Hi Arnie,
don't know why you are blushing, it should be me, thanks for the correction

! I suppose I could put it down to having lived abroad for almost 30 years - in a none english speaking country, but it's more likely to be the fact that I left school at 14, having skipped many of the school lessons for several years anyway, because I had been working since I was eight years old. Somebody had to bring cash home and my old man was out of work. He actually got a job again because I got run over by my employer, all my fault and everything turned out just fine in the end.
My first attempt at being self-employed was during the great dustbin strike in the '60's. (I was born in '55). I bought a wheelbarrow and took peoples rubbish away, only to a free building plot a few hundred yards away, where the rubbish grew into mountains and was utterly rat ridden. Bought myself an air-rifle and shot countless rats, there and down at Blue Bell Woods, got a tanner a tail from the town hall ! When nobody would pay me to remove their rubbish I used the wheelbarrow to collect coal, which had fallen off the old steamers, from the railway lines. Or as transport for my tools, when gardening for others and of course to carry Guy Fawkes to and from our 'penny for the Guy' begging sessions.
The good old days eh !
Junior Leaders, (which I joined at 15 on the advice of a Judge ... "if I see you again you'll go down, join the army, it'll make a man of you and keep you out of trouble", he said) was like what I sort of imagined a package holiday, which I had never been on, would be like, gave me my education such as it is. All through JL's and until I left the army for the first time (1979) I sent money home so that my many siblings might have a better start. Never looked back since, perhaps I should, but, then again, better keep an eye up front, and listen out for the laggers, screaming when the dogs catch up with them.
Thanks again, I'm now cleverer than I was yesterday ... (just hope I can remember that tomorrow).
Going back to a previous comment of yours, flack towers and brothels. I suppose that your having been in the Int Corps gives you more insight than most. Does that mean that you have seen some, most, all of these brothels from the inside ? Wow, I bet you get more flack than Hitler ever got, from Brenda !

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