Born lucky

[Louis the fly]

I don't think anyone likes getting older with the aches, pains and general health problems it brings. Sometimes you may look back, with the benefit of wisdom, to things you would change if given the chance. In my case I would have saved just a little of the money spent on beer, whiskey and wild, wild women. For me there was no tomorrow, the good times would never end.
Yet we should not complain as we were born lucky, we lived through a time of full employment, we were free to go wherever in the world we wanted. We belonged to a unique club of like - minded men with our own language, humour and codes of behaviour, not understood by others.
There was no H.I.V. aids, no Ebola. There were the muggers, pimps and pickpockets we had to fight off but no terrorists, we could come back legless not headless.
Unlike the grey, dismal world of today our time was filled with colour, hope, laughter and the best music ever made.
Do you agree ? Or am I looking back with rose tinted shades ?

[Ivan Cloherty]

Keep the spectacles on Louis, it works for me. You forgot to add we worked hard long hours for low wages, we never expected the State to keep us and we never sponged off others and being honest was normal

[John Albert Evans]

There is nothing wrong with your glasses Lou. I together with many others on this site and elsewhere are also wearing them with pride. There is also the fact that you cannot ever get a pair like them from Specsavers, no matter how they may try to persuede people otherwise.

John

[Keith Tindell]

We were born at a very fortunate time, i think most of us caught the crest of the wave, straight from school to employment, a large Merchant Navy, a large world that most could not hope to see, now its a small world, reached to most places easily, i would never want to swop my time, yes, wages were not good, but the fun we had made up for it. We even had better food (in my experience) than the average shore wallah, steak and chips most weeks, lucky lucky boys, (no gals in my day). I would not like to be young today looking for work, a bleak outlook for most KT

[John Pruden]

as a young cheeky scouser who knew the words of all the beetles songs going into any bar in japan with a microphone and stage after a few getting up and me being john lennons brother{yehh} that was the beer all night and a promise to mamasan I would be back tomorrow she would send her white merc to the ship to pick me up all the time in that port the lads went mad me climbing into it I must say some mornings I would be dropped off before work. times were good for a young peggy then blond and blue eyed and fit as a butchers dog anyone on the ship could not call me by name well two john lennons in the same house??? jp

[vic mcclymont]

Many people look back at the nostalgia years (sixties) favourably, most complain about the low wages. They were low wages in comparison with todays salaries, in comparison with wages at that time they were reasonable.
My first job after leaving school was £2-10s a week. When I started my apprenticeship I was on the princely sum of £2-15s per week.
In the middle of the week if I had an old ten bob note I was rich, I could go to the cinema, bus fares to and from work for the next two days and of course lunch, and I still had some money in my pocket before picking up my weeks wages.
Now a days you would need a mortgage to that.
Vic

[Lou Barron]

Yes i agree with the comments about being lucky i have said before i think that i have been very very lucky having survived the war and getting married to a lovely women and raising a lovely family but the also keeping in good health and being able to meet and keep in touch with all you people on this site

[John Pruden]

to have it all one minute to have your life planned then through other commitments to family at home start another life and still be lucky I have always seemed to be in the right place at the right time but the biggest opportunity was taken away that was a life at sea blue funnel offered me all expenses paid college and had to refuse them a few minutes later but no regrets I made a good life for myself working hard and in the last few years meeting and pro acting with you members is very special to me the simple things of life I have come a long way in the past 7 years from a very dark place to a lover of every day and looking forward to tomorrow.. jp

[Richard Quartermaine]

'Those were the days my friend, I thought they'd never end...' the hawsers were lifted off the bollards, the tugs churned up the water, the Blue Peter was folded up for the next port, a steamy hoot sounded half way up the funnel, the water churned astern and in a cocoon we were literally off the planet and as far as I was concerned things were back to a very welcome normal for another six months to the other side of the globe and back. What happened over the horizon didn't concern me. No newspapers, no radio, no movies, no matter. Pay off, spend up, enjoy, sign on.........
Richard

[Ivan Cloherty]

Many people look back at the nostalgia years (sixties) favourably, most complain about the low wages. They were low wages in comparison with todays salaries, in comparison with wages at that time they were reasonable.
My first job after leaving school was £2-10s a week. When I started my apprenticeship I was on the princely sum of £2-15s per week.
In the middle of the week if I had an old ten bob note I was rich, I could go to the cinema, bus fares to and from work for the next two days and of course lunch, and I still had some money in my pocket before picking up my weeks wages.
Now a days you would need a mortgage to that.
Vic

£6 a month for a 12 - 18 hour day in the 50's don't think was reasonable when peggy on £4 a week, but eh! oh! seemed to manage to have a good time on it!