1968: SPOTTED OUTSIDE LILLYWHITES
Monday, 19 Feb
Half-term. Didn't wake up till 12.30!!!
Did German essay on the Welfare State. After tea I turned on France Inter - what luck. I heard the most staggering announcement. On Saturday, the BBC is joining up with French, Italian and German radio for a European song contest - and who should be representing France but Mireillel Mathieu and Poldo!!!
Changed into black dress and wore hair loose (looks quite good considering I haven't washed it for five days). Driving to London, Daddy talked about the Goldmans' party, and mentioned meeting "a girlfriend of the boys." Well, I hope she was David's not Mark's.
We parked the car in the Swiss Centre car-park (which was taken up in a lift!) and walked to the Haymarket Theatre.
Theatre Royal Haymarket: the third oldest theatre in London
It's tiny, and very sweet. The ceilings are terribly low and there are mirrors up the staircases. Then 'The Importance of Being Earnest' began. It wasn't terribly funny, but it was fantastic all the same. Honestly, Oscar Wilde must have found the society of his time such a lark. Algernon was a sort of revolting Mr Shepherd, Lady Bracknell (Isabel Jeans) was marvellous, and the little old Reverend and Miss Prism (Dame Flora Robson) were carrying on a love affair! There were three different scenes; the best I think was when they were in the garden, but the climaxes came in the last one, which was terrific fun.
Then we went to the Swiss Centre where we had a fantastic dinner and there was a nice young waiter (French or German or... Swiss?). Everyone was very gay. I had avocado with prawns; they'd cut the avocado into three bits putting an olive on each so it looked like a fish. Then I had scallops in a creamy wine sauce, then a praline mousse.
On the way home we heard Pol's new song, 'Y'a qu'un Ch'veu.' It goes fantastically fast, with 30 seconds of giggles and shrieks! I don't know whether they were meant to be there, but I nearly died.
Tuesday, 20 Feb
Wore corduroys and cloak, and Ma, Chump and me drove to London. Got a tube from Holland Park to Dickens & Jones where I got the mot gorgeous little turquoise scarf with tiny pink flowers for Lucy - 4/6! I adore looking at things in London shops, especially Liberty's where we bought scarves for Erna and Ernst. Awful lot of snazzies in Liberty's. I wish I dared ask Mummy if she thinks Dutronc will be there this year. If he isn't, I shall probably spend most of the holiday crying.
Had lunch at the Danish. Went to Lillywhites where Chump got skis and boots. Honestly, the French chap who fitted her with boots - he could hardly say a word without me squeaking. His accent - it was almost identical to Polnareff's. The five minutes it lasted were bliss.
When we were in there, Chump suddenly pointed to these four chaps getting out of a taxi outside and said, "there's Stuart Henry!!" (the DJ that's sometimes on T.O.T.P. - rather fab). I thought he was a girl with mauve trousers and long hair - I didn't see his moustache! Then went to Carnaby Street to show Ma 'Kids Gear'. There are so many fab-looking boys in London; that's the main reason why I love going there. Once we were walking along and I had my head turned to look at this extraordinary chap crossing the road when I practically bumped into two chaps coming towards me... it was so funny - as we nearly bumped, one said, "peep, peep".
This half term's been lovely. There's been a fab boy to think about every single day. Boys, boys, boys - oh well, I see so little of them. The boys I meet normally could only be classed as weeds.
Wednesday, 21 Feb
Anya had some fab news: what should Rosko play on Midday Spin but L'Amour Avec Toi!!! He said he'd had a lot of requests for it. Anya's having ghastly domestic problems with their mother away in Denmark - she bought far too much rhubarb and now they've got to have rhubarb crumble for the next two weeks! Tig had a fab time at Nottingham University with her sister.
Had smallpox injection for the cruise. Didn't even feel it.
I think Anya must be going off Martha. Us lot are having lunch in the Unit with four others so we needed one more to make eight. Who should offer but Anya. Martha looked terribly put out, and wants to sneak in as a ninth.
Honestly, it's so rotten. All those people who were going to go to Yugoslavia can't go - the trip's been cancelled. Judith B had been working for months to pay for it.
Thursday, 22 Feb
In Music Appreciation I shut my eyes and thought about Dutronc. I remember on April 4th, before he started talking to me, he showed his mother a joke from one of the magazines he was reading and laughed. Why I didn't fully appreciate him then I can't think. I shall be in 7th heaven if he's there, but it's so unlikely he will. If he's there at all I should think they'll stay for Easter and go on the Monday. More likely, they'll think Easter is too late and won't bother to come at Easter at all.
Had lunch in the Unit first time ever - with Tig, Lucy, and later, Anya. Martha inevitably tagged along, when she'd had her lunch. If she wasn't interested in boys I'd class her as a mild homosexual.
Anya's staying the night at Martha's so she'll miss Polnareff on France Inter. When you think of it, what a childish thing to do. It's only first and second formers who stay the night with their friends; oh it does annoy me the way she's so indulgent with Martha. Anyway, from 8.20 until 10 I heard Pol talking to Claude Chebel from his own house! They played chess while they talked! I'm thrilled, I understood every word. It's a new house, in Neuilly, and it sounds fantastic, with tons of rooms including one that's a recording studio. He was pleased about the Raymond Lefevre success in England and he'd love it if 'Poupée Qui Fait Non' got into the Hit Parade in America. He works like an absolute black, going to bed at 4 in the morning and sleeping 5 or 6 hours. I honestly prefer his music to the Beatles. He experiments equally adventurously; I'm sure it's just as original.
I've got to see him soon or I shall burst.
Friday, 23 Feb
Wore beige skirt, green jumper, boots, and bunches. At 9.25 we got the 418 for Ashtead.
We walked to the City of Freeman School. It was freezing, practically snowing. The school has fantastic grounds and it is itself rather nice, though there's no Sixth Form Unit of course. Went up to the girls' cloakroom and did our hair, then went into the lecture hall. There were about 150 people altogether, from about seven different schools. The speaker was Reverend Jenkins, a very good speaker but rather too sure that what he said was right, even though he said you should always ask, why, why, why. Although it was a Student Christian Movement conference it wasn't very religious at all. "When did the ape become man?" he asked. "When the ape not only stole his neighbours' nuts but enjoyed stealing them!"
City of London Freeman's School, Ashtead
Then we had a half hour break in which we just loafed around and chatted about what he'd been saying (what had he been saying?!). Looked at the school photographs on the wall - agreed that people have got a lot better looking in the last 20 years. Then we had to split into groups of ten. Luckily Pam, Pat and Lucy were with me. The discussion turned out to be terrific: our leader was this boy called Gavin and he was fantastic. Actually, the whole conversation was really between him and me! Only me and two boys said we didn't believe in god. What Gavin thought was the strongest reason for believing in god was that humans have a natural worship instinct. I think this is very interesting. Really we were trying to find out why life has meaning for us, if it has any at all. Pam insists you have to believe in something. I said, for me, it was happiness. We ended up deciding pessimistically that perhaps life was meaningless after all.
Then we went over to their Cookery Room, which was in a stable yard, and had some tea to drink. Chatted with Gavin and two other boys. One was quite a snazz, in fact, they all were. They go to St John's in Leatherhead. Gavin said they'd heard a lot about the Sixth Form Unit (their master raves over it!). Then we went up to do our hair. Tig and some others said this boy with glasses had just come up to them and said, "hello, I'm doing French, English etc etc, what are you doing?" I felt sorry for him, he must have been dreadfully lonely. We went downstairs and sure enough, there he was. So we all started chatting. He said he was at Epsom College so I said, "oh!" (because of Mark). "D'you know anybody from there?" he said. So I told him. "Mark Goldman," he said, "he was one of my best friends"!!! All I could think about was what funny friends Mark used to have. Apparently Mark's going to leave Ewell Tech and perhaps go to Australia to work for Mary Quant. Sounds like a crummy idea to me.
For the second lecture we sat in the row in front of Gavin and a lot of snazzies. This time it was more religious, but I was so terribly restless I couldn't take a word in. At the end Mark's friend came up to me and wistfully said, "goodbye". Crowds of us walked to the bus stop.
I'm so glad I went today.
Saturday, 24 Feb
Spent the morning reading Vogue and being lazy. Homework for the rest of the day.
At 9pm the moment arrived - the European Pop Jury on Radio One!!! Oh dear, what a flop. I should have foreseen it. Polnareff's 'Le Bal des Laze' for example - Britain gave it 20 points out of 100, while 'Judy in Disguise' got 99. It makes me sick. I'd rather not have a contest at all than an unfair one. Out of the twelve records played, six were established hits. Needless to say, these six got the top scores. I got so cross about the whole thing that I wrote to the Radio Times, begging them to do something about French pop.
One good thing: 'Ame Caline' has got into the American Hit Parade!!!
Sunday, 25 Feb
Glorious weather all day.
Spent the morning reading Katherine Whitehorn on the ghastly conditions of young children in this country, and a book of essays by J B Priestly.
This sounds awful, but reading about people "lying" with people in 'Othello' and 'A Winter's Tale' makes me wish I had someone I could sleep with. A natural feeling I suppose, for a girl of 17.
Changed into my pink crepe dress and at 7.30 the Bondis, Mr Batchelor and June Fox-Scott arrived. (June was a substitute for Mrs B who had a cold!) Mr Bondi is such a typical professor and so very Austrian-Jewish! Mrs Bondi's very sweet. We talked about skiing and universities and after dinner had a very interesting and intellectual discussion on art and science. Mr Batchelor doesn't think there's nearly enough publicity for architects - I so agree. You're not allowed to advertise, your name is never put up outside a building you've designed, and if you've won an architectural award no-one knows about it. It is extraordinarily unfair - architects are so important.Their job isn't primarily to design attractive buildings, it's to design buildings that work.
It's very interesting to compare this with the Greeks' idea of beauty of the body. Beauty was only complete to them when the body functioned well.
