My first love...?

Picture a Fijian with a head a mass of crinkly short dark hair, now imagine such hair as light brown on the head of a young English maiden and you have a picture of my first love, at least what attracted me to her. We lived in the same parish, went to the same church and sang in the same choir, we met at church concerts and dances but that’s as far as our association went. I had some feelings for her I guess but they were not romantic, that part of my make-up was present but still dormant with the required priming some years ahead. Her mother was prim, proper and quiet with a husband to match. There was, to put it bluntly, nothing distinctive or interesting about them for me but I saw her as someone who stood out from the rest because of her hair.

I have to be honest and say quite clearly that my thoughts about the daughter caused me no sleepless nights, I didn’t break out into writing sloppy poems to her and I didn’t take her out anywhere. It was her hair you see; without that she would have meant nothing to me. Indeed had I not been thrust into the British Army at the age of eighteen, she could have slipped out of my memory as easily as one forgets a the name of a person introduced only a few hours back and it happened like this.

A few days after the OHMS letter arrived directing me to take my medical examination in the upstairs room of our Parish church hall, I waited outside along with a few other lads my own age. We were all apprehensive as our mates had told us what to expect and weren’t really sure whether to believe them or not. The upstairs room seemed cold and unfamiliar as we were told to stand by a row of chairs while opposite us stood four white-coated doctors, one of whom told us to undress. It was this part that one of our number was very nervous about, he had ginger hair and knew his mates were all interested in whether he was ginger around his balls. He was, magnificently so and was aware of the envy of the rest of us plain lads from that time on.

I watched as the first four stepped forward and stood in front of a doctor who checked, each chest was stethoscope and measured, followed by eyes, ears, nose and mouth. Then they were told to turn their head to the left while the doctor took hold of each ball separately and had them cough, while us lads watching smiled a nervously aware that our turn was next. My dad was surprised when I told him I’d passed A1 as he (just quietly I reckon) thought me too puny to be acceptable; the army knew better and in the first six weeks training I put on weight and altogether felt and looked better than I had ever been before. Now after that little wander down things neither you nor I expected you’d ever know about my private life, back to the young lady in question.

I’d completed my first six weeks of basic training at the army barracks in our town and was on my first leave for two weeks, before heading for North Wales to begin driver training. At my last church social the church made a special mention of this and wished me well, something that made me conscious of the fact that folks cared about me and were interested in my future. The young lady approached me, if I liked, she said, looking at me with her nice little eyes, she would write to me while I was away ... to keep in touch, she said. It was rather a tender moment for me and I would have warmed to her but for one thing. I recalled she’d been keeping close company with Gerald, another youth at our church, I looked on him as some kind of odd ball, probably because he played chess. My thinking was still at the unset jelly stage and would be some years before maturity took place, and not to put myself down at this point, liken it to the way wine is unrushed on its way to mature. My marbles were all there, just a little scattered in nature. Anyway, I looked into her eyes and dared to put my thoughts into word without involving my mind too much. Ah well, I said, I’d like that very much but not if you’re going to keep on seeing Gerald, adding rather stupidly, I don’t know what you see in him.

She did write, surprisingly, a couple of letters, as one distant friend to another but whether I could say she was my first love or not, I leave to you, and that would be typical of me then. It was years after I became New Zealand citizen that I learned she’d married. Yes, wouldn’t you know it, she married Gerald. That’s life for you. I did go to meet them in their home, sometime in 2001 if I remember rightly, while I married a fine New Zealand lady and together we raised a family of three daughters and now I’m a very happy and contented Kiwi husband, dad and granddad.

© Dennis Crompton 2012
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2012)