Janet

It has occurred to me that I have never put up here any mention of my first real girlfriend.  So here is a bowdlerized version



I was about 20 when I first really began to take out girls. The puritanical influence of my religious teenage years made me a bit of a late starter in that respect but I soon caught up.

My first real girlfriend was Janet, 5'2", quite bright, with red hair (flaming red) and a talented classical pianist. We both liked Bach. Her eyes were blue-green. She was a clerk with National Mutual Insurance at the time. I met her at the Folk Centre in Ann St., where she sang regularly. She had just turned 16 when we started a relationship

We used to see one-another often even though she continued living at home. We had a lot of fun of all sorts together and I still think of her as a first class person. She and I had similar personalities and similar attitudes to a quite unusual degree.

Janet's father was an accountant who had done well enough to retire at age 40. He seemed to own most of Brisbane's jukeboxes. Apparently they give a good return. He did not like me because I had a beard. Part of the reason why Janet did like me however was because I had a beard!

Her mother was very nice to me, however. The thing that Janet liked best about me appeared to be my very confident personality. No woman likes a wimp. Janet and I became very close in the year or so we were together so it was in fact many years before we got to the point of no longer seeing one-another at all. Even after we had split up we would still sneak in the occasional meeting.

Our parting was at the behest of her father. He forbad her from seeing me any more and my clumsy attempt to change his mind simply enraged him. Neither Janet nor I us felt in a position to support her leaving home so we had to accept a break. We did however continue to see one another outside her father's ken when we could. Janet and I never in fact had a breakup. An enforced separation is not a breakup. The affection between us simply contiued -- albeit with less practical effect when we both eventually found new partners

I was rather lucky in having her as my first girlfriend as we got on well in all sorts of ways. I guess we really were "soul-mates". A year or two after we split up I remember sending her a telegram to mark either her or my birthday. It was in Italian and read: "Ogn' anno divengono piu chiaro le fiamme inestinguibile di amore per te". Something that romantic needs to be said in Italian.

I remember sending the telegram from Glebe Post Office in Sydney. The postal clerk who took it looked very dubious about the whole thing.