"The scum who were born in 1940" was the headline in the Daily Mirror, on the front page, at the height of the Teddy Boy era. This was 35 years before I finally appreciated that one was supposed to have self esteem and confidence and learn to love yourself. -I failed, but it's a good idea? (I was a grey flannel and Harrison tweed 'square' type at the time) -I haven't changed much?
All trace of Butler's Court Lodge, my birthplace in 1940, (one of a pair of cottages with a driveway arch through the middle, on the A40 to High Wycombe and just 500yds out of Beaconsfield), has now gone: Except the Scott's pond. -Which is now someone's back garden. Butler's Court it'self has also gone, (in the last few years). Wiggins Teape finally downsized it to rubble.
Groomed as cannon fodder, I joined the Navy via HMS Ganges at the age of 15, in 1956. Seven years later I was invalided out as a Petty Officer Mechanician on the Mech's course at Sultan. -My papers had caught up with me at last. No computers in those days. (I was born with lung problems which was not detected when I was accepted into the RN. -My first career).
I read all the WW2 books books and could now "pass selection" in the subject? Now we have almost lost the generation that paid for our today. With that loss, go many of the basic values which we all took for granted? However, being now 63 and ailing, I just miss them all, the people and the values, on a daily basis?
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