Life Story

Another Guest Blog, from a customer this time of “THE COD’S HEAD”.











Eugene Emrys is a bit of a local hero, being a one- time stalwart chairman and groundsman of the Cold-Wind-Cross rugby team. Not Cornish of course but welcomed as a fellow player. Eugene is better known in the Cod’s Head as “Eggy Emrys”, or just plain “Eggy”; due to his inordinate fondness for pickled eggs. He is retired now and living on his own, but his last job was breeding geese, ducks and chickens.






I interviewed Eggy in the comfort of my studio over a couple of jam-jars of Madeira and Calvados, my best jam-jars you understand, the ones with hardly any paint on them. Not knowing how to start him off I suggested that he just told me the story of his life.






“Lost opportunities, that’s how I would sum up the story of my life, lost opportunities! Lost opportunities… - - I let them all escape from my grasp you see. Take women for example. I always let the good ones go. Known some lovely women in my time I can tell you, good women if you know what I mean, but I let them all go one way or another.






Megan Pritchard was my first love, not yet quite a woman but definitely “good” if you see what I mean. She was the eldest of twelve that went right down to the baby. My problem was that she was rather religious. The family was Catholic, which was unusual for round there, and she told me once that she had asked the priest if kissing with tongues was alright. I can’t remember what his answer was now. Her father was abroad most of the time as a foreign correspondent for the BBC, and not sending enough money back home, while her mother wore herself out looking after the brood and pleading with the money lenders for more time.






While we were sweethearts, her younger brother was shot dead in a hunting accident in France and I made the terribly cruel error of suggesting that she should not be too upset because she still had five more brothers left. - - I never got very far with Megan and I was somewhat miffed to discover that, after I had “let her go” so to speak, she was having a rollicking good time with my best friend Dafydd. We had all met each other in the first year of "Tech" see.






My life is a bit of a blur after Megan, and I can’t remember another good-en ‘til Gwen. Gwen was at "Tech" too but I had left a couple of years earlier. She was living in a draughty attic room in a tall Victorian house that was occupied by other students in similar poverty. There was no heating in her room except for a small paraffin stove with a brick on top and we spent most of our time together in her single bed, trying to keep warm. The only piece of furniture she possessed was a wooden chair that she had painted in stripes of a hundred colours.






She was skinny with short blond hair, totally honest, loyal and loving, and she believed every word I said. I often think of her and wonder why I didn’t stay with her forever. If I had been neglecting her while enjoying the charms of a “bad” young woman I would tell her that I had been on another “mission”. She believed that I was working for an American space agency and that I was a part-time astronaut, a job that often took me away for weeks at a time.






And that how it was you see. I went on like that, always assuming that there was a better one round the corner. I got married soon after that, but I chose a real bad one that time, almost the opposite of Megan, including the fact of being dark-eyed and raven-haired, beautiful but vain and insecure. She needed that constant reassurance of her attractiveness to men. I divorced her eventually, after six years and after much suffering on my part. Serve me right? Yes of course it did. It always has served me right, served me jolly well right!






It’s all a bit vague now. It’s all so blurred, but I can still remember the highlights. I had moved to England and met Kate, no, come think of it, Kate was definitely not a good-en! Fabulous and exciting yes, but good, no! She was forty two and I was twenty four Ummmm….. let me see…….Ah yes of course, for twenty years I had an on and off love affair with a teacher. I adored her in my way, but when we fell out, as we did from time to time, I left her for pastures greener. They never were of course, greener that is. I drove her away in the end you see, by my selfishness mainly I expect, - and not listening.






In the mean time, there was Penny, another loyal and honest woman who bored me to death. I had decided at that time you see, that as I found all women a bit boring after a while, I might just as well stay with one of them forever as keep changing them. I loved her too of course, moved to Cornwall and lived with her for years until……. I drove her away as well in the end by acting the cad.






There’s been others I have met of course in that passing of time. All of them too good for me I wouldn’t be surprised. Well, women are just an example you see. It’s been the same with jobs, and friends and whatnot, all lost opportunities. I could have been a musician, a sailor, a pilot or even an estate agent if I had taken up the opportunities that came my way, and worked at it. All too late now of course, all too late now. Not that I’m complaining you understand, it’s all been amazing really.






I’ll give you another example. I was at Plymouth docks once, sitting on the ground, rucksack beside me, waiting to catch the ferry to France. I had been looking at this amazing modern yacht moored nearby, carbon fibre I think it was, when a young chap wondered over to me and asked me what I thought of it. Then he asked me if I would like to join the crew for a trip to the Caribbean. Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather! That’s the sort of question you only dream about. Like a fool I said no. I had just become smitten by a French girl you see, and didn’t want to lose her. Well there you are. I still wonder why he asked me. Perhaps someone had been taken ill and they were desperate for a pair of strong hands. My hands were strong in those days.






I could go on but you get the idea. I don’t know about you, but I could do with a pint in the “Cod” after that Calvados and Madeira of yours…”






Pip, pip,






The Leg.