Young Girl

Many thanks to vivacious for the great header.

Young Girl

By

Gary Puckett & the Union Gap – 1968.

At the start of 1968 with both Nigel and Graham away at University, I was better able to focus on my forthcoming exams and free to enjoy an uncluttered social life. This was the era of new nightclubs and dance spots, where friends and I enjoyed the experiences offered to up and coming eighteen-year-olds. But mostly, we hung around each others’ houses, taking part in all sorts of weird and wonderful experiments, ranging from Ouija boards to deliberately staying up all night just to see what it felt like. Not the best of ideas with a swimming gala the following day.

I still saw Nigel and Graham when they came home for weekends and holidays. By this time Nigel had passed his driving test and we felt quite the adult couple when we arrived at parties, clubs and friends’ homes in his newly acquired, but ancient Triumph Herald. Owning a car back then was quite an unusual accomplishment. We were by now considered an item by school friends and had quite a reputation for our coordinated disco moves on the dance floor.

I became very interested in literature during that year when a new and very gifted English teacher brought every book we studied to life. From Donne to Hardy, from Shakespeare to Marlowe, he had the rare knack of passing on his excitement and respect for authors to his pupils. To this day I still remember his sarcastic tongue, but also the enthusiasm he instilled into his students. With his guidance and enough work I gained the results necessary to apply to a College of Education.

We still worked at the salt factory at weekends and during holidays, in order to earn enough money to buy the books and materials needed for college. I spent my eighteenth birthday there and was refused a drink at the pub during our lunch break on the grounds of being underage. No one carried passports or means of identity much in those times so it was very frustrating to actually be legally old enough to drink, but still be rebuffed. Nigel was again working the summer holiday in Guernsey and I was spending more time with Graham.

But Nigel was still my top priority and as he attended a University in Leeds during term time, it seemed only natural to try for a place near to where he was studying. I was offered an interview at a Teaching Training College in Barnsley, Yorkshire and considered it close enough. The day I put my wages into my bag at the salt factory with the intention of buying a new outfit for my interview is one I’ve never forgotten. At the end of the day I discovered my wages had been stolen, I returned home in tears only to be given the news my cat had died and Graham’s Mum had phoned to complain about me keeping her son out until all hours. It didn’t stop us continuing those late night heavy petting sessions however, although I never did get my wicked way with him.

The boss at the salt factory offered to reimburse my lost wages but asked if I would baby-sit his children as a favour in return. I was quite happy to accept his offer, but still being a young girl, hadn’t anticipated he would propose a further favour from me when he drove me home. There was no way I wanted any involvement with an older married man, so took my wages and scarpered. I never returned to the factory after that but there were no regrets on that front.

My mother was to suffer a double blow in September of 1968 when both her daughters flew the nest. My sister married Clive and moved to live in Staffordshire. Despite pleas for me to go to college locally, I was ready to live away from home for a while and besides, I’d planned on being nearer to Nigel. I think mother took to her bed for a couple of weeks to recover from the loss of both her girls.

Then came an unexpected blow for me. As the new educational year approached Nigel was informed he’d failed his first year exams at university and was asked to leave. Graham too didn’t fare very well in his exams and had to return home for some extensive treatment on a severe back injury he’d sustained a couple of years earlier. So as I set off for college in Yorkshire, both of them returned home to Nottingham. My Mum was working for a Bookmaker’s firm by then and managed to secure some work for Nigel with the same company, while he contemplated his future.

As I was driven to college, an old castle set in isolated countryside, I commented I didn’t mind what colour walls my room in college had, as long as they weren’t green. I should have heeded it as an omen when I discovered they were and also my roommate Mary, not the type of girl I was going to get on with.

If I’d thought school was tough and staff insensitive, then I was about to find out things could be a hell of a lot worse. My college was an all women’s establishment and staffed mainly by old spinsters who ran it like a finishing school. There was no option for slacking; lectures were long, boring and intense with little free time in between and a huge amount of assignments to complete afterwards. This was to be the start of three very difficult, stressful and eventful years.

My sister’s wedding, September 1968. Forty years on she still apologises for making me wear that pill box hat.