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This month it’s 40 years since I left Donny and moved to London for 6 months to find work and I’ve still not made it back home yet! I was 18, living with my parents in Rossington and had just been laid off for the 3rd time in 2 years. My old man sat me down one evening and told me that Donny was finished and I’d be better off looking elsewhere to build some sort of life for myself. A few weeks later, with an old mate of mine from Donny, Paul Knott, we’re arriving at Kings Cross station with £250 between us! My Dad told me that before I even thought about going to a pub I had to find digs and a job! We checked ourselves into a small hotel and went straight out to find work…and I couldn’t believe how much work was around! Bearing in mind there was 3 million on the dole at the time in the UK, in London we were naming our price by going to different recruitment firms and claiming we had experience on building sites (neither of us had ever been near a building site!). Within an hour we’d got digs and a very well paid job doing demolition work in the old docklands area! Compared to what we’d come from in Donny, no work, no money and a general pretty miserable existence, London genuinely seemed the place to make your fortune! Of course, it wouldn’t be long before reality kicked but that first few months in London in 1982 were magical! Plenty of cash on the hip, loads of work available, affordable housing, pubs, clubs and birds! What more could an 18 year old want? Paul and I would travel back to Donny every 2 weekends and still went to the Rovers. Oh to have that energy nowadays! I lost contact with Paul in the mid 80’s when he moved in with a woman; stopped going to Rovers, never came out anymore etc… I’m sure you know the score! They were great days for me though. Where has the time gone?