Stuck in the Middle with You

Many thanks to vivacious for the great header.

Stuck in the Middle with You

By

Stealer’s Wheels – 1973

There were no major life events that I can remember at the start of 1973. Teaching continued to be hard work yet satisfying and stimulating. I had gelled well with the rest of the staff and the routine of the school was now familiar. There were a few new members of staff this year too as the school expanded in numbers, one of whom has become a lifelong friend. Her name is June and it is through her I also found another true friend many years later, who goes by the name of crackedbizkit on this site. Through the latter I also came across the beautiful town of Newark which already holds many pleasant memories for me and is where I’d like to live one day.

In February, Vivien, one of my two best friends from college got married; my other friend Kath and I were bridesmaids. We’re all still good friends today, despite the distances between our homes. I remember standing in her parent’s kitchen overlooking the stunning Saddleworth Moors on the morning of her wedding. I had very little interest in settling down and although I liked her husband-to-be, didn’t think them suited. I asked her if she was sure she wanted to marry him. Although the marriage lasted many years and they have two beautiful daughters, they did split up eventually. But obviously that was the path she needed to take in life and I have never forgotten the giggles we failed to repress on her wedding day as the Vicar conducted the service. He had unfortunately broken his leg and it was in a plaster cast. As snow and ice lay on the ground that week he wore a plastic bag on his foot to stop the damp penetrating and to prevent slipping. Every time he moved, the plastic bag rustled, echoing all round the very quiet church.

Vivien’s wedding in Lancashire on a beautiful winter’s day in February.

In June of that year my Mum , little Boo and I spent our first holiday in the beautiful Isle of Wight together. It was the start of a love affair with the place which continues to this day and eventually enveloped my whole family. Those memories have always been very special to us and will remain so. As you may know I visited the Isle of Wight with my family, introducing two more newcomers who also fell in love with the place in the form of Mey Ling and Angel. My sister will be on holiday there next week and I know it will bring her some comfort too.

In the July my sister gave birth to her daughter Rachel, a first grandchild for my parents and my first role as an Aunty. Rachel was quite a demanding baby who did an awful lot of crying and I know sis won’t mind me saying she found those first few months of motherhood very difficult. Rachel herself has been through a lot of tough times in her life but my sister has proved what a wonderful Mum she is and Rachel is proving she has the strength to overcome her problems more and more as time goes on.

Things for me grew rather difficult when I returned to school in the September to a new class. I’d taught two mostly pleasant classes but there was one class in the school which my poor friend June had landed in her first year of teaching who were decidedly weird to say the least. They were kindly handed over to me for their next year at school. Midwitch Cuckoos springs to mind when I think of them; their behaviour and habits not necessarily naughty, but just very odd and cliquish. They were a hard class to teach and very unresponsive to praise or criticism and I seriously contemplated leaving teaching that year. Many times I wish I had now, but regrets do no one any favours.

Maybe it was my friends beginning to get married and my sister starting a family, but for whatever reason I began to feel more disgruntled with life and started pondering where my future was headed. I had no desire to get hitched or have babies but didn’t like the thought I could end up an old teacher spinster one day. I knew Nigel and I would probably never marry, yet we stayed together and were still quite content with each other most of the time. I suspect our relationship was almost an addiction by now and Nigel suggested ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ as a suitable theme song for us. I believe he was also tiring of listening to my tales of joy and woe in teaching; something he could never really relate to, despite becoming friendly with some of my teaching colleagues. Anyone who has ever worked in a school will know how much the staff tend to talk about their work.

Changes were on the horizon but it would be a little while yet and not anything I could have forecast. But then that’s the way of life as most of us are aware.

Mum , little Boo and myself on the beach at Shanklin, Isle of Wight. As you may have gathered we were in total disagreement as to the weather, but I guess she was approaching a certain age and I always felt the cold until I reached it too. In fact I was always teased as a child because every time I was told to take off my coat or cardigan because I’d be too hot, I flatly refused.

Postscript. I have no photographs of our holidays in the Isle of Wight at my house as I still lived with my parents at the time, so we only took the one camera with us. All the photos were kept by Mum. I really wanted to include one in this entry so hunted down her albums. I was deeply touched to find them in an album called ‘Together Always.’ She’d written comments by the side of each picture but when I took this photo out of the album to scan it, I found these words written on the back. ‘

‘ “Take your cardigan off Linda.”

Do you remember?’

It made me laugh and cry at the same time. Yes Mum, I do remember and I never need a cardigan these days.