John Edward Cooper’s Notes

 1. Chris lived in Ascot Road, Thornton, and further down on the other side of the road, past where the two-storey houses give place to bungalows,

[i] Ascot Road… where the two-storey houses give place to bungalows: This is written from the standpoint of going along Ascot Road from Chris’s house. Barbara Swann lived in the third bungalow after the two-storey houses ended. The photo below was taken facing in the opposite direction. Chris’s house, No.19, is toward the far end on the right. The hip ends of the first two bungalows can be seen on the left; and the third one, the Swanns’, is out of shot.


2003 photo

 Many home-owners give their houses names, even though they are sufficiently identified for postal purposes by their number, in this case No.52; and indeed the Swanns’ house was named “Takoradi”, after the capital of the Western Region of Ghana. By the time Chris got to know the Swanns, the father had already died, presumably quite young, but he had worked in Ghana. There was a younger brother, Alan, who was about Chris’s brother David’s age and was in fact friends with him (cf. David Charles Woodhead and David Charles Jones, par.4).

 1A. Chris had no such problem of shyness with girls. Indeed, he was at the Swanns’ house one afternoon and was introduced to another girl, about his age, who said she was their cousin.[ii] She also came from the vicinity of Denshaw, near Oldham, from where the Swanns hailed. This first encounter took place in the drive which led to the back of the bungalow; and presumably it was summer, because most of the time was spent in the garden. The conversation turned to Jones, and it transpired that this girl, who also went to Fleetwood Grammar School, was even in his class and sat behind him; so Chris and she swapped their stories of him, with much hilarity. She had actually flicked ink pellets at him, she said;[iii] and she also claimed to be the one who had taunted Jones with fake declarations of love. (Chris was already privy to Jones’s version of the story, and to the fact that these declarations of love had deeply troubled him.)[iv]

[ii] When Chris first related this, he added: “Was she really her cousin? Or did she just claim to be because they both came from near Oldham? I think she was a ‘false cousin’; they just ‘adopted’ each other because they [both came from the same place].”
[iii] This part of the story has a rather “comic-book” feel to it; one wonders how the perpetrator could avoid getting messed up with ink as much as the target.
[iv] In and around Davelyshome, par.5

 2. Chris and I once spotted Barbara Swann and a boyfriend in Cleveleys. They were in a sea-front shelter and wanted to do some necking, but we started spying on them from cover not far away. We weren’t very discreet, either, and initially their awareness of our presence and soon their annoyance at it became obvious. Our repeated giggling must have given away our location, for all of a sudden he sprang up and ran over to us holding up a clenched fist in front of our faces, demanding abruptly, “Do you want toothing?” (which interpreted means “If you don’t stop pestering us, I shall hit you in such a way as to knock your teeth out”).

Christine and Pat[v]
 3. The impression I had towards the end of that year, 1964, was that Chris was an “old hand” at getting off with birds; I hadn’t even started yet, I hadn’t experienced my first kiss. However, it seems from what he told me later on, that it was quite a recent experience for him, too. Apart from once, at the age of 10, before he moved to Thornton from Grimsby, when he kissed Julie Woodhead, the first bird he got off with was Judith Wilkinson, when he was working at the Boating Lake, Fleetwood, during the long summer holiday from school in 1964. She was from Burnley but must have been visiting her cousin Pat. And they, and Pat’s friend Christine, used to hang around the Boating Lake. Chris fancied Judith, and he got a date with her; they went up to some gardens near the Mount, Fleetwood, necking.

The Mount, Fleetwood

[v] Christine and Pat: This story is also told in somewhat abridged form in Concerning the “Second First Visit” to Manchester.

[vi] Chris… espied a girl sitting… under the Mount veranda on a bench, and he sat down next to her and put his arm round her: He wrote in 2018, in a different context: “In those days, getting off with someone usually involved edging up to them, and eventually snogging with them.” As a matter of interest, here is that context; Chris wrote:

[Christine Valentine] often used to be seen behind the counter in the Candy Box [a sweetshop opposite Thornton Station] of an evening. I must have gone in there a couple of times, and noticed how attractive she was. She was of a friendly disposition, and there might have been a bit of small talk, but no more than that. When I got to know this kid at school who was also called Valentine, I quizzed him on whether he was related to the people at the Candy Box — which, of course, he was. Although I had been kept back a year, I think that he was in a lower form to me; so it’s possible that he was two years younger than us. Whatever — when I asked him about his sister, he seemed interested in sounding her out for me. A few days later, he came up to me and said that he had arranged a meeting at the shop that evening, so that I could get to know her. I went along and, when I arrived, Christine was standing behind the counter as usual, and he was standing on same side as me. Without any further ado, he just pointed at her and then he pointed at me, and said, “Well, this is her, and this is him!”— Hmmmm, what to say? I think we just smiled at each other and said very little. In those days, getting off with someone usually involved edging up to them, and eventually snogging with them. In that situation, however, this was clearly impossible. She was behind the counter, Valentine continued to stand there, grinning at both of us, and a customer could have walked in at any moment — or, worse still, one of her parents. I think that, after some more awkward small talk, I just left. The rest is a blur, but I can’t recall there being any follow-up on the matter.

[vii] Chris commented in 2018: “The girl under the Mount veranda was indeed upset about something, and seemed to be glad of some male company.”
[viii] The story in par.9 is also told, in less detail, in Brian Collinge, par.9. There, the statement, “He spoke to her in a tender and consoling tone”, is cast in the form of a question, whether “he feigned tenderness and a consoling tone”.
[ix] A bit of top — i.e. manual contact with the top part of her body, specifically the pectoral part. If we’d been in North America, we would probably have used the euphemistic baseball analogy, “I made it to second base”. About “a bit of top”, Chris commented, “It sounds too crude and, on reflection, I don't feel like it was true.”

The Happy Land
 10. Collinge and his cronies used to frequent the “Happy Land”, an amusement arcade in Cleveleys;[x] and Chris and I, and sometimes Peter too, would go along there, often on a Sunday evening, in the hope of picking up birds. On one such occasion, we bumped into the “cousin” of Barbara Swann, whom Chris had previously met.[xi] And because she and I (and Peter, if he was there) went to Fleetwood Grammar School, and all of us knew Jones, he naturally became the topic of our excited and noisy chatter.

[x] Cf. Pat Lomas and Elaine, par.2. See also David Jones, par.2.
[xi] Par.1A. Perhaps Barbara Swann was also there, for that would have made it easier to get into a conversation with the “cousin”. And the fact that Chris had seen her before in Ascot Road would also account for our talking about Jones.




Postcards of Victoria Road, Cleveleys, showing the “Happy Land”.

 10A. We also used to wander around Thornton, or hang around in the bus shelters at Four Lane Ends, in the usually vain hope[xii] that some suitable young ladies would pass us.

[xii] Usually vain hope: Cf. Doreen Tewson.


One of three bus shelters at Four Lane Ends, Thornton, in 1979