‘It’s “your dad and I”,’ I wanted to say. But I didn’t dare or she’d have clipped me one for being cheeky. We used to have neighbours whose daughter had ‘got into trouble’. She had to get married, of course, but they couldn’t deal with the scandal and moved away. ‘That girl ruined her parents’ lives,’ my mother muttered every time we went past their block of flats.
It’s incredible how attitudes to these things have changed in what isn’t such a very long period of time. Then again, maybe all generations feel the same. Who knows what life will be like when Melissa and Daisy are my age? It’s both scary and exciting to think about it.
I’d never had a boyfriend before Jock. It wasn’t for the wanting. I’d have given anything for one! But I was painfully shy. Once a boy at school started to chat me up on the bus but I didn’t know what to say. It might have been different if I’d had a brother but men, to me, seemed like an alien species.
Besides, the opportunities for finding love were few and far between. My parents wouldn’t let me go to the dances that my friends did. ‘Plenty of time for that sort of thing when you’re older,’ my father used to say. I was fifteen at the time. Dead strict, he was.
My mother persuaded him to let me go to the church youth club but there were mainly girls there. Then a group of skinheads came in one night and brought bottles of beer with them. They smashed up the place and the youth club closed because it couldn’t afford to repair the damage. My parents wouldn’t let me go out at night after that – they said it wasn’t safe. So that was the end of my social life for a while apart from spending my pocket money on a fizzy lemonade at the local Wimpy bar on Saturday lunchtimes with girls from school. Of course, we always eyed up any of the blokes who came in. But none of them showed us much interest. So instead, we just talked about Davy Jones from the Monkees. Fancied him rotten, we all did! I had a poster of him on my bedroom wall that had come free with Jackie magazine. Every night I prayed that Davy would somehow find me and whisk me away. Of course, I knew it wouldn’t really happen but we all need our dreams, don’t we?
I wasn’t very bright at school. English, maths, geography … That kind of stuff never made sense in my head. Maybe it was because my school was so rowdy. It was hard to concentrate in class. I’d actually got a place at the Grammar when I was eleven but my parents wouldn’t let me take it because they couldn’t afford the uniform. So I went to the local comprehensive instead, which had quite a name, for the wrong reason.
But I liked art and needlework. ‘Your Betty has a real skill,’ the teacher told my parents. ‘She could go on to art college or teach domestic science if she stays on.’
There was no way my parents would allow that. They didn’t believe in further education. In their view, students were ‘layabouts’ and ‘spongers’ with long hair. I believed them, not knowing then that their narrow-minded attitude came from fear of the unknown. They could still remember the war. All they wanted now was safety and a sensible occupation for me. My mother had worked in a light-bulb factory until she’d had me. My father was still there. It was the way it had been when they were young in the late forties and early fifties and they didn’t see why it had to change now.
‘I’ve made inquiries, Betty,’ Dad told me with pride on my sixteenth birthday. ‘Spoke to my boss, I did and got you a place on the factory line. You’re a very lucky young lady. There’s people would kill to get a steady job like this.’
‘Why can’t I go to college to do dressmaking?’ I protested. I’d always been a good girl and done what I’d been told, partly because I was an only child. There was no one else to fight my battles for me. But the thought of working in the same factory as my dad, just round the corner from our council estate, filled me with dread.
‘Arty crafty stuff and nonsense, you mean,’ snorted my dad. ‘That’s not going to help us put bread on the table. You need to start earning your keep if you’re going to carry on living here.’
I know that sounds hard. I can’t ever imagine you saying something similar to the girls, Poppy. But it was the way that many working-class families thought at the time. They believed it was good for us. Maybe it was.
Then, just before I was due to start work, I caught the 38 bus to Tottenham Court Road and went window shopping in Carnaby Street with some of my old schoolfriends. None of us could afford much but I liked to look at the clothes and work out how they were made. Afterwards, I’d browse round the local market and buy some material from saved-up birthday and Christmas money. I’d make my own pattern and run up outfits using Mum’s sewing machine.
Then I saw the vacancy on the door of a boutique. (It was really ‘cool’, as Melissa and Daisy might say, although we used the term ‘groovy’.) It had blacked-out windows and dim lighting inside so you could hardly see the clothes. They also played music, which in those days was really different. WANTED, said the advert, SHOP ASSISTANT. PERMANENT POSITION.
Almost without knowing what I was doing, I went in and filled out a form. ‘We want someone who can advise our customers on fashion,’ the manageress told me.
‘Well,’ I said, smoothing down my jacket. ‘I made this and the skirt I’m wearing.’
‘Did you now?’ she said thoughtfully.
When I got home, my dad was livid. ‘What’s this about working in some clothes shop?’ he’d demanded. The manageress had already rung our home number (which I’d put on the form) and told my parents that the job was mine if I was still interested! I expected Mum to be furious too but the funny thing was that she was quite impressed. ‘Don’t you worry. I’ll talk your dad round.’
She did as well, partly because the pay was higher at the shop than the factory. Oh, how I loved it there! I got to know lots of the customers who kept coming back because I’d show them what suited them and what didn’t. They seemed to appreciate my honesty. Often, I’d explain how to wear something in a slightly different way – like a jumper off the shoulder or with a chain belt from our new range.
Sometimes they’d ask where I got the clothes I was wearing. I explained I made them myself. ‘Can you come up with something for me like that?’ customers would inquire. I asked the manageress for permission. ‘No,’ she said. ‘But you can make a couple of outfits for us and we’ll sell them, keeping half the profits. Does that sound all right for you?’
It sounded more than all right. I was able to save enough to buy Mum her favourite perfume – Blue Grass – for her birthday. But the other girls in the shop got jealous because I was making more money than they were with my on-the-side earnings. They started whispering about me and kept asking me why I didn’t have a boyfriend. It made me feel that there was something wrong with me. In those days, people still talked about being ‘left on the shelf’. The worst thing that could happen to you, apart from getting pregnant before being married, was not finding someone who wanted to marry you.
By now, Mum had persuaded Dad to allow me to go to discos with my friends. I was seventeen then. But they were so noisy and full of confident girls who danced with their arms raised above their heads. When the quiet music came on – the signal for boys to come up and ask for a ‘slow’ dance – no one ever came near me. So I’d just go home early and sew instead.