Can you remember 1983?
It was the year when the first compact discs, remember them, went on sale in the United Kingdom, a year when Margret Thatcher won the election again and Manchester United won the FA Cup. It was also the year when it became legal to wheel clamp illegally parked cars.
But to me, 1983 was far more important than any of those things, as it was the year that I realised I needed to face my future and start to grow up—to become the man I am today.
My story or more correctly, our story starts with a visit to my local beach on the south coast of England in late July 1983… The visit had been sparked by realisation, grief and some emotion… emotions which I was still trying to understand, but first let me introduce myself.
I am David, eighteen with my nineteenth birthday fast approaching in mid-September.
In appearance, I have been told by girls that I am quite attractive, in a handsome sort of way… Yes maybe even arrogant, though I did not quite see it myself!
It was true that when I tried, which was not that often, I never had any issue with attracting the attention of good-looking ladies but looking to attract girls was not really me… I simply didn’t understand them. I was happily playing sports, and being single but recent events made me reconsider… and try to set some goals in life.
I am six foot one inch tall with quite an athletic build due to all the sports I play. I have green eyes, high cheekbones and slight dimples… dark brown hair which I kept fairly short with a fringe and a parting on the left-hand side.
Currently, I am living at my parent’s house and studying engineering whilst completing an apprenticeship at a large local company.
I had just come back from a Mediterranean “lads” holiday with my then two best friends, Mark and Tony, where we had a terrific time and got up to all sorts of mischief which included me meeting an eighteen-year-old ginger-haired girl called Kirsty. I had taken her virginity and then semi-fell in love with her as we fucked and then made love for the whole week.
Holiday love, the lads called it when they teased me, but it was new for me, after loving and leaving; my internal feelings, my emotions, just seemed to be all over the place.
That coupled with the fact that I had learned shortly after my return that one of my old school friends, Michael, had been killed in a motorbike accident. It had sort of shocked me—life was precious. It started me thinking about my life, my future and where I wanted it to go.
To get some time to reflect in peace I took the fifteen-minute walk from my parent’s house down to the local beach. I just sat there on a bench seat that overlooked the calm sea with the sandy beach slightly below me.
A family sat there, the blonde mother reading a book while the father and two young boys were building an enormous sandcastle. Just in front of them, a slightly older fair-haired girl was paddling at the edge of the sea. I wondered if she was part of the same family group. It was not so clear.
I sat there, taking in the sea air and began thinking, reflecting, and even assessing what I wanted in life—my goals. It is at this point that this story, our story, really begins.
I notice a young tall girl just to my left who was leaning over the railings that define the rear of the beach to the footpath and the bench where I was currently sitting.
She seemed to be doing the same thing as me, looking out to sea and reflecting, though she also wore a slight grin as her yellow crop top blew in the gentle breeze. On an older woman, you would say she was dressed provocatively in her tight white shorts.
I just could not help but stare at her as she had that essence of future beauty about her… even though she was probably only in her mid-teens. There was something about her that just caught my eye. It was her hair, cut in a long bob but it was not the style that caught my eye, it was its unique natural colour.
At first, I thought it was golden brown but there was also a lot of flaming red, and then I saw the blonde streaks peeping through the curtain of red and brown hair. It was mesmerising as it fluttered in the wind. I had never seen natural colours like it before, or for that matter since.
She looked around. I got caught staring, though she grinned.
“Sorry,” I embarrassingly said.
“It’s your hair. It’s got so many different colours in it,” I then innocently remarked.
Her cheeky grin turned into a smile. I had the feeling that she had been flirting with me, though I wasn’t sure. She was still young, but maybe not so innocent.
“It’s my Celtic ancestry,” she replied, then shrugged and looked down at the young family below.
“You can see my dad is dark-haired, in general, his side of my family has ginger or reddish-brown hair and on my mum’s side, they are mainly all blondes. I seem to have a bit of both though my sister and brothers are all fair-headed.”
The girl stood up and as she did so, she let the sea breeze catch her top. I was rewarded with a brief glimpse of her bikini top. We both knew it had been a deliberate act and we grinned; it was our little secret.
“I saw you sitting here, you looked troubled,” she remarked as she sat next to me and as she did so our eyes met, hers, a creamy chocolate brown, and once again I was aware of just how beautiful this girl would be in just a few years time.
“How old are you?” I asked though I knew I shouldn’t.
She may have been only a few years younger than me but I had the feeling she wanted to grow up fast, especially when she then glanced back down at her family.
Her eyes returned to me. Her cheeky grin briefly reappeared.
“Does it matter?” She was definitely flirting with me and then she smiled.
My original question was now only in the wind.
“You look like you have plenty on your mind,” she said.
I had, but, this girl… there was something about her.
My problems?
Well, they could wait and perhaps they would just disappear. I just giddily smiled at her, I did not know why, which caused the girl’s cheeky grin to reappear. It spurred me to answer the girl’s statement.
“Yes you could say that but I think it is “mostly” all good. I am just thinking things through and assessing as there are a few things I need to sort out in my life; I am starting to think about my future.”
I was not sure why I was sharing this information. She was too young for me to be sexually attracted to her but there was something about her… Though we had only just met I just wanted to talk to her. Open up and share my diminishing life concerns. It felt like there was an unseen bond between us.
A connection?
“Me too,” she said without much feeling, her cheeky grin temporarily gone.
“Are you down here on holiday?” I asked as I lived in a popular holiday seaside town.
“Sort off, we also visiting family as well. They live in the ‘large city’ which is around thirty-five miles from here.”
We then spent the next five minutes talking and I explained to her where I lived and what I did for a living and perhaps more importantly, why I was sitting there contemplating my future and where I hoped my life was going.
When I had finished the young girl smiled before saying once again… “Me too.” Before adding, “We seem to be in similar situations.”
That comment made me listen and also smile just a little. Surely she did not have too many issues at her age. She seemed to have a loving family, now below us and there to support her; I wanted to know more.
“My father is in the army and he’s been posted abroad for the next three months but this will be the last time, as he going to leave. After that, we will only have to move once as a family and then never again. So it is only once more, a new home, a new school and I have to make new friends. It is something we have done so many times in the past…” She let her words trail off as it seemed her mind had gone back to her past… another time… maybe an unhappy time.
She then added, “It will be good to settle down permanently in one place as I have never done that before.”
“Where do you currently live?” I asked.
“Yorkshire.”
That was an English county which was many miles north of our current location on the south coast of England.
“Do you know where you moving to?” I asked as I was genuinely interested.
“Not yet,” she replied and then added. “I hope it’s somewhere down here but the property prices are so high.”
This I knew was true as it was very difficult for local youngsters, like me, to afford anything. Normally they had to move away to settle down or rent. It was something that I had looked at doing but it was too early for me. I just did not have the income.
We talked a little more but I could see her family looking around for her. She also noticed, and she waved at them.
“I better go,” she said and with that, she started to head for the beach below but then stopped and turned around and with that cheeky grin, asked…
“What is your name?”
“David and yours?”
“Clare.”
With a final smile and a slight wiggle, she turned again and headed back down towards her waiting family below. As she walked away I could not but notice her hair again, a beacon of fun, and then I looked lower, at her very long and shapely legs.
They were visions I carried on taking as she walked away and all I could think of was…
That, in a few years… Clare was going to be an extremely beautiful woman.
But… there was something I did not know then and that was…
I had just met someone, who one day in the future would become so very special to me.
