The Sex Lives of English Women by Wendy Jones

Author:Wendy Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile Books
Published: 2016-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

12

Feminist

Shirley, seventies, Leeds

‘There was always somebody ready to come and have sex with me’

‘When I was sixteen I met my first husband. I went to this party, I met him, that was it, I was totally in love with him from that minute on. Arthur was at university. For me, oh God! that was exciting. I knew I could never get to university. Nobody in my family had ever gone – I came from a very working-class family. It was one of those fantastic things that other people did, like people went on holiday abroad. It’s incredible to think how different life was then.

The first date we had he told me his father had died that day, so instead of going to the cinema we went for a walk. I first had sex with him – and when I think back, oh my God! I wouldn’t do that now – when his mother was in the house. My God, it was so risky. This was before we were married; I was sixteen, Arthur was nineteen. I was scared because it was not the right thing to do: it was against my morality – I knew that. But I was also very keen to have sex. I was a sexy girl. I was always desperate for it.

I think because I was adopted – I’m sure this happens in ordinary families but this is my view of it – I didn’t fit my parents. They got landed with me, which must have been the shock of their lives. They had got this beautiful baby at six weeks and I turned into a really wild child. And they didn’t know what to do with me. I’d be outside cuddling a boyfriend, I would be out late, my dad would come looking for me because he was frightened that anything could happen to me: ‘Come on, lady! Or else.’ I don’t think people do this now. It was crazy! My dad would come out and he’d go one way and we ran the other way and then I’d be back home before him. I’m so ashamed now when I think of it. But I think it’s the strength of one’s sexual feelings, really.

When I was eighteen I went to be a nurse in Sheffield. In those days there were matrons and it was all very strict. God knows what made me think I could be a nurse. I remember the first time I went on the wards I fainted, I was never going to be a nurse. Never. But the idea was to get away from home; it didn’t matter what I did. Arthur came to Sheffield to a chemical company on his university placement and he had a little flat. Then of course the inevitable happened and I got pregnant and I didn’t tell anybody. I didn’t tell a soul. I knew I was going to have to tell people I was pregnant and the whole world was going to be mad with me.

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