£15K *quickly*...?

If you've not got the skills already to get you a job paying thousands per week, you're not going to get any more fast. Blood/plasma/platelet/organ donation doesn't get you money in the UK, by law. As distasteful as it sounds, Clinton's "money for services" is frankly the only way of earning significant money fast without risk of imprisonment. Otherwise the only thing to make that kind of money fast is armed robbery or drug dealing, which ain't a good bet. In other words, it really isn't possible.

Question is, what do you need £15K for urgently? If it's a debt that's accumulated over time (credit cards or whatever), there's plenty of standard ways for sorting that out. If you're really stuck, bankrupcy is an option, or most reputable places will let you agree a repayment strategy so long as you show that you're not still spending stupidly. Or if it's to buy out your ex-husband's share of the house/car/yacht/goldfish, find a bank/building society that'll do a secured loan (cheaper than unsecured).

Also, how fast is "fast"? If it's of the order of "within the next 10 years", then saving pennies from busking and doing a paper-round is fine. If it's more like "by September", you're screwed.

For actually getting work, as Clinton says, find a temp agency, or somewhere else that uses casual labour. This time of year, fruit-picking is an easy option, or there's other unskilled jobs like bakeries, hotel cleaning, supermarket stacking, etc, etc where you just need to ring round and ask. Make sure you're *always* available - don't pass up a single post if something comes up, unless you're actually employed at the time. They often have a list of temps where the "reliable" ones get called first, and if you turn it down then you drop off the "reliable" list and don't get back on until someone else drops out and they get back round to you again. I made that mistake once when I wanted some temp work one summer, and I never got another call from them.

Other alternatives (which you might be able to do part-time) are ironing, cleaning or gardening. Stick ads in as many shops and supermarkets as you can.

If you're seriously in need of work and you've got no particular skills, chances are that it'll be low pay. Not much you can do about that, except do more of it. It probably won't be mentally taxing though, so longer hours aren't such a killer then.

As a slightly offbeat solution, if there's no work in the north-east, why don't you consider moving to somewhere that *does* have work? If you need a permanent home there for some reason, consider moving somewhere else to work and renting your place out.

Graham.