STAND ALONE

Another episode for my Autobiography, this time from age 8 - 17

I was thirteen years old when Terry, my boyfriend of five years, died very suddenly. He had been waiting for me with his friends at our usual rendezvous, a small park close to our homes. That park was a pretty neglected place. It was a square of grass with a few battered swings, a creaking old roundabout and a peeling, rusty climbing frame set into a concrete base.

Terry loved to do his daring stunts on that climbing frame and, ever the joker, he had been pretending to be a monkey with all the appropriate sound effects. Suddenly, he had slipped off the top level and landed on his head with a sickening thud. His friends froze for a split second, almost waiting for Terry to laugh and get up, dusting the dirt from his curly blonde hair, but he did not move again.

When I arrived, there was an ambulance at the park gates and a couple of uniformed men were quickly carrying a stretcher, covered with a blanket, towards me. It did not dawn on me that lying on that stretcher was Terry.

I ran towards the gaggle of teenagers who were in silence around the swings and by the time I reached them I could see that Terry was not there. Robert, normally a cheeky and chirpy individual, was sitting on one of the swings with his head hanging down almost to his knees. He looked up when I approached and said, “He fell, Froggie, I think he is dead!”

I looked back to the gate but the ambulance was pulling away. It did not sound its siren. There was no hurry.

The next few days were very odd. I had no anchor any more. I stood alone.

My life, since I was eight years old, had centred around meeting up with Terry after school and at weekends. I had been his girlfriend since I had punched him on the chin for pushing my brother out of a dinner queue on our first day at a new school. Terry had landed hard on his bottom and, nursing a growing bruise on his chin, had risen to his feet grinning. I simply stared at him, hauled my brother into his place in the queue and stood glaring at this bully, a tall slim boy with a mop of wild curly hair.

Later, in class, that mop of curly hair stood out among the boys. I had not noticed him before. He kept grinning at me and I sneered, flicked my hair out of my face and ignored him.

The boy sitting behind me tapped me on the shoulder and passed me a scrap of paper when the teacher was not looking.

“Will you be my girlfriend?” it said and I looked round to see him gesturing to Terry who sat across the aisle from him. Terry was almost lounging in his chair, trying to look cool, I guess. I screwed up the scrap of paper and threw it at him.

The teacher spun on the spot when she heard the boys giggling at Terry. “I hope you can tell me the answer to this sum, Terry!” She stated sternly and Terry straightened himself up in his chair and answered her politely.

At the end of school that day I collected my younger brother from his cloakroom and we left school by the back gate. My brother, Roy, hesitated when he saw Terry and a couple of friends hanging around in the street, but I held his hand firmly and continued walking.

We had just moved to Romford from Islington in London and I was used to defending my brother. For some reason his silent sullen expression always seemed to attract bullies. It wasn’t until Roy reached ten years of age that we discovered he was very short sighted and could barely see. This had been why he always frowned and looked so grumpy!

Terry walked alongside me with his friends trailing behind. “Where d’ya live?” he asked and I snapped, “Mind your own business!” quickening my pace. Terry was amused and remarked that I was very unfriendly to which I raised my eyebrows and lifted my chin. “I don’t like bullies.” I stated without looking at him.

Terry laughed and said that I was the first girl that had ever punched him. My brother blustered, “She’ll do it again if you don’t leave us alone!” and all Terry’s crew of hangers-on began whooping and pretending to be afraid.

Day after day, Terry and his friends would surround me in the playground or stand around watching me skipping or doing somersaults on the asymmetric bars. One particular day, I was wearing a white shirt and they were giggling, behind me in class, so much that they were in tears. I spun around and one of my plaits swung forward from my back and landed on my chest leaving a large ink splash there. They had dipped my hair into the inkwell on the desk immediately behind me and I had ink stains both back and front of my shirt.

The teacher gave the boy who sat behind me the slipper for doing that and I was mortified. I had no respect for teachers who used corporal punishment. I did not think it was ever justified. I realised that being the butt of their jokes would continue unless I relented and became Terry’s girlfriend. So I told him that I would be his girlfriend on one condition. He had to give up bullying.

Terry seriously considered and then agreed to the deal. From then on we did everything together. He taught me to ride a bike. He helped me to skate and he came swimming with me, even though he hated it. We discussed everything endlessly and, when it was bad weather, he would come and read my encyclopaedias with me in our front parlour. We bought a street map of our local area and marked off every route we had explored on our bikes. Eventually, we were separated in different schools at eleven years of age, but we continued to be very close.

I remember one day when the skies were dark and leaden with rain. Terry and his best friend, Robert, were standing on my doorstep soaked to the skin, asking to come in and dry off. My mum and dad were both out at work and it must have been a school holiday. Later, Terry, Robert and I were lying on the floor reading when Robert suddenly said, “Has it ever occurred to you that this moment will never come again?” Terry and I looked at each other and appreciated how profound that remark had been. I never forgot that moment, even though it never did come again….. except in cinematically recorded memory.

After Terry died, I was told about the funeral but my mother would not let me go. She said that I was far too upset as it was. She made me go to school as usual that day, but on the way home I called into Terry’s house to pay my respects to his parents. Terry was one of seven kids and had been the wild card of the family. They were all terribly changed by losing him. I did not stay long. I couldn’t speak to, or even look at them properly.

I felt locked up inside myself.

I began to go for long bike rides on my own. To skate alone and to swim alone. I did not want another boyfriend or any friends at that time. I concentrated on studying hard at school and I stayed alone in my bedroom at home. I never used the front parlour again. It would upset me just to open the door. I never set foot in that park again either. That would have been unbearable.

It was not very long after that when my mother began drinking and getting violent towards me. My father had left home and she was struggling to cope. Finally, after months of abuse, I lost my temper and pinned her to the floor. It wasn’t hard. She was skinny and drunk. I was very strong and grown taller than her by then. I realised that I could not stay at home any more when she demanded that I leave school.
“This house is not your home until you start to bring money into it!” she had almost spat into my face.

I preferred to be alone.
I had nothing to say to anyone.
I missed Terry so much that even the streets would remind me of him.
The rain reminded me, so did the sunshine.

Eventually a day arrived when I burst into tears at school and my headmistress was able to get me to talk about what was wrong. I don’t remember what I said to her but by the end of that day she had arranged for me to move into a spare room at a classmate’s parents’ public house on the other side of Romford, in Harold Wood.

From then on I stood alone.

I worked alone from dawn, cleaning the pub and I enjoyed having an income from that. I began to bunk the trains and go to the seediest part of central London secretly on Friday and Saturday nights. I found a way to get into the Marquee Club in Wardour Street, Soho by slipping in the back door during the early evening, while the cleaners were in the building. I would wait, hiding in the toilets, until the club opened and I would grab a glass from the bar to fill with water from the toilet sinks.

I met Phil Collins, David Bowie, Peter Frampton, Roger Daltry and Keith Moon, who were all regulars at the club long before they became famous. None of them suspected that I was only 14 or 15 at the time. I had perfected the art of dressing and applying make-up to appear more adult. I loved to dance and sing along with all their music.

But still I preferred to come and go alone.

When I was 16 years old, in 1968 I answered a quiz put to me by a girl with a clipboard in Carnaby Street and I won a ticket for a ride on the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour Bus. That resulted in me taking part in the recording of Hey Jude, where I met Yoko Ono who was sitting, cross-legged, under a tall camera tripod, perfectly still, while we were rehearsing.

I asked Yoko what she was doing and she told me about transcendental meditation which sounded absolutely fabulous to me. She recommended that I should buy a book about it and I did so. Here was something else I could do alone.

So you see, by the time I left school at 17 years old, I was completely familiar with self sufficiency and independence.

I was ready to find myself a new boyfriend at last.
It had taken me four years to get over Terry’s sudden death.
Four years of being locked up inside myself.

But now I was ready, matured way beyond my years, looking forward to leaving London to begin another adventure and I could not wait….

I no longer wanted to stand alone.