THE TYNESIDE SAGAS: Box set of three dramatic and emotional stories: A Handful of Stars, Chasing the Dream and For Love & Glory

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  That autumn Jo got her biggest part yet at the theatre, playing St Joan in the Bernard Shaw play. She worked hard at her studies and decided to stay on and do English at A level with Marilyn. At sixteen they both decided to become teachers, with Jo harbouring dreams of making it on the stage as well. ‘Teaching will be my fallback,’ she announced grandly.

  As they grew older, Jo looked forward to when Colin was home on leave, for the flat would grow lively with visitors and Jack would allow them out together. A group of them would go bowling or to the pictures, or the lads would sneak them into the pub for an illegal drink, as Jo and her friends had not yet turned eighteen. Sometimes they would go to hear Gordon Duggan play bass guitar for a rock band, and dance at the front of the smoke-filled room. Their ears rang with the music all the way home and Jo was left with an excited yearning for something more.

  On one occasion, Colin came home at the same time as Mark, and they found themselves playing on the same side in a football tournament. To Jo’s amazement and their relief, it was as if the rift between them had never been. Their time away had helped the bad memories fade and made their differences seem trivial. They quickly discovered that their friendship was as strong as ever, brought back to the fore by playing football together as they had done so often in the past. By the end of their leave they were firm friends again and it gladdened Jo to see them reconciled. Both lads were far happier than they had been before leaving home, full of a new confidence and enthusiasm for life that was infectious.

  Over the summer of ‘75 they had trips to the coast, playing the amusement arcades, pub-crawling and swimming in the icy sea with their clothes on. Mark risked arrest by streaking up the beach clad only in Marilyn’s Bay City Roller tartan bonnet. Luckily it was pouring with rain and the promenade was almost deserted.

  That summer, Brenda went out with Mark and Jo paired off briefly with Skippy. She thought it was probably more out of convenience than for love, but he was passably good-looking, with shaggy fair hair and the beginnings of a moustache, and was out to have fun. He was an apprentice joiner at the yards, mad about Genesis and Ten Years After and devoted to Newcastle United. They had a few passionate, experimental clinches in bus shelters and the back rooms of pubs that summer.

  Skippy would take her back to his parents’ for Sunday tea, and Mrs Jackson would fill her with watercress sandwiches and cake. Jo liked his quiet, kind parents, but wondered from where Skippy’s boisterous nature had sprung. She would have been content to carry on going out together, but when the football season started again, Skippy’s interest reverted to Saturday afternoons at St James’s Park and Jo went back to her acting with her feelings momentarily bruised.

  ‘You two always used to fall out over football,’ Marilyn reminded her, when the girls got together to discuss their love lives. ‘Remember how you used to annoy him and Colin by supporting Sunderland?’

  ‘Aye, I did,’ Jo laughed ruefully. ‘Suppose it’s amazing he went out with me as long as he did.’

  ‘Well, I’m in love,’ Brenda declared, and the others groaned, ‘Not again!’ Brenda’s infatuations waxed and waned as regularly as the moon.

  ‘This time I really am,’ she insisted with a laugh. ‘Mark’s a fantastic − well, you know!’

  ‘Spare us the details,’ Jo said quickly, feeling uncomfortable with the conversation.

  ‘No, I like details,’ said Marilyn dreamily. ‘It’s so romantic.’

  ‘So when are you and my brother going to get romantic?’ Jo teased her oldest friend.

  ‘He’s not interested.’ Marilyn flushed puce.

  ‘Course he is!’ Brenda cried. ‘He’s daft about you. Isn’t he, Jo?’

  ‘First thing he asks about when he gets home, “Is Marilyn seeing anyone?”’ Jo grinned.

  ‘Liars!’ Marilyn pouted, clutching her hands to her burning cheeks.

  ‘Well, maybe not in so many words,’ Jo admitted, ‘but I think he’s keen. You’ve just got to show him you’re interested.’

  ‘Who says I am?’ Marilyn protested.

  Brenda threw a pillow at her. ‘We do!’

  But to Jo’s disappointment, Colin and Marilyn never quite seemed to find the right moment, and the following summer, as they were hard at work revising for their A levels, it was Brenda that her brother started courting. Brenda worked as a clerk at the town hall and had lost interest in Mark when she discovered he would be away at sea for six months. She had briefly shown an interest in a mechanic at the Fina garage, but a fit-looking Colin arriving home in uniform with plenty of money was far more interesting. Jo could tell that her shy brother was bowled over by the attention of her extrovert friend, and she had to console Marilyn.

  ‘Just think of all the choice of lads there’ll be at college in September!’ She enthused. ‘We’ll have our pick.’

  ‘Who cares about lads?’ Marilyn said dismissively. ‘I’ll be concentrating on my studies like Mam says I should.’

  Neither of them had wavered from their desire to train as teachers of English and drama, and now they had the rest of the summer to earn some money for college and wait to hear if they had got the right grades. Jo was looking forward to a break from studying and a summer of being able to help out more at the theatre. On the afternoon of their final exam, the girls left the school euphoric, bought a bottle of cider and went down the Burn to drink it under Jo’s favourite tree, chatting excitedly about the future. Brenda found them there after work.

  ‘You’ll come and visit for the weekend as soon as we’re settled in college, won’t you?’ Jo encouraged.

  ‘Try and stop me!’ Brenda laughed.

  They had grown giggly, then maudlin, at this sudden ending to their old life. For no matter how much they insisted on staying in touch, Jo knew that once they, as well as Colin and Mark, were away, the easy intimacy of their circle of friends would never be quite the same again. Feeling tipsy, they wandered into Wallsend along the hot, dusty high street and into the Coach and Eight, where they had done much of their under-age drinking a year or two before.

  ‘I’m not serving you in uniform, lasses,’ Ted the landlord growled at them.

  Jo pulled off her tie. ‘Haway, Ted, we’ve been eighteen for nearly a year.’

  ‘What you celebrating?’ he grunted.

  ‘No more school,’ Marilyn smiled, and then crumpled into tears. Ted let them stay.

  ‘If you’re kicking your heels over the summer,’ he told them, ‘I could do with a hand behind the bar, ’specially at weekends when the bands are in.’

  Jo and Marilyn agreed at once. Jo knew her father would object, but she needed a job and it would be more fun than the laundry. That evening she changed into jeans and a lacy Indian top, put on some make-up and went straight back to start work before the euphoria wore off, promising her father she would take a taxi home. To her amusement, Jack came in for a pint to make sure she was all right and to instruct Ted that she was to get home safely.

  It was crowded and people spilled onto the street with their drinks in the stuffy, still night air. Jo found herself enjoying pulling pints and snatching conversations with people she knew.

  ‘I’m having a night out and getting paid for it,’ she grinned at Nancy, the chief barmaid, who was showing her what to do. Nancy, with her greying beehive, was a friend of Pearl’s and had been a fixture behind the bar as long as Jo and her friends had been sneaking in.

  ‘Not too much chatting with the customers,’ Nancy warned her, ‘or it’ll get back to your aunt.’

  ‘Well, that’s you told,’ said a familiar voice above the noise. Jo looked up from concentrating on the pump handle she was pulling. There, in front of her, was Gordon Duggan looking like Rod Stewart. Her heart thumped at she took in his wolfish face regarding her with interest under his mane of tawny hair. He was slightly unshaven, his knowing brown eyes taking in her slim flushed face as she pushed back her waves of long hair. In her platform shoes she was as tall as him, and from behind the protec
tion of the bar she felt bold. She smiled at him broadly, pushing her hair behind her ears, aware that he was looking at her in a way he never had done before. ‘Are you allowed to serve an old friend?’ he asked.

  Jo’s green eyes widened in surprise. Gordon had hardly spoken to her before and now he was claiming her as a friend! ‘As long as you don’t distract me from me work,’ she grinned, trying to smother her nervousness.

  He gave her a flash of a smile, reminding her momentarily of Mark. ‘I can’t promise you that,’ he answered.

  ‘Well, just don’t call me Wig,’ she replied with a challenging look.

  He shot her a look of surprise. ‘Why would I call you that?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t you remember?’ Jo asked in amazement. ‘Me up a tree with a plastic Beatles wig on? When you were with Barbara Thornton…?’ She could feel herself burning with embarrassment, wishing she hadn’t started. She could recall it all like yesterday, yet he was looking bemused. To think of the agony she had suffered because of the nickname, and he didn’t even realise he had coined it.

  ‘What a memory you’ve got,’ he laughed. ‘You certainly don’t need to hide under a plastic wig now,’ he grinned.

  She poured him the pint of lager he asked for, and a rum and Coke which he was fetching for someone else. She wondered who he was with. He seemed in no hurry to move from the bar, taking his time finding the right money.

  ‘Are you playing tonight?’ Jo found herself asking, wishing she could empty her head of the thought of him and Barbara Thornton.

  ‘No, but we are tomorrow. Will you be working here then?’

  Jo felt her mouth going dry at the direct look he was giving her, as if it was more than just a casual question. ‘Aye, I expect so.’

  ‘She won’t be if she doesn’t hurry up and serve someone else,’ Nancy butted in.

  Jo rolled her eyes and Gordon nodded. ‘I’ll see you then,’ he said, picking up the drinks.

  Jo smiled and nodded, then hurried to serve someone else. She felt ridiculously light-headed at the short exchange with Gordon and she craned to see where he went. Over in the corner she saw him sit down next to Christine, the blonde from Joan Street that Mark used to see. She was looking tanned and glamorous, and Jo’s heart sank a bit.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Nancy warned her.

  ‘About what?’ Jo coloured again.

  ‘You know,’ she said, jangling a bangled hand at her in warning. ‘Keep your eyes off that one. He’s in here with a different girl each week. Like a praying mantis!’

  Jo laughed. ‘He’s not the least bit interested anyway,’ she protested. ‘It’s just I used to be friendly with his brother.’

  Nancy gave her one of her ‘I’m not fooled’ looks. ‘Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  Jo was too busy to do much more than glance in their direction, and after half an hour, Gordon and Christine were gone. She felt a stab of disappointment that he hadn’t come back to the bar, but reminded herself that she would see him tomorrow night. The thought was intoxicating, and Jo felt with a thrill that this summer of transition between school and college was going to be more exciting than she had hoped.

  Chapter Seven

  The following evening saw the pub packed with weekend revellers and supporters of Gordon’s band, Red Serpent, who were playing upstairs. Jo and Marilyn were rushed off their feet, with Nancy giving out orders while Ted chatted to his regulars. They could hear the pounding of the bass guitars overhead, and Jo wished she were able to watch. She tried to notice who had gone upstairs, but had not spotted Christine among them. Perhaps, she dared to hope, she was not going out with Gordon after all. Then she told herself not to be so ridiculous. Even if Gordon was unattached, he would hardly be looking in her direction; his younger brother’s tomboy friend. He was twenty-four and worldly and could have his pick of older girls as far as she could see.

  But it did not stop her heart thudding when the band came downstairs for a drink just before closing and she caught sight of Gordon in leather jacket and cowboy boots. Marilyn nudged her playfully. ‘Looks like he’s on his own,’ she whispered.

  Jo blushed with pleasure when he came straight over and asked her for his drink. She had put on her favourite cheesecloth shirt and taken extra care applying some eye make-up and lipstick to make herself look older. Her hair, which gleamed like burnished copper in the electric light, was tied back with an Indian silk scarf to reveal long silver and jade earrings. For once, the shape of her high cheekbones and slim chin were not shrouded in hair and Gordon gave her an appreciative look. Jo felt the same quickening of excitement she had experienced the night before.

  He seemed to want to chat to her, but the press at the bar for last orders was too great and he disappeared to join his friends. After that, he must have gone back upstairs to pack up because Jo lost sight of him and, to her disappointment, he did not reappear.

  ‘Do you want me to order you a taxi, lasses?’ Ted asked.

  Jo shook her head. ‘We’ll walk up the road together,’ she assured him, wanting to save her wages.

  They picked up their jackets and left, welcoming the cool air after the fug of inside. Walking through the town, they saw groups of people sitting on walls eating takeaways, and calling to each other as they caught the last bus home.

  ‘Me feet are killing me,’ groaned Marilyn. ‘Let’s catch the bus.’ Jo hesitated, preferring to walk. She had taken off her platforms and was enjoying the cold pavement on her feet.

  ‘Fresh air’ll do you good,’ she answered, pulling on her friend’s arm. They dithered too long, and the bus pulled away from the stop with a group bellowing the words to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on board. Marilyn took off her chunky shoes and walked barefoot like Jo.

  ‘Hippie!’ she grumbled, tagging along. They had just drawn level with the library where their old homes used to be when a car hooted at them. It stopped a little way up the road, waiting.

  ‘I’m sure that’s Gordon’s Mazda,’ Marilyn gasped, peering at the dark-blue car in the dim street light. It looked sleek though slightly battered. ‘He hasn’t stopped for us, has he?’

  Jo looked around for someone else but saw no one. ‘Looks like it,’ she laughed. ‘Come on then,’ she said impulsively. ‘You wanted a lift home.’

  ‘And you wanted to walk,’ Marilyn reminded, her look cautious. But Jo was already padding up the pavement towards the waiting car. She leaned in at the open passenger window and saw Gordon eyeing her.

  ‘Having a trip down memory lane?’ he asked, nodding towards where Jericho Street used to be.

  ‘No, just thinking it would be handier if we still lived here,’ Jo said wryly.

  ‘But then I wouldn’t have the excuse to give you a lift home,’ Gordon said with a flicker of a smile. ‘Haway and get in.’

  Jo glanced in the back, where half the seat was taken up with a large guitar case. She pulled open the front passenger door and slipped into the seat beside him. Marilyn arrived hobbling and climbed into the back. Radio Luxembourg was playing ‘Sailing’ by Rod Stewart, and it struck Jo suddenly that Gordon was looking more like her favourite singer than ever. She sank back into the deep seat, letting the music calm her racing pulse. He chatted about the gig and asked them about their exams and the college they would be going to in the autumn. Jo had never heard him say as much before, or certainly not to her. As Marilyn seemed to have been struck dumb in the back, Jo found herself gabbling about everything from Pearl’s latest trip to the Far East to drinking cider down the Burn in celebration at the end of school.

  ‘Three whole months of summer to have some fun, ’she said. ‘I’m not going to open another book until the end of September. Are you, Marilyn?’

  Her friend gave a squeak in reply that could have been either yes or no, and then said hastily, ‘This is my street; just drop me at the end.’ She was opening the door as the car came to a halt. ‘Ta very much.’ Then she was out and slamming it shut.

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sp; ‘I’ll give you a ring,’ Jo called, and waved at her retreating friend. ‘She’ll be worried her mam spots the car and jumps to the wrong conclusions,’ Jo tried to explain, not wanting Gordon to think her rude. ‘Mrs Leishman’s as bad as my dad. Colin used to call her the Alsatian.’

  Gordon did not seem concerned. He gave her a bold look. ‘And will your dad be hanging out the window waiting for his little lass to come home?’ he mocked.

  Jo flushed. ‘No, he’ll be watching the football highlights.’ To her relief, Gordon chuckled softly. He briefly rested a hand on her knee.

  ‘Time for a spin then,’ he said. It wasn’t a question, more a statement of fact, and Jo’s pulse quickened in alarm.

  ‘I can’t be too late home,’ she said half-heartedly, as he swung the car round. She sat tensely as they turned on to the coast road, wondering where on earth he was taking her. But the niggle of doubt was smothered by her excitement at being alone with the lad she had had such a crush on for as long as she could remember. The radio crackled and hissed and he re-tuned it as they sped towards the coast. To break the silence that had settled between them, she asked him about his mother. ‘I never see her,’ she commented. ‘Is she still cleaning at Procter and Gamble?’

  Gordon flicked her a look. ‘No, me dad doesn’t like her going out to work. She’s just a housewife these days,’ he answered. Jo thought his tone dismissive.

  ‘Do you still live at home then?’ she asked.

  ‘Aye, it’s handy enough for work − but I stay out as much as possible. Let them get on with their arguing,’ he grunted.

  ‘Do they still not get on?’ Jo asked in concern, wondering why Norma still put up with it. In the past, she had heard Pearl and Jack discussing her several times. Pearl had given up suggesting to Norma that she get divorced now that the new law had come in and made it easier. ‘Easier for him to leave me with nothing,’ had been her friend’s jaded reply, according to Pearl.