jukel123

I remember a lot of guys with shell shock and a lot of amputees. Grim.

My old man was a prolific thief . I almost said successful. He was for the most part but disappeared for 18 months once and I put 2 and 2 together. Whilst he was away I never noticed any dropping of our standard of living. Food used to regularly arrive from the docks just as it did before. His mates looked after us and he must have had money hidden away. He was a genuine kleptomaniac. If he went into a cafe he would steal the salt, pepper and the lighbulbs,soap and shit paper from the toilet. Anything that was not tied down or locked up. Seriously. Hard times bred hard resourceful p

A bit more of a light hearted story. In 1945 my mam and dad were living in a tiny caravan. They were both enthusiastic catholics and my eldest brother soon arrived. Because of their dire housing conditions they were given a brand new prefab . It was actually where the rest of 9 brood were born. My mam and dad went to collect the keys and the snotty housing clerk handed over the keys with a sarcastic " dont be keeping coal in the bath". My old man was not chuffed and had to be dragged out shouting " I'm keeping water in the bath to drown you when you come round to collect the rent y

Well it wasn't a land fit for heroes was it? When they treat war heroes like that.

I absolutely understand and respect that.

Where I grew up in Salford in the fifties the whole landscape was flattened by German bombs. Many of the houses were damaged by bombs but people still lived in them. My granny lived in a house with a hole in the roof caused by a bomb. The whole of the upstairs of the hovel was wet through with rain and full of pigeon shit. The stairs were out of bounds to me as they were completely rotten. My grandad got no war pension and they still had to pay rent.

Absolutely! Without a doubt. I'm always amazed how heroes rose to the surface and showed the best qualities of mankind. Millions of acts of bravery and selflessness. Women who were parachuted in darkness to work behind enemy lines. Computer and maths geeks who worked night and day to solve enemy codes. Are those qualities still among us or are they gone forever? Lost in cynicism and I'm alright Jack?

Top man!

I knew a bloke who managed to survive the long march. I knew his son as well. He told me his dad never uttered a word about it. Neither would he answer any questions about his experience.

Christ your dad and his mate are babies mate. A good workmate of mine was mistreated by the Japanese during the war. He was starved and could not bear to see food uneaten. He would scrape all the crumbs from the whole table where we ate our dinner and scoop them in his mouth. If anybody discarded a sandwich in the bin he would fish it out and either eat it or take it home. I had some guinea pigs and rabbits. He came round one day they were begging grub at the cage wire. From then on he used to bring me loads of grass regularly for them. Couldn't bear to see them hungry. He

Being of a certain vintage I met lots of guys who were part of the war and some were POWs. Any who were held prisoner by the japs were mercilessly beaten, starved and worked till they dropped. None of the guys I met ever achieved acceptance or forgiveness. To a man they were bitter. The japs seem to get a free pass in the way they treated prisoners. Part of their culture people say. They don't like soldiers who surrender and therefore treated them like shit. But they eventually surrendered. Should we have punished the whole nation in the same way we were punished? Culture seems to

I 'll try again. For the purpose of clarity and absolute undiluted fact, I paid a decent price because I did a deal with the chap to 'massage" his estimate to show that the job took only one hour. It took longer, but I bunged him fifty quid for his own pocket. We lefties may like to think of ourselves as justice warriors but we don't include ordinary blokes in our desire to make society fairer or work ourselves over for that matter. I've done a fair it of wheeling and dealing since I started work at 13. It's part of having respect for yourself and not accepting what 'the man' says al

https://www.britishlegion.org.uk/get-involved/events/remembrance-events/vj-day

For those even remotely interested, For 150 quid I got a plumber to redirect my condensate straight into the drain. It does not now go,outside my house. That solved the problem. However, for future reference, as they say, if you live in the cold North, leave your heating on if you go away in the winter. Two of my neighbours went to Teneriffe in winter and came back to flooded houses due to burst pipes. That happened last winter. One neighbour is still living in a caravan whilst the insurance company rectifies his house. New everything needed. House completely gutted.

Looks like you're packin some weapon there. You must have been pleased to see someone.