The Summer of Love, 1969
Anne Lord
This was the summer when I and Michael Lord were inseparable. In ’69 we had left school, and were both attending the Rhondda College of Further Education, he on a pre-engineering course, he later attained an apprenticeship at what was then the Pyrene factory in Maerdy, later it became Chubbs, they manufactured fire extinguishers. Michael became a toolmaker, on the maintenance team, keeping the machines in working order. I was on a Secretarial Course which was cut short. Our first date was at the pictures in the Welfare Hall, Tylorstown, the film we saw was Barbarella, I don’t know how we got in, we must have been underage. Friday night was our gang’s usual night at the pictures, but I remember Michael taking me mid-week to see a Dracula film with Christopher Lee, thinking I would be scared. I just thought it was stupid. Michael and I spent a lot of time together during the summer holidays of 1969, I remember long afternoon strolls in and around Penrhys Park, and long smoochy evenings listening to The Beatles’ Abbey Road.
By the autumn it went a step further, and on 28 February 1970 we were married. We were in love, no doubt, ideally we would have waited a few more years before tying the knot, but we both agreed that it would have happened eventually. Neither of us wanted to be with anyone else. I was scandalised when Michael’s auntie, Ann, asked if there was a way we could be together without having to get married. We started married life at my in-laws, but we soon moved to my parents’ house, as my mother- in-law, Audrey, couldn’t cope with my ill-health. During my pregnancy I suffered a recurring infection of the kidneys, that caused frequent vomiting, weeing, and left me rolling in agony. Once the baby was born I was fine. My mother made sure that I and a neighbouring friend, she was my age and her baby was born a few days before Paul, were on the pill. She personally took us to the Birth Control Clinic and told us what to say when interviewed. She, my mother that is, then presented Michael and I with the serialised magazine edition of “The Joys of Sex”. We avidly followed the instructions every week.
Paul Simon was born in Llwynypia Hospital on 13 August 1970. Just before his first birthday, our little family moved into our own home in Heol y Waun, Penrhys. We were so happy there, we had nothing of our own, but family and friends rallied round, and donated furniture. Michael’s grandmother, Violet, was downsizing to a one -bedroom flat and we inherited her surplus. Audrey invested in a new three-piece suite so we got her old one, along with an ancient washing machine complete with mangle. The only items we bought were a fridge, and a bed, and I doubt that we paid for them ourselves. We were living on Michael’s wages of £5.00 a week, Family Allowance which wasn’t much, with a rent rebate through the council. My mother often brought us a loaf of bread and a pint of milk at the end of the week. I was so proud of my home, we had central heating, and a bathroom, Paul had his own room. Who made the curtains? I can’t remember, but they were bright and colourful. The walls were painted tangerine and the kitchen cabinets turquoise. I was young then, up at 6.00am every morning to make breakfast and a packed lunch for my husband, then bath and feed the baby, the floor was vacuumed, furniture polished and washing out on the line before 9.00am each morning. Those were the days.
One morning as I walked to school with Paul I noticed a “For Sale” sign on one of the houses I passed every day, a perfect location. Soon a mortgage was arranged and we moved to 8 Bryn Terrace, Tylorstown. We worked hard to make it as we wanted, knocking walls down, and building a stone fireplace the length of the entire room, all the rage in the 70s. We both worked full time, and though we weren’t well off, we were doing fine. We bought a tent, went on camping holidays, as members of Chubb’s Social Club we saw Gerry Marsden, without his Pacemakers, at the Meadow Vale Club in Tonyrefail, and at the Double Diamond, Caerphilly we were entertained by Dave Allen, and Little and Large; they were really good. But as time passed, I suppose we began to grow apart.
Michael had always been a spoilt only-child, who liked to get his own way. But the tantrums and the silent treatment he knew I hated began to wear away my affection for him. He kept telling me that I was stupid, and fat. I knew that I was neither. He was drinking heavily, especially on the weekends. If he wasn’t in work, he was down the club. Every relationship should be comprised of give and take, but it seemed to me that I was doing all the giving, and he the taking. It all came crashing to a dramatic end when, following a blazing row, he yelled, “I want a divorce!” and stormed out of the room. I called after him, “Well, you can’t. I’m pregnant.” But of course we could, and we did, our idyllic young love lasted nine years. We married in February 1970, it was in February 1979, on a chilly Sunday morning, that Paul and I walked out of our home, and out of my marriage. The Decree Nisi was finalised in December 1979, three months after my son Matthew James was born.
And The Great Escape
Listening to the women in the group reading what they had written about their early lives, brought back the memory of a young girl sitting in a dark, cobweb filled outside toilet, clutching an aching stomach, with tears in her eyes, hiding from the world. Telling herself, “I had to do it, I was right to do it. I can’t go on like this, he’s trying to rule my life, who I speak to, even who I look at, it’s not right. I don’t care what anyone says, I’m not going back with him. I’m only 14.” Only 14, and yet we’d been ‘courting’ for about a year, and now, much to everyone’s surprise, I’d split up with him.
We’d known each other since infants school, he was just 16 days older than me, and lived 7 doors away. We’d been best buddies since we were 4, I was Annie Oakley to his Rowdy Yates when we played cowboys, which was pretty much all the time in those days. I remember us sitting on the garden wall singing “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better”. That was pretty much our relationship, I wouldn’t let him, a boy, do anything better than I could. Then one summer evening, his friend Stephen asked my friend Jeanette for a date. She refused. After a lot of argy bargy, she said, I’ll go out with Stephen if you go out with Badgie. We must have been about 12 or 13 then. I could tell that he thought it a good idea, by the way he immediately agreed. I wasn’t so sure, but I went along with it.
We were practically inseparable for a while, we’d walk to school together, we were in the same class, so were in each other’s company all day, then we’d walk home together. After school, we’d go to Youth Club or the cinema. On the weekend we started going down to Cardiff to watch the football, there was always a gang of us, boys and girls, but Badgie and I were obviously together. Then we started arguing, it’s too long ago to remember what we disagreed about, I just know that he infuriated me. The final straw was the day he accused me of looking at another boy in class. I had an awful habit of day dreaming, staring into space, not really seeing, or thinking about anything. I must have been in one of these trances when he looked up and saw me gazing at someone else, someone who wasn’t him. This made me angry, even if I had been admiring this boy, did he have the right to object? My mother had told me about a conversation she’d had with his mother, about them making plans for our wedding. I knew they were only teasing, we were much too young for marriage. But it got me thinking, is it going to be like this for the rest of my life, being with him, abiding by his rules?
That’s when my stomach ache started, I didn’t know what it was then, but now I know it was nerves, worry, stress. I was in a situation I didn’t want to be in. I was young, but I was wise enough to realise that it was a situation I had to extract myself from. So, one day, on the way home from school, I broke up with him. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t believe it. Wanted to know the reason why. I didn’t know the reason why myself, well not in a way that I could put into words. He asked if there was someone else. No, there wasn’t. He told everyone I’d finished with him, all our friends wanted to know why, some tried to persuade me to go back with him. He even resorted to singing the hit song “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling”, to me, in a classroom full of our peers, just before registration one morning. But I was adamant, it was over.
A few years ago I was in the queue at the checkout in our local supermarket when I realised that he was just ahead of me. We’d both married other people, and had families of our own. Both aged, both put on weight, he was as bald now, as his father had been. We acknowledged each other, couldn’t ignore each other, wouldn’t have wanted to. As he looked up from packing his groceries, our eyes met, and I thought, “He’s still got gorgeous blue eyes”. I’d forgotten. As I walked home, alone, I wondered if he treated his wife of almost 50 years, as he had treated me? I was glad that the young girl hiding in the outside toilet, had the courage to make her break for freedom all those years ago. My life has had its ups and downs, but I think I might at least have had one lucky escape.