Chapter
Four - Boys meet Girls - Hamburgers and Ice Cream
By the time we were 20, we had all met our future husbands, and Nova was not a problem to me in that regard any more. Then we went to the beach on Sundays in couples, Nova and Mike, Dawn and Eric, Pam and Trevor, Sue and Dave and Graham and me. Renate, my nice German friend, married first of my group and had moved to Mombasa in Kenya.
I met Graham on the Dale Carnegie Course. My father said he would pay for me to go on it, as he thought it might boost my confidence. The course was held in a beach-front hotel once a week. I got there early and was given a badge to fill in and pin on my chest which said 'Hello, my name is.............What's yours?' This was meant to get us talking I suppose. Well Graham was already sitting there, so I dithered but went and sat next to him and said predictably 'Hello, my name's Beryl, what's yours?' And then realised I only had to look at his badge, and did. And that's how our romance began.
He had a scooter and took me home on the back of it on that first night, thus saving me the taxi fare. He was quiet and gentle and of Irish stock, slightly built and with a whimsical sense of humour. At first, I did not madly 'fancy' him as they say now, but I liked him straight away. He had been brought up as a Roman Catholic and had been taught by the Christian Brothers at a boarding school. His father had died when he was only five and his mother had had a nervous breakdown and was therefore unable to care for him properly. She had been given shock treatment and now had the mind of a child although she lived in a flat with Graham. Her money affairs were handled by solicitors but she was able to cook and look after herself sufficiently to manage.
Graham was devoted to her, which was greatly to his credit. He had a much older sister and brother; I think he must have been an afterthought. His sister's two children, Errol and Pat, were only a couple of years younger than he was, and were mad about rock music and especially Elvis Presley who had just emerged onto the pop scene.
The girls at work were very interested when my romance with Graham first began, Mary especially when she heard he was a Catholic. She gave me complimentary tickets to the Irish Ball and said I should ask him to go with me. We did go and really enjoyed it and I thought he was very funny. I wanted him to come into Mrs Scorgie's new show, 'Wild Violets' in which Faith, Sue and I had parts and he was welcomed. In every amateur group, men are in short supply especially young good looking ones. However, I used to be very jealous in the 'Tell me Pretty Maiden' chorus number which I always watched from the wings, when a rather pretty unattached girl had to sit on Graham's knee.
Dawn had first met Eric when he joined the cast of 'No No Nanette' and during 'Wild Violets' they became engaged. He was a loud and rather obnoxious chap with a strong Transvaal accent and we did not think much of him at first. We were all very surprised when quiet gentle Dawn showed she reciprocated his affections.
'Wild Violets' was much better than 'No No Nanette' had been. The people with principal parts used to meet at each other's homes and have secret rehearsals unbeknown to Mrs Scorgie where we tidied up the rough edges, and sorted out the moves and entrances. The Belfast lady had left too! Mrs Scorgie had found very good set designers and there was a lovely scene where a building with upstairs windows was built and all the schoolgirls with pretend candles waved at the eloping heroine (played by Sue) from upstairs. We even got some very good reviews in the papers. I had the part of Mitzi, one of the obligatory three friends of the heroine who always seem to appear in musicals of that period. It was mainly a singing part which I preferred, as dialogue and worrying about cues always frightened me.
The Dale Carnegie Course meanwhile was continuing and Graham and I were about the youngest people there. Most of the people were business people from about 40 upwards who had been sent to do the course by their firms. Graham had gone to it because his family had owned a large furniture chain in Durban and in his father's Will, there was a Trust which would enable him to take up any useful studies, although he would not get any other actual legacy until his mother died. So he was taking advantage of this opportunity. The Course was very interesting. I had always been interested in the Dale Carnegie books 'How to win friends and Influence People' and 'How to stop worrying and Start living' ever since my miserable schooldays. I had actually tried during those years to apply the chapters in the second book, like 'living in day tight compartments' and other methods of overcoming worry.
When we got to that part of the course, I spoke from the heart and explained how I had tried to apply the teachings. The man taking the course afterwards was quite pointedly nasty to me although he did not name me directly, and said if people had not had any worries, he would prefer them to be honest and not pretend they had overcome them, and he looked meaningfully at me whilst he spoke. I was very upset as I was probably the only one on the course who had actually read the books and tried to apply them to my life. Considering the course was meant to boost our confidence, I think he was quite wrong to invalidate what I said, just because he thought I was too young to have worries. However I spoke to many of the others about this and they all seemed to be on my side.
It was also during this time that I had an accident which hit the headlines of the Natal Daily News. Graham had bought his first car from his elder brother. It was a baby Fiat with a torn fabric back window. He did not yet have a driving licence, but his nephew did, so it was Errol who drove us to the ice rink on the night after he bought the car. When we came out at 10 pm, his nephew Errol and girl friend Diane, wanted to have a cuddle in the back seat so Graham said he would drive us the short distance to the Blue Lagoon, a restaurant where people parked at the side of the Umgeni River mouth, and waiters brought refreshments to your car on special trays that hooked on to the front window. There were cars parked both on the left and right of this jutting piece of land as we drove in. Errol said prophetically from the back 'Let's go straight down and over the edge' and this is exactly what we did!
There are slanting rocks at the side of the land where the cars park and we went boompity boomp down over them, one moment I thought 'My feet are getting wet' and the next moment the water was up to my neck. The whole thing was so quick that it was hard to know afterwards exactly what had happened. Actually my head had luckily emerged from the torn fabric back window, quite amazingly. Graham had opened the door of the driver's seat and jumped out as the car bumped down the rocks, then Errol had pushed Diane out and he had followed her while I simply sat in the passenger seat. I think the back of the car hit me on the head as I had quite a bruise on my forehead afterwards.
When I tried to swim, I could not move as Durban in June can be fairly chilly at night and I had a lightweight wool coat on, which naturally became heavy when submerged. Graham manage to pull me out of the car window and tried to drag me to the rocks, but struggled against the tide which took us further out to sea for a while. Diane and Errol were already clambering up the rocks and Diane was crying because she thought we had been washed out to sea forever. There was also the problem of the Umgeni mouth being infested with sharks! When we finally reached the rocks several hundred yards further out, the first person I saw was Billy James from Park View School. I said 'Hello Billy' and it all seemed very silly as I had not seen him for about 7 years. He must have told a reporter my name, and of course hundreds of people lined the bank and all the car headlights were on, so many others may have recognised both of us. The item was in the 'Stop Press' in the Sunday morning papers.
Graham's brother John read it, ie
'four people went into the Umgeni in a small car late last night' and said
(hopefully) to his wife 'Oh no, surely, no of course, it couldn't be'. A man
with a truck gave all of us a life home in the back as Graham and I were in too
dripping a state to go in anyone's car. I was worried about arriving at
Hertford Hotel in such a state as it was only about 10.30 and some of the
residents could have still been up, and sitting on the verandah.
So I asked to be delivered last. I went to my own room and threw my sodden coat
on the floor, dried my hair, changed into night clothes and went to my mother's
room to break the news.
She could see I was all right, but I knew she would still panic when she found out what could have happened. My father was in Johannesburg at the time and I hoped he would never find out as the Blue Lagoon was a known disreputable place where petting couples went at night. Believe it or not, there was an item in the Johannesburg 'Star' the next day and it showed our names and he saw it! Of course there was a long distance phone call and he was not at all pleased with me!
The reason for the accident was that Graham couldn't find the car brakes in the dark, he had previously had lessons with his brother in daytime, and he was pressing down in the wrong place! When people made sly digs about us being at the Blue Lagoon, which they did forever onwards it seems, I kept saying, 'but we never even stopped, we certainly had no time to do anything unseemly'. Luckily for Graham, the police were never involved as the accident took place on private property so it was not discovered that he had no driving licence.
On the Monday the press arrived and took a photo of me in the office. I was actually crying when the photo which appeared on the front page, was taken. They also went to Graham's place of work. When I came out of work at 5pm I saw the newsboys with a banner saying 'CAR DIVES INTO BLUE LAGOON, DRAMATIC RESCUE OF GIRL'. It was strange to think that that girl was me. As Sue once cattily said 'Every time people recognise you, you hope it's because they saw you in a show, and it's always because of the Blue Lagoon'. Whatever happened subsequently in our lives, I will always remember that though his irresponsibility may have caused the accident, Graham did in fact save my life and at risk to his own!
Errol and Pat, Graham's other nephew, played guitars and sang Elvis songs and formed a group that performed in a large hall on the beach front. They were called 'The Juveniles'. Hundreds of motor bike clad what we called 'ducktails' used to turn up for these events, sweaty and uncouth. Most of them tried to get in without paying. Graham was called the manager of the group and later, I sold or tried to sell tickets at the box office. My mother loved rock music and hated classical and actually attended some of these sessions. She even chatted to some of the sweaty youths! The band and I all wore similar striped shirts. I have mine after 40 years and, being stretchy, it still almost fits me but like a tight skin. I think after so long, I might as well keep it forever.
During the 'The Dancing Years', a really big show at the new Alhambra Theatre, I first met my friend Pixie, who has lived in Barcelona for the past 30 years, and who now visits me in Sussex every Summer.
The theatre had proper dressing rooms with lights round the mirrors and was considered very splendid. Pixie played the part of Countess Lotte and I was the maid, Kathy, who had two lines, as well as being one of the actresses who sing 'Waltze of my Heart' in the first act. So three of us with smaller parts were given a small dressing room to ourselves at the top of the theatre. The door was labelled with the appropriate stars stuck on it and I was very excited. I had never spoken to Pixie during rehearsals but during the show we became great friends. She was really a dancer more than an actress and she also loved going skating. She started teaching flamenco dancing and I was her best pupil, she said. I must point out, however, that she only had four! Graham rather liked her too, which worried me a bit, as I had always felt Nova to be the only girl who could pose a threat! Pixie appeared much older than she was, had a sallow complexion, dark hair and dark brown eyes. She was actually quite innocent at that time but loved to flirt and roll her eyes at the men. Once in the dressing room I saw a letter addressed to her in Douglas's familiar writing, so knew that she was the latest in his collection of admiring young girls. He was by now a prominent member of the show world in Durban.
At about this time, we moved from Hertford Hotel and into a flat near the beachfront. I have no idea what brought about this change of policy for my parents. It was a new building with oblique views of the sea. We had a balcony and a second toilet. The outside wall of my room was totally made of glass, and so my mother had long curtains made. Most of the furniture was second hand except for the beds and there were lovely built in cupboards in the bedrooms and a proper fitted kitchen. It was much easier for me to get to work and quite near the ice rink too so I was very happy about this move.
Graham and I became engaged at New Year 1958 and I broke it off in April. Now I can't even remember what the problem was. Presumably we had differences of opinion about whether we were completely suited to each other. So for a few months I was on my own again. I was friendly with Sue's cousin, Nicky, who was younger than me and at the University. It was not a romance, though many probably thought it was. He used to tell me of his romantic problems and I used to tell him about mine. And sometimes when there was no one else suitable, we went out together. On my 21st birthday. Nova and Mike took me to an ice show with a friend of Mike's and afterwards, when I got home, Ali was dropped off by her boyfriend and spent the night with me in the flat where I had a folding bed in my room, and so I was not alone on such a special day. Of course my parents were there, already asleep, when I returned from the ice rink. Ali and I shared a box of chocolates and had champagne to celebrate and stayed up till the early hours!
I missed Graham a lot, but do not know if it was because I was lonely or because it was him personally. I tried to keep busy as usual but life was not the same without him. I met one or two other males but there was nobody who meant anything to me. There was Chris King who worked for my father at Native Affairs. I think I met him at the Ice Rink too. He was so terrified of me he used to shake. It was embarrassing if he bought me a coke at the cafe there and his hand would shake as he passed the glass to me and tried to set it down. I did go out with him a couple of times and when he saw me home, he said 'Excuse my colossal nerve' and planted a kiss on my cheek and almost ran away! My father approved of him greatly. He kept saying 'he will do well one day and his mother teaches English at the University'. This was to get my mother on his side. He was appealing to her sense of snobbery. But she was my ally on this and used to say 'Its no use, she doesn't love him and he shakes when he speaks to her'.
On a holiday up in the Drakensberg Mountains, I met a cousin of Ali's. He was quite rich and from a well known farming family up there. I expect he found a different girl in every holiday batch that arrived. I just happened to be the one that week. He must have been quite keen on me, though, as he came down to Durban after the holiday to see me and ask me out. My mother did not like him at all. She said he had glittering eyes and was a nasty type and would only be after one thing and all that! I did realise this for myself however, and when I went out with him, I tried to copy the heroine in the film 'The Moon is Blue' who was determined to remain a virgin. When he tried to hold my hand under the table, I grabbed it openly, pulled our hands on top of the table and said 'Oooh, I love holding hands' which took any mystery out of it. Later, whilst dancing, he pressed himself very closely against me and the music played softly and the lights were low. I pulled away from him and said 'How much does it cost to buy a horse?' which I thought, correctly, would show that I was not at all carried away by the smoochy atmosphere. He did ask me out again later, surprisingly, but I did not go.
One of the last really big shows we all took part in was 'The Vagabond King' at the Alhambra. It was like a coming together of the clans. So many people were in it from different sections of my life. Elsie and Bill from Hertford Hotel, some of the Scorgie crowd, Nova and Mike and Nova's young brother Mickey who later died so tragically, Joan, my future landlady, Douglas, my old crush, who was now interested in her, showing he was capable of affection for someone a little nearer his age, Colleen, Keith's sister and the plain dancer, Monica, to whom Keith was now engaged.
The leading parts were played by Ann Ziegler and Webster Booth, well known English singers who had been in films. She seemed very well preserved to me, but I think he was perhaps nearing the end of his career. At one of the final rehearsals, the two stars had some sort of contretemps with the Musical Director and stormed off the stage to the Green Room, saying they would not carry on working with him. There was a stunned silence. Wendy, the female understudy, later to become a well known opera singer, was very apprehensive when she realised she might have to go on instead at rather short notice. We all waited for a good twenty minutes and then the stars emerged and said words to the effect of 'sorry for the outburst but we felt it was warranted', and things went back to normal, to everyone's relief.
Life at the office was eventful too at this time. Ali, our sex instructor, came from the boss' office one day looking very subdued and said she felt ill and had to go home. She had actually been fired for it was discovered that she had been stealing from the cash in the stamp box, by making false entries. I found this absolutely unbelievable and took a lot of convincing that it was true. I did not think she needed the money and it must have been a sort of madness. All in all she had taken about £20 over the two years since taking over the stamp box from me, and her own handwriting was the proof. Clare in the Book keeping department, a good friend of mine for the next 30 years, was very disdainful, and surprised that I still wanted to be Ali's friend. But Ali and I did stay friends right until I left South Africa.
At that time, Pixie and I belonged to a small Repertory Group that performed in a converted garage at the back of one of the beachfront hotels. We did the play 'The Facts of Life' and I played the part of Jill Frobisher, the tarty looking girl who visits the young hero. In this I had to blow smoke in a man's face, a very difficult feat for someone who did not smoke. My father absolutely could not bear a woman to smoke. My mother had to smoke in secret and once he found her among her friends, smoking, and he grabbed the cigarette out of her hand and threw it across the room, where it could have ignited the curtains. So I was rather worried about what he would think when he saw me smoking on stage. Sue taught me how to smoke in our lunch hours. I did not know how to inhale and coughed a lot while learning, but managed to hold the smoke in my mouth ready to blow at the right time, as well as managing the dialogue. When my father saw the play, he did not even mention it. He must have realised I was only acting. Moira Lister, the actress, was once brought to a rehearsal to visit us there, I can't imagine why. She was very tactful and smiled dazzlingly and said what a charming little place it was!
The married man who with his wife were in the forefront of this group, was very interested in Pixie, and she was never slow to ogle an older man. Her parents were not at all pleased and she now says she was not even very interested in the man and it was only her parents' opposition which made the flirtation last as long as it did! It was all very exciting, her father took a gun to the couple's flat and said 'If you don't leave my daughter alone, I will shoot you!' Then the wife, Barbara, turned up at Pixie's office and leaning dramatically against the door, with her hand to her head despairingly, said 'Pixie, how could you?' I must add that nothing much had happened between them, and Pixie did not lose her virginity until several years later, when I was informed about it immediately! It was quite a common occurrence for friends to ring me up to tell me that they had just lost their virginity, sometimes with tears and sometimes with joy!
Pixie also had an admirer who was a professional skater called Rodney. He was desperate about her but she just wasn't interested. He was very kind to me too and helped me with my skating. Although I was never very good, I at least could do a rather pathetic spin, a spiral and some minor jumps. The thing I did best was a teapot where you go along the ice squatting and with one foot straight out in front of you. Those were the days! The way my knees are now, I can no longer squat at all. Rodney used to talk to me all the time about Pixie and I used to try and advise him on ways to please her.
It was during one of those evenings at the ice rink, sitting in the cafe, chatting with Rodney and the others, that I told everyone that I was going to try to write a book about my life. I had discovered in that same cafe, by chance, that if one had a bite of a hamburger followed by a lick of icecream, that they tasted very good together. I said 'I will call my book 'Hamburgers and Ice Cream' because I am sure no other book will have that title'.
I started to write about my misery at school and gave up after about three pages. When I was 25 I had another go, dealing with my marriage to Graham and then again at about 49 tried to start. This is now the fourth 'Hamburgers and Ice Cream' and the only one that has ever reached further than about ten pages.
In 1958, a professional theatrical agent opened up in Durban and I
auditioned for him and was kept back at the end of the auditions and he said I
was the only one, that day I presume, who was the sort he was looking for. He
said he would try to get me in the ice panto
'Aladdin' as one of the 'voices behind the skaters' and also try to place me as
a vocalist in one of the seafront hotels. He ought to have added 'But don't
hold your breath!' It was Pixie and Rodney who got me the audition for the ice
show. It was quite terrifying standing next to John Nicks, an ex world champion skater, and co-producer of the show, who
held a hand mike in front of my face at the side of the ice. There was no
accompaniment and the rink was huge, empty and echoing. However I was taken on
as the voice of So Shi and also of the Genie of the lamp - 'You rubbed the lamp,
Oh Master, Tell me Pray, What is your pleasure, Speak, I will obey'. This was a
professional show and it was very exciting to go and collect a wage packet each
week from the pay office during the show.
Gradually I became quite fond of Rodney as we spent so much time together at rehearsals. He was a comedian in the show and all the skaters and their voice counterparts had to rehearse together so as to practise synchronising their mouths and voices. One night after rehearsal, he tore off his glasses suddenly and grabbing me into his arms, said 'Darling, I love you!' I was very surprised and quite pleased, but soon realised that one of the reasons Pixie shunned him was that when one got too close, he did not smell very fresh. He had one brown jersey with a reindeer pattern on it and he had often said he did not have proper facilities to wash in his digs. I stopped liking him almost immediately, though I felt sorry for him. He was very hurt and quite persistent too. My mother liked him and started feeding him occasionally as she knew he was hard up.
It was during the run of the Ice Show that Graham and I got back together again. It seems he had missed me as much as I missed him. Rodney was very bitter about it as he had by no means given up on me, and on Christmas day, Graham and Rodney both turned up at the flat to see me, Rodney bringing me a lovely necklace which he could ill afford. My mother had cooked Christmas dinner for Graham, and my father tried to alleviate the stress of the situation by offering beer to both men and they stood sort of back to back on the balcony looking out in different directions. I felt quite hysterical inside and said Graham and I would have to go out for dinner. Rodney stayed doggedly on, presumably to ensure getting a good dinner inside him, and so Graham and I went out looking for somewhere to eat, a difficult prospect on Christmas day without having booked.
Eventually we found a place where they took pity on us though we had not booked. It was not a very nice place. The sequel to this is that we both had minor food poisoning. What the moral is, I am not sure!
The Ice Show was planning to go on tour after the run finished in January. For reasons of economy, they wanted the people doing the 'voices' to also skate in the chorus. I was desperately keen to go and would have taken my annual leave to do this. So I started going to Show Classes on the ice early on Sunday mornings. It was rather embarrassing. I just was not good enough. When we all skated forward in parallel lines I would curve and go right across in front of the person next to me. When we had to practise stopping suddenly, my foot would go on making a dragging noise long after everyone else had stopped. My understudy in the show, Dawn Barnes, was having private skating lessons during the day, but of course I was at work so could not do this. I had also hit my head on a concrete pillar at the ice rink on the last night of the show and later went to hospital with delayed concussion for a week. So Dawn Barnes went off triumphantly on the tour and I was very disappointed.
I do hope that I was not trying to compensate for this disappointment when Graham and I began to plan our wedding and subsequent trip to England! In those days a lot of young people went to England or Europe before settling down. Graham and I were both more interested in America but Commonwealth people as we were then, found it much easier to start with England. We had vague plans of working there for a while and then trying to get to America. I always felt as if being in South Africa was like being cut off from the main part of the world and in a sort of backwater.
Some newly married Catholic friends of Graham's came down to see us in
Durban and were very enthusiastic about their beautiful wedding in a new Catholic
Church in Rosebank, Johannesburg. They seemed very
keen that all their friends should marry too.
At this time, my parents had gone on an extended holiday to Johannesburg, I
believe because one of my mother's beloved aunts was dying and another was too
senile to care for her. My father could not pay rent in two places so they
moved out of our nice flat and put their furniture in store. In his job he
could build up annual leave and take a really long holiday if he wanted to.
They were worried about leaving me alone in Durban prior to my wedding, so I
moved into a house with Joan, a divorced lady of 34, who I had met in various
shows including 'The Vagabond King' and who took in lodgers. Her romance with
the ageing charmer, Douglas, was now over, and my mother knew and liked her.
It was an eccentric household with about 4 rooms for lodgers. One was Ivan, who was madly in love with Joan, but was an alcoholic, one was Cedric, a nervous young student, then there was Judy, a backward and slightly wayward teenager on whom Joan was supposed to keep a watchful eye, and me. Joan had two servants, a garden boy and Eunice, her Zulu maid, who did everything for her. I thought it was pretty disgusting that Joan would not even pull out her own bath plug and Eunice had to plunge her hand into the dirty water instead. Joan relied on Eunice greatly, and used to cry to her and discuss all her troubles with her, but still said she found it hard to think of Zulus as anything but savages, especially the kitchen boy whose grasp of English was not as good as Eunice's. I liked Eunice very much. One day I heard her on the telephone in the hall outside my bedroom obviously recommending a Zulu friend of hers to a white prospective employer. She understood the white obsession with cleanliness and the one sided conversation went something like this: 'Oh yes madam, she's a very good girl, and she's clean too ... 'Oh yes madam, she can cook and she look after the children and she's clean too ...Yes madam, she's very honest and she do your washing and ironing, and she's clean too!!'
When the South African show 'King Kong' showed in Durban City Hall, I was thrilled with it. The music was fantastic. I bought tickets so that Eunice and the kitchen boy whose name escapes me, could go. In those days, the blacks normally were not allowed to attend theatres, but for that show, it was arranged that they could sit upstairs in the gallery and the whites sat downstairs. On the night Graham and I went, we heard this terrible noise and excited talking during the show and thought how rude people were being. When the lights came up, we realised that all the noise was coming from the Zulus, who were wildly excited and amazed to see their own people up there on the stage, singing and dancing and did not know that one was supposed to be quiet during a performance. Eunice was ecstatic the next day when she told me how she had enjoyed the show.
The house's complement was completed by Joan's two large alsatian-type dogs, both of unusual colouring, one was white and looked like a polar bear and one was black and more vicious. I loved Shadow, the larger white dog, who greeted me by leaping up and putting his paws on my shoulders. I learned to brace myself to avoid being knocked to the ground!
Meanwhile the wedding plans went ahead. I had always wanted a secret wedding. My idea of romance was again taken from the sort of American films where people eloped and woke up the Judge in the middle of the night and surprised everyone when they returned home. I also knew my parents would be very hurt if they were not present. So it seemed ideal that we should go up to Johannesburg and marry in the beautiful church in Rosebank and only have my parents, aunts and cousins present, and then surprise everyone in Durban (although our very close friends knew about it)! Because it was a Catholic church, I had to start taking lessons from the Priest at the Durban Cathedral in preparation for my first Confession. All I had ever done at a Catholic church was to be baptised!
Graham's friends made all the arrangements for banns at the church, and then all I had to do was tell my parents by telephone. I knew this would be awful, especially when I said we were hoping to go overseas soon as well, but it was much worse than I ever thought. My father particularly was absolutely distraught. He felt I was too young to marry, although nearly 22, and he was probably right!
He and my mother went to see the Priest at the Johannesburg church and my father apparently leaned against a wall and sobbed desperately. The Priest comforted him and said that God would look after the young ones, and he must accept it. My mother was very annoyed with my father and said 'Do you realise that the Priest thinks she is pregnant?' It had never occurred to my father that his desperation could be misunderstood.
I did not know all this until much later, but when we eventually went to Johannesburg for the Easter weekend, ready to marry on Easter Monday, the first day after Lent, I went and made my first Confession on the Saturday. The Priest kept prompting me and of course I did not realise he was trying to get me to say I had had sexual relations, which was not the case and was considered a sin. He asked me if I had done anything I shouldn't and I felt a bit guilty about all the petting, but said 'Well, I don't think so, not really' He seemed not to like me and I suppose he thought I was lying. I was I believe what is called a 'technical virgin' and despite Ali's teaching, I still did not realise that what happened between Graham and me, though dressed, still led to the exciting end which she had described to us. In fact, I squirm sometimes even thinking of what we used to do in front of the other couples, climbing on top of each other and bouncing up and down, but always partly clothed - so I thought it was ok!
I had always had a dread of big formal white weddings and never imagined that it would be wonderful to walk up the aisle with a veil, train and bouquet, as other girls did. I already had a lovely white princess line cotton dress which I thought would be very suitable. I had a white hat with blue trimming, white gloves with blue strips at the sides, a lovely white Catholic missal to carry, and the obligatory garter. So in a way my wedding should have been just the sort I wanted. Pixie went with us on the drive to Johannesburg. She was going to be my bridesmaid as it were. We set off at the crack of dawn and it was beautiful seeing the sun rise in the countryside. I remember thinking 'I wish I was not going to be married and then I could enjoy all this much more'. But I knew lots of people had pre-wedding nerves so I felt I must stop being silly and go ahead with the plans. Graham and I had often said we wouldn't be like other unhappy couples, we would be different and romantic forever! I wonder how many times young hopeful lovers have said things like that! Suddenly that day, I was not so sure about anything.
I had known that my parents were unhappy together since I was six when my mother asked me who I would choose to live with if they separated. She could have had no idea of the effect this had on me at the time. For years I remembered that conversation every time I heard the loud calls of the sunset birds nesting in the large tree adjacent to the central Post Office which is where we were when it took place. Of course I couldn't choose, I loved them both and just didn't know how to answer. She assured me they both loved me, and that she would never take me too far from my father, who loved me so much, but told me they just did not get on very well together.
Over the following years, I realised this more and more. There were periods where they did not speak at all in the dining room and I would be the go between, when my father said 'Ask your mother to pass the sugar' and that sort of thing. I think she loved him and could not understand why he was nasty to her. She irritated him dreadfully and I could see this clearly as I got older, and every so often, he would just clam up and not speak at all for a few weeks or even sometimes, months! She hated knowing that everyone in the hotel was watching them and knew the situation. They did share a sense of humour and things were often peaceful on the surface, but I always knew it could turn sour at any moment.
Anyway, on that wedding weekend, I had a lot of painful mouth ulcers and had to see an emergency dentist in Johannesburg, as well as going to the church on the Saturday. Pixie was bitten on her hand by a spider on the way up and had to go to a hospital to have it treated as the swelling was spreading up her arm.
I stayed with my parents, Graham stayed with his friends, and Pixie stayed with her Aunt. We were all in different parts of Johannesburg, which is a huge very spread-out city and so there were lots of complications about arrangements.
Easter Monday morning dawned and there were about fifteen of my relations at the church. It was a beautiful day and a very beautiful church, with a sort of blue light in it. I felt very moved and it was so fresh at that early part of the morning and we set off back to Durban almost straight away as Pixie had to be back at work by the next morning. It's several hundred miles' drive to Durban. Graham by now had a dark green and cream Morris Minor and also luckily, a driving licence! It was a dusty drive so I changed into trousers and a tee shirt and as my father wanted me to take his bowling gear back to Durban, we set off with me wearing my father's bowling hat and all of us dressed in scruffy clothes. My mother was very brave about it all, and tried to be pleasant and amused. 'And the happy trio set off on the honeymoon', she joked as Pixie, Graham and I drove away.
Looking back, I think how selfish and unimaginative I was about my parents' feelings during this time. There was no reception but the three of us went and had a drink with Graham's friends at their house, when he fetched his things. My parents were just left there alone in their rented place, feeling flat and miserable. They returned to Durban about two months later and rented a smaller flat. They knew we were going to England and that we were happy living at Joan's house where a double bed had been installed so that Graham could move in with me after the wedding. Our short honeymoon had not been a great success. We stayed in a hotel for about three days just outside Durban (after dropping Pixie off at home first, of course!) When we attempted to consummate our marriage in the normal way it was to no avail. We were both inexperienced regarding the practicalities. We knew what went where but were flummoxed when it just would not! Later I had to have a small operation to correct the problem, but it was a rather inauspicious start to our marriage.
For a long time, people used to stare at my stomach, and I realised that
instead of thinking our sudden secret marriage was romantic and wonderful as I
had hoped, most people simply thought I was pregnant and watched and waited
with malicious hope!
They must have been disappointed when five months later we left for England and
I was still as thin as ever! (Those were the days!) Various relatives asked
what we wanted for wedding presents (a perk of a wedding which had not even
occurred to me) and so we asked for plastic table ware that would be light to
carry, towels, some cutlery, suitcases and three triangular saucepans that
would fit together on a gas ring. Electrical goods were out,
because we were told England had a different voltage.
The last few weeks were quite exciting. Lots of my friends called in to say their farewells. Even Valerie, my old friend from junior school, came down from Pietermaritzburg. Pixie, Faith and also Clare from the office, were all planning to come to England not long after us, so for them it was only 'au revoir'. Sue had already gone to London with Dave from the Courthouse a few months before, but they were not yet married. Mavis, one of the two older secretaries from Lyne & Collins, was also planning to go later in the year. Elsie and Bill, too, were already over there, visiting their daughter, who was a sculptress in London. I had only met her once when she visited them at the hotel, and she had lived in London since before they came to South Africa. Their little dog, Koko, had died at the age of 16 and I think Bill had retired. Colleen, Keith's sister, who had been the Wardrobe Mistress in the operatic society as well as performing, was also now in London, involved in some way with the BBC Wardrobe Department. Nova and Mike who had had a wonderful wedding shortly before we left (I was her Matron of Honour), did not seem interested in going abroad, as Mike had been born in England anyway and my other school friend, Hillary, said she would not want to hurt her parents!
This remark gave me some pause for thought. I certainly did not want to escape my parents at all. I had some vague idea that we would all be reunited in America some day and Graham often spoke enthusiastically about going round the world on a ship and taking everyone with us. He knew a bit about boats as his uncles had owned one called, I believe, the SS IMMORAL.
A few days before we left, the theatrical agent rang me up and said he had found a job for me, singing at one of the newest of the seafront hotels. 'Amazing' I thought bitterly, as I told him that I was leaving South Africa that Thursday.