People you grew up with as kid.

My best Mate from comprehensive I got him into watching Swindon.
Best days at school were all about going to football. He went into the RAF, we lost touch for a few years but I got in touch with him when he left the RAF, sits next to me at home games, doesn’t go to the away games.
Meet up with a few lads from my old Town, like we’ve never been apart,

My best Mate from infants, we were inseparable, he is now loaded and owned a big building company with another one of my Mates that I used to go shooting with.
Don’t begrudge him one bit, still pops round to see my Mum (Mam) and sorts all her jobs out.

I guess now I’ve become more isolated, had loads of Mates when younger.
Always good catching up.

Lost a few from suicide and car crashes 😢
 


Majority of mates I had in school I’m still friends with now, we’re all in long term relationships or married and most have 1 or 2 kids now. Just gets harder to meet up and do things. Case in point one of them asked to go to the races next weekend, only me and him are going.

Probably only two anomalies I can think of. One who lives in New Zealand now, married a lass whose family weren’t exactly best pleased with her due to their religion, only going off what I’ve heard like as I’ve more or less completely lost touch with him.

And one whose been in and out of jail, various offences, mostly siphoning petrol from cars and selling it to buy drugs.
 
Swindon On Tour said:
My best Mate from comprehensive I got him into watching Swindon.
Best days at school were all about going to football. He went into the RAF, we lost touch for a few years but I got in touch with him when he left the RAF, sits next to me at home games, doesn’t go to the away games.
Meet up with a few lads from my old Town, like we’ve never been apart,

My best Mate from infants, we were inseparable, he is now loaded and owned a big building company with another one of my Mates that I used to go shooting with.
Don’t begrudge him one bit, still pops round to see my Mum (Mam) and sorts all her jobs out.

I guess now I’ve become more isolated, had loads of Mates when younger.
Always good catching up.

Lost a few from suicide and car crashes 😢
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The car crashes down in Cornwall are on a different level to those when I grew up. Some bad ones up there but I don’t know a family in south east Cornwall that hasn’t been torn apart by car or motorbike crashes. This was and is my biggest worry since the bairn and her mates started driving .
 
Just curious whether anyone would post that they're the failure who no one keeps in touch with as the people they grew up with all rich, famous and massive successes

There will be some people like that hiding on here.

This forum being what it is though, everyone outwardly is the massive success who sees former friends who are now failures and so sneer at them
 
cornish mackem said:
The car crashes down in Cornwall are on a different level to those when I grew up. Some bad ones up there but I don’t know a family in south east Cornwall that hasn’t been torn apart by car or motorbike crashes. This was and is my biggest worry since the bairn and her mates started driving .
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Open Country roads Mate.
They think they are experts at driving fast. Unaware of the hazards and dangers.
Less traffic brings out the worst in some.

A lad in my old Village years ago hit a cow on a motorcycle, sadly cow had to be destroyed, he was driving at 80 mph, suffered life changing head injuries.

Sunday Mornings we have Motorcycles driving at ridiculous speeds. Cyclists, dog walkers and horse riders nightmare.
 
Five-Quarter said:
Just curious whether anyone would post that they're the failure who no one keeps in touch with as the people they grew up with all rich, famous and massive successes

There will be some people like that hiding on here.

This forum being what it is though, everyone outwardly is the massive success who sees former friends who are now failures and so sneer at them
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That’s me.
 
Five-Quarter said:
Just curious whether anyone would post that they're the failure who no one keeps in touch with as the people they grew up with all rich, famous and massive successes

There will be some people like that hiding on here.

This forum being what it is though, everyone outwardly is the massive success who sees former friends who are now failures and so sneer at them
Click to expand...
It depends on what posters consider to be a failure.

Of course some posters on here will have friends who've gone on to make a very good life for themselves and may well be successful in whatever they do for a living in comparison to some of the posters on here, but conversely, a poster who may have a mundane or low skilled job, might still be very happy with their lot, and be satisfied with the life they have, so they won't necessarily consider themselves to be a failure.

Some posters have unfortunately, been blighted by rank bad luck, addiction and mental illness, and as a result, they faced struggles many of us could never imagine, nor wish to experience, though that certainly doesn't mark them down as failures in my book.
The very fact that they're still around and posting, and trying to get on with life as best as they can right now, despite their struggles, makes them a success in my book.
 
Swindon On Tour said:
Open Country roads Mate.
They think they are experts at driving fast. Unaware of the hazards and dangers.
Less traffic brings out the worst in some.

A lad in my old Village years ago hit a cow on a motorcycle, sadly cow had to be destroyed, he was driving at 80 mph, suffered life changing head injuries.

Sunday Mornings we have Motorcycles driving at ridiculous speeds. Cyclists, dog walkers and horse riders nightmare.
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All of the fatalities I’ve been out too are locals. Thankfully, nobody I’ve known personally
 
cornish mackem said:
All of the fatalities I’ve been out too are locals. Thankfully, nobody I’ve known personally
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Those Cornish roads are notorious with high hedgerows and deceiving bends.
Frightening Mate what you see.
Five-Quarter said:
Just curious whether anyone would post that they're the failure who no one keeps in touch with as the people they grew up with all rich, famous and massive successes

There will be some people like that hiding on here.

This forum being what it is though, everyone outwardly is the massive success who sees former friends who are now failures and so sneer at them
Click to expand...

I would find that shallow.
Certainly don’t judge people by material things or money. I tend to avoid the look at me brigade.
Horley Chorley said:
It depends on what posters consider to be a failure.

Of course some posters on here will have friends who've gone on to make a very good life for themselves and may well be successful in whatever they do for a living in comparison to some of the posters on here, but conversely, a poster who may have a mundane or low skilled job, might still be very happy with their lot, and be satisfied with the life they have, so they won't necessarily consider themselves to be a failure.

Some posters have unfortunately, been blighted by rank bad luck, addiction and mental illness, and as a result, they faced struggles many of us could never imagine, nor wish to experience, though that certainly doesn't mark them down as failures in my book.
The very fact that they're still around and posting, and trying to get on with life as best as they can right now, despite their struggles, makes them a success in my book.
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Spot on.
Just from this post was plain to see why we would get on.
Paintied Hartlepool Red mind ;)😂😂🍺🍺
 
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I go out probably twice or three times a year with what was my best mate at school and I have known them since the age of 5, it's always a good night out and generally messy, we always do the merry dance have you seen such and such from school and what they are up to now... We are in our 40s but talk about these other people as if we saw them in school 2 years ago.
 
I don't keep in contact with anyone from primary school, only one lad my best mate from secondary school. Sadly also lost contact with quite a few lads during/after covid
 
HABA87 said:
I haven't really expanded my friendship group beyond the lads I went to school with.
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Same here except for lads through the SAFC matches. Other than that, our fairly decent sized group of mates are all old school mates and many of us the same primary school as well.
 
I go for a walk with 3 lads I have known for 45 years , every Saturday. I’m 56.

We got this going about 3 year ago , after we lost another mate to suicide. We all felt we maybe should have done more ?

I think life and friends are like a railway journey , sharing a compartment with people.
People get on at different stops , you enjoy the time , then they get off. Others you literally kick them off the train.
Some leave the train and you are waving them off with a tear
Others get off , but get back on again at a later stop.

And the 3 on the Saturday walk , well they are on with me till the end hopefully.

That’s how I see it anyway.
 
Absolutely no one, once I got on the plane at 27yo to work overseas, that was it, all contact fizzled out, not even on Facebook with any. Haven't met any new friends that I stay in touch with bar one, I finish a project then I'm off on to the next one, send odd text in first few months, then nowt. I have a Vietnamese lady I know from when i first arrived in Hanoi, she was the first lass I spoke with at the bar she co-owned on my first weekend on the lash, some 23 years later, we as close as friends as ever. Another, bit of a sad story, but 1 close friend and I'm 51 years old, no big deal, always kind of a, off on his own type of bloke.
 
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Keep in touch with one lad met first day of infant school been mates ever since, more like family that you choose these days. Don’t live in each others pockets see him every couple of month. Worked away for all of adult life so have a few mates both local and scattered over uk and Europe.
Other mate from comp occasionally see for gigs and that’s it really. Never was a big group kind of person, I actually go out of my way to avoid it. So got no real idea of how others lives have panned out I’d imagine be a very mixed bag. At 58 happy and content with my lot, anyone who wanted to keep in touch does and has.

Very interesting thread this mind
 
Longy said:
Going away next month with a load of lads for our 40ths. About 7/8 of the group were in this school year. 4/5 of us have known each other since we were 4.
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Hope you haven’t booked the accommodation mind, that many 40 year olds sleeping on the floor ffs.
 
Horley Chorley said:
It depends on what posters consider to be a failure.

Of course some posters on here will have friends who've gone on to make a very good life for themselves and may well be successful in whatever they do for a living in comparison to some of the posters on here, but conversely, a poster who may have a mundane or low skilled job, might still be very happy with their lot, and be satisfied with the life they have, so they won't necessarily consider themselves to be a failure.

Some posters have unfortunately, been blighted by rank bad luck, addiction and mental illness, and as a result, they faced struggles many of us could never imagine, nor wish to experience, though that certainly doesn't mark them down as failures in my book.
The very fact that they're still around and posting, and trying to get on with life as best as they can right now, despite their struggles, makes them a success in my book.
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Some good posts on here. Makes you think

There's that classic line, I'd go back to being 18/21/25 but only if I knew then what I know now ..... Or versions of

I fall into the probably fairly common middle aged male category of a lot of my friends from younger days have now long drifted away

Some gave up on me if am honest because of a period I went through. Thread has made me consider - not for the first time - a few more wrong decisions or the inability to start again and I could have been down a terrible path by now

Partly why I posted my earlier thing to see what reaction it'd get

E.g. one old mate walked past me in the street not that long ago and we didn't even acknowledge each other
 

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