If Only They Could Talk

by Ian Walker

  “Would you like to dance?”

  I turned around and to my amazement I saw Sarah was standing next to me.

  “I thought that I was supposed to ask you,” I replied.

  “It’s the 1940s not the 1840s,” she replied. “We women can do whatever we like nowadays.”

  Then she whispered, “Don’t tell anyone but we’ve even got the vote these days.”

  Not that Sarah had the vote, of course, she was only sixteen.

  I took her hand and we set off on a foxtrot across the dance floor.

  “So what’s changed your mind since the dance practice?” I whispered in her ear.

  “Oh, that was just to pay you back for pinching my beret,” she replied.

  “Bloody hell,” I continued, “that was three years ago. Anyway I seem to remember that you more than paid me back that same day.”

  She merely smiled before saying, “I’d forgotten about that. I do hope that everything is still in working order.”

  I was in seventh heaven and the evening went past in a whirl. Even the band seemed a lot better, although to be fair they had improved quite a lot since the dance practice.

  I didn’t dance with anybody else that night and when it was all over we wandered outside together. Sprout and Georgina were standing against the bike shed and Sprout looked as though he was enjoying himself as Georgina was eating his face.

  “Shall I walk you home?” I asked.

  “No, my dad will be waiting for me,” Sarah replied. “He said he’d come and get me as I’m not normally allowed out this late and he wanted to make sure I got home all right.”

  Naturally I was disappointed but undeterred I said, “Would you like to go to the pictures with me tomorrow evening?”

  “Sure,” she replied. “What’s on?”

  I told her that I didn’t care what the film was and sug­gested that we meet at the Odeon at half past six. She told me that was okay, after which she kissed me on the lips before disappearing out of the school gates where her father was waiting for her. I was the happiest man alive although strictly speaking at seventeen years of age I wasn’t really a man yet.

  On the way home Sprout, Herman and I compared notes.

  “She’s got the sweetest kiss in the whole world,” I told them.

  “Well, Georgina’s taught me what a French kiss is,” said Sprout.

  Both Herman and I looked at him speechless. Neither of us wanted to admit that we didn’t know what a French kiss was.

  Eventually Herman, who was very keen to find out, asked, “Is it something to do with a French letter?”

  Sprout and I both started laughing.

  “No, you idiot,” said Sprout. “It’s when you kiss with open mouths and touch tongues.”

  “Oh,” said Herman. “Anyway I can do better than that as June let me feel her jugs.”

  I presumed that June was the name of the Amazonian girl that Herman had been dancing with all night.

  “I’m surprised you could reach them,” joked Sprout, referring to the fact that she was at least two inches taller than Herman. “Anyway I bet you didn’t feel her jugs, I bet you didn’t even kiss her.”

  “I did so and they were lovely and firm just like a pair of melons.”

  “Okay,” said Sprout. “Did you feel them inside or outside her bra?”

  “Outside of course. It was only a first date. But we’ve agreed to go on another. We’re going for a walk through Walton Woods on Sunday.”

  “Oooh,” said Sprout and I in unison.

  “Anyway what about you two?” asked Herman. “Are you seeing your girls again?”

  “We’re going to the pictures on Saturday,” I replied.

  It turned out that Sprout had been in so much of a daze that he had forgotten to ask Georgina for a date. But for­tunately he knew where she lived, so he said he was going to go around to see her as soon as Saturday morning classes had finished.

  “I’ll ask her if she wants to go to the cinema as well,” he said before adding. “Hey perhaps we can make up a foursome?”

  “No way,” I replied. “I want to be with Sarah by myself. If you want to go to the cinema you can go to the Regal. I don’t want to see you grinning at me.”

  “I don’t think I’ll have much time for that,” said Sprout with a wink.

  With that the three of us split up and went our separate ways.

  Back in my bedroom I emptied my pockets and hung up my dinner jacket. As well as my hanky and some loose change there was the ticket for that night’s dance. I went to throw it in the bin but then had second thoughts. It had been the best day of my life so far. Sarah had kissed me and I was going on a date with her tomorrow. Today was a day that I would always remember, but just in case I ever forgot, I decided to keep the ticket as a memento.

  So I opened one of my drawers and put the ticket safely inside. I went to bed with a smile on my face and only one thing on my mind and that was Sarah.

  Chapter 8

  “It was probably of great sentimental value to him,” said Molly. “But it doesn’t mean anything to us. It will have to go in the bin liner I’m afraid.”

  Nigel looked at the ticket for a few seconds before placing it with all the other rubbish.

  “Cup of tea?” asked Molly.

  “Yes please,” replied Nigel and whilst Molly went down­stairs to put the kettle on he continued to look through the drawers.

  When she came back up again she found Nigel holding a large bunch of keys.

  “Look what I’ve found,” he announced. “The keys to Goodyear’s Brewery.”

  “They’d be really useful if it wasn’t for the fact that the brewery was demolished in 1968,” she replied. “Still, I’m sure that we’ll discover plenty more old brewery stuff when we look downstairs. You’d better put them on the auction pile.”

  *******

  The film we went to see was a love story starring Margaret Lockwood and Stewart Grainger. Normally I wouldn’t even have given it a second glance, as it was a real tear-jerker. Sarah seemed to like it though, well the bits she saw of it in between bouts of snogging.

  This time I did walk her home and we kissed again in the gennel between her house and their next-door neigh­bours before we parted. It was now official, Sarah was my girlfriend.

  I’d agreed to meet Sprout after saying goodbye to Sarah so that we could compare notes. It seemed that he didn’t even know the name of the film they’d been to see. They’d sat in the back row in the double seats and spent the whole time playing tonsil hockey, apart from during the intermis­sion when they’d shared an ice cream tub.

  The Odeon didn’t have double seats and so I made a mental note to take Sarah to the Regal next time.

  Then our conversation turned to Herman.

  “Do you really think he felt her breasts?” I asked.

  “Do I buggery,” replied Sprout.

  We decided that the only way we were going to resolve this issue was to confront him with it the next day. Which is why at lunchtime on Sunday, Sprout and I were sitting on the wall opposite Herman’s house.

  We didn’t have long to wait before Herman appeared, looking very smart in his Sunday best.

  “Hey Herman,” shouted Sprout. “Are you going to feel some more titty this afternoon?”

  We then started singing ‘Thanks for the Memory,’ a 1938 hit sung by Bob Hope, except that we changed the words and sang ‘Thanks for the Mammary’ instead.

  “Ho ho, very funny,” said Herman as he walked across the street to us.

  “So, where are you going to take her?” asked Sprout.

  “You know full well that we are going to go for a walk through Walton Woods,” he replied.

  “And after that?” asked Sprout.

  “Well, I thought I might take her to see my dad’s allotment.”

  Sprout and I couldn’t contain ourselves.

  “You old romantic, Herman. You certainly know how to make a girl swoon. Are you going to show her
your dad’s turnips?”

  “That’s not why I’m taking her there,” said Herman. “Very few people go to the allotments in winter and I’ve taken the key to my dad’s shed.”

  “So it’s romance amongst the potato sacks then?” I added.

  Herman just ignored me and headed off for his date.

  “Why don’t we hide out on the allotments?” suggested Sprout. “After all, we can then prove one way or another whether he’s been able to feel her breasts.”

  I wasn’t so sure if it was a good idea or not, but decided to go along with it anyway.

  Shortly after three o’clock, Herman and June appeared arm in arm and disappeared into the shed. Sprout and I were hiding behind a nearby water-butt giggling like silly little schoolgirls.

  We gave them a quarter of an hour and then wandered over to look through the window. To our surprise, Herman wasn’t just fondling June’s breasts. He was fondling her naked beasts having removed her jumper and bra. This was no mean feat considering that the temperature that day was barely above freezing. She must have been really cold without her top on.

  “Fair play to old Herman,” said Sprout. “I will never doubt him again. Look at her nipples sticking out. They’re just like the wheel nuts on my dad’s Bedford truck.”

  “Her breasts are absolutely magnificent,” I added. “They remind me of a dead heat in a Zeppelin race.”

  The two of us started giggling again, which caused June to look up and notice our two faces looking through the window. She let out an almighty scream and, realising we’d been rumbled, the two of us decided to leg it.

  Of course she’d recognised us and knew we were Herman’s friends. As a result poor old Herman got the blame. It was the end of a short but passionate affair, as she didn’t want anything to do with him after that.

  Herman quite rightly blamed the two of us for ending his relationship with June and he refused to speak to us throughout the whole of the last week of term. Fortunately, by the time we went back in January, he’d forgiven us and we were able to reconvene again as the Three Musketeers. But things weren’t quite the same as they’d been before. Sprout and I both had girlfriends whereas Herman did not.

  It was now 1945, which turned out to be a major year in my young life. Most importantly, the war ended, which was greeted with wild celebrations throughout the land. In addition, it was the year I turned eighteen.

  Victory in the war against Hitler did not mean that everything returned to pre-war normality. Far from it. Some things would never be the same. For a start, my parents never replaced Evans. From now on the only help my mother received was from Mrs Charlesworth, our new cleaning lady, who came in three days a week.

  Chesterfield had emerged virtually unscathed from the war, unlike Sheffield twelve miles to the north. However, rationing was still in force and would be for several years to come. Also, many of the servicemen who’d been called up were yet to return home. Times were hard and the brewery, which had been starved of investment during the war years, was struggling to make a profit.

  At least by turning eighteen I could now do my bit to help our beer sales, as I could finally buy a drink in a pub. Of course, many of my friends had already been served whilst under age, but this was where being the son of a local brewery owner was a major disadvantage. I was known in all the Goodyear’s pubs and Father would have killed me if I’d set foot in one of our competitors’ outlets.

  Therefore, it came as a blessed relief to reach the age of eighteen. Who cared that I still couldn’t vote for another three years? It was far more important that I could now enjoy a pint of Goodyear’s Pride in the Market Tavern.

  On the day of my birthday, Father took me on a pub crawl around town. We didn’t get very far though. By the time I was halfway through my fourth pint, I had to rush into the toilet to throw up. Father promptly took me home and I was fast asleep in bed by half past eight. I woke up at five o’clock the following morning with a throbbing head and the room spinning around.

  “Why do people drink when it makes them feel like this?” I asked myself.

  It was my first ever hangover, the first of many in the years that followed.

  It was also on my eighteenth birthday that Father pre­sented me with a set of keys to the brewery. I wasn’t allowed to have a key to the house until I was 21, but I was consid­ered mature enough to be given keys to the family business at the tender age of eighteen.

  It was more out of pragmatism than anything else. For by that stage I was working in the brewhouse during the holidays. This involved getting in early to help Mr Jones, the head brewer, start the brew off. The title ‘head brewer’ was an interesting one since Mr Jones was the only brewer, except for one pupil brewer and myself.

  The Holiday Pay Act of 1938 had made all employers provide paid holidays for their employees. As a result, there was just Mr Jones and myself doing the brewing at the end of August, because Stuart Datcheler, the pupil brewer, was enjoying a week’s holiday at Butlin’s in Skegness.

  Everybody used to drink at work back in those days. It was one of the perks of being a brewery worker. Some used to drink more than others and Mr Jones used to drink more than anybody else. He saw it as his duty to consume large quantities of the beer he brewed. It was his way of giving it his seal of approval.

  Unfortunately, on one particular day, he’d consumed even more than usual and failed to get up the following morning in order to start the brew off.

  I arrived at the brewery only to find that I’d been locked out. By eight o’clock other employees had started to arrive and they couldn’t get in either. So I went to the phone box across the road and phoned Father, who turned up a few minutes later looking absolutely furious.

  Mr Jones was reprimanded but not sacked. After all, qualified brewers were not easy to find back in 1945. But that incident was behind Father’s decision to give me a set of keys. Of course, once school started again, I was back to working Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, so I wouldn’t have the opportunity to use them until the Christmas break. But giving me the keys was a major act of faith by my father and I appreciated the confidence that he was showing in me.

  By now I’d been going out with Sarah for ten months and we saw each other often. We went to the cinema and the Victoria ballroom together and for walks in the coun­tryside around Chesterfield. Sometimes we’d make up a foursome with Sprout and Georgina. Georgina’s nickname was Carrot on account of her red hair, which I thought was highly amusing being as though she was going out with Sprout.

  “All you need is roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, potatoes and gravy and you’ve got a full Sunday lunch,” I said to him, but he didn’t find it funny.

  Herman, of course, didn’t have a girlfriend following the incident at the allotments. But sometimes he would make up the group along with Lydia, Sarah’s friend who’d been with her when she’d hit me in the balls. Lydia had short hair, glasses and a flat chest. She looked like a man in a skirt, not Herman’s type at all and it was obvious that he wasn’t hers either. Still it meant that neither of them were left out.

  The trouble with being a teenager in the 1940s was that there was nowhere to do our courting. Okay, Sarah and I could have a snog in the cinema and in the darkness of the gennel alongside her parents’ house. Mind you, we ran the risk of being interrupted by Mrs Lock, her next-door neigh­bour. But there wasn’t anywhere where we could be alone in private. I’d passed my driving test the previous May, but that proved to be a false dawn. Father wouldn’t let me drive the Alvis, his pride and joy, unless he sat next to me.

  Sprout was far more fortunate as he and Carrot had access to the storeroom at the back of one of his father’s shops. The rumour around the school was that they had been the first couple to actually do it. I confronted Sprout about this and he flatly denied it. However, he was given away by the fact that he was now getting his hair cut once a week, which Herman and I both thought was a bit excessive. A few days later I happened to be in the barbers
at the same time as Sprout and I witnessed the barber asking him if he wanted something for the weekend. It seemed the reason he was getting his hair cut so often was so that he could buy packs of French letters.

  “Bloody hell,” I said to him. “I thought when the barber asked if you wanted anything for the weekend he was just trying to sell you some Brylcreem.”

  Sprout made me swear not to tell anybody and I didn’t, except for Herman. As a result, the story was all over both schools by the end of the following week. Of course, Sprout’s reputation was greatly enhanced, whereas Carrot’s reputation was shot to bits. Women may have got the vote but they still had a long way to go in the sexual equality stakes back in 1945.

  Now that I had the keys to the brewery, we had the opportunity to emulate Sprout and Carrot. Sarah and I finally had somewhere where we could be alone together.

  The first time we snuck in was after watching a play at the Civic Theatre. I let us in using the keys I’d been given and we made our way to the hop store. I had already worked out that it was the best place for some late night canoodling. It was warm and the hopsacks provided an ideal makeshift bed for us to lie on.

  We immediately got down to some serious snogging. I’d progressed before to feeling Sarah’s breasts over her jumper. On one occasion, I’d even got my hand inside her blouse until Mrs Lock interrupted us whilst putting out her dustbin.

  This time there was to be no interruption and I undid her blouse. Then I decided to push my luck and put my hand inside her bra and was amazed that she actually let me.

  “Can I take it off?” I asked as I felt her nipple stiffening.

  She nodded and I didn’t need a second invitation as I removed her blouse and went around her back and tried to unfasten her bra. I couldn’t get it undone though and in the end she had to undo it for me.

  “If my life ends now I will die a happy man,” I thought to myself as I looked at her perfectly formed breasts and her pink nipples.

  “Why stop there?” I thought as I put my hand up her skirt.

  “No you don’t,” came the firm response as she grabbed my hand and removed it.