with the NSPCC. There’d be Labour MPs shrieking about ‘exploitation’ and campaigners up in arms. But despite the grime, sweat and occasional tears, I loved it. So much so that for over a decade – from the age of 13 to 26 – I was never out of a part-time job. I was a waitress, barmaid, chambermaid, double-glazing saleswoman, sandwich filler, wardrobe assistant, babysitter, factory worker, nursery worker, shelf-stacker and ice cream van driver. At a pub called the Goose And Granite, I pulled 90p pints and sometimes had to fend off drunken clientele with a broom handle. In one New Forest hotel, I heaved mattresses and sometimes dry-heaved at what had been left in the bedrooms. While shelf stacking in Sainsbury’s I learned to avoid the freezer department at all costs, with its Siberia-like temperatures. Driving an ice cream van, I ate so many Mr Whippys I put on a stone. For one shift I was even a nightclub bouncer, in black suit and curly earpiece: ‘Your name’s not down, you’re not coming in.’ For over a decade – from the age of 13 to 26 – Clare Foges was never out of a part-time job. She worked a range of roles from chambermaid to ice cream van driver The part-time jobs of my teens and 20s were the making of me – and frankly if more children were out slogging early, it would be a very good thing. It is an awful fact that almost one million young people in the UK are not in education, employment or training (NEETs for short). Alan Milburn, the Labour tsar who recently wrote a report on the crisis, said that part of the problem is that young people aren’t prepared for the workplace, thanks to the ‘longstanding decline’ in Saturday jobs. Fewer than one in five 16 and 17-year-olds are in work, compared with nearly half at the start of the century. Six out of ten NEETs have never had a job. This is a disaster, for them and for the country. As Milburn says, part-time jobs don’t just allow teenagers to earn, but ‘to learn about what it [means] to be in a workplace’. I couldn’t agree more. My part-time jobs taught so much. To swallow my shyness and make small talk. To turn off the snooze button, get up and turn up. Above all they taught me the sheer satisfaction of receiving a reward for my own efforts. I will never forget the little brown envelope given after my first shift in the pub, heavy with coins. This being 1993 – long before the minimum wage came in – my hourly rate was £1.50 per hour. While not a princely sum, it was enough for me to go into the Body Shop and buy myself a dewberry body mist. And it was about much more than the cash. It was the satisfaction that I could generate it through the sweat of my brow, which has shaped my attitude towards work to this day. We need many more 14 and 15- year-olds knowing how good it feels to graft and earn. But it’s too easy to blame the teenagers. A lot of the old jobs have gone. Paper rounds? Hit by online newspapers. Supermarket work? Self-checkout machines. Bar work? Decline in pubs. The world has changed a lot since the 1990s – but what is infuriating is how this government has taken a difficult situation and made it worse. Seeing spiralling youth unemployment they thought: ‘Yes! Let’s make it more expensive to hire a young person!’ Cue a rise in the minimum wage and the hiking of National Insurance on employers. It is an awful fact that almost one million young people in the UK are not in education, employment or training The stupidity is a scandal. To get young people into work, we need to not only cut the tax and wage bill for employers but the red tape. It used to be so easy to get a part-time job. In the summer of 2000, I was home from university for the holidays. Out one evening watching England play in the Euros, half-drunk, I asked someone behind the bar if they had any roles. ‘Can you start now?’ he asked, thrusting a crate for me to collect empty glasses. And so I began that minute. Can you imagine anyone getting a job with such ease today? Of course not. There’d be numerous forms, DBS checks, equality and diversity modules to fill in online and so on. Half this nonsense is unnecessary. We need to trust employers to do the right thing and trust teenagers more to take on responsibility. My mother has a picture of me after my first shift as The Slave: sitting on a sofa with my feet in a washing-up bowl of soapy water, a look on my face of wearied pride. Being rewarded for your effort is a fantastic feeling that more young people need to enjoy. Their future – and the future of the country – depends on it. Victoria Beckham poses with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders in an Instagram post After going viral for her po-faced World Cup ‘celebration’ this week, Victoria Beckham is getting flak again for posing among beaming cheerleaders with a smile best described as tepid. But we don’t all have big toothsome grins like the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. I’m not one to grin like a Cheshire cat either. Given that she hasn’t smiled in public for 30 years, it’s clear she’s self-conscious about it. Give the woman a break. Two water companies – Southern Water and Affinity Water – have given benefits claimants permission to ignore hosepipe bans. This is almost as mad as Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson wanting to give free childcare to claimants who are not in work – perhaps so they can water their garden or have a splash in the paddling pool child-free? You’ve heard of the silly season – this is fast becoming the insanity season. Katherine Ryan with her oldest child, 17-year-old Violet  Comedian Katherine Ryan has said her oldest child is her favourite, calling her two younger ones privileged ‘nepo babies’ who ‘get to grow up with a dad’. What a cruel thing to say. Better start saving now, Katherine: your kids’ future therapy bills are going to be expensive.  Green MP Hannah Spencer is trying to change the law so that we have a maximum workplace temperature in the UK. Which will presumably mean more air conditioning, which in turn will mean more carbon emissions, which the Greens spend half their time campaigning against. If it’s lower temperatures we are after, Spencer could at least refrain from spouting hot air.