Hello Goodbye

Many thanks to vivacious for the great header.

Hello Goodbye

By

The Beatles – 1968

In my humble opinion 1967 was probably the peak of The Beatles musical achievements and certainly a year of hellos and goodbyes for me. Almost all the friends I’d made during my time at Grammar School had left to start work after the exams in 1966. I’d returned to school as a sixth former, studying ‘A’ Levels and more determined to salvage some of my potential at least. Within a few months contact with old friends in the working world had waned and new friendships with fresh faces at school established. Studies were taken more seriously, but there were still many moments of madness with classmates and evenings spent writing poetry, although by this time most of it was about Nigel. Some very tender, some very bitter, depending on what was happening in our relationship at the time. .

For Nigel it would be the last year of school, then on to University providing required grades were achieved in his examinations. His best friend Dave, of the carbolic soap aroma was now dating a girl called Jean in the fifth year and we spent a lot of time with them. I never particularly liked Carbolic Dave, only tolerating him for Nigel’s sake, but Jean and I became good friends. This was the motor scooter era; a must have for all males of seventeen. How grown up we considered ourselves to be, nipping in and out of traffic on scooters, clinging to our partners from the pillion seat. No one ever wore a helmet and I’m surprised we didn’t sustain serious injury the amount of times we skidded and fell off.

I was discovering Nigel and I were not as alike as I’d first thought, although we still got on well most of the time. Carbolic Dave was an out and out snob, originating from one of the most prestigious areas of Nottingham. Nigel’s family also lived in the same area and although he displayed less snootiness than his mate, there were times when I sensed he considered himself superior to me, both intellectually and physically. He’d criticise my hair, my clothes, my thoughts, my opinions and my taste in music, as if he wanted to mould the woman he desired, rather than love me for myself.

My Mum was still socialising with my sister and they’d become very friendly with a young man called Robert. I never did work out his exact relationship with my mother, but he spent a lot of time at our house and was almost considered part of the family. They formed a ten pin bowling team and mother made no secret of the fact she’d have preferred my sister to be romantically involved with Robert, rather than settle with Clive. Not very kind of her, but the manipulator in Mum is something we’ve only recognised in later years.

After Nigel had completed his exams he travelled to Guernsey with Carbolic Dave to earn money fruit picking, in order to pay for a summer holiday we’d planned. I know now he found himself someone else to charm on that beautiful Channel Island, so need not have felt guilty about my own straying. For the time being it was goodbye Nigel and hello Graham, another sixth former at school.

Graham was probably more like me than Nigel. A local boy from a working class family with three brothers, he was at the time rather shy and humble. He was honest, sweet, generous and trustworthy; words I could no longer use to describe Nigel. I adored him and in retrospect think he could possibly have been the right partner for me eventually. But at the time, Nigel was still in my heart and mind and Graham goes down in my personal history as the only man I can ever remember failing to seduce. A case of ‘I say yes, you say no, you say stop and I say go, go, go.’ It seemed sex was not going to be on the agenda no matter how persuasive I attempted to be. I know he had deep feelings for me; whether he was too inexperienced or too much of gentleman I don’t know; but it seemed important at the time. How would I know if we were compatible if he wouldn’t join in the experiment? I still only had Nigel to compare him with anyway, but it was not to be. The sixties were the start of more liberated years and a new confidence for women. I took advantage of it.

I spent the summer working in a salt factory; a dreadful experience, particularly for someone who doesn’t like salt. It was monotonously boring and physically draining, filling containers of salt from antiquated machinery, sticking together cardboard storage boxes with animal glue, and then lugging the boxes onto conveyor belts. It was piece work; meaning you were paid according to how much salt you packaged and heaven help any of the hired students who didn’t keep up with the hard nuts who worked there full time. It was tough; long hours cooped up inside a dilapidated building with barely any light and the air full of salt, limping home with blisters and sores irritated by the saline, collapsing into bed then getting up next morning ridiculously early to walk there again, as buses hadn’t started running at that unearthly hour. But, it enabled me to afford the holiday with Nigel, Dave and Jean later that summer.

We spent a rather disappointing week in Torquay, Devon, but it was my first holiday without family and an experience I probably needed at the time. Come September, I returned to school for my final year and said goodbye to both Nigel and Graham as they went away to university. I wrote to them both and jostled seeing them when they came home for weekends and holidays. Two timing wasn’t uncommon in those days and I made no secret to either about the other. Nigel never complained loudly, it would have been hypocritical to do so, considering his own activities. Ours was a strange and wonderful relationship. He was strange and I was wonderful.

On holiday in Torquay 1967. One of the few times I’ve had a short haircut. I didn’t like it and neither did Nigel, but I guess by the look of things he forgave me.