Take Good Care of my Baby

Many thanks to vivacious for the great Header.


Take Good Care of my Baby

By

Bobby Vee 1961

The summer of 1961 was to see massive changes in the lives of both my sister and myself. At 16, her school days were coming to a close and she was about to be launched into the working world as a shorthand typist.

My last year at Junior School had been one of much success in the sporting field which I thoroughly enjoyed; the only downside being the insistence of my mother that I attend ballet classes after a school medical revealed I had rather flat feet. I hated them to begin with, but later came to appreciate the beauty and physical benefits of dance. I also fell in love with twelve-year-old Richard Drobnovitch, the only boy in my dancing class, whose ‘entrechats' far outclassed any of we little, female ballerinas.

My days may have been filled with swimming, athletics, games, gymnastics and the dreaded ballet classes, but the imminent results of the then very prestigious 11 plus examination were uppermost in most parent's and teacher's minds. Success or failure of this test would shape the future of every child in the country who turned eleven that year.

I remember the day the letter arrived confirming I'd secured a place at the local Grammar School. I staggered around the streets with my swollen head gloating in the fact I‘d passed and none of my friends had. I later got a telling off from my Mum for opening the letter while she was at work. I'd only seen my name on it and not the ‘To the parent or guardian of...'

So as my sister shopped for elegant office clothes and shoes, fancy bags and those strange things called cosmetics, my mother was left to kit out the little one in her new school uniform at a department store in Nottingham. Up until that time I'd always considered myself an average-sized child, but as the shop assistant fussed around measuring and fetching garments, she constantly declared ‘Oh, but she's so petite,' and had great difficulty finding items to fit.

There were very few pupils who actually lived in the area surrounding Forest Fields Grammar School. Most came from more sophisticated parts of the city; maybe they came in bigger sizes than the local kids. Being the only child in the neighbourhood about to start at the Grammar School, it was left to my Mum to find me a companion to walk to school with on that first day of term.

So it came to pass, early one morning in September 1961 I was accompanied by one Lesley Porter who lived a few streets away and had been asked to call for me so I wouldn't have to enter the gates of the Grammar School alone. Lesley was a well-built, plump young girl who filled out her navy and gold uniform with no problems. As I turned to wave to my Mum in my pleated skirt folded over three times, my fingers barely visible at the end of my too long-sleeved blazer and the awful beret pinned to my hair, I'm sure there was a tear in her eye and the lyrics to ‘Take Good Care of my Baby' reverberated in her head.

Little did I know at the time that alongside dates in history, foreign languages, chemical symbols and complicated equations, I would learn harsher lessons about snobbery, injustice, fear, pressure and fierce competition. A new phase was about to begin and I would soon realise life was not always the Walt Disney, happy ending world I'd witnessed so often at the cinema.

** Image ID #1418285 Unavailable **

Dancing queen of 1961.