Anyone under a certain age might find this story difficult to believe. The reason is, there used to be a world before computers. There was a time of halcyon days when the sun always shined, the beer ran free and the policemen looked older than you did.
When I left school there was very little work about so I was enrolled on a government training scheme, one year learning about mechanical engineering, lathes, shapers, drills , furnaces, welding etc. I also learned about beer, prog rock concerts, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Yes , Hawkwind and Home Brewed beer. The main thing I learned was that the female of the species were randier than the male and much more dirty than I had ever been able to imagine.
After that year I got an apprenticeship with BT or the General Post Office as it was known then and they taught me all about installing phones, putting up the poles, maintaining exchange equipment, uni-selectors, primary selectors, final selectors, swan necked relays, induction capacitance – the works. We did three days in the field, two days college, every week.
In the year that I started, the GPO took on about eighty lads, and I hooked up with four of them and we became good mates and drinking buddies. We got into all the scrapes that eighteen year olds get into and they were great times, we quickly got into the macho drinking culture, particularly hating the loud juke boxes and the fruit machines. Anyone who wasted money on the fruit machine was a gay-boy frot or a fag.
Out of the five of us, Andy stood out as the real original thinker, Dave was a tall studious type, Andrew and Phil were bikers, both from the Wirral and I was the quiet one with the muscle. Andy was funny, I still laugh my nuts off when I think of some the things he said and did, clever too. In a different time and place he would have been a great famous and figure , and he is, to me at least. One winter three of us went to the park over the road from the college, Andy Dave and me. There was three inches of snow on the ground and we chucked the odd snowball around. We stopped to watch a game of football, twenty two lads a-slipping and a-sliding and trying hard to play seriously. We started laughing at them, Andy threw a snowball at one of them, the ref pointed at us and shouted that we fck off. Andy threw another snowball. I threw a snowball. Dave threw one. The twenty two lads stopped and threw some back, one hit Andy and they rolled about laughing. Annoyed, Andy picked up a stone and made a snowball around it. He got a bullseye on one guys head that drew blood. They looked stunned, shocked, then they charged. We beat a hasty. As we ran through the snow, slipping all over, it was clear they were gaining, they had boots with studs. We were dead. Twenty two onto three.
I was slightly in the lead, running hard, hoping to get away, then I heard a loud shout behind me, followed by a thump. ‘SACRIFICE’ THUMP.
Andy had grabbed Dave by the shoulder and pulled him down. Never in the field of Scouser combat has one man so nobly sacrificed his mate so that we could get away.
When he got out of hospital, Dave had no hard feelings but it was difficult to persuade him to go for a walk in the park again.
Anyways, the point of the story. We were in the pub one lunch hour, all five of us, when Andy disappeared. Then we noticed he was with a crowd around the fruit machine. Shocked and disappointed, we shouted over that he had turned gay and that he was a frotting bendy-boy. He came back and said ‘no it’s not a fruit machine, it’s a game. Ping Pong’. So we waited for the crowd to disperse and went to look at it. It was like a telly screen in a six foot cabinet, with a coin slot and two knobs.
‘What is it ?’
‘Dunno’
‘Is it a game’
‘Yeah, you move the bats up and down to hit the ball’
‘Is it like a computer ?’
‘Yeah, from the space programme or something’
‘What a load of bollocks, it will never catch on’ I pronounced.
When I left school there was very little work about so I was enrolled on a government training scheme, one year learning about mechanical engineering, lathes, shapers, drills , furnaces, welding etc. I also learned about beer, prog rock concerts, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Yes , Hawkwind and Home Brewed beer. The main thing I learned was that the female of the species were randier than the male and much more dirty than I had ever been able to imagine.
After that year I got an apprenticeship with BT or the General Post Office as it was known then and they taught me all about installing phones, putting up the poles, maintaining exchange equipment, uni-selectors, primary selectors, final selectors, swan necked relays, induction capacitance – the works. We did three days in the field, two days college, every week.
In the year that I started, the GPO took on about eighty lads, and I hooked up with four of them and we became good mates and drinking buddies. We got into all the scrapes that eighteen year olds get into and they were great times, we quickly got into the macho drinking culture, particularly hating the loud juke boxes and the fruit machines. Anyone who wasted money on the fruit machine was a gay-boy frot or a fag.
Out of the five of us, Andy stood out as the real original thinker, Dave was a tall studious type, Andrew and Phil were bikers, both from the Wirral and I was the quiet one with the muscle. Andy was funny, I still laugh my nuts off when I think of some the things he said and did, clever too. In a different time and place he would have been a great famous and figure , and he is, to me at least. One winter three of us went to the park over the road from the college, Andy Dave and me. There was three inches of snow on the ground and we chucked the odd snowball around. We stopped to watch a game of football, twenty two lads a-slipping and a-sliding and trying hard to play seriously. We started laughing at them, Andy threw a snowball at one of them, the ref pointed at us and shouted that we fck off. Andy threw another snowball. I threw a snowball. Dave threw one. The twenty two lads stopped and threw some back, one hit Andy and they rolled about laughing. Annoyed, Andy picked up a stone and made a snowball around it. He got a bullseye on one guys head that drew blood. They looked stunned, shocked, then they charged. We beat a hasty. As we ran through the snow, slipping all over, it was clear they were gaining, they had boots with studs. We were dead. Twenty two onto three.
I was slightly in the lead, running hard, hoping to get away, then I heard a loud shout behind me, followed by a thump. ‘SACRIFICE’ THUMP.
Andy had grabbed Dave by the shoulder and pulled him down. Never in the field of Scouser combat has one man so nobly sacrificed his mate so that we could get away.
When he got out of hospital, Dave had no hard feelings but it was difficult to persuade him to go for a walk in the park again.
Anyways, the point of the story. We were in the pub one lunch hour, all five of us, when Andy disappeared. Then we noticed he was with a crowd around the fruit machine. Shocked and disappointed, we shouted over that he had turned gay and that he was a frotting bendy-boy. He came back and said ‘no it’s not a fruit machine, it’s a game. Ping Pong’. So we waited for the crowd to disperse and went to look at it. It was like a telly screen in a six foot cabinet, with a coin slot and two knobs.
‘What is it ?’
‘Dunno’
‘Is it a game’
‘Yeah, you move the bats up and down to hit the ball’
‘Is it like a computer ?’
‘Yeah, from the space programme or something’
‘What a load of bollocks, it will never catch on’ I pronounced.
leave your mate in the tulip!
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