A Father's Wisdom

During the arse-end of the industrial revolution, when I was living in a three-up-and-three-down in the arse-end of Manchester I loked through the front window one afternoon and saw a road laying crew at work. I wasn't much older than six or seven at the time.

I was impressed, and a little thrilled by the road laying machinery; particularly the machine that was pouring bitumenised gravel on the road surface. It was followed by a trail of smoking tarmac and flames occasionally burst out of the base of the hopper. Riding on the back of the machine were two men in donkey coats, and sometimes it looked like the flames might reached out to lick their boots and trousers.

"Ee," I said, "I w'u'n't 'alf like a dangerous job like that, when I grow up."

Dad looked through the window quickly and shot me a look of complete disgust.

"Don't be bloody daft." he said. He went on; "Gummo, there's people in this world as works wi' the' brains, and people as works wi' the' brawn. An' it's them as works wi' the' brains as gets al't' brass."

Then he went back to reading his copy of Reveille. He was stuck on page three. He always got stuck on page three of Reveille.