Perhaps inevitable...


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  • 6 months later...

Unbelievable! As I've said in another topic, money cannot buy class.

Once a scragbag, always a scragbag.

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It's sad to see a man with such talent go this way.
Bear in mind it wasn't Illegal drugs that did this but a freely available legal one.

The man is in reality a drug addict & needs serious help.

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#25

Chulla has a point there. Many of those who witnessed the carnage of the first world war turned to drink to cope with what I suppose we would now recognise as post-traumatic stress disorder. Unfortunately for them, they were usually berated for it by their families who had absolutely no idea what they had witnessed or experienced. My maternal grandfather and his little brother, Archie, both joined the king's royal rifle Corps at the Outbreak of hostilities in 1914. Only one year later, my grandfather witnessed his little brother being blown to smithereens by a German shell and afterwards scraped up what was left of him into a sack and buried it behind the trenches. He rarely spoke about it and certainly never to me but I do know that for the rest of his life, he never forgave himself that he wasn't able to protect his little brother from such a horrendous death and he felt guilty that he had survived.

After the war and back in civvy Street, my grandfather sometimes went to the pub for a drink. He didn't have very much because for one thing he couldn't afford it but he was probably one of those people who doesn't need very much alcohol to put them in a brooding and rather morose frame of mind. When he returned home, apparently he could be argumentative and difficult and my grandmother didn't like it. He acquired a bad reputation with other members of her family as being too fond of drink.

In fact, he was a lovely man but this was just his coping mechanism because he couldn't speak about what he had experienced and even if he had been able to tell them, they could not have understood. His is just one case among thousands.

My paternal great grandfather on the other hand never went to war. He was too old to be caught up in the 1914-18 conflict but he was a brilliant man and an extremely gifted designer of lace who, at times, made a lot of money. He was able in the late 1800s to buy a very sizeable house outright which was something that was beyond the means of most people but unfortunately he had a liking for alcohol. In those days, the licensing laws were much more lax than they are now and the pubs opened early in the morning. Never one to miss an opportunity, great grandfather would be in there for his breakfast and he would then send out the junior at work to collect a gallon jug of ale which great grandfather could quaff throughout the day while he was scribbling his brilliant lace designs on pieces of paper.

Unfortunately, my great grandmother, his wife, who had 10 children to support didn't see an awful lot of the Golden sovereigns which my great grandfather was paid for his work and the pub certainly saw more of them then she did! The only exception was his daughter, Kate, my grandmother who wasn't frightened of anybody and who on more than one occasion cracked him over the head with a heavy object when he was getting just a little bit above himself due to the alcohol!

Tales of my great grandfather and his alcoholic antics made me laugh when I was a child but I can certainly appreciate that things were not so rosy for his family who had to live with him. Some people, I fear, have what are called addictive personalities. Sometimes it's alcohol, sometimes it's hard drugs and sometimes it's nicotine. It can also be chocolate or a type of behaviour or anything that someone feels they can't live without.

I suppose I'm fortunate in that I appreciate a glass or two of red wine at the weekends but if someone told me I could never have another one, I wouldn't really miss it and I suppose the same goes for anything else...except perhaps for cats and Bach! Couldn't live without them!

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  • 1 year later...
On Thursday, February 21, 2008 at 4:09 PM, Beefsteak said:

I can see a certain Mr Rooney falling by the wayside also

 

Mystic Beef! See Old Rooney been charged with drink driving ...... in a VW Beetle? Thinking about it, it's not the first time he's been caught in an old banger!

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37 minutes ago, radfordred said:

 

Mystic Beef! See Old Rooney been charged with drink driving ...... in a VW Beetle? Thinking about it, it's not the first time he's been caught in an old banger!

I think the old banger mentioned, predated the beetle. each to there own.

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