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Authors: Rob Brydon
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nuts and berries while secretly pining for the girl at the till. To this day I can’t sniff a dried banana without filling up. I never once told her how I felt, although I often dreamed of doing so, time and again lying in bed at night telling myself that tomorrow was the day. Of course when the moment came I would invariably retreat, afraid that I might spoil the lovely friendship we had. The fear of rejection is a powerful emotion in a young mind and it held a tight grip on me throughout my teenage years.
‘One day in class, she wrote her name on my arm, and I nearly fainted.’
Katie eventually went off to America for a while, perhaps around the end of the sixth form. I knew the time of her flight; it was a warm Sunday afternoon and I was washing the dishes after Sunday lunch, staring out of the window and thinking about her flying away from me. On the radio Jimmy Savile played Frankie Valli’s ‘My Eyes Adored You’. I cried.
This time of my life comes with its own soundtrack album, not available in the shops. In the midst of my mooning over Katie I heard Gordon Lightfoot on the radio singing ‘Daylight Katy’. I was sure it had been written about her. ‘But she doesn’t have to get up in the morning, With her hair so soft and long …’
I’d ride around Porthcawl on my bike, often in the rain, listening with a heavy heart to my Walkman and Joe Jackson singing ‘Is She Really Going Out With Him?’.
Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street …
And, in conclusive proof that there was no credibility apartheid on my little cassette player, I would also take comfort from the, at that time, still-undecorated Cliff Richard and ‘Dreamin’. ‘If you could only see through my eyes, Then you’d know just what I’m going through …’
Poor me! If only I’d had the nerve to make a move … I’m afraid I was far too polite.
It was around this time that I discovered James Dean after watching Rebel Without a Cause on the television one night. The next day I began a considerably lengthy phase of wearing a white T-shirt and not washing my hair for a few days at a time so that it would stand up like his. Nowadays I’d have scoured the Internet for information on him, but back then I made do with hopping on my bike and cycling down to the library, where they had a couple of books on his brief life and career. Looking back, I suspect this was the extent of my teenage rebellion – a refusal to wash my hair for up to three days at a time, a brief interruption of my polite ways, after which normal service was resumed.
Some of the girls on my list made less impact than others. Meryl Metcalfe, for example, cannot be said to have cast her spell for an extended period but earns her place nonetheless for the sheer delight she has given my children whenever I recount to them the time my teenage self lay on the grass above Rest Bay one summer’s day and gazed at her from afar. She was sitting with her friends, perhaps eating ice cream. Certainly, when they make the film of my life she’ll be eating ice cream. Depending on the certificate, it might even be an ice lolly that she’s getting to grips with. She was sitting on the grass, just being, and I was maybe thirty yards away, also sitting down and, had I only known it then, chillin’ . Somewhere in the vast chasm between us a bicycle lay discarded; the wheel framed my view of her, the spokes giving an out-of-focus, softly pornographic haze to her already enticing features. That was it – I just gazed and thought, hoping that telepathy would do the rest and she might glide towards me and make the first move.
I realize now, that was what I was always waiting and hoping for, that the girl might make the first move. It was a mistake. To any young readers I would thoroughly recommend making the first move yourself. If you’re lucky, the girl will have the second move up her sleeve ready to go. If you’re very lucky, she might show you the third and
‘One day in class, she wrote her name on my arm, and I nearly fainted.’
Katie eventually went off to America for a while, perhaps around the end of the sixth form. I knew the time of her flight; it was a warm Sunday afternoon and I was washing the dishes after Sunday lunch, staring out of the window and thinking about her flying away from me. On the radio Jimmy Savile played Frankie Valli’s ‘My Eyes Adored You’. I cried.
This time of my life comes with its own soundtrack album, not available in the shops. In the midst of my mooning over Katie I heard Gordon Lightfoot on the radio singing ‘Daylight Katy’. I was sure it had been written about her. ‘But she doesn’t have to get up in the morning, With her hair so soft and long …’
I’d ride around Porthcawl on my bike, often in the rain, listening with a heavy heart to my Walkman and Joe Jackson singing ‘Is She Really Going Out With Him?’.
Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street …
And, in conclusive proof that there was no credibility apartheid on my little cassette player, I would also take comfort from the, at that time, still-undecorated Cliff Richard and ‘Dreamin’. ‘If you could only see through my eyes, Then you’d know just what I’m going through …’
Poor me! If only I’d had the nerve to make a move … I’m afraid I was far too polite.
It was around this time that I discovered James Dean after watching Rebel Without a Cause on the television one night. The next day I began a considerably lengthy phase of wearing a white T-shirt and not washing my hair for a few days at a time so that it would stand up like his. Nowadays I’d have scoured the Internet for information on him, but back then I made do with hopping on my bike and cycling down to the library, where they had a couple of books on his brief life and career. Looking back, I suspect this was the extent of my teenage rebellion – a refusal to wash my hair for up to three days at a time, a brief interruption of my polite ways, after which normal service was resumed.
Some of the girls on my list made less impact than others. Meryl Metcalfe, for example, cannot be said to have cast her spell for an extended period but earns her place nonetheless for the sheer delight she has given my children whenever I recount to them the time my teenage self lay on the grass above Rest Bay one summer’s day and gazed at her from afar. She was sitting with her friends, perhaps eating ice cream. Certainly, when they make the film of my life she’ll be eating ice cream. Depending on the certificate, it might even be an ice lolly that she’s getting to grips with. She was sitting on the grass, just being, and I was maybe thirty yards away, also sitting down and, had I only known it then, chillin’ . Somewhere in the vast chasm between us a bicycle lay discarded; the wheel framed my view of her, the spokes giving an out-of-focus, softly pornographic haze to her already enticing features. That was it – I just gazed and thought, hoping that telepathy would do the rest and she might glide towards me and make the first move.
I realize now, that was what I was always waiting and hoping for, that the girl might make the first move. It was a mistake. To any young readers I would thoroughly recommend making the first move yourself. If you’re lucky, the girl will have the second move up her sleeve ready to go. If you’re very lucky, she might show you the third and
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