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West Cornwall Travelog - another good place to eat in Penzance is the 'Turk's Head' in Chapel Street. It does tasty pub food and has good vegetarian options. Get there early though as it gets very busy.

Another good place is the vegetarian restaurant 'Archie Brown's' but I've talked about that before.

Just writing about these places is making me hungry.

'Too much, too young'

1992 - cancer made her ex-husband relent. A little.

He decided that he would not prevent her seeing her boys on a Sunday. Although only the older one, Jack, wanted to see her.

12 years had passed since Jack had been born in the middle of my 'A' levels, back in the days when Elaine and I were just 18.

With her head wrapped in a scarf to hide her bald head she would take him out for Sunday lunch. It was strange for both of them to be together again but they persevered.

Progress between mother and son was being made.

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West Cornwall Travelog - Penzance takes a bit of getting to know.

It took us a while but now we really like it. It has character and practicality. It has lovely views of Mount's Bay. It has shops and it has art galleries. It has a prom and off that prom is a 1920s/30s open-air lido.

It has some good restaurants and pubs. 'Ginos' is one of my favourites. It is an italian restaurant on the front, across the road from the prom. The food is traditional trattoria and I love the pasta.

Try it.

'Too much, too young'

1992 - so started the long journey to trying to get better. A long journey of chemotherapy and hair falling out and progress and delays.

Elaine had great faith in the specialist cancer doctors. Such was her faith she even signed up for a few experimental treatments which she felt may help her and help others. She was resilient and brave but she must have had her dark times.

She hid them well.

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West Cornwall Travelog - the walk from Mousehole to Newlyn along the coast road must be one of the most beautiful walks in the country, maybe even in the world. Especially on a sunny day.

The road winds its way alongside Mount's Bay with St Michael's Mount as its focal point. The view is stunning.

Once in Newlyn the industry of the busy fishing port takes over. There is a good gift and coffee shop, 'Dukes' I think its called, where you can stop and have much needed refreshment. Then, if you feel like walking further, join the Promenade and walk on to Penzance - and continue to lap up the view.

You'll be knackered by the end of all this so catch the bus back to Mousehole - and catch the vews again from the bus window.

'Too much, too young''

1992 - I'm surprised that I don't remember when she told me. But I don't. Maybe it is human nature to forget the minutiae of bad news. Maybe that is it.

But sometime in 1992 the 2% tumour decided to grow and to grow cancerous.

They couldn't operate this time.

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West Cornwall Travelog - back to our Mousehole basecamp. We have stayed in many cottages in Mousehole, through a variety of holiday letting agents. The cottages often seem to change hands and sometimes change letting agents. Often when we have tried to book a favourite holiday cottage again we have found that it was not in the holiday brochure for the next year. Which is a shame but then again it forces you to try different cottages which may then turn out to be new favourites.

So look around the village and see what is available. Or 'google' 'holiday cottages in Mousehole' and see what you get.

'Too much, too young'

1992 - so Elaine would turn up at their old house on the days and times set by the court and her ex-husband still would not let her see her children.

He'd be out. Or he'd just not let her in. He did whatever he wanted to keep her away.

Even though they were divorced he was still playing the same old game. He did it all to try and get Elaine to come back to him. He still wanted her back and he thought that by keeping the children from her she would come back to him.

So Elaine had to consider taking him back to court. She wasn't sure how effective it would be. She needed good legal advice. She needed to summon her energy for another long legal fight.

But she needed her energy elsewhere.

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West Cornwall Travelog - there are lots of interesting art galleries in St Ives. There are booklets about them, showing their locations amongst the winding streets.

So don't stop at just the 'Tate'. There are so many more galleries to see.

'Too much, too young'

1991-1992 - so life carried on. Me in the Midlands. Elaine well and back at work.

She kept fighting for her divorce and for the right to see her children. She knew her husband was on the brink of getting into real trouble with the courts now - he may even go to jail for ignoring all the court papers and court officialdom. She felt he might be in the mood to compromise so she decided not to fight for custody, just to ask the court to grant her regular access to her children.

As a tactic it worked. After all that time the divorce was granted and the court set out a regular access schedule for Elaine to see her children.

Her husband, her ex-husband, never complied with it.

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West Cornwall Travelog - the one thing you shouldn't do in St Ives is eat anything on the street, or on the beach, or anywhere in the open. The seagulls will swoop down and steal it from you.

Of course, they do this in other places too. But for some reason they seem to be really bad in St Ives, real chancers. Once I saw a gull swoop down and grab a whole pasty from the hand of a man who was just about to put the pasty in his mouth. He was sitting on the harbour edge and the surprise of the attack nearly toppled him into the sea.

So eat indoors.

'Too much, too young'

1991 - I went back to the Midlands, happy that my friend had survived such a traumatic experience.

I kept in touch and when we spoke she told that her husband had not changed. Even though he knew she had nearly died he didn't relent. He still ignored the court papers; still refused to let her see her children.

He told Elaine he'd been right to tell the children she was mad - after all the tumour was the physical evidence of her madness wasn't it? He told their children that - the tumour had made their mother mad.

I wonder how he reconciled this view with the fact that she didn't come back to him after the tumour had been taken away. For surely, under his logic, she could not be mad anymore.

He was a strange guy.

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West Cornwall Travelog - St Ives has at least three beautiful beaches. Porthmeor by the Tate, full of surfers. Porthminster, round the other side, glistening in the bright sunlight. Small and pretty Porthgwidden, with a place to buy pasties and coffee.

All three beaches are sandy, happy places. Try them all.

'Too much, too young'

1991 - it took me a while to find the house. It was strange to be back in North London, in an area very near to our old school, on a day when I should have been at work up in the Midlands.

I found it eventually and Paul's mum let me in. Elaine was there with bandages on her head and a smile on her face. She looked very pale but her eyes were vivid.

She told me she was fine, the hospital were pleased with her, she was happy the operation was all over. Everything had happened so quickly - the diagnosis of the tumour, admission to hospital, the operation.

She had been worried the operation would change her personality - the doctors said it might. But she still felt the same.

I didn't want to stay too long. I didn't want to tire her out.

Before I left I remember her telling me that the doctors could not cut out 2% of the tumour - it would have been too dangerous to do so, it was too caught up in her brain. But they told her not to worry about it, 2% shouldn't cause her any harm.

They were wrong.

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West Cornwall Travelog- I use to work behind 'John Lewis' which is in Oxford Street. Above the main entrance of 'John Lewis' is an unusual sculpture. It catches the eye, it is unique. It is also a Barbara Hepworth.

That's one of the many things I learnt about her work at her museum in St Ives. Visit it.

'Too much, too young'

1991 - sitting on the settee in a state of shock it took me a while to realize that the letter was over a week old. Although Elaine had written it as she was waiting for her operation presumably whoever had taken it off her to post had, understandably with all that was going on, forgotten to post it for a while.

So the operation was over.

Reading the letter in more detail she said that after the operation she was going to stay with Paul's mum in North London as the hospital said she'd need constant supervision for a couple of weeks. She put the phone number in the letter.

Nervously I rang it. Elaine was there. I spoke to her. I was so relieved to hear her voice.

She said she was ok, the operation had gone well. I said I'd catch the train down to London and come and see her straight away. I rang work - they were understanding.

I was so happy that my friend, my oldest friend, was not dead.

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West Cornwall Travelog - Let's stay in St Ives. There is a lot to see.

Follow the tourist signs to the 'Barbara Hepworth Museum' which is set in her old home/studio/gardens. If you don't follow the signs you are unlikely to find it. Apparently Barbara Hepworth herself walked passed the gardens many times before realizing there was a house there. After she did discover it she created her studio there. In her studio she made her marvellous sculptures which are now displayed in the gardens for all to see and touch. It really is a fabulous place.

'Too much, too young'

1991 - it was summer I think. It was definitely a hot day.

I was just about to go to work. The post arrived. Excited about receiving a hand written envelope instead of a bill, I decided to quickly read the letter before I left for work.

I gave out a whining low scream when I read it. It was from Elaine. It was unbelievable.

She was writing from her hospital bed. Doctors had discovered that her headaches weren't being caused by contraception or stress or any other easy explanation. They were being caused by a ruddy great tumour in her brain that had to be cut out straight away. As she was writing to me she was waiting for the operation. She was scared. She told me she didn't want to die.

She wasn't even 30.

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West Cornwall Travelog - there use to be a lovely veggie cafe in St Ives. It's gone now. Later there was a nice veggie restaurant near to St Ives in Cripplesease. It's gone now too. As a veggie of over 20 years standing I know that veggie cafes come and go at great speed.

I understand there is a new one now just outside the main part of St Ives called 'The Bean Inn'. I hope it's good. I hope it lasts. I hope to try it soon.

'Too much, too young'

1990-91 - during all the difficulties concerning her divorce Elaine and Paul's relationship continued to strengthen. They were happy in their little house in Hertfordshire. Both worked full-time and enjoyed their jobs. They had a lot of friends. They were happy to be together.

Of course some days were hard. Like Sundays. Elaine found those very hard as that was the day Paul spent with his children. She didn't resent him seeing them, she was very of them, after all she'd known the older ones since the days when they were all 14 floors up in that tower block. It just reinforced the absurdity of her situation. Here was Paul's wife, understandably bitter and thoroughly fed up that her husband had run off with another woman and left her with 4 children to look after, still able to be civilized enough to let her husband have access to his children. Unlike Elaine's husband. He would not let her see her children at any time.

Industrious as ever, however, she started her own sideline in various crafts and attended 'Craft Fairs' on Sundays to ply her goods. She did pretty well and it took her mind of things.

She still had a lot of headaches though. The doctors put these down to stress. The stress of not seeing her children, the stress of her husband's games over the divorce procedure. She assumed they were right.

They weren't.

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West Cornwall Travelog - the light in St Ives is crystal clear and white. It is beautiful.

Transfixed by this light artists upped sticks to move there; they were inspired by its brightness. The artistic community became so established eventually a branch of the 'Tate' was opened in St Ives to honour them. Visit it.

'Too much, too young'

1990-91 - as I was living full-time in the Midlands I didn't see Elaine very often. We kept in contact though and she'd tell be about the latest in her efforts to divorce her husband.

He wasn't having any of it. He didn't instruct a solicitor, he ignored legal papers or sent them back, when court officials came to serve papers he wouldn't let them in.

The months rolled on and her husband still refused to let her see her boys. He also wouldn't let any one from her side of the family see them - so their maternal grandparents and aunty and cousins who they had seen regularly before Elaine left were also not allowed near them.

His bitterness towards Elaine was unrelenting. But at the end of the day it was all a game - he made it clear that what he wanted was for her to come back. Everything he did was to that end. To make her go back to him.

Not that she ever would.

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West Cornwall Travelog - Sennen Cove is a beautiful place. Stand by the railings and look out over the bay at the surf and the surfers. Do some craft/art/gift shopping in 'The Round House'. Have a cup of coffee on the balcony at the sparkly restaurant overlooking the beach. Soak it all up.

'Too much, too young'

1989 onwards - Elaine's husband reacted very badly to her leaving. Very, very, very badly.

Maybe it was the shock, maybe it was hurt pride, maybe he loved her. I don't know. But he fought her all the way.

He would concede nothing. He would not let the boys live with her. He wouldn't even let her see them. Not at all.

She later found out that he had told them that she had gone mad which upset her very much. But what upset her more was finding out that he had told them that, as long as they didn't go and live with her and Paul, that she would come back.

She knew she had to make them try and understand that she wasn't coming back. So she decided to start divorce proceedings so they'd know she was serious - and so they'd know, whatever their father was telling them, that she was not ever going to live back with him.

She also thought that starting a divorce would allow the courts to decide who should have custody of the children and what the access arrangements would be.

Her husband, however, did not intend to let Elaine divorce him.

The fight was on.

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West Cornwall Travelog - the guidebooks suggest you stop off in Zennor on your drive down the B3306. This is a good idea. It has a cafe and a pub for refreshments. It has a church with a famous mermaid carved into one of the bench ends. It has a higgeldy-piggeldy museum that you can spend hours in. So, if you can bear to tear yourself away from beauty of the drive, Zennor is definitely worth a look.

'Too much, too young'

Christmas 1989 - so we met in a pub in Hertfordshire. Me, Elaine and Paul. It struck me again how well they went together, how in tune they were. No longer just friends but lovers. Lovers who had left 6 children behind to be together. Not that it was meant to happen that way.

I can't remember all the details now but sometime after that party their relationship moved from friendship to love. And as it was love, furtive meetings had not been enough for either of them. They wanted to be together, to have a life together. They couldn't go on living a lie.

Initially they had rented a house in Hertfordshire so they could meet up and spend time together. Elaine said it became her 'bolthole', away from the worries and responsibilities of her life, a time to be with Paul. But things had progressed rapidly between them and they decided to end their marriages and move in together. They bought a small house and made a home for themselves and a future home for Elaine's boys. They knew Paul's children would stay with his wife. Until they left, their partners had no idea what was going on.

Nor did Elaine's children. She begged them to come with her. She told them she'd made a home for them. That everything would be alright. But they wouldn't come. The 9 year old and 7 year old would not be moved.

Later on, she thought that perhaps they thought she would stay if they refused to go with her. Later on, she also thought that she should have just taken them to her new house and argued with them later. Later on, she thought a lot things.

But on the day she left, when they wouldn't go with her, she went anyway. She thought she could get them to join her later.

She was wrong.

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West Cornwall Travelog - It's best to start your car ride from the St Ives end of the B3306. I don't know why but that way seems more beautiful as you wend your way down and around the curving road with the Atlantic majestic on your right and the green scarred hills looming up on your left.

On a clear sunny day the drive is simply stunning. Follow it.

'Too much, too young'

1989 - in the summer of 1989 I moved away from North London to the Midlands. It was cold there but I had a good job and life was full. I was very slack about giving people my new address and I lost contact with Elaine for a few months. But as the time came to send out my Christmas cards I started to write out her card, as usual.

Then I stopped. I was overwhelmed by a feeling that Elaine wasn't at her house anymore. I don't know why; it was not rational. Just instinct. But I knew she wasn't there. I'd just have to wait until I'd heard from her. She knew mum and dad's address, she could contact me there.

A few days before Christmas I went back home to stay with mum and dad for the holidays. There was a card waiting for me, from Elaine. She told me she'd left her husband some months before and she was now living in Hertfordshire. She asked me to meet her in a pub near her house so we could have a chat.

She said she'd bring Paul.

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West Cornwall Travelog - in Australia you can take a wonderful drive along the 'Great Ocean Road'. It is magical with its brilliant sea views, fabulous rock features (the 12 Apostles?). But you don't have go that far. West Cornwall has its own 'Great Ocean Road'. The B3306. Let's drive.

'Too much, too young'

1980s - and so she carried on through the years; sex and men and marriage and family.

Not so many men when she returned to work when the kids went to school but she did manage to juggle it all somehow as she needed the excitement it gave her. I noticed over our lemon chicken and white wine that she was getting very fed up with her husband. She felt she was his skivvy. But she didn't moan about it, she just got on with enjoying her very full life.

She was getting fed up with the headaches though. She had been to the doctor about them a few times. The doctor said it must be the pill that was causing them so she came off it and regaled me with funny stories about her trials and tribulations with the coil and the cap.

The 1980s rolled on. Our lives were busy and we didn't see each other so often. But we kept in touch. It was always good to meet up and talk . She was my oldest friend, my link with being 16. She was in touch with other old school friends and she always had gossip to tell me about them. I looked forward to seeing her.

I didn't often meet her at her house anymore though. Maybe Elaine was worried that her husband would try to question me about our nights out - the nights when in reality she was with another man. Maybe.

I don't remember if it was 87 or 88. Elaine invited me to a party she was having with her friend. I was a bit worried that Elaine would be busy being the hostess and I'd get stuck talking to her husband - he'd be the only person I'd know. I had nothing to say to him.

I needn't of worried. Elaine introduced me to a really nice guy. Friendly and intelligent, older than me, not sure by how much. We had a really great chat. Elaine joined us at one point and I noticed that they got on really well. They were so similar - friendly, intelligent, in tune with each other. I wondered if he was one of her men. But he wasn't.

His name was Paul and Elaine and her husband had met him and his wife when they were neighbours 14 floors up in that old tower block. So they'd all been friends for quite a while - and that's what they were still, friends.

Paul and his wife had 4 young children. He'd married young.

Just like Elaine.

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West Cornwall Travelog - the nicest way to get to Land's End is to park up in the little harbour car park at Sennen Cove and put your walking boots on. Then hike up the hill and follow the well-worn path over the cliffs to the 'last house'. It is a beautiful walk with stunning views from the cliffs. It's only a couple of miles.

Once when we walked it a large black shaggy dog appeared from across a field and started to walk with us. Every time we stopped to look at the view it would stop too. Other dog walkers thought he was ours and stopped to chat to us as fellow dog-owners. It was funny and strange.

We left him at the 'last house' drinking some water from a dog bowl which the shop had put out for thirsty mutts.

'Too much, too young'

1980s - it was sex.

With different guys. Lots and lots of sex.

I remember her telling me that she didn't actually get much out of the sex itself - it was furtive, it was quick. But she did love the adventure of it, the break from her routine, the attention she got from men as they chased her around. She felt attractive and wanted and she wanted more.

The husband had no idea what was going on. Probably because she was still having sex with him too. His life hadn't changed. He had a wife who looked after him and had sex with him and who looked after their children. What's to notice?

Most of the assignations happened during the day time - a lot of the guys seemed to be self-employed so they could take time off to meet up with Elaine to have sex. Ocassionally she'd see one of them in the evening. She would tell the husband she was out with me or another one of her friends. She asked me if I minded her saying that. I didn't. How could I mind? She was my friend. I just wondered where she got her energy from; she was full of life.

The men she chose were married. She wanted it that way as it was safer and she was unlikely to have any of them turning up on her doorstep. Even so one of them did get very attached to her and wanted her to leave her husband and he would leave his wife. But Elaine managed to head that off as she didn't want her marriage to end.

Not for a man she didn't love.

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West Cornwall Travelog - back from Land's End for a while to drop into 'Archie Browns' in Penzance. As a vegetarian I love this place as it has a great veggie cafe. Open at lunchtimes it does great food and an especially wonderful Homity Pie. If it was open in the evenings as well I would probably eat there all the time. It is not, which is one of the great disappointments of life.

Too much, too young

198os - I can't remember when my friend became unhappy but she did.

She seemed fine at the small school reunion which she helped to arrange when we were 21 or 22. Just in the local pub. It was good to see old friends again, some I hadn't seen since I was 16. We had all done different things - work, university. Only Elaine had married and had 2 small children. The strangest thing was the way our old friends who had stayed on at school seemed to really admire me and Elaine. They saw us as rebels because we had dared to leave school at 16 when the Headmaster had wanted us to stay on. It was strange really, you never know how other people see you.

So sometime after the school reunion, I don't know what time, my friend became unhappy. She loved her children but she found her marriage to be a drudge. If she had loved her husband I presume she stopped loving him. I don't know. All I know is that at some point when we went for our lemon chicken and white wine she started to tell me what she got up to on the days when the children were at nursery.

And it wasn't knitting.

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West Cornwall Travelog - when I was a young, maybe from 8 until about 13, we use to come to Cornwall on holiday every year. During our two weeks in the sun (I remember it as always being sunny - although it couldn't have been, could it?) we would always make a trip to Land's End. There wasn't much there. Just a car park where the RAC man would always try and get my dad to be a member and a photographer who would take a picture of you underneath a sign with the name of your home town on it and how many miles it was from Land's End. We've still got that picture somewhere.

When I went back there as a adult it made me feel quite ill. Completely commercialized. Lots of buildings;shops;exhibitions; cafes; a hotel; all sorts. But I've got over that feeling now and quite like the place again. There is plenty for kids to do and plenty to eat and that's not a bad thing. But the secret is to look beyond the glitz. Just head straight for the viewing points and look at the dramatic cliffs and the Longships lighthouse and try to spot the Isles of Scilly. Then have a pasty and a cup of tea.


The photographer is still there.

'Too much, too young'

1980s - the next pregnancy was a lot more straightforward.

No rushed wedding; no inappropriate wedding reception song; no cyst the size of a grapefruit to be removed during the gestation period; just another baby born to a young woman of about 20. I can't remember the course of events very clearly as I was having quite a strange time myself back then. At 19 I'd left University as I was pining for the boyfriend back home and I couldn't hack it without him. I was very young. It didn't last. So I moved into a flatshare and started working and studying for my degree part-time. I was alright.

So my friend had another baby, another boy, Andrew. I can picture him now as a little boy looking like the 'milky-bar kid' with his blond hair and glasses. He really did look like that.

With the birth of a second child they got off the 14th floor and into a little council house round the corner. Two bedrooms, very near our old school. Other young couples in the same street. It was fine.

I can picture that house now. Full of noise, of children running about. Friendly children talking at me incessantly when I went round to see Elaine. Which I did, every couple of months or so. The husband would look after the kids and Elaine and I would go to our favourite Chinese restaurant for lemon chicken and white wine. The husband would give me a lift home. I never really knew what to say to him. I didn't really know him at all. He always use to say to me that he knew it was important for Elaine to have some time away from the kids, to go out with her friends. I was never sure why he said that to me.

She seemed happy enough. Until she wasn't.

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West Cornwall Travelog - the Minack theatre was cut out of the cliffs by Rowena Cade - with some help, of course. She sounds an extraordinary person. There is an exhibition at the Minack all about her and her theatre. Most of the place is made from concrete. I never knew concrete could be beautiful.

Rowena Cade created a magical place; it gives me peace.

'Too much, too young'

On from 1980 - when they got married Elaine and her husband put their names down on the council house waiting List. It sounds such an anachronism now but there were council houses available to people back then. Initially they didn't get anything and they lived with the husband's sister and her young family. Little children running around everywhere. Good practice for Elaine and husband.

The birth of baby Jack propelled them up the List and on up to the 14th floor of a tower block. I went to see her a few times before I left to go to University. It was a strange place, grey and bleak from the outside but once inside the flat it was fine. The flat had a good view and plenty of space. There were other couples with young families there and she made new friends. The down side was that the lift was constantly breaking down and Elaine had to struggle with a baby and buggy and shopping up 14 flights of stairs.

She spent her days looking after the baby and phoning Tony Blackburn on his morning phone-in show on Radio London. I never heard her but I expect she was very witty on the radio. She was a clever girl my friend.

I didn't worry about her. She seemed happy enough. I went off to University and life moved on again for us both.

For Elaine it moved on to another baby.

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West Cornwall Travelog - when we first went to the Minack Theatre it did not have a coffee shop. Now it does and it has the best views of any coffee shop in the world. You can look out to the open sea as you eat your pasty or over to Logan's Rock across the glistening turquoise sea in Porthcurno Bay. I wish I was there now.

'Too much, too young'

1980 - June, I remember it quite clearly.

I was doing my 'A' levels. Spread over days and weeks, exam after exam. In between exams I got a call from Elaine. She was in hospital, in the maternity ward. The baby was early, two months early. I caught the bus up to see her.

I was her only visitor that afternoon. She looked fine but the birth had been sudden and traumatic. She went into great detail about it all; epidurals, pain, blood, birth of very small baby boy. Baby whisked away to get special care. She got up from the bed and took me down to see the baby. We had to stand behind glass, we were not allowed into the room protecting the premature babies. She pointed out her baby, scraggy and tiny.

I found the whole experience surreal. In the last few months my friend had got pregnant, got married, had a cyst the size of a grapefruit cut out of her and given birth to a premature baby boy.

It was two years since we had left school.

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West Cornwall Travelog - onto Porthcurno where the liquid turquoise of the bay hypnotizes me. Looking out from the Minack Theatre over to Logan's Rock - is there a more beautiful view in the world? And the Minack, I will return to the Minack.

'Too much, too young'

1980 - March, I think. A phone call, I think. Elaine in the hospital. I left my studies and went up to see her. On the maternity ward. Strange ward to be on, baby not due yet.

She'd gone is as an emergency. Cyst on her ovary the size of a grapefruit. Excrutiating pain. They had to cut it out. Take away a bit of the ovary too. Messy.

How did the baby survive that? It did. It was strong. I was glad. I thought she was mad to get married but she was married now. What would have happened to her marriage if she had lost the baby? The baby was the reason she got married. It would have been so ironic is she had lost the baby, lost the reason for getting married at 18.

But she didn't lose it. The marriage carried on.

There was no irony.

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West Cornwall Travelog - back to Mousehole in the evening. The May sunshine lighting up the harbour. Reading a book on a bench on the harbour wall, stopping for minutes at a time just to look at the village looking back at you. Tide is up and kids are jumping off the harbour wall into the calm sea below. Their wetsuits keep them warm. Their energy keeps them safe. Mousehole.

'Too much, too young'

1980 - I can still hear that stupid song, that stupid inappropriate song, playing on the record-player. 'now you're married with a son when you could be having fun with me....'

Maybe it was cold. It was February and February is usually grey, horrible, cold. Registry office do, other old school friends there although I can't remember who. Elaine seemed happy enough.

It is the reception which sticks in my mind. In a house in North London. In the through lounge. Dancing and drinking. No speeches. Some one in charge of records. Kept playing that damn record 'you done too much, much too young now you're married with a son when you should be having fun with me'. Why did they keep playing it? It was a big hit but it was crazy. Maybe the 'DJ' didn't know Elaine was pregnant. 18 and pregnant. She didn't look it. Just a pretty slim young woman talking to everyone and enjoying herself.

No one else seemed to notice the inappropriateness of the record. Just me. It was all so weird. That February day when my friend and I were 18.

'I wanna be free'.

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West Cornwall Travelog - If you go to the 'Merry Maidens' you must go to the 'Lamorna Pottery'. Not for the pots, lovely as they are but for the Cream Teas. In the summer, in the garden, there is no better place in West Cornwall to have a Cream Tea. I feel giddy talking about it.

'Too much, too young'

1979/1980 - I don't remember whether it was late 1979 or early 1980. It was all such a rush. 1980 I think.

I don't even remember if it was a phone call - or did we meet up? God knows, I don't remember. Elaine told me she was pregnant, which was a surprise. However, the bigger surprise was when she told me she was getting married. Why get married? Young women didn't need to get married anymore just because they were pregnant; it was 1980 not 1960. I remember her telling me that she wanted to leave home but I don't think her parents put her under any pressure to get married. I was studying for my 'A' levels whilst my school-friend was settling down. My friend, who was a clever girl and knew all about contraception was pregnant. It was all so very odd, no wonder I can't remember it properly.

I don't know if she loved her boyfriend. The dad. I never asked if she loved him so how would I know? I did know that she had met him at the 18-30 club, he was 10 years older, 28 to her 18. I'd met him maybe once before the wedding. He seemed ok.

Older and ok.

Blog Digression

West Cornwall Travelog - the first time we stayed in Mousehole we stayed in a lovely little cottage called 'Tara'. It was owned by Mr Harvey, who lived next door. He was a retired fisherman who wore a very jaunty cap. His Cornish accent was so thick that we had to listen to him very carefully so that we could understand what he was saying. He told us to visit the 'Merry Maidens' so we did. It is a really interesting place, set in a field just off the road, near to Lamorna. It's like a mini Stonehenge with its circle of standing stones. The guidebooks say that the stones are girls who were turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. Maybe. Definitely worth a look, especially when there is a bit of mist around; spooky.

'Too much, too young'

1979 - I enjoyed being 17. It was a really great time. How can anyone not enjoy being 17?

My friend Elaine enjoyed being 17 too. She enjoyed it alot. She had a nice job in the building society; lots of friends there. She had lots of friends everywhere. I saw her every couple of months - 'lemon chicken' at the 'chinese'. Our lives were different, me studying for my 'A' levels and really enjoying 'tech' with the many new friends I had made. Elaine enjoying having money in her pocket and plenty of time to spend it without the constraints of school and study. The blokes really liked her and she liked them.

With her friends she joined a local group. '18-30' it was called. She wasn't 18 but they didn't ask for a birth certificate. Lots of blokes liked her there, guys a bit older, in their 20s. She liked them too. Maybe that's when she started having sex, I'm not sure. She enjoyed that too. My friend enjoyed being 17.

18 was a bit more problematic.

Blog Digression

West Cornwall Travelog - Mousehole is a beautiful village. Viewed from the harbour on a sunny day all seems right with the world. Visit it.

'Too much, too young'

1978 - All he wanted to know was why we were leaving school.

Outside the headmaster's office, in possibly one of the worst comprehensive schools in North London, Elaine and I wondered what we had done wrong. We were two sixteen year olds who had led a pretty quite life at school just getting on with it and yet now the Head wanted to see us. Suddenly, a younger but taller 13 year old red-headed hard looking girl came out of the Head's office and gave us a knowing smile as if she knew we must have done something at least as bad as what she had done. We hadn't but we were nonetheless called into the office. "So why are you two leaving us?" said the Head. We were surprised by the question. I was leaving because I couldn't stand the idea of doing my 'A 'levels in a school which I had never really liked and the local 'tech' had offered me a place to study. Elaine was leaving because she wanted to earn some money and she had a good job lined up. The Head wanted us to stay at school so the school could improve its 'A' level ratings. How strange.

We couldn't wait to get out of there and nothing he could say would stop us.

The beginning

This is the start of my blog. I use to keep diaries when I was young, especially in my teenage years of school days and school friends and with my bad drawings of current fashions and what I thought about them. I use to like culottes I recall. 1970s, what a long time ago....

So welcome to 2007 and the ramblings of one who is no longer a girl but a 45 year old who still rather likes culottes.