KEEP RIGHT ON

Seventy today and fifty seven years of supporting my beloved Blues. It came at a formative time in my life and my loyalty has never wavered. Supporting,  Blues whose supporters are mad, endearing, loyal and above all blessed with a marvellous sense of humour has been one constant in my life and also a great lesson. Not the chords of fame for us, just the occasional celebration, for a promotion and two league cup wins but mainly we struggle - but the supporters remain loyal and I have seen the opposition applauded from the field when they have roundly beaten us. Booing our team is very rare because they are OUR boys in Blue and we support them through thick and thin. There are no other supporters in the land quite like the Blues brothers and sisters.
 The current manager, like the supporters is barmy, but he is earning his spurs and appreciates the encouragement that he is given and is in love with the fans and even the doubters are slowly being reconciled to the fact that he works all hours and travels the country in an effort to keep the team going and that he will  stick through the bad deal that he has been given. The owner is in jail and comes from a long tradition of rogues who have owned and abused the club - but eventually we, in turn,  abuse them and they disappear back to Honk Kong or London, like a couple of spivs we had, and, who knows, hopefully one day, we will be owned by proper Brummies. In my back lawn a piece of the pitch is planted and thriving after it was torn up when we had a riot to get rid of the London spivs. Although I hasten to add that I might have been the receiver of stolen goods but I didn't do the nicking.
 Most of my life I have tried to live by my own standards and have fought against evil, oppression and those terrible but grotesquely linked evil twins, poverty and war.
 Most of these fights I have lost but I will never give up and had one fine win when, over thirteen years,  some colleagues and I refused to be bullied by old mother Thatcher and give up our rights to belong to a free Trade Union of our choice. We took her through the British and European Courts, where we lost, thanks to the establishment beaks, who administer what is laughingly called justice in our land. One of her grave failings is that she had no sense of true justice and history and failed  to take into account that a grievous wrong will always be overturned. The Trade Union movement marched and rallied in our support and in 1997 almost the first act of the Labour Government was to restore our rights.  She was defeated.
 I have been lucky with a wonderful family and now four grandchildren by my side. If we are to give those children and all children a future of peace and happiness we have to get off of our backsides and march and protest about what is happening in our world and strive to keep our beautiful planet from the evil destroyers and exploiters. All of us have that choice and must vote for the triumph of humanity over evil.
 One young man has inspired me most of my life, since I bought his first L.P. back in the sixties, when we thought that we could change the world. His name is Phil Ochs and he tirelessly fought against discrimination, the Vietnam war and the overthrow of President Allende in Chile. He thought that the power of song could change mankind and when he suffered defeat after defeat he spiralled downwards into depression,and all that goes with it, and sadly hung himdelf. But his music lives on and this is what I intend to do and a few others too I hope.