Moo, maybe you are too nice a person - I'd go along with that and admire it. But let me tell you how 'the other half' lived.
When I was eight years old, living in Dundas Street, there was a guy (I won't to this day, name him) who lived on the opposite corner, near the bus stop. This man was reputed to OWN a dredger crew, lock stock and barrel. It was said that four men (AT LEAST) had been hauled out of the Wear and taken out to sea with a concrete block around his feet. And every Monday morning, he gave me a lollipop, which we kids couldn't dream of buying in the times of rationing. One morning, he was talking to another man, handed me a lollipop and, as I walked away, I heard him say : "Nice manners, that boy, always had time for him". And I learned from that that 'nice manners' meant something.
Ever since then, I tried to be a nice man. But the trouble with today is that - all to often - it is thought if you're not an habitual 'tough guy', you can't be. I try, Moo, I honest to god try. But, as Kiwi says, there comes a time, y'know. Do some of these snide, smart-arsed little pricks really know the taste of the flick-Knife across your face? Do they? Why the hell do guys who knew the real hard days have to take their ****?
Moo, I would love - sincerely love - to live in your world. That's the man I always aspired to be. But sometimes you get tempted into playing their game, y'know, and I go back in my mind to the bomb-sites, the flick-knives and the broken bottles of the Pineapple Arms in 1958... 'Hey, you want it, asshole? - Effin c'mere'. I'm sorry, Moo. I genuinely repeat, I try quite hard to be a nice man. But there are always going to be the smartarses today who think they know better.
C'mere, sonny boy - I wouldn't think twice before slitting you. That's my fu*king Sunderland! Can you take it?
