Chapter 7: Being Different – and an Outsider

My teenage years were the years that reminded me that, in spite of all my privileges, I was an outsider and not one of the group. I came to dislike groups because I never seemed to fit into one. Even now, if I am in any group where we have to introduce ourselves and say something about ourselves that we want others to know I am likely to say, “My name is Geraldine and what I want you to know is that I’m not a group person.” The way I learned to cope with groups was by becoming the leader. That’s what I‘ve always done. It was in my teenage years that ‘not one of the group’ began to shape me.

Back then, playing tennis took up a lot of my time. I would spend hours hitting the wall or playing on the public courts with my brother John. When I was 15, I was spotted on the park as part of a scheme to find and encourage ordinary kids with talent (I think they do that when kids are six now!). I had to go and play in Manchester and then I was chosen to go to Lilleshall, the big PE college in the Midlands. There were 15 girls and 15 boys chosen from the whole country. I turned up in my white shorts and a t-shirt, my school plimsoles on and a wooden tennis racket. My first sight of the other girls was when they swanned into the dormitory with their little tennis skirts on, with matching tops and zip-up jackets and headbands, two tennis rackets each and a tennis bag – a tennis bag?! I had never seen one before (except on the TV at Wimbledon) – and immediately, I knew my place. They looked me up and down and then continued laughing and talking together. At the end of the week, one girl and one boy were chosen to go forward for coaching. I was the best player of the girls but, of course, I wasn’t chosen. I went to the tennis coach afterwards and complained and said I was the best player but didn’t have enough money or the right clothes and had a broad Northern accent and that’s why I wasn’t chosen. I felt angry and humiliated. He denied it of course, but I knew.

Between being treated differently from my brothers and the tennis coaching fiasco, my crusade became ‘fairness and equality’ and I collected more and more examples as I got older.

No wonder I focused on equality when I finally started my own business.

In spite of knowing I would get no further in my tennis career, I entered some junior tennis tournaments, even winning a couple. I remember the tournament in 1966, in June, when we were rained off and the organisers got a TV for the marquee and I watched England play in the final of the football World Cup. I had no friends or family with me but was getting used to being on my own. The match was magnificent and England won the World Cup! I can’t remember how I did in the tennis tournament.

I also used to play netball for the school team. I played goal defence, where my job was to intimidate the opposing team’s goal attack and stop them scoring. That suited my increasingly aggressive nature. The angrier I seemed to become – about everything – the friendlier I would appear to be to mask it. As much as I loved playing netball, I had a Saturday job. My mother made me give it up so I could play for the school team. She said it was a question of priorities.

My priority at that time was serving in Lythgoes sweetshop in Bolton town centre. I loved that shop. There were rows of large glass jars with all colours and kinds of sweets in them, some of which I had never seen before. I loved getting those jars down and using the scoop to put some sweets on the scales, then bagging them up and cashing the till when the customer paid. I liked to remember what different customers liked and what their names were. I was getting paid for pleasing people and I loved it. The shop owner, Mr Lythgoe, was a tall man who walked with a bit of a stoop. He always wore a white coat and had a shiny face and a large red pimple, some sort of birthmark, on his cheek. He was rather gruff, even though he hummed all the time as he walked about. I was extra friendly to the customers. His daughter used to work there sometimes. She was much older than me but much quieter and smaller, with a pale face and thin blond hair. She always wore an Avon perfume, Topaz, which gave me a headache. I asked her what it was called once and feigned interest. In reality, I wanted to know what to avoid, and have, indeed, avoided Avon perfumes ever since.

Once Mr Lythgoe could see I could be trusted he sent me to work sometimes in his other place, a cafe on the corner, which sold coffee, tea, toast and cake snacks in one part, and sweets and cake decorations in the shop part. I loved that too, “Good morning, Mr Smith. Your usual toast, butter and tea?” Customers were always delighted to be remembered. I also became quite an expert in the cake decoration department.

I didn’t bake or cook at home, yet I was able to give advice on the best decorations to use on the top of a wedding cake, like I was some kind of cooking expert.

My Saturday job was a solitary experience. I didn’t do it with any friends. My two closest school friends, Theresa and Kathleen, lived miles away from me – Kathleen in the next town. Our form group stayed the same for five years. It was the first time the school had tried that and it meant that friendships were cemented over the five years. Sister Olivia called us three ‘the Three Graces’ but we had no idea what she meant. And close as we were, our friendships stayed in school.

Theresa and I became good friends, although I quickly realised we were from different classes. She lived on the other side of town in a big house and her family had money. I lived in a terraced house with an outside toilet. Although my mum and dad were both teachers and we were the first people in our street to have a car, I always felt like a poor relation to Theresa. But because I only saw her at school, where we both studied the same subjects and wore the same school uniform, I could just relate to her and not even see all the other trappings of her life.

Once I started to go out, when I was about 16, my mother allowed me to work in a coffee bar in the town, The Beachcomber, because she had taught one of the owners, Eddie Grinrod, when he was a boy. I don’t know what she was thinking letting me work there! That place was a den of vice. Once, I snogged one of the musicians playing in the band there. It was in a dingy room behind the bar where I was working and the guy was short with blond greasy hair and wore a white vest. The smell from his hairy armpits nearly made me gag but I snogged him anyway. I also snogged one of the bouncers, Ronnie, who was married and must have been in his 40s. It was completely inappropriate on his part, but my boundaries had disappeared when I was 10 years old. Anyway, I needed the snogging experience.

There was a church youth club which was very popular and attracted local bands to play there. It was in the school hall of the junior school and us girls would be crammed into the girls’ toilets to use the cracked mirror to put our make up on. My mother would never have allowed me to wear makeup, so I had to wait until I got to the youth club and would push my way in to get sight of myself in the mirror. Panstik was the most popular face make up. This was a stick of orangey paste that you smeared all over your face until it was caked on.

Lipsticks were pale – pale orange or pale pink – and were spread thickly.

And, of course, the back-combed hair completed the picture – back-combed until it stood six inches off your head. Some girls painted black rings round their eyes as well but that would have been too difficult for me to take off before I got home. And, of course, the statutory short skirts. There were no drugs, no alcohol and not even any hot drinks – soft drinks and crisps were the only refreshments. But those Sunday nights were the highlight of my week. Of course, some people would steal out for a cigarette or to have a snog outside the reception class but that was the most we dared to do.

It was one of those Sunday nights that the Beatles appeared on TV for the first time as the star act of Sunday Night at the London Palladium, the most popular entertainment show of its time. As the junior school was round the corner from our house, my brother Daniel’s girlfriend Norma and I went home to see the Beatles. As soon as they appeared on stage, Norma started with these noises in her throat and gripped the back of my mother’s chair. I thought she was having a heart attack or something but she was just trying to stop herself from screaming. I was fascinated. Why did she want to scream? My brother John subsequently became a member of the Beatles Fan Club and used to get a monthly A5 glossy mag. Not wanting to be the same, of course, I became a member of the Elvis Presley fan club, but my love of the Beatles outlived my love of Elvis.

The phenomenon of girls screaming at the Beatles and all the other pop stars of the day never made any sense to me. I couldn’t work out for the life of me why they did it. I went to Bolton Odeon once to see Gerry and the Pacemakers, Cilla Black – just before she had her first number one hit – and The Searchers. Everyone around me was screaming and holding on to their heads. I tried to scream too, to fit in, but no sound came out, so I mimed screaming the whole show. The next day in school I spoke with a hoarse whisper and explained how I had been screaming so much I had lost my voice.

I was torn between my need for independence and my need to be part of the gang.

My mother let me go to Butlins when I was only 15 with a local girl, Ann, who I was friendly with from Church. Ann used to be taught by my father and she had lost her mother and father. My parents liked her and were happy for us to be friends. We never told Mum the stories about the redcoats trying to get into our chalets at night… Two things stand out from that holiday. The first was when I got friendly with one of the bingo callers who was a student. He used to wear a brown overall and always shouted ‘Hi!’ to us as we passed. Ann and I would regularly go to sit in the huge ballroom at lunchtime and have an ice cream floater (ice cream scoops on top of Coke) while the dance music played in the background. There was never anyone in there. One day, this bingo guy came walking through, said ‘hi’ and then stopped.

“Can either of you do the quickstep?” he asked.

I was fresh from my ballroom dancing classes and said yes, but I just knew the basics. “That’s fine,” he said. “Just follow me and do what I say.”

We whirled around the dance floor with him expertly leading me through all kinds of intricate moves. I truly felt like a dancing queen – him with his brown overall and me in my shorts, just the two of us on the dance floor. I’ve never forgotten the exhilaration of that dance. It only happened once and I’ve never managed to find a man since who could dance.

The only other thing I remember about Butlins was the day we were leaving. At home, I had got to know the girl next door, Jackie, who was Swiss. She was working at Prestons Jewellers, learning from Mrs Morrison and staying with her for the duration. Jackie was 19 and I was 15 but the difference could have been 30 years. She was petite with short, bobbed hair, very pretty, always looked amazing and with her accent, she was the most exotic thing I had seen. She had talked to me about using tampons instead of sanitary towels. She said towels were, “So old fashioned, darling.” She told me how to put one in, but I had never tried. The day Ann and I were waiting for the coach back to Bolton from Butlins in Wales I told Ann I was just going to the toilet. When I got there, I saw that my period was starting. I only had tampons with me. Well, Jackie told me what to do, so I tried to put one in. It went in about three inches then seemed to hit a wall.

Ann came into the washroom, “The coach is here, come on!”

Just a minute. I’ve started my period and I have to get a tampon in.”

A minute later.

“Come on, everyone has got on the coach.”

Please go in tampon. Please go in. Pushing harder and harder. But not only would it not go in, it was starting to hurt.

“Tell him to wait, please! Don’t let him go.”

By this time, I was sweating. My coat, scarf and bags were at my feet and the tiny toilet was overcrowded as I managed to put one leg up on the toilet seat and squat to get a better angle and told myself I just had to do it. I gave one almighty shove up and, as I yelled, it went in. Thank God. Thank God. I gathered my belongings and rushed out to the coach, which had started and was starting to move. I was panting but I was proud. I had done it! I was using a tampon! Just wait until I got home and told Jackie.

My lack of a peer group was compensated for by my brothers. John was into music and had a guitar. He used to buy two records a week throughout the 60s and had an amazing collection. If he still had it, it would be worth a fortune; all catalogued and neatly stacked in the special record boxes that he had bought. He had a lovely voice. Daniel also played a guitar and he and I could sing – in that we could hit the right notes – but our voices weren’t particularly musical. We could do the harmonies though. Daniel’s girlfriend, Norma, was like a Marilyn Monroe lookalike with her blond wavy hair, pretty face and curvy body. She also had a really nice voice. We formed a group, The Wayfaring Strangers, and started to play in our kitchen. Our kitchen was small and we were trying to record on a tape recorder to see how it sounded. To get the sound balance right, Daniel would have to be at the furthest end of the kitchen, next to the even smaller scullery, John would be nearest to the tape recorder, I would be standing on a chair, leaning forward, and Norma would be midway between John and Daniel. We could spend two to three hours in an evening practising. We usually ended by doing a one act play, which we made up as we went along with sound effects provided by whatever we could lay our hands on in the kitchen. At some point, usually the most critical point in a recording, Mum would open the kitchen door, knock into John and say, “Daddy and I are coming in for supper now. Can you put that away and get the kettle on.” There was never any point in arguing with the supper routine.

I was 17 by this time. We managed to get an audition at the new club in town, The Empress. The Empress was owned by Eddie, Eric and Norman, who also owned The Beachcomber. It was their next venture. Norma and I got new dresses for the occasion. They were bright blue satin, sleeveless, pulled in at the waist and then came out in a bell shape. We wore high heels too, the only time in my life I attempted to wear high heels. We felt very glamorous but our mood was slightly dampened when we saw where we were auditioning. We were in an empty room, the remains of the night before scattered around, and all the tables and chairs were askew and upside down. We sang two or three songs.

I ‘played’ the tambourine – by which I mean that I banged it with great enthusiasm on the side of my leg.

Needless to say, playing songs like ‘Down by the Riverside’ and ‘All I Have to do is Dream’ by the Everly Brothers didn’t get us any bookings. John did write some songs, the best of which was ‘Pretend I’m With You Tonight’, which would have done Jim Reeves proud. He made a tape of that and some of his other compositions and spent a day taking it round London, hoping to get it picked up by some music publisher, but no one was interested. At John and Wendy’s 40th wedding anniversary party the three of us sang that song and, remarkably, we could all remember the words.

We only had one paying performance, which was at a church hall in a nearby town on a Sunday evening. There was only one microphone, so we had to work out how we were going to group round it. As we faced the audience, Daniel was on the left, then Norma, then me, then John. But as we stood there about to start, I realised that the arm of John’s guitar was right across my face. I pulled it down. He put it back up.

“Move your guitar,” I hissed.

“There’s nowhere else for it to go,” he said.

“But it’s right in front of my face.”

“Well, I can’t help it and anyway, I need a stool.”

“What do you mean you need a stool?”

“I need to put my foot up on a stool or I can’t play.”

“You never have your foot on a stool.”

“Well, I need one now.”

All these comments could be heard by everyone and there were sniggers coming from the audience. There were no stools on the stage, so Daniel lent down and said to the man at the nearest table, “Excuse me. Would you mind if we used your stool?”

The stool was duly passed up to the stage. By this time, Norma was exhibiting her nervousness, which took the form of breathing heavily as a deep rose-coloured stain travelled up her neck and into to her face.

Daniel gave the stool to John, “Now play!”

John carefully put the stool down and put one foot on it. The stool promptly collapsed and one of its legs began rolling across the stage, making ‘der-dum’ sounds each time the leg turned over the knotted part. The four of us looked horrified and leaned forward to watch, as did all the audience. Der-dum, der-dum, der-dum… until it got to the other side of the stage, then rolled off to the floor. The place erupted with applause and laughter. They thought we were a comedy act!

Shortly after that, Norma got appendicitis and was rushed to hospital. I was preparing to go off to college, so The Wayfaring Strangers never played again.

I had lost the only group I truly felt a part of.

Photo

My first trip abroad at 17 playing gooseberry to a much older cousin and her Jesuit priest ‘friend’ who she subsequently married. I think they took me as a cover. I was definitely not part of their ‘gang’ and felt their exclusion.

Questions For Reflection

What are the words that best describe your teenage years? What are YOUR highlights? If you could send a message now to yourself as a teenager what would it be?

A Blessing While You Reflect

May I choose to remember happy times when I review my life

May I have compassion and forgiveness for those who hurt me when I was young

May I have compassion for my naivety when I was young and didn’t know better

May I be grateful for all my past experiences and remember that they have formed the person I am now – and may I remember that I now have a choice about who and how I want to be in the future