"Look!  I'll pay for all my own if you like, Pearson."

"Have we finished here then?" I said, before things took a more serious turn. "We could get in a few frames of snooker before going on for a drink. We can talk and play at the same time there. Come on. We can listen to records tomorrow. You coming Bill or still sulking?" I said grinning, his blank expression telling me he couldn't think of a clever retort.

But we couldn't leave until we had had our customary session in front of the large mirror over the mantle shelf:  Billy up on his toes, Pearson stooping down, and Derek trying to fit himself in between.  As for me, I always used cheap Brilliantine, neat, the kind that set like cement.

Given that our dispositions we were so very different, we got along surprisingly well. Gradually, however, through our relationships with women, we inevitably drifted apart (and  in  my  case, to entirely new ground). We were, I suppose, just leisure acquaintances, not really close friends.

As each summer came and went, it felt as if the warm sunny days were becoming fewer. So unless we spent at least a couple of days at the seaside, those days would have passed by even more unsatisfactorily. A visit to Roath Park and the boating lake in Cardiff just wasn't good enough. For us kids, summer meant going to the seaside, to Barry or Porthcawl. It sort of put a seal on things.

Faraway places were too expensive     or so we were told. Besides, those resorts couldn't boast of anything more for us to see or do. And anyway, who wanted the misery of all that travelling? As a child, I thought that it was just a waste of good sunshine and play. And back then, a holiday abroad wasn't even heard of.

When in our twenties, Malcolm and I purchased an Austin A40 pick-up van, which had an open back for carrying building materials. Unfortunately, the front cab could only seat two people. On this particular occasion, the problem was how we could use it to take Mam and our three sisters Carole, Lyn, and Trudy, to Porthcawl for the day. It was our day off, the sun was out, and Mam knew we'd have a few bob to spare.  Before we had arrived home, she'd already decided to go.

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