50YON: Wednesday, 21st April 1976
(Gosforth, age 14)
Five-year Diary: I worked on my project until midday, then had a bath and rang Julie-Anne about going to see The Likely Lads film at the ABC Haymarket.
Mum picked up Julie-Anne and we went to the ABC 1—90p, which felt like a proper outing. The film was good. I came out of it still half inside the story.
Afterwards, I wanted to walk her home. It felt like the right sort of thing to do—what couples did. Even if we weren’t really a couple, we were at least playing at being one. But she got on her bus instead, just like that. No hesitation. For her, the “date” ended at the cinema doors.
I couldn’t make sense of it. If we were meant to be something—even loosely—then not sharing the journey home felt like poor form. But she wasn’t thinking about that. She was thinking about getting home.
I was left standing there, then walking. No buses to my end of Gosforth. The anger came quickly—tight, contained. Not just the inconvenience, but the sense that I’d misplayed something.
Looking back, I can see the alternative clearly. I should have got on the bus with her. It would have been a small act—self-sacrifice, even—but it might have changed the tone. Ten or fifteen minutes sitting together, talking, opening up slightly. Something reciprocal might have followed: I take her bus this time, she walks with me next time.
Instead, I stayed within my version of the script—and when she didn’t match it, I was left with the feeling I’d got it wrong.
Eventually, I picked up a bus on Gosforth High Street and got home. There was no one there. No supper. Just the house.
I got my typewriter out—more as a gesture than anything—and then watched my favourite: Survivors. That felt about right. People are managing on their own.
Bed at ten. Very tired. Mug of coffee. The window is open, and cold air is coming in. I huddled under the covers.
And for once, I slept well.
1976 — Reflection (50 years on)
What I see now is how early I was operating with a model of exchange—almost transactional, though I wouldn’t have recognised it as such.
I walk her home → she walks with me next time.
But none of that had been spoken. Nothing was negotiated. I was acting inside an imagined structure.
The missed bus isn’t really about Julie-Anne. It’s about the first glimpse that relationships don’t run on shared scripts unless both people are reading from them.
And my instinct—to act, to correct, to “do something”—begins here.
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