My Secret Diary (2 page)

We were a small family, just Biddy, Harry and
me, cooped up in our claustrophobic council
flat in Kingston. There were a lot of arguments.
Biddy and me, Harry and me, Biddy and Harry
against me – and, most frequently of all, Biddy and
Harry arguing between themselves.

I rarely go into details of these arguments in my
1960 diary. I just write at the bottom of many pages:
'Mummy and Daddy had a row.' These rows could
blow up over the silliest things. Harry might moan
about the way Biddy tucked his socks into a tight
ball, or Biddy might raise her eyebrows and sniff
in a snobbish way if Harry said, '
Pardon?
'. These
tiny irritations would be like a starter's gun.
Suddenly they were
off
– and the row would escalate
until they were both shouting at the tops of
their voices.

'For God's sake, what will the neighbours
think?' Biddy would hiss when Harry was in mid
rant. Harry would bellow that he couldn't care less
about the neighbours – or words to that effect.

The Grovers at number eleven and the Hines at
number thirteen must have sighed and turned up
their televisions, muttering 'Those dreadful
Aitkens' again.

Yet it wasn't
all
rows and ranting. Biddy and
Harry couldn't stand each other, and like all
teenagers I sometimes felt I couldn't stand them –
but we could still have fun together. On Sunday
mornings, if Harry was in a good mood, he'd get up
and make us breakfast. We weren't healthy eaters
then. My absolute favourite Sunday-treat breakfast
was fried potatoes on buttered toast, followed by
another piece of toast spread with thick white
sugary condensed milk. My mouth is puckering as
I write this. Nowadays I couldn't swallow so much
as a teaspoon of ultra-sweet condensed milk to save
my life, but when I was fourteen I could have
slurped up a whole tin at a time.

We ate a large Sunday roast together too while
listening to
The Billy Cotton Band Show
and
Family Favourites
on the radio. We particularly
enjoyed listening to
Hancock's Half Hour
as a
family, all three of us convulsing with laughter. We
watched television together in the evenings. For a
long time we only had one television channel so
there weren't any arguments about which
programme to pick.

There must have been many ordinary cosy
evenings like this:

Thursday 3 March

I'm sitting at the table. The time is twenty to eight.
'Life of Bliss' is on the T.V. Daddy has just got in
from work. I ask Mummy what happened at her
office. Mr Lacy was in a good mood, she replies,
and goes back to her newspaper. What are you
looking for? Mummy asks Dad. My black pen, he
replies, have I got time for a bath before supper?
Only an in and out says Mummy. Daddy has his
bath. We sit down to our supper of macaroni cheese
(one of my favourites). After supper I do my maths
homework. Daddy helps, bless him. Then I watch
T.V. It is a Somerset Maugham play, and very good.
P.S. Mum bought me some sweet white nylon
knickers.

I was still very close to Biddy and struggled hard
to please her. I took immense pains to find an
original Mother's Day present for her. I went
shopping in Kingston with my friends Carol and
Cherry, all of us after Mother's Day presents –
though we got a little distracted first.

We first went to Maxwells the record shop, and I
bought the record 'A Theme from a Summer Place'.
It was lovely. Then we went to Bentalls. First we
went to the Yardley make-up, and a very helpful
woman sold me my liquefying cleansing cream and
Cherry a new lipstick. Then we bought our mothers
some cards, and Cherry bought her mother some
flowers, and Carol bought her mother some chocs.
But I knew what I wanted for my adorable, queer,
funny, contemporary mother. A pair of roll-on black
panties, a pair of nylons and a good (expensive)
black suspender belt.

I record happily on Sunday: '
Mum was very
pleased with her panties, belt and nylons
.'

I tried to please Harry too. I didn't buy him a
vest and Y-fronts for Father's Day, thank goodness
– but I did make an effort.

Saturday 4 June

I bought a card for Father's Day, and some men's
talcum and three men's hankies as well.

Biddy and Harry bought me presents too,
sometimes vying with each other, to my advantage:
'Biddy gave me a pound to spend for when I'm
going round Kingston with Carol – and then Harry
gave me five pounds. For nothing!!!'

They could be imaginative with gifts. Biddy not
only bought me all my clothes, she bought me books
and ornaments and make-up. Harry tried hard too.
He was away up in Edinburgh for a week on
business (I wrote, 'It feels so strange in the flat
without Daddy'), but when he came back he had
bought lavish presents for both of us:

Saturday 21 May

Daddy came back from Scotland today. He gave me
a little Scotch doll, a typewriter rubber, a coin
bracelet, an expensive bambi brooch, and a little
book about Mary, Queen of Scots. He gave Mummy
a £5 note.

Harry could be generous with his time too. That
summer of 1960 I had to do a Shakespeare project
so he took a day off work and we went to Stratford.
It was a
good
day too. We went round Shakespeare's
birthplace and Anne Hathaway's cottage and
collected various postcards and leaflets. My project
was the most gorgeously illustrated of anyone's.
But he mostly kept to himself, out at work on
weekdays, still playing tennis at the weekends, and
when he was at home he hunched in his armchair,
surrounded by piles of
Racing Posts
and form
books. If he wasn't going out he rarely bothered to
get dressed, comfortable in our centrally heated flat
in pyjamas and dressing gown and bare feet.

Biddy frequently changed into her dressing gown
too and sat watching television, tiny feet tucked up,
her Du Maurier cigarettes on one arm of the chair
and a bag of her favourite pear drops on the other.
As the evening progressed, one or other of them
would start nodding and soon they would both be
softly snoring. I'd huddle up with my book, happy
to be left in peace way past my bed time.

They never went out in the week but they
started going out on Saturday nights with Biddy's
friend Ron. They must have been strange evenings,
especially as my parents were practically teetotal.
Biddy stuck with her bitter lemons. Harry tried a
pint of beer occasionally but hated it. One Saturday
night he pushed the boat out and had two or three
and came home feeling so ill he lay on the kitchen
floor, moaning.

'Well, it's all your own fault, you fool. You were
the one who poured the drink down your throat,'
said Biddy, poking him with her foot.

Harry swore at her, still horizontal.

'Don't you start calling me names! Now get up,
you look ridiculous. What if someone walks along
the balcony and peers in the kitchen window?
They'll think you're dead.'

'I wish I was,' said Harry, and shut his eyes.

I don't think he enjoyed those Saturday nights
one iota – and yet he agreed to go on a summer
holiday that year with Ron and his wife, Grace. I
don't know if Harry had any particular secret lady
friends at that time – he certainly did later on in
his life. I think Biddy and Harry came very close
to splitting up when I was fourteen or so. I know
Ron had plans to go to Africa and wanted Biddy to
go with him. But I was the fly in the ointment,
flapping my wings stickily. Biddy wouldn't leave
me, so
she
was stuck too.

We went out very occasionally on a Sunday
afternoon, when we caught the bus to the other
end of Kingston and went to tea with my
grandparents, Ga and Gongon. The adults played
solo and bridge and bickered listlessly and ate
Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolates. I ate chocolates
too and curled up with my book. If I finished my
own book I read one of Ga and Gongon's Sunday
school prize books or flipped through their ten
volumes of Arthur Mee's
Children's Encyclopedia
.

I preferred visiting Ga by myself. I'd go on
Wednesday afternoons after school. She'd always
have a special tea waiting for me: thinly sliced bread
and butter and home-made loganberry jam, tinned
peaches and Nestlé's tinned cream, and then a cake
– a Peggy Brown lemon meringue tart if Ga had
shopped in Surbiton, or a Hemming's Delight
(meringue and artificial cream with a glacé cherry)
if she had been to Kingston marketplace.

Ga would chat to me at tea, asking me all about
school, taking me ultra seriously. I should have
been the one making
her
tea as her arthritis was
really bad now. She had to wear arm splints and
wrist supports, and for a week or so before her
monthly cortizone injection she could only walk
slowly, clearly in great pain. It's so strange realizing
that Ga then was younger than me now. She looked
like an old lady in her shapeless jersey suits and
black buttoned shoes.

One Wednesday it was pouring with rain and I
was sodden by the time I'd walked to Ga's, my hair
in rats' tails, my school uniform dripping. Ga gave
me a towel for my hair and one of her peachy-pink
rayon petticoats to wear while my clothes dried.
But when it was time for me to go home they were
still soaking wet. I didn't particularly mind but Ga
wouldn't hear of me walking the three quarters of
an hour home up Kingston Hill in sopping wet
clothes. She was sure I'd catch a chill. She insisted
I borrow one of her suits. She meant so well I
couldn't refuse, though I absolutely died at the
thought of walking home in old-lady beige with her
long sagging skirt flapping round my ankle socks.

Ga could no longer make her own clothes
because her hands had turned into painful little
claws due to her arthritis – but she would press
her lips together firmly and
make
herself sew if it
was for me.

Wednesday 27 January

After school went up to Ga's. She has made my
Chinese costume for the play, and also gave me a
lovely broderie anglaise petticoat. Isn't she kind?

Yes, she was
very
kind, in little sweet ways. On
14 February I always received a Valentine. That
year it was two little blue birds kissing beaks,
perching on two red hearts outlined with glitter.
There were forget-me-nots and roses sprinkled
across the card, and inside a little printed verse
and an inked question mark. I knew it wasn't from
a boy, although I was supposed to assume it came
from a secret admirer. I was pretty certain it was
Ga wanting to give me a surprise, sending me a
Valentine so I could show it off at school.

She was always so reassuring and comforting.

Wednesday 24 February

Back to school, worst luck. Going to school all
Wolverton Avenue was dug up and there were many
workmen standing around and digging under the
pavement. Sue at once crossed the road, but I stayed
on the left side where they were working and each
time they smiled and said hello and how are you,
etc. in the friendly way workmen do, I smiled back
and said hello, and I feel fine. Afterwards Sue was
ever so crabby and said in what I call her 'old maid'
voice, 'I saw you smile at all those work men.' Talk
about a bloody snob! She makes me MAD at times.
I told Ga when I went up there this afternoon after
school and she (the darling) said I had a nice little
face and naturally they would smile and talk to me,
and that it was only polite that I should do the
same back.

Ga was so gentle with me, letting me rant on in
a half-baked manner about becoming a pacifist and
banning the bomb and being anti-apartheid, while
she nodded and smiled. I got tremendously steamed
up at the end of term because we were having a
party for all the girls at school, with music and
non-alcoholic punch.

'It's not
fair
!' I said.

'You can't have real punch at a school party,'
she said reasonably.

'Oh no, I don't mind the non-alcoholic punch
part. I don't
like
proper drink,' I said.

She looked relieved. 'So
what
isn't fair?' she asked.

'We can't have boys! Can you imagine it, just us
girls dancing together all evening. That's not a
proper party, it's just like dancing school. We're all
furious, wanting to take our boyfriends.'

Ga blinked. 'So, have you got a boyfriend, Jac?'

'Well . . . no, I haven't, not at the moment. But
that's not the point, it's the
principle
that matters,'
I said, determined not to lose face.

Ga was kind enough not to laugh at me.

Saturday 2 January

I went to Bentalls' sale with Mum. We got some
smashing bargains so I'm jolly glad I went. First
a very full pink and mauve mohair skirt, and to go
with it a lovely pink thick-knit Austrian cardigan.
We got it for 45 bob, but previously it had been
£9.9s!! I also got a good book and a new lipstick. I
tried it out this afternoon and wore my new outfit,
and I think I looked quite nice. I looked warm, cosy
and fashionable, nice and teenager-y, but not
looking too grown up.

I can't believe I once used words like
jolly
and
smashing
! I sound like someone out of Enid
Blyton's Famous Five books. That pink and mauve
mohair skirt and Austrian cardigan sound
absolutely hideous too, though I obviously liked
them at the time. I didn't actually
want
to look
'nice and teenager-y'.

If you wanted to look truly cool in 1960 you
dressed like a Beatnik. You had long straight hair
(sigh!). You wore black: black polo-neck jumper,
black skirt, black stockings, black pointy boots,
with a black duffel coat over the top. You were
probably roasting to death in all these woolly layers
but you
looked
cool. I'd have given anything to be
a Beatnik but it would have looked like fancy dress
on a schoolgirl living on a suburban council estate.
Beatniks were exotic adults who lived in London
and haunted smoky jazz cellars.

The cool look at school was totally different.
Girls backcombed their hair into bouffant styles
and then sprayed it until it hardened into a helmet.
They cinched in their waists with elasticated belts
and stuck out their skirts with nylon petticoats.
You could get wonderfully coloured petticoats at
Kingston Monday market – pink, blue, even bright
yellow, edged with lace. You washed these petticoats
in sugar water, which made them stiff. Your skirts
bounced as you walked, showing your layers of
petticoat. You wobbled when you walked too, in
stiletto heels.

I say 'you'.
I
didn't have bouffant hair,
elasticated belts, flouncy petticoats or stiletto heels.

'You're not going out looking as Common as
Muck,' said Biddy.

I rather wanted to look as Common as Muck,
but I couldn't manage it, even behind Biddy's back.
I didn't know
how
to tease my hair into that
amazing bouffant shape. It was either too frizzy or
too limp, depending on whether I'd just had
another dreaded perm or not.

I didn't have enough of a waist to cinch, and my
petticoats were limp white garments that clung to
my legs. I didn't have proper stilettos. My first pair
of heels were barely an inch high. They were called
Louis heels, squat, stumpy little heels on a slip-on
shoe. I was used to straps or laces and I had to
walk with my feet stuck out like a ballet dancer to
keep them on. They were pale green. 'Eau de nil,'
said Biddy. She bought me a silly little clutch purse
too, also in eau de nil. I had Biddy's pass-me-down
cream swagger coat that year. It draped in an odd
way and had weird wide sleeves. I didn't swagger
in my coat, I slouched, walking with kipper feet in
my silly shoes, clutching the purse.

'You look so ladylike in that outfit,' said Biddy,
smiling approvingly.

Biddy wasn't alone in wanting her daughter to
look ladylike. At school that spring of 1960 we had
a visit from the Simplicity paper-pattern people.
I'd never sewn a garment in my life apart from
a school apron I'd laboured over in needlework,
but I certainly knew my way around the
Simplicity fashion books. I'd been buying them
for years so that I could cut out all the most
interesting models and play pretend games with
them. It was strange seeing familiar dresses made
up, worn by real girls.

Thursday 17 March

We missed Latin today! The fashion people,
Simplicity, had made up some of their teenage
patterns and our girls dressed up in them, and we
had a fashion parade. It was quite good, and our
girls looked quite different, being all posh, and
wearing white gloves, and walking like proper
models. (Only they looked a bit daft.) I didn't mind
the dresses, but I didn't see one I really liked.
Afterwards the lady told us that we should wear
bras to define and shape our figures (we already do
wear them of course), that we should use deodorants
(which I at any rate do), that we should pay
attention to our deportment (which I try to do), that
we should think carefully whether our lipsticks go
with our dresses (which I do) etc., etc
.

Heavens! I might go in for a spot of lipstick coordination
but I certainly didn't want to wear
ladylike
white gloves
. The very last thing in the
world I wanted to look was
ladylike
. At least the
pink of the mohair skirt wasn't pastel, and the skirt
was full enough to bunch out as much as possible.
I could hide my lack of waist under the chunky
cardigan. I expect the lipstick was pink too. Later
on in the sixties make-up changed radically and I'd
wear
white
lipstick and heavy black eye make-up,
but in 1960, when I was fourteen, the 'natural' look
was still in vogue.

I wasn't great at putting on make-up. I rubbed
powder on my face, smeared lipstick on my lips,
brushed black mascara on my lashes and hoped for
the best. It didn't help that I wore glasses. I had to
take them off when I applied my make-up and
consequently couldn't quite see what I was doing.

I've looked through the photo album covering
my teenage years and I can't find a single picture
of me wearing my glasses. I hated wearing them.
I'm not sure contact lenses were widely available
in those days. I'd certainly never heard of them. I
was stuck wearing my glasses in school. I couldn't
read the blackboard without them. I could barely
see the board itself. But
out
of school I kept them
in the clutch bag.

I had to whip them on quick while waiting at a
bus stop so I could stick my hand out for the right
number bus, but the moment I was
on
the bus I'd
shove the glasses back in the bag. I spent most of
my teenage years walking round in a complete haze,
unable to recognize anyone until they were nose to
nose with me. I was clearly taking my life in my
hands whenever I crossed the road. I was an
accident waiting to happen, especially as I made up
stories in my head as I walked along and didn't
even try to concentrate on where I was going.

I was in the middle of an imaginary television
interview one day going home from school.

'Do tell us what inspired you to write this
wonderful novel, Miss Aitken,' the interviewer
asked as I jumped off the bus.

He never got an answer. I stepped out into the
road and walked straight into a car. I was knocked
flying, landing with a smack on the tarmac. The
interviewer vanished.
I
vanished too, losing
consciousness. I opened my eyes a minute or two
later to find a white-faced man down on his knees
beside me, clutching my hand.

'Oh, thank God you're not dead!' he said, nearly
in tears.

I blinked at him. It was almost like one of my
own fantasies. When Biddy or Harry were
especially impatient with me I'd frequently imagine
myself at my last gasp on my deathbed, with them
weeping over me, begging my forgiveness.

'I'm so sorry!' he said. 'It wasn't my
fault
, you
just walked straight in front of me. I braked but I
couldn't possibly avoid you. Where do you hurt?'

'I don't think I actually hurt anywhere,' I said,
trying to sit up.

'No, you shouldn't move! I'd better find a phone
box to call an ambulance.'

'Oh no, I'm fine, really,' I said, getting very
worried now.

I
did
feel fine, though in a slightly dream-like,
unreal way. I staggered to my feet and he rushed
to help me.

'You really shouldn't stand!' he said, though I
was upright now. 'Are your legs all right? And
your arms?'

I shook all four of my limbs gingerly. One of my
arms was throbbing now,
and
one of my legs, but I
didn't want to upset him further by admitting this.

'Yes, they're perfectly OK,' I said. 'Well, thank
you very much for looking after me. Goodbye.' I
started to walk away but he looked appalled.

'I can't let you just walk off! The very least I
can do is take you home to your mother. I want to
explain to her what happened.'

'Oh no, really!'

'I insist!'

I dithered, nibbling my lip. I couldn't think
clearly. Alarm bells were ringing in my head. Biddy
had drummed it into me enough times:
Never get
into a car with a strange man!
But he seemed such
a nice kind strange man, and I was worried about
hurting his feelings.

I tried to wriggle out of his suggestion tactfully.

'My mum isn't
at
home,' I said. 'So you won't
be able to explain to her.
I'll
tell her when she gets
home from work. I promise I'll explain it was all
my fault.'

I went to pick up my satchel. I used the aching
arm and nearly dropped it. I tried to hurry away,
but the aching leg made me limp.

'You
are
hurt, I'm sure you are,' he said. 'Where
does your mother work? I'm driving you there
straight away, and then I'll drive you both to
the hospital.'

I didn't have the strength for any more arguing.
I let him help me into his car. Biddy's workplace,
Prince Machines, was only five minutes' drive
away. If he drove fast in the wrong direction,
intent on abducting me, then I'd simply have to
fling open the car door and hurl myself out. I'd
survived one car accident, so hopefully I'd survive
a second.

Yes, I know. I was mad. Don't anyone ever get
in a car with a stranger under any circumstances
whatsoever.

However, my stranger proved to be a perfect
gentleman, parking the car in the driveway of
Prince Machines, supporting me under the arm,
carrying my satchel on his own back. Biddy looked
out of the office window and saw us approaching.

She shot out of the office and came charging up
to us. 'Jac? What's happened? Who's this? Are you
all right?'

'This is my mum,' I said unnecessarily.

The stranger explained, anxiously asserting
again that it really wasn't his fault.

Biddy didn't doubt him. 'You're so
hopeless
, Jac!
Haven't I told you to look where you're going? You
were daydreaming, weren't you? When will you
learn
?'

I hung my head while Biddy ranted.

'Still, thank goodness you're all right,' she said
finally, giving me a quick hug.

'Well, I'm not quite sure she
is
all right,' said
my rescuer. 'I think she was unconscious for a
minute or two. She seems pretty shaken up. I'm
very happy to drive you to hospital.'

'Oh, for goodness' sake, she's fine. There's no
need whatsoever,' said Biddy. 'Who wants to hang
around the hospital for hours?'

Biddy had once worked there delivering
newspapers to patients and had a healthy contempt
for the place. She always swore she'd never set foot
in the hospital even if she was dying.

She had more authority than me and sent the
stranger on his way. He was kind enough to pop
back the following day with the biggest box of
chocolates I'd ever seen in my life. I'd never been
given so much as a half-pound of Cadbury's Milk
Tray before. I lolled on my bed in my baby-doll
pyjamas all weekend with my giant box beside me.
I'd seen pictures of big-busted film starlets
lounging on satin sheets eating chocolates. I
pretended I was a film star too. I can't have looked
very beguiling: I had one arm in a sling and one
leg was black with bruises from my thigh down to
my toes.

Biddy had had to drag me up to the dreaded
hospital after all. My aching arm became so painful
I couldn't pick anything up and my bad leg
darkened dramatically. We spent endless hours
waiting for someone to tell us that I'd sprained my
arm badly and bruised my leg.

'As if that wasn't blooming obvious,' Biddy
muttered.

At least it got me out of PE at school for
the next couple of weeks, so I didn't have to
change into the ghastly aertex shirt and green
divided shorts.

I cared passionately about clothes, but most of
the time I was stuck wearing my school uniform.
The winter uniform wasn't too terrible: white
shirts, green and yellow ties, plain grey skirts and
grey V-necked sweaters. We had to wear hideous
grey gabardine raincoats, and berets or bowler-type
hats with green and yellow ribbon round the brim.
Earnest girls wore the hats, cool girls wore berets.

We had to wear white or grey socks or pale
stockings kept up with a suspender belt or a 'roll-on'.
Oh dear, underwear was so not sexy in 1960!
Those roll-ons were hilarious. They weren't as
armour-plated as the pink corsets our grannies
wore, but they were still pretty fearsome garments.
You stepped into them and then yanked them up
over your hips as best you could, wiggling and
tugging and cursing. It was even more of a
performance getting out of them at the end of the
day. I'm sure that's why so many girls never went
further than chastely kissing their boyfriends. You'd
die rather than struggle out of your roll-on in front
of anyone. They had two suspenders on either side
to keep up your stockings. Nylons took a sizeable
chunk of pocket money so we mostly wore old
laddered ones to school. We stopped the ladders
running with dabs of pink nail varnish, so everyone
looked as if they had measles on their legs.

We had to wear clunky brown Clarks shoes –
an outdoor and an indoor pair – though some of
the older girls wore heels on the way home if they
were meeting up with their boyfriends. They
customized their uniforms too, hitching up their
skirts and pulling them in at the waist with those
ubiquitous elasticated belts. They unbuttoned the
tops of their blouses and loosened their ties and
folded their berets in half and attached them with
kirby grips to the back of their bouffant hair.
We were younger and meeker and nerdier in my
year and mostly wore our uniform as the head
teacher intended.