Families and Friendships (4 page)

Claire laughed. ‘Tall, dark and handsome, eh?'

‘No, medium height, and brownish hair, I suppose,' replied Ginny. ‘Certainly handsome, though, and a really nice friendly sort of chap. I'm looking forward to seeing baby Stella. Arthur says he'll take me soon; I'll get me mam to look after the kids. Fiona says Stella has fair hair, like she has. I 'spect she's a beautiful baby. Fiona was a real pretty girl, wasn't she? Well she still is, of course.'

‘Her first baby was dark-haired,' said Claire thoughtfully. ‘I suppose she must have taken after the father.'

‘Yes, maybe she did,' said Ginny. ‘I'd been left for a month when Fiona's baby was born. So I never saw her. I wonder what became of her?'

Claire shook her head as though she had no idea. ‘She'll be in a good home, you can be sure of that,' she replied. ‘We try to do the best that we can for all the babies.'

Claire Wagstaff knew how to keep mum. There was hardly anyone who knew that she had helped Vera and Stanley Hargreaves with the adoption of the baby they had called Deborah. And she would not dream of telling Ginny that she still saw the fifteen-year-old girl, who had been Fiona's dark-haired baby, from time to time. Ginny and Arthur lived in South Shields, and Whitesands Bay, where the Hargreaves family lived, was only a few miles away. It was possible that some day their paths might cross, but Claire knew she must keep her own counsel.

‘Do you still work at Burnside House?' Ginny asked.

‘Yes, I'm still there,' Claire said, smiling. ‘Seventeen years I've been there, but I only do part-time. Our two are both married; I'm going to be a grandma soon! But I'd miss it now if I gave up, and it helps with the budget. What about you, Ginny? Do you work – go out to work, I mean?'

‘Yes, I do. I'm a dinner lady, at the junior school where our Carl and Sharon are. Ryan's at grammar school now. You know, that new place they built, Kelder Bank, not all that far from where you work. He's in the fourth year now. Time flies, doesn't it? He'll be taking his O levels next year, or whatever they call 'em.'

‘Oh, that's good,' replied Claire. ‘I've heard good reports of Kelder Bank. He should do well there.'

Kelder Bank was a new grammar school, a co-ed one, that had been built a few years ago to take the children from the villages and small towns round about. Buses were laid on to ferry them to and fro. Claire knew about it because Debbie Hargreaves went there. She, too, was in the fourth year, as was Ginny's son, Ryan. Fiona's and Ginny's babies had been born within a month of each other. So it was hardly surprising that they should be pupils at the same school. All the same, Claire's heart had missed a beat on hearing that the two fifteen-year-olds might be acquainted. But she knew that she must not breathe a word about her discovery. It might well be that Fiona was still curious about what had happened to her baby, or that Debbie might want to find her birth mother – she knew that she was adopted – but they would certainly not find out from her. On the other hand it might be that Fiona had decided to move on with her life and not look back. She certainly seemed to be happy now, from what Ginny had said, with her husband and her new baby girl. And Claire knew that Debbie had a good home with Vera and Stanley. She could not have been adopted by a more devoted and loving couple. Claire hoped she was still as happy with them as she had been when she was a tiny girl. She knew that although she had played a part in the adoption, feeling at the time that it was the right thing to do, her involvement in the matter was now at an end.

Debbie had proved to be a good baby. Her parents suffered comparatively few sleepless nights, although Vera, who had waited so long for her own little child, felt that there was nothing she would not do for her. She had been such a precious gift to both of them.

As she grew into a toddler, then a little girl, there were very few problems with her. She had a sunny disposition, smiling readily at people she knew, and also at those who, at first, were strangers to her; she was by no means a timid child. But her sunny smile could turn just as quickly to a frown and sometimes a few crocodile tears if something displeased her, like the sun disappearing for a while behind a dark cloud. She certainly had a will of her own, a stubborn streak that Vera and Stanley knew they must try to curb.

She settled down well at her infant school, just a few minutes walk from where they lived. She was a bright and intelligent child. She learnt to read very quickly, and her early teachers admitted that she was well ahead of many of her peer group. They did not put too much emphasis upon this, however. The policy of the infant school was to encourage all the children, the less able just as much as the cleverer ones, and not to indulge in too much competition between them. Debbie's parents, Vera more so than Stanley, had told her that she was a special little girl because she had been chosen by them, and Debbie was quick to inform her school friends about her ‘specialness'.

‘I'm special, because my mummy and daddy chose me to be their very own little girl,' she would say to anyone who would listen, including her first teacher, Miss Peterson. The young teacher warned Vera and Stanley that Debbie's tendency to boast should, perhaps, be gently curbed? She also pointed out herself to Debbie that all little boys and girls were special to their parents, so maybe she should say no more about it? Debbie was fond of Miss Peterson and looked up to her in the way that most children revered their first teacher; and so for a while she kept quiet.

When she was six years old, though, and had moved into a different class, she couldn't resist telling her tale to the children on her table, ones that she thought might not know about her. One of the boys did not want to know.

‘There's nowt special about you, Debbie Hargreaves,' he retorted. ‘You were adopted. That's what me mam told me. Your mam and dad couldn't have a baby of their own, so they had to have you. 'Cause your real mam didn't want you. And they're not your real mam and dad neither, not like mine are. So there!'

Debbie didn't reply to him. She retreated into a haughty silence because she didn't really know what to say. But she lost no time in telling her mother when she got home.

‘Mummy, there's an awful boy in my class. He's called Gavin Ramsbottom, and he said I wasn't special, like you said I was. He said that you and daddy 'dopted me, and that you had to have me 'cause my own mummy didn't want me. I don't like him, Mummy, and I shan't ever talk to him again. Anyway, he's got a silly name, hasn't he? The other kids laugh at it sometimes, an' he gets real mad. And it serves him right. But I am special, aren't I, Mummy? You did choose me when I was a baby, didn't you? And you are my real mummy and daddy, aren't you?'

‘Of course we are, darling,' said Vera. ‘I told you all about it a long time ago, didn't I? I told you how we went to that big house and chose you. The proper grown-up word is adoption. You were adopted, love, like that boy, Gavin, said. But he didn't need to be so rude to you. He doesn't understand all about it, you see.' Vera didn't know who this Gavin Ramsbottom was, but it was no secret in the neighbourhood where they lived that Debbie was an adopted child.

‘Now, listen darling,' Vera continued. ‘You mustn't keep telling everybody how special you are. Just stop it right now, because it isn't nice to show off, is it? And it isn't nice to laugh at people's names either, is it? Or about what they look like, or … or anything. Just try to be friends with all the boys and girls in your class, and don't show off any more. Do you understand, Debbie?'

Debbie said that she did, and they didn't mention the matter again.

Whitesands Bay was a pleasant place in which to grow up, away from the grime and the squalor that still existed in some of the towns and villages in the Tyneside area. It had grown from a small fishing village into a lively seaside resort frequented by the people from the immediate area for day trips, and by visitors from further afield for longer stays. There were long stretches of sandy beach, hotels and boarding houses, an amusement park with rides and sideshows, and facilities for those who wanted to play golf or tennis. Boats could be hired for a trip along the coast and around the small island close to the north end of the bay, with its lighthouse and rocky cliffs. The sea was safe for bathing, and anglers fished from the short pier.

Nearby Tynemouth was an interesting place to visit, to watch the busy river life and the shipyards, and to see the trawler fleets setting off or returning from their trips. Stanley sometimes remarked that there was no need for them to take holidays away from home as they had all that they needed on their doorstep. But Debbie knew that he was only joking because he enjoyed their holidays as much as she and her mother did. They usually went away for a week each year, to Whitby or Scarborough, and once to the Butlin's holiday camp at Filey.

As Debbie grew older she became less boastful. She was a sensible child and came to realize that she would make friends rather than enemies if she refrained from showing off and always insisting that she knew best. She learnt to curb her tongue, although her parents knew that she had a streak of self-will that might be harder to restrain when she became a teenager.

She progressed from the infant to the junior school, where there was more of a sense of competition between the pupils than there had been in the infant department. She maintained her place on the ‘top table', and was usually the top of the class or very near to it in the twice yearly tests. Vera was secretly pleased when she did not always come first. It was good for her to realize that she was not ‘the only pebble on the beach' as Stanley used to remark to her, jokingly.

In the way of most little girls she found a ‘best friend'. Shirley Crompton lived in the same street, so the two of them walked to and from school together, and attended Sunday school and the Brownie pack. Apart from the odd falling out they got on well together. Vera was pleased about the friendship because the family was what she considered a respectable one. Mr Crompton was an electrician, well known in the area for his competent work and reasonable charges. Vera made it her business to meet Madge Crompton and the two women formed a casual friendship, drinking coffee at one another's houses and taking the occasional trip into town. Madge was about the same age as Vera, rather older than some of the other mothers, and she had two older children who attended the grammar school, Kelder Bank.

‘I do hope our Shirley passes the eleven-plus,' Madge remarked to Vera one day as they sat in Madge's house enjoying their ‘elevenses'. ‘I want her to go to Kelder Bank, like our Graham and Alison. They're doing very well there. There's not much doubt about your Debbie passing, is there? Shirley's always telling me how Debbie came top in the spelling test, and she's good at sums, isn't she? Our Shirley struggles a bit with numbers, same as me. Her dad now, he's a wizard at adding up, with bills an' all that.'

‘Yes, I suppose Debbie's bright enough,' replied Vera. ‘Well, I know she's very clever actually, but Stan and I have learnt not to praise her too highly all the time. It doesn't do. We don't want her to get big-headed, although we'll be as pleased as Punch, of course, if she gets to the grammar school. Stan and I didn't get there … Anyway, your Shirley knows how to put our Debbie in her place, doesn't she? I've had a laugh to myself sometimes. She's met her match with Shirley alright!'

‘They get on well though, don't they?' said Madge. ‘It'll be nice if they can both go to the same school.'

Fortunately both women got their wish. When the results were announced in the spring of 1963, both Debbie and Shirley had passed the exam and would start at Kelder Bank school in the following September.

Learning came easily to Debbie, although she did not have quite such an easy ride at the new school. There were pupils there from all over the surrounding area, not just from Whitesands Bay, and she was not always the leading light in the monthly tests or the end of term exams. Vera and Stanley had high hopes for her that she would eventually go on to the sixth form and possibly on to college or university.

It had been apparent, though, from an early age, that Debbie's chief interest, like that of her father, was in outdoor pursuits rather than book learning, especially in gardening. She did her homework, quickly, because she had to do it, and she enjoyed reading books, but she was never happier than when she was digging and planting, her hands covered in soil. Stanley had encouraged her from being a tiny girl, not knowing whether she would take to it or not. She had her own little plot in the back garden and her own space in the greenhouse. Stanley taught her how to nurture the seeds and then to plant the seedlings, when they were large enough, in the garden. As she grew older she spent her pocket money on packets of seeds from Woolworth's, brightly illustrated with pictures of marigolds, nasturtiums, candytuft, Virginia stock and Sweet Williams.

‘You've got green fingers, Debbie,' Stanley told her when she was seven years old.

‘No, I haven't, Daddy,' she replied, carefully inspecting her hands. ‘They're pink, the same as everybody else's. When they're not mucky,' she added, wiping her soil covered hands on her working dungarees.

Stanley laughed. ‘No, green fingers means that you've got a knack for it, for making things grow. And you don't mind getting your hands messy neither, like some fussy little girls do.'

‘And I'm not frightened of worms neither,' she replied. ‘They do a good job in the soil, don't they, Daddy?'

Her parents wondered if the phase would pass, as children's interests tended to do. But it didn't. Her favourite subject when she progressed to the grammar school was biology. She enjoyed dissecting frogs and worms, and viewing insects through a microscope, laughing at her friends who were squeamish.