Mm Links July 2013 Week 1
Since Ulysses100 is not available, I, gen2, am posting the following on his behalf.
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Good Morning and Welcome to another month of pitting your wits to predict MM Link Words. This will be my third reign and in the past I was dubbed by crofter as “King Ulysses II” aka 'The Valiant'. Maybe I should now be “King Ulysses III”?
When I last set the link words (all of two and a half years ago) I marvelled over the life histories that have been described here, but mine was not as privileged or as varied in comparison. My parents were working class, my father worked as a toolmaker with SKF (which was the major ball-bearing manufacturer at that time) and he gradually worked his way up from the shop floor into middle management. As was the custom at that time, my mother was a housewife who looked after the family and home.
What wasn’t diagnosed at the time was that I had been short-sighted since birth. It was finally picked up when I went to school and an observant teacher realised that I couldn’t read the blackboard. Once I had NHS spectacles with those “Harry Potter” styled frames (all the rage in the 1950s, but hardly a desirable fashion item) there was no stopping me and my reading and learning skills improved dramatically.
To add to my misfortune (in an age before routine vaccinations and immunisations were the norm) it wasn’t long before I succumbed to chickenpox, mumps and measles in quick succession, and then had to have my tonsils out. Consequently, I lost a lot of school time, but I managed to rebound quickly – in spite of a couple of cruel teachers, who made it difficult for me. Eventually, I sailed through my 11+ and was one of the lucky few to go to Grammar School, where I concentrated on the Sciences with a view to going to University to read Medicine.