A 66-YEAR-OLD has confirmed that life when he was younger was uncomfortable and difficult at the same time as being wonderful in every way.
Norman Steele regularly tells his grandchildren that his childhood and youth were full of hardship and therefore far superior to the way people live now.
He explained: “There were no tellys or videogames or hamburgers back then. Instead we had corporal punishment, hand-washed our clothes and ate boiled cabbage for every meal.
“And that diet, and being regularly beated by sadistic teachers, and the back-breaking labour required to get a clean shirt, made me the man I am today who’s loads better than you because I grew up in a golden age.
“When I got married for the first five years we had nothing to sit on but an old tea-chest and in the winter of 1974 we had to burn that. And that marriage is still going strong today.
“University? I was working in my father’s joinery shop from the age of seven, and full-time at 14 because he only had one arm from the war. Men were men back then, and I’ve got the psychological scars to prove it, as well as a massive chip on my shoulder about how great it was.”
Hobbs’ granddaughter Francesca said: “We indulge grandpa and his nonsensical bollocks, but he’s got the biggest telly out of anyone I know.”
