31 Bathing beauties (brief musings)

It is not quite true that when you live at the seaside you avoid the sea, at least during the summer holiday, but it is not quite false either. The novelty of living where people spend their holidays wears off, but the sea is still there to enjoy, and teenage girls are tempted by the sand and water to go in little groups and spend hours either shivering because it is cold, or burning because it is hot.

There does not seem to be a happy medium for the weather and I discovered one sweltering afternoon that a plastic mac is no protection from the sun, either. I am not vain. I can’t remember if I was pretty or gawky. I don’t think I was either. I was taller than most girls in my school-class and I was the only one interested in music. My singing was a perennial part of any school ceremony and I can’t remember being bothered, though on reflection it probably got on everyone’s nerves….

Teenage girls are far more mature than boys of the same age, so it is no wonder that we look on the senior football team or senior cricket team, in both of which the 6^th formers are involved, as our targets and candidates for romance. I do not really have any success in that department. I am friendly with one handsome trumpet-player who has visions of playing like Satchmo and to my ears already gets quite close, but I was not in the league of female vamp. We did have some in the sixth form; they were what Mama would call ‘forward’. Relationships were in those days less precocious, of course, especially mine, except for those of forward girls, who met their candidates clandestinely on the beach or in some secluded corner. I have vivid memories of Mama actually chasing one boy down the road with a gardening tool she happened to be wielding before this nice young man escorted me home. That was the end of one beautiful friendship. The Satchmo friend ditched me a week after I went to London, but had been two or was it three-timing me long before then. I assume the other girl-friends were more into romance than I was, though I poured over women’s mags to find out what all the fuss was about.. I never stopped being shy and never really noticed if I was being noticed! In fact, you would say I was inhibited. That explains why the stage was such a godsend for me. I could really let my hair down and earn a certain amount of admiration, too.

In the main, trips to the beach as a group of giggling girls were strictly a girl thing. Later I discover that some of these girls, who were quite happy to go to the beach with other girls while their boyfriends did sports, actually married these first boyfriends. One girl, who was really gawky, cross-eyed and a bit stupid, managed to get married about 17 days after leaving school. I only found out later that it was a sort of competition to see who could get married first. Amazing. I was hell-bent on having a career rather than ending up in a semi. On reflection, they had more sense.