My Secret Diary Read online

  Then I'd turn down a smaller road and reach my favourite house. I describe it in a June entry in my diary:

  Down the Drive there are some absolutely beautiful houses with enormous gardens – my favourite has a great big pond, almost a lake, with willows all around and a little waterfall leading onto a much smaller pool surrounded by bluebells. There is a fence and hedge all round so you can only see bits at a time. At the moment their rhododendron bushes are all in bloom, a lovely crimson.

  I found out that this beautiful house, Kingfishers, had once been part of the John Galsworthy estate. I didn't read his Forsyte Saga books until they were serialized on television in the late sixties. It was enough just knowing that the house had once been owned by a writer.

  I wrote a lamentably bad poem about the house:

  KINGFISHERS

  I peer through the bamboo leaves;

  No privet hedges here.

  The sweet pea on the trellis weaves;

  Bees, satisfied, appear.

  The gabled house stands proudly

  Embraced by tender creeper.

  Only a chaffinch, singing loudly,

  Ignoring me, the peeper.

  Small curious paths brazenly wind

  Beneath the silver birches,

  Scattered round, to the garden's rind.

  Peace here, as in churches.

  A feathery aged willow protects

  The quiet unruffled lake.

  A tiny woodsy island injects

  Itself, obstinately opaque.

  The water trickles, filters through

  To a secret mossy pond,

  Springtimely fringed by bells of blue

  And the fern's lacy frond.

  Oh house, generations-long secure

  With your cosy ingle-nooks.

  Your magic easily did procure

  John Galsworthy and his books.

  Would that I might live here too,

  Free from cares and danger;

  So easy, Jeevesy. Troubles few;

  But I am just a stranger.

  As I trudged on through the less exciting suburban streets of New Malden I'd daydream about being a famous best-selling author one day – and maybe I'd live in a house like Kingfishers.

  Dream on, little Jacky Daydream! I live in a beautiful house now and I wouldn't want to swap it with anyone, but my lovely home looks like a little cottage compared to Kingfishers.

  I was clearly exercising my imagination as well as my legs as I walked to school. I also went dancing at least twice a week, sometimes more. Not ballet dancing, though I'd have loved to learn. When I was little I longed to wear a neat black practice dress, a pink angora bolero and pale pink ballet shoes like some of the girls at my primary school. Biddy thought ballet a waste of time and didn't want to get lumbered with making my costumes.

  She sent me to old-time dancing classes instead, mainly because they were held just down the road on a Saturday morning and I could go with Sue. There were fourteen or so other pupils, all girls. We paired up, and because I was a little taller than Sue I had to be the boy. I'm still better at being the boy at dancing and have to fight not to take the lead and steer my partner around the floor!

  We didn't have to wear special outfits like ballet dancers. We didn't even have to wear special shoes, though lots of the girls wore silver or sparkly strappy dance sandals. I longed to have a pair, but had to make do with boring black patent. Perhaps that's why nowadays I have such a weakness for silver or sparkly shoes!

  Sue and I went dancing together for years. I started to feel I was getting too old for it – and we weren't really progressing. We'd got our bronze and silver and gold medals but we were never going to be real competition standard. I skipped dancing class the first two Saturdays in January, but on the sixteenth I wrote:

  For once I went Old Time dancing with Sue. I quite enjoyed myself although I prefer Friday night dancing. [Of course I did – it was ballroom, and there were boys]. I wasn't the oldest for once because Sandra came [the girl who lent me Peyton Place]. We danced the Quadrilles and it was ever such good fun. Also we did the Maxina which I enjoy doing as it is so unusual.

  I can't for the life of me remember how to do the quadrilles or the maxina now. I can vaguely remember old-time favourites like the valeta and the Boston two-step, and I still get tempted to whirl about the room whenever I hear a Viennese waltz – my feet go forward-side-together-back-behind-front of their own accord.

  Mr Crichton, the old-time teacher, threw a party for all his dancing students at the end of January.

  It was very good fun and I had a lovely time, but not as good as last Saturday! [I'd been to a party. I'll be writing about it later in a chapter on boys.] We had some good novelty dances and some ballet shows that Sandra was in. Then all these lifeboat men in raincoats and sou'westers came in through the door pulling a rope and singing 'Yo heave ho'. Then into the hall on the end of the rope was pulled a man on a potty reading a newspaper. Everyone was so amazed they just stood open-mouthed. Guess what! Sue and I won the Maxina competition and got a lovely gold medal each!

  I wore this gold medal the next Saturday when I went dancing.

  We did a good square dance called the Caledonians. Next week we are all taking sandwiches and staying on in the afternoon to train for the Kingston dancing competition to be held at the Coronation Hall.

  The following Saturday

  We did the Quadrilles; I love the music to that. We had a picnic lunch there, and then had another hour's dancing, this time competition work. We had some exercises to do, and next week we've got to bring old sheets to put on the ground as we're going to do exercises on the ground. It's going to be jolly indecent raising stockinged legs in front of Mr Crichton!

  Saturday 20 February

  Went dancing. We learnt some new dances, but not very nice ones. When it was time for the Beginners to go home and for us to have our picnic lunches this gorgeous boy and an enormous Afghan hound came and collected one of the little girls. Naturally, I went up and stroked the hound, then stared up into the boy's face and smiled. Am impatiently waiting for next week to come. We had a good chat eating our lunch in the cloakroom gathered round the oil stove on old benches. Sandra, who is 15 in July so nearest in age to me, told us she had three brothers. 'How old?' came a chorus. 'All younger than me,' Sandra replied. 'Ooh!' came disappointedly from the chorus. Afterwards we had to do some horrible exercises lying on the floor. We all had terrible giggles!

  Saturday 27 February

  When I woke up I thought it was Friday like I do every Saturday and tried to force myself out of my lovely warm nest. Then the gorgeous realisation swept over me and I was able to go back to sleep. I went dancing. Sandra, Christine, Wendy, Sue and I had a good chat. The dog turned up again to collect the little girl but with a middle-aged man instead of its other owner. Honestly, the exercises were so funny. Doing bicycles was bad enough, but when we had to lie on our tummies and just balance on our hands and the tips of our toes, and also when we had to raise both our chest and our legs off the floor so that we were curved, and only lying on our waists; well, we were just prostrate with giggles. Sandra told me that her hair was not naturally curly. I was amazed as it looks so pretty. I must try putting mine up in rollers. Also she said she goes to a co-ed school, and learns typing as well as ordinary lessons. Isn't she lucky!

  Saturday 5 March

  Lay in, and then got dressed in white jumper and pink and mauve mohair skirt and went dancing. We learnt a new square dance called the Tango Quadrilles. Now we know four: the Quadrilles, the Lancers, the Caledonians and now the Tango Quadrilles. The middle-aged man turned up with the dog again. Sue didn't stay the third hour. She might have let me know beforehand. After we'd eaten our picnic lunches we chattered a while, and then really slogged away at the Filed Waltz, Valeta Latchford and the Military Two Step. The competition is in a month's time! Mr C was giving us all butterflies when he told us about the strict rules. As Sue wasn't there I had to dance