The Evening Post has unquestionly printed Martin Salter's crap for years, but it seems that the fawning has turned their brains to mush over the years:
Mr Salter admitted it was thanks to the airport that he arrived in Reading. He was made redundant from a job there and with £3,000 redundancy pay in his pocket he was able to come and buy a house in Reading “because it was cheap”.
Facts:
- The current average wage for an airport baggage handler at Heathrow is £18,000.
- Adjusted to 1980 using the Earnings/RPI calculator takes it down to £3,750
(A skilled job repairing computer terminals was £5,000, so this is a reasonable estimate).
- The weekly wage then would therefore have been about £75 for a full 48 hour week.
- He spent 3 years dossing about at Sussex University, so he would have been at least 21 when he left.
- He moved to Reading in 1980 aged 25/26 with £3,000 with which to buy a house.
- His maximum redundancy pay under the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978 assuming 4 years continuous service would have been 4 weeks pay, or about £300.
- Even the most generous scheme would only have doubled that.
So where did the middle class grammar school mockney from Surrey really get the money from?