Dads. What did yours do for a living?

Printing counterfeit tenners ?

 

My Dad had a terrible upbringing. He and his sis, my auntie jan, were often beaten by his dad. ( my auntie was a rebel, mind. Second woman here to own a motorcycle, first one to ride it up Cley Hill. A famous local hill here.)
They witnessed my gran getting thrown down the stairs and having her legs broken, etc. Them were the days. He and my auntie left home as soon as they could. Later, he tarmaced most of the roads around here, then met my mum and bought three houses, next to the river in the village of Mells down the road for £200.00. He did them up and sold them for £2000.00.(early ‘60’s). He then built a bungalow in Frome in the hope of selling it and moving to Australia.(£10.00 pom, in the ‘60’s). He had work lined up for us and another family, in a new township, putting the roads in. That fell through, as the man in the other family, came down with mumps. We were living in rented accommodation, and ready to go, so with the money from the bungalow, he was offered an old crop drying warehouse to turn into a lorry yard. He bought diggers and jcbs and moved Frome river to stop the town flooding. He put the weir in at the bottom of Welshmill. (@matty knows where I mean). We couldn’t get planning permission for another house, as the yard had big diesel tanks for the plant fuel. ( Hence living in a caravan). He never got paid for the river work, so went bankrupt, and had to sell everything he worked for. ( very early ‘70’s). He and two others, then went into Scrap Dealing, they were the first real ’recyclers’ around here. He then found out that the council were going to extend the Stonebridge estate right up to the front of our yard, which they did, so he sold up and bought a farm. Single handed, he built the farm up to be one of the top small holdings in the SW of England. Then Thatcher took it all away. He managed to sell the farm and come out of it bill free, with a 3 bedroom house for him and my mum. I moved out as they were transferring from the farm, to a rented bungalow in a village called Trudoxhill, then to their house, where my mum at 90 still lives now. He then started breeding Chevralaix (?) French sheep, and made money from that. He then became a shepherd and was on One Man and his Dog. It was more a hobby. So in his life, he did a lot, but never really worked for anyone, so to speak.
He died about 14 years ago.
The day after he died, we had massive storms and huge floods everywhere. Somerset levels.
The drs. are still baffled how he died, as all his internal organs swelled up in size , apparently.
I miss him.

 

He worked hard. I think people from his generation did, as a rule.

 

Sounds like a great guy

 

We had our family tree traced back to 1411, on my mothers side, but all records disappeared after my dads, dad. No trace of us anywhere. My auntie died a decade or so ago. Smoking killed her. I think she was 73.

 

My Dad was a bricklayer, left every morning in the dark in a time of no mobile phones and I remember sitting at home waiting hoping he would be back before I went to bed, he was a great dad and he went too young. I was a bit shocked to hear Sir Kier Starmers definition of a working person as someone without savings. So according to him my Dad wasn't a working person at all!!! And nether am I !!!

 

I remember asking my dad if he was working class. "I work don't I?". That was his definition.
My mother was an only child with just one cousin, they were like brother and sister. HE was not working class by my dad's definition, he lived on investments his father had made for him and just got richer as he inherited from here there and everywhere. Seemed like for 3 or 4 generations the family had been shrinking and whatever wealth it had became concentrated on fewer and fewer who's tendency was not to work and not have kids - maybe the maths didn't work out* if they had families and they'd have had to work! At one time "we" had whole streets in Brighton, a huge chemical works on the Isle of Dogs and one chap was one of the most successful Lloyd's underwriter in his day (decades without going bust lol), there's a plaque in the Lloyds building somewhere.

*I understand that having been in a similar position - live on a boat and retire frugally on savings or buy a house with savings and have to work to fund day to day life.

 

Working class people are rather lovely. That 's what I always tell the Below Stairs staff. They don't have much of a life, sadly.

 

Taking at a recent Techenders...

 

Just noticed the spurious apostrophe has gone. Excellent.

Punctuation, not grammar, dear boy.

 

Clarkson don’t bother me.



I think everyone on here is working class.



We have shirkers, workers and those that are lucky enough to have retired