24-11 2020 20:25
wrote:
I first met Barbara at dancing class aged three, but it wasn’t until our family moved near to Barbara’s at the age of eight that we became really good friends. Throughout our teens we were inseparable and usually went on holiday together. At the age of fifteen we went to Butlin’s and Barbara bet me a bag of plums to enter the daily talent show. I accepted the bet, singing an Ella Fitzgerald song very badly. I didn’t win but I did get my bag of plums. I recently heard the Ella Fitzgerald version and I was taken right back.
When we were sixteen we went on a bike ride to Pickmere, a long journey for two young girls who’d only ridden round the local district. It took so long to get there that, exhausted as we were, we had to turn round and head back home. To make matters worse we got lost coming back. When we asked a passer-by where we were and he replied Wogdin we both panicked as we’d never heard of it. We hadn’t realised that that was what the locals called Walkden and that we were only a couple of miles from home. We could never work out how we got from Altrincham to Walkden!
We were keen cinemagoers and went once or twice a week. We went to see Psycho and were absolutely terrified. Barbara’s family lived in a large three storey house at the time and when she got back home everyone had gone to bed and the house was in darkness. Barbara’s bedroom was on the third floor and she climbed up the stairs in the pitch black, eyes popping out of her head, fully expecting a mad woman with a knife to be waiting to pounce at the top of the stairs.
We were automatically each other’s bridesmaid and as our babies arrived within three days of each other, we also shared our pregnancies.
The last time I saw Barbara was in March, just before lockdown. We went to the pictures and realised that it had been over sixty years since our last visit to the cinema together. We had sort of come round full circle.
Barbara will always be part of my life because I have so many memories to bring her to mind. Even today when David and I were talking about chocolate misshapes I remembered that they used to be her favourites and she would often share a bag with me.
Any friendship that lasts over seventy years is something special and I’m so glad that I shared that friendship with Barbara.
24-11 2020 20:25
wrote:
I first met Barbara at dancing class aged three, but it wasn’t until our family moved near to Barbara’s at the age of eight that we became really good friends. Throughout our teens we were inseparable and usually went on holiday together. At the age of fifteen we went to Butlin’s and Barbara bet me a bag of plums to enter the daily talent show. I accepted the bet, singing an Ella Fitzgerald song very badly. I didn’t win but I did get my bag of plums. I recently heard the Ella Fitzgerald version and I was taken right back.
When we were sixteen we went on a bike ride to Pickmere, a long journey for two young girls who’d only ridden round the local district. It took so long to get there that, exhausted as we were, we had to turn round and head back home. To make matters worse we got lost coming back. When we asked a passer-by where we were and he replied Wogdin we both panicked as we’d never heard of it. We hadn’t realised that that was what the locals called Walkden and that we were only a couple of miles from home. We could never work out how we got from Altrincham to Walkden!
We were keen cinemagoers and went once or twice a week. We went to see Psycho and were absolutely terrified. Barbara’s family lived in a large three storey house at the time and when she got back home everyone had gone to bed and the house was in darkness. Barbara’s bedroom was on the third floor and she climbed up the stairs in the pitch black, eyes popping out of her head, fully expecting a mad woman with a knife to be waiting to pounce at the top of the stairs.
We were automatically each other’s bridesmaid and as our babies arrived within three days of each other, we also shared our pregnancies.
The last time I saw Barbara was in March, just before lockdown. We went to the pictures and realised that it had been over sixty years since our last visit to the cinema together. We had sort of come round full circle.
Barbara will always be part of my life because I have so many memories to bring her to mind. Even today when David and I were talking about chocolate misshapes I remembered that they used to be her favourites and she would often share a bag with me.
Any friendship that lasts over seventy years is something special and I’m so glad that I shared that friendship with Barbara.