Collecting the eggs was a major joy and my sisters and I would fight for the pleasure. They often won that battle as it was something they could actually do, bearing in mind they were still quite young. Then there were the calves that were fattened up and then sent to be killed. It is such a strange world to the uninitiated. To care for these lovely animals, only to send them off to their death. Many times during the lambing season I would sit with a new-born lamb and feed it by hand to revive it, only to see it off to the butcher a few weeks later, or worse, have it end up in front of me on my plate!
Living on the farm shaped my life in so many ways. I was so lucky to live that life. For children it is perfect. We were outdoors all the time. We ate wonderful fresh food and understood how food is produced and where it comes from. It would be so great if all children, when growing up, were given time in the countryside on a farm. They would learn so much, and have such respect for life and living things. That is how I was brought up and I can see that it all has a natural order. Dad always said that all the animals in his care had a good life while they were alive. He loved them and cared for them.
After all the morning chores were finished, Dad and I would cook a huge breakfast together on the Aga. In those days, Agas were not very common, and certainly not the trendy objects they are in today’s Chelsea kitchens. They were functional, and provided much-needed heat for the water, as well as cooking facilities. Breakfast is still my favourite meal of the day, and although I am not really allowed a big fry-up any more, every now and then I make one in homage to dear old Dad.
I’m reminded here of how I learned the facts of life. It was rather graphic, to be honest. When Dad bought the farm the purchase also included a bull called Bill. Unlike the one on my grandfather’s farm, Bill seemed to have lost his joie de vivre, especially where the ladies were concerned. One day, I was helping Mum wash up. The kitchen looked out over the yard and that day it was full of heifers (young female cows that have not yet had calves). Today was to be their lucky day if Bill took a fancy. My father was in the yard with a couple of local farmers, and they were all standing round waiting for Bill to see the light of day. But Bill just didn’t want to know and no amount of shouting and arm-waving could stir him into action. All the heifers were mooing in their most seductive tones, but to no avail. Then, suddenly, everything changed, and Bill was up for it. Literally. It’s quite a frightening sight, believe me. I was watching it all, open-mouthed, and, as the bull charged past the window, I nudged Mum and pointed at the now very amorous Bill who was doing what he was supposed to do to one of the heifers.
‘Is that it?’ I asked, aghast.
‘Yes,’ came the reply from my mother. ‘But it’s very lovely when you’re married!’
Another time we had been to church on Sunday morning, and invited the vicar back for a sherry. It was the lambing season and we had left a lamb, which was rather poorly, lying in a box in the bottom of the Aga. The bottom oven was only ever just above room temperature and was the perfect place to put ailing animals. As we sat round the kitchen table, Mum turned to the vicar and asked him if he would like to stay to lunch, just as the little lamb began to feel better and bleat out its desire for food. The vicar nearly jumped out of his skin. He saw the lamb in the oven, went white, and hurriedly made his farewells before we could explain!
That first year on the farm was magic. Full of new experiences and happy moments. But the end of the summer was looming, and my first day at the Aylesbury High School for Girls was a cloud in my blue sky.
MY FIRST DAY at the high school dawned. I went to say goodbye to Tiddlywinks and told her not to worry as nothing was going to change in our lives together. I went back home and put on my new uniform. Everything smelled new. We had to wear navy-blue serge tunics; mine was way too long and flapped against the back of my legs. I had a navy rain coat that was also ill fitting. Like most mothers, mine had gone for the ‘get it a size too large’ option, so it lasted longer. We also had to wear berets. I was dying by the minute as I regarded myself in the mirror. I had an all-consuming sense of doom. I looked like such a nerd. I was very short and had very short hair and looked like a boy. The white ankle socks made my legs look fat and the beret made my ears stick out.
Mum dropped me off that first day. I watched her disappear round the corner with a sinking heart. I was actually shaking as I set off up the drive to the main entrance. The school was brand new with bits still not finished. Classic sixties architecture – all brick and glass. I arrived at the front entrance only to be told to go round to the side and come through the playground to the side entrance. I joined the stream of laughing and chatting girls as we poured into the door. Just as I was about to go in there was a loud whoop and a rush of air and I felt my beret leave my head. I turned and saw the said headgear being mutilated by a blonde girl. She threw it to the ground, where she and another girl trod it into the damp forecourt. This caused much hilarity all round. I picked it up, shoved it in my pocket, and went inside. A teacher was crossing our names off a list. She looked up at me and said, ‘Where’s your beret?’
‘Here,’ I replied pulling the hat from my pocket.
‘Well, dear, it’s no good having it in your pocket. It should be on your head. In future you will wear it or get a detention.’
I started to interrupt but I was dismissed into the river of girls, once again. We were all herded into the assembly hall and addressed by Miss Camp. Yes, that really was her name! Had I been in a better frame of mind, and known what I know now, I could have appreciated the joke. But that is life, is it not? Youth is wasted on the young, and that includes the jokes.
I know we all have to go through this horror of first day at school. But when it’s happening to you, it’s hard not to take it all personally. The blonde girl was called Sue, I found out later, and she was the class tart with a heart. Within the next couple of years she had got pregnant and was expelled. The sad thing was, she was quite fun really, and very pretty, but there was no way she was going to be allowed to stay in the school. Miss Camp was on a mission to make us the crème de la crème. Next door to our school was The Grange, which was the secondary modern. That was where girls got pregnant. Not our happy band!
My first class that day was marred by a girl called Pat Bell. I turned round to say ‘Hi’ and try a bit of friendly chat, only to be greeted with: ‘Turn round and get on with your own work,’ hissed at me from under her breath. We have laughed about it since, over the years, and we still keep in touch, but that day she was awful. I felt so alone. In the first week I was teased mercilessly about how I spoke.
‘OOH, aren’t we posh, then?’ screeched Sue. ‘Did Daddy pay for you to come to this nice school? I heard you failed your eleven plus but he bought you a pass.’
I couldn’t believe this. How unjust was that? After all my lessons with bloody Mr Nuttall. But I kept my mouth shut. If it was known I had had private tutoring it would have made me even more unpopular.
I began to find a way through that set the pattern for the rest of my life. I started to make people laugh. What I failed to do by way of sporting achievements or after-school activities – like going out and snogging loads of boys – I made up for by being a clown. I would hide in a cupboard during the maths class. I would perform in the Library behind the book cases. I always acted the fool and, gradually, I was no threat to anyone and they left me alone. I would be exhausted at the end of the day, not from studying, but from entertaining all day and trying to make people like me. I would wake up every morning and beg my mother not to send me back.
Home was my haven. I would get off the bus and run straight out to the field to see Tiddlywinks. I would either go for a ride or sit in her stable while she ate her tea and tell her all my stories. Next, I would sit in the kitchen and have my tea with my mum and my sisters. Lots of toast and butter and jam. Then I would watch Children’s Hour on TV and then do my homework.
As a mother myself now, I often wonder how my mother managed
to keep that routine going for as long as she did. We never questioned the discipline. It was all just accepted. But I guess there were no other distractions then. Although, in the summer, it was much harder to have to stay in when the sun was still warm at five o’clock. Dad would come by with the tractor and trailer, and we would ride down to the fields to get bales of hay, and then ride home, sitting on top of the hay like kings. We also had our own little hideaway down in the fields. It was an old shepherd’s hut, and used to be where the shepherd would sleep while the sheep were lambing. It was a proper little house made of brick and had a real range to cook on, very small, but still, a real fire-range and a stone floor and a little window. There was just room for a table and chair. Can you imagine three little girls playing house? We would take everything we needed down for the day. We were not allowed to make a fire but when we grew older we did actually spend a night down there, and had a fire and everything (I think I was smoking tea-leaf roll-ups by then). We got very scared halfway through the night and, when Dad came down to check on us, we decided to go home with him.
It’s hard to believe that it was possible to leave children to play like that then. The most dangerous thing that could have happened to us was to have come across a badger in the night that might have attacked us. The worst injury we could sustain was to fall in a pile of stinging nettles. But then we knew the routine – get the dock leaves and rub them all over the stings. Such simple knowledge, but all going now.
One really bad winter we were snowed in completely. The drifts either side of the road were six feet high. Dad dug a single path through the snow to the village. It was nearly a mile and a half away, and I remember proudly riding Tiddlywinks to the village shop to get our groceries! It was like being a pioneer of the wild west. I was an ardent fan of westerns as a child and, in particular, a programme called Bronco starring Ty Hardin. I actually wrote him a fan letter explaining that I had a pony and was a good rider, and did he think there might be a part for me in one of the episodes? I got a card back with his signed photo and a note saying he was so sorry but there was no part for a young girl at the moment but he would keep me in mind. How cool was that?
CHAPTER THREE
FROM FARMYARD TO SCHOOLYARD
THROUGH ALL THIS happiness, my days at school would puncture the bubble. They were horrible times, until I began to discover drama.
I was chosen to be in the school play and my first role was very modest, as a servant in Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra. Here began my love of all things theatrical. Plus, I fell in love with the leading man. Our school had joined forces with the boys’ grammar school for the play, and Andrew Roberton was the object of my desire. He was magnificent. So theatrical, with a wonderful booming voice. He would later go on to the Central School of Speech and Drama, in London, and was the reason I chose to go there, too. (He later changed his name to Matthew Roberton.) His Cleo was a girl called Stephanie Daniel, who also went to Central, and later to Australia, where she then went into the soap, Neighbours.
I was choosing to stay behind after school and act. I loved everything about it. The rehearsals were thrilling. We had an English teacher called Miss Cattell who directed our plays. I think she was really rather good and she loved drama. Looking back, I wonder if she may have had ambitions herself, years before, but never had the chance. She was a spinster and lived with her sister, who was the maths teacher, but I reckon she would have made a good character actress. Sadly, I was overlooked for the next three years, she would never give me a decent role. In Romeo and Juliet, I played the nurse. In Saint Joan, I played her mother. I had to bite my tongue and watch a parade of useless girls get all the roles I wanted. It was harsh but probably held me in good stead for my theatrical career, where perseverance is the name of the game.
All my disappointments at school were forgotten when I got home to my pony. She was the focus of my world in those days. Then, one morning, I woke up with hay fever. No great shakes, I hear you cry, but actually it proved to be a disaster and totally changed my life. It was so bad I had to stay indoors with the windows shut. My eyes would swell up so they were nearly closed. I could not go near Tiddlywinks without breaking out in rashes and endless sneezing fits. It was a nightmare. I could only stand outside the stable and watch as my dad fed her. Sometimes I just couldn’t bear it any longer and made the sacrifice. Giving her a hug for five minutes led to an afternoon of misery stuck inside with my eyes like golf balls. But it was worth it. My summer days were cruelly cut short. For the next forty years I would suffer so badly with hay fever it made my life a misery.
Tiddlywinks’s place in my life was gradually replaced by boys. Well, one boy, really. Karel Falk. He was to become my raison d’être. I had recently started going to a café, after school, with some of the girls, and this was where I first saw him. The café was in the square where all the buses came to drop off. Normally, I would catch the 4.10 which took me straight home to the bottom of my drive. If I missed that one I could get the 5.30, but would then have to walk two miles from the crossroads where the village road joined the main road. If I was really enjoying myself I caught the 6.10 which brought me all the way home again. I give you these fascinating facts on the times of the buses because they formed a vital part of my life for the next five years. I worked out that over that period I spent approximately 2,000 hours in that coffee bar. What wasted hours! All for love. Well, mostly.
Karel was the local Romeo. He was a kind of Peter Pan really. When I first met him (in the Regent coffee bar), he was seventeen and at art school in High Wycombe. He was very cool and went round with a beautiful girl called Sheila. She was the classic sixties girl, all long blonde hair and heavily kohled eyes. She was so gorgeous, and Karel obviously loved her.
When you are a teenager, ‘Love’ is so painful. I spent most of the time in tears or trailing round all the haunts in town where the object of my passion might be hiding. This brought me into contact with the characters lurking in the Dark Lantern. Sounds like a B movie, doesn’t it? This pub was the hub of all the action, legal or otherwise, in Aylesbury. It was one of the oldest buildings in the town, with low ceilings and beams and log fires. Everyone who was anyone congregated here. Angels and villains. I had begun to get friendly with a girl in my class called Jenny Stanford. She was into folk music and was madly in love with a singer called Rod Puddefoot (who was also a Morris dancer – well, nobody’s perfect!) They eventually married, and are still married now, which is quite a feat. I would accompany Jenny to the local folk club to listen to Rod sing.
Folk clubs and folk singing go hand-in-hand with pubs and drinking. So it was but one small step from this to lunchtime drinking in the Dark Lantern. Underage drinking at that. We used to go into town on our school lunchbreak, roll our long skirts up short, take off our ties, and away we went. Half a cider and the world was our oyster.
From the end of the fifth form to going into the sixth form, I became a difficult teenager. Not really bad: it was all quite innocent compared to today’s youth, but I stopped trying at school, and spent far too much time messing about and obsessing about Karel. He never stopped being with Sheila. She was the one he loved but she had another boyfriend so in the meantime he would see other girls on a kind of rotation basis. He used to pick up with me for a couple of weeks, when we would go everywhere together, but then he would move on to the next girl, and so it would go on. When I was in favour, I was in paradise. We would sit in the bus shelter at the crossroads and snog for hours. Just kiss. He was the best kisser ever. My father caught us once – he had been driving round for an hour trying to find me.
Another time, just before I had to give Tiddlywinks up for good because of the hay fever, I decided to run away from home. I think I had had one of my usual spats with Mum and Dad which always seemed to end with me being very dramatic and pronouncing that no one understood me and that they would all be better off without me. I rode into town on Tiddlywinks. Still only fourteen, I was like some demented cow
girl and hitched my horse to the fence of Karel’s council house. His father opened the door and stepped aside as I rushed in, declaring I needed to talk to Karel. I ran up to his bedroom and sat on the end of the bed and sobbed my heart out. Poor Karel must have been terrified he was going to be lumbered with this nutter. Eventually his dad came in and said in his broken English (he was Czech): ‘Don’t vorry, Leeenda. It is never so bad it cannot be vorse.’ Bless him! Then, to my mortification, my father appeared at the door to take me home. Tiddlywinks was tied to the back of the minivan and trotted home very happily. She had been very unhappy about coming in the first place: when we had got out of her two-mile radius of home she had been very tricky!
Like most teenagers, my sense of drama was beginning to develop and also my insensitivity and selfishness. I realise now that all children go through this period, but there is an element in my phase that was different for me. I seemed to have a need to impress myself on people, and to prove something, but I didn’t know what exactly. At school I had finally found my group. We were now in the lower sixth. The main school building didn’t have space for us so we were in an annexe up the road. It was a big house, and each group of girls had taken over a bit of the house and made it their territory. Our gang had the kitchen. We would gather round the kitchen table and talk about everything, but mostly about sex. There was about ten of us, and several of the girls were way ahead in the relationship stakes, and had already had sex. I was terribly impressed, if not a little confused by what went on. I remember one day one of our lot was describing how you lay on your back with your legs in the air and then wrapped them round the bloke’s back. I was horrified! It all sounded way too athletic for me. I wasn’t really bothered about my sex life. As long as I could snog Karel I was happy. The rest of the time, I was busy going to the pub and learning dirty jokes, and hearing tall stories. I was happy in my role as court jester.
Lost and Found Page 3
