The Boy Who Was Afraid of Butterflies - Chapter 25 'Crushes and Courtship'

Chapter 25 Crushes and Courtship

My relationship with girlfriends was a stuttering affair. Five years at an all boys’ boarding school does not really equip you with the emotional development to cope with the burgeoning male hormone explosion. In recent years most public schools, including Charterhouse, have opened their doors to female pupils, at least in their Sixth Forms. Any dangers perceived to have been enhanced by such a development I’m sure have been offset by healthier relationships between the sexes.

The female presence was restricted to the motherly influence of the House Matron, the prim Housemaster’s wife and the occasional glimpse of the cook behind her barricade in the kitchen, which was out of bounds for us. You had to be pretty desperate to lust after any of these. Sisters might have been seen on parental visits though I’m sure most of my fellow pupils’ female siblings were incarcerated in stoutly defended girls’ private establishments.

During term time at least it meant that the only outlet for the growing sexual appetites of the hothouse of teenaged boys was another, usually younger, boy, who might have some feminine attribute and act as a substitute object of desire. Most of these ‘pashes’ as they were known, were temporary relatively innocent affairs from which older boys graduated when they went to college or into business. I’m not surprised, however, that homosexuality has flourished among such adult schoolboys, many of whom would have moved into the all male world of the armed forces or the City.

There was a lot of talk and speculation, but the uncovering of activity that went beyond lustful looks and flirtation was rare, and dealt with in a highhanded and hypocritical way by the school establishment who’d created the environment in which such steamy desires could all too easily fall foul of temptation. Boys actually caught in each others’ beds would quietly disappear from the scene, their CV ruined, future job interviews hitting the stumbling block of explaining sudden expulsion. Therefore any activity which ‘allowed’ apparent innocent observance of one’s ‘paramour’ was undoubtedly popular. Watching the yearlings’ football matches or, as a base or tenor in the school choir, watching the angelic faces of the new choristers instead of concentrating on the score was sufficiently ambiguous to cause little comment. Frequent attendance at the swimming bath during the summer term was actively and officially encouraged, although certain boys had to be careful that any lust they might be feeling was not too obvious in their own naked state.

The most innocuous of pleasures could be gained from participation in amateur dramatics especially as most plays required at least some female characters. In an all boys’ school, this meant that some actors had to dress as girls. I can remember that one year our house put on one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas, ‘Trial by Jury’, and whilst the jilted bride was performed by the adult daughter of one of the masters, there was a trio of bridesmaids played by young members of the house, who, in their pretty bridal outfits, caused a number of the audience members’ hearts to flutter!

I have to say, that despite my first experience of that assault in the railway carriage, I was left alone and to my knowledge was never on the receiving end of such feelings. I was certainly never aware of any. One boy of my year, who was small but neat with a girlish mop of wavy hair, not skinny like me, certainly seemed to receive undue attention from the Monitors. He appeared to collect more punishments involving the taking of cold showers before the rising bell than anyone else, yet at other times he seemed to seek and get privileges and favours unavailable to the rest of us.

Throughout my sojourn at the school my own emotional dreams were still focused on the gradually disappearing memory of Topsy, where I’d been the victim, I suppose, of intense longing that had remained unfulfilled. During my university years I formed good friendships with a number of girls both in my college department and at my church youth club, without feeling any strong physical ties. My one attempt at an amorous assignation had led to nothing when I had shown myself too eager to be serious having had little practice at normal flirting friendships. I went out with a couple of girls to the pictures or a concert, but we were in the company of others and I didn’t feel strongly enough to put myself out to take it further.

Many Methodist young people in the 50s and 60s used to apply to go to holiday establishments known as ‘Guild Homes’ run by the Wesley Guild, an organization within the church that encouraged cultural, social, humanitarian and devotional activities in balance for people of all ages. My parents had been happy for me to go on such holidays on my own from the age of sixteen, and it was an obvious source of many holiday romances. If you go to any Methodist church today and talk to couples in their sixties and seventies, you’ll be surprised at how many of them first met at one of the dozen or so Guild Holiday centres around the British Isles.

Holidaymakers during August and September fell naturally into two groups. The ‘oldies’ went off on coach outings to cathedrals and picturesque village markets while the students and youngsters went on rambling hikes or beach swimming parties, with much pairing off – which tended to change quite frequently during the week. Traditionally on the last night the authorities’ eyes would shut, whilst all the young people piled into one dormitory and had a last picnic feast culminating in ‘snogging’ sessions on the beds, often more than one pair to a bed – always on, never in, as it was pretty public.

On one holiday at Barmouth when I was new to this, I made the mistake during the week of absenting myself on a couple of days to ride the local trains, and, in particular, explore the narrow gauge Tallyllyn and Vale of Rheidol railways. I got teased by some of the others present who saw my activity, when compared with the joys of hiking with the gang of young people, as most unnatural, and when the last night came, they ensured I was planted with the most voluptuous blond, a strong farmer’s girl who was probably only eighteen or so but looked at least twenty-five.

I was manhandled onto the bed by this specimen of mature sexuality and expected to involve myself enthusiastically in her embrace for the next hour or so. It was a most embarrassing experience, as much for her as for me. I don’t know if she had volunteered for the duty or had been dragooned into it, but I froze and lay still for the most part of the hour wondering exactly how to extricate myself without uproar from the others. How she stuck it I don’t know. How was she to know that nearly all girls who had ever made any sort of approach to me seemed to be of similar robust size and weight and that I had no physical attraction to them at all?

The following couple of Guild summer holidays led to short lived romances – friendships rather romantic encounters. I’d gone to Scotland to the Dunoon residence on the north bank of the Clyde, and had been strongly tempted to use my ‘privilege 25% rate ticket’ entitlement after working on the railways for a few months between school and college. However, I’d ceased that employment the day before my holiday began and my conscience forced to buy a full rate return ticket from Hampton Court to Gourock via London and Glasgow costing, if I remember rightly, seven pounds and tuppence. Before marvelling at the low cost of rail tickets in 1957, let me add that it was two weeks’ wages that I’d been earning during my full time vacation job at Old Oak Common steam locomotive shed. The following year at Lindors in the Forest of Dean led to a further attempt at romance and even a visit to the girl friend’s parents in Dover and a weekend at Nottingham University where she was studying, but I regret to say that I have more memories of the train journey in each direction, much disturbed by weekend engineering work, than of the actual assignation itself.

Three years at London University in a small faculty with an equal number of male and female students might have been expected to lead to closer ties, but surprisingly no-one paired up until one couple in the final year. However, there was a strong bond of friendship between us, relaxed and positive without pressure or tension – except of course for our common anxieties as final exams drew near. Looking back, I’m convinced that those three years allowed me to develop in a much more rounded way and I’m ever grateful for the wisdom and creativity of the staff of the small German Department who presided over us with much humour and encouraged us to discover and develop the natural gifts and talents that we had.

Three subsequent years with constant repostings round the Western Region of British Rail during a railway management training course gave few opportunities for starting, let alone maintaining, any friendships other than those of my fellow trainees – all male in the early 1960s, although in later years it became more fashionable to recruit woman into both railway operating and engineering roles. During my final three months, when I was acting as Stationmaster in a small Dorset town on the Salisbury – Exeter main line, I was called out one night to an emergency at Templecombe, the adjoining station, and went to advise the passengers on two trains on the connecting old ‘Somerset and Dorset’ railway of the reason for their continuing delay. The train to Bath was deserted, but I found one passenger in the Bournemouth train and as I started to speak, she looked up and I recognized one of the girls I had gone out with briefly three or four years previously in my church youth club. There was no embarrassment now and we chatted for some time until the problem resolved itself and I was able to give permission for the trains to leave.

It was finally in 1965 that I was at last ensnared. That year I’d gone to Willersley Castle at Cromford in the Derbyshire Peak District. The first week was unremarkable and the lads remaining on for a second week congregated at the top of the ornate staircase near the entrance to gawp at the new arrivals and eye the new ‘talent’. A group of young people meandered in, and I spotted one girl that drew my glance at once and held it. I made a decision there and then that I would not be reticent, and later that evening, during the traditional walk along the banks of the River Derwent to Matlock Bath along the wooded ‘lover’s lane’ I made it my task to hover near the girl and her brother, intervening when a younger male began to try to monopolise her attention and seemed to be outstaying his welcome.

We agreed to maintain contact despite the fact that Pat came from East Anglia and I was then stationed at Bridgend on the Cardiff – Swansea main line in South Wales. At least by then I had a free rail pass to cover the innumerable trips I made from South Wales to London, often for just an afternoon, as Pat started at Ealing College that Autumn and lodged in a student hostel nearby. Most Saturday afternoons when I was not ‘on call’ we met at Paddington and had a meal together nearby. I only made the trip out to Ealing on a few occasions, leading to accusations from Pat’s fellow students that I was merely ‘a figment’ of her imagination, invented to stave off attention from other students living at the hostel who had designs on her.

This time, despite the physical distance between us, the relationship was maintained, and I proposed during a holiday together (at a Guild hotel again) in Whitby. I was turned down the first time as my future wife was uncertain whether she would ever gain precedence over my railway career and interest, and it was only two years after that she accepted me, when I proposed again on that traditional lover’s spot – Brighton pier. It’s now nearly 42 years, three children, two grandchildren and many sleepless nights later. And despite the pull that the railway industry maintained over me, she has to admit that it was probably only because I had that free rail pass that I was able to afford to see her so often, and stop her becoming linked to one of the hostel students who thought my existence mythical.