Love (and the falling in of) in Nottingham NG7

I was talking to an eighty two year old man about how he fell in
love with Enid May, who worked at a sock factory on Gregory Boulevard
in Nottingham. He was been doing some brick laying work there and as
she walked past his half built wall he realised that he had felt wonder
for the first time. 'I had to knock off early', he told me. 'The bricks
stopped going down right after that'.

The next day he offered her a lift home on his Triumph 80 and before he
knew it she was his; and the two of them were walking along the Forest,
with all the other courting couples, and heading off towards the trees
at the top for a bit of a canoodle.

He asked her to marry him on their way home from The Goose Fair on a
beautiful clear night, and she said 'Yes!', hurling the coconut he had
won for her to one side so that she could throw her arms around him.
And they were married at All Souls Church on Lenton Boulevard, the best
man being a greengrocer on Berridge Road. And for their honeymoon they
rode off into the distance. With a tent on the back. From Brighton
through to Folkestone in a fortnight. And in Brixham he won a watch on
a machine and gave it to Enid May.

'Did she keep it?', I asked.

'I'm buggered if I know', he said, 'I couldn't care less. We didn't
last five minutes. She was a man's man', which I don't think was
exactly what he meant to say, but I understood.

I fell in love at work. She was standing, with her back to me, in front
of a sink; and when she turned round, and I saw her for the first time,
I knew that I would have to dedicate as much energy and guile as was
necessary to make her mine.

And I did. By the bucket load. And before I knew it she was mine, and
we were walking home, across the Forest, with our two young sons.
Resident in Nottingham, NG7.

Nottingham, NG7 has got more skinny babies, derelict houses, white
cider drinkers, and second hand trainers than anywhere else in the
County. But if you want to live in an area where you can buy vegetables
that you may never put a name to; watch kids play on the street rather
than on roads hemmed in with neighbourhood watch signs; and admire the
grace of the police helicopter hovering over your rooftop at midnight,
then you couldn't pick a better place to live.

And, given the fact that so much of my time is spent researching the
lives of different communities around the region, I decided that I
should look a little bit nearer to home. And I wanted to talk about
love, and how the people who share these streets with me, had found
it.

So. The year has just started. It's a miserable morning. And I am sat
in a broom cupboard, the only place where I can possibly record the
conversations that I am about to have without them being submerged
under the general bonhomie of the Forest Fields Luncheon Club; a
collection of people in their seventies and eighties who come along for
a bit of a chat and some mashed potato. And I can hear them, from
inside my broom cupboard, egging each other on to go and talk to 'The
Love Man'. Finally there is a knock and a woman with lovely big red
squishy cheeks comes in.

Joyce was married on Christmas Day in 1940. She'd met her husband at St
Simons Sunday School, on the corner of Laurie Avenue and Russell Road.
He was collecting stamps and she talked as though she knew something
about it and rushed home to start a collection. They started going to
the pictures together, being very fond of Nelson Eddie and Jeanette
McDonald. And they went walking. Mainly to Aspley. And they would look
in people's houses, if they had their lights on, to decide what they
would have when they were married.

And when they had betrothed themselves to each other their romance
continued apace. He'd say 'Come here you silly thing' and chase her
round the house. And on his way back from work he would stop off at the
sweet shop on the corner of Berridge Road and bring Joyce home a
chocolate ?clair. Every single night without fail. It was a lovely
sweet shop, she told me, they had all sorts of delicious things. But it
was always an ?clair. Never anything else. Handed over with a smile and
a wink. And she didn't like them. But Joyce could never bring herself
to let him know. So the ?clairs kept on a coming.

Lily - a little diddy thing - married twice, I was told. Her first
husband was killed when the Chilwell Munitions Depot exploded; but she
soon found happiness again, marrying her dead husbands twin brother.
Now that is a story. And I was champing at the bit to dig deep. But
Lily is a very confused woman these days. She will tell you about how
her mother married her uncle when her father was killed. And the more I
tried to uncover the truth, the more strange and complicated it all
became until I was sitting there entangled in a web of fathers and sons
and brothers and wives, that had been spun by this befuddled, frail and
beautiful woman sitting in front of me. It was harder than getting
through 'War and Peace'.

Grace was a raucous old bird, who'd had a bit of to do while she was on
the rebound after a falling out with the Conductor of the no.42 bus.
Who, when Grace asked him if he had seen a particular film, replied
'No, but I'll come and see it with you'.

Which is nearly as good as the bloke who came up to Janya in The
Radford Arms and said 'let us know if you want a boyfriend'. But not as
good a line as Ken's who, whilst taking a legless man out in his
wheelchair, saw a young girl cycling past, and decided that the only
course of action was to park the limbless man by the side of the road
and explain that he was ever so sorry but he had to go, 'borrow' a bike
from the nearest house, and cycle after her. And as he pulled alongside
Phyllis he said, quite calmly, 'when we get into town we'll have a
talk'. And they did. And ended up going to Leno's Picture House, on
Radford Road, which is now a pine warehouse.

And maybe as they walked in they would have seen Grace and the
Conductor, looking at the kissing seats on the back row, and hesitating
for a second before moving towards the front.

But Grace and the Conductor fell out and Grace ended up going with
another fella, a schemer with foul intent who invited her over to Ashby
to see his Mum and Dad.
There was no Mum and Dad. And the last bus had gone. But Grace wasn't
going to stand for any funny business. 'Well you didn't. You had to
have a white wedding or else half the street could turn against you'.
So she bedded down for the night in the Henhouse.

Loveless, and a bit itchy, she returned to Leno's, with her cousin. And
it was full that night, with the exception of one empty seat, next to
Grace.

'I thought he'd come', she said. And sure enough, just as the film was
beginning the Conductor of the no.42 bus, from Radford Road to Colwick,
walked through the entrance and was ushered to the one remaining
seat.

'He got hold of my hand', she told me,' and whispered 'I'll meet you at
the Boulevard'.

They were married on Valentine's Day. And it was thick with snow.

NG7 was awash with picture houses back in the 30's and 40's. If you
wanted to dance you had to go into town. To the Victoria, the Palais de
Danse or the Milton Caf?. But if you wanted to sit arm in arm in front
of the silver screen then there was plenty to choose from. The Windsor
on Hartley Road; The Ilkeston Picture Palace on Ilkeston Road; The
Capitol at the bottom of Church Field Lane; The Grand on Gregory
Boulevard; Leno's; and The Boulevard, where the job centre is
now.

And the way that people dressed was dominated by the movies. The men
plastering their heads with Brylcreem and strolling around in their
George Raft overcoats; while the women modelled themselves on Joan
Crawford and Bette Davis. Although Brenda from Pleasant Row told me
that she modelled herself from 'Families At War', with her hair all up
and windswept and wearing a kind of knitted hairnet thing, which went
under the incredibly romantic and exotic title of a 'snood'.

And you would go, three or four times a week, and watch Rick Blaine
falling for Ilse Lund; locusts swarm over Paul Muni; and Katherine
Hepburn declare that she'd never dreamt that any physical experience
could be so stimulating!. And if you were lucky you just might end up
with a girl who looked as though she was always being viewed through
one of those soft and shimmery lenses; or a fella who had the grace of
Gene Kelly and the charm of Spencer Tracey. Phyllis told me that she
was a huge fan of Rudolf Valentino, and that she'd been out cycling one
day and had turned round to see a young man with very dark wavy hair,
tanned skin and big brown eyes furiously peddling towards her. And as
he pulled alongside she knew she had fallen head over heels in
love.

Now it is Jean Claude Van Damme, that the young girls of Forest Fields
swoon after. Although swoon is a word that belongs to another age. Like
snood. And picture house. However much you may turn down the lighting
and chill the Asti Spumante, a video fast forwarded through all the
trailers is never going to compensate for the demise of the local
cinema and it's terrible blow to romance.

It is October 1939. It is a bitterly cold night, all the stars are
shining, there is black ice on the road and Mary is on her way to the
Grand, where she is to meet her sister and watch 'Gone With The
Wind'.

As she walks along the Boulevard she falls. A man runs from the bus
stop and lifts her up. In his arms. And marries her.

And I met many people who had found their partners through making up a
foursome to go to the cinema. While the main attraction burned brightly
and then sputtered out, the B movie couples would flicker quietly and
end up marrying each other.

I spoke to a couple of greeters from ASDA. They are the people who are
meant to provide your first point of contact as you walk into the
store; and do all the silly announcements. And they get judged on their
work. If they're good they get a blue blazer instead of a green one and
become a Golden Greeter like Colin on the telly who gives out the
cookies.

I had hopes that these people had met their partners as they walked
through the door with their shopping lists; eyes meeting across a pile
of reduced hams. But no. It was pubs.

Ruby on a blind date with a man who's been middle aged since she was
15. And Alan. Who walked into The Lion as a girl was being chatted up
by somebody old enough to be her father. She beckoned to Alan, put her
arm around him and said 'meet my boyfriend'; at which point the old
fella sloped off.

And Alan was smitten. But he was a wee bit the worse for wear. And he
went home thinking that he would never see this woman again. Because
when he'd asked her where she came from she'd said Heanor, which is a
good way away. But two nights later there she was again.

'What are you doing here?', he said. 'I thought you said you lived in
Heanor'.
'No', she said. 'I live near here'.

And they've been together since.

Pubs along with work were the most common meeting places for those who
had missed 'Casablanca' and 'The Good Earth'. Brian was absolutely
spellbound by the woman who beat him night after night on the Carlton
pool table. Always on the black. And Malcolm's hairs stood up rigid on
the back of his neck when Jane sang 'Killing Me Softly With His Song',
at the Pelham karaoke. But the other stories just weren't as romantic.
I was given lines like 'she was quite good looking and I wanted
something to do that night'. And when Bill met his fianc?e by lifting
her up outside The Alma, it wasn't because she had slipped over on
black ice but because she was paralytic and spewing like a
faucet.

But Stefan did go down on his bended knee in The Scotholme; and proved
to me that romance isn't dead by showing me his mobile phone, which,
after you have tapped in the correct code, opens up with the words 'I
love you Karen'.

Brenda was proposed to in a pub. The lady with the snood. By Pete and
his immaculate shoes - and he's never been in the Forces, though you'd
swear he had to look at them. It was in the New Inn, later The Radford,
which had been just about the one and only venue for their courtship,
the majority of it watched over by Brenda's mum. Who was sitting
alongside as the question was popped tucking into a pint of mild and
splashing out on a whisky chaser and a packet of Porky Scratchings to
celebrate.

Lots of Mums turned up in my travels. More Mums than Dads; who
generally seemed to be affable sorts tending to their allotments as
future son in laws requested the hand of their daughter in marriage.
One mum insisted on making sure that the Hotel where her son and his
wife were spending their honeymoon was up to scratch. And when they
arrived at Skegness they discovered there was a transport strike. So
the happy couple spent the first moments of their honeymoon sat next to
mum in a giant duck that was normally used to take toddlers on rides
around the sea front. And her hat blew off.

Maureen's mum accompanied Maureen on a date to the Goose Fair because
she was certain that he wouldn't turn up. And when he did the poor chap
had to dig deep to pay for mum's place on the Chairoplanes and a Helter
Skelter; finally managing to escape her clutches when she became very
drawn to this game where you rolled coins down a chute with the aim of
getting them to land in the middle of a little square.

Sabrina's mum went and spoilt things rather by sleeping with her
daughter's husband to be two days before they were due to sign on the
dotted line. Which put the cat amongst the pigeons. And I thought that
kind of thing only happened in soap operas.

My Mums Mums Mum eloped with a Cornishman who was working in the
Zimmerman Jack Goldmine in South Africa. He was a lot older than her,
and of the wrong social standing. They rode off into the night in one
of those covered waggons like in Oklahama and were married by Special
Licence at Capetown on February 14th 1899. Barbara Bell and William
Pope. Apparently I've got his eyes....

....through which I was trying to bear the purity of my soul on my
first date with the woman behind the sink. It was in a pub. Two nights
previously I had been sat in the Sleep In Room of a County Council
complex for people with Learning Disabilities and I was anxious. I was
going through a dodgy patch. A long term relationship had gone wrong
and while she was getting married, with undue haste I thought, in the
old town of Prague, one of the most beautiful spots in Europe; I had
been running around drinking way too much, making a fool of myself, and
sleeping on people's floors.

And now this woman had turned up, out of the blue; promising me
salvation. And eventually I picked up the phone and asked her if she
wanted to go for a drink. And she said 'yes'.

When she turned up she thought she was going to a staff do. 'So we're
the first here then', she said. 'Is Dave coming?'

I met the woman who married William Shakespeare. I went to see her at
the house where he had been born and where he died, on Grimstone Road,
one down from Wordsworth Road.

Kay had been working at a hosiery firm, linking the toes to the foot of
the sock or the stocking, which was very hard on your eyes. And then
there was much excitement in the house because her sister got her an
interview at Players, where you never got a job unless somebody asked
for you, and she began working there in the advertising
department.

Kay was known as the girl who wore the highest heels at Players. And as
she walked home, at the end of the day, there was a young man who was
watching her from the side of the road as he waited to see if his
sister needed any help carrying her bags home, because she wasn't very
well. That was William Shakespeare. He worked in the paint shop at
Raleigh.

And this woman with the highest heels also had a wonderful pair of
legs. Her father had always told her that he had fallen for her mothers
ankles, 'she's got a well turned ankle' he said. And it obviously ran
in the family.

Anyway Kay had friend called Madge who looked just like Marlene
Dietrich, who was after a young man called Wilf. And Kay, who looked
like Norma Shearer, was asked to make up a foursome with William
Shakespeare, who unbeknown to her had been taken by her wonderful
ankles. And who hated the name William Shakespeare, and so called
himself by his middle name. Harold.

They all went to The Capitol but Wilf didn't show up; leaving Harold
with both
Women watching Gordon Harker in some mystery film. And when it was
finished he walked Kay back to Bobbers Mill and very carefully shook
her hand.

'There wasn't a blinding light, or anything like that'; Kay told me.
'And he had on one of those awful George Raft overcoats with the tied
belt. I couldn't stand it; it made him look like a gangster'. But after
she had mentioned this to Madge she never saw it again. And before she
knew what was happening she and Harold were going for walks across The
Forest, having tea and playing cards with her parents on a Sunday; and
collecting sheets, cutlery and crockery for their bottom drawer. And
she discovered this wonderful head of red hair that had been submerged
under layers of Brylcreem.

They were married in wartime in May. The church bells couldn't be rung
because if they were it meant that England was being invaded. And Kay
persuaded Harold to use his proper name again. Which he did. And
apparently he didn't look unlike the bard, with his deep lidded eyes.
And when all of the Shakespeares' were invited to Stratford he was the
one that really stood out.

He never did any writing though. Apart from during the war when he used
to write letter after letter after letter to Kay. They had been told,
just before they were married, that they wouldn't be calling anyone up
before Xmas, but they did. And so the young couple went into town and
he brought her a musical box.

William Shakespeare told Kay that she should play it every day. And she
did. I don't think there were many days that I missed, she told me, as
she took this little box from the dresser and opened it.

I'll be loving you always / With a love that's true always / Not for
just an hour / Not for just a day / Not for just a week / But
always.

William Shakespeare came back from the war. As did Phyliss's Rudolf
Valentino. But the experience had changed him. He was never the same
man, up until the day he dropped dead on his way to the pigeon coop.
Mary's husband, who had run from the bus stop, also came back. But he
went and died on her two years after his return. 'And we were ever so
happy too', she said. 'Well I couldn't marry again. That's my life and
I'm an old woman now'.

Clara, from New Basford, hadn't seen her husband for four years during
the war. And then one morning she woke up with a terrible toothache and
could hear somebody in the distance whistling 'Begin The Beguine'. Well
somebody sounds happy she thought. And she went downstairs and got into
the rocking chair and tried to rock the pain away and the whistling got
nearer and nearer, still 'Begin The Beguine' and she thought that bloke
does sound happy. And it got nearer still and then there was a bang
bang bang on the door. And it was her husband, wearing a suit that was
too small for him. She could hardly speak because of the pain in her
mouth and he said 'come here' and folded his arms around her.

And with the end of the war came the tying up of love letters to be
stored in cellars and lofts or thrown onto bonfires. Blackened
fragments of love jumping on the air, sticking to windows and falling
under people's feet.

My winning move with the woman behind the sink was a letter. After the
staff do that wasn't a staff do I waited for a while. And then I sent
the her a piece of paper with the words A ONCE IN A LIFETIME
OPPORTUNITY!! THIS IS NOT A CIRCULAR!! DO NOT THROW AWAY!! And
underneath I explained that the recipient had won THE MEAL OF THEIR
DREAMS with a VERY SPECIAL MYSTERY HOST. And in order to take advantage
of this fantastic offer all the recipient had to do was enter a date
and return in the prepaid envelope which was addressed to 'Seduction
Enterprizes Limited'.

And she did. And I grated my fingers raw making orange and coriander
soup. But I won my girl.

Nowadays you don't send love letters; you text them on your mobile
phone instead. A bunch of girls at the Forest Fields Youth Club
explained to me that you talk to a lad and if it seems like you're
getting on then you begin texing him. And unlike that delicious sense
of expectation and crushing disappointment you get when you're waiting
for the letter that never arrives, you can get these things morning,
noon and night. Louise had sixty in one day. And half of them weren't
even written. They were little animated characters doing things.

When I asked the girls about romance they went all shy. They thought I
was talking about sex; and I had to explain what I meant - you know,
chocolates and flowers. And Samantha told me that this lad had bought
her flowers and everything and she felt stupid. And she was getting
them just because he liked her. She felt daft and told him to stop. But
he kept on doing it and in the end she had to chuck him.

But the more I talked to these girls the more I realised that little
had really changed. Melanie met 'hers' at Beechdale Swimming Baths on a
Saturday afternoon. He followed her home on the bus and after he'd
spoken to her for a while asked if he could go and meet Melanie's mum.
And now they go to the cinema, walk around the Forest, and he goes
round to Melanie's mums for tea and dinner.

Most of the lads I spoke to were very shy. Although Jermaine told me
that his regular Friday night routine was to cook his girlfriend a
meal, give her a candlelit bath , and then massage her. And as he told
me this, at the Take 1 Studio in Hyson Green, a group of girls who had
been listening didn't say a word. They were open mouthed and awestruck.
As was I.

They're not going to get married though - that wrecks your life.

Biant and Sacrinda were married during the time of the riots in Hyson
Green and Forest Fields in 1981. It was a very hot summer, cars were
upturned and ablaze on Noel Street, shops were boarded up and a
mountaineering store on Alfreton Road had a sign that read 'get your
equipment here to escape to the hills'.

They'd both been to Forest Fields Primary School. Julie, as she was
known then, in Mr.Savage's class for the bright kids. And Biant with
the 'It Kyant Work!' crew. But a spurt of inspiration had lead to the
young Biant spending six months on Julie's table.

Anyway they'd both gone their separate ways; their only encounter being
when Biant turned up at her school playing second cornet for Claremont
Boys. And one day Biant's mum had said 'it's time to marry you off son'
and showed her the passport photo of the girl he was to marry. And he
thought 'bloody hell! It's Julie Corbatta!'. Sacrinda didn't have a
clue. She hadn't been given a photo and was told that her husband to be
lived in Manchester. But Biant wanted to make sure and had a word with
his mum so that, unbeknown to Sacrinda's parents, he would be able to
see her in the flesh before the day. His mum had a word with Sacrinda's
sister in law and one morning Biant was told to go for a walk round
Berridge road, where the Apollo Cinema used to be, and which is now the
Mosque next to Mr. Chips. As he walked round a corner Sacrinda and her
sisters were walking the other way and Sacrinda's sister in law said
'That's your fianc?e across the corner'. And she thought 'bloody hell!
Not the kid who used to copy all my work!'.

The wedding was hot. Sacrinda was trying hard to stay conscious under
her veils and Biant, who had never wore a turban before was struggling.
It wouldn't stand on his head because it was really greasy. So his
cousin put an apple underneath to hold it in, to act as a top knot. And
his best friend Jonathon Dodds, who also wore a turban for the first
and only time, stole the show. He looked really handsome. For the
entire wedding people were coming up and asking who is this fine young
man of mixed parentage and asking for his engagement.

But he's still single.

Maureen - whose mother had amassed a near fortune in penny coins from
The Goose Fair over the years - and Cliff were married on an incredibly
cold day. The bride and her maids all wore pyjamas underneath, whilst
Cliff, the best man and the vicar went into the church straight from
the pub.

Afterwards they went off to Rotherham for the honeymoon to stay with
her Uncle and Aunty, with a plate of mince pies being left in the newly
weds room.

Colin and Shegufta were inundated with plates of pies and bhajis and
dim sum and vol au vents and chicken jerk at their wedding; where
everybody was asked to bring food along for the reception. The best man
gave the sermon and sang 'Love changes everything' and the vows that
they had written together in a caravan in Wales were read out to a huge
congregation, typical of Asian weddings where everybody that has ever
known you is supposed to come along. 'All that I have been, all that I
am, and all that I will be I share with you. From my valleys of pain
and mountains of joy I entrust myself to you. We will journey together
with faith, hope and love to bring healing, joy and freedom to each
other'.

The day that Samina and her husband married they didn't really talk to
each other. They were very shy and that night they just fell asleep.
The next night she just sat on the bed and he turned the light off. And
she was shivering and had butterflies in her stomach. And he said 'come
on, we'll have a chat'. And that's what they did. They sat on the bed
in the dark and talked all night, finding out about each other for the
first time. And it was incredibly romantic, she said. She didn't think
that she'd get on with him but in the end she couldn't wait for him to
come home from work and he could hardly bring himself to leave each
morning.

And people who I had never met before were telling me all these things.
People who had met their sweethearts at Sunday Schools and Youth Clubs
and Selling Flags. People who had met on the Death Track toboggan run
in front of the war memorial on the Forest. People who had moved to
this city after the war from many different countries, and built their
own community centres so that they could dance the nights away with
their husbands and wives to be. And Joyce, who when I asked if her
husband was romantic gave me the dirtiest laugh you could imagine. She
may as well have showed me Polaroids

I spoke to around eighty people in the end. And my final conversation
was with Fred from Radford, who was telling me about how, when he was
courting, he and his wife used to go on a monkey run where you went
over something called New Bridge, through a Corn Field, through a
Turnip Field and into the Cherry Orchard. Where they used to do a bit
of snogging. And then he told me how, when his wife was ill, she had
told him that she didn't want to die in the hospital - and so he had
nursed her for the whole time. One morning he said 'do you want a cup
of tea?' and took her one up. And then his niece came in and went up to
see her, and shouted from the stairs that she had passed away. That was
the 45th year of our marriage, he told me.

I've never regretted any day - not one day of being with her.
She was a gem to me, she was a real gem for the whole of my life.
And it really broke my heart when I lost her.
I wish she was here now actually.

And I bought flowers for Catherine, the woman behind the sink, on my
way home. A great big bunch of the things. And a chocolate
?clair.

So what have I learnt? I've learnt that absence makes the heart grow
fonder. That beauty is in the eye of the beholder. All those
things.

And I've learnt that it's worth making the effort. All the time.
Definitely.

I'll end with a piece of advice. From Mr Brown, an elderly man who
recently married his second wife; a woman who used to live in the same
village as him in Jamaica. And when they talk to each other they say
'Mr Brown would you like a cup of tea', 'Yes I would like a cup of tea
Mrs Brown'.

And Mr Brown said to me 'If one of you says a rash or a harsh word to
your partner, and the partner blows up with another harsher word then
you're not doing anything good. When you get a harsh word you've got to
find a smaller one to return'.

Give it a try. It's not easy.