Working in Saudi 30 years ago, heading down to the Red Sea for a quiet weekend on the beach with an aussie couple. They have security check points every 50 miles or so. I hate the word c*** but the aussie was. He tried to give it large at the checkpoint and they weren't having any of it. The guns came out, me and the aussie guy suddenly have guns against our faces, they are nervous as **** and the wives were screaming. I'd have given anything to back in The Chesters having a quiet beer. I don't like Saudi's after that but I like aussies even less!
He was gibbering wreck afterwards. We both were. But the **** his wife gave him humiliated him on the hospital campus.
It would be a relatively easy list for me, but I had the benefits from their lives. They were both born before WW1, lived with that along with deprivation of the twenties, the uncertainty of the thirties, WW2 where the old man was at Dunkirk and major battles in Burma and India. Mother was thrown in at the deep end of having to be a mother to six younger ones when she lost her mother, no other choice but to "get on with it". To turn the OP round, I doubt I could match either of their guts or determination so will say the did a bloody sight more than I did.
Love this post, my background is very similar in many ways and I share your sentiments completely, thanks mate.
