General Chat

As a follow on from my thread CHEAP ALCOHOL, of yesterday, what I wanted to say was that this was 6/7 years ago, and at that time there was a 'PROVE IT' meaning age, scheme in operation around these parts.I think it was only a £1 or so for a card, but very few applied for one, preferring to show their Student Union Card, which the manageress found acceptable. They were more interested in buying cigarettes.
It was the registered and unregistered alcoholics we had trouble with. Adults that was.The registered alcoholics would queue outside the shop at 8.00 on the morning of their 'pay-day', already drunk, with just enough for a bottle of the cheap White Lightening cider, proceed to drink it on the market place in full view of the police station. At just before 9.00 they ambled round to the Post Office and drew their 'benefits', then back round to the shop, to humiliate us using every explative possible to tell us what fools we were for working, when like them we could get in excess of £250 per week for being an alcoholic. This was not between a married couple, nor for keeping their children on, as they were in foster care.Maybe things have changed by now, after 6/7 yrs, but there are many of these anomolies and injustices around that very few people know about. Unregistered alcoholics are people like Joe Bloggs in the street, who have a problem, and there are plenty of them.
It had to be the most violent atmosphere I have ever worked in, but it was adult violence, not youth. How things have changed in those short years - Julia