Well - my policeman guess is bottom row on the right. But it's tricky to be sure. There are three possible candidates - the tall one in the top row and the second in from the left on the bottom are also in the running.

All typical British Bobbies from the early seventies!

Do keep going with your mesmerizing story, Alan. We should make a copy because your story-telling style has publishing potential. It's hysterically funny combined with shockingly sad - that kind of perfect British black humour that makes books like Angela's Ashes succeed.

You and Kevin definitely have to get together - I think you would be a perfect foil for each other. The book might have to be about the two of you. An example of what I'm talking about is the little exchange that included Kevin's wry comment about not whinging and moaning or he'd have topped himself by now. This is not the kind of conversation "normal" people have - it could only come from survivors of something as cruel as AS.

Love you guys - keep the stories coming.

Just had a thought that would be one way to straighten myself out hang myself uuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmm no dont think the wife would approve.

Ok then folks yes first prize of two pounds of birdseed and a tractor that has no engine to Molly....yayayayay

Yes I am tallest top row 2nd from right.........goodness I was lovely..........lol


consolation prize for wendy for getting 1970's was actually 1969


yyyyay wendy wins a stringless bow without an arrow.



Mig....oh dear how sad, you have to hand in all pints to the failed spot the policeman judging panel.......x

Oh boy, Kevin! Was I ever right about the British black humour. Just so you know I moved to Canada when I was thirty - born in Cornwall - so I have an appreciation for the way you and Alan think. Not so sure the humour will be as well appreciated this side of the Atlantic!!!!!

Okay - 1969's pretty close - I knew I was about right. Interesting that my initial choice was the tall guy in the top row and then I thought "that's too obvious" so I went with the other choice (bottom right). Anyway, happy to have the bow - no doubt Robin ran off to Sherwood Forest with the arrow.

Hey Alan! I see what you mean about losing height with AS. It is different than losing it with sciolosis. Those folks lose height downward as opposed to AS. You mentioned about AS being pre-ordained. I wanted to follow up on that. Do you mean that all current treatments are pallative and won't affect posture and fusion? I have heard doctors say that the jury is out as to whether any of the current treatments can affect fusion. Thanks for posting about your life story. Very interesting! You are a good storyteller. Have Disney hire you as a narrator!!

Craig

Hey Alan - any chance of another installment? It feels like waiting for the next episode of a gripping British comedy show. Something like "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em".

Pints or points? Doesn't matter, am not handing either over to silly biased judging panel!

lol

lol


Craig, Pallative errrr...........well I used to have a pal or two and errrr.....cripes I best look it up.............what I meant by pre ordained was that I believe, and it is entirely not proveable, that my fusion and deformity would have happened, despite treatment regimes, NSAIDS, physio, NSD etc never made a jot of difference to the progression of my illness.

My x-rays are used in training world wide, not because I am a super special good looker (which I am) but simply because they illustrate the classically described progression of AS and with the bonus of surgery and rods to look at, so in a sense a whole AS story in one picture. But yes, I dont think anything would have stopped what happened to me, thus pre-ordained. Mig will tell you similar, she has had a real hard time with AS done the meds the excercises the lot and her damage is still sever so a similar story.

Wendy, loved your pictures at the coffee shop. What a pretty Cornwallian you are.

Right next dull episode is due this evening. Ids hard to write anything of interest because AS is very samey year after year, but, there is the tale of the Tattoed blonde and the Lobster thermidore soup, or perhaps a dash fear when I nearly fell from a 30 foot tower by being entirely stupid...........but we will see........ooooohhh Betty!!!

#4.

Cripes I never written anything longer than 4 words before, now I find myself in uncharted literary seas, adrift without a paddle, sailing alone and lonely, to who knows where...........Music was the thing

I am a man of passion though not driven by passions, a man with copious draughts of moral outrage and yet not outrageous, some would say not very moral either. My great hero, Beethoven, was a man of passion and enormous gifted talent. A loner like me, a man that lived in his own head, like me. However (I once was yelled at by a teacher for starting a sentence with however, "Never start a sentence with a preposition he cawed, sneering down at me, pompous and offensive he was. I didn't I said, I started it with However!) I walked off and left him there, I was 47 at the time but felt as foolish then as I always did when I was at school. Always a bonus though, so I was grateful to avoid a possible detention. He (The Teacher) didn't have AS, neither did Beethoven, but both had unseemly long hair! Why they have appeared inthis story I don't know, perhaps a sub conscious and clever way of chasing away the writers block, There is though always a rule and one that says,one needs to be a writer to get the block.

I joined a band in 1974, November. In the end I played with that band for over 10 years until they got rid of me, mainly because I couldn't play very well; but possibly, maybe, because I looked not so good on stage. The deformity was pronounced by now and became exponentially more so throughout those 10 years. The sad truth was that I looked bad for a band that wanted to go out gigging and chasing women. The latter of course appealed NOT at all to me, but I liked playing and the money was handy too. I became all but alcoholic, lost yet another wife. Was riddled with AS, whisky is a good cure, well a way to forget maybe.

Life was falling apart by now. Laughed at because of the way I looked, mocked because I was always drunk, the one everyone else wanted to take out because all knew there would be a chance of a good laugh at my expense during the evening. I didn't make maintenance payments (alimony) to one of my former beloveds and was twice arrested whilst on stage, though I came to know the particular officer quite well and he was always as discreet and as pleasant as possible whilst pursuing his duties, and he always had a pint,that was charged to my account. Biggest sadness, not AS, not the booze, not the loss of wives, nor self respect, but that when I was marched off to be bailed, I would chat with Bill (that will do for his name) about the police and the job and I would always slip in that "I used to be a policeman you know". then the moments of sober propriety when I would remember what I had been and realise what I now was.

AS was unmoved by my moral decline, my slide into failureship. AS felt that it really ought to do its duty and grind me down that last inch or two just to ensure that my nose was really jammed hard in the mud. I hurt every moment of every day. When I look back, remarkably, I worked on construction sites by day, played in a band 7 nights a week and then over to the nightclub (The Parkside) where the whisky for a while at least, made me think I was OK again..

The band residency ended and we finished up on the road, so sleep was a rare commodity, it still is. I hated being on the road because apart from 2 hours playing, that's where you spent your days, on the road, except that we were in a van, I mean we weren't actually on the road so much as conveyed hoveringly above but along the road.

I met a girl who was prepared to accept what I had become, apparently, she stole my wallet and was never seen again, another and another and another, always in drink and always in grim realisation of the awakening morning to come, the reality check of my life; and my AS, good old AS, never let me down, then one night, I collapsed............

This is a bit too riddled with humour, I shall try and be serious tomorrow.......