My teenage love story!

The Poni Tails

Well, when I was a young man never been kissed

I got to thinkin' it over how much I had missed

So I got me a girl and I kissed her and then, and then

Oh, lordy, well I kissed 'er again . . . . .

When I was about fifteen or so I fell in love; I fell in love with three girls in a place called Wythenshawe, which was in the south part of the city of Manchester.

I was staying there for two weeks at my aunt's house and quite near to the house was a block of flats – and of course in the flats there were plenty of young girls.

I would pass the flats most days as I was staying up there by myself. I worked for the post office and had to take my holidays when they told me so everybody else was at work or school at the time.

I was kicking my heels around the house and my mother suggested I go and stay with her sister, my Godmother, and her family; their children were little more than babies so they were no good for me to pal about with; one day we went on a picnic with a maiden aunt of theirs and I went along too.

It wasn't a picnic as such, she called it a ramble – I don't know if she was part of a ramblers club or anything but she might have been in her forties and wore sensible shoes, a tweed skirt and carried a stick.

It was pleasant and at one point my little cousin sat on my lap and the aunt said 'Oh, Christopher isn't used to having little girls sitting on his lap' and I said 'no, I'm used to big girls' and her face kind of dropped.

It was the first thing that came in to my head but I got to know the girls from the flats – well some of them – and they used to sit on my lap. There was a pair of sisters – one aged 14 and the other 15 – and another girl older who was about 17 or 18.

I dated each of them and they seemed to know about each other going out with me. We went to a fair ground, which was a bus ride away, and to the movies which was also a bus ride away. In fact everything was a bus ride away as Wythenshawe, in those days, was in the countryside.

I took the older girl to see The Duke Wore Jeans, in the centre of Manchester, which starred Tommy Steele and whilst we were sitting there a fight broke out – between 2 girls.

One was sitting in front of the other and something was said, then the one in front stood up and they were fighting and pulling each others hair over the seats . . they were kicked out.

Now when I said I fell in love I mean I fell in love with a different one each day; I was only 15 and what did I know about love?

We would 'make out' on the stairs of the building in which they lived, and the pop music of the time was the sound track to our activities. The 14 year old was really gorgeous but she was too young for me – don't forget I was 15 and she was 14; I wasn't a baby snatcher!!
The song by The Pony Tails, Born Too Late, would ring in my ears when I thought of her and the same song rang out when I was with the older one.
Born too late for you to notice me
To you, I'm just a kid that you won't date
Why was I born too late?
The other one, the 15 year old, was the one who wrote to me when I returned to Birmingham and once or twice the older one wrote but never the 14 year old.
It was nothing serious, of course, but my aunt found out about it and didn't want me going with people from the flats – maybe she thought they were leading me in to a life of vice and drugs!!

One day I was due to meet the girls but my aunt said it wasn't to be; they were taking me out somewhere in the car – I can't remember where but it wasn't for a ramble.

I had to go and tell the girls that I wouldn't be there that day and when we went out in the car the 3 girls, and some of their friends, came out and got close to the car and blew kisses and waived – my aunt was disgusted.

Eventually the time came for me to go back to Birmingham and we were all heartbroken; I remember the tears welling up inside of me as the train pulled out of Manchester, Piccadilly Railway Station. I was in bits as I loved my life up there for the two weeks and then it was back to Birmingham and back to work.

I did nothing but mope around for what seemed weeks and then one night I decided to run away to Manchester. I knew where it was – in the north of England – so I started out.

I walked in to the city centre then up through Aston, which is going north; I seemed to walk for hours, in fact I did, and pretty soon it was after midnight and I was in Sutton Coldfield, which is 8 miles from the centre of Birmingham.

Near Sutton Coldfield, a car pulled in and asked me the way to somewhere – I couldn't really tell them anything and they told me they were eventually going to Manchester; oh I was tempted, I can tell you, and when they drove off I realised I was on an impossible trip, so I turned around and walked back.

After a little while a policeman came up to me and asked what I was doing – I told him I was out for a walk.

He took me to Aston Police Station, sat me down and gave me a cup of tea; then they called the police station, close to where I lived, and a copper from there went and told my worried parents that I was safe – we didn't have a telephone in those days; who did?

My dad didn't have a car so he rode across to Aston on his bike; the Raleigh that I have written about before, the Raleigh that I inherited and the Raleigh that my brother was knocked off one day as he rode along Moseley Road, which was a main thoroughfare.

When he came to the police station my dad was all smiles for me and the cops and they asked him how he would get me home.

'On my crossbar' he said 'if there are no police about.' it was against the law to give lifts on crossbars but it was two-o-clock in the morning and the coppers laughed.

On the way home he said 'we won't tell your mother you were on your way to your aunts.'

I said 'I was on my way to see my girl friend.' He didn't understand.

Young love, first love Filled with true devotion 
Young love, our love We share with deep emotion

It took me a few days to recover as every part of my body 
really ached.

In 1984 I was on TV in a series called 'Eh Brian! It's a Whopper, a drama comedy series about some anglers, and I received a fan letter from the older girl. She told me her marriage wasn't going very well and said I looked really good for 50!!!! 50??

So I got me a girl and I kissed her and then, and then

Oh, lordy well I kissed 'er again

Because she had kisses sweeter than wine

She had, mmm mmm, kisses sweeter than wine.

Jimmy Rodgers

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