Marathon darts

Another thing with your great granddad was that he loved his whisky, and would often as possible drink it. He put away a bottle of Jonnie Walker Red Label once, saying he'd drink it only when his first grandson was born. That bottle was stuck away in the bottom of the wardrobe for more years than I can care to remember, both me and Geoff (my older brother, your great uncle) had two girls and no boys so it was down to gt uncle Michael to do the deed, which he duly did when Tyler came along in about 1993.

Another new year that I remember was when his friend Jimmy had his son James and his family staying over the holiday period, they were at our half-way house for the first-footing after the pubs shut and his two grandkids were making themselves useful, taking the empty glasses and getting them refilled. After a few hours it was time for the whole troupe to make their way to Jimmy & Freda's for more steak pie and first-footing, and the grandkids again made themselves useful, refilling the glasses. One thing this did was keep everyone drinking - lots! Both me and Ken were on the whisky, and it was going down by the tumbler full, no shots! I remember we got into some sort of discussion which almost turned into an argument, so we decided that when the Royalist (pub) opened that evening we'd have a game of darts to settle it.

Well, we were both so drunk it was difficult to even see the board, let alone score, and it must have been some sort of record, but that single game of 301 took almost two hours, both of us ending up on double 1, and neither being able to hit it for love nor money. In the end, with all the family and friends begging us to give up, Ken hit it with a lucky shot. He never let me forget that he'd beat me, even though it was nothing to be proud of.