SAMMY

Whenever one walked into the local pub, Sammy was there. It was obvious that he considered himself exceptionally popular & the life & soul of the party. He would constantly make asides about the people that came into the bar for a quiet drink, sometimes ignoring the protests that were made to him by the other regulars. He would think nothing of denigrating the others that drank at his table when they were not there. He clouded his activities of his so-called long service in the Royal Navy with hints & well-worn sayings of Navy slang. He had the largest cauliflower ear I have ever seen. He received many free pints from the people that came to this holiday resort, by his remarks on the number of professional fights that he had had. To me he was a bit of a bore, & whilst I always called him by his Christian name, he referred to me as son. Now to him I may have looked young, & my service only consisted of four years in the Royal Navy during wartime, & even then I was glad to get out.

I was looking forward to Chris coming to stay for a week, because there are many lonely people about & I was one of them. Chris & I had known each other for some thirty years, & whilst I hadn't seen him for five years I knew that our friendship would carry on from where it had left off, not having to force conversation, but quite content to sit in each others company. He was a rough tough Liverpool lad whose parents had brought him over from Northern Ireland when he was a boy. He had spent his youth in the Mercantile Marine & later we both became qualified engineers in the power industry.

I knew that Chris had had quite a few professional fights in his young up & coming days & had been quite good. I in turn had had a few amateur fights, & as a heavyweight, if I was on to a hiding to nothing, I became the fastest runner in the square ring. I was a bit dubious about taking Chris to my local, however it was only round the corner & we could have quite a few pints together & talk over old times. As soon as we walked in Sammy bellowed out 'hello boy', 'morning Sammy' I replied. Chris & I bought our pints & then sat on a table in the corner; Sammy meanwhile seemed to have disappeared.

I see you've got Sammy down here then said Chris, yes I said do you know him? Chris related a tale from long ago, Sammy used to hang about the training gyms & would have been very pleased to get a bout. One evening when Chris was fighting a contest 'middle billing' as it were, a preliminary fight would have had to be postponed, as one of the contestants was sick. However, Sammy had volunteered to 'stand in'. It was his first & only fight. The bell rang for the first round, Sammy had come out from his corner, & walked into an almighty windmill blow that landed on his right ear & he went down for the count. But what about his sea time I asked. Well, we did hear a bit about it, said Chris, & as I understand it, he was in for two years, long after the war, but he had never gone to sea, & then his parent's bought him out.

Poor old Sammy, he was probably lonelier than I, & whilst a lot of us magnify the truth somewhat & are a bit prone to exaggeration, he was trying to make up for it by proving to himself how popular he was.

When Chris had gone home to 'the smoke', I again went round to my local. 'Morning Sammy' said I, 'morning boy' said Sammy. I smiled to myself, it was a lot easier to listen to him now, & at times, some of the things he remarked even caused me to chuckle.