I've not been one to start a fight, and am the kind of person that if anything is said about me, I keep it to myself and can laugh it off, most of the time.
But if anyone does anything to someone that I love, then that person would not know what had hit them.
One night I had had a great night out with friends, but as soon as I opened the front door I could tell that something was up.
I walked in to find that Gary, my brother in law, was in one of his well know paranoid mad moods and had smashed the front room up, as well as hit my sister, this had me already angry but when he went off again as soon as I had looked at him he threw a mug at me which missed me but hit my mum.
I just lost it and saw red, literally, and as he was about to start laying into my sister again, I ran up to him, got my arm around his neck and dragged him back.
I could hear my dad in the background shouting at me not to get involved, but I was in a rage myself and had only one thing on my mind.
I'd put Gary on the floor, and when he saw me he was shocked to see me ready to smash his face in.
I yelled at him to pick on someone who was more his size instead of women.
He just kept saying , "ok, ok" and ran out of the house.
I was about 16 at the time.
Thankfully, nothing else happened for years, until I got married.
The first instance was only after a couple of months of marriage, when my so called brother in law (wife's sister's husband) tried it on with my wife.
I came home from work one day to find my wife deeply upset and crying in the bedroom. After she told me what happened, that the fat bastard tried it on - while he had his two kids there as well - I went straight up there and banged on their door. his wife answered the door, I told her I wanted to see him, she asked me in but I refused, looking back, it would have been better if I went in confronted him in front of her as well, although I'm sure that she wouldn't believe me.
He came to the door as if nothing had happened, but as soon as I started threatening him he started to panic and it looked like he was going to start crying. He begged me not to say anything to his wife, and to this day she knows nothing about it...but her parents do.
We used to go to the local community centre every week for a drink, there was a bloke there that took a fancy to my wife, that was soon stopped when I stood up to him. At one stage we were face to face but he backed down.
Sunday, 16 February 2020
Thursday, 13 February 2020
Family stories
Over the years, my dad told me a few stories about various family members, most of them were about his dad, my granddad. Whether a lot of them were true or not though is another thing. Of course at the time they seemed great, but as time went on, I wondered if the truth had been embellished, especially as I have never been able to clarify some of the facts through the internet.
I was told that John "Fred" Mason played football for Southampton sometime in the twenties, though I have gone through old Southampton archives and not seen anyone called Mason play for the Saints around that time.
I was also told a story that Fred knocked out the champion of Bermuda in a bar. He was annoyed that this local bloke was bullying some other locals so he went up to him and punched him on the nose and he hit the floor sparko.
When he was told that the bloke on the floor was the heavyweight champion of Bermuda, Fred and the others from his ship did a runner!
He also managed to catch a Great White Shark while fishing from the back of a merchant ship!!
The following stories though seem more plausible.
My grandma was known to be a bit of a nosey busybody and a nagger, she was always nice to me but of course by then,40 odd years later, a lot of vitriol must have died down!!
Apparently she was quite vicious in her own way.
* On the day of her wedding to Fred, she spoke to her dad outside of the church and told him, "You won't be able to tell me what to do now".
Allegedly, he didn't say anything, just hit her straight in the face and then told her, "You ain't married yet girl".
She walked down the aisle with her arm on her dad wearing a great big black eye.
* Fred took his wife to a football match, (yes, Southampton), in those days women didn't normally go to football matches, but she nagged and nagged at him to find out what she was missing out on, so Fred, weary of her voice, eventually took her.
She wanted to wear her best and biggest hat. Fred told her not to wear it but she wouldn't listen to him (as usual). So there they were, standing on the packed terraces at The Dell, and the hat was getting in the way of other supporters from seeing what was happening. Despite various complaints from blokes on the terraces, the hat was not coming off...that was until one bloke had enough and deliberately knocked it off her head, where it got "accidently" stomped on.
"Fred", she whined, "Ain't you going to do something about that?"
The reply was, "Nope, you've been told all day that you shouldn't wear a hat here"
* War had just broken out, and my dad was on the milk cart with his dad, coming home from morning's deliveries (The Mason family had their own milk business at the time).
"Well Nip, (that was my dad's nickname), I reckon I'll be going back to the (Merchant) Navy, I've thought about it and reckon that I should do my bit....now I've just got to go and tell your bloody mother!!",
It seemed that Fred would rather face the Atlantic and Russian convoy's then his wife!!
Talking of "war stories", my dad told me a few others as well of his own experience during that time.
He was never evacuated, why I don't know, when the majority of kids of his age were sent away at the outbreak of war...maybe his mum nagged the evacuation officials so much that they decided that it would be easier for them if he stayed where he was!
He would tell me that he would go upstairs in their Bermondsey house to watch the air-raids...why the hell didn't they go to one of the local air raid shelters or undergrounds stations I don't know!
After one air raid, he saw a man decapitated by a shop window which had been blown out after an explosion shattered the glass.
How his gran down in Southampton had died during an air raid, not due to bombs, but by having a heart attack after getting stuck in the doorway of an Anderson shelter.
His granddad had a house where the garden went onto the back of Southampton Common, where there was a Prisoner of War camp, where my dad and his cousin used to go down to the bottom of the garden and speak to some of the German POW's and their granddad also used to pass them food sometimes....what with that and the fact that my own granddad was sunk on virtually every ship he was on, and on a couple of occasions in the Atlantic, the U-Boat that sunk them would pop up and tow them until they reached around 200 miles to Ireland, while on another occasion, the ship he had been on then mysteriously blew up in dry dock...sometimes I wonder which side of the war my dad's family were on!!
My dad had loads of stories about the war, my mum only had two.
Unlike my father, my mum was evacuated, this was probably partly because her family lived in Hackney in the East End of London, which would experience a lot of bombings, but also as she suffered from very bad asthma and suffered from pneumonia when she was young. She was originally to be evacuated to Canada, but for some unknown reason she didn't go. The ship that she would have gone on was the SS City of Benares, this ship was torpedoed by U-48 on the 17th September 1940. 77 of the 90 kiddies evacuated lost their little lives.
Instead, she was evacuated to the Isle of Wight, where she was sent to a Catholic School and looked after by nuns, not easy for any child, so definitely not for a protestant girl!
My mum certainly didn't have any kind words for the nuns either!
One day, the kids were out for their walk, which they did every day when a fighter plane swooped down close and flew past the children a couple of times, only thing was, the plane was a Messerschmitt 109!
As it came down, the pilot waved at the children and then flew off.
A couple of days later, and again while the kids were on their walk, a Messerschmitt 109 flew low, then banked behind them and then started to strafe the children who had to then run for their lives. Thankfully none of the children were killed or even injured. Whether or not it was the same pilot of course it will never be known.
I was told that John "Fred" Mason played football for Southampton sometime in the twenties, though I have gone through old Southampton archives and not seen anyone called Mason play for the Saints around that time.
I was also told a story that Fred knocked out the champion of Bermuda in a bar. He was annoyed that this local bloke was bullying some other locals so he went up to him and punched him on the nose and he hit the floor sparko.
When he was told that the bloke on the floor was the heavyweight champion of Bermuda, Fred and the others from his ship did a runner!
He also managed to catch a Great White Shark while fishing from the back of a merchant ship!!
The following stories though seem more plausible.
My grandma was known to be a bit of a nosey busybody and a nagger, she was always nice to me but of course by then,40 odd years later, a lot of vitriol must have died down!!
Apparently she was quite vicious in her own way.
* On the day of her wedding to Fred, she spoke to her dad outside of the church and told him, "You won't be able to tell me what to do now".
Allegedly, he didn't say anything, just hit her straight in the face and then told her, "You ain't married yet girl".
She walked down the aisle with her arm on her dad wearing a great big black eye.
* Fred took his wife to a football match, (yes, Southampton), in those days women didn't normally go to football matches, but she nagged and nagged at him to find out what she was missing out on, so Fred, weary of her voice, eventually took her.
She wanted to wear her best and biggest hat. Fred told her not to wear it but she wouldn't listen to him (as usual). So there they were, standing on the packed terraces at The Dell, and the hat was getting in the way of other supporters from seeing what was happening. Despite various complaints from blokes on the terraces, the hat was not coming off...that was until one bloke had enough and deliberately knocked it off her head, where it got "accidently" stomped on.
"Fred", she whined, "Ain't you going to do something about that?"
The reply was, "Nope, you've been told all day that you shouldn't wear a hat here"
* War had just broken out, and my dad was on the milk cart with his dad, coming home from morning's deliveries (The Mason family had their own milk business at the time).
"Well Nip, (that was my dad's nickname), I reckon I'll be going back to the (Merchant) Navy, I've thought about it and reckon that I should do my bit....now I've just got to go and tell your bloody mother!!",
It seemed that Fred would rather face the Atlantic and Russian convoy's then his wife!!
Talking of "war stories", my dad told me a few others as well of his own experience during that time.
He was never evacuated, why I don't know, when the majority of kids of his age were sent away at the outbreak of war...maybe his mum nagged the evacuation officials so much that they decided that it would be easier for them if he stayed where he was!
He would tell me that he would go upstairs in their Bermondsey house to watch the air-raids...why the hell didn't they go to one of the local air raid shelters or undergrounds stations I don't know!
After one air raid, he saw a man decapitated by a shop window which had been blown out after an explosion shattered the glass.
How his gran down in Southampton had died during an air raid, not due to bombs, but by having a heart attack after getting stuck in the doorway of an Anderson shelter.
His granddad had a house where the garden went onto the back of Southampton Common, where there was a Prisoner of War camp, where my dad and his cousin used to go down to the bottom of the garden and speak to some of the German POW's and their granddad also used to pass them food sometimes....what with that and the fact that my own granddad was sunk on virtually every ship he was on, and on a couple of occasions in the Atlantic, the U-Boat that sunk them would pop up and tow them until they reached around 200 miles to Ireland, while on another occasion, the ship he had been on then mysteriously blew up in dry dock...sometimes I wonder which side of the war my dad's family were on!!
My dad had loads of stories about the war, my mum only had two.
Unlike my father, my mum was evacuated, this was probably partly because her family lived in Hackney in the East End of London, which would experience a lot of bombings, but also as she suffered from very bad asthma and suffered from pneumonia when she was young. She was originally to be evacuated to Canada, but for some unknown reason she didn't go. The ship that she would have gone on was the SS City of Benares, this ship was torpedoed by U-48 on the 17th September 1940. 77 of the 90 kiddies evacuated lost their little lives.
Instead, she was evacuated to the Isle of Wight, where she was sent to a Catholic School and looked after by nuns, not easy for any child, so definitely not for a protestant girl!
My mum certainly didn't have any kind words for the nuns either!
One day, the kids were out for their walk, which they did every day when a fighter plane swooped down close and flew past the children a couple of times, only thing was, the plane was a Messerschmitt 109!
As it came down, the pilot waved at the children and then flew off.
A couple of days later, and again while the kids were on their walk, a Messerschmitt 109 flew low, then banked behind them and then started to strafe the children who had to then run for their lives. Thankfully none of the children were killed or even injured. Whether or not it was the same pilot of course it will never be known.
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