"Hots" 17 3 8 (14) 25 1 21

Getting the "hots" for someone I decided a long time ago wasn't necessarily the same as falling in love with someone... and throughout my youth there were a number of girls for whom I got the hots.

Like Barbara H in the Clarion Cycling Club whose husband Alan told me just a few weeks ago that she is now 82 and therefore 5 years older than I so that I’m talking about a something that began say 62 years ago as a boy of 15, just starting work.

But my hots for Barbara were simply that, that they never lead anywhere: call it a childhood infatuation but interestingly enough it wasn’t a simple infatuation either because my feelings for her were reciprocated to an extent. At the time she had this boyfriend Keith who was one of the most macho men in the club, a racing cyclist who returned some good times for the 10 mile (16 km) time trials on Thursday evenings, such as 26 minutes dead, or for a 25 (40km) when he would come in not much over the hour. And Barbara was not behind the door when it came to returning good times but in her case of course slower times than macho Keith.

So we used to cycle together side by side for quite long distances which in a cycling club in the 1950s with not so many cars on the roads when the turn out for a Sunday Club Run could be as many as 50 people all cycling 2 abreast and changing partners as the mood took them, beginning at 9 am in the morning until sometimes as late as 7 of an evening. In Barbara’s case I was fortunate in that I passed her street on my way to work and on my way home too of course. As it happened she used also to work in a paper mill at the time and so for a time at least we had similar working hours, occasionally bumping into one another, each on his or her bike as we travelled home after work: never in a morning for I was always late getting to work, hahaha.

Getting home from work on time was never a consideration and as our friendship developed I would wait for her so we could chat about this and that, just being in her company was magic… In my eyes at that time I saw a very beautiful woman in Barbara then aged 20, with a very gentle and sincere side to her personality. Sometimes the club arranged weekends away when the Saturday evening would be spent in places like Stainforth or Aysgarth in the Yorkshire Dales when the older people would go down the pub leaving younger people like me behind to amuse ourselves in the youth hostel and its environs.

Well my years with Bury Clarion began in late 1954 or early 1955 and lasted maybe 3 years until my 17^th birthday since I befriended a certain Mr R with whom we started first hill walking together and very quickly took up rock climbing when I guess I began to see Barbara less and less.

Some years later when I had my first real girlfriend over in Finland around the time I was coming up for 21 or maybe 22 though still based in England I would go to Bury Palais de Danse together with my brother J and his crowd of young men: Brian B, David C and possibly Eric T and one Friday night I met Barbara there by an accident of circumstances and we had a few dances together when I confided my earlier affection for her and when to my great surprise and delight she confided how she felt the same way about me.

Then we lost touch again but once much later when I was married with children all but grown up I bumped into her again as I came off Holcombe Hill, and out of the blue after my heart attack she started sending me cards at Christmas time after a get-well card after my bi-pass surgery when I reciprocated with thanks.