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I go back a long way.

Category: So many hobbies. | Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2023 10:17 am

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Hi,

My first blog so I'll start at the beginning. Kids these days think 40 is old age; I must be regarded as a dinosaur now aged 75 going on 76.

I was born to a coal mining family in 1947 knowing real poverty and hardship. No electricity in our one bedroomed miners cottage until I was five years old. I suffered severe asthma until I grew out of it at 11 years old; lots of early schooling was missed and often I was too ill to play out with school chums.

I hated sport because I had such a rough time of it with asthma and even now I dislike sport with a passion. I don't see the point of kicking a ball around or paying to watch someone kick a ball around when I can be doing something much more interesting like watching paint dry.

Aged 11 I finally had a school eye exam and with new glasses and my asthma gone my life turned around; we moved to a brand new three bedroomed council house and also a new school. We lived there for 11 years then moved to a private three bedroomed detached house.

When I could play out my childhood was wonderful building tree dens; caving our girlfriends initials onto trees and doing what kids did in those days; lads carried big sheave knives and we had air pistols but no one was ever attacked unlike now when knife crime is rife. The only time I ever got six of the best from the headmaster was when he entered the classroom and I was too busy to notice whilst carving my girl friends initials on the inside of my desk top. Happy days.

I left school aged 15 and went straight down a deep coal mine as an apprentice mechanical engineer; I caught up so much with schooling in my last four years at school I passed the mining exam and even passed their medical.

Now in the adult world my life really changed; the engineers were highly skilled teaching me not only their skills but about life in general; if I cheeked the engineers I was treated very roughly; if I was near the blacksmiths forge and I was caught they would thrust me head first up to shoulders into the 45 gallon water butt; it could have been worse because there was also a 45 gallon whale oil butt.

I don't like sport; politics or religion but I do like learning many new skills.

My current hobby is learning to play my violins. In 1976 when I married my lovely wife we were strapped for money having a huge mortgage; one day we visited a second hand furniture store it being on two levels; as we climbed the stairs to the second level there was a very old violin attached to the wall; this intrigued me but I didn't ask the price knowing we had so little money.

The thought of this violin has remained with me for many years until in 2021 when my wife generously offered to buy me anything at all I'd like for my birthday in August; there wasn't anything I could think of then the violin popped into my head and I gratefully accepted a brand new Hidersine Vivente violin complete with case and bow; enough for now but I've a lifetimes stories to tell.

Kind regards, Colin.

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