Isn’t it sometimes so strange how we become friends with people – maybe through some sort of cosmic serendipity which brings us into alignment, maybe in the same place at the same time, or the same place many times, or a bizarre coincidence which enable us to share something which becomes more than some thing. Sometimes the friendship is fleeting, lasting for only for a brief period, sometimes it’s intermittent and we dip in and dip out over sometimes years, sometimes it endures practically all our lives.
Today we spent the day down in Devon with dear friends who made us the most magnificent Sunday lunch. We spent our time together catching up with each other’s news, commenting on everyday things, talking about holiday plans – imminent and in the more distant future, and generally having a most pleasant and convivial time in each other’s company.
I first met J when she was sixteen or seventeen and I was two years older. I was living in a so-called flat in Manchester and had got to know other students on the same course. Two lads became very friendly with me and my flat-mate and together with several others we started to explore Manchester night-life. They would tell us about the clubs and places home in Leeds, and how smart and fashionable their friends back there were. There were two girls in particular, the two J’s, whose style and fashion sense made us look like old grannies. Their clothes choice, their make-up, even their perfume just knocked our – well my attempts into an unfashionable cocked hat. We consoled ourselves thinking ‘well at least the two J’s were on the other side of the Pennines so we can’t really be compared to them‘.
Then came the news – the 2 J’s were coming to Manchester to visit, we were all going out together – oh no!!! We weren’t well off, all we had was our student grants to live off so we couldn’t just rush to the big stores and buy new outfits, new make-up, new perfume! We did our best, we tried our hardest, but were resigned to fashion shame and embarrassment.
The 2 J’s arrived, and of course they were two perfectly nice, ordinary girls, fashionably but ordinarily dressed, modest make-up and, one of them told us, they’d borrowed their mum’s perfume! We got on really well that evening and beyond. We kept in touch once we’d left education, left home, got jobs, began our adult lives. I was particularly friendly with one of them and she and I continued to visit and see each other regularly over all the years until now.
She is one of my very oldest, and certainly dearest friends and having lived several hundred miles apart for many years – me in the north, she in London, now we live a few junctions down the M5 motorway from each other. So it was she and her husband my husband and I went to see today. and enjoy her wonderful Sunday roast. Somehow we’ve remained close friends over all the years since in trepidation I first met her before going out to a disco!
Lois Elsden 