In Part 2 (and there’s only one more to go after this episode) I discovered I was enamoured by the charms of the exotically beautiful Jane “with 2”. Here, we find out what I did about it and why. If you’ve not read them yet, you can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here
(Track 3 – “Queen Of Torture” – The Phone Call)
One day in December 1975 I stumbled upon the idea that I would pluck up the courage to ask Jane with 2, out on a date. This is analogous to say, the footballer Harry Kane, at eighteen and after a dismal loan spell at Leyton Orient, coming back to Tottenham Hotspur and announcing to Spurs Chairman Daniel Levy, “Get me Florentino Perez on the blower, I’m off to Real Madrid.” It was akin to me, as a five-year-old, picking up my beaten-up Dunlop Tennis Racket and announcing I was playing for the GB Davis Cup Team (it couldn’t have been much worse if you ask me), after all, “She told me you can try…”
Tarot
The thing is, at fifteen any information you hear can be used to positively or negatively impact your thoughts and feelings because at that tender age, your life experiences are so limited it’s almost impossible to separate good information from bad. The best I had was this, “She hadn’t said no.” And whilst Jane hadn’t said “no” I still had a chance. The fact I hadn’t asked her anything and therefore, technically speaking at least, she hadn’t been given the opportunity to return a deleterious response was beside the point, and I still had (the image of) a handful of Lovers Tarot cards up my sleeve.
All I had to do was play those cards at the right time and in the right order and the-Jane-with-2-L’s-Seymour-Alldridge-combo would be mine, like putty in my hands. The fact I had more of a passing resemblance to Patrick Moore than Roger Moore didn’t seem to deter me either. But in what world would Solitaire or Jane Seymour even, look at the likes of Patrick Moore other than in amusement? However, the worlds of Astrology and Astronomy have always been poles apart, like oil and water, and for good reason too.
Undertones
It was true that in 1975 the Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey was a complete unknown, but even so, it appeared I was already attempting to model myself upon him. Just watch him deliver the song “Jimmy Jimmy” from Top of the Pops in 1979 (an episode I happened to attend in person nonetheless).
The Undertones were a great band but you didn’t look at them and think “Wow, they’re cool!” It was likely I was thinking “I’m glad I don’t look like them” whilst appearing to be the prototype model for their stage attire.
During the Christmas school holidays, I had resigned myself to the fact that enough was enough. It was time to put myself out of the misery of my own making. It was now an open secret that Jane was the focus of my desires. Before we were due to return to school in January 1976, I would ask her, on the telephone and I would finally have the answer I desired. Jane would be mine and we’d live forever in perfect harmony. The only harmony I received though, were those of the vocal and guitar variety on Argus.
She was far away, I found it hard to reach her
She told me you can try, but it’s impossible to find her.
Stuart & Spurs
After Christmas had come and gone, my cousin Stuart came to visit. He was the same age as me and had lived in Harlow until about five years before, when his family moved to Australia as “£10 POMS”.1 They had recently returned to the UK and were living in Northampton. So, we decided a day at the football was in order and took the train from Harlow Town to White Hart Lane. We entered the ground and decided to stand on the terraces in the Enclosure.
It was the 6th January 1976, the 3rd round of the English FA Cup. Spurs were at home to Stoke City and after the players came out of the tunnel to kick off, a strange thing happened. The cameraman followed them out and moved quickly along the side of the pitch, filming the crowd. This was unprecedented and as we watched we realised something. The cameraman was coming straight towards us. We grinned as he approached, thumbs up and waving and then he was past us and gone. We enjoyed the match but not as much as watching it the next day on ITV’s “The Big Match”. And there we were, in all our teenage glory, grinning, thumbs up.
The Phone Call
The next day, Monday, was the big day. It had to be. We were back at school on Tuesday. I’d painted myself into a corner I couldn’t get out of since I’d also backed myself up against a wall and the wall was prodding me. I knew what I had to do and now it seemed like a cold, icy chill had entered my bloodstream. I was nervous yes but calm also. It was time. Time to face the music, time to become a man. Time to take the final step into adulthood. I looked up her name in the Phone Book as I had a thousand times before. There it was. Alldridge – Broxbourne.
I knew the address because I went round her house once. I can’t remember the reason (other than I was besotted) but Jonathan Clark and I decided to go over to Hoddesdon on the bus, and when we got there we looked up her address and then discovered we had no idea how to find the house. So, I called from a phone box and she directed us. It was a big, detached house and Jane was there with her Mum and her sister Susan. I don’t recall how long we were there for, but I can’t believe it wasn’t awkward.
Buzzing
So, as I sat on the stairs in the hall of the house in The Downs, I could visualise her house (the one I’d been stalking) and so I had some comfort I wasn’t entering completely unknown territory. I picked up the receiver. It was reassuringly heavy in my hands and the speaker buzzed and vibrated in my ear. I began dialling the number and the tone clicked and hummed as it made the connections, then all at once the number was dialled and the phone rang at the other end. It seemed to ring forever as I waited patiently at the other end.
Then it clicked and a voice answered, “Hello, can I help you?”
“Er, hello,” I stammered. “Is, er, is Jane there?”
“Yes, who’s speaking please?”
It sounded like her mother. “It’s Lee. From school.”
“Hang on.”
It’s That Loser Again
I heard the resounding clunk of the receiver being put down and a voice echoing in the distance. “Jane, it’s for you. Someone from school,” she said.
There were footsteps and then the breathless voice I’d heard a thousand times, talking to me; only to me. One-to-one. “Hello?” she said. How perfect was that? Indeed, had she opened with, “Why don’t you fuck off bothering me at home you little shit,” it’s fair to say I’d have sighed gently in much the same way.
“Hi Jane,” I said, “it’s Lee. Adams. From school.”
“Oh…oh….hello!” she said brightly. I was three seconds in and I was smashing it.
“How are you? Did you have a good Christmas?” I asked.
“Yes, really good thanks, you?” she replied.
Riffing
“Yes not too bad,” I replied and then a dreadful thing happened. Silence happened. I hadn’t planned anything after the opening gambit and now I was into the riffing phase of the plan, I realised my riffing skills were somewhat lacking in depth, in fact they were totally non-existent.
“Did you want something?” she asked eventually.
“Sorry, yes, I wanted to ask you something but first I was just wondering if by any chance you watched The Big Match yesterday?” Quite why I thought she’d tune in to football highlights on a Sunday afternoon I have no idea, but I asked anyway and it suddenly occurred to me that since I wasn’t chatting to one of my mates at school anymore, I should have perhaps considered some other aspects of conversation.
Flying
“No, no I didn’t,” she said flatly. “Why?”
“Well, I was on it,” I explained excitedly.
“Were you? That’s great,” she replied. Twenty-seven seconds and I was flying. Whether I was flying directly into a brick wall or not I couldn’t say but I was here now, so I metaphorically shrugged and continued.
“Only in the crowd you know but I was actually on the telly. With my cousin. Stuart. We were waving and everything.” This was an amazing revelation, but she didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm for my newly found TV stardom.
“That’s nice. Was that what you phoned me about?” she asked with a laugh.
Out Out
“No, what I wanted to know…” I ploughed on realising I was now into dark, dangerous territory because what happened next could change my whole life. I had been preparing for this moment for months, years even, in my own mind; the point when I would finally get to ask Jane Alldridge, the goddess of Netteswell Comprehensive, out. And to paraphrase Mickey Flanagan, I wasn’t just asking her out. I was asking her “out-out”. Ironically though, now I found myself teetering on the precipice it didn’t seem so fearful, after all I was just speaking, like I did every day.
“Go on,” she said.
“Yes, well I wanted to know if you would, well, er, like to go out with me…sometime, perhaps,” it was out. I’d said it. Out loud, so she could hear. It was her turn to be silent.
“Well?” I asked after a moment.
“Like on a date?” she questioned.
“Yes, like a girlfriend…and all that.” There was another pause.
Clubber Lang
In the film Rocky III, Clubber Lang (aka Mr T) is interviewed before he fights Rocky Balboa. The interviewer asks him for a prediction on the fight. “Prediction?” he says. He thinks for a second, looks into the camera, licks his lips and growls the word “Pain.” It perfectly summarises what came next.
“I do like you but not in that way,” she said. I could feel a painful lump swelling in my throat and my eyes were beginning to sting. Where had that come from? I’d been fine a moment ago.
“I see,” I said trying to keep my voice steady. But, I didn’t “see” at all.
“I think it would be better if we just remained friends,” she continued.
So No One Told You…
Wow! I thought. Friends eh? I didn’t even know we were friends, so this was turning into a triumphant success. And, she said we should “remain friends” which meant we already were and I just hadn’t realised. This was bad but it was wonderful too. Only I could be dumped in the dreaded “friend zone” and not even know it.
Of course, the phrase “remain friends” had other, hidden connotations too. Because it sounded a little like she was concerned that a more personal relationship between us could, over time, destroy the wonderful friendship we already had; the one I hadn’t been aware existed up until just now. So in reality, the only reason she was turning me down was because she treasured our especial friendship too much. She was so solicitous, mature and grown up. And I had so much to learn.
Then She Was Gone
“Yes, ok that’s fine,” I said and fell into melancholy silence. After a moment we spoke a little about schoolwork and then she said, “Well, it’s been nice talking to you, I must go now.”
“Ok, well thanks anyway,” I don’t know what I was thanking her for, I’d just been blown out. Even so, the stinging in my eyes increased and we said goodbye and I put the phone down. The clunk as I replaced the receiver and the sudden silence that enveloped me, echoed through the empty house, and brought with it the cold chill of isolation, something I’d never experienced, and as a result, was woefully unprepared for. I was sad, I was lonely, I was fifteen. And yet, as I sat quietly on the stairs, I noted the all-pervading devastation was intermittently punctuated by fleeting moments of elation.
Every action creates a reaction. And the reaction was, a heavy weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Admittedly, I felt as if I’d been ceremoniously eviscerated with a blunt, rusty tin opener but at the same time the pain of the blow had been tempered by the “friends” disclosure.
School
The next day was a school day. And although I went in as usual, I didn’t say anything to anyone about “it”. I was devastated in a way that someone who has never had the central object of all their desires and affections thrown in their face, could ever comprehend. So, I sat at the back of the class in History and there was Jane, at the front, not speaking to me or even looking at me. In fact, it appeared she was purposely not looking at me. “I think we should remain friends.” It was beginning to dawn on me that her interpretation of friendship was somewhat dissimilar to mine. Wildly dissimilar.
The Boy With The Spare Pen
I thought friends talked and joked together. I thought they shared things. Went to the shops together. Bought stuff and went round each other’s houses. I wasn’t aware that they ignored each other for no apparent reason. And to be perfectly blunt I’d have been content with a friendship of any sort. Because I just wanted to breathe the rarefied air she breathed; to occasionally be the object of the dark, sultry eyes; to share a joke or a conversation. I just wanted her to know I existed in some other way than ‘the boy with the spare pen’. Then someone said to me, “Did you ask Jane out?” and everyone turned around. There seemed to be a very awkward silence. “Yes,” I replied eventually. “Anne told me she said no,” said one of the girls haughtily. “That’s right, she did.”
Later that day, I had the misfortune to bump into Dave Twigg. Dave was in my year and had a number of complex facets to his personality. He was either smashing your face in, warning you he was going to smash your face in, or smashing somebody else’s face in. And if he wasn’t doing that, he was having a laugh and a joke, usually at your expense. There wasn’t much else to him that I could detect. I waited to see which side of his demeanour had turned up today.
Twigg
“Adams!” he shouted across the corridor. “I hear you got blown out. Big time!” he grinned. Thankfully I was only going to be verbally abused today.
“Something like that,” I replied.
“So, you asked Jane Alldridge out?” It appeared the old adage “bad news travels fast” was alive and well between fifteen-year-olds. He laughed at my stupidity. “You prat. As if she’d go out with you, I mean, look at you.” He pulled at my zip-up cardigan. He had a point, but I pushed his hand away nonetheless. He stopped laughing and narrowed his eyes. “Oops,” I thought. Then he had second thoughts and his disposition reverted back and he smiled again. Perhaps he thought I’d been through enough already.
Pillock
“I have to say, prat or not, she’s very pretty. I admire your taste and your balls. Shame she didn’t!” I smiled in spite of myself. When Dave Twigg wasn’t threatening your very existence, he could be quite amusing. Later, as I walked along the school corridor to the next lesson, I spied my brother Robert with his friends, also changing classes. We didn’t talk, we rarely communicated other than shouting, and as he was two years older, he always won any disagreements. I did not want a conversation with him, so my friend Ray Pask decided to engage him in conversation instead.
“Hullo, Rob,” he said. “D’you hear about ‘Agg’ (me)?
“No,” said Rob.
“He only went and asked Jane Alldridge out and she said no.” If the phrase “What a muppet” had been in existence in 1976 I feel sure it would’ve been used quite frequently when describing my actions at the time.
“Said no, did she? What a pillock!” Rob laughed.
They were walking behind me, past the Technical Drawing classrooms. I waited for the verbal onslaught that was sure to materialise but it never came. Even so, I’d made a grave error of judgement. A faux-pas that could haunt me for months to come. I’d asked Jane out on the day before we came back to school, whereas sensibly I should have asked her on the day after we broke up for the summer holidays and in doing so given the ‘news’ a six-week cooling off period, by which time people would’ve been greeting the revelation with the age-old phrase, “I heard that yonks ago you wazzock!”
Next Up – Track 4 – Error Of My Ways – Conclusion
- £10 POMS were British people who emigrated to Australia after the war until the 80s and it cost them £10 each to secure passage. Ten Pound Poms – Wikipedia
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