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hairstyles.
    Jennifer was right about the dance. The hall was full of men under the age of twenty-five and we spent the evening jiving to a rock group playing on the stage.
    We met two young men who we discovered were friends. Jennifer particularly liked ‘her one’. ‘My one’ was a nice enough young man of twenty and I jived with him. We were able to speak to each other when the music slowed down and we did a type of shuffle. I innocentlybegan talking about my life at school and how my father would not allow me to stay out late until finally he asked me, ‘How old are you?’ I replied, ‘Fourteen.’ He asked, ‘And how old is your friend?’ ‘She’s fourteen too,’ I replied. He continued dancing with me until the music stopped then he said, ‘Thank you’ and returned me to my seat. He rejoined his friend who was standing beside Jennifer and told him, ‘These two girls are only fourteen.’ Jennifer’s young man made his excuses and both men walked away from her. She came over to me. She was very annoyed and said, ‘Why did you tell him our ages? I told my feller I was eighteen and we were talking about going out with one another. Now it’s all over.’

1960
C AROL D
    Carol and I were childhood friends, living in the same street until I was aged twelve and my family moved to another part of Walthamstow. We kept in touch until we were sixteen and became involved with long-term boyfriends. We were both fifteen at the time of this incident.
    M y first job on leaving school at the age of fifteen was as a trainee hairdresser. I worked in a salon for a three-month trial period but I turned down the offer of an apprenticeship as I found the work to be uninteresting.
    One Sunday afternoon I walked through the back streets of Walthamstow to Carol’s family home. We spent our time drinking tea and catching up on gossip until she asked me to trim her blonde, shoulder-length hair. I agreed and Carol supplied me with a pair of scissors.
    Unfortunately I had only watched hair being cut and had not actually tried it myself. Carolwas my first attempt. She said she would like one inch taken off the bottom so, scissors in hand, I snipped away at the right side and then did the same with the left. I looked at the finished result and saw the left side was shorter than the right. I trimmed the right side again, only to discover I had cut too much off and it was now shorter than the left. Carol gasped and put her hand over her mouth as she saw me slowly ruin her hair. I just could not get the hang of it and merrily clipped Carol’s beautiful locks, one inch out each time, until I reached her ears. Trying to make a good job of my disaster I finally decided to layer what was now a short bob.
    Carol’s finished hairdo was a complete mess and she said to me, ‘If it wasn’t so funny I could cry.’
    She found it necessary to pay the hairdresser a visit and she was asked, ‘Whoever cut your hair for you?’

1961
M ICK
    Mick was eighteen. I was sixteen. We met whilst working for the same engineering company in north London. I was a junior in the Typing Department, he was a clerk in the Buying Department, the next office to mine. We dated for two and a half years.
    O ur office hours were 9 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. At nine twenty-five each day I would collect correspondence for typing from the various departments. I would frequently see Mick hurrying along the corridor, having overslept again. He had numerous warnings about his lateness but this did not affect his conduct. His boss eventually tired of him and Mick was sacked. He found himself a job in a hardware store. This time he had learnt his lesson and arrived on time each morning.
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    Mick bought a series of old cars that he and his brother Ron would repair and make roadworthy. None of them were very reliable but they wereall Mick could afford. When they became too expensive to run he would