Heart And Soul, I Fell In Love With You.

Heart And Soul, I Fell In Love With You.

Some people you meet, never remembering the precise moment. Sometimes not even the face to the name. A few, you may recall the moment like it was just yesterday. There have been only three such moments for me.

A Friday afternoon in November 1973 was one.

Over the ensuing fifty years I got to know this person almost better than I know myself.

Born 2nd August 1937, Angela was younger sister to Roger and by the age of three, at boarding school in Evesham.  Not sure how well that would go down today but I can imagine her being dumped there with her little suitcase, wondering what she'd done to deserve this.

I guess it has had the biggest influence on her life. She tells me how the older girls would sit her on their knees and make a fuss and how painfully shy she was. Crying when she had to do something unfamiliar.

How she later organised the school pantomime and plays, being by now the eldest. How she and the girls would go to church on Sundays to tease the choirboys.

One thing became clear early on when we met - she sought out security.

In her teens, she spent holiday times with her grandparents, Aunts and Nephews. Her grandmother was a real family person and apparently a great cook. Her grandfather owned a well-known leather goods manufacturer in Birmingham and was a bit of a gentle tease. Angela would take herself off to the leather factory, knowing that whenever she turned up, she would be given a leather purse or similar. To this day, she loves the feel and smell of quality leather.  Handbags, purses, diaries, you name it.

Her parents moved to Stratford on Avon and when visiting,  it was there that Angela's entrepreneurial streak surfaced.

They have tourist river-boats on the river Avon and she had befriended the skipper. Turns out she bought a packet of sweets and used to go along the boat selling individual sweets to the tourists. Few could resist the charming pitch. Until one day, Roger, her spoilsport elder brother found out and dragged her off the boat in disgrace.

So I guess a career in entrepreneurship or theatre production seemed likely based on talent.

The security came in the form of a secretarial career - every business needs a good secretary and Angela was one of the very best. Still living, in her teens, with her grandparents, she went off to secretarial college, having fibbed about her age to gain admission

She worked for local Council dignitaries and a local M.P who owned a firm of solicitors. So established later was she that when she handed in her notice  telling them she couldn't come in at 9.00am ,they said to come in whatever time you like.

The only form of "escape" from this life seemed to be marriage and Angela married a forceful Kiwi,  a small property developer who owned a saddlery manufacturer in Walsall. She felt he seemed ambitious and she was a good judge. When we met, they had the idyllic black & white thatched country cottage, a Rolls & a classic Bentley, racehorse and holidays every winter in Florida.

She had found security and he had moulded an extremely shy young woman into the perfect suburban wife. Dashing here, there and everywhere to do things for other people, entertaining, becoming a mother; little time for herself. Even a part-time job as secretary to THE Secretary of a posh Birmingham golf club. Along with picking her daughter up from school, a 20 mile journey every day, she was zig-zagging across Birmingham shopping for the best food from each shop.

Miss Whizzy, I nicknamed her when we first met.

"You'll never get me playing that game" was her stock response to the many committee members at the golf club who suggested she take up golf.

Until that Friday morning in November.

Verbal abuse, whether well-intentioned or not, chips away at the confidence of anyone, especially the vulnerable. It's OK to "toughen-up" someone but encouragement is probably best to maintain harmony.

Fresh air and exercise was the thinking behind the phone call. Angela had tried Yoga and ice-skating. It was golf's turn.

"I'm coming anyway."

Not the usual response I expect when I tell someone that I will check my diary before making a booking for a golf lesson.

Angela was determined.

That afternoon, 2pm, it would be then.

"I was standing, you were there. Two worlds collided. And they can never tear us apart."  InXs

Naturally talented at golf, despite the idiot pro not asking whether she was right or left handed, I taught Angela to play right-handed. Turns out she was left-handed. Kept that secret for a while.

Her innocent enthusiasm, not just for the game, but for everything she took part in, was a breath of fresh air in my staid world.

She later told me that she was determined to make me smile. Few had so far been able.  And that at my  6'5", she thought there wasn't any likelihood of romance with that 5'3" bundle of nervous energy.  I guess she had got used to all the flirtatious advances from her many admirers but like me, she wasn't looking for romance.

There was a 14 year age gap but I was 21 going on 51 and Angela was 36 going on 16.

A smile that lights up the room to this day and a gentle nature hit the spot.

Perhaps it was plain for everyone else  to see.

The steward of the golf club was a very likable but inveterate drunk and the two of us would pass the hours away chatting about the members.

"I think you will hang you hat there." he told me after Angela had only had a couple of lessons. Never met her but perhaps, for dear Ben,  fortune-telling would have been a better vocation.

Getting to know each other, Angela offered to caddy for me in a local golf competition.

It snowed and the tournament was called off.

"Let's go and get snowed in instead, in the countryside." she suggested.

Did I just say she was shy?

I know she really just wanted to hang out and spend time together and so did I.

So we did - drove thirty miles to Eckington, just outside Evesham, and chatted.

Had our first awkward kiss. I don't think I did it right! But, for the most part, we became inseparable.

All our friends just seemed to accept that we were not together but made for each other

I had a few career breaks, as they call them, but we met and talked almost every day.

When she told me she wouldn't leave until her daughter left home, I knew I was in for the long-haul.

And that she would like to move to London, away from the familiarity of the gossipy Midlands.

Seven years later, Tracie left for Lucie Clayton College in London and a few months later, I got a poorly paid job in fashionable Belsize Park with a rent-free 2 bedroom duplex thrown in.

Friday 16th January 1981, Angela took the biggest risk of her life. Giving up security and comfort for love and the unknown.

She moved in with me. So unprepared was I that we had only one pillow to sleep on our first night.

I'd never lived with anyone before apart from parents so it was a steep learning curve. We got through it.

Angela got a job as secretary at Imperial College working for one of the directors and we so loved the daily drive from Belsize Park through Hyde Park, over the Serpentine, to South Kensington.

Pretty soon, she found another job as P.A to the Managing Director of NEC Computers in Oval Road, Camden. A five minute drive from home and now we were passing Primrose Hill and Regents Park daily. In hindsight, London is our spiritual home.

We stayed a few years in Belsize before buying a flat overlooking the Long Walk in Windsor and when I applied for, was offered and foolishly accepted a job as International Sales Manager back in Birmingham, Angela very reluctantly moved back. I don't think I've ever truly been forgiven.

We went all over the world together and on Friday 8th April 1994 we married in Charleston, South Carolina.  Just the two of us and the vicar.

"Take care of each other." were his final words to us.

So we have.

There just seems to be something about Friday. We met on a Friday. We got married on a Friday. We moved in together on a Friday.

I've got Friday on my mind.

I am truly blessed to have met someone so made for me in every way. A combination of wild-child and innocence. Someone to love and protect. Someone that in fifty years of knowing her, I have not once seen cry a tear.  Me, I'm in floods, so often it's embarrassing.

I guess boarding school moulds you that way. Protect your real emotions from the outside world, be independent and seek security and comfort where you find it.

I have learnt from Angela that kindness is far preferable to ambition and self-centredness. That doing the right thing matters more than doing it right. That giving without seeking anything in return is how we grow. Mainly, though, the meaning of unconditional love. There's nothing, not a single thing, that would ever stop me loving her.

Angela and I have often talked about spirituality and frequently she has said " I love you - I would like to do it all over again."

Me, too, sweetheart.

It will be even better the next time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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