At the time we were
young and foolish with a great desire to elevate ourselves to a higher social
level, later we were to learn just how foolish we were, it took about forty
years. However in those early days we joined a very posh country club. I think the
entry fee was about three week’s wages and it catapulted into a local society
we could not really keep pace with financially. But the main core of the
members knew I was a corporal in the RAF and treated Syb and I with kindness
and understanding. We were only allowed to buy one round of drinks a night.
Naturally the members apart from us were well heeled members of the local set
and had no concept of how low a corporal’s wages really were. So a round of
drinks was about equivalent to a week’s groceries in fact we almost starved
ourselves to keep up our membership.
One night after I
had bought my round, get in before the place filled up, we got on to bottles of
Champaign. Syb had gone home before we really started my benefactor was buying
and could drink them fairly rapidly, and I was keeping up with the rest of him.
I don’t know how much I had to drink but when I left with a friend we were
ready to marvel at the plainest things. “Come over here Mike and look in this
window it’s beautiful”. In front of the window was a coal shute to the boiler
and as I wandered over to the window I suddenly disappeared. Somehow I went
head first down the shute landing on a pile of coke which buried itself into my
head. When I came round high above me I could see the flame of a cigarette
lighter and this plaintive voice “Where are you Mike? Mike where are you?” I
cannot remember how I got home but when I walked into our bedroom with blood
running down my face Syb had a fit but I was still anesthetized and found it
terribly funny.
Next time I went to
the there I told the owner what had happened just because he had not covered the
coal shute properly. From then on I never paid for another meal at the club.
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