The Ladykiller

Summer 1971

I'd just commenced my second year at Collingwood, the dockyard apprentice training centre, where I’d been assigned to the AC motors section. Between the tedium of stripping Battleship Grey paint off a motor for the purpose of repainting it Battleship Grey, I brooded over a problem.

Sweet sixteen and never been kissed was a saying I detested. It was true of me. Working in that cauldron of testosterone, amongst a spotty assortment of studs and liars, my non-contribution to a favourite topic of conversation had been noted. ‘He still thinks it's for stirring his tea with’ was a remark guaranteed to raise guffaws from studs and liars alike.

While everyone else was out chasing birds I was still playing football on Eastcourt Green, more often than not with my ten year old brother Andrew, who believed me when I told him I’d spotted Gillingham’s manager on a passing bus. ‘Probably on the lookout for talent,’ I suggested. From thereon my brother’s efforts to impress whenever a bus passed were hilarious.

Playing football with my little brother was fine, but socially, I’d been left behind. My only experience of asking a girl out had been traumatic, with a humiliating end to an episode that only began when Cupid shot me with a duff arrow. Two years on, I ready to bounce back. The big question though, was who? As the only girls I knew were the ones I’d known at school I didn’t have much of a short list, not once I’d discounted the fat ones, the mouthy ones and the odd unattainable goddess. The question of who remained open till I remembered the Upbury sports day of the previous summer when me, Brian Lack and Raymond Wright had taken an afternoon off work to watch the sports and gawp at the girls.

Valerie Farrow was hardly the school sex symbol. Like many girls in my old class, she belonged in the grown up and sensible category. Studious and bespectacled, she looked a bit like Nana Mouskouri but she’d cut a tidy figure in her PE kit that day and with her credentials clearly defined, I’d seen her in a different light. And I knew where she lived from our schooldays, as I’d seen her going home when I occasionally caught the bus near the Plaza. But how was I going to ask her out? Mindful of what happened last time I asked a girl out, I came up with an ingenious idea.

In the style of Victorian gentlemen I composed a letter, a courteous compilation of claptrap, possibly influenced by Mam’s fondness for The Good Old Days. Everything got tossed into a script that might have been penned by Noel Coward. In inviting Valerie to accompany me to the pictures, I gave her a time and a place to meet; the Post Office on Gardener Street, that Saturday afternoon. The ingenious bit? I signed it not with my name, but with six stars and five stars.

Perfect! Nothing to come back on me if she doesn’t turn up!

Come Saturday I was apprehensive. After shaving the bum fluff from my chin and slapping on plenty of Brut, I combed my hair repeatedly until it was time to set off. In my best sports jacket, navy trousers, black brogues and a new Ben Sherman, I was a ladykiller in the making, right down to a clean pair of underpants, just in case.

Some twenty minutes before the appointed time I arrived at Gillingham High Street. In need of assurance I looked self-consciously at my reflection in the shop windows, hoping to see a suave, confident, handsome prince type character. Instead, I saw me.

Blast!

As there was no sign of Valerie when I got to Gardener Street, I nipped across the road to the sanctuary of Woolworth’s, where I could maintain full surveillance. Whilst pretending to peruse the wonder of Woolies I checked my watch, glanced up the High Street, paced up and down, checked my watch again and tried to remember the golden rules of taking a girl to the pictures. With no practical experience I could only rely on the theory but in every version I’d heard, rule number one was always the same – put your arm around her as soon as you get in.

She's here!

Swinging down the street so fancy free, Valerie, like Georgy Girl, hadn’t been afraid of changing and rearranging herself. In a white coat, white dress and matching white boots, she had my eyes popping at a rate the numbskulls in my brain couldn’t keep up with as she turned the corner into Gardener Street.

Bloody hell, she's here, it worked! Cor! White boots! Jesus Christ, bloody hell, white Christ, Jesus boots.

I was still rooted to the spot when Valerie crossed the street to the Post Office. Despite being a bag of nerves, I knew I had to get a move on.

  

On one side of the phone box a girl stood wondering if her secret admirer was going to turn up. Unknown to her, that same secret admirer was on the other side of the phone box, glued to the wall and in a terrible state.

I was having serious doubts about the wisdom of anonymity when I was startled by a greeting from an unwelcome complication – a complication in bovver boots and braces and wearing a big grin. Kelvin, a team mate in a football team I played for, was a likeable character but his loud and cheery manner gave me the jitters. I returned his greeting with a strangulated croak from the corner of my mouth, upon which he gave me a funny look and asked what I was doing.

‘I’m taking a girl to the pictures,’ I whispered.

A hope that Kelvin might realise this wasn’t a good time to talk vanished when he started laying down his version of the golden rules. Desperate to shut him up before he got to the squelchy bits, I looked at my watch.

‘What time are you meeting her?’

‘She’s already here,’ I said, with a nod to the other side of the phone box.

The incredulous look on Kelvin’s face was the spur I needed.

‘Oh, I thought it was you,’ said Valerie, impassively, as I sprang from behind the phone box.

‘Shall we go in?’ I asked, gesturing to the Classic, more in hope than expectation, now that I’d blown my cover.

‘Yes’

What a relief! As quickly as I could I steered Valerie across the road, away from the leering Kelvin.

After splashing out on front circle tickets I invited Valerie to take her pick from the goodies on sale in the foyer, whilst quietly praying she wasn’t a gannet. Luckily, she wasn’t.

I chickened out of rule number one. I couldn’t bring myself to be so forward. Though I damned myself for it, sitting in the pictures with a girl by my side was already a personal best.

Valerie seemed relaxed enough, but I was still tense when the opening credits rolled. Lawrence of Arabia was a good film that I’d seen at least twice previously, yet I hadn’t thought to ask Valerie if she’d seen it before, or even if she’d wanted to see it now.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what Valerie had said outside. The way she said ‘Oh, I thought it was you,’ gave no clues as to whether she’d been pleased or disappointed. And when should I put my arm around her? While I tied myself in knots over it, Lawrence got on with uniting the Arabs and appeasing the politicians.

Valerie seemed engrossed in the film. Just as well. I’d not seen her in ages, yet with barely a word; I’d whisked her straight into the pictures. Perhaps I should have taken her somewhere else first and tried to talk. Then perhaps it wouldn’t be so hard to put an arm around her.

I know! I'll wait till the bit when the train is blown up and the Turk in the wreckage raises his pistol at Lawrence. Then when Anthony Quinn sneaks up behind the Turk and chops him with a sword, Valerie will flinch and I’ll have an excuse to put a comforting arm around her. Yes!

I'd forgotten what a long film it was. Lawrence had created merry hell behind the Turkish lines and he’d blown up a train, but mine was still chugging somewhere along on the Damascus railway when the interval arrived.

After a visit to the ice cream hostess, Valerie and I had the politest of conversations, small talk mainly, along the lines of ‘he’s staying on for the sixth form,’ and ‘she’s leaving to go to secretarial college.’

The film resumed with me wondering if I’d imagined the bloodthirsty scene the last time round. Then at long last, after the odd false alarm when a real train rumbled through the tunnel behind the cinema and sent a tremor through the building, my train arrived on screen and was promptly blown up. As the Arabs swarmed all over the derailed train, Lawrence suddenly froze. The big moment had arrived.

The eyes of the audience were glued to the Turk. Bloodied in the wreckage, he raised his pistol in a trembling hand and aimed it at Peter O’Toole.

Then good old Anthony Quinn appeared.

The Turk sensed danger…

...but it was too late.

I should have struck when Anthony Quinn did but at the vital moment I lost my nerve, fearing I’d get the filthy beast treatment. And then I felt terrible, because I was just as fearful of being seen as a wet lettuce. Oh the bloody torture. But then a compromise came to mind. Seemingly detached from my arm in the darkness, my left hand reached out and clasped Valerie’s hand.

I'm holding Valerie Farrow’s hand; I’m holding Valerie Farrow’s hand, bloody hell, I'm holding Valerie Farrow’s hand!

For a while I sat there like I was handling gelignite, till the nerves ebbed and at long last, I relaxed. Once I was at peace with myself, I had to keep looking to see if Valerie’s hand was still in mine. It was, and the feeling was wonderful.

Lawrence led his Arabs to remarkable glories in Akaba and Damascus before riding his camel into the history books. The curtain came down, the lights came on and I was quickly up on my feet. It wasn’t the last performance of the evening so there was no rush to join the usual seat-clattering stampede to beat God Save the Queen. I was just keen to give it a bit of the Frankie Abbot’s and let the world see that I had a bird with me.

In mid-evening sunshine I walked Valerie home. Our conversation was much the same as it had been in the interval. Not boy/girl talk but school talk with a few awkward silences in between. Outside her house we said goodbye, and that was that.

Though hardly a rousing success, I didn’t care. I’d taken a girl out at last and the world seemed a better place. Elated, I gave the bus a miss and strolled back to Twydall with my head in the clouds, being in no hurry to arrive home and have the spell broken by a houseful of rowdy siblings.

I was still glowing at work on Monday morning. Sitting sideways on to a workbench, I had my head down and was tinkering with a motor when a pair of boots came into view. Raising my head slowly revealed the owner of the boots to be Brian Lack, who wore the biggest grin since King Kong spotted Fay Wray through a skyscraper window.

‘Who was that you were with at the pictures on Saturday?’

I groaned.

‘Come on, who was it?’ he asked.

I was speechless. Of all the people in the world…

‘Y-y-you, were there?’ I stuttered.

Full of himself, Brian was nodding before I could get the words out.

‘C-cir-circle?’

A nod and a grin.

‘You were there? In the pictures? Lawrence of Arabia? Saturday?’

Nod, nod, nod, grin, grin, grin.

Of all the filthy, rotten luck. Brian had to know it was Valerie, as the three of us had been in the same class at Upbury. Taking Valerie out was nothing to be ashamed of, but Brian was Brian and he'd take the piss anyway.

‘So who is she?’

A chink of light suddenly appeared. I’d assumed Brian was playing cat and mouse. But was he?

‘Then you don't know?’ I asked.

‘No.’

‘You didn’t rec… I mean, you didn’t see… I mean, you really don't know?’

‘No, so who is she?’

I couldn’t believe my luck. How Brian hadn’t recognised Valerie, I don’t know. If he’d seen me coming back with the ice creams during the interval, perhaps he’d only seen the back of her head and shoulders. Whatever, it proved to be a slice of good fortune that he’d seen what he had and no more. Brian wasn’t the top dog at Collingwood but he ranked high enough to have a big influence on the rabble. ‘It’s the quiet one’s you have to watch,’ they said, when word got around – an acceptable step up the ladder that gave me the breathing space to develop in my own sweet time.

As for Valerie, I sent her another letter, signed this time, asking her to meet me the following Saturday at Weedens, the greasy spoon café on Balmoral Road. Alas, she didn’t turn up.

I never saw her again, though I just might have caught a glimpse of her at a social function three years later. But the moment was fleeting and in a boozy haze, across a smoky room, I couldn’t be sure. Perhaps it was Nana Mouskouri.