Those highly amusing stories, by what must surely be journalist or short story writer Ann, reminded me of this amateurish, but embarrassing and absolutely true one:
In Hawick in the fifties, as a first class marksman with Bren gun and rifle in the Terriers, I was delegated by our company sergeant major to stand in for a colleague who was absent due to illness, and unable to shoot for his ‘bounty’, a sum of money paid to those reaching the required standard of marksmanship. Having comfortably reached the said standard on my own behalf, I stood in a group of young riflemen, talking – yes, you would have guessed that; talking, to anyone who was prepared to listen, and completely oblivious to the fact that the regimental sergeant major was shouting at the top of his voice for the third time: “Rifleman Graham, J!”
Somebody shoved me forward, saying, “That’s you,”
My face still burns as I remember the RSM shouting, in a very English accent, “What’s the matter with you today, you dozy little man?”

Dabbler, liked your story. I think you're pulling my leg when you refer to me as journalist or short story writer. The nearest I got to being a journalist was working for a time in a newspaper office in Belfast. Interestingly enough, it brought back old memories of things I would liked to have been and even aspired to BUT FOR MY MOTHER. My mother was very maternal and she was always afraid of any of us going away or going into danger. She was VERY protective. Everything she did was for our good, I hasten to add.

Things I would like to have been:

1. Upon leaving school I was given a chance to become an air stewardess with Aer Lingus. In those days you needed an extra language and I had French. A girl who already worked for Aer Lingus had sent me an application form, which I duly filled in. I was then given an interview. However, when my mother discovered I was serious about this, I remember her very words. She said, "The first plane you go up in DOWN IT WILL COME". Needless to say, that did put me off a bit. I was very naive in those days, some say I still am.

2. Yes, I would have liked to try journalism but met my boyfriend (now hubby) around this time and couldn't be bothered going to night school for the qualifications. (Can't blame my mother for this one).


3. Then I decided it would be nice to become a nurse. Knew I would have to train but thought it would be a good career. Yes, my mother. She said, "Wait 'til you're wheeling the dead bodies from the mortuary" and then went on to elaborate on how I would have to attend to the ablutions of all kinds of people. I shut down this window of opportunity too.

4. I became a shorthand/typist. Mother was so happy.

4. My hubby and I were engaged for 2 years before we married (as you did in those days). At that time you could get passage to Australia for the sum of £10 each. The only clause was that you remained for 2 years. What's 2 years when you're 20, no illnesses, full of life, never a thought of dying and everything to look forward to. Yes, my mother says, "If you go over there, you'll never get back. If you become ill, there'll be no-one to look after you, etc. etc." We didn't go to Australia.

This is all said tongue in cheek because I know that if I had REALLY wanted something bad enough I wouldn't have been persuaded otherwise. Nice to dream what could have been.

Oh, I forgot, my now hubby was a very much approved boyfriend. mother liked him. Anyway, we had a falling out one time. This was when I was working in the newspaper office. A certain boy there must have been waiting his chance because when he heard that we were off, he promptly asked me out, and I as promptly accepted. He was older than me, good looking with nice chestnut brown hair and brown eyes. So, every week he took me to the pictures in Belfast after work, bought me chocolates and 20 Gallagaher's Greens. He didn't smoke. He also took me out to lunch in the Continental Cafe, if anyone remembers it. BUT, I had to tell my mother I was working late as she would not have approved of anyone else going with me. That's why I only went out with him once a week. Anyway, he belonged to an Operatic Society and they were having a dinner and dance and he coaxed me to ask my mother if I could go. Now, I must point out that I was 17 at this stage. It took me days to work up courage to ask but on this particular Saturday morning, when there were just the two of us in the kitchen (it was my last chance to ask before the dance) I DID ask. I took a deep breath and said, "JM, a boy from work, has invited me to a dance, can I go?" Remember, I was 17 years old. My mother just looked up from the table and said "NO". That was it, no arguments. Years later, I saw this old boyfriend in Belfast Airport and to my dismay he was short, fat and going bald. He didn't see me but I still recognised him. My mother was right because my husband is still good looking, has all his hair although it is now silver, and we've survived 46 years together. Would anyone else like to tell what they would like to have been?

Ann, your tongue-in-cheek tales once again invited thoughts into my oul head. I ask my family over there to remember that I am writing about the parents that I recall with the same love as them, and that this is written with a smile close to a tear. My mother was very naïve, but could be cynical and sharp tongued. I was always tiny, and when I was about to leave school at fourteen without any qualifications, my father had just about convinced me that an apprenticeship as a jockey over in England would be just the ticket. He knew somebody who knew somebody. Mother, however, quickly pointed out that I would need to be up before five o’clock, cleaning out horse dung, and washing the horses and stables, and since I had difficulty getting up before 8.30, and washing myself, how did I think I would manage that? She also said that if these people my father knew were as good at picking jobs as they were at picking race winners, then God help me! ‘nough said.
I must have been twelve before I realised that I had very little chance of becoming a teacher, or writing novels, the two aspirations I mentally switched between in my first four years at school. After a year or two in the mill, all such nonsense had evaporated, to be replaced by ambitions to pick winners as well as Clive Graham or Peter O Sullivan. I soon learned that, in a race of five furlongs to a mile on good going, a difference in weight carried by a horse of one pound equalled a head or a neck at the finish, and three pounds equalled a length. So I put my entire young mind into working out handicaps, and, no, honestly, I actually made money with my sixpenny bets. At first, I used to get others to put my bets on of course, because, even when bookies were operating illegally, the clerks were wary about taking bets from a wee, young looking fellow like me.
Between betting and the quickly learned boozing that followed, I staggered through youth and early manhood sailing close to the wind at times, bolstered by the stupefying pleasures of the bottle, until, and after, I found my true place in life, in England, digging holes in hard chalk, alongside big Paddys and Poles.

I wish I was:

6'4" tall with bulging biceps.
A 22 year old bronzed Adonis.
Clever.
Literate.
Gregarious.

Instead of:

5' next to nothing tall.
A sixty something peely - wally, portly, going bald.
Thick as two short planks.
Still trying to master Enid Blyton books.
Shy and introverted.

If only.
The story of so many lives.

I’m sure that, like myself, most of you do not really wish that you were a lot different. I am healthy, and have a nice looking wee wife. I have no mortgage on my bungalow, and my two sons don’t need the assets that we have left them in our will. My grandchildren, a boy and a girl are healthy. I love them all, and the grandchildren at least make it abundantly clear that the love is reciprocated. I’ve been out today with the children. I think they had nearly as good a time as I had.
Ann, you're a nice woman.
By the way, LR, Enid Blyton, whose books my sons read nearly forty years ago, is considered a bit non-PC nowadays, Neither my sons, nor the grandchildren, show any love of books nowadays, but the eight-year-pld boy is pretty good on the computer.

My granny (I lived in my grannies) used to say "Wishing will get u nowhere, Hard work will get u everywhere" when I said I wished I could write good books. I never took her advice. Pat