Diary: met D at the Kard Bar at 10:30. bought a Valentine’s Card and an E 8 Splash Patch. Four mini photos. Home. Went to Montague Baths for a swim. J, and School. Bike tyre bursts. Ride home. To Js. F’s Urg. Hold J’s hand, and hand round shoulder, kiss. Love her. Plan to meet on Saturday.
On reflection: Age 14 and 1/4 and I’d held her hand, and put my arm around her shoulder. The idea of ‘love’ was wishful thinking, I felt nothing of the sort – tender attraction perhaps.
I was thinking ahead for Valentine’s Day. I’d be off back to boarding school imminently with little chance of getting anything ‘quality’ once marooned in Sedbergh.
The Kard Bar, and the Model Shop were my most likely favourite venues. The Kard Bar provided all my Bowie posters, a bar mirror, patches, and possibly cowboy boots and an ex-army trench coat.
Montague Baths is where I learnt to swim: in the ‘baby pool’ with Mum and then some random bloke in a white swimming cap in the shallow end of the pool. This is where we swam before the Gosforth Swimming Pool was opened in 1968. I don’t know why I took myself over there- nostalgia, or the Gosforth pool was closed.
My girlfriend introduced me to her friend; I didn’t think much of her! She’d be my friend’s blind date!
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