{"id":906,"date":"2021-07-25T10:39:16","date_gmt":"2021-07-25T10:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=906"},"modified":"2021-07-25T10:39:19","modified_gmt":"2021-07-25T10:39:19","slug":"his-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/his-secret\/906\/","title":{"rendered":"His Secret"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m here in Derbyshire at the home of centenarian Alan Davies,\u201d the reporter Jake informs the viewers.\u00a0 He turns to face the spry man in the chair opposite him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure that all our viewers want to wish you a Happy 100th<\/sup> Birthday, Alan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank you,\u201d Alan replies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure that we all would like to know your secret of reaching your 100th<\/sup> birthday. You certainly look much younger than your years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s at this point that the cameraman Dave, who has heard it all before, decides to leave the camera running, and goes off to find the lavatory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve had a good life, taken every opportunity that came my way.\u00a0 I think I owe my longevity to having my own way most of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThat certainly sounds a good way to live. Could you explain what you mean by that?\u201d Jake responds confidently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u201cAfter seeing the way my parents had to work so hard to put food on the table, I decided at the age of ten that there must be a better way to live rather than to just exist, so I set my own set of principles from that day on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s a very young age to make life-changing plans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cLooking back, I suppose it was, but at the time, you did what you had to do to survive. Despite all my parents\u2019 efforts, we were all still hungry, so I made the choice, there and then. I started stealing small things at first, the odd apple or something similar, just so I could help my parents you understand.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jake could feel that the interview was not going as he had planned, and tried to pull it back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cYou must have had the experience of the 60\u2019s. What was that like?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u201cThose were the days, I had more women that decade than I had hot dinners!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jake starts to feel sweat on his face.  There\u2019s still no sign of the cameraman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He tries to steer Alan off down a different track, bringing it back to the family values that the TV show promotes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cAlan, our researchers tell us you have a son and a daughter. Are they going to visit you on your special day?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot likely! They disowned me when I bet away their inheritance. Little do they know that I managed to scam a load of pensioners out of their savings, so I\u2019m worth a few bob now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jake\u2019s legs start to tremble, sweat marks were showing on his shirt. He knew he was for the sack. There was nothing he could do to save his job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThank you, Alan for giving up your time on your100th birthday and on behalf of the viewers let me just say, \u201cI hope you rot in hell!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019m here in Derbyshire at the home of centenarian Alan Davies,\u201d the reporter Jake informs the viewers.\u00a0 He turns to face the spry man in the chair opposite him. \u201cI\u2019m sure that all our viewers want to wish you a Happy 100th Birthday, Alan.\u201d \u201cThank you,\u201d Alan replies. \u201cI\u2019m sure that we all would like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Read This: a great new #flashfiction from #swanseawriters -\nHis Secret","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[379,502],"tags":[517,516],"class_list":["post-906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-379","category-july-2021-the-secret","tag-centenarian","tag-secret"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-eC","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":908,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions\/908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}