A group of friends have met up at the same pub, The White Swan, Sheffield, for a pint every Thursday for their weekly catch-up since 1968.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
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.