I have been on planet Earth for nine years now, and my language skills seem to have improved ‘stupendously’. Not only that, The Beatles have burst onto the World Stage, and Deirdre Barker walks into my life. I’m completely and utterly in love with the music of John, Paul, George and Ringo – and I’m totally besotted with Deirdre. But as yet, neither the Beatles nor Deirdre know the depths of my feelings.

By the end of my second year at the Junior school, I feel that life is definitely improving – particularly now I have met secret girlfriend number three. Things continue to improve as we move into the third year and Mr Lawrence takes over the class.

Then the secret’s out. To my closest school friends, I confess my love for the elf-like skinny one with the soft brown eyes and a voice like Fenella Fielding. No, not Paul McCartney – Deirdre Barker. I believe that my ten-year old peers will never divulge such a secret to all and sundry. Wrong! The secret spreads around the classroom like scarlet fever, and before the day’s out even Mr Lawrence has heard about it. How embarrassing! Worse still, Deirdre knows too. But the good news is that my feelings are reciprocated. Deirdre actually likes me! The Beatles sing: ‘She Loves You, yeah, yeah, yeah.’

Deirdre and I exchange more than just knowing glances and smiles. I crumble at the sound of her voice as she greets me in the cloakroom with her trademark sexy ‘Morning’. I begin to have erotic dreams about her, even though I’ve no idea yet what erotic means. The Beatles sing: ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’

A new student called Gordon Cockroft has arrived at the school, and we become best mates. We sit together in class and talk about girls, football and art. Outside of school, Gordon and I play football at the local park, and he even comes swimming with me and Earth sister on Sunday mornings, when Earth dad takes us to the Leicester pool.

Then, one day in 1965, a new teacher called Mr Meredith arrives at our school – sparking an event of astronomical importance. On a cold December evening, he takes our class onto the Netball pitch, a tarmacked area in the school grounds, and shows us the sky through his ‘telescope’. He shares his love of astronomy with such enthusiasm and verve that I am instantly hooked. I had already been fascinated by space adventures, and now Mrs Meredith tells all about the ‘real’ universe.

A whole new world opens up – one which seems strangely familiar. Looking up at the bright stars on the jet-black background, I ask Mr Meredith to show me my home planet. He gives me a very strange look, followed by a nervous laugh, and quickly returns to his telescope, pointing it towards two very bright starts. When it’s my turn to look though the instrument, I feel like I’m back home. There, before my young eyes, I see small, amazing discs – one with a ring around it, and the other with four little moons. He tells us that the one with the rings is ‘Saturn’, and the other one is ‘Jupiter’. This is a great breakthrough in my research: my quest to remember what I once knew about the Universe begins in earnest.

I run home (watching out for cars), and tell my Earth parents about the evening with Mr Meredith. My enthusiasm must have rubbed off on dad because the next day he buys me my very own telescope. Is he feeling all right, I wonder? The telescope is only small, and not as powerful as Mr M’s, but it enables me to make a start at mapping the known Universe.

I take out books on astronomy from the local library and absorb as much as I can about the stars and planets. Earth mum is delighted that I have at last progressed beyond comics and Noddy books, and I decide there and then that I want to become an astronomer and rediscover where I’m from. The school year ends on a high.

*   *    *  
September, 1965. Mr Lawrence tell us he’s going to be our teacher again this year! We are all very pleased – we like Mr Lawrence. He has thick black, curly hair, a pointed nose, piercing eyes, and a weather-beaten face. He rides a motor bike too. In one lesson, he tells us all about Lawrence of Arabia – and I wonder if he is Lawrence of Arabia. I can picture him in Arab dress, fighting ‘the infidels’ – whoever they were. Mr Meredith continues to give us weekly lessons on Astronomy.

I am still in love with Deirdre Barker – and I’m very relieved that she hasn’t left the school. But she does lose her gold ring one day. Because it’s so valuable, the whole class begin looking for it – first in the classroom, then outside in the playground. I really hope that I can find it – then Deirdre will thank me forever, and maybe we can go out together, and she may even give me a kiss, and one day we can get married! But she finds it herself, and the drama is over for the day. I will have to find another reason to kiss Deirdre Barker.

Mr Lawrence encourages us to do ‘Creative Writing’. I begin writing a play set in Outer Space, and Mr Lawrence suggests that three other boys help me with it – Andrew Radford, William White, and Phillip Green. Whilst we talk about the story, we discover that we all like tomato soup. What this has got to do with my space story, I never find out – but it provides a common bond between us. Which is more than could be said of the writing. Andrew and Phillip have their own ideas of where the story should be heading, but it’s not what I have in mind. In the end, the story goes off on so many tangents it probably only makes sense to an alien with four brains.

I begin to have dreams about Deirdre Barker – ones in which my hose feels very hard and sticks out of my trousers. I do think of asking host mother or Earth father about this, but then decide against it.

I discover that Gordon fancies another classmate, Jane Nourish, and the four of us arrange a clandestine rendezvous at the local park, where the girls lie down submissively on the grass and actually let us kiss them. Wow! Apart from my host mother, it’s the first time I’ve kissed a female of the species, and I want to do it again. I note that kissing Deirdre has the same strange effect on my hose as I had in my dream, and I try to hide the bulge as we walk away from the park. I hope she hasn’t seen it (the bulge, that is – not the Park).

Although the things I like in life – Deirdre, football and art – are going well, I am progressing slowly at what my teachers tell me are ‘serious’ Earth subjects – maths and English. Earth mother assists with my spelling, but cannot help much with maths – a subject I dislike intensely.

Then one day we have tests – important tests – at school. At the time, I do not realise how important these are. Someone tells me the tests are called the ‘Eleven Plus.’ Eleven plus what, I wonder? If it’s eleven plus one, then even I can do that sum (it’s twelve). Still, if these tests are going to decide my future life, they must be quite important.

We get the results of the tests, and the class is split into three groups: the passes (who will go to the Grammar schools); the failures (who will transfer to the local Secondary Modern school); and the ‘borderlines’ – whose fates are yet to be decided. I fall into the last category, and have to attend an interview at Gateway Grammar School. If I pass, I join Christopher Read, Gordon Cockroft and others. If I fail, I’ll be with Andrew Radford, Carl Palmer, and most of my other friends.

I take some of my drawings to the interview at Gateway School. It’s a large building for big boys, and not a female in sight. I’m not sure I like this: can’t I be in the same school as Deirdre?

The interview starts badly and just gets worse. The man I see is not really interested in my artwork, and instead stares at a piece of paper in front of him. He then tells me that my spelling and maths are not very good. I could have bloody told him that for nothing. He asks me a few questions, including how to spell some long and useless words, and then asks, “What is sixteen three-quarters?” I’m stumped. If he really wants to know the answer, he should ask someone good at maths. He offers me some paper, and I try writing down three-quarters sixteen times, then adding them up. I get nowhere, but show him my answer. Who would want to know what sixteen three-quarters are anyway?

I guess that I’ve failed the interview and that I’ll be joining Carl and Andrew at Lancaster Boys Secondary Modern. This is the only guess I get right.

1965. The Beatles movie ‘Help!’ comes out, and John Lennon tells me You’re Gonna Lose that Girl. He’s spot on: after passing her eleven-plus, Deirdre flies off to Wyggeston Girls’ Grammar School, whilst I get shunted off to Lancaster Boys.’ Even though Deirdre’s house is only four hundred yards from mine, we lose contact and start to live in two different universes.

*   *   *   *   * 

End of Chapter 4.

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