Fifty Years Ago: Sunday, 22nd August 1976
Gosforth/Whitley Bay, Age 14:10
At home: I started typing out some British history. Offhand, it could have been 1066, the Civil War around the time of Stephen and Matilda, or something about Lady Anne Clifford and Appleby Castle. I had my typewriter, and any typing helped progress my touch-typing skills. I felt that typing something added gravitas to the page. It looked more serious once it was committed properly to paper, and I hoped it made me give more thought to what I was writing.
At 11:00 I rang Julie-Anne. She may have been to Church that morning. If I had wanted privacy to speak sweet nothings in her ear, I would have tried to use the phone in Mum’s room. “Speak sweet nothings” was from a Beatles song anyway, the sort of thing I would have said in jest about romantic canoodling. I was hoping to arrange to do something together, and she said she was going to Whitley Bay.
It sounded as though the day was already taking shape. She must have been going with her parents, or perhaps with her older sister, who I think could drive. Somehow I was included in it. We would go to the new Leisure Centre, have a picnic on the beach and go to the infamous Spanish City.
Granny V was coming for Sunday Lunch. We were on best behaviour for Dad’s Mum. Mum and Dad had been divorced for six years, but we still saw Granny V regularly because she lived so close, only half a mile away in Melton Park. My younger sister was into horse riding, and Granny V took her to see Harvey Smith. I suppose something was going on at Newcastle Race Course.
By 2:00 I was at the end of our road waiting to meet Julie-Anne. People could turn into Fencer Hill Drive, but sometimes it was easier to meet them right at the end, by the Great North Road. A car could pull in at the top of the lane or into the bus-stop lay-by a little further along.
I would have been wearing jeans, probably flares, and a plain knitted jumper knitted by Granny Wilson. She had knitted jumpers for us since we were children and carried on doing so right into our teens. Being by the North Sea, even in August, always meant there might be a breeze. I did not think much of shirts then. Shirts were for boys at primary school or nursery school. On my feet I might have had cross-country trainers or leather slip-on deck shoes.
Julie-Anne wore a summer skirt and had a cardigan in case it got cooler by the sea. We had our swimming things and a small picnic box or cool bag of some sort. It was not a wicker picnic basket and it was not just a carrier bag. The drive to Whitley Bay was completely familiar: through Gosforth Park, out the other side, then head east.
Whitley Bay Leisure Pool: We were dropped at Whitley Bay Leisure Pool. The Leisure Centre was new, it had only opened in March. It had become a popular destination because it was not simply somewhere to swim lengths. There was a flume and a wave machine, both still novel enough to make the place exciting.
Julie-Anne and I were both athletic teenagers. We did school sport. Neither of us came from homes where our parents smoked, and our parents fed us well. There was nothing sexual in seeing each other in swimming costumes. It was simply cute having the two of us there together, in swimming costumes, frolicking about. We were not training. We just splashed about.
The pool was very crowded, though. Lots of noise, lots of boisterous people, and after a while it stopped being much fun. But we stayed in for a bit. Then we went out onto the beach.
We sat directly on the sand, no picnic rug, barefoot and exposed to the wind. Julie-Anne and I were from two quite different school worlds. I was at Sedbergh, an all-male boarding public school. She was at Westfield in Gosforth, one of the private girls’ day schools. Those worlds were miles apart, even though our parents were similarly middle class and suburban.
We sat side by side and talked for nearly an hour. We talked one to the dozen, over each other, about everything that came into our heads. On being a boy. On being a girl. Friends. Family. Interests. I cannot remember any particular revelation now. What I remember better was her. I would have been mesmerised by the expressions on her face, the way she spoke, her stories, her enthusiasm. It felt like friends getting to know each other.
She was my girlfriend, although we were fourteen, and if we had kissed by then I would be surprised. It was not that sort of relationship yet. We just were boyfriend and girlfriend. If we wanted to go out, we called each other. A girlfriend was someone to write to, someone to send a Valentine to, someone to send a birthday card to, to send postcards to, and to write about in my Diary. Each other’s company mattered most. Being together. Doing things together. Going out like this.
Julie-Anne had, I think, proudly put the picnic together herself. That made it all the more special. There were sandwiches, crisps, fruit and fruit juice, and maybe cake or biscuits she had made. We were both playing the dating game and doing rather well. No picnic rug, though. We just sat there on the sand.
It felt like a proper date because it occupied the whole afternoon: the Leisure Centre, the picnic on the beach, then the Spanish City rides and arcade games.
The Spanish City: we went on to the Spanish City. It cost £2, which gave you entry and then the rides. That sounded promising enough, but the great attraction, the mini-rollercoaster, was out of action. There were a few children’s rides, no bumpers, lots of slot machines and penny cascades and that kind of thing. It was a bit of a let-down, a waste of money at £2, but it was not going to spoil our day.
We laughed at things, tried the machines together, teased each other, competed at things and made the most of it. We had each other.
At some point I got pain. It was probably the earache or sinus-like pain I sometimes got, perhaps brought on by a particular food or preservative. Maybe it had been something in the cake or biscuits, or perhaps sweets. It was not severe, just unpleasant, something like toothache.
Then we went home. Or at least, I went home somehow. There was no Metro yet. Perhaps we got a lift. Perhaps we went back to Julie-Anne’s and I made my own way back. Perhaps I was dropped on the High Street. Any of those would have been possible. Otherwise there would have been a bus and a walk from South Gosforth.
I would certainly have told Mum all about the day. It had felt lovely. I liked Julie-Anne.
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