Saturday, 30th October 1976
Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne | Age 15 | Half-term
I rang Julie-Anne at 9.30 am because Mum was taking my sister and her friend into town. It was an excuse, really. I was getting a lift, and perhaps my sister’s friend lived close enough to Julie-Anne for Mum to drop me nearby.
Julie-Anne said she’d meet me at Denton’s at 10.30. Denton’s Bakery was on Saville Row in the centre of Newcastle. I guess it was somewhere she was used to meeting up.
I looked for Christmas presents. That was motivation enough to go shopping, though I didn’t find anything.
Coffee.
We didn’t talk about much. That was the problem.
We wandered around town, through Eldon Square, into Boots and Fenwick’s, Windows and the Kard-Bar. There were records to look at, and plenty of shops to wander around without necessarily buying anything.
I bumped into my brother who was also kicking around town.
I gave Julie-Anne another ‘lecture’ about how boring she was and said goodbye. For me to describe anything as ‘boring’ ought to have been terminal. What a horrid thing to say, let alone write down. Surely I didn’t say it out loud? What did I mean by boring? That I wanted scintillating conversation, someone with more verve, more academic even?
As a younger teenager, it hadn’t crossed my mind that a relationship with a girl might have to stretch beyond initially fancying her. That you’d spend time together and want to be in each other’s company. Of course, I might have been boring to her! Was it because we had little in common?
I suppose there’s a difference between being bored with someone and being disappointed that they aren’t the person one wishes them to be.
What’s a lecture coming from a 15 year old?! It’s not as if I give her a slide presentation. It’s the tone, how I thought it came across. What I was doing was a form of self-inflicted treachery. It sounded self-defeating and terminal. Did I think repeatedly criticising her would improve matters? Who knows? Did Relate see teenage couples ?
And what did a relationship mean, anyway? She read Jackie. She could tell me.
I rang my Sedbergh friend Branston, aka George Pickles, but he was out. He’d be more fun than Julie-Anne. We could go and have a beer for a start. Talk about girls, too!
I got a record lead — a speaker cable.
I bought The Guardian and The Sun to browse. The Guardian was for reading, The Sun for mocking, and for Page 3! (I joke, I hope). An English teacher at Mowden Hall, my former prep school, had mocked the ‘Red Tops’, and I could see why. Their stance on everything was laughable. The Sun was particularly ridiculous, though that didn’t stop me oggling at Page 3.
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