Well folks , that is another year in and that makes my seventy sixth on this planet ( or any other ones for that matter)
It has by no matter of means been plain sailing , with many up and downs. Probably more ups than downs otherwise I probably wouldn’t be here now.
One thing I have learned is that you never know it all and you learn something every day.
In my 60 years in business I have employed thousands of people. I have employed some very intelegent people and I have unfortunately employed some intellectually challenged people, but I have learned something from every single one of them
I try to pass on experience and sometime it is not welcome because there is always a resistance to change or criticism.
What some people don’t realise is that advice is not being given from a position of superior knowledge or ability but through a lifetime of making mistakes, hopefully only once.
It never ceases to amaze me when I see people persisting with the same failed policy and expecting different outcomes.
So I stand here in Mennies reminiscing over the years. I left school when I was 15 and went streight to work with my father who had a small slating firm.
It was very hard work and inhuman in the winter when we often had to shovel snow off the roof before we could start work.
I remember the first day I started. It was on a re-slating job on a church in Dudhope street right across the road from where I was born. I remember asking my Dad what the chances were of falling of the roof. His answer was “ Bobby no one in history has ever been hurt falling off a roof , it’s the stopping you have to worry about”
So I suppose during all of the ups and downs I have encountered I have never worried about the falling as long as I could prevent the stopping.
So a few pints in Mennies and trying to catch up with the good wishes I have received today, it has been truly heartwarming and humbling. If there is anyone I have missed answering I apologise.
One of my wee quotes to finish with
Every new day is a page in your life story
You have a choice
You can just read it
Or you can write it.
Slainte
Bob Costello 
I agree with your da about no one ever being hurt on falling from a roof and it only being stopped by the ground from falling any further because that was my experience on having a fit on a roof on Mains Loan that led me into smashing my heel bone in my left foot and spending weeks in traction in the DRI which was the beginning of the end of being self-employed as the result of finding out that I was epileptic due to severe brain trauma via a Road Traffic Accident in 1984 but I suppose it could have been worse considering that I’m still here to tell my story Bob.
Cheers.
I only fell off one roof in my career as a Slater Ally, but it was a low cottage in Birkhill and I landed in my feet