Julie
Julie.
She was the first. After a number of false alarms-piffling affairs the longest of which lasted no more than six weeks, I saw her. Her attractively slender build. Her quirkiness, and her huge mass of fiery red hair, as wide as her shoulders, and bright copper-orange, marked her out as quite unique among my circle of friends way back then in 1977. The first time I spoke to her I mistakenly referred to her as Pearl because there was another girl of that name in the town to whom I had been briefly acquainted a year or so previously, and who facially at least bore a certain resemblance. I scrunched my eyes and waited for the usual tirade of distain for the gaffe, but scorn came there none, instead Julie laughed it off in genuine good humour, and I remember thinking at the time that if I played my cards right, I might just be able to form a lasting relationship with this very beguiling, though idiosyncratic young girl.
Christine and Julie were both pupils at the Girls Grammar School, but as my sister was a year senior to her they were never classmates, and at that time Julie was more an acquaintance than one of her close friends. And Christine, if my memory serves me correctly, flatly refused to put a ‘good word’ in on my behalf. I don’t quite remember now how I did eventually pull it off, but nevertheless we did commence a courtship. Steeling myself against the expected spurning that never materialised, I must have summoned up the courage and asked her out.
One of the most memorable things about Julie is her total and absolute sense of honesty. No airs and graces, no pretence whatsoever, what you see with Julie is exactly what you get. She would courageously confront any issue head on, no matter how awkward or embarrassing the subject. Other shrinking violets may take offence at this. Those who would cravenly prefer to say one thing to your face, but then as soon as your back is turned take an opposite stance. And she has an almost photographic memory for fine details. She had a natural aptitude for sleuthing that would have put Sherlock Holmes to shame, no matter how intricately tangled the web, she could see straight through subterfuge and obfuscation. I learned very quickly that secrets and lies were pointless, it would take a much more accomplished liar than I to pull the wool over Julie’s eyes, as I frequently found out to my red-faced cost!
When Julie was good, she was very, very good, compassionate, and warm hearted. Generous, and quick to see the funny side to most situations, her laugh was happy and infectious. But when she was bad she was horrid! Red heads are said to be fiery, and in Julie’s case never was a truer word spoken. Woe betide anyone who raised her to anger-including her dear parents-my God, have I witnessed some scenes!
Before very long, with my head squarely in the clouds, I had fallen contentiously in young love with her. Julie liked me a lot, and I believe she respected me, she signed all her Christmas and Birthday cards to me “With Love”, but even after the three or four occasions when I summoned up the mettle to propose to her she obstinately refused to consider betrothal. In between these earnest entreaties of mine we continued a very close and happy intimacy. I got on very well with her parents who while fully aware of my chequered past still gave me the benefit of the doubt, and accepted me into their family. We had some great times-a long weekend in Normandy-my first trip abroad. Our mutual interest in music saw us attending rock concerts, several in Cardiff, and further afield. We enjoyed travelling by train, our destinations chosen almost by the map and pin method to reach cities and towns around Britain. But overall, the relationship was tempestuous, the many good times were punctuated by some flaming rows, many ignited by my failure to grasp the fact that Julie was far too young to tie herself to me in holy matrimony. Of course, it is only now, with hindsight, and the wisdom of many years of life experience behind me that I can see that she was absolutely right. As the old adage goes, youth is wasted on the young!
By the autumn of 1979 I, along with roughly a thousand other workers, was facing redundancy from Duport steelworks. Industry was going down all over South Wales at the time, and my employment prospects then were to say the least, thin. I knew deep down that to escape the very real possibility of being tossed upon the unemployment scrap heap at such a young age, my only option was to get out of the area. After serious consideration of my circumstances I realised that the most viable next move I could make would be to join the Army.
This decision disappointed Julie, who although unwilling to make any official commitment to our relationship had got used to us being a couple, and the prospect of my leaving town, possibly permanently, upset her very much. Her father Keith however, himself an ex soldier, saw the wisdom of my choice and took my side immediately.
So in the new year of 1980, waved off by her parents and a tearful Julie, and amid many promises to write, I boarded a train to Pirbright in Surrey to commence six months of square-bashing and hard tack.
Now I don’t want to elaborate to much upon my military service, (that’s another story), but what follows is germane to this tale.
One Sunday during my first month of basic training my fellow recruits and myself were draped across our bunks after a hard and gruelling week’s work. It was late afternoon, raining outside, and my pen was just getting its breath back after a good solid work-out writing a series of letters home to friends and family. I was languishing on my back reading a book. A quiet cocophony of snores and occasional slumbering farts was balanced by my music box which was playing some UB40 at low volume. The door to our accommodation flew open, and in strutted our barrack room instructor, Corporal John Malley, Irish Guards. In his thick scouse accent he proceeded to inform us that some of our parents had contacted the Guards Depot expressing some concern that they had not in their collective opinion received enough letters from their young homesick sons, and he was now ordering us all, each and every one of us, to write at least one letter to the folks back home.
He finished up by adding, “And also, when you have written to your parents, you will write another letter. I have a friend who has just split up from her boyfriend, and is feeling pretty low at the moment. So you will all write her a letter as well. It will be a pleasant letter. It will be a jovial letter. It will be a letter to uplift her spirits, and it most certainly will not be a letter that contains any lewd or ribald talk such as the kind of rough talk that goes on here among me you and the other NCO’s. OK. So fuckin’ get on with it!”
I was already a prodigious letter writer anyway, so this request was no problem, and by early that evening I found myself sealing an envelope containing a letter of no less than thirteen pages to the as yet unknown to me Sarah Fleming.
A week or so later I received a very nice note from Sarah Fleming thanking me for my letter to her, and implying between the very neat lines the sentiment that this was to be the end of it. I placed it in my locker, and forgot about it. First prize of a couple of dates with her went to Robbie Galloway, a trainee Scots Guard.
Time passed. I settled into Army life with relative ease, and enjoyed my leave periods back home in Llanelli, where in Julie’s loving company I’d relish the delight of regaling my friends with stories of my many adventures.
But inevitably, as is so often the way with first love, the romance was doomed. Eventually after four years, and many pleas by me for even just a vague promise of official commitment, which remained stubbornly elusive, I lost heart, and being unable to see any real future in our relationship, regrettably, I could see that the end was in sight.
1982. Like a bolt from the blue the call to arms went up and this was not a drill. When I joined the Army I had hoped to do my ‘bit’ in Northern Ireland, but when I passed out as a fully fledged Welsh Guardsman I was confronted by the fact that my Battalion had just retuned from a six month tour of duty in the troubled province, and so I had just missed that one. Well this one promised to be an even bigger show. Some Argentine scrap metal men had just invaded South Georgia, wherever the hell that was, and now they had their sights firmly fixed on the Malvinas. Like a lot of my contemporaries I thought the Falkland Islands were somewhere off the coast of Scotland! Anyway the diplomatic solution to the problem was looking less and less likely to succeed, and as a giant task force was being assembled, the very real likelihood of full scale war was looming large upon the horizon.
To prepare us for this event we had to hurriedly get some training in at the Brecon Beacons military training area in South Wales-a landscape which apart from its arboreal abundance is remarkably similar to that of the Falkland Islands, and before leaving for this training we were required to empty our lockers and deposit their contents into the CQ’s stores for safe keeping. Whilst emptying my locker a long forgotten letter dropped to the floor. For only the second time since I received it nearly two years previously I opened it and read. My curiosity was piqued, and I was soon writing another note back to Sarah, enquiring as to how she was, if life had been good to her, and if at anytime in the next few weeks she should find herself at a loose end maybe we could get together for a date, but she’d have to make up her mind quickly as I would very soon be off on a great South Atlantic adventure. My intentions at this time were purely platonic, driven solely by curiosity and with absolutely no other agenda.
She replied a couple of days later with a note that included her ‘phone number and she made it clear that she was very keen to take me up on my offer of a date. We arranged to meet one day in Brookwood, the next village along from Pirbright, and home of one of the largest cemetries in the UK. Her father dropped her off and nodded suspiciously at me as he drove off.