Old letters from Sally Barrass (and others)

Post exams, I have been tidying up the study and working slowly through the various cupboards and filing cabinets. In one I have discovered a box file full of various papers, including most of the letters I received in the period 1980 to 1983. About 15 of them are from Sally Barrass - she is my principal correspondee in the period by some way.

I met Sally at an Economics week I was sent on by my school. This was held at a conference centre just outside Bicester which about 15 students from around the country attended. Sally was from York and we met on the train going to Bicester. Over the course of the week we got on really well, but I was so terrible around girls at that age (17)! I remember that we all went to the pub on the last night and Sally and I were sitting together for the evening. When I went to the loo I found her waiting for me outside and we spent a little bit of time together just the two of us in a different section of the pub - causing much teasing from the others when we finally re-appeared. But "nothing happened" - I was far too shy to "make a move" though I realised she was quite keen that I should

After the week together, we started to write to each other about once a month it seems. Re-reading them now, it is clear that Sally is flirting with me alot of the time. But I was really hopeless about this sort of thing. We corresponded all through the summer of 1981 and finally arranged to meet up at Christmas in Birmingham to see a Genesis concert at the NEC. This was our only "date" and was an unmitigated disaster! It had snowed all day and we nearly didn't manage to meet as planned and I remember I was really stressed by whether she'd make it or not. Then one of my Kenilworth friends who we met at the concert spent much of the show hitting on her. Sally stayed the night in Kenilworth with me and back home things also didn't go well. It was like we had got to know each other through all our letters but in person, we just didn't seem to hit it off - it was so much easier when we just wrote. I expect I came across as a complete twat!

So when I wrote to her after that Christmas, she didn't write back and that was that. I have rather enjoyed re-reading her letters. We were only 17 or 18 then - which seems, on the one hand, so long ago, but on the other hand, my memories are so clear of that period. In some of our letters we are playing Scrabble by post, both of us cheating to produce words with huge scores! It all seems so much fun and, in its way, so innocent!

So I wonder what happened to Sally and find myself hoping she has had a happy life! I thought she was lovely, but was never able to do anything about it. What an idiot!

She was so cute! The morning after the Genesis concert, December 1981



One of the several pictures Sally sent me - this one is titled "This is a picture of me tackling a sundae fraise"

Other letters in the box include some from Joanne Styring who was the second girl I ever kissed and who, I believe, died aged about 22 of a brain hemorrhage, which is rather sad. Also a couple of letters from Alison Griffiths (who I fancied more than any other girl I was at school with) talking about a particularly odd party she came to at my house where we drank loads of wine and listened to Fripp and Eno's "An Index of Metals" over and over. A couple from Val Taylor - another girl who, in retrospect, fancied me and who I was too shy to do anything about. And a really nice letter from Judith Willets, who I also remember rather fondly - one of the only girls I have known who was really interested in art, film and music.

Other than Joanne, I don't know what happened to any of these people. So a rather wistful morning thinking about that time. I have also found some of my old diaries from that period - what horrors do they contain I wonder?

Next day addendum

It was actually quite a shock to find all these letters yesterday and to re-read them after nearly 30 years. I wonder if anyone looks back on their teenage years as a time of effortless grace and style. I tend to look back with horror. There were some boys who did seem to cope effortlessly with the various trials and tribulations of girls and always seemed to have a girlfriend, but sadly I wasn't one of them. I remember the period as being one of virtually continual bewilderment and a fairly constant inability to pick up on the complex nuances of flirting and dating and so on. Despite my best intentions, I just came across as odd

I look back rather fondly on my correspondence with Sally. I fancied her from the moment I first saw her and really enjoyed the week in Bicester in her company. That I singularly failed to act on her encouraging signals was always a source of much dismay to me afterwards. But I was also really pleased that we stayed in touch, at least for the next year. I obviously found it much easier to communicate via letters. I shudder to think what I wrote to her, but her letters to me were always really nice and I always enjoyed receiving them. Reading them now after 30 years, the gentle flirting from 250 miles from her seems especially nice. Her letters never mentioned boyfriends and I often used to wonder. She was so cute, I was always sure she would have been going out with someone. But she hardly ever used to talk about anyone else other than her best friend Jen (who she memorably went camping with in France for 3 weeks where the photo above was taken I assume)

I don't think I ever really ceased to be an "odd" person. The was true at University and through pretty much my entire life afterwards - only in my late twenties would I start to gain some insight into why I am the way I am. At times I rather regret that this is the case - it would have been nice to have fitted in better. Still I have been very lucky with how things have turned out. But I wish I had been better at flirting as a teenager and brave enough to take a chance rather than not. I suspect that many people think something like that when they look back on such times!