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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 117107" data-attributes="member: 22">1971Mark Fowler: Gareth Pelé Hobbs. Pelé?Garry Hobbs: Yeah. I was conceived during the World Cup.Lynne Slater to Garry: You were born an old geezer.Garry: I'm not a Slater. I don't come from that sort of a family. It was just me and me mum. It's what they call a broken home. Her and me dad, well, they rushed into things and I suppose they paid the price.Hazel Hobbs to her son Garry: You’ve always been such a special boy.Hazel to Garry: From the minute I give birth, I fell so in love with you I thought my heart would burst. I didn’t even notice the stitches — and there were a lot of stitches. I didn’t even care that I was a fallen woman with a bus ticket to nowhere and you were in a second hand Moses basket. I stood on them steps outside the Home for Unmarried Mothers and I swore, and I don’t mean cussing, “As God is my witness, they are not going to lick me. I’m going to live through this.” And I did. And I vowed that my little mate would want for nothing in the whole wide world — the only vow I’ve ever been able to bring myself to make. And I couldn’t even stick to it, could I?Chelsea Fox to Liz Turner: You must be so proud, bringing that thing [her son Owen] into the world. I mean, what do you do to screw him up so bad? Did you love him too much or too little?Trina Johnson born 1971Cindy Beale: First thing I ever remember was sitting in church. When I was a little girl, I used to think I was really special because I was a Catholic. That's what they teach you, you know — that you're lucky. My family have always been Catholics, on me mum's side, me dad's side. That's our tradition, right back. Proper Catholics, I mean — Confession on Friday, Mass on Sunday - right up until I left school.Bev Williams on Cindy's father: Tom was [a Catholic], not me.Yolande Trueman to Paul Trueman: Audrey raised you and Anthony as Catholics.Paul on Audrey: That old witch shoving her "You're an evil dirty little sinner" stuff down [my] throat from when I was a kid.Cindy: Some of the things they use to drill into me really stuck, like The Ten Commandments.Denise Fox on 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot': My granny used to sing this one, this very song. She was a Christian, Granny. At least she used to call herself one but I think she was mainly just into the music and stuff.Lucas Johnson: Which means she wasn’t any kind of Christian at all.Denise: Hang on, you never even knew her. The woman worked so hard to feed and clothe my mother. She wouldn’t do any harm to anyone. She was more of a Christian than you will ever be because she was kind, and everything that Jesus ever said comes down to that, "Be kind". She was.Kathy Beale: [None] of our family's been religious.Heather: I’ve never been one for church.Carol Jackson: I never believed in God.Carol: My God’s got in for me. Always has done.Ian Beale: Have you ever been to the Tower of London?Carol: Once, when I was at school.Dot Cotton: All the places I took you.Nick Cotton: Big Ben.Dot: The Tower of London.Carol: I was always running away as a kid.Grant Mitchell: How many times did I run off when I was a kid? Dozens. And I was always back by teatime.Phil Mitchell: Yeah, only because I dragged you home, didn’t I?Phil: Me and Grant, we ran away once. Got as far as the bus station, felt hungry and turned back. Crept in through the back door. Thought we was going to get a right hiding, but no one had even realised that we’d gone.Peggy Mitchell: I've never forgotten the time you and Phil went missing in Debenhams. Worst half hour of my life. I remember I took you both to the cafe afterwards and bought you ice creams.Grant: And you know what Phil said? "We should do this more often."Nigel Bates: I had me tonsils out when I was nine. In those days, they stuck you in the same ward as the grown ups and they were really strict about visiting — an hour in the afternoon and an hour in the evening.Clare Tyler: Did it hurt?Nigel: Hurt? Oh yeah. All that ice cream I had to eat, it was really tough.Heather: I never had many ice creams as a kid. Mummy always said that when the ice cream van chimed, it meant that the man had ran out of cornets and he had to go home.Nigel Bates: The first time me mum took me to a Joe Lyons, I felt so grown up - until I poured sugar all over me egg and chips. I thought, "This is a big salt cellar." It was a long time before I got taken out again.Nigel: You ever skimmed a sixer? When we was kids, I could make a stone bounce six times across the canal.Nigel: Never liked school much. They used to flush all the first years' heads down the toilet in those days.Sonia Jackson: That explains the hairstyle.Nigel: I was in a school play once. They had me wearing tights.Debbie Bates: When you were at school and all the other lads were playing football, when they were picking sides, were you always the last to getpicked?Nigel: No, I was not. There was this kid called Ian Huckleston. He used to cry if anyone tackled him.Debbie: Right, so they picked you and then they picked him. I'm right, aren't I?Minty Peterson: [I was] always the last to be picked. They used to say I was too lardy, which is really unfair, you know, because my mum said I was just right, I was just big-boned. It never used to stop them from putting me in goal. I think the idea was to stick you somewhere where you could do the least harm. I just remember standing there for what seemed like hours, freezing me ... being really cold and bored.Ben Mitchell: Waiting for something to happen.Minty: Yeah. And praying it wouldn’t.Nigel on Grant: If we didn't let him be captain, he used to take the ball home with him.Nigel: I remember one game, quarter final of the school's cup, we're down to ten men because Grant got sent off. Two nil down, fifteen minutes to go — [Stan] Destry scores a hat trick.Grant to Phil: It ain't been easy for me being the younger brother. Anything I did, you'd already done — I played football, you had a shelf full of medals. I got a girlfriend, you already had three.Phil: When I was [ten], we used to play football against the wall of this Polish bakers in Whitechapel. Anyway, one day, the baker accuses me of breaking a window. Storms round to see Dad at the boxing club, produces my ball and demands that Dad pay for the damaged window. The only thing was, I’d lent my ball to one of me mates.Ben: What happened?Phil: Well, Dad gave me a hiding for lying. Then he made me pay for the window out of me pocket money.Steve Owen: Fair old right hook you've got there.Phil: I learned that one in the boy scouts.Peggy to Phil’s son, Ben: When your dad was your age [ten], he was mad for anything to do with motors.Peggy, watching Ben helping Phil fix a car: Reminds me of you [Phil] when you were that age [ten]. Your dad used to ruin my best towels. I’d find them covered in engine oil.Peggy: When Phil and Grant were [ten years old], they could take on anyone, pretty much.Billy Mitchell: Your old man didn't waste any time getting you and Grant into the ring, did he?Phil: No.Local newspaper article about Phil and Grant: [I]“Following In Father’s Footsteps”[/I]Local newspaper article: [I]"Brothers In Arms! Retired local boxing hero, Eric Mitchell, believes he's found two champs of the future right here in the borough. He's pinning hopes on these two youngsters bringing back medals from the Olympic Games in 1980. Who are they? Why, his own two sons, Philip and Grant."[/I]Phil on the article: He [Eric] set the whole thing up. He phoned his mate on the paper, got a photographer down.Kathy: Why?Phil: So he could show off to his mates.Jay Brown, looking at the [I]“Following In Father’s Footsteps”[/I] newspaper cutting: Don’t look so bad in this photo, your dad.Phil: Well he’s posing for the camera, ain’t he?Jay: He looks proud of you.Phil: It weren’t about us, it was about him.Jay: Bet he was [proud].Phil: I was there. You weren’t. Trust me.Jay: Well he was probably was proud of you, he just couldn’t bring himself to say, maybe.Phil: Maybe.Jay: Shame he didn’t though, because you might have done a bit better if he had.Eddie Moon: I used to do a bit of boxing way back when.Eddie to his son Michael: You’ve seen the photos of me in the ring.Carol Jackson, looking at a photo of Eddie at the height of his boxing career: You were a looker once!Eddie: You always remember the glory days. Everyone round our way knew my name.Phil on Eric: All this "local boxing hero" business was a load of rubbish.Kathy: I thought he was in with the chance of the title once, wasn't he?Phil: Yeah he was, and he had an eliminator and the winner was going to go on to fight Terry Downs. Well, we never heard the end of the story so he must have lost, otherwise we would never have heard the end of it. He had a good right hand on him though.Kathy: Did you see him fight then?Phil: No, I'm talking from personal experience. You can ask Grant, ask Mum. They'll tell you. Or rather they won't. Cos you don't slag off the family, no matter what he might have done.Phil: My dad, he used to hit my mum, and when I was ten years old, I decided to stand up to him and I told him to leave her alone, never touch her again. I thought she’d be pleased. She weren’t. She was angry. She told me never to talk to him like that again and she watched as he smacked me about as a punishment. I was only trying to protect her.Peggy to Phil: [Thinking] never was your strongest point.Phil: I was never, never ever good enough for you. Peggy: That’s not true.Peggy: Phil, he was always the quiet, sensitive one.Peggy to Phil: I can remember you and Grant when you were kids playing on your bikes. You was ten and he was eight and even then he was the one who was going for the jumps, going downhill with his eyes shut.Phil to Peggy: You was always the one telling us to put a bit of brass on, weren't you? "Look 'em in the eye and then spit in it," that's what you used to say.Phil: There's no room for weakness in the Mitchell house, is there? We soon had that knocked out of us.Peggy: Your father was a good man.Phil: Mum, he was a bully. He'd whack us as soon as look at us.Peggy: He wanted you to be strong like he was, face up to your responsibilities.Phil: Oh that's a heck of a responsibility, isn't it? Beating your kids up. It's no wonder we turned out like we did.Peggy: The Mitchell men have always loved their meat.Peggy to Phil: If you or Grant had gone vegetarian on me, I think I’d have been dishing out slaps round the earholes, not beans on toast.Charlie Slater to his great-niece Stacey: You’re not old enough to remember the Galloping Gourmet, are you?Pauline Fowler to Peggy: You drove your husband to drink.Peggy on Eric: You made him the man he was.Johnny Allen: No. You did.Peggy: I stood by him. I protected him.Johnny: You covered for him. Whatever went on behind closed doors, you chose to hide it and give the world that great big smile of yours.Peggy: I had children. I had to.Johnny: You could have got away.Peggy: What, and leave them without a father?Johnny: He was a rotten father.Phil: If you'd have asked anyone about my dad, Eric Mitchell, they would have told you that he was a family man, that he was proud of his sons, protective of his daughter and good to his missus. Things ain't always what they seem.Phil on Eric: He was no saint.Pauline to Peggy: You had a villain for a husband.Johnny: You’re just like your old man, no manners.Phil: Yeah well, finishing schools were fully booked.Peggy: I brought my boys up the old fashioned way, to have respect for family and marriage, and to expect the same in return.Audrey Trueman: I did everything a mother possibly can to bring up her sons to be decent human beings.Paul Trueman: I was brung up polite.Anthony Trueman to his mother Audrey: Ever since I was a tiny little boy, I've done exactly what you wanted.Grant to Peggy: I've spent my whole life trying to do things that you want. You've always been the same, never satisfied, always demanding. Me and Phil have turned ourselves inside out trying to please you.Phil to Peggy: Ever since we were young, you made it a competition between me and Grant.Grant to Peggy: When we were kids, you played us off against each other, let us fight over you to see who loved you the most. You loved every minute of it. Is it any wonder we turned out the way we did with a mother like you?Peggy to Phil: All those days with your dad, I couldn’t have got through them if it wasn’t for you. You was always my rock. Not Grant, you.Phil on what he used to think when he was ten: “My dad scares me.”Phil: When I was kid, people used to say to my old lady, "He's just like his dad, isn't he?" They didn't know how right they were.Peggy to Phil: I always used to think it was Grant who was more like your father. You're just better at hiding it.Peggy to Phil: You were always like your dad, a fighter.Eddie Moon, speaking about his son Tyler’s violent temper in 2011: That was me when I was his age [twenty-three]. I [was] so full of anger. I used tofeel pent up, trapped, not knowing which way to turn, always one foot out the door. Took a lot of work to change.Eddie on his wife Maggie: She was beautiful and funny and wild. We were like a lethal cocktail, a hurricane meeting a tornado.Archie Mitchell to Phil: Any business he got involved with, your dad always had a queue of fellas ready to pitch in. He knew how to keep his men happy.Phil: He was a regular Robin Hood, my old man, wasn’t he?Peggy: Yeah well, we never went short.Archie on Eric: I got home one night, he’d brought Glenda round a bucket full of tripe. She didn’t have the heart to tell him she couldn’t stand it.Phil on Eric: You don't say this in my family, but the truth is he was a failure.Tiffany Raymond: My dad, he was always a drinker.Phil: So was mine.Geoff Morton: I [drank a yard of ale on my stag night] when I married Kate's mum.Lofty Holloway on his father: He always set me a good example really. Never smoked, never drank. Well, a glass of Green Goddess every Christmas. Never went with women - other than me mum, of course.Jimmie Broome, lawyer: How would you characterise your relationship with your father, Mr. Mitchell?Phil: Not good. He was violent, alcoholic. It wasn’t a happy household.Phil on his father: If we gave him a bit of lip, he'd start punching.Jamie Mitchell: So why did you put up with it?Phil: Why wouldn't I? I thought that what happened in our house happened in everyone else's too.Peggy on Eric: I remember one night when he got lost on his way home. Second night on, he still wasn’t back. I take Phil and Grant out with me, looking for him. I make a little adventure of it — pack sarnies, a bottle of ginger beer. It was Phil in the end who found him, kipping in a skip. Jumping up and down, he was — “Mum, Mum, he’s in here!” — like he’d found buried treasure.Billy: I remember Grant telling me about that. I was well jealous. Must have been hard.Peggy: Not as hard as some of the nights when he did come home. You probably remember that and all. He used to tell Phil, “Son, it’s just the drinktalking.” They say it’s like an illness and it is. A cancer - it gets into the family and it ruins everything around it.Peggy, speaking to Phil in 2007: Do you really want Ben to go through what you did — hiding under the covers when he hears you falling in the door, waking up to see you lying there covered in blood or worse?Phil: I’m all right, I’m telling you.Peggy: That’s just what your father used to say, only he wasn’t. You knew it, I knew it, we all knew it. Except him. He was never going to be the father you could be proud of, Phil, not with a glass in his hand.Nick Cotton: Back in the old days, putting a bottle of whisky away was called "being a man”.Grant to Phil: Dad used to give us back handers if we did things wrong. It never did us any harm, did it?Billy: You forgave your old man for laying into you.Grant: He may have cuffed me once or twice when I misbehaved, that's all.Billy: You got a short memory. I see him getting free with his belt.Grant: I think you're the one with the memory problem.Grant on Eric: A violent drunk who liked backhanding his kids and his old lady.Phil: He did make a habit of being cuffy, didn’t he?Grant: He punched you across the room once. Knocked you spark out. There was blood coming out of your ears.Grant: Dad was a violent drunk who only ever thought about himself.Sharon Watts on Eric: Grant said he was lovely.Phil on Eric: I think he worked [the violence] out of his system by the time he got around to Grant. He was his blue-eyed boy, he could do no wrong.Phil: When I was a kid, I was scared of my dad and I hated my dad.Johnny to Phil: I know you hated [Eric’s] guts, but he felt the same way about you, you know. “My Phil,” he used to say, “my Phil, he’s a total waste ofspace, useless, a lump of lard.”Phil: My dad, I didn't hate him. I thought he was great. Big tough Eric - he was scared of nothing and no-one, and I wanted to be just like him.Phil speaking in 2008: You want to know why I’m like this, why I’m the way I am? Because my old man bullied me into being like this and I didn’t do anything to stop it. I became exactly what my dad wanted me to be because I was too scared not to and so was Grant.Phil, speaking to Peggy in 2010: Do you want to know why I’m like I am? Do you? It’s because of you, having a mother like you. You drove me to it just you drove Dad. Both of us alkies, ain’t we? Do you think that’s a coincidence, do you? Because all you want to do is control us, to have us at your beck and call.Peggy to Grant: Your father had his faults, but the one thing you could always say for him — he hung his trousers on the back of the chair before he went to bed at night. And he also took all the loose change out of the pockets and put it on the bedside table.Peggy on her life with Eric: All right, it wasn't always a bed of roses, but what family is?Billy to Grant: Me and you grew up together, but your lot's always helped you.Billy: What I had to go through, being shifted about from place to place.Peggy on the Mitchells: We was always together when it mattered. I remember when Grant had chicken pox. I was knackered then, I can tell you, but the whole family rallied round, just took over. I didn't have to lift a finger. That's a real family.Phil: Reminds me of the old man, this — sitting by the water for hours. He was into fishing, had a boat and everything. Every now and again, he used to take me and Grant with him. I say take — drag us along, more like. We all used to pile into this tiny little boat. Grant loved it, but I used to get sick as a dog when the weather was rough.Ben: Did you ever catch anything?Phil: No, not really. They used to bite Grant’s line, not mine. All I ever used to catch was old trainers, except this one time when Grant got chicken pox and me and me dad we just went on our own, and I caught this massive great big trout. Bigger than your arm it was. When we got home, Dad told everyone that he caught it.Ben: Didn’t you mind?Phil: No, not really. Never really said much, my dad, but I knew that day that he was really proud of me and that didn’t happen very often. Got a taste for fishing after that.Peggy, speaking to Grant in 1996: I've had that [Christmas tree] angel for nearly twenty-five years. Do you remember bringing her home from school that day? You were so proud of yourself.Dot: Surely you done [Christmas] carols at school. Nigel: Yeah, but we used to change all the words.Dot, looking at an old theatre programme: Me first church panto, 1971. "Artistic director, Dorothy Cotton."Crew List on Dot’s panto programme:Producer ... Pauline LuxtonStage Electrician ... Alan SimsDancing Mistress ... Joanne HolmesPianist ... Leslie HodgsonMake-up ... Marisa AllenAlfie: Stage fright — I've suffered from it ever since I did the nativity play at Stanley Road Infants.Alfie: I was an angel [as a child].Alfie: I remember [decorating with fake snow at Christmas] as a kid once. I spent hours doing all the windows up. Me dad come back. I thought he'd be well chuffed. Then he realised I'd done it with spray paint. Took me days to scrape the thing off.Nana Moon on Alfie: It was Christmas and all he got was a jumper. It was a lovely blue knit rib. Oh wait a minute, I'm sorry — it might have been his cousin Eddie.Kat Slater to Alfie: You were seven-years-old one Christmas, remember? You wanted a little toy car.Alfie: That was me cousin Eddie.Maxwell Moon: When we were kids, the only time I ever saw youse was when you'd come round on the scrounge, just because I had better toys than you.Alfie: Max, everyone had better toys than me.Alfie: Max, you're right. I was a selfish little toe-rag. I blagged stuff off you.Maxwell: I envy you, Alfie. I always have.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?