Tuesday, 9th November 1976
(Winder House, Sedbergh School. Age 15.)
German: I handed in my German prep. I had looked at Eddie Elliot’s. His prep was the same. We both did equally badly.
We were in the same common room in Winder House, both doing German to get out of Latin. Neither of us was a linguist.
French: Good. I was low on the form because of my bad marks.
It saddened me because I wanted to be fluent in French one day, but this way of being taught was getting me nowhere.
Biology: I took notes ‘solidly’.
Maths: We moved on to the next book. Prep: I might have done well on statistics.
I enjoyed solving problems and knowing that you could get 100% if you figured it out. It was a kind of magic.
Games: Rugby. I played ‘harder’. I found myself against Chris, a fellow swimmer from Lupton House, as a prop.
I had to play rugby, so I might as well try and enjoy it.
It was ironic because we both wanted to swim, not play rugby, and yet here we were, opposing each other in the scrum.
The problem, I explained to him, was that hard swimming training got you fit. We didn’t need to play rugby.
There was also the risk of injury. I worried about getting kicked in the face. I had an orthodontic brace but didn’t like wearing a gumshield. Chris worried about breaking a wrist or finger, something that had already happened to other swimmers. Rupert Dickie, the butterfly swimmer, had broken his wrist, and I’d broken a finger earlier in September.
It seemed ridiculous to risk putting ourselves out of swimming for the sake of rugby.
After Games, I changed into Sunday best for a trip to the theatre with the cast of The Pirates of Penzance.
Home clothes weren’t allowed at Sedbergh. Whenever we went out, we wore a tweed jacket, Sedbergh tie and white shirt, with dark charcoal trousers and polished black shoes. Smartly turned out, with my broad shoulders and height, I could easily have passed for someone older. The way we had to dress made us all look middle-aged anyway.
We were putting on Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance with girls from Casterton, the girls’ boarding school near Kirkby Lonsdale. We’d been rehearsing in Powell Hall since September, though the girls hadn’t attended every rehearsal. There had been plenty of singing choruses and standing about waiting for something to happen.
For us boys, a large part of the attraction of being in the production was the opportunity to meet girls.
Now we were all going to the theatre together.
The bus left Sedbergh and travelled to Casterton to pick up the girls.
On the way, the older boys explained that the traditional thing to do was for us to sit on our own, rather than in our usual groups, so that a girl could sit beside each of us.
Apparently, that was what you did.
It was awkward, but the girls were up for it too. Neither the boys nor the girls were supposed to stick in their own cliques. We were expected to mix.
Not everyone joined in. A few boys actively didn’t want to be chosen and refused to play the game, preferring to sit together. Some of the girls weren’t interested either. The youngest were too shy, while some of the older ones already had boyfriends, knew their own minds and didn’t want to take part.
For those of us who were interested, there was some fairly rapid eyeballing of each other when the girls arrived.
It wasn’t exactly a cattle market. More like country dancing. You had to have a partner, and we chose each other.
I met Tabatha from Casterton, and we sat together on the bus.
She was pretty, lightly built and talkative, with mousy-brown hair and a centre parting. She reminded me of Olivia Newton-John, the girl-next-door pop songstress, as she looked in 1976.
She spoke with a polite Received Pronunciation accent without sounding posh. She lived in Kenya, which was fairly remarkable, though I had friends from Hong Kong and South Africa at Sedbergh.
She was in The Pirates of Penzance chorus.
Unfortunately for me, she was in the Sixth Form. She was sixteen, nearly seventeen.
She thought I was older.
We had naturally assumed we were the same age. I thought she was fifteen. She thought I was seventeen.
Perhaps she decided it would be impolite to go and sit with someone else once she discovered my age. Everyone was taken, for one thing.
I must have come over as harmless, good company. Not one of the more predatory older boys who, to her eyes, probably looked like teachers. Not that any of the rugby players were in The Pirates of Penzance.
The age difference was unfortunate. We had nothing much to talk about when it came to the subjects we were doing. Boring.
Instead, we talked about minor infringements of school uniform, which were common to both schools.
I had my Oxford bags and cowboy boots. Her skirt had extra pleats in it, and although her school jumper was the right colour, it was cashmere.
We talked about holidays too. I was off skiing that Christmas, and she’d been to Italy the year before.
There was a good vibe, though.
We enjoyed keeping the conversation going.
We sat together for the play and then on the way back.
I didn’t pay one jot of attention to the play. I couldn’t even remember what it was called.
You’d imagine that, as members of The Pirates of Penzance cast, we’d have gone to see a production of the opera, but I’d written in my diary that we’d seen a play.
I remembered visiting the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester twice with school. Perhaps this was one of those occasions. I’d certainly seen The Rivals, Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s comedy, around this time. The costumes and the kind of comedy seemed familiar, and I had a recollection of famous actors being involved. Perhaps Tom Courtenay was one of them.
The theatre itself was as fascinating as the production. A box of light in the middle of an enormous Victorian space, with the audience sitting around the stage. I thought we were sitting to one side rather than directly in front of it.
I sat with Tabatha.
Whatever the play was, I was more interested in her.
We may not have talked much on the return journey. There was some surreptitious kissing going on in the back seats, but that wasn’t going to be us.
We dropped the girls off at Casterton. For me, it was just goodbye. We weren’t going to write to each other.
We got back to Winder House at 11:45 p.m.
Straight to bed.
I probably had the likes of Branston Pickles asking me over the cubicle wall whether there had been any girls and what they were like.
Well, there had been a pretty girl called Tabatha who thought I was seventeen.
So that was going nowhere, exactly.
Still, at least she’d be able to tell other girls, ones my age, that I was OK! If they asked.
Which they did.
The girls were largely as boy crazy as we were girl crazy. At subsequent rehearsals, I’d sometimes have a girl come over during a break and say she’d heard about me.
Taking it from there was another matter.
My problem was that I didn’t find girls my own age particularly fanciable. I thought them too childish for me.
I’d decided that none of them were for me.
Tabatha continued coming to rehearsals, but once she knew who the older boys were, she gravitated towards them. Our acquaintance faded.
Meanwhile, I found myself ‘picked’ by a Sedbergh boy’s sister.
Take an acne-fuelled teenage boy and give him a wig: that was his sister. Him dressed as a girl with longer hair.
I thought boys were predatory!
She began writing to me.
I was a gentleman. I wrote back.
Partly out of politeness, partly curiosity, and partly because it meant another letter in my postbag.
She wrote suggestions and stories that made me blush. She had plans for me.
I got the feeling that, from her point of view, simply replying to her letters meant we were bonded for life.
If we were still corresponding in February, there might even be another Valentine’s card.
As for Tabatha, I wondered whether she had a sister.
Now there was a question I should have asked!
If she’d had a sister, she might have been more like my age.
Maybe I could write to her and ask.
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