GOING OUT WITH A SECOND BLONDE, BEING DUMPED AND AN OFFER I COULDN'T REFUSE


After I finished my teacher training in 1965, I started teaching in Blessed (now Saint) John Wall Secondary Modern school in Handsworth Wood, a pleasant suburb of Birmingham.  It was a small, mixed school with only about 300 pupils.  It shared playing fields on a site of nearly twenty acres with Handsworth Technical School.  Beyond the school playing fields was a golf course, so it was almost like being out in the country.  The drawback was that the grounds were alongside the River Tame and were very low-lying.  During winter and spring, a large part of the playing fields was flooded, to such an extent that the members of the school canoe club could paddle their canoes through the soccer pitch’s goalposts.

One other newly qualified teacher started at the same time as me – Di, the girls’ P.E. teacher - again, an attractive blonde.  As we were the youngest members of staff, we started going out together.  I enjoyed her company and I hope she enjoyed mine - she did at least give the impression of doing so.  Neither of us regarded our relationship as one which was likely to lead to anything serious in the long term and so it proved.  Di and I were together one evening shortly after the New Year in 1966 when she surprised me by asking would I mind if we stopped going out together, as she had met someone whom she liked a lot (enough, in fact, to marry him later).  We had always known something like this would happen sooner or later, so I agreed and we remained friends.  This took place on a Monday evening.


The following evening, my school and college friend, Carl, came to my parents’ house and asked me:

“How do you feel about going round the world?”

As I was still feeling sore about being dumped, even if gently, I gave the only possible answer -

“That’s a great idea.  Let’s do just that.”

"We were British Trained"
Share by: