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9 Oct 2009 1:13 AM
Thank you to all my good friends, on overfifties, for your well wishes.
Last Sunday, when I felt the need to come back home when going to York, (A very historical citiy,) I began to feel unwell. Has it turned out, I started with a cold but, as yet, I have been unable to go out into the fresh air.
I am feeling a bit better today but, you know how it is, you feel all right one minute and the next your head is full and groggy again. Every bone in my body is aching but my caugh seems to be getting better.
Last night was the first full night, in bed, where I could sleep without the usual head cold side effects preventing me from lieing down.
While I have been unwel my wife found some comfort, from missing out on our Ruby wedding outing, from the wonderful flowers my sister sent from Australia, via Interflora and, along with the flowers I purchased, our home has displays of reds, yellows and white flowers that are in every room.
At times like these, when I reflect on things, I looked back through our married life and, as people have said in the past, time seems to have flown by.
I can remember the first time I met my, then girl friend, on our first date, her beautiful smile and her sparkeling eyes, now not as sparkling through a lenzed age of time, the way she looked, her infectious laughter and her ability to make me feel like a king. She was, and still is, a wonderful person.
Having said that, I began to question what constituted being a wonderful person and I can only speak for myself. What I consider to be wonderful may be a awful to another person.
My sister-in-law may seem to be a wonderful person, to her third husband but, to me, I see her as a trouble maker of the highest order.
One day, when my sister-in-law mellows, I hope she no longer feels the need to cause trouble for her sister and brother-in-law.
It is a good few years now, since my wife stood her corner with her sister, and the two ladies have not spoken to one another for all those years. Isn't it sad?
Looking back, over time, I suppose it all started when my wife, Nancy, wanted to live her own life instead of being dictated to by her family.
You may remember me writing about my wife, when she was girl, being sent away to an isolation ward with suspected TB and not, after 18 months of isolation, recognising her brother and sister when they were allowed to see her.
Nancy, like many others, did not have a good childhood but, when her father was killed in the pit, in his 20s, my wife remembers the kind way her mum and grandparents rallied round to make the four childrens'/grandchildrens' life as good as they could in those times.
Pit villages, in the area we lived, were not nice places. It is a different eara, I am sure many of you will remember when a bath was taken in the house and placed infront of the fire whith flames that created dancing shadows on darkened walls.
How pleased I am those times are behind us now but I do not consider that people have changed in their attitudes toward their fellow man.
Today, while I was commenting on a blog, off another site, where my Internet friend was looking at the virtues of using the truth, I was reminded how difficult it is to work out whether or not someone is telling lies to you.
I suppose lie telling has gone on from the time people began to form languages.
Today's lies have become more difficult to sort out and they also come in different forms as to when I was younger.
One of the things I now watch out for, when trying to identify if the person I am talking to is lieing, is the collective noun.
I will give the same example, although not a good one, that I gave to my Internet friend who happens to champion the 'under dog' in his capasity as a barrister.
"Yes, I help the poor in the community!"
The word usage leads us on to believe the person that is speaking goes out into the community and helps the poor or at least gives money to a charity.
The truth could be that the speaker once dropped a few coins into the hat of a street begger.
When Nancy's mum died, she told me her brothers and sister were taken, by a black car, out of the front door of their house, to go to an orphanage, and that she was being taken, through the back door, in an ambulance to the isolation ward. Memories, such as those, must have an effect on the mind for the rest of their lives but what made things worse, the local lady, driving the black car, did not tell the children where they were going and, from my point of view, this is just as bad as if she had lied to them.
Although, at one point in my life, I slept in bus shelters and walked the streets with an empty belly, I still had my parents but I too can remember being lied to.
One of the things I now look out for, in my aging wisdom, is the direct question.
An obvious one is when someone askes about something that may be private to you.
Sometimes, depending on the mood I am in and who the person is, I have fun at the expence of the person asking a direct question I do not want to give my information to.
I remember one man, I used to work with, who was always prying into my private life.
One day, when we were on our own, he said "I bet you are well cashed" Meaning that he thought I had lots of money in the bank.
"I suppose, I said as I looked at him, with a 'pocker face, but with the hint of a rye smile curling on my bottom lip. "you could say I was well cashed for I have a bank statement of four figures.
Unfortunatly, on this occassion, my use of collectives back fired on me for my inquisitive friend went round everybody in the factory and told them that I had a four figure sum in my bank account.
It was not long before my 'foremen' came to my place of work and took me to one side.
"What I want to know," he said in a gruff voice and dragging at my arm as if he was trying to move me into a corner so that my back was against a wall, "Is what a man, with a four figure sum in the bank, is doing working at a place like this?"
I smilled and this seemed to infuriate the foreman, (who did not speak to me for weeks after our chat and who stopped all my overtime working and gave me the worst kind of work in the factory) but I was not going to be intimidated by him. I removed his hand from my arm and said.
"I am sure I do not know what you mean. All I have in my bank account is £19.99." Four figures.
The collective here stopped anymore inquisitive questions but I had to pay the price of not having a good time at work for a while.
I did get my own back though for the foreman came to me, in despiration, and asked me if I would work overtime at the week ends and I refused. He went mental saying that I was turning down ex number of pounds and who could afford to do that these days.
The truth was, I had gone on to shift working patterns and the night shift was killing me. I could not sleep in the day time and by the time Wednesdays came round, I had lost weight for I could not eat my main meal at 2 a.m. in the morning.
A work mate, I use the word mate loosly, hated working the day shift so I swapped with him. He thought I was mad for the night shift paid more than the day or afternoon shift. The afternoon shift was scrapped and I went on to working days on a regular basis.
On the day shift, where I started work at 6 a.m. and pulled myself out of bed at 4.30 a.m., I finished work at 2 in the afternoon. From work, if the weather was fine, I often went for a walk and did a bit of bird watching. The early start meant, so that I was able to get my sleap, I was usually in bed for 9 p.m.
I almost forget, if there was overtime at the week end, the workforce had to go to work at their shift time. Had I worked the week ends, I would have had to get out of bed at 4.30 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday morning.
I know, you are thinking 'yes but where is this all leading to.'
All will be revealed!
As time went by, the foreman, knowing that I was not going to bend on the overtime request, decided he would start to talk to me again. One day, he asked me if I would work two hours extra on my day shift. I did the maths, told him that I would have to make arrangements with my wife first, and then worked the two hours,the following day, as overtime. For my overtime rate, due to starting work at 6 a.m., I was paid extra for unsociable hours and, on top of that, I was able to earn extra bonus.
For the next few days, I was asked to work the extra two hours all week and this turned into a regular occurance. The ten extra hours was a welcome sight in my wage package and it soon became a fixed thing to work every week.
Before entering into the extra 10 hour working week, I tallied up how much extra money I would get if I worked 4 hours at Saturday and another 4 hours at Sunday. With my unsociable hourly rate, I was better off working the two extra hours a day. On top of this, when the weather was good, I was still able to go out birdwatching and I also had the weekends free and could lie in bed, on Saturday and Sunday, like normal people.
All went well, for a time, until-one day-I accidently dropped my wage slip and a Saturday and Sunday worker picked it up and challenged me to ask why I was getting more money than he was for not working the weekends. All this man could see is that if he worked more overtime than anybody else he would take home the largest pay packet.
Yes, you have it, the foreman, my friend-I do not think-found out how much I was earning, and stopped all my overtime again.
I knew, due to holidays coming up, that he would come to me again and when he asked me to work the week ends I refused.
On this occassion, he ranted and raved and jumped up and down on the spot, I can see him now, pencil in his ear, wearing a brown smock, that always seemed to hang on him and make him look like a 'rag bag,' and with a look in his eye as if he was going to use physical violence if I did not obay.
I could feel a smile coming on, as he ranted, and checked myself so that he did not see that the sight infront of me was as funny as watching a comedy stage play.
He ranted on and on and only stopped when the hooter went for a mass mob had collected round about as they tried to push their way towards the canteen to drink a much earned brew of tea.
After my brew, I went back to work as if nothing had happened and, as expected, the foreman came back to finish what he had started. He had calmed down and came to me with a different tack.
"If that wint e Setdas and Sundas wat will tha blo..y e.?"
Translated means 'If you will not work Saturdays and Sundays what will you (Swear) work?
"How about 2 hours a day all week?"
He growled, under his resinating smock, and walked off.
When it came to the end of my shift, at 2 '0' clock, he had not come back to me so I put on my coat and walked towards the clock where we put in a card that stamped the time start and time finish.
I was about to put my card in the clocking out mechanism when I heard this bellowing voice shout out from the other sid of a factory that was in a temporary quiet mode until the next shift came on.
"Ey thee." He shouted, with one hand in the air and with a small piece of paper in his hand to make it look as though he was busy.
"Weers tha think thas gooin. A thowt tha wa gunna work ovver fo mi."
Translated means "Hey you. Where do you think you are going. I thought you was going to work over for me!"
I put my hand up in the air and waved and began to take my coat off. Still a long way off, he could see what I was doing and turned on his heels to walk back to where he came from.
I carried on making my overtime money, for a time, and realised that I was not spending enough time with my young son and when I left the factories, I began a new chapter in my life for I became a full time student and ended up working, as a technician at my local college.
If you like this kind of historical story writing, let me know and I will give you more later.
Sorry about the mistakes, on this piece, my head is still fuzzy. Well, that is my excuse.
By for now,
John.
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