That was Then this is Now

So how are you Allan, how’s life as you know it ?
I’m OK it’s the others. Actually I am just ok. I could do with more money, could do with a job, but at least Susan and I,after 5 months, are building a nest with her 3 dogs, who not  exactly fetch twigs as construction workers. Is that life as we should know it?
Maybe it is.


I was born in Willesden London NW10, born into poverty a single parent mum, who did 3 jobs a day to keep my sister and me. I only saw her when she fell asleep in front of the television. She’s been dead 19 years now, wore herself out for others…….


Me I went to the Grammar School, only kid for miles around to pass the 11+ and to wear a uniform. My dog saved me once when the local gang of jealous yobs ran after me with sticks only to confronted by the big brown hairy Chum and beat a hasty retreat as Chum set about them and their mass melay.


When I left school I obtained a Government Legal Qualification to protect the public. It was all exams in those days. I never failed them. I have a photographic memory and can just rewrite what I had revised a few hours before. Handy that !!


In those days I just thought you had to be good at the job and get results. Seemed logical to me. I made the headlines I made the news. I was seen to be doing my bit, actually much more than my fair share. Christ I won awards and commendations for the jobs I pulled off.


But, there were others who had the talk talk gift of the gab. Smooth talking bastards. They were qualified relatives of merchant bankers fluent in bull shit. I have never really made many male friends. This Martian was better with Venusians , much better. Martians saw me as a rival as a threat. With the exception of those loyal that worked for me, the rest might as well have been opponents on the football field or cricket pitch. If you make a name for yourself, there will be those that will plot against you, stab you in the back.


So I have known my own Ides of March. In that career, in love, and even in another career when I joined Aunty Beeb, reaching the giddy heights of Deputy Editor, again only to fail the politics not the job, and failed to watch my back.


Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end, we’d sing and dance for ever and I day. We picked a life that was full, we’d fight and never lose, those were the days oh yes those were the days…………….. until I lost.


Now, I sit here at my lap top, in temporary rented accommodation with my possessions and my memories around me, gathered from my travels, my successes of a past.


My real home is up for sale, occupied by the sitting wicked witch, nicknamed "Black Widow" by her own brethren . This recession is the worst I have known in my life as I know it. No jobs, no opportunities,  no chance. No sales of houses. I survive on monies paid from my glory years, monies that soften the anguish and unjustness, of a brain left out to pasture.


Maybe Britain would be Great again if old heads were put on young shoulders. There are lessons to be learned from experience and the thousands of pounds spent on training people. Putting the old heads on the scrap heap just means history will repeat itself anf mistakes made again and again.