An extraordinary gang of old pals have met up at the same pub for a pint every Thursday - for a staggering 56 years.
The band of friends, aged between 78 and 83, have visited The White Swan in Sheffield, South Yorks., for their weekly catch-up since 1968.
And although their conversations have shifted from “soccer and sex” to “pensions and prostates”, they have religiously kept up the "invaluable" tradition.
Peter Thirlwall said he inadvertently helped found the meetups when he started going for a pint with his neighbour Paul Haynes after rounds of golf.
The group later swelled to include seven core members, including Bill Munden, Ken King, Brian Ayres, Dick Cotton, and Mick Sorby.
The band of friends, aged between 78 and 83, have visited The White Swan in Sheffield, South Yorks., for their weekly catch-up since 1968.
And although their conversations have shifted from “soccer and sex” to “pensions and prostates”, they have religiously kept up the "invaluable" tradition.
Peter Thirlwall said he inadvertently helped found the meetups when he started going for a pint with his neighbour Paul Haynes after rounds of golf.
The group later swelled to include seven core members, including Bill Munden, Ken King, Brian Ayres, Dick Cotton, and Mick Sorby.
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00:00Ken King, 80, Nick Cotton, 81, Paul Haynes, 79, Brian Ayres, 83, Bill Mundon, 78, Peter
00:17Thirlwall, 78, nearly 79.
00:33We've been doing it for such a long time, I know these guys very well, they're my best
00:38friends and I know that when I get here we're going to have a lot of laughs and when I leave
00:47I'm going to have a smile on my face which will last for a long time.
00:51That's because he's been drinking.
00:56Well I think it's lasted for 56 years because of the camaraderie, we all have the same values
01:02in life and we've all got a great sense of humour.
01:08So we just tell jokes, we tell stories, we've done so many things over the years, you can't
01:14just do this based on meeting up on a Thursday, we've done other things, we've run marathons
01:20together, we've played golf together, all sorts of things so we've got this bond now.
01:28We've done marathons, we've done long walks, we started off doing the lightweight walk
01:32which was 42 miles across the North Yorkshire Moors and at that point we weren't walkers.
01:39Hey, don't forget the star walk.
01:42Oh well I'm talking about mine, these are my memories, you can talk about the star walk.
01:50He's only saying that because he passed me on the last 100 yards going into the stadium.
01:55And I learnt some new words that day that he said to me as I went past on my way.
02:02Instead of meeting in the pub because of lockdown, we started a Zoom meeting and that enabled
02:11us also to get a couple of guys, one in Australia and one in Pittsburgh to join in and it worked
02:21wonderfully well and we do it once a month with the guy in Australia and the guy in the
02:29States, just the same, so we keep them informed of what's happening.
02:34Not forgetting Melling, the Eastbourne.
02:37Not on a Thursday night though, we can't let them interfere with Thursday night, we do
02:42it first Tuesday in the month I think.
02:45We did our original Zoom to replace Thursday night in lockdown, we did that on Thursday
02:51and then when it all finished we thought we can't really just forget these other lads
02:56so we carried it on on a Tuesday night.
02:58It must help with longevity as well because look at all us lot, there's only me and Peter
03:03that are not 80 yet.
03:06I'm not 80 yet.
03:08You're 80 shortly.
03:10He's got days.
03:12He's joining the senior group next week rather than junior members.
03:17We're junior members.
03:19We had the advantage of growing up in the rock and roll years without mobile phones or any
03:29of that and so we're a different generation to the kids that might want to start something
03:36like this now.
03:37They do everything over media and Facebook.
03:39We didn't have mobile phones.
03:41It's all rock and roll, I mean some of us used to go to ballroom dancing and so didn't
03:47we?
03:48We did, yes.
03:49You were crap at that and all.
03:50I was, I was.
03:51But it did, I did learn to talk a lot, to take the mind off the phone.
03:57I was going to say that we didn't have mobile phones but now we have mobile aids.