Street Cred? 14 3 23 (15) 25 2 15

Growing up in post war Britain in a working class family of 5 comprising mother, mother's mother, two sons and a daughter we didn't have much to sustain us for a time save for my mother's wages as an Embroideress. And when my older brother passed an entrance examination aged 13 to depart our mixed sex Secondary Modern School in favour of the local Junior Technical School for Boys our Mam would tell her boys: "if you want to get a trade in your hands you'll have to pull your socks up and work for it!" which admonition represented the sum total of all such admonitions I believe.

So in the next 2 years I began to apply myself to studying as opposed to “playing out” and “fighting the other kids on the block” raising my position in class from 31st together with my mate Joe who was bottom of our class of 32 and, low and behold, I got a place too in the Junior Tech and a year or so later took 1st place to leave aged 15 with a Certificate of Great Credit. The fact that I didn't enter puberty till later than my contemporaries at these two schools no doubt played a part in this process because I got to see these other boys leave me far behind in height when increasingly I'd be the guy nursing the fat lip on the way home from school telling me my fist-fighting days were drawing to a close.

So Street Credibility wasn't something one aspired to in those far off days though now upon reflection I dare say it came with the territory of what I am talking about..?

My main career first as a Laboratory Assistant between ages 15 to 26 saw me work in several companies in several countries then, as a Project Leader, Researcher, R & D Section Leader, Manager and Director, work in several more and taking me to age 49 at possibly the peak of my powers, having by a process of fits and starts also gained a graduate-ship from a University. And if there followed a demotion after my 4 year contract as R & D Director expired, with my last move of company, there followed a Chairmanship of an International Group for 5 years and a term as its President for 2 years by virtue of the selection process by one's piers.

But since retiring from a long and rewarding career in industry and consultancy with many ups and downs along the way I would guess much of the Street Credibility so defined and maybe so long taken for granted began to fall by the wayside for a time during my early years in retirement..?

But as I awoke at an early hour this morning I had this thought strike my mind: ”Street Credibility” is what you are regaining little by little as you come to terms with becoming this older fella with but little to do: writing blogs and playing Lexulous on face-book but nevertheless interacting with an expanding body of friends and people in a world which is daily getting smaller…Have a good day everybody: my wife will return soon from one of her seminars and I still have to do the dishes..? hahaha   

Defining Street Credibility 14 3 23 (9)
Imagine writing a blog with such titles and then almost 11 yrs later getting to re-read it when its almost like reading about this friend colleague or whoever long since departed, lol. And a bonus to be sure prompted by the resurgence of interest shown on the part of my once steady readership when let's just agree during the last 5 years most of my blogs were received with increasingly deaf ears. So I'm gonna say instead a tailing off of interest by both writer and reader but to a query over luncheon yesterday, when i took my dear wife to a Friendship Day celebration, about the autobiography i began to write, also say 10 yrs ago reaching maybe as far as my middle age, more and more I see its sequel in these blogs: more and more never mind whether they get to be re-posted again, under a slighly different title ?