Tuesday 13 January 2009

Four Musketeers!

This afternoon I spent something like three hours enjoying myself purely because I was in the company of friends. When one talks about a lifetime of friendship these are relatively new friends. They are locals and have been all of their lives and I am not. They have known each other for all that time and they have so much in common.

I have survived in life's jungle because I had a good education which served me well but these guys have survived through their practical ability and integrity. They swop stories about their lack of academic ability and can laugh at the world because they successfully brought up decent families and made provision for their old age.

There was not one silver spoon at that table, no dark secrets about dirty business methods, none of them I am sure have ever made money by cheating their mates and here we are happy and relatively comfortable. This is the difference between those who are greedy and those who were honest and made families their priority.

I think that our gathering was testimony to a generation who have been lucky but who deserved their luck. We came from a background of toil and endeavour. We can now watch the world recover from hypocrisy, greed and dishonesty. Is it not time that any subsequent government harness the working class ethic that was the platform for the success of our country in the past?

Someday, somebody will ask our surviving pensioners...how did you do it?

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