Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

I have plenty of love stories to share during my time in Isis School– and we will get to that. But to begin, I’ll be talking about my best friend Pip Disney and how different our approach to love and girls had been.

Pip Disney, or rather ‘Dizzie’ or ‘Twizzle’,³⁰⁸ was my best friend. We used to sit next to each other in class. However, I became too noisy so they moved me up front to sit next to a small, quiet, and unassuming boy called Sargent. Still, my friendship with Pip Disney carried on. He was not tremendously strong, but he was absolutely fearless and would fight boys twice his size.

Fighting Hierarchy

For those readers who come from the ‘civilized’ parts of the planet, I should perhaps explain this ‘fighting’ thing. Boys in Lancashire resemble packs of wolves. Wherever a group of boys were together, after a short period of time, they would sort themselves into a hierarchy: ‘Best Fighter no. 1’, ‘no. 2’, ‘no. 3’ and so on. Pip Disney was absolutely unchallenged as Best Fighter no. 1. He would also fight older boys in the class above, if they challenged him.

My relationship with him resembled the relationship between the US and Britain. If you can’t be number 1, at least you can ally yourself to number 1! No. 1 (the US) gain from this relationship, because they can carry out despicable acts of international terrorism, crimes of war of aggression. They often justify it by their alliance to a so-called ‘democratic’ ally No. 2 (Britain).³⁰⁹

However, in retrospect, this is perhaps not the most appropriate analogy, because I wasn’t Pip’s ‘poodle’ (the role Britain has adopted in relation to the US).³¹⁰ Pip and I were equal partners in the friendship. I automatically became ‘Best Fighter no. 2’ as I was a very skinny boy, not that strong, but had a wild temper. Hence, I used ‘shock and awe’ tactics,³¹¹ like smashing boys in the middle of the face with my fist when they least expected it, and for no particular reason. But my position as No. 2 relied more on the fact that no one dared fight me (‘Harkie’) or they would get trouble from ‘Dizzie’ (Pip Disney). 

Conventionally Attractive

I was an extremely good looking boy when I was 12-13 years old – cheeky, noisy, inventive, naughty, and so on. Thus, I was popular with most of the girls. This was during the period before mass “ethnic” immigration in Britain. Back then, the ideal for girls was blonde hair and blue eyes, and the ideal for boys was black hair and brown eyes. This can be explained that blonde girls and black-haired boys were in the minority in Britain. Also, Hollywood marketed various blonde sex goddesses and black-haired sex gods, such as Ginger Rodgers and Tyrone Power to mention two.

I also had a cute little nose; in fact, I had quite a feminine appearance with a small nose and large expressive brown eyes, not to mention my Elvis quiff. Absurdly, I think it was my good looks and crazy personality that attracted ‘Dizzie’. He was the one who took the initiative in cementing our boy-relationship. 

Although only 12 or 13 years old, Dizzie was ‘obsessed’ with girls. To use another analogy, we were like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid because he was also good looking with a blonde quiff. We made a good team in the hunt for girls. I was also extremely interested in girls, but more romantically so – writing poems and love notes, kissing them, and giving gifts. Dizzie was more ‘carnally’ focused, wanting to get into their knickers, or at the very least, take a look at their breasts. Although I liked girls they were still like a ‘strange race’ to me. 

‘Love in the Grass’

There were many areas around the school where you could just walk or play games, but the Isis School also had a really good playground. It wasn’t the typical planned modern day playground. Situated below the school building, you had to descend some broad stone steps to get there. The size was also suitable for playing soccer, which we often did.  

The grounds on the long side of the playground away from the school were out of bounds. It was a wooded area that went down to Astley Brook at the bottom of a steep bank. On the other long side of the playground, closer to the school, was also a bank rising upwards that was covered in grass. 

In the spring and the early summer, we sometimes got bored playing football, and we would lie on the bank of grass with the girls. At that time, we still used the word ‘snogging’. In other words, you cuddled up to a girl lying next to you and kissed her lightly. My friend Dizzie started to talk about ‘French kissing’. Personally, I was quite happy to give girls a light smack on the lips, not venturing much further.

St. Valentine’s Day and Jackie Bouchère

At one time or another, I must have been ‘in love’ with all the girls in the class; however, my favourite to start off with was Jackie Bouchère. I had got this crazy idea when Valentine’s Day was coming along that I wanted to be her ‘secret admirer’. Honestly, I don’t know where I got the idea of a ‘secret admirer’; perhaps it was something I’ve seen in a film.

Thinking I could woo her with expensive gifts, I bought her an enormous and very expensive red and gold box of chocolates. It cost me seven shillings and sixpence. At the time, I only received two shillings a week for pocket money. In other words, it represented one month’s pocket money for me more or less! One day, I found a purse full of coins in a grassy area not too far from the house. I hid it at the bottom of the front garden under one of the small pine trees my father had planted. 

I somehow got hold of Jacqueline’s address, packed the chocolate box in gift paper. Inside was a note, “From your secret admirer – will you be my Valentine!” After, I wrapped it in brown packing paper, went to the post office, and sent it. 

On Valentine’s Day she confronted me and with a frown on her face said in an accusing voice, “I bet it was YOU who sent me THOSE chocolates!” She said this in such a tone of voice, as if I was a horrid boy who had sent her a dead frog. This was hardly the scenario I had envisioned. In my imagination, she was supposed to smile lovingly, say thank you, and I would then declare my love for her. So absurdly, I pretended I didn’t know what she was talking about and denied sending her the ‘horrible’ gift. I just remained her ‘secret’ admirer, so we never consummated our relationship with a kiss. 

Ladrilla Carpenter

Eventually, I lost interest in Jackie. My attention started to drift to other pretty girls in the class. I had more success with other girls such as Ladrilla Carpenter. We used to lie on the aforementioned grassy bank kissing on warm and sunny days. I will be talking about her and my memory of her at the latter part of this post.

Wendy and Caroline Grove

I also fell ‘in love’ with Caroline Grove. She was the delightful and enchanting elder sister of Wendy Grove in the class above us. I should perhaps mention that the blonde Wendy Grove was also my girlfriend for a time; she was in the same class as me. Wendy was not as pretty as her elder sister, but I had cynically romanced her with the subconscious goal of mating with her elder sister. 

Caroline had a very cute face, shapely legs and breasts, and a swinging blonde ponytail. In fact, she would sway her whole body as she walked along, wearing her blue-and-white pin-striped Isis school uniform cotton dress. I was more or less mesmerized by her looks. To me, she was the prettiest girl in the whole school. But this was perhaps a question of idealizing girls from afar.

In the break times, she was always gaily smiling in company of another third form beauty called Jane. Jane was taller and perhaps even prettier with her shoulder length brown hair; but it was Caroline I was in love with. 

From afar

It was obvious to her I was ‘in-love-with-her’. Sadly,  I was only a ‘little boy’ to her as we were separated by a year. However, I could tell that she was clearly flattered by my attentions. 

I idolised and adored Caroline from afar. The sound of her name was also magic – ♫Ca-Ro-Line♫. The magic of her name, the swishing of her blue and white cotton dress; her blonde swaying ponytail and her pretty face and blue eyes were all woven together in my mind like a delightful sonata by Beethoven. My eyes would beam-in like radar whenever I saw her swaying blonde ponytail catching the sunlight, as she walked along with Jane in the playground. She ended up being one of the many ‘unattainable’ girls that I idolised throughout my life.

The Western Blonde

Throughout my teens, I tended to worship various pretty blonde schoolgirls in  the same way early Christians worshipped Mary, the mother of Jesus. Although, I have to admit that Leonardo’s ‘Mary’ has an ‘Italian’ nose; I was more attracted by the ‘baby’ noses of my ‘blonde goddesses’.

So, I was obviously confused here between the spiritual worship of an iconised virginal woman (Mary), and her descendant, the Western blonde that had inherited her erotic sensuality. Some examples are Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, and other starlets. I suppose the main thing was that blondes were totally different from my dark-haired mother. That is, it was unthinkable of having a relationship with someone that resembled one’s mother. After all, one didn’t want to end up like Oedipus.³¹² This dilemma is portrayed by the Doors, in their song, “The End”, that is, ‘Oedipus’s dilemma’.³¹³ 

Of course, there is some crazy paradox here. If one was able to possess such a ‘Madonna’, then she would often metamorphise into a ‘plain Jane’. So the problem wasn’t so much with the girls, but with my own mind. Perhaps the key was not to turn ‘magical Madonnas’ into plain Janes in your own mind. In other words, make an attempt to ‘keep the illusion’ – perhaps through showing some kind of respect?

My ‘Love Affair’ with Jane Smith

Because I had so many girlfriends in my class, I had gained something of a ‘reputation’ among the girls, as well as amongst the girls in the form above me. My adoration of Caroline Grove had gotten around after I had slipped a love note into her hand one day, and then ran off back to my own classroom. Some girls older than me were attracted to my long, shiny, black hair, and handsome cutely-smiling face. One example is Jane Smith.

Jane Smith was flat-chested with black frizzy hair, a narrow nose, small beady eyes, buck teeth, and matchstick-like legs. In other words, she wasn’t pretty like Caroline. Jane was the one who first took the initiative. She had sent a go-between, a friend of hers, to tell Dizzie to tell me that she wanted to be my girlfriend. I agreed and said we should meet and kiss first. That gave me some kind of status, going out with a 15-year old girl when I was just 12 or 13 years old. I remember she was 15 – because most of the girls in her class were still only 14. In other words, I was impressed by her ‘old age’.

That Stung

We had arranged to meet in a narrow, dark, and doorless ‘cubby hole’ at the back of the school that must have had some function in the distant past, such as a toilet or such; now it was just a tight and dark room attached to the back of the school building with bare, damp, moist, and slimy walls. It still served the purpose of the meet-up, as it was semi-private and dark. 

The plan was to kiss each other. This would consummate our love and make us boyfriend and girlfriend! We finally met in the ‘hole’. Using my own body, I gently pressed her back against the damp wall; I could hardly see her face, as it was pretty dark. I gave her a light kiss on the lips, but she was more ambitious and tried to press her tongue through my lips into my mouth.

This wasn’t wholly successful, as she had buck teeth, so I remember she ended up biting my lip. I wasn’t particularly enthralled by the act, but I was happy our ‘honeymoon’ was over. We could now leave the dark and moist cubby hole as ‘man and wife’ holding hands.

In the next few days I went around proudly holding hands with my ’15-year-old’ girlfriend Jane. But I didn’t really want to go into the cubby hole with her again, or lie on the grassy bank, because of the unfortunate ‘biting’ experience. Eventually, she became impatient just holding hands and walking around the playground all the time, and said she wanted a ‘real’ date. 

The Real Date

I liked walking around museums and galleries studying history, probably more so than studying at school. I suggested to Jane we visit the museum in Bolton as our ‘date’. Jane sounded interested; so after school one day, we went to the museum to look at people who have been dead for thousands of years, the Egyptian mummies.

I tried to make it interesting to her by describing the various facets about the mummies. They had gold decorations, which our faithful colonial workers had nabbed from Egypt some hundred or more years ago. Inside the caskets were the actual thousands of year old bodies of kings and queens with all their organs removed except for the heart. I thought this idea of ‘heart’ might appeal to her as we were ‘in love’, but Jane wasn’t interested in all this ‘old stuff’ at all. Soon, she became bored. 

In retrospect, I think Jane had more carnal interests than I did. So in other words, our ‘love affair’ ended almost before it had begun. The sad fact was that we had only kissed once. After this, I had to go back to writing love notes and kissing girls in my own class, as well as admiring Caroline Grove from afar. In other words, Jane was perhaps disappointed by the fact that I didn’t know ‘what to do to a girl’.

John Cunny

It was perhaps best that my love affair with Jane Smith petered out like a damp squib, or I might have ended up like John Cunny in the fifth form. John Cunny knew ‘what to do to a girl’. Cunny was a well-built athletic boy-man with a broad chest, blonde hair, an arrogant flashing smile, and Buddy-Holly glasses. He used to wear tight drain-pipe trousers, fastened with a large shiny brass buckle portraying an Indian chief.

This bulging brass buckle must have attracted the attention of lots of girls. According to Dizzie, he had already made three girls in his class pregnant. Amongst them, the pretty blonde captain of the girls’ hockey team, Dolores Haze. So Cunny had attained cult-status at the school. He was like an idol for Dizzie, someone he wanted to emulate. But I still only had a vague idea of what all this meant. 

Judith Blythe

I was also in love with Judith Blythe for a while, but it didn’t amount to much. We exchanged a few love notes and kisses on the grassy bank, and walked along holding hands. Although, we did go on an amatory trip to a local fun fair once, together with Dizzie and his girlfriend, Susan Osmiroid, whom this next little story is really about.

Susan Osmiroid

I took a fancy to Susan Osmiroid when Dizzie tired of her as he said she was a “ ‘day tripper’, and a little teaser … and only took him half way ‘there’.” Well, I didn’t want to go ‘there’; I wasn’t even sure where ‘there’ was as I did not have carnal interests like Dizzie. All I wanted to gaze at her pretty face and look into her beautiful sparkling eyes. So I wrote a love note to her. I didn’t come first in the English exam, but I was undoubtedly by far the foremost love poet (bard) in the class; at that point, I may have penned hundreds of love notes to more or less every girl in the class.

I put the love note in her desk at break-time when no one was in the classroom. I wrote: “I love you! From Mr. X” (hardly a Shakespearian sonnet!). After the break, we had French with Miss Moreau. Susan had lifted up the lid of her desk and found the note. She put her hand up to ask the teacher something.

Amour is something merveilleuse!

“Wa tis eet, Su-zann,” the French Miss Moreau asked in her delightful French-English. 
“Please Miss, someone has put a note in my desk,” said Susan in an aggrieved voice.
“Wot duz ze knot sey Suzann?” asked Miss Moreau.
“I don’t like to say,” answered Susan shyly.
“Giv it tu mee, I will reed it.”

Susan handed the note to Miss Moreau.

Miss Moreau held up the note and read it slowly: “Je t’aime chéri. Signé par Monsieur x – kiss, kiss, kiss. I meen – Je luv u darling. signed by Mister X. Kiss, kiss, kiss!” 

Miss Moreau then asked the class in her strictest voice (which wasn’t so ‘strict’, as she was such a charming and gentle woman):“U iz diz Mister Ix!?”

Of course, I didn’t want to admit to the ‘crime’, and I was also supposed to be a ‘secret admirer.’ But I had seen in the films that tough guys always admit their crimes. If there is a chance that all their buddies may be punished for their crime if they don’t own up. So I nervously put my hand up.

Carrying on using her ‘strict’ voice, Miss Moreau went into a long lecture.

“E-an – yu shud niver haid yur luv! It tis nuthin to be ashem-id off. Amour is something merveilleuse! Yu shud alway shew yu-er  luv and not kip tit hid!”

I was expecting some reprimand and punishment, such as a detention or lines, so I was completely taken aback by her lecture on ‘luv’. Shyly, I just half-smiled and nodded, not saying anything. By the time Miss Moreau had finished her ‘luv’ lecture, the lesson was half over.

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Sources

³⁰⁸ The Adventures of Twizzle is a television show produced by AP Films and Gerry Anderson. Conceived by author Roberta Leigh, later a co-producer, the children’s show premiered in 1957. The show follows Twizzle and his companions on adventures. Twizzle has the ability to extend his arms and legs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Twizzle Read: 17 May 2022.

³⁰⁹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_Iraq_War Read 29 March 2022. 

³¹⁰ “America’s Poodle” is the insult of choice hurled by critics of Tony Blair for his support for President Bush. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2711623.stm   Read 29 March 2022.

³¹¹ Shock and awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is a tactic based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy’s perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_and_awe Read 29 March 2022.

³¹² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus

³¹³ The Doors Live, The End (Special Performance) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=watO_IRfz4w Read: 18 May 2022.