CHAPTER TWELVE: Growing Pains

Between the ages of thirteen and fifteen I underwent, like the rest of my school friends, all the usual emotional confusion and hormonal havoc caused by the sudden physical changes which were taking place in our developing bodies. Firstly, there was the momentous occasion of the first period followed, not long afterwards, by the significant acquisition of the first bra. I had been pestering my mother for one for some time, even though I was in possession of nothing more spectacular than a pair of bee-stings. I was envious of the more well-developed girls in my class who were already proudly sporting their first bras and I bemoaned the unfairness of it with Jenny, whose mother was being as unreasonable as mine. Then I had a brilliant idea. Why didn’t we make our own? We both enjoyed sewing and it couldn’t be that difficult to construct one. Fired with enthusiasm, I set about designing my prototype. I found a piece of plain, white fabric and from it I cut two circles. The next stage was to mould the circles into cups and this proved to be far more difficult than I had envisaged. At last, after much stitching and shaping of one of the circles, I achieved a result which was not perfect, but passable: the biggest problem was trying to construct the second circle of fabric into a form which matched the first. This turned out to be a task beyond my capabilities with the result that, in size, my two cups differed wildly. Undaunted, I proceeded with the next stage, which was to make the side pieces. This was comparatively easy. Attatching the cups to the side pieces was, however, more of a challenge and I had not even begun to think of how I was going to fasten the finished garment. But I soldiered on and, with the aid of a piece of waistband elastic and some seam tape for straps, finished my bra. Quivering with excitement, I stripped off my clothes, fitted the bra around my chest and examined myself in the mirror. Although the reflection which stared back at me was in reality that of a flat-chested little girl wearing something which resembled a pair of lop-sided water-wings, I imagined myself as a mature young woman modelling a glamorous undergarment. I was very pleased with the result of my labours and I couldn’t wait to take my bra to school the next day so that I could show Jenny.
After all, I didn’t have to wait too long for the purchase of my first, proper bra. My anguish came to an end on the day my mother took me to a dingy little shop at the far end of the town where they had a selection of reasonably priced underwear. The assistant was so patronising that I was too embarrassed to accept her offer of trying on a bra for size and settled for the first thing which my mother deemed suitable. It was of white satin moulded into two, conical shapes by means of a great many rows of circular stitching and although it did nothing as far as figure enhancement was concerned, at least I would be able to join the ranks of those superior, much envied, bra-wearing members of my class.
Next to her first bra, a girl’s second most important acquisition was her first suspender belt and nylons. I had come to loathe the childish, white ankle socks which we were obliged to wear as part of our school uniform and I longed to show off my legs; they were the only part of my body with which I could find no fault. Besides, girls who wore stockings looked so grown up. In the fifties, nylons were expensive and you learned to take care of them. If you had a ladder which wasn’t too bad, you could take the stocking to the Scotch Wool Shop in Falmouth where they would mend it for you; even so, it was fairly expensive to have this done. I had my first pair of stockings in time for the school’s Christmas party and I felt very superior when I looked around and saw that there were a few girls in my class still wearing ankle socks.
A boy had begun to take an interest me. He had spotted me out walking one day and had followed me home. After that, he hung about waiting for me and followed me whenever I went out of the house. He certainly wasn’t shy; he introduced himself as Roger Jackett and asked if I’d like to go out with him. He was a decidedly unprepossessing boy, with not a single nice feature to commend him and, if that were not bad enough, had a very broad Cornish accent. I thought he was decidedly common and was terrified that my mother might see him and think I was encouraging him. To my extreme vexation my sister realised what was going on and made jokes about him.
‘Your boyfriend’s ugly!’ she taunted.
‘He’s not my boyfriend!’
‘Yes he is. You love him!’
‘Shut up! I do not! ‘
‘Yes you do!’
‘I can’t even stand him, so there!’
‘Well, I’m going to tell Mum.’
‘You say anything and I’ll kill you.’
And so it went on. I managed to avoid him by changing my routine but one afternoon, while I was out with my friend Jean, I saw him in the distance hurrying towards us with a broad grin on his silly face. I was filled with dismay; what would my refined and sophisticated friend think of my having anything, no matter how remote, to do with an awful boy like that? I looked around in desperation for some means of avoiding the encounter but he was bearing down on us, rapidly. The only thing I could do was to ignore him and pretend I didn’t know him. But, with characteristic persistence, and quite undaunted by the look I gave him which should have sunk him into the very earth, he followed us all the way home. I was humiliated, ashamed and so angry that the next time I saw him I told him to clear off and leave me alone: eventually, he took the hint.
It was not very long after this that I encountered my first flasher. Whenever I was visiting Auntie Frances, I used to take a short cut through a wooded area known as The Dell. It was a lonely place, frequented by dog-walkers and courting couples who took advantage of the seats which were placed at intervals along the path. I was returning home from Auntie’s one afternoon, by way of the Dell, when a youth stepped out from the undergrowth, startling me so much that I jumped.
‘Do you want to play with this?’ he asked.
I gave him the briefest of glances and saw that his fly was undone and that he was holding something pink and protruding in his hand. A familiar stab of fear shot through my body. Instinct warned me not to make eye contact and I looked away, quickly. With my heart hammering inside my chest, I walked on as though I hadn’t heard him and although I didn’t turn my head to look, I knew he was following me.
‘Where do you live?’ he asked, coming up behind me.
If only someone would come along! Why was there not a soul about that afternoon? I continued on my way, my eyes averted, resisting the temptation to run.
‘Over there.’ I said, pointing to the nearest house and making as though I were going in that direction. The house had a garden with a gate opening on to the footpath and I think he believed me when I told him that I lived there because, just as silently and suddenly as he’d appeared, he vanished. With that, I began to run as fast as I could and didn’t stop until I’d reached our house: I never went alone to the Dell again.
During the summer holidays, the nephew of one of our neighbours in Clare Terrace used to come to stay with her every year for a fortnight. His name was Nigel and he was a few months older than I was and although we had ignored each other previously, now he began to take an interest in me. Unlike poor Roger Jackett, he was not unattractive as such; it was just that, with his round, babyish face and fair hair which had a way of forming itself into a quiff on his forehead, he bore a most unfortunate resemblance to Hergé’s Tintin and every time I saw him I had to quell the urge not to laugh. We went for walks together and he told me how brilliant he was at school, how wealthy his parents were and how much he excelled at sport; I might have believed some of his accounts of his remarkable achievements but when he told me that one of his uncles was Billy Smart, the famous circus owner, I realised that everything he’d been telling me was invention and that in reality he was just another ordinary, rather immature boy. All the same, I agreed to accompany him on a ferry trip to Flushing, across the water from Falmouth, if my mother allowed me.
Although I had made it obvious that I was sceptical about all things he’d told me, it didn’t prevent him from continuing with his improbable boasting all the way to Flushing and back. Clearly, he was hoping to impress me but did he really imagine I was so stupid that I was going to believe such wild stories? Billy Smart indeed! When we boarded the ferry for the return journey, he perched himself on a railing, put his feet on the seat below and assumed a nonchalant attitude which he no doubt imagined was very cool and sophisticated. When the ferryman went up to him and ordered him to take his feet off the seat I was deeply embarrassed and tried to look as though I wasn’t with him.
Later that afternoon, my mother came into my bedroom and shut the door behind her. That meant trouble.
‘Have you been behaving yourself with that boy?’ she demanded.
I looked at her, blankly. Had she heard about Nigel getting told off for putting his feet on the seat? I’d had nothing to do with it and hadn’t, as far as I could recall, misbehaved in any way whatsoever.
‘You know what I mean!’
But I didn’t know what she meant. From her expression, I could tell that it was something distasteful, and I flushed. The following day, when Nigel called to ask if I was going out, my mother insisted that my sister went, too.


That summer, my mother was busy with guests and as a result my shell ornament enterprise was very successful. As well as bed-and-breakfast, she also did evening meals and I was called upon to help with the preparation and cooking. I don’t know what the guests must have thought of the food my mother served up; her cooking had certainly not improved over the years. The only thing that was ever praised was the Yorkshire pudding, the mixing and baking of which I had sole responsibility. When it came to food, she had absolutely no imagination and regarded anything new or unfamiliar with deep suspicion. She relied a lot upon roast dinners because she found these required less work; however, she had no idea how to cook a joint properly. She would smother the meat with a thick coating of lard, shove it into a roasting tin and leave it in the oven for so long that when it was finally taken out it was only a fraction of its original size. Even fatty pieces of pork were plastered with lard and everything - beef, pork or lamb - was served with mint sauce and thin gravy made with nothing more than an Oxo cube and water.
Sometimes she would bake pies made from gritty minced beef boiled up with onions and an Oxo cube. She would line a large plate with pastry, add the cooked mince and then cover it with more pastry and if she was feeling particularly daring, she would vary the pie by using sausage meat instead of mince. Fish was always fried - again in lard - and chips cooked in beef dripping. She shunned cooking oil and could not be persuaded even to try it. I was always astonished when guests returned the following year. During the winter months we had lodgers - students from the art school - in the attics. When they were out of the house, my mother would go through all their possessions. One day, she found a bank statement belonging to one young man and was surprised to discover that he was very well off. She kept talking about it and I was terrified that she would be found out. I was appalled that she could do such a thing; no-one had the right to go through people’s personal effects. Later, I discovered that she was an expert in steaming open envelopes and that there was not a letter delivered to the house that was not intercepted by her.
It was while we were living in Clare House that she suffered a miscarriage. One morning, my father didn’t go to work and my mother stayed in bed. A district nurse came to the house and there was much toing and froing with bowls of water, towels and sheets. The bedroom door remained closed and I could hear them conversing in low voices. When she had recovered, my mother told me that she had been going to have a baby but it had died before it was due to be born. It would have been a little boy, she said. She had always wanted a son and the loss of this one must have been a great sorrow. It occurred to me then that this had not been the first time she had lost a baby: I recalled previous incidents when we had been visited by district nurses and there had been much activity with bowls of water, towels and sheets and hushed conversations behind closed bedroom doors. Some years later, after I had been told by a specialist that I should consider very seriously whether or not I should have children because of the risk of passing on my brittle bones, I realised that all the miscarriages that my mother had had were almost certainly due to the condition. It is most probable that her final miscarriage was caused by the baby suffering a major trauma, such as a broken neck; it is not unusual for this to happen if you are affected with brittle bone disease.
I have sometimes discussed with my sister what would have happened if our brother had survived. Doubtless, he would have suffered a great many fratures and because of the seriousness of his condition been confined to a wheelchair. Our mother would have made us feel that it was our duty, not hers, to look after him and as an adult he would have been such a great burden and a responsibility that our lives would have taken very different courses.

At school, in art, we were learning how to make marionettes, beginning with the heads. Firstly, we moulded the heads from pieces of plasticine and after we had greased them, we applied little strips of tissue paper and glue in several layers. When they had dried, we made incisions around the sides of the heads and carefully prised the two pieces apart. When they had been separated from the plasticine, we had to join the heads together again and finally, when they were dry, we had to paint them. This was the most exciting stage of the operation because now the heads were beginning to look like real puppets. We had chosen what characters we were going to make and I, being so mad on ballet, wanted to do Anna Pavlova dressed in her Dying Swan costume. However, Mrs. Andrews said that this was a very hackneyed subject and why didn’t I chose a costume from a less well-known ballet. I was disappointed because I had been looking forward to making her tutu of white net and decorating it with feathers. I decided that I would make my own Dying Swan at home.
One afternoon my parents returned from one of their regular visits to the auction rooms and told me that there was a puppet theatre amongst the lots currently on view. I threw down what I was doing, plunged out of the house, raced around the corner and along the next terrace to where the salerooms were situated and dived into the entrance. There were crowds of people examining the lots on view and I had to push my way through them. I looked around eagerly for the puppet theatre but all I could see where armchairs, tables and other boring items of furniture; and then I spotted it! I could not prevent myelf from gasping out loud with delight. I looked at it in awe. In reality, it was nothing more than a screen consisting of three hinged panels with a rectangular hole cut out of the centre one for the stage but in my imagination it was Covent Garden, Sadlers Wells and the Bolshoi all rolled into one. It was romance, fantasy and wonder incarnate. I had to have it. If I didn’t, my life would have no purpose. What if someone else bought it? It wouldn’t be fair; it would be wasted on some other person. It was destined for me. But how much would I have to pay for it? I had only a few shillings to my name. Reluctantly, with a last, yearning look at the puppet theatre, I left the salerooms and went home to tackle my parents.
‘Please will you get it for me?’
‘Well, only if it doesn’t go for too much.’
‘How much do you think it will go for?’
‘It’s hard to say. It depends on how many other people are interested in it.’
‘Do you think many people will be after it?’
‘Well, it’s not very likely but you never know. It only takes one other interested party to push up the bidding.’
‘How much will you bid for it, then?’
‘We’ll have to wait and see.’
‘Yes, but how much? ‘
So it went on, and for the whole of the following week I pestered my parents relentlessly. There was nothing else - nothing - that I wanted in the whole world other than that puppet theatre. If I didn’t get it, I would die.
On the afternoon of the sale I couldn’t concentrate on my work at school and kept looking at the clock. How slowly time seemed to passing! What were my parents doing right now? Perhaps the bidding had begun for the theatre. Perhaps, at that precise moment, someone else was putting up their hand. No! it was unthinkable: the theatre was going to be mine. It had to be. At last, it was time to go home and I flew back to Clare Terrace. Had it ever taken so long to get from school to home? I was running as fast as I could yet getting nowhere. After an interminable age, I reached our front gate, hurled myself through it, flung open the porch door and charged into the house.
‘Did you get it?’
There was an agonising pause; my mother was tormenting me.
‘Yes,’ she laughed, when she saw I could bear the suspense no longer.
‘Oh! Where is it?’
I had to see it to prove to myself that it wasn’t a dream.
‘Your dad’s picking it up this evening.’
For the next few weeks every spare moment I had was devoted to my puppet theatre. I made curtains for it and painted scenery. I was going to produce my own version of Swan Lake and was working on the leading ballerina. I had a bit of a setback because our dog, Bosun, got hold of the head I had moulded for her and chewed it to pieces and I had to make another. Her arms, legs and torso were constructed from stockinette padded with kapock and articulated with small strips of leather. I had no idea how to attatch the strings and make the rods because we hadn’t reached that stage in our puppet making at school but that minor detail didn’t deter me. I sewed a tutu from white net and adorned it with silver sequins and the smallest white feathers I could find and made tiny pointe shoes from a scrap of pink satin. When she was finished, I thought she looked beautiful. My puppet theatre was the most cherished thing I had ever owned and throughout those weeks my happiness knew no bounds.

Despite the trials of early adolescence I was still able to concentrate on my school work and enjoy my favourite lessons. My end-of-term reports were good and I was awarded school prizes which were handed out as book tokens on speech days. My school friends and I exchanged confidences and discussed boys. Jenny had fallen in love with Tommy Steele and invited me to her house because she wanted me to watch with her a television performance he was giving.
‘Then we can both swoon together!’ she declared, happily.
I didn’t know what to reply to that. Tommy Steele didn’t appeal to me and, besides, with those teeth he was a dental disaster. I had to tell Jenny that I wasn’t keen on him. She was incredulous.
‘Well, then - who do you like?’ she asked.
‘Nobody, really.’
‘But you must like somebody, otherwise you’re not normal!’
I was too embarrassed to tell her that I did, in fact, have a secret passion. I had seen in Falmouth a poster advertising a forthcoming piano concert. On the poster was a photograph of the profile of a handsome young man who was the very personification of the romantic hero. His name was Peter Katin and I could not wait for the day of the performance so that I could see him in the flesh. When I bought my ticket I asked if I might possibly be allowed to have one of the posters after the concert and not only did they say I might but also asked me if I would like it autographed. My friend Penny was very envious because she had romantic notions similar to my own. In fact, she had a big crush on a roadsweeper, of all people, because she said he looked aristocratic. Perhaps she thought he was some Russian prince in disguise.
But it was not long before Peter Katin was displaced as the object of my admiration and embodiment of the romantic ideal. A new master had come to the school to teach German and from the very first moment I saw him, I conceived an ardent passion. He was called Mr. Sherwood and he was tall, dark and strikingly good-looking. He had about him a glamour that you did not associate with schoolmasters; in fact, he was so handsome that he could have been a film star. I was helplessly smitten. I looked forward to German lessons more than any other and worked so hard to please Mr. Sherwood that I picked up the language quickly and in tests and for homework achieved the highest marks. I desperately wanted him to notice me, to favour me over the other girls. In class, I drew surreptitious sketches of him and at home translated these into as lifelike a portrait as I was capable. I pinned it on to the wall of my bedroom so that I could gaze at it and imagine myself in all sorts of romantic situations with him in which I would not be a mere, silly schoolgirl but an alluring, beautiful young woman..........

At long last, my mother agreed to let me have my hair styled. An appointment was duly made and I set off full of excitement because I was convinced that I was about to undergo a transformation from schoolgirl to fashionable young woman that would be so miraculous no-one would recognise me afterwards. But my mother called me back.
‘Here,’ she said, ‘give this note to the hairdresser!’
Dismayed, I waited until I was out of sight of our house then I read what she had written.
‘Please do Margaret’s hair nicely,’ said the note, ‘and I will recommend you to the High School.’
I seethed with silent indignation. Who did she think she was? At my school she had no influence, no authority whatsoever yet her note conveyed the impression that, at the very least, she was Head of the Board of Governers. It was preposterous! Besides, the hairdresser was, no doubt, fully qualified and experienced and would be highly offended by such a slight on her competence. I had no intention of handing over her ridiculous note and looked around for a litter bin in which to throw it. Then I stopped in my tracks. The first thing my mother would be sure to ask when I returned home would be:
‘Did you give the hairdresser my note?’
I would have to lie and she would read the guilt on my face, as she always did. She would be livid. I agonised over whether to face acute embarrassment at the hairdressers’ or maternal wrath. I was still agonising by the time I reached my destination and, at the very last minute, decided I had no choice but to deliver the wretched note. The hairdresser’s face was expressionless as she unfolded the piece of paper and ran her eye over it. She sat me down in a cubicle, closed the curtains, excused herself, and disappeared. I heard her whispering to someone and a woman’s voice replied:
‘How ridiculous!’
My cheeks burned with shame and humiliation and I knew beyond all doubt that I would never forgive my mother for spoiling an occasion to which I’d been looking forward for so long.
As it turned out, I didn’t very much like my new hairstyle. It was too stiff and formal and when I returned home, the first thing I did was to give it a vigorous brushing. Afterwards, with a little practice, I soon found that I was able to wash and set it myself into a style which was much more pleasing. Compared to today’s vast range of haircare products, those of the post-war period and the following fifties were decidedly primitive. As a child, I used to hate having my hair washed. Shampoo was bought in big, paper sachets and as it came in powdered form, you had to dissolve it first in warm water. I had to sit on a chair with my head over the kitchen sink and a flannel over my eyes while my mother tipped the jug over my hair. Despite the flannel, the shampoo always got into my eyes and stung unbearably and the shampoo was so alkaline that it was necessary to neutralize it with a final rinse of vinegar. Gradually, though, products improved and a much wider choice became available. I used to buy shampoo in individual, transparent sachets and setting lotion in individual phials which were so highly coloured and perfumed it is hardly surprising that I regularly suffered from scalp irritation.
To complement my new hairstyle, I wanted to experiment with make-up. My mother said I was too young to start plastering my face with all that muck but if I really wanted to, I could try a hint of mascara. So I bought myself a compact of Rimmel’s black mascara which was in the form of a little block, together with a brush. You spat on to the mascara, worked it up to a paste with the brush then applied it to your lashes. It was a very uhygienic procedure and it’s a wonder I didn’t end up with chronic conjunctivitis. Fluttering my newly blackened eyes I went in search of my sister.
‘Can you see anything different about me?’
‘No,’ said Jean, after a brief glance.
‘Look at my eyes! Can’t you see anything?’
‘No.’
‘My eyelashes! Look at my eyelashes!’
Jean was getting fed up by now. She looked at my eyes but it was obvious that she could see nothing remarkable about them.
‘I’ve got mascara on. Can’t you see?’
‘Oh, yes, I can see the difference now,’ she lied.
Later, I bought myself a lipstick from Woolworth’s and applied it liberally.
‘Go upstairs and take some of that lipstick off!’ demanded my mother as I was on my way out. I went upstairs, waited a few moments, then went down again, my lipstick untouched.
‘That’s better!’ she said, approvingly.
I was not content with the lipstick and the mascara and decided that there were many more essential items of feminine adornment which I had to have. For these, though, I required money and so I would have to think of ways of earning some. People always admired the hand-painted greetings cards which I gave them so I thought it might be a good idea to try to sell some of my designs. I took a selection to a gift shop in Falmouth and they said that they would be delighted to try to sell them for me. They even gave me some embossed photograph mounts which, folded over, made very professional-looking cards. I was so proud when I saw my handiwork displayed in the shop window. I also hit upon the idea of selling home-made sweets, another skill I had acquired. Without considering the cost of ingredients, to which I helped myself from the kitchen cupboard, or the electricity, I made coconut ice, fudge and toffee. It looked and tasted so good that I consumed a good deal of it before selling the rest to my school friends. I’m always reminded of that coconut ice when, in early spring, I see the almond trees cascading down the mountainside in a glorious display of pink and white blossom outside my kitchen door here in Spain.
Once, my mother had given the remains of a steamed marmalade pudding which I’d made to Fred ( I think she rather fancied him ) of Fred’s Stores and he was so impressed that he asked me if I’d make him puddings on a regular basis; he said he’d supply the ingredients, of course. He also paid me generously and that helped to swell my modest funds considerably. Fred had acquired a boxer dog, called Peter, which used to roam all over Falmouth, getting himself and Fred into trouble. One Christmas, Fred accidentally shut him into the storeroom above the shop where he consumed the better part of the season’s stock of chocolate and was, in consequence, very ill indeed.

It was while we were living at Clare Terrace that a telegram arrived one day for my father and because he was at work, my mother opened it. To receive a telegram was an event which rarely happened in our household, so Jean and I were agog. But not a word was said: she merely popped the message into the pocket of her apron and carried on as though nothing had happened. When my father came home for lunch and stepped into the hall, she announced:
‘Your father’s dead.’
Just like that, as though she might have said:
‘The electricity bill arrived today,’ or ‘The carving knife needs sharpening.’
Jean and I were stunned. We had been fond of our grandfather and it seemed hardly any time at all since he’d stayed with us; we’d walked with him all over Falmouth and he’d stopped to stare at the sea and say, as he always did:
‘If you lived in London, you’d pay five pounds just to look at that view.’

My mother’s early morning bad moods were now so bad that Jean and I were in the habit, during weekends and school holidays, of sneaking out of the house before she got up and not returning until it was safe to assume she’d had her breakfast and was in a less volatile frame of mind. Neither of us could bear to watch her consume her breakfast which often consisted of a watery boiled egg over which she’d slurp noisily. She’d look up, see our undisguised expressions of disgust and say:
‘If you don’t like it, sod off!’
So we sodded off.
It was during our early morning wanderings that we would often, in the vicinity of Gyllingvase Beach, encounter a very distinguished-looking and immaculately dressed gentleman who, whenever he met us, would take off his hat and wish us a good morning. Since he was obviously a person of high status and importance, we were highly flattered. We wondered who he could be but it was not until some considerable time later that we discovered our elderly gentleman was, in fact, Howard Spring, the famous novelist.
Although I had absolutely no interest in history whatsoever, I was pleased when Miss Bates suggested that I choose, as the subject of the project we were to be doing in the holidays pertaining to the Tudor period, sport and entertainment. My imagination was fired and I set about scouring the history section in Falmouth Library for ideas and information. Dancing was a popular activity, it seemed, and I spent hours drawing and painting a court dancer wearing an elaborate costume which consisted of a piece of real silk glued on to the paper and decorated with lace and tiny beads. When the project was handed in it earned me a shool prize, many house points and a good deal of praise. Mr. Duggan, the music master, commissioned me to draw a picture using the same technique with which I’d done my Tudor dancer. He was very pleased with it and gave me a book token as payment. On my report at the end of term he wrote:
‘The delicacy of Margaret’s appliqué work is a reflection of herself.’
I glowed with a quiet pride but my mother made a scathing remark about my lack of progress and poor report in maths and my self-esteem was, as usual, shattered.

Margaret Merry lives in Spain if you are looking to buy a property in Spain please visit http://www.cheappropertyspain.net