Sunday 8 May
In the morning Mum and I stayed in bed for a while and Daddy went to tennis. It was very, very hot and in the afternoon I only wore my green shirtwaister. It was the Sunday School's anniversary and instead of the usual Y.F. service we all went down into the church and listened to the children's service in which the Juniors took part. Geraldine Webb, Ken's sister, sang a solo. (She has a nice clear little voice.) I was sitting sandwiched between Carol and John Reynolds. Carol wore her new black and white checked dress again. After the service I said goodbye to Carol and Viv and went to tea at Chris's. We decided to go for a walk and took little-girl-next-door Margaret's dog Bluey. She is a lovely, very energetic, cocker spaniel. We took her to Beverly Brook which was crowded with New Maldenites. We went past all these boys who made noises after us, and immediately almost bumped into Ken Webb and Robin Marriot! After tea we re-met Carol and Viv and returned to church. Mr Golden is getting quite pally with us and called me 'Jac' and was very concerned about Carol's cold. We all wore lily of the valley posies on our dresses as they are our church's special flower. In the evening service it was the Seniors' turn to perform and they acted the part of nurses, beggars, school children, etc. Dangling from the roof of the church was a painted sun, moon and some clouds and stars to represent the universe, and every time Mr Kelly or anyone got up to preach they got hit on the head by the sun.
I still didn't seem to be making proper friends with any of these boys.
Monday 20 June
I must admit it would be nice to have a boyfriend to boast about, but boys of my own age are so stupid, and boys of about 16 or 17 who are interested in girls want girls their own age. Oh well, if I'm just patient I expect one will come along some day.
I had lots of attention from the wrong sort of boy. Whenever Carol and I went to the pictures, older boys usually started whistling or messing around or trying out some corny chat-up line. Carol looked older than me and had a dark, pouty, smouldering look they found very attractive. But we both found these approaches embarrassing and we were under no illusions – they just wanted girls to sit in the back row with them. We knew what was likely to happen.
Tuesday 9 August
In the afternoon Carol and I went to the Granada to see 'Make Mine Mink'. It was very very funny, but half the time we weren't watching the screen, but watching the couple in front of us. A girl was sitting in the middle of the row and a boy at the end. The girl got up to go, and as she passed him the boy looked at her. A few minutes later the girl returned, only this time she sat next to him. They started talking, and he gave her a cigarette. Then he casually put his arm along the back of her seat, and then onto her shoulder. Then he leant over and kissed her, then again. She leant back and he leant over her and they kissed and kissed passionately. Then he slowly slid his hand up her skirt but I don't think she liked that because she tried to push it away. Anyway, when the film ended the boy whispered to the girl, and then went out and didn't come back. The girl sat placidly in front of us and watched the second film. Two perfect strangers!
Boys tried to pick girls up everywhere.
Friday 22 April
I met Carol at half past two and we went to the baths, but they were packed, and there was a very long queue. We resolutely joined the end of it. A Teddy boy ran his hand up my back and I said 'Do you mind?' and dragged Carol away as I hate that sort of boy.
Teddy boys wore their hair in greasy quiffs, they had long fancy jackets down to their knees, bootlace ties, drainpipe trousers and suede shoes with enormous soles. They were nearly all harmless suburban lads, but the very name 'teddy boy' made Biddy think of flick-knives and drinking and sex and doing a ton on motorbikes. She wanted me to find a boyfriend but she'd have fainted if I'd brought home a teddy boy.
Sunday 17 July
Went to Burnham Beeches with Carol. At the swimming pool a boy squirted water from a soda siphon all over us. Then we went round the fair together. I turned round, and noticed that four teds were following. Cas and I walked on to the Rollapenny and the teds followed and stood very close behind us. One of them said, 'I dunno how to play Rollapenny, perhaps one of these young ladies will show us how' so I said, 'Okay, if you provide the pennies.' And believe it or not the ted fished in his pocket and brought out a handful of coppers. I felt awful (I don't know why) so I didn't take any.
This was all pretty tame, but sometimes girls felt very vulnerable back in 1960, when mild sexual harassment was commonplace:
Thursday 4 August
Went to Lagoon with Carol. Four boys kept throwing matches at us and kept on talking for hours. I didn't like them and neither did Carol but we stayed until one of them mentioned undoing my swimming costume zip, and then we hastily departed.
Monday 8 August
Carol and I went to the Lagoon, but the changing rooms were being sluiced out all day so we had to change in the open. It was horrible. When I had nothing on but a towel on my top some men came along and stared and commented.
I was starting to despair. There were a good handful of boys I liked, but none of them seemed to want to get to know me properly. All the boys who showed an interest in me were too old or too scary or too crude. But at the end of August Biddy and Harry and I went on holiday to Cornwall – and I had my first real romance.
12
Cornwall
We went on a fortnight's holiday, one week in St Ives and one week in Newquay, with Uncle Ron and Aunty Grace. I wonder whose idea it was. Biddy worked with Ron at Prince Machines and they were very close. I'm sure they'd have loved to go off on holiday, just the two of them. It seemed so strange for us all to go in this awkward fivesome. Why didn't Harry or Grace object? I didn't mind for myself. I'd been to Cornwall before on an odd holiday with Harry and had thought it beautiful. (He and Biddy had separate holidays the year I was eleven – I had to accompany both of them in turn.)
Cornwall was considered exotic in 1960, before there were cheap package tours abroad. Chris was going on holiday to Eastbourne as usual with Fred, Hetty and Jan. I think Carol and her family were just having day trips here and there.
I met up with Carol the Friday before we went on holiday and we went to the Boys and Girls Exhibition at Olympia. I'd been there before when I was younger, with Biddy. I'd shyly whispered a few words to the children's author Pamela Brown and been traumatized by George Cansdale wrapping a large snake round my neck. I kept well away from any animal stand this time.
I looked hopefully for Pamela Brown, or indeed any other authors. I have a feeling Noel Streatfeild might have been there. I'd loved all Noel Streatfeild's books when I was younger and longed to see her, even if I wasn't sure I'd have enough gump to talk to her – not without Biddy prodding me into action. But we couldn't find Noel Streatfeild. It was hard finding any of the stands it was so jam-packed. We simply shuffled here, stumbled there, eating hot dogs for our lunch, giggling and blushing when any boys spoke to us.
When I got home Biddy had done all my packing for me. She spent hours ironing and folding and arranging every item in perfect patterns until each suitcase looked like a work of art. My white canvas beach shoes and my new pointy black heels touched toes beside my blue and white floral swimming costume and my best baby-doll pyjamas; my underwear was prinked into shape like elaborate table napkins; my two white T-shirts and my startlingly short shorts were carefully folded, still serenely spotless. My pale lilac cardigan was curled round them like a little furry creature, and all my frocks were puffed out and folded over tissue paper: my green shirtwaister and a deep blue floral frock and a new white puff-sleeved dress sprigged with tiny apricot flowers. My favourite lilac skirt floated on top, freshly laundered and immaculately ironed.
'Oh thanks, Mum, but what about my stuff ? My journal and my notebook and my black folder and—'
'You're not going to be huddled in a corner writing all day long. You're on holiday,' said Biddy.
'But what about my books?'
'You can take a paperback fo
r the train,' said Biddy. 'We'll get you some magazines too.'
I didn't argue, knowing it was a waste of breath. I waited until she'd gone to tackle Harry's packing – he wasn't trusted to do it himself either – and then carefully shoved my diary down in the depths of the case, together with The Greengage Summer, a Monica Dickens paperback, a little Collins copy of Jane Eyre because it was very long. Gone with the Wind because it was even longer, and my current favourite book for the train, Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse.
I found Billy Liar riveting reading. It's a story about a young Yorkshire lad called Billy Fisher who worked in an undertaker's, had three simultaneous girlfriends and told compulsive lies. I was a suburban schoolgirl who didn't even have one boyfriend and didn't tell actual lies, though I was frequently economical with the truth. I identified totally with Billy because he was a helpless daydreamer, forever seeking refuge in his own imaginary world of Ambrosia, he didn't feel he fitted in with his family, and he badly wanted to be a writer. It was a revelation to me that someone else felt exactly the same way I did. I laughed at his jokes, I bit my lip when he got into endless trouble, I learned all his catch phrases, I lived every minute of his life.
Biddy sniffed when she saw me clutching Billy Liar the next morning and Harry cursed when he picked up my suitcase (Gone with the Wind alone was like a couple of bricks), but I couldn't bear the thought of running out of reading matter. I had two long weeks sitting on a beach with four adults who would be talking amongst themselves. It's a wonder I didn't try to stuff our collected hardback edition of Jane Austen into my suitcase too.
I read my way through Billy Liar twice on the train journey down to St Ives. It was always an incredible palaver for the three of us travelling anywhere. Ron and Grace must have travelled separately by car. We certainly had the use of a car on holiday and it wasn't ours. It would probably have been too much of a squash for all of us to travel down to Cornwall in Ron's car, especially as we three Aitkens travelled with four large cumbersome cases and several bags and carriers as well. Biddy had to have two large battered Revelation suitcases to spread her frocks out properly, fluttering brightly in between layers of tissue paper like giant butterflies.
We would normally have taken the hourly Green Line bus all the way up to London but we couldn't possibly manhandle so much luggage ourselves so we hired a car up to Paddington. This was such an extraordinary step that Biddy and Harry were extra tense on the journey, and I sat bolt upright, eyes closed, breathing shallowly, praying that I wasn't going to be sick over the hired upholstery.
We felt triumphant when we eventually flopped down on the scratchily upholstered seats in the train. Poor Harry struggled to stow all the cases in the roof racks while Biddy fussed because we weren't facing the engine and pulled hard on the leather strap to make sure the window was tightly closed. It was stifling in the carriage before we'd even started the journey, but she was anxious about smuts flying in and speckling our virgin-white shirts and cardigans with soot. This was the age of steam trains. They let fly a plume of white smoke as they chugged through the countryside, the wheels turning to a comforting tune: diddle-de-der, diddle-de-der, diddle-de-der, on and on. And on and on and on, all the way to St Ives.
It took all day long then. By the time we eventually arrived and checked into our modest hotel we were exhausted. We met up with Ron and Grace and ate our dinner of brown Windsor soup, boiled beef and carrots, and vanilla ice cream with tinned peaches, and then went straight to our bedroom.
We had to unpack everything there and then and hang it up carefully under Biddy's strict supervision. I quickly hid my extra books in the drawer she'd designated for my T-shirts and underwear. I had my journal and was all set to write up the day while Biddy and Harry were making their treks to the bathroom and back. The hotel was quite posh in our eyes but certainly didn't run to en suite bathrooms. I was so tired I just wrote in pencil: 'Long long long train journey', and then I fell asleep.
We met up with Ron and Grace again at breakfast, Biddy and Ron chatting animatedly, Harry and Grace chewing silently, me spooning up my tinned grapefruit and surreptitiously peering round at all the other guests in the dining room. There didn't seem to be any girls my age. There were a few boys, but surprisingly none particularly took my eye.
I was keen to get to the beach. We sunbathed most of Sunday. I wore my minuscule short shorts and white top and later changed into my blue and white swimsuit. Biddy wore her very similar costume on the beach. There are snapshot photos of us looking alarmingly alike, our brown hair blown back by the breeze, showing our high foreheads, our big noses and determined chins. Biddy is small and slim and looks years younger than her age. It must have been galling for Grace, who was older and stockier and much more staid looking. There are no photos of her in her swimming costume.
There are lots of photos of Ron, who is older and overweight and very homely looking, with eyes too close together and flat Brylcreemed hair – and yet he's always got a cheery grin on his face and the only time he's bothered to try to suck in his stomach is when he's standing in the sea with Harry and me.
Harry is the best looking of all of us, his tennis playing keeping him trim and muscular. He tanned easily, going an impressive golden brown within a couple of days. He's smiling in every photo too, which seems astonishing.
On the Monday we had a trip out in Ron's car to Mullion and the Lizard. I was particularly enthusiastic about going to Mullion because I'd once enjoyed reading a book by Mabel Esther Allan about a bunch of children with bizarre names: there was one girl with green eyes called Pussy, and the narrator was called Mullion after the Cornish cove. The Lizard sounded interesting too. I was mad enough to hope for real large lizards lurking on the rocks like a fantasy Jurassic age. Both Mullion and the Lizard were doubtless beautiful but a little disappointing in reality. I'm not sure which is which in the little black and white snapshots. There's one of a vast cliff with Ron straddling a large rock, flabby chest and big belly making him look like a Buddha.
We made another trip out to Land's End. In those days it was attractively bare and deserted so it gave you a feeling of being at the very end of England. The only nod to tourism was a signpost where you could insert the letters of your own home town. So there we are, smiling under a sign that said CHEAM 291 MILES (where Ron and Grace lived) and KINGSTON 283 MILES.
We all look relaxed and are smiling obediently, even Harry and Grace. Harry is wearing a too-tight sweater, baggy tennis shorts and open-toed sandals, not a good look. Grace is sitting down, wearing a large frock, skirts blowing in the breeze, a bead necklace round her throat. Biddy is next to her, her grinning mouth dark with lipstick. She's wearing a snug sweater and surprising trousers – she called them trews – in a jazzy zigzag pattern. Ron is standing above her, one arm leaning on the signpost, the other arm round me. My shorts look indecent, I'm showing way too much plump leg. I was always such an anxious, self-conscious girl, fussing desperately over my hair, obsessing about a tiny spot on my nose – how could I have gone out practically showing my knickers?
Our hotel held a dance on Monday evening. I wasn't sure I wanted to go, feeling foolish trailing behind these four ill-assorted adults.
'Can't I just stay in my room and read?' I begged Biddy.
'No, of course you can't! You can't just lurk in the bedroom and read. You're here to enjoy yourself on holiday,' said Biddy.
I wasn't enjoying myself. I felt bored and restless and embarrassed trailing round with four adults all the time, and I was terribly aware of Grace's little huffs and Harry's sulks. We were playing this game that we were all great friends having a fantastic holiday, but we all knew that wasn't true.
'I don't want to go to this damn daft dance either,' said Harry. 'I'm going to push off for a walk.'
'You can't! You've got to come,' Biddy said, craning to zip herself into her best low-necked frock.
'I haven't got to do anything. I don't want to dance with you – and I certainly don't want to d
ance with Grace,' said Harry.
'You've got to, to be polite. Look, don't just stand there, help me with my zip!'
Harry sorted her out so smartly that the skin of her back got pinched in the zip. Biddy screamed and accused him of doing it on purpose. There was a row, conducted in whispers, because all the bedrooms were in close proximity. Harry stormed off on his walk. Biddy collapsed in tears. I tried inadequately to comfort her, longing to escape back into my book.
But disaster was averted. Harry came back twenty minutes later. He wasn't talking, but he put on a clean white shirt and changed into his best grey suit. Biddy held a damp flannel over her eyes and then patted her powder in place, painting a big lipstick smile on her face. I stopped lolling on my bed with my book and shook out my creased skirts. My white dress set off my tan and I had a new gilt and mother-of-pearl locket as a holiday present.
We lined up to peer in the big mirror inside the wardrobe, Biddy and Harry and me, and we all passed muster. Then we went down the stairs, along the passageway and into the ballroom to join up with Ron and Grace, who were already halfway through their lemonade shandies.
Oh, those long-ago dances! You had a waltz, a quickstep, a slow foxtrot, and if you were really dashing, a cha-cha-cha. There were the novelty dances, the spot waltz where the music stopped every few minutes and the compère asked a silly question and the first couple to answer it got a prize: a bar of chocolate or a tin of talcum powder or a propelling pencil, nothing exciting at all, but the couples whooped as if they'd won the football pools. Then there was the Paul Jones, where all the ladies joined hands in a circle facing outwards and all the gentlemen formed an outer circle facing inwards, holding hands far more awkwardly. When the music started the ladies danced clockwise, the men anti-clockwise, until the music stopped and you had to dance with the man facing you. Sometimes there were more ladies than men and you got a gap, so you had to slink back to your seat until the circles started up again.