The Welshman and The Black Dog

Hi all,
Read something written by my famous countryman Richard Burton "Show a Welshman 100 exits, he will choose the one marked "self destruction". Funny that, considering his own demise.

There is something melancholy about my culture though, I think it is the knowledge that for most of us this is all we will ever have. Born in village, go to pit/steelworks, get girl pregnant, have kid , drink/smoke yourself to death. Of course that has all changed now, now you can substitute work in heavy industry for B&Q/Draw the dole, and heroin for booze. Progress eh?

I chose a different path, and yet I am well aware that that was my alloted path too, if my parents had been less adept at making us think for ourselves and a bit less hardworking. Funny that. However I have been thinking that I have lost something as well as gained something.

My cousin died over the weekend. His name was Des Gorman, and he was very much older that I , older than my Dad even. Yet he was an intelligent, articulate kind and funny man, and seeing him when I was a child was always a treat. He also spoke with an RAF accent, as he was a tail gunner on Lancs in the war. He was shot down 3 times, and lived to get captured by the Nazis, lucky for him they were on their knees at the time, so his incarceration was brief. So he was a brave man as well. Now he is no more, and I cant help but think the world, well my world, is a poorer place without him.

I have been thinking there are lots of people I will not see again, and this is sad, but there is always a last time to see someone, and we don't really know when that last time is. It would be nice to remember this, cos I am sure we would all treat each other better if we held that knowledge in the forefront of our minds when we said "see you later, dude"

See Ya Later Dudes!

Mike