Looking Back

Ron Watts recalls memories and tells jokes

My fellow contributor, Les Lawrence, thinks he is boring but, as regular readers will know, he is not in the same league as I am. I was in the England team for boring until I was disqualified for sending the judges to sleep. That was against the rules because to be really good at boring you must keep your victim awake. Les is not boring I love to read his observations on life for his disconcerting readers. He is something of an enigma however. He has told us that he doesn't like looking back, he likes to look forward to the future. Who would disagree that it is the future that matters - the past is the past and there's no changing it whereas the future does depend to some extent on the actions we take today. He claims to remember so little of his early life that he wonders if he was 27 when he was born, but he does seem to remember very clearly that he left school before he was 14. He also remembers how much he disliked the steam engines that drove the threshing machines and he has made reference to aspects of the past that he obviously enjoyed, like the 'Old Tyme Music hall'.

Now I agree with Les, the future is important and it is to the future that I look. Nevertheless, being of a similar age to Les, I'd rather look back 30 years than forward the same amount. I am fortunate in that I have had a good life this far and a good marriage, a lovely daughter and now a lovely grand-daughter and I take great pleasure in looking back on all the good times, I can wallow in nostalgia and I am sorry that that is a pleasure denied to Les.

For those like me I have put together a random selection of a few names, phrases etc that might trigger a few memories:

I could go on, of course, but why don't some of you have a go at jogging our memories. Perhaps not so far back. Does the name Gilbert Harding mean anything to you?

Les also remembered that in days of yore jokes were clean, not smutty. Well, just for his benefit, since it seems he is not a TV or radio fan, and for anyone that missed them, here are two clean jokes that were broadcast recently:

The Canadian Tourist Board is concerned at the risk presented by bears to visitors to the wilds. They advise visitors to wear a bell to warn bears of their approach and to carry a pepper spray for defence in case of attack. They also inform visitors that the grizzly bear is more dangerous than the brown bear and that it is advisable to watch for signs of the two types. They suggest watching out for bear droppings. Brown bear droppings, they say, normally show evidence of their diet of berries and other vegetation. Grizzly droppings, on the other hand, normally contain pieces of bell and smell of pepper.

A man meets his friend after work on a Friday and they go for a drink. The whole weekend becomes a drinking binge and the man doesn't go home until the Sunday evening. The next Friday he sees his friend again "How did you get on when you got home last week?" he asks. The man replies "The wife was furious. She said 'How would you like it if you didn't see me for three days' so I said 'I wouldn't mind that at all'. Well I didn't see her on the Monday or the Tuesday but by the Wednesday evening I could just open my left eye enough."

Ron Watts