Chapter 9
Miscellaneous
Adventures - Highlights
The singles club.
In 1957 I ‘came out’, I was a debutante. This procedure, for the
uninitiated, was when, at the age of 17 or 18 curtseying to the
Queen at Buckingham Palace, whirling about at balls, attending Ascot
Races and Henley Regatta, plus rushing up to Scotland in September
for more balls and races, established the fact that you were grown-
up and marriageable. Ready for marriage, that is, with an eligible ex-
public schoolboy. Men in the Brigade of Guards, or at Sandhurst
perhaps, merchant bankers, stockbrokers, barristers, solicitors, and
men with titles were sought after and fought over, by zealous
mothers anxious to see their daughters ‘settle down’ with the ‘right’
sort of man.
For me, being a debutante was a failure. Undeniably I had two
serious disadvantages. I was short-sighted and dumpy. The choice of
spectacle frames in the 1980s is not as plentiful as one would wish,
but in the 1950s there was virtually no choice at all. I had a pair
shaped like blue plastic butterflies in Dame Edna Everidge style. If I
wore them at dances in order to see, no one asked me to dance, and
if I didn’t wear them, I could see nothing. Strapless dresses were in
fashion, which on tall, thin girls looked marvellous but which did not
suit me in the least. However, despite protests my mother,
determined that I should be properly launched, bundled me off to
The Ritz, The Savoy, Claridges and The Dorchester where I danced
with, or at least mingled with, dukes, earls, lords, varying degrees of
aristocrats, and the odd foreign prince. But from the debris one good
thing did emerge. I discovered dancing is a lovely way of taking
exercise, without getting tired or bored, as I do with almost all other
exercise. This feeling for dancing has never left me and I frequently
dance alone in my kitchen with Flute, the cat, as my audience. But
Andy, a single girl friend, wished me to accompany her to a club she
knew. She enthused about the music and dancing, the fun and
excitement to be had at the Singles Club dancing evenings held on
Thursdays, at a hotel in Wheatley, just outside Oxford. The tickets in
1982 were only £1.75, she said, and well worth the money. I was
quite easy to persuade since I thought having a partner after several
years without one would be quite a novelty.
What to wear was a dilemma as my wardrobe did not run to
suitable dresses or skirts to dance in. (In public). After trying on
various garments with a view to attracting partners I settled for a
black cotton skirt, an old, flowered silk shirt, and lots of my daughter
Jessica’s jewellery – bright pink earrings and necklace. I picked Andy
up just after nine and as we approached the hotel, I felt very
nervous. We both admitted afterwards that had the other one said
that it was all a mistake and that the wish to go dancing had quite
vanished, great relief would have been felt, and we would have gone
home. But we admitted no such thing. The hotel car park was almost
full when we arrived, and we joined a furtive and hurrying crowd
heading towards the entrance. Here was a slight hold-up. It was the
queue to pay for the tickets and then, in addition, to be scrutinized
by the management to see that our clothes were smart enough to
pass for evening wear. (Men had to wear ties). You also had to
declare that you were single and over 25. We went to hang our coats
up in the Ladies, where there was a general air of excitement.
Masses of new make-up was applied – more lipstick, to already
lustrous red lips, to eyes, more blue, and to lashes, more mascara.
Calvin Klein would have recognized his monstrous regiment of
women. They were all there, in every guise. All sizes, ages, heights
and degrees of sexual attractiveness. But there was one common
denominator – everyone was single. I suspect, although I have no
evidence, that the aims were also similar: to have a good night out
and possibly find ‘Mr Right’.
Andy and I decided to start our evening in the bar. Remembering
the old joke about ‘two gin and tonics (or equivalent) and I’m
anybody’s’ I thought at least if I had one, my knees and hands would
stop shaking. The band was playing very jolly, catchy, tunes from the
fifties era onwards. I felt a touch of nostalgia hearing songs from big
musicals like Oklahoma, Paint your Wagon, Annie get your Gun,
Showboat and so on. Disco lights of different colours winked over the
dance floor. But in the bar, there were only small table lights, with
red lamp shades, discreetly dotted about. I wondered whether the
darkness in the bar, where friendships were struck up, was a subtle
plan on behalf of the management. It was difficult to tell in the
gloom the features of the person you were talking to, and this, in
most cases, was a definite advantage. By the time you reached the
dance floor and saw your partner’s face under the light, or he saw
yours, it was too late to change your mind about a dance.
My first partner, Les, was an ex-policeman. He hinted at being in
possession of numerous MI5 type secrets which he might reveal, he
said, should we later become more intimate. But he was hopeless at
dancing, so I left him. Unlike debutante dances where, if I was
abandoned I spent the rest of the evening in the Ladies, at the
Singles Club after the end of a dance, partners thanked each other
and returned to their original table. At Australian parties, apparently,
all the men stick together at one end of the room while the women
huddle together at the other. At the singles club I observed a
definitely Australian influence. Men of all descriptions stood still and
silent, grasping drinks. The only thing that moved was their eyes,
which slunk around, seeking a woman to their taste.
I must have had some of the right qualifications since I was asked
to dance, in quick succession, by a motor mechanic, a draughtsman,
and a milkman. Then I met Terry, an RAF engineer from Brize Norton.
He was about 25, and wore a smart blue suit and a forces tie. He had
a short back-and-sides haircut. His appearance was ordinary and his
conversation non-existent, (except about divorce or separation, a
topic of conversation where everyone had a story), but he was a
really amazing dancer. We jived, rock-and-rolled, tangoed, waltzed,
Charlestoned, and twisted for two hours, and I loved it.
Unfortunately, Terry had the same constraints on him as Cinderella –
midnight was his deadline for leaving. He had to get back to base.
I danced a last dance with an electrician, one Pete, who was
wearing a blue nylon shirt, green tie, and beige terylene trousers.
With the later hour the music had become romantic. A rendering of
favourite Des O’Connor, Val Doonican, and Julio Iglesias’ love songs
were sung by the enthusiastic band leader, doing his best. It wasn’t
bad and there was a feeling of something in the air. ‘By the time I get
to Phoenix’ was playing when Pete cleared his throat to speak. We
were dancing quite close and my fingers were stuck to his nylon
shirt. Perhaps it will be something romantic, I thought, but in fact
what he said was: “Looking round this room, I’m most disappointed. I
would definitely say that the club I go to in Maidenhead contains a
much higher class of person. Do you know what I mean….?”
The approach to women at dances by dukes, earls, lords,
electricians, mechanics or what-you-will is indubitably much the
same, it seems. If you are chosen to dance, it is with the idea that,
after a bit of bald flattery, a few sexy dances with the electric current
on, and a run-down on their astounding abilities in bed, you will rush
home with them to see the evidence, and test its truth. In my
opinion, the only difference between men at dances, wherever they
are, is whether they can dance or whether they cannot. And as I
found a better partner at the Singles Club, Wheatley, than I ever did
at The Savoy, London, for my £1.75 that is where I would rather go
for a good dancing night out.
Rape Crises Centre
Mandell Creighton, a nineteenth century ecclesiastic, said: “No
people do so much harm as those who go about doing good.” Now,
twenty-five years after I started on the do-gooding road, I would
agree with him. It would be a rash generalization, and wrong to
suggest that all do-gooders were harmful, but certainly the motives
for wanting to do good are often questionable, and the results often
undesirable. If it is true, and it seems to be, that altruism doesn’t
exist, the only reason that people are ‘wonderfully self-sacrificing’ or
whatever, is because that is what they wish to be. Naturally this does
not apply to anyone looking after a disabled member of the family,
or some such, who, therefore, has no choice.
Most of the women and men I met at various voluntary activities
were over thirty-five, with time to spare, looking for something to fill
their empty lives. In my married life, I was one such a woman.
Many voluntary organizations encourage their volunteers to see
themselves as ‘counsellors’. (This terrible word means nothing
superior whatsoever, but is simply someone who listens, or talks, or
who gives good or bad advice). The ‘counsellor’ then acquires a
sense of power which otherwise she or he would not possess. There
are indeed training schemes to train volunteers from being ‘ordinary
folk’ into ‘caring counsellors’. How to acquire a ‘caring’ voice is also
taught so that whatever filth is metered out to you on the telephone,
at one of those establishments, you have to keep repeating “I know
how you feel,” in a caring voice – even if you haven’t the least idea
what it must be like to be masturbating in a telephone box.
Knowing that there are others sadder and more bereft than
oneself can have a cheering effect on the listener. When I was
unhappy years ago, I had many so-called friends. I have many less
now, and the reason, I think, is that my present contentment is a
touch dull, whereas my misery, for them, was exalting. One of the
characters from Aldous Huxley’s Ends and Means said: “I can
sympathize with peoples pain but not with their pleasure. There is
something curiously boring about someone else’s happiness.”
Not entirely cured of my somewhat manic desire to be of help to
the community, I answered an appeal I heard on Radio 4. It was for
people to man the telephones at the local Rape Crises Centres. Rape
Crises Centres were, apparently, short of volunteers to perform this
activity. I rang locally, and spoke to a woman who told me to come
to a meeting taking place on the following Wednesday evening, at
7.30. The address was in the Cowley Road, which, although I have
grown fond of it, is not a place to be when the light has faded.
Cowley has been described as dirty, lawless, dangerous, and noisy.
This is an accurate description.
When I arrived at the given address, from outside I could see one
light. It was coming from an attic room. I pushed the front door open
and found myself in a dark, gloomy hall. Following the light I started
up dirty, bare, rickety stairs, until I reached the top landing. I knocked
on the door and was asked in. In this bizarre room the floor space
was almost entirely covered with old mattresses. On one of them sat
a young woman, but, to my conventional and untrained eye, she
could have been a man. She wore a man’s shirt, red braces, trousers,
and bovver boots. A donkey jacket was by her side, with a tin of roll-
your-own navy cut tobacco sticking out of the pocket. “Hello” she
said, “I’m Linda – I’m on duty for Lesbian Line.” “Oh” I said, confused,
“but I thought this was the meeting place for the Rape Crises
Volunteers.” “It is,” she said, “they take place in the same room –
this room. Why don’t you sit down?” Since there were no chairs, I sat
down on a mattress and looked about me.
The walls were entirely covered with posters unflattering to me.
viz: All men are rapists – Penis Power is woman’s violation – Rape in
Marriage is a crime, and many more of a similar nature.
There were pamphlets and printed sheets littered about, all
pertaining to feminist causes and female rights. Soon women started
arriving. They were between twenty and twenty-five, and mainly
Linda-look-alikes, although there was one in an Indian skirt. A fierce-
looking androgynous person asked me who I was and why I was
there. I muttered about the radio appeal which seemed to satisfy her
and the meeting began.
The room was very small and with nine
people in it, mostly smoking roll-ups, the atmosphere quickly
became pungent. I was squashed between to women in donkey
jackets who smelt quite strongly of sweat, tobacco and beer.
Fervently I wished that I had not answered this particular call for
help, and that I could run back home. But that was not possible
without drawing attention to myself, so reluctantly I stayed.
Among several points to be brought up on the agenda, the
boycotting of Miss Oxford remains the most prominent in my mind.
It was to decide what role each one would play in seeing that this
event did not take place. Or, if it did, it would only do so with
maximum harassment. Various tactics were discussed, including
bottle throwing, tyre slashing, crowd agitation and several other
destructive ideas. Suddenly I was asked what I was going to do in the
way of disruption. My heart beat faster as I suspected that, in this
particular company, mentioning that I was a magistrate and
therefore, ineligible to fight the battle, might not have been
appropriate or appreciated. Indeed, there could have been positive
hostility. The quiet and gentle heroines of Mrs Gaskell and Jane
Austin that I so revere were about as far removed from these women
as could possibly be. I declined with some excuse. At 10.30pm the
meeting adjourned and everyone, except me, went to the pub. (God
knows why, since there must have been men there to contend with.)
So much discussion about men’s bestiality, so much emotion, so
much earnestness, and so much real spite all delivered in a totally
humourless way was a pathetic way to waste one’s life, I mused on
the way home. And so was it a waste of my time getting involved in
organizations which I did not believe were constructive or even
useful. Perhaps I will have a go at Meals-on-Wheels next time I get
the do-gooding urge – at least I know that is worthwhile.
My own theory on rape is that it is difficult to put the crime under
one heading. There are many many different kinds. No one could
possibly get them confused. One is an outrageous attack on a
woman, by a person or persons unknown. Another rape can be
perpetrated by a husband, a son, a lover, or a family friend. For these
men, when and if convicted, life imprisonment is too short, I think.
However, I have known of women both stupid and naïve in their
dealings with men. In some cases, women invite men into their
homes and lead them on with drinks and general coquetry and then
are surprised and horrified when they are ‘raped’. In my youth a
crude saying “if you don’t want the goods don’t muck about with
them” was expedient and, I think, still could be.
Attitudes experienced when eating out minus a male escort.
On 28th March 1930, Vera Britten wrote a piece in the
Manchester Guardian telling of her bizarre experiences when trying
to buy a cup of tea of coffee in a public place, such as a restaurant or
café, unaccompanied by a man, after a certain hour. She found it was
not possible. The rules were made, presumably, with the thought
that no woman without an escort after dark could be on legitimate
business, such as wanting a cup of tea, but was obviously there solely
to tempt men to prostitution. My own mother, in the thirties, before
the divorce from her first husband was finalized, was courted by my
father for many months without him being allowed to stay with her
after 10 o’clock at night. There was a creepy fellow apparently called
the Queen’s Proctor, who, had he caught them at 10.01pm together,
would have assumed they were having a sexual orgy. The inference
being that sex could, or would, only take place after dark and after
10 o’clock. That was fifty years ago and since then some progress has
been made, indeed the permissive society has been born. But there
is still a long way to go it seems in changing the rules as to where
unattended females are allowed, or dare, to tread.
A very old friend, Maggie, a painter from the North of Scotland
and I decided, after a sad gap of several years, that we should meet
somewhere for a weekend. York was agreed upon as a halfway
house. We stayed at a lovely bed-and-breakfast farmhouse, just
outside the city, but had to buy lunch and dinner elsewhere. On
Saturday night Maggie suggested that we went somewhere special
for dinner. We were recommended to go to a nearby hotel which
had French food and was apparently very popular. So, we booked a
table. We both dressed up in our best and I think we looked very
respectable. The hotel car park was full of Mercedes, large Rovers,
and sports cars. Despite high unemployment in the North, the old
saying about ‘where there is muck there is brass’ seemed apt in that
area, if nowhere else. We walked into the restaurant to find flowers
on every table, gleaming silver cutlery, lighted candles (of course)
and linen napkins. The head waiter came up to us with a large smile.
“Have you booked?” he asked. We told him we had. “A table for
four?” he said. No, not a table for four, we said, for two. He looked
puzzled. “For two?” he echoed our words. His smile vanished and a
distinctly disapproving look came into his face. I suspect that the
following kind of thoughts ran through his mind. (a) That he could
say that there were no tables free so we would have to go
elsewhere, or (b) that there would be a two or three hour wait until
we would be served. But since we could see this was not to be so, he
reluctantly showed us a table in the farthest corner of the room, as
out of sight as possible.
Maggie, a married woman, had not really understood when I,
newly single, told her briefly of the feeling of extreme vulnerability I
had, as one of a minority group – like being single when convention
and society mainly caters for doubles. Although we were a couple in
this restaurant, we were both women. In a world where it is the
norm for men to take women out to restaurants on a Saturday night,
we were the odd couple, as it were. But although the waiter, when
he finally materialized to take our order, did so with more than a
touch of disdain, he could not spoil our enjoyment. Eventually the
food arrived and it was delicious, we had interesting and lively
conversation (not about men) and a good bottle of wine. Having a
candlelit dinner with a woman friend is thoroughly to be
recommended, with none of the complications of sexual domination
or sexual attraction, or both. I do hope, as the sexes become more
equal, women will be able to have lunch or dinner either by
themselves or with another woman in an expensive restaurant
without the feeling that they are unwanted outcasts intruding in an
out-of-bounds no-go area. And, although we were allowed in the
restaurant where I think it was unlikely anyone dining thought we
were prostitutes, the attitude of the hotel staff had not, I thought,
changed radically since Vera Britten’s day.
* * *
My daughter Jessica and I went on an outing to the Tate Gallery to
see the Pre-Raphaelite Exhibition. An important point to this tale is
that I am sufficiently old-fashioned and middle-aged to dress up
when visiting our capital city, although studying the masses hurrying
by, my assumption that others feel the same way I do, is misplaced.
Those who went to the exhibition will remember the enormous
crowds it attracted; more that 300 people every hour going through
the rooms was the figure stated on the wireless. I had to queue so
long to see the ‘Light of the World’ that Jessica got fed up and went
off on her own. We were reunited about three hours later, spiritually
fulfilled but bodily exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. We searched for
the snack bar but long before we saw it, we saw the queue, four
deep, going in its direction. We had little time left, and as I had seen
a sign for the restaurant we decided to try there instead. Here there
was no queue. A manageress approached us, looking us up and
down. She said frostily: “This is the restaurant. The snack bar is down
the passage.” I told her of the queue, that I was in a hurry, and
pointed out that I could read and knew therefore that I was in the
restaurant, and that I wished to sit at a table for two people. “There
is no table for two laid” she said, “Never mind, we are not fussy” I
said, “we will sit at a table laid for four”, and did so.
The restaurant was only half full and there were plenty of waiters
standing about but it seemed that Jessica and I were invisible. We
studied the menu and made up our minds. But no one came to take
our order. A sort of silent pact seemed to have been made by the
waiters: leave the old bag and daughter to stew. Eight young
businessmen were sitting at the next table, guffawing, and swilling
down bottles of chilled Sancerre. Indeed, they commanded a great
deal of attention, but when I tried to catch the waiter’s eye,
somehow, he just did not see me. After half an hour we got up and
left. We bought sandwiches at a café down the road and ate them,
reflecting, on a seat overlooking the Thames. Jessica was stoical but I
was enraged. I asked myself these questions about expensive
restaurant hostility to women:
Are they worried women will not be able to pay the bill?
Do women lower the standard of the restaurant by the lack of male escorts?
Do women look like prostitutes?
Do women understand the tipping system properly 10% and all that.
Do they think women will not buy wine which is where they make their profits?
To these questions, I do not know even yet, the answers. And
probably never will.
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