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  • Writer's pictureAlan Nield

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A NORTHERN MONKEY!

It's taken a while, I'm not going to lie, but the basis of the new website is back up and running!


I totally ducked out of the eye of most but my closest relatives for a long time, even coming away from social media on occasions too. However, I've decided to stop being a miserable, grumpy old duffer and crack on with life.


So here you will find a little bit about what I've done, what I do and what I'm going to do! Sounds exciting doesn't it. More about that in the next few days.


I think that most people who view this site will know most of what I've done, some will have an idea of what I currently do, but nobody (not even Mrs Al) knows what I'm going to do! #Boom But just for now, let me start back in the spotty faced years...


I suppose that I've had a varied life and I've very often felt that I've never achieved what I either could, or wanted to, much to my frustration. My first ever job was as a skating assistant at Roller City in Rochdale. It was/is a roller skating rink, which was at the time owned by controversial comic Bernard Manning and my job was to skate around and pick up the people who fell on the floor. I was 13 years old, but due to my height, they believed I was 16. I was paid £6 per 2hr session back then, cash in hand. Two, sometimes three sessions a day and I felt rich. I was working Saturday and Sunday every weekend, most days during the school holidays and sometimes Friday nights too. I was riding high and earning a bucket full of money for a teen of my age back in 1982. Sadly, things only lasted that summer, until someone grassed me up for being underaged and I was promptly relieved of my duties...


I then just remember going with the flow through school, sometimes helping out our next door neighbour in their scrap metal business. Driving the fork trucks around the yard was pretty cool for a kid of my age. Health and Safety just wasn't what it is today! Once again, the cash in hand was fantastic, plus I'd get in some babysitting shifts of an evening too. Always the entrepreneur. While working for the scrap metal company, I was working alongside a guy who, years later, was convicted of murdering two elderly sisters, who lived together in the town where we grew up. Strangely enough, I've tried to research names and places, but Google is telling me that the info I am looking for has been removed??? #Weird


By the time I was 16, I had left school, was attending Oldham Technical College to re-sit all the exams that I'd flunked at school and had started working as a lifeguard at the local Crompton Swimming Pool. This had seemed like a natural life path for me. I had been swimming there since I was a toddler, I played Waterpolo for a few years and the coach of my team was the manager there, my Mum worked and taught swimming there, my then girlfriend worked there and my future wife ALSO worked there!!! #Ouch Things were clearly starting to get complicated and I needed to sort all this hormonal shit out and quickly!


-- TO BE CONTINUED --

Wales (I think) back when I was still in single figures!

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