There is so much Jane could tell you about me, things that only she knew, things that don’t need repeating. She was my best friend and I’ve dedicated my first novel, The Rewilding of Molly McFlynn, to her.
Jane and I were two girls amongst a scrum of rugby players, PE students and the occasional dancer from the Ballet Rambert, living on the third floor of Lacey Building, one of the halls of residence at West London Institute of Higher Education in 1981. I was sitting on the edge of my single bed with its rough sheets and institution blankets, not knowing what to do next after my parents had dropped me off at my teacher training college in West London when a friendly face with blonde hair & a Blackburn accent appeared at my open door and asked, ‘you cumin down t’bar?’ My heart thumped as I stood there, with its sticky floor and strange smells of ashtrays and beer, the sounds of PacMan being played over Men at Work, not knowing what to order. Our church community hadn’t prepared me for life outside, for the student bar.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and following Jane’s lead the blankets and sheets had been ditched for a continental quilt & duvet cover and I now smoked: Jane smoking John Player Special blue pack and me opting for Dunhill as I thought the packet looked sophisticated. Our drinks of choice in the college bar were either vodka and lime or Malibu and pineapple. We got through boxes and boxes of Fondant Fancies and Chocolate Cup Cakes, staying up all night writing essays on our typewriters, with packets of fags, and bottles of gin and Cherry Brandy, making Jane’s signature drink, the Singapore Sling.
We both got jobs in the college bar to supplement our student grants (yes, those were the heady days of grants not loans). The bar was ‘non-profit’ and run by Bill, a lusty bloke who called us his darling girls, was too free with his hands and who drank rum & pep and would leave us to our own devices while he went off to his Navy club. By the time Bill came back we were two sheets to the wind, having ‘raced the optics’, hardly capable of mopping the floors, never mind cycling home. Fortunately, he was too pissed to notice. Racing the optics involved starting at either end of the line of spirits, which both started with Martini, Cinzano, Malibu, Dubonnet, then in the middle had white rum, dark rum, whisky gin and vodka. A double from each, crossing over in the middle and getting to the other side. It’s no wonder Jane and I were stopped by the police one night for being drunk in charge of bicycles.
Drinking was a major part of the culture there, and with two campuses a few miles apart, there was plenty of scope for wild nights. We were on the Maria Grey campus, which was the arts faculty, and where the Ballet Rambert had their dance academy. Discos there were on a Friday night when the floor would clear and the Rambert guys would have incredible dance-offs to disco.
The Borough Road campus was where the PE students hung out, and our social life revolved around the rugby club. There was a lot of trouser dropping, willy waving and drinking games, fuzzy duck being a particular favourite. Snooker was played with a Bloody Mary for each red ball, Crème de Menthe for the green, Pernod for the yellow, a pint of brown, a pint of Guinness, and so on. To this day I cannot face the smell or taste of Pernod.
The reason for the Pernod revulsion was down to the Lope: a three-legged race, from Borough Road to Maria Grey campus, with a pint downed in one in each of the thirteen pubs on the way. A team of female hockey players won it two years on the trot drinking pints of snakebite. At the end would be a promotion night, and this particular year it was Pernod at 35p a shot with a free mixer. Jane and I worked behind the bar the night, and the pile of Pernod puke we had to mop up at the end of the night was one of the reasons I’ll never touch the stuff again. That and waking up with a crate of Pernod in the kitchen and the Pernod rep in my bed.
As well as being woefully unprepared in the drinking area, I also got it desperately wrong as far as sex went. I had been brought up to believe sex before marriage was a sin and I had not learned about self-respect. In my first week, I answered an add on a notice board, ‘Freshers wanted for tennis lessons’. There were no racquets involved. It all went downhill from there, and I’m not sharing any more here, except to say that when Jane and I went on to share a flat, she would knock on my bedroom door in the morning, and ask, ‘one cup or two?’ But my point is, Jane never judged. She was there for me, held my hair behind my head while I was sick, and took me to the hospital when I needed it. After a year in halls, we went on to share a flat in a leafy grove in Isleworth for the remaining two years of college, and Jane’s family in Blackburn welcomed me into their home during holidays.
Jane of course had her annoying points, as do we all. She never got up to answer the damned phone at three in the morning, when her long-term boyfriend, John rang from America but would be furious if I heard it and didn’t run down the two flights of stairs to answer it. She was fastidiously tidy and would arrange all our cassette tapes in alphabetical order, having made new inners for them so they all looked the same. She kept her food on her shelves, labelled of course, and was rubbish at keeping on top of the mice in the flat, having stuffed two holes in the floorboards with sprouts. I taught Jane how to knit, and when we weren’t out drinking or working, we would pick up our needles and knit together on the sofa, knitting the same jumper from a SHE knitting pattern. I wish so much I’d kept that jumper. After college we both went into special needs teaching, Jane back to Lancashire and me up to Liverpool. We kept in touch, but only the odd Christmas card, or letter. It was when, thirty years later, and I was trading as The Woolly Pedlar at wool fairs, Jane came and found me. She tried on my swirly sweatercoats and went parading around the venue drumming up sales for me. I’m so glad we got the chance to hug and see each other again.
Jane died from breast cancer a few years ago. Her funeral was rammed. I sat next to a colleague who cried through the service, he and I sharing a packet of tissues. Jane was a headteacher at a local special school and was so well respected. Staff and students packed the church along with friends and family. How John stood there and read his eulogy to his Jane, the girl he’d loved all his life, I shall never know. True to Jane’s organised personality, she had written the funeral herself, interspersing it with music she loved, such as Cosmic Dancer by T-Rex. She loved to dance, and I hope she’s dancing now. I’m so sad she died. I didn’t get to tell her just how much I appreciated her friendship.
This is why I’ve dedicated my first novel, The Rewilding of Molly McFlynn to her, and have named my protagonist Molly, after her daughter.
Rest in peace Jane, you were a true friend.
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That made me both laugh and feel very sad at the same time. What a wonderful friend Jane was, especially when you needed her at teachers' training college. I couldn't have survived with all that booze - I've always been a rubbish drinker! I'm so glad that she found you again in later life, but how sad that she died too soon.
What a lovely tribute to your friend. I can relate to your college time! I went to Bradford teacher training college and life was full of student union bar and the curry house across the road x