I had loved aeroplanes and the excitement of flying for as long as I could remember having been bought up on a diet of Biggles and the exploits of Battle of Britain Aces. It was therefore inevitable that I should join the RAF as soon as I left school.
Following days of tests, and being too young to become a pilot – my dream since childhood, I was selected to become an student apprentice at a training school in the West Country.
Thus began three of the most glorious years of my life. Initially they were hard but as time passed I grew to love the camaraderie we experienced. I was also to grow to enjoy the girls, ever present both locally and in Bristol - a city some miles away.
The first year of my training had passed quickly, even the two weeks on Dartmoor in the early summer, when our physical reserves had been drained, seemed a far memory, but it did mean that the major part of my "Duke of Edinburgh's Silver Award" had been completed. Only one more part to do.
Looking down the list of acceptable activities I saw 'Ballroom Dancing' close to the bottom. It may not have been the most masculine of pursuits, but gaining a bronze award in ballroom dancing sounded an easy way of obtaining the last part of the DoE award. I soon found three other apprentices, equally stuck for what to do, to join me at the 'West Country Ballroom Dancing Academy'.
This academy was to be where we could learn the necessary steps to complete our Award tasks and, as it turned out, other vital life skills!
Further enquiries revealed that it was Tuesday evenings when the beginner's classes were held. On the first night of the next course, four well-scrubbed teenagers dressed in blazers and grey slacks arrived on the doorstep - well, not actually the doorstep, but at the foot of a poorly lit staircase leading up to a first floor landing and a shabby door. This opened onto two large adjoining rooms where the regular attendees had assembled.
Gloria - an extremely well preserved forty-something who ran the classes, met us.
"Welcome boys," she gushed, "come and join the others."
We were guided to a group of about eight other newcomers standing awkwardly in one corner - six boys and two girls.
After exchanging nods Gloria addressed us and explained how the six-week introduction course would proceed.
It was a mainstay of the course that eminently better-qualified pupils, all of whom happened to be female, helped Gloria in her task of training the new recruits. They acted as partners to guide and coach us through the complexities of the Waltz, the Quickstep, the Slow Foxtrot, the Jive and the Cha-Cha in which, competence was required to obtain our Award.
We learned the Waltz first, but before a single 3/4 note was played, Gloria herself and a willing helper demonstrated the steps. It seemed straightforward enough so we were instructed to pair off and practice while Gloria voiced instructions
" One two three, one two three -that's right - one two three, one two three -splendid!"
By the end of the first session most of us could shamble through a robotic waltz and by the end of the second lesson we could also do something which might be recognised as a Slow Foxtrot. For each dance we exchanged partners: in this way we danced with a succession of young females - some nice - some not so nice. Gloria herself would also take turns with each of us.
Dancing with Gloria was an 'experience': she would extend her left arm to meet mine and then clamp my body to hers, vice like, with her right arm, bringing them into contact at every point. The theory being that in order to follow her steps required direct contact with her legs at the thigh. The problem with that was that, as a teenage boy, so intimately connected to a women, I began to experience sexual arousal that made me squirm uncomfortably in an effort to hide my growing problem. Concentration on the dancing then took second place to not having my erection detected.
In hindsight I suspect that Gloria enjoyed an evening of having her mons veritas rubbed with the erect member of a succession of ardent male teenagers but, like a consummate professional, never showed that she did.
It was on the third week that the team of helpers included Sandy, a petite brunette who was exquisitely proportioned and devastatingly beautiful. Sandy was a gold medallist and danced like an angel.
It was inevitable that I, along with half a dozen other young hopefuls, would fall in love with her at first sight. Over the next two of three weeks we attended more dance sessions and at each session I had the pleasure of dancing with Sandy at least once - I even chatted to her over an orange juice during the interval, embarrassing myself with awful repartee that left, even me, cringing. I was convinced that I had no chance with her until late one Thursday night a student from a more advanced class, came into our room on the base and handed me a note. He smiled and left me to open it.
"Dear John,
Please don't think me forward but I would like to see you on Friday night if you can make it - say about 8:00 by the pier. Maybe we could go to the cinema or something? If you don't want to I will understand.
Sandy."
I'm sure my face turned pink as I read it, but my heart leapt.
***
Out first date was at the Odeon cinema. We sat near the back in the gloom and it took two hours to hold each other's hand and kiss. I felt unbelievably awkward and it was clear that Sandy was the one with confidence. It was her who leaned against me and it was her who offered her lips to be kissed after waiting such a long time for me to make the first move.
We arranged to meet at the same time the next night and I showered and shaved for my date with enthusiasm. I even applied a little after-shave despite it being considered effeminate in those early days of masculine personal hygiene. James Bond had responded in the book
From Russia with love,
when told that Russian men used perfume, " English men wash" - a sentiment we English males of the early 60's tried to live up to!
My bus was late and it was ten minutes after eight when I hurried towards the pier. Sandy was pacing up and down but stopped and smiled when she saw me arrive. I apologised profusely and was forgiven. Looking back, I cannot believe how nervous I was on those first meetings; nothing I said came out right, but Sandy, with disarming self confidence, took my hand saying, "It's a gorgeous night, let us just go for a walk along the front."
I agreed, being happy to do anything in the company of this wonderful young woman.
Her hand was small and warm in mine and I felt immensely proud as I walked with her beside me - like the cat who got the cream. I tried talking but, like before, everything I said sounded crass. She smiled and squeezed my hand, eventually putting her arm around my waist and pulling herself close, nestling into my side with her head on my upper arm. I placed an arm about her and hugged her to me.
We walked into the semi-darkness at the end of the promenade where the increased distance between the streetlights had reduced their effectiveness. Eventually we reached the last outpost of the town - an Edwardian bus shelter surrounded by well-developed shrubs. It was like entering a cave equipped with a slatted wooden bench seat along its length. Sandy led me gently into its gloom and sat down, pulling me down beside her so that she could snuggle up close to me.
After a few minutes she kissed me, a long deep kiss that said to me 'I want you'. The smell and feel of this girl intoxicated me and in the short time that I had known her we had developed a new, tactile, non-verbal means of communication.
Without breaking our kiss, she unbuttoned my coat and slid a small hand in to explore my chest through my thin cotton shirt. Not satisfied with that she undid a shirt button and placed her fingers inside and onto my breast, twisting the hair she found there in her tiny fingers and rubbing my nipple.
I was shy but enflamed and responded by unbuttoning her coat. When I opened it, I revealed two pert little breasts that strained wilfully against a thin but tight woollen top. I covered one mound with my hand and squeezed it ever so gently. She pushed it more firmly into my hand and I squeezed it even more.
Her hand had travelled down, inside my shirt, to my stomach and was playing with my navel. I responded by slipping my own hand underneath her tight jumper and let it linger on the warm flesh of her tummy before moving it up to cover her lacy cotton-clad breast. By tugging the top down, I exposed her nipple and was able to roll it between my thumb and forefinger. She sighed. I pushed the bra up and over her breasts so that I could fill my whole palm with her firm young flesh and, from her response, I knew she had been waiting for this attention.
Her fingers were becoming bolder and had moved below my belt line, just touching the head of my, by now, powerfully erect penis. Our mouths were still locked and our tongues desperately explored each other's mouths. It was as if our bodies were conducting activities on a number of fronts, each designed to exact the maximum amount of pleasure from what it was doing.
I drew in my stomach allowing her little hand to delve lower and encircle my cock in a firm grip and the pleasure I felt caused me to draw a sharp breath. Sandy was clearly dictating the rate at which our sexual exploration was progressing. She was a sixties girl and wore a fetching mini skirt that stopped several inches above her knee, I dropped my hand and rested it on the course nylon of the stockings that covered her exposed thighs. Her legs parted as I touched them to signal her approval to proceed and I slowly slid my trembling fingers along the inside of her soft thigh until they reached the top of her stocking and the unbelievable sensation of her bare cool gossamer flesh. They lingered for some time, tracing tiny circles on that heavenly surface before advancing to the damp, straining material that covered her most private place.
Her hand had stopped moving in my shorts, thankfully, as I caressed the outer lips of her sex through the taught material. Her breathing was becoming laboured, even though my fingers had not yet entered her, but I was about to change that and tugged the material barrier to one side, sliding a probing finger into the sloppy entrance of her vagina.
She sighed even more deeply into my mouth and pushed herself forward onto my two rigid fingers, forcing me to penetrate her more deeply.
