50 years ago today

My lonely summer

Durdle Door, near Lulworth Cove. I came here for three years running 1965 to 1967 with friends, staying in a caravan site on top of the cliffs.

I spent a miserable week alone in a decrepit caravan at Lulworth Cove in September 1967. I should have been joined by my friend Rayner Bourton[1] but he wanted to be an actor and had been diverted by an opportunity. It took him three days to let me know but he had a good excuse, whatever it was. His absence did not increase my misery.

I spent my time wandering along the beaches and reading. I joined another boy of my age who was taking a boat from beach to beach along the coast selling ice cream. I went along for the ride and he seemed happy with my company. Otherwise, I was on my own.

My girlfriend was on a P&O cruise to the Canary Islands with her mother. Her father had died the previous year and this trip was meant to be either a consolation or a celebration. I had hitched a lift in her mother’s car to the south coast. I would see her off at Southampton, go to Lulworth and greet her as she returned. The ship’s departure was delayed for 24 hours so I was sneaked on board for the night and we watched The Manchurian Candidate in the ship’s cinema.

Next morning, I said ‘bon voyage’ to my girlfriend and she sailed off. Instead of a quick hug and a wave goodbye this enormous ship slowly heaved itself away from the dockside and down the Solent to the sound of a band playing, with flags flying and hooters hooting. Perhaps it was the theatrical nature of this departure but I felt as if I was saying goodbye to something for ever.

I had already thought a lot about going to London and leaving my girlfriend behind. Perhaps I should have been sensible and accepted that a long-distance relationship would not work. But, I was inexperienced in such things, and I was in love. I could still spend my weekends in Birmingham.  Was the feeling I had as the ship disappeared a premonition?

I got through my lonely week in the caravan somehow. I scratched her name in ten-foot high letters on the beach and watched the tide wash it away. I wrote love letters I never posted. I spent the last of my money on a bunch of red roses to be delivered to her when the ship docked. This extravagant gesture was not simply to welcome her back; it was meant somehow to obliterate the gap that was now between us.

I went back to Southampton to greet her as the ship arrived. I felt immediately that something had changed. Her greeting seemed perfunctory; I had expected something more affectionate. My roses had been delivered but they were in an untidy bunch and some had bent stems. I was put in the back of the car and felt ignored with mother and daughter in the front seats. I felt even more superfluous when she suggested we pick up a couple of hitchhikers.

I was devastated; what had happened to her? Why was she rejecting me? There were hints of a relationship with the ship’s photographer but how far had it gone? She had changed somehow in ways that I could not understand. I began to realise that my future with her may be uncertain. She would be seeking out new things just as I was would be doing in London.

Back in Birmingham I had a few days to sort out my luggage. It would be many years before I could deal with the emotional baggage from that summer.

[1] Rayner Bourton lived in Selly Park with his aunt. We were teenage friends, making a threesome with Roy Harrison. Rayner became an actor and was the first Rocky Horror on stage in The Rocky Horror Show. Roy became an estate agent and married Sue.