Boy Mad ....

In 1955 we girls of Wombwell Hall were definitely aware that we were fortunate in that we were the recipients of a far superior education than that of our contemporaries left behind in the district’s various secondary modern schools.  Not that our good fortune could be compared with that of the grammar school girls of course but we couldn’t have everything and some might say that it was simply being possessed of a fraction more intelligence than expected that placed us where we now were.  In my case I am quite certain it was because I was able to spell entrepreneur and residual when called upon to do so in my interview with Miss Fuller.  Regardless of the various reasons why, by the time we reached our fifteenth birthdays some of us had become too pre-occupied with other matters to fully comprehend precisely how educationally privileged we actually were.

 

The other matters concerned Boys and a few of our number were accused by our elders of being Boy Mad.   I wasn’t entirely sure what being Boy Mad actually entailed but I knew it probably applied to me.  Acquiring boyfriends had become of prime importance to a fair proportion of us in Form 2SC and I was one of them though not one of the favoured few who were actually Going Steady.  In any case I tried hard to hide the fact that I was Boy Mad because it seemed to be a vaguely indecent state and one that had mothers and aunts shaking their heads and wondering what the world was coming to.  Nevertheless at the time it appeared to me that everyone had a steady boyfriend except me and I reasoned that I was probably too fat and too unattractive to ever acquire one.   Although it was definitely true that back in those days relationships between the sexes seemed to take off and were accepted rather earlier than would be the case today, they were by no means the norm for everyone.  But the norm of the situation is only something I have been able to clearly see with hindsight and at the time the only norm in my book was that of my closest Wombwell Hall companions.  And they were the ones reveling in much envied Relationships.

 

At our previous school, Colyer Road Secondary for Girls it had been Marjorie Bullen who had ended up being the prime trendsetter and authority on male/female affiliations.  Her rapid progress through these rites of passage was truly astonishing.   Despite being forced to abandon one Steady when she was taken to New Zealand for a new life by her parents, once there in a brand new co-educational and apparently very progressive school in Auckland she had almost immediately become engaged to a handsome lad with tribal affiliations to the Ngati Whatua and they had all but set a wedding date.   All this we learned from letters sent to her close friend Sandra Maxwell who had deftly moved into her place as prime style guru and influencer where the opposite sex was concerned.    In fact it was Sandra who informed us that neither New Zealand nor the fiancé had ultimately worked out which meant that Marjorie was quite rapidly back in Gravesend and about to wed a local boy and indeed shortly to become a mother.   She was looking forward to the event, she said, and in fact if things went as planned Sandra might be invited to be godmother.  We were duly impressed, at least some of us were but from others, the ones who were decidedly less Boy Mad there was a shocked and edgy silence.

 

Sandra stared at us through the silence slightly aggressively.  She was an outstandingly attractive girl with soulful dark eyes and an abundance of curls framing her face.   Even the staff were known to comment on her good looks.   Pat Haslam said it was easy for girls like her to get boyfriends but not quite as easy when you were destined to always look more Average.  I had to agree with her although later when Pat finally revealed her own Boy Mad streak by rebelling against her family and running away with a visiting GI she had somehow or other met in a local tea shop, it seemed to me that she wasn’t doing too badly herself.  I appeared to be permanently on a long waiting list where males were concerned.   I had for two terms desperately wondered what it would be like to be kissed which was something that happened to Sandra every Friday and Saturday and more besides if the hints she sometimes nonchalantly dropped were to be believed.  My situation was that I feared I would die an Old Maid.

 

I joined the group that clustered around Sandra each Monday morning, poised to hang on to every word she uttered on the topic of teenage sex circa 1955. She seemed to be able to acquire one Steady after another effortlessly and what’s more they were more than anxious to do her bidding particularly when it came to buying her gifts.  Pauline Pritchard and Pamela Lennox said that it had to be borne in mind that her particular source of boyfriends came from the Sea School and all those boys were desperate for girls to go steady with.  But they voiced this opinion a little nervously and definitely not within Sandra’s earshot.

 

The National Sea Training College is apparently still located in Gravesend and has been since 1918.  It trained boys aged 15 to 16 to join the Merchant Navy and over time more than 70,000 were trained there.  It became known as the best sea training school in the world.  At its inception it occupied what was then still called the Commercial Hotel even though it had become a Sailors’ Home as long ago as 1886.   Within its walls sailors of all nationalities could be sure of lodgings between discharge from one voyage and signing on for another.    In time the old building was demolished and the school itself extended, eventually moving to new premises on Chalk Marshes in 1967.

 

Back in 1955, the school was vibrant with a full roll of young men more than anxious to cultivate the affections of the girls of Wombwell Hall during their regular sorties into town which some of them referred to as shore leave.  Later we found these were just normal breaks as most of them had not yet embraced enough nautical knowledge to be allowed to go to sea anyway.   What they were allowed to do several times weekly was venture into the town centre, looking very smart in their uniforms and eliciting admiring comments from the girls, at least those like us still young enough to be impressed by them.

 

There was undoubtedly truth in the assertion that Sandra who had not been without a Steady since the age of thirteen had deftly garnered most of her admirers from the Sea School and Joyce Williams said that was because the best bus into town from where she lived stopped almost outside the building in which it was housed so it was in fact a completely straightforward process for her.   If she had to first get a bus from Istead Rise for instance she might find it more difficult.   Sally Warnett gloomily offered that her mother wouldn’t countenance the idea of a boyfriend in the first place, let alone one from the Sea School because everybody knew they were only After One Thing.   There was a slightly embarrassed silence then and we all looked at Sandra who said well none of them would be getting that One Thing from her and that was a fact.    We were definitely aware that the One Thing under discussion led to the kind of situation Marjorie Bullen had found herself in.

 

We were all sitting in the science lab when this conversation took place and Miss Norman was as usual running late for the next period.   Anne Cogger who was Form Captain that year pointed out sensibly that those who took their homework seriously now they were fifteen years old would realise that it might be wiser to put this before boyfriends.  Joyce sitting beside me whispered that Anne with her weight problem was never going to be a hit with men anyway so she should shut up and furthermore if she had to rely on a bus that only ran every hour she would realise that finding enough time for anything, including homework, was difficult.   It was evident that Joyce was at the time overly concerned with bus timetables.   I was quiet because I had definite worries about my own weight and I had taken to walking to and from school rather than taking the bus and rather shamefully spending the resultant funds on a variety of sweet treats such as Polo Mints and Spangles.   Even I could see further thinking was needed.

 

It was Sandra herself who finally made the suggestion that I join her regular venture into town in search of Sea School Boys the following Friday.  I was thrilled.   Liam from Belfast had now been dumped, she said, and she needed to find a replacement as soon as possible so she wouldn’t pine for him.   She added that his regular letters from far flung places on the globe during his last trip, which had in actual fact been his first trip, had been by far the best of all her Steadies and he had been the only one whose pearl ear rings had been real pearls, well cultured ones at least.  She thought there was a definite possibility his Mum and Dad might be quite posh.   I had no idea of the difference between pearls or the likelihood of his parents’ poshness so I remained as quiet as possible. 

 

So it was with Sandra’s help and make up borrowed from my cousin Pat that I met up with Donald from South Shields that Friday.  The positive thing about him was that he was male and seemed interested in me.  The negative thing was that he suffered from serious acne and had an inability to speak any form of English that I could understand.   His friend Derek from South London who did not have acne and spoke in what I felt were more melodic and accentless tones was purloined from beneath my very nose by Sandra.   I didn’t feel that this was the most advantageous start and I could see why Donald was not going to be first on any girl’s wish list no matter how long they had waited for a first kiss.   I nervously studied his lips.

 

I did try hard to communicate with him but he seemed to find me as difficult as I found him and finally told me it was because of my cockney accent and we should just have a Snog instead and after that things went from bad to worse.   I began to realise that finding a Steady perhaps required more effort and energy than I was prepared to put into the task and I viewed Sandra with a new respect.  Despite Anne Cogger’s dire predictions regarding homework Sandra seemed to be able to get on top of hers with no trouble, mastering New Era Short Forms ahead of the rest of us and, if Miss Wood was to be believed, always positioning her vowels correctly.   I became all too aware that would not apply in my case.   Even before Donald had decided to embark upon what was to be my much anticipated very first kiss, I had come to the firm conclusion that he had to Go.  There was simply no room in my life for a Steady with acne and an attitude problem.  I was in no mood to easily forgive him for the accusation concerning the cockney accent.

 

I don’t recall exactly how I managed to extricate myself from his determined embrace outside the station downline entrance that evening but somehow or other I did and made a bolt for the 480 bus stop making some kind of remark about last buses.   It was a great relief to fling myself onto it and I sat at the back, still aware of his breath against my cheek.  I neurotically began wiping away all traces of that most unpleasant close encounter with his inflamed lips, with a grubby tissue, fervently wishing it had never happened.

 

At school on Monday Sandra wanted to know where I had disappeared to all of a sudden.   Donald, she told me, had been very upset because he had been of the opinion that I was keen to Go Steady.  Her Derek had turned out to be just what she was looking for.   I shrugged, tried to look offhand and said I’d decided to concentrate more on homework than on boys for the time being.

 

Anne Cogger, overhearing this exchange nodded approvingly and sat next to me in New Era Speed Practice.   I asked her if she thought I had a cockney accent and she said no, definitely not.   I thought I might have less to do with Sandra in future.