Bradford Elec Eng Reunion 2007
The 29th annual meet of the elec eng crew at Bradford took place on the weekend of the 29th June with a respectable, if somewhat fragmented attendance.
The weekend had been quickly re-arranged because the original date looked like being an attendance washout. As it happened, it became an H2O washout instead, with damp conditions finishing off what I understand to have been the wettest June since records began.
We met up on Friday night at the Shoulder of Mutton, which is thriving, probably because the clientele like the beer and the price! And at £1.41 a pint who can blame them. In attendance were Dave, Kev, Alan and Phil - the latter making his first attendance following a number of years absence – oh yes Sam and I were also there.
The news included - a rumour from Dave about going back to his roots in Norwich? Kev has stopped messing around with software and is now earning money as a sound engineer, which is really what he always wanted to do (only took 50 year to get it sorted out). Don’t know about Alan. Phil is a self employed businessman and, may I say, looking very well on it too. And of course we have had the year from hell – heart attacks, cancer, dead dog – but we also got married and moved house – so not so bad really, and let’s face it – nobody died – well not yet anyway.
We spent a few moments remembering absent friends and I decided to give PC a ring thinking he wouldn’t be there. I must say I was somewhat shocked when he picked up the phone as he’s been in silent exile for some years now. But he was there and he said he does still get the e-mails. As far as I could ascertain, he’s still in the same place, suffering from ‘difficult teenagers’ – but ain’t we all.
On future events we decided that next year (30th anniversary) we’ll go to Crete (or is it Corfu - I know it’s something beginning with ‘C’) and impose ourselves on Thornton. Maybe the alcohol had started to kick in by this time.
We had a few pints of Sam Smiths in the Shoulder of Mutton and then moseyed on up to the Bee Hive – not before though, having a drink in the Boy and Barrel. We nearly missed it, mainly because of a degree of reluctance on the part of the more conservative element in the bunch. You see it was belching karaoke into the street and, as we contemplated making an entrance, a young women in a group heading for the door said. ‘You can’t come in here luv, its full of lesbians’. Well, as you can imagine that sealed the deal. As it was, the pub may well have had lesbians in it, but as far as I could see, it was mostly nutters. So we had a quick pint whilst listening to some out-of-tune karaoke, being careful, of course, not to make eye contact with the locals for fear of getting our faces filled with broken glass.
Al enjoys himself at the Boy and Barrel
Phil and Kev enjoy themselves somewhat less
Dave enjoys himself the least
Andy is tollerated by Phil
