This has not been my best week. I have been riddled with flaming pleurisy. If you have never had pleurisy, then I hope you never discover it. If you have, you will know how bloody painful it is.

The credit crunch is well and truly with us now, although I am not absolutely certain just exactly what a credit crunch is. Visa cards and the rest of them are still writing to me offering credit. Back in the 60’s and early 70’s we had something called hirer purchase. I remember buying a wireless on hirer purchase. First I had to fill in a form in the shop and then take the form and get is signed by my local vicar and the sergeant at Castletown police station. How the local vicar was in a position to say my credit was good, God only knows, as it was the first time we had ever met. Anyway I got my wireless and paid 13 shillings a month for who knows how long. There was many an evening I cursed buying the wireless as I worked until 7 at night trying to get it paid off. Incidentally I don’t think I ever did thank Geoff Clayton, my mate who was the sergeant’s son for forging his dad’s signature. I don’t think I had a bank account until I was about 30. Up until then, I was always paid with a weekly wage packet. There was no point in opening a bank account. Once I had given mother her whack, I spent what was left and there was never enough left over to save or shove away in a bank account. So, I had pound notes in my pocket and when they were gone, they were gone. I simply can’t imagine what life would have been like if the good folk of Janet’s Corner had been given plastic cards, and could wander into a big shop, buy half the shop with money they didn’t have, and then get a load of cash back at the counter. The card for most of us would have been the key to utopia. Thank Heavens we never had them.

Until tomorrow then this is Tom Glassey on the banks of the Silverburn River.