It is not quite true that when you live at the seaside you
avoid the sea, at least during the summer holiday, but it is not quite false
either. The novelty of living where people spend their holidays wears off, but
the sea is still there to enjoy, and teenage girls are tempted by the sand and
water to go in little groups and spend hours either shivering because it is
cold, or burning because it is hot.
Teenage girls are far more mature than boys of the same age,
so it is no wonder that we look on the senior football team or senior cricket
team, in both of which the 6th formers are involved, as our targets
and candidates for romance. I do not really have any success in that
department. I am friendly with one handsome trumpet-player who has visions of
playing like Satchmo and to my ears already gets quite close, but I was not in
the league of female vamp. We did have some in the sixth form; they were what
Mama would call ‘forward’. Relationships were in those days less precocious, of
course, especially mine, except for those of forward girls, who met their
candidates clandestinely on the beach or in some secluded corner. I have vivid
memories of Mama actually chasing one boy down the road with a gardening tool
she happened to be wielding before this nice young man escorted me home. That
was the end of one beautiful friendship. The Satchmo friend ditched me a week
after I went to London, but had been two or was it three-timing me long before
then. I assume the other girl-friends were more into romance than I was, though
I poured over women’s mags to find out what all the fuss was about.. I never
stopped being shy and never really noticed if I was being noticed! In fact, you
would say I was inhibited. That explains why the stage was such a godsend for
me. I could really let my hair down and earn a certain amount of admiration,
too.
In the main, trips to the beach as a group of giggling girls
were strictly a girl thing. Later I discover that some of these girls, who were
quite happy to go to the beach with other girls while their boyfriends did sports,
actually married these first boyfriends. One girl, who was really gawky,
cross-eyed and a bit stupid, managed to get married about 17 days after leaving
school. I only found out later that it was a sort of competition to see who
could get married first. Amazing. I was hell-bent on having a career rather
than ending up in a semi. On reflection, they had more sense.
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