“I bet tha wishes tha was back playing footie”.

Charlie swung round to confront the voice, metal segs ringing out on the damp cobblestone of the forge yard, stopping the owner of the voice dead in his tracks.

“A joke Charlie…It was just a joke. Don’t tell me tha’s lost tha sense of humour”.

Charlie pursed his lips and grunted as he punched his time cardn into the device in the entrance to the wages office and dropped it into one of the wall of pigeon holes. The jibe was over a decade too late and had the owner been anyone but the one person he considered a friend, Charlie would have made him well aware of just how thin the humour was.

Joe Miller gazed warily up at the face frowning back at him, wishing he could go back and start again. Charlie turned mournfully and strode on, troubled by old memories of the rush of adrenalin that defied muscles to ache.