four weeks pass...
eight months pass...
one month passes...
one month passes...
three months pass...
two months pass...
John isn't from round here, he's from down South somewhere but had also spent the 22 years based in Corsica.
He got a £450,000 pay out from the Army because he got blown up in Uganda and wasn't expected to live. He has 4 years left until he can officially retire, but his now a chef, in something army related
He told me had done a number of extractions, some in Iran and one in this country. He was tortured in Iran in 1995. He recently did some work in Syria. He showed me a bullet wound in his leg, i couldnt quite tell what was going on with his hand
We were on the bus to Haworth, he said, when he first came to the area he spent 6 months in Haworth. He said no one had lived there for 6 months, and there was a rat. the rat wasnt frightened so he was able to kill it with a brick. He told his landlord and the landlord told him to buy some traps. Over the next couple of weeks he caught 14 or 15 rats and put them in the freezer. When the landlord came he took them out and wrapped them up and gave them to his landlord as a moving-in present
He spent some time in the brecon beacons where the army do some exercises, and during a training exercise 6 people died from hypothermia and it got into the newspapers
― anvil, Wednesday, 11 February 2015 13:01 (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink
John was actually born and grew up in France, and still has a french barclaycard, which is frequently refused in restaurants and shops. its bright yellow, as he cant see the normal one properly. he showed me it, and i could see that his surname is Le Chat. Unfortunately i cant quite remember his first name, so I am calling him John because i think it was something like that
He carries around a 50kg backpack, just as he always has done, and frequently runs over the top of the moors from Hebden Bridge to Haworth, although today he was on the bus. He was in Wilmslow, near Manchester a couple of weeks ago, and someone came up to him and asked him if he is the mad runner in haworth
― anvil, Wednesday, 11 February 2015 13:05 (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink
John jumped out of aeroplanes when in the army, and there was a competition who could pull the parachute chord last, and he lost a friend that way
When the tour de france passed through here, he said a man stood next to him near a wall, and he was sure he recognized the man and asked him, do i know you from my Gym? but he wasnt from round there, and it was really bugging him who this man was, later that day he turned on the television coverage and realized it was David Beckham
John said most of the extractions were of people that wanted to go, but when he got caught in Iran, they tortured him and smashed his teeth with a hammer.
― anvil, Wednesday, 11 February 2015 13:08 (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink
I asked him where he would go in 4 years when his retirement comes up, bt he doesnt know, he has a couple of houses and is playing the game, though he is currently renting in sowerby bridge
John lent me 20p because my card had been stopped and i wasnt sure if i had enough for the bus, otherwise I thought i might have to go into the square and see if Chris was protesting against Gaza, to see if she had any spare change. I still didnt quite have enough, for my second bus journey after this one, so i walked the last part
― anvil, Wednesday, 11 February 2015 13:11 (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink
John sister worked for Novell for 22 years and got a large redundancy payout and was able to retire at 38 years old
There was a man in Haworth that he met when he was in Turkey but i forgot the rest of that part, I tried to remember the rest of what John told me, as there was quite a bit more as we were on the bus for nearly an hour
― anvil, Wednesday, 11 February 2015 13:13 (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink
John said at one of the banks, the pens were tied down and he said how am i supposed to trust you if you dont trust your customers not to take the pens. At Barclays they dont tie down the pens. He always takes the pen away at Barclays, but thats because he is always short of pens
― anvil, Wednesday, 11 February 2015 13:43 (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink
― imago, Thursday, 21 November 2019 12:22 (four years ago) link
one month passes...
one month passes...
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three weeks pass...