A non-alcoholic journey, “luckily”

By Ron Thomas

I’m 63 years old, I was born and bred in the west end of Newcastle of a good family and both parents, 2 brothers and 3 sisters, went to a local school and eventually left school on a Friday afternoon and started work on a Monday as was tradition at the time, this was in the 1960s. I worked all over the country and I realise now the expectations at the time were to go to school, then to work, obviously drink, obviously smoke, and then at weekends was the time that you could enjoy your life and I suppose when we finally went drinking in the pubs we were classed as binge drinkers because we only drank really on the Friday night and the Saturday night until such times we eventually joined a local social club where then it was Saturday night and Sunday mornings and very few people were there on a Sunday night because they were back at work on a Monday morning and I suppose you eventually settle down and you get your own family and tradition has always been part of the family life where as I said earlier you go to work and you have a drink in your pub and then you go to a club and I suppose looking back on it I followed a well trod path. Nothings been untoward as such when looking back so I’ve been very very fortunate and I often think when I look at the notes I’ve just done today this is a very simplistic view of the last 63 years especially regarding alcohol which hasn’t been a problem at all.