STAN CULLIMORE

VOICES OF THE WEST COUNTRY

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YOUNG people have been a bit of theme in these columns recently, so I hope you won't mind if I mention them once more. Can’t help myself. Mainly because I think they’re such marvellous and wonderful things. They bring joy to the heart and satisfaction to the soul. I think they're the cats pyjamas. Got thinking about all this when I dropped in on an old friend last week.

Of course, he wasn’t the young person involved, perish the thought. He's the same enormous age as me. We've known each other for nearly 50 years, met up at school and have been hanging out sniggering at silly stuff ever since. No, the young person who set me off thinking happy thoughts was his lovely little daughter. Though, to be fair, she’s not so little these days. All properly grown up, with a flat, a job and a most exciting life in Manchester, from all accounts.

But of course that’s now, back when we first met her many, many years ago, she was just a tiny new born baby, and we were just the big folk who were babysitting her big brother. Over the years I got very fond of these two kids, they were fun to spend time with and seemed to enjoy the nonsense that I spouted endlessly at them.