Retired international construction director (despite my degrees being PPE & EU law). Labour Party & NUFC for stress, grandchildren for joy. Wine & rowing help.
@AmIRightSir 82 years since my uncle Jim Straughan, an assistant in the local co-op before the war, landed in Normandy. His wife heard nothing until a letter arrived a month later. "Weather fine, send dancing shoes"....code? in-joke? request? too late to ask.
A lovely man
@AmIRightSir ....and just about the 80th anniversary of the day when my dad was finally brought back after 4 years in India in the RAF to be demobbed...
@JHCPAL My mining family started in the Lothian coalfield, moved down to South North, with offshoots then moving to Cumberland, Kent and Australian coalfields
@Trystanian@JHCPAL@KeithTalentless@Hendrover When we refurbished the Liver Building in 1980, our convenor steward who was a brilliant joiner, "borrowed" so many of the mahogany and plate glass panels to build a huge greenhouse that the neighbours complained he should have got planning permission and a development licence.
@JHCPAL@KeithTalentless@Hendrover I suspect everyone knew it was his extra pension gratuity. We spent less time looking for his cash than £3 missing from a normal balance....
@KeithTalentless@Hendrover@JHCPAL The opposite of that was the Bank teller I worked with in Lloyds, Grey St who retired in 1968 after 40 years. His till was mysteriously wrong by £200 on two evenings in his last week.....
@JHCPAL@Geoff___Smith My sister went back to teaching after having her family. Little local school near Cotherstone. Two teachers. She got the "class" with identical quad girls (and football coaching)....
@n_docs I lived opposite that church for 18 years and went to church there till I was 11, my parents & sisters were married there, and my family members killed in the Burradon pit disaster were buried there. My daughter still lives opposite it.
@tars75 I was mainly dealing with UCATT, TGWU, GMB. They had solicitors on retainers (Owen Parsons for UCATT) but presentation tended to be FTO. Occassionally someone got the Free Representation Unit to act for them, trainee or new barristers pro-bono