[2007] THE1950s
[2007] THE1950s
0095 Pat & Margaret
The love(s) of most of my teenage life was Pat and then Margaret . They lived next door to us at Bromborough Pool. Pat was my age and Margaret was three of four years younger than her. From the age of eight or so, when they arrived, I played with them most of the time.
They lived in the next house, or at least within the top-floor flat - or maisonette - it contained. My house was a semi-detached Georgian villa. Their building would have been a slightly larger house, but it had been divided into two flats. It had a staircase built on the outside the building and they lived in the upper flat, which also had bedrooms in the roof space; which is where Pat and Margaret slept.
When we were younger we played together, as children will, climbing the apple trees in our garden -- that was a favourite pursuit -- and playing the usual games; Tic (where you had to chase after someone and touch them), Hide and Seek (where they had to hide from you) etc. One of the features was the truce term, which was - on Merseyside - 'barley'. The Opies (in their book 'Lore and Language of Schoolchildren') later traced this back to the middle ages!
Sometimes we would play cricket, on the back lawn, and I well remember being wicket-keeper and Pat swinging the bat straight into my face. I was in love with her then, I guess at the age of 12, and I forgave her everything. As the older she was my first love. She was a very good-looking girl, a brunette, who later on became a stewardess -- though she eventually moved on be a laboratory technician at Prices.
She was a magnet for all the boys around and this made me angry, I guess I was very jealous.
Soon, though, I moved my affections on to Margaret. She also was an attractive girl with a beautiful heart-shaped face. Most important she had a lovely nature. I remember her sisters wanting to swop the family cat for a new kitten they had found, and her fighting tooth and nail to keep the beloved, to her, existing pet! Above all, I remember her as being the first real love my life and one of the deepest ones. Every time I think of her I still get nostalgic
Margaret was the odd one out of the family, in that the other children -- there were two younger daughters as well as Pat -- were quite hard-bitten; as was the mother. The mother, Madge Mackenzie, was a nozy-parker to the nth degree. The external stairs, at the top where they entered into the flats, had panoramic windows where she used to spend all day sitting - watching what everyone else was doing! But she had a good heart and we were very friendly with them.
At first my love for Margaret was really quite innocent, so much so that we took the Mickey out of poor Pat when she had her first bra. It was terrible of us, she was so embarrassed by it, but we continued to make jokes about it; children are savage. Thereafter my love for Margaret turned into something deeper, though I was never certain that it was responded to by her. In those days I was very shy, and the courtship code was very strict. We never played doctors and nurses and I never did see any of them undressed. The nearest I got was one-day when sitting on the floor playing a game and Margaret was sitting in chair and I could see up her skirt. Her knickers were pulled to one side and I could see the fold where her sex parts were hidden; as I remember it she was hairless - so she must have been young. But it was wasted on me. I was young and innocent and I didn't know what it was, and I wonder to this day whether I was meant to see that glimpse of her. I dreamt of getting to see her naked, but the reality was total innocence. Even so, she is one a few women who I've regularly held in my arms.
When I was about 14 I was so enamoured of Margaret, and so worried she might not get a Valentine, that I persuaded about 20 others in my school to sign ones I'd bought. The one I personally sent was dedicated ‘to Nerfertiti from Ahmenhotep IV’ (now better known as Aknaton). I was nothing if not pretentious! Even so, I gathered it was one of the most thrilling days of her earlier life.
But all good things come to an end and when I was 15 or 16 they moved away. They had a house built, which her father - who was an engineer -- designed himself to save money. In fact it actually cost a lot more than if they had bought a standard house off the shelf. Even more unfortunately, not long after that the father died of a brain haemorrhage. The problem was that they were in Bebington, not far away from where my parents moved to later, but that was too far away for me to visit them and I saw no more of them. I still hankered after Margaret, I guess she is still the great love my life.
I saw her once more, when I came back from my holiday in Spain -- where I met my wife Pat -- and I took her to a party at Birkenhead School. She must have only been around 15, but she was beautiful and I remember her in a green corduroy dress which was very grown-up. The problem was I was so enamoured of Pat - only a few days after I got back on holiday - that I barely noticed Margaret; and that was the end of that love. She eventually married a missionary and went off to Thailand to take their mission to the natives there. It was I think of one of those small sects (Bethesda?). Eventually they came back but I have never seen her since those youthful days. She had a couple of children, one of whom was named David. I was told that the rose I gave her on our first and last date together was pressed inside the covers of her Bible – even so I don't know if she ever felt as much for me as I did for her for her
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