age 16 - gail
I was aged 16 when I had my first second proper kiss. I know how old I must have been, because the music on the record player at the time was the Stones' We Love You.
It was only a few months after our family had moved from the burbs to the fringes of a scheme in Dumbarton, so I would still have been in schock. These days you could probably get counselling for it, but back then there was only booze, fags, and other forms of stress reduction.
If you wanted to go out at the weekend, you had to walk past the public bog to get to the bus stop, and brave the cat calls from the ruffians who hung out there.
One weekend, the man next door sent his daughter Mary Hopkin round to ask if I wanted to go to a party up the hill. She didn't really know I existed, so I reckoned her old man must have put her up to it, out of neighbourliness. But I already knew she existed alright - I had often watched her from the bathroom window, taking care to duck down whenever she looked up. What a shape she had! Little did I know then that one day ... but I digress.
The people at the party were mostly her schoolmates, good working class people who were into the same things as me - smoking, under-age drinking, and records. The life and soul of the party was a moderately threatening guy who called himself Swingin' Billy. One of these guys who operates by being very chummy but then occasionally flying into a rage. That's all I remember, except that at one point there was a game, and I had to go and sit on the stairs with someone called Gail. I was a speccy nerd in a sports jacket, and I had never been alone with a filled-out female before. She had mousey hair and we talked about nothing while I fretted about whether I could kiss her. When the kiss eventually happened, I can't remember whether it was her doing or mine (probably not mine). Eventually the embarrassment must have forced us to rejoin the party, and I never saw her again but I heard about her occasionally. She settled down with a reliable chap. That could have been me. I wonder if she realises what a narrow escape she had, and that I've been a sucker for mousey hair since then.
At about 10 in the evening, Mary Hopkin's dad came to the door of the house and said his daughter had to come home, and I walked back with them. It would be years before I would bring myself to speak to Mary again.
It was only a few months after our family had moved from the burbs to the fringes of a scheme in Dumbarton, so I would still have been in schock. These days you could probably get counselling for it, but back then there was only booze, fags, and other forms of stress reduction.
If you wanted to go out at the weekend, you had to walk past the public bog to get to the bus stop, and brave the cat calls from the ruffians who hung out there.
One weekend, the man next door sent his daughter Mary Hopkin round to ask if I wanted to go to a party up the hill. She didn't really know I existed, so I reckoned her old man must have put her up to it, out of neighbourliness. But I already knew she existed alright - I had often watched her from the bathroom window, taking care to duck down whenever she looked up. What a shape she had! Little did I know then that one day ... but I digress.
The people at the party were mostly her schoolmates, good working class people who were into the same things as me - smoking, under-age drinking, and records. The life and soul of the party was a moderately threatening guy who called himself Swingin' Billy. One of these guys who operates by being very chummy but then occasionally flying into a rage. That's all I remember, except that at one point there was a game, and I had to go and sit on the stairs with someone called Gail. I was a speccy nerd in a sports jacket, and I had never been alone with a filled-out female before. She had mousey hair and we talked about nothing while I fretted about whether I could kiss her. When the kiss eventually happened, I can't remember whether it was her doing or mine (probably not mine). Eventually the embarrassment must have forced us to rejoin the party, and I never saw her again but I heard about her occasionally. She settled down with a reliable chap. That could have been me. I wonder if she realises what a narrow escape she had, and that I've been a sucker for mousey hair since then.
At about 10 in the evening, Mary Hopkin's dad came to the door of the house and said his daughter had to come home, and I walked back with them. It would be years before I would bring myself to speak to Mary again.
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