Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

What would the £10 buy? Newspaper story, birth certificate? Something else?

Death certificate. 1868 it was, so they existed. But it still won't have given me any back story ... even if it were a direct blood relation I'd not buy one.

LydiaJ

Pyxis wrote: »

Many years ago, I temporarily lived in a street where I got to know the residents in the two nearest houses. In the third house was a single guy. We all met socially occasionally at each other's houses, and we all offered to mind each other's kids, the single guy included, who had the children in one day to look at some old models of battleships or something. That was the only time.........

........Because of my circumstances, I and the children were very busy and were away a lot, so it never happened again.
A few years later, the single guy was arrested and convicted of sex offences against young boys. He apparently liked to target single mothers and worked with Cubs. I hadn't had a clue. It never occurred to me at all. I think we had all had a lucky escape.

That makes me shudder, Pyxis. Also, were you a single parent? I didn't realise that. If so, then hugs from one single parent to another.


Many years ago, my brother was involved in youth groups and things like that, and got to know a guy who did a lot of work with kids. This guy got to know our family, too, through visiting my brother. I think I was probably about 10, my brother was maybe 19, and the other bloke was early 20s. One day he contacted my family to say he was bringing a large group of young people up to Bristol from somewhere on the south coast, to go ice skating and then on to a community centre to watch a kids' film before being taken back to where they came from. We lived in Bristol, so he asked if I and a friend would like to join the group he was bringing. What could be safer - with a large group and everything? So my friend and I went. At the ice rink, my parents handed us over to my brother's friend. We went in and started skating, but he never introduced us to the large group. He just spend time skating with us - whizzing round with a little girl hanging onto each hand, faster than we'd have been able to go on our own. We had a great time. Then he "noticed the time", and "realised" that the group would already have left to go to the film. We took our skates off and left the rink. He said we should catch a bus to the area of Bristol where the community centre was. We wanted to walk half a mile to the bus station and find out how to get there, but he said he was sure it would be fine if we just waited at the nearest bus stop, so we did, and behold, within 5 minutes, along came a bus going to the right part of town. We got on it, and travelled to a residential area. He said we should just set off walking through these unremarkable residential streets and we'd be sure to find somewhere to eat. It seemed crazy to us, but we did, and sure enough, after a couple of minutes, there was a KFC, where he bought us food. Then we started walking again, apparently aimlessly, and a couple of minutes later my friend spotted the community centre across the road, so we went in and finally met the group, watched the film, and got safely picked up by our parents. These sort of amazing "coincidences" kept "just happening" to him, and he built up a reputation for doing crazy things that just magically seemed to work out just fine.

20 years later I heard he had been jailed for sexually abusing little boys in a youth group he was running. I looked back on that incident, and suddenly saw it for what it was - carefully planned, expertly executed, deliberate building of a reputation that would get people to trust him, and specific practice in detaching children from the adults responsible for them. We were never in any actual danger - it appears he was only interested in little boys, and even with them he liked to do his grooming gradually - but we so easily could have been.

Pyxis wrote: »

Maybe, maybe not. Doesn't make it any less of a gargantuan feat.

You've produced intelligent, able children whom some 'experts' had written off, by the sounds of things, and to do that has needed constant, massive effort on your part.
Not every parent would have put that amount of energy into it, repeatedly, over many years, let alone a parent with their own health problems to battle.

So :T, so there!

I agree with every word of that. Thank you for saying it so succinctly.

silvercar wrote: »

Well the child's other parent certainly didn't!

And that too. Thank you as well.

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

... clean my driveway.

It's just cleaning ... not a whole one newly fitted. If it looks clean, that's "job done" ...

How big? How much? Just out of interest, as it's never something I'd ever have done (I don't even have a driveway!). I have been looking at my patio slabs and thinking "you're mucky" - maybe in the summer I'll bleach/water them with a broom.

Pyxis

Yes, Lydia, I was. :eek:


The awful thing is that we can't go around mistrusting people, can we? That would be awful. Gut instinct can play a part but in my case, it's not always foolproof.




On the odd occasion that someone has offered to clean my front slabs, I tell them that I like the old, weathered (i.e. dirty) look! :rotfl:

It's quite funny, because the space under my car is always so much cleaner than the rest of it! Same with pots. You'd think the pots would make it dirty, but they seem to clean them!

silvercar

PasturesNew wrote: »

It's just cleaning ... not a whole one newly fitted. If it looks clean, that's "job done" ...

How big? How much? Just out of interest, as it's never something I'd ever have done (I don't even have a driveway!). I have been looking at my patio slabs and thinking "you're mucky" - maybe in the summer I'll bleach/water them with a broom.

It didn't look clean, it looked dirty. So he blasted them with a diesel powered jet wash, so now the bricks look red again. Unfortunately there seem to be areas where the bricks have moved with gaps in the middle (I don't know how the edges stay cemented in place, the number of bricks is the same, the pattern intact, but now there are gaps between the bricks??) The white walls are now mud splashed as are the windows and the open porch floor tiles are dirty.

We are talking about an area 60 ft x 20ft? Took him 4 hours, a hell of a lot of my metered water and a lot of effort. £250 cash.

silvercar

GDB2222 wrote: »

Thanks, Silver. I checked that link, and 1000 Avios gives £5 off airport parking. So 1700 does not even get you to the end of the runway, let alone on a flight!

Really you need to earn a few more and then have a trip to the zoo or something similar. Take out a credit card that gives you x thousand once you've spent £y.

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

... £250 cash.

OMG ..... O...M....G.

I had no idea! Blimey - for that much I'd be cleaning them individually with a toothbrush if I thought I'd get paid that much for it!

silvercar

PasturesNew wrote: »

OMG ..... O...M....G.

I had no idea! Blimey - for that much I'd be cleaning them individually with a toothbrush if I thought I'd get paid that much for it!

It would have taken us twice as long and we would have had to hire a jet washer...and they really were dirty.

One day hire of a pressure washer is £60+.

LydiaJ

Pyxis wrote: »

Yes, Lydia, I was. :eek:

The awful thing is that we can't go around mistrusting people, can we? That would be awful. Gut instinct can play a part but in my case, it's not always foolproof.

Agree entirely.

chris_m

silvercar wrote: »

£250 cash.

PasturesNew wrote: »

OMG ..... O...M....G.
I had no idea! Blimey - for that much I'd be cleaning them individually with a toothbrush if I thought I'd get paid that much for it!

For that much - I'd leave the darned things well alone