Missed Opportunities

Picture the scene.

Early 1960's and you've just left school. You think you want to work in the building trade, but without getting your hands dirty. Something like surveying or planning perhaps.

A job for life, because back in the Sixties, jobs were for life. Back in the Sixties you could leave your job in the morning and be in gainful employment in the afternoon.

So, after some careful thought you decide that college is the best route, after all you weren't quite academic enough for University. University was after all for the posher kids. Or those that went to grammar schools. You went to a grammar school but never really felt comfortable there. All of your friends went down the road to the Secondary Modern. That's where "workers" and "tradesmen" came from. Not from some fucking poncey grammar school, feeding elitism and breeding wimps.

You disliked grammar school but there was a salvation there. You made friends with some like minded kids of the the same age and formed a band. Yeah, a real band playing rock 'n' roll music with guitars and drums. Elvis and the pre-pious cliff were ruling the new hit parade. The Sixties were going to be a fast and furious decade of change, where the post war austerity of Britain, steeped in decades of age related hierarchy, where older people knew best and younger people aspired to be their parents, sat awkwardly alongside the very fledgling rebellious movements of teenage dreams and aspirations. Why should things be the same? Why fight a war and carry on as before? The band would be the route out.

Then school came to an end. You were a "man" now. Expected to work proper and contribute to the household finances. To find a nice girl, get a good job, have kids, buy a house, get a car.

Be normal.

So you go to college to get your building qualifications.

And one night you get a knock at the door. Standing at the door are your two mates from the band at school.

"Hello mate. We're forming a new band and we need a bass guitarist. Obviously we thought of you......fancy joining us"

"Oh yeah, what full time like?"

"Yeah, full time, proper stuff, writing our own songs, performing live. We wanna be big. And rich and famous"

"Well, it is tempting, but .....no thanks....I think I'll stick to college and get my building exams under my belt"

....some haggling continues for a while..........

"Alright mate, your choice. We'll find someone else. See you around"

"Cheers lads, yeah see you around"

You shut the door, you sigh. That was the logical choice wasn't it? Mum and Dad would have wanted you to make that choice. It was the safe bet. You'd have a job for life in the building trade. Yeah....it was the right choice.

But deep inside, there is a nagging feeling. Something tapping away all the time. You struggle with it for a few weeks, but in the end it subsides.

You were right all along.

And that my friends is how my Father in Law, The Grand Master himself, failed to become the bass guitarist in a band with his best mates from school.

Best mates that just happened to be Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend.

A band they called The Who.

They got some guy called John Enwhistle in the end, who died having just shagged some gorgeous hooker, having sniffed a pile of Charlie and drunk a bottle of wine.

I guess The Grand Master is laughing last now, being that he's still alive. But you can't help thinking about what he missed. I know he's had a good life, with lovely daughters, lovely grandchildren, great Son-in-Laws *jack takes a bow* and job security, but inside there must be just the tinge of curiosity about what might have been.

Later, Grocerjack