I started working as a darkroom assistant in 1977 just after my sixteenth birthday. I started working at Turners Photography in Pink Lane, Newcastle upon Tyne which was one of the largest Photography Companies in the North East. The building housed the retail side on the ground floor, with the floors above containing the film department, Administration, picture mounting and art department, photographers studio and right at the top the processing labs.
We had B&W developing tanks for 35mm, 120 and 5×4 sheet film, the same for C41 colour process and also E6. There was also the B&W and colour printing labs and an area for copying graphics. All very daunting for someone straight out of school, I spent the first few months just washing, drying and trimming the borders of prints, oh and being the general dogsbody, popping down the the local Greggs for various pies, pastries etc. Starting at the bottom there was only one way to go, but it took me quite a while.