John Edward Cooper’s Notes

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Sunday 8th January 1967

1967
Saturday 7th Janaury 1967

The diary that I kept for part of 1966 also had pages for January 1967. In the space for Sunday 8th January 1967 I wrote:

Heap big crush on
Pam

In the Notes space I wrote:

MASTER PLAN
Mk. (1)
Operates
(ANTI-EMANCIPATE — EMANCIPATE)

It seems likely to me that we, Chris and I, went for a walk in the park with the girls, sans boyfriends, on the Sunday afternoon, which would tend to enhance the “re-enamourment” of Pam, mentioned above. Chris recalls going round to the Williamses’ after church on the Sunday night and the two boyfriends being there. We may therefore have got the X60 bus back home from Lower Mosley Street bus station (we got this particular bus on one or two occasions) having been taken there by Pastor or Maurice, by car.

Heap big crush[1] on Pam—This, despite the fact that I was going out with Audrey at the time! I had been dissatisfied with Audrey for some time. As I wrote in Johannine Writings XXII.4–8:

4.Now all along, Audrey had been cold in the way she acted towards me. I did not think that this showed that Audrey did not like me, for it had been thus all along; even the time she had been jealous at my eyeing a girl and had said, “I want you”,[2] it had been like this: she had always been cold, even when she had been jealous, without my knowledge, that I was writing to female pen friends abroad.[3]
5.This coldness frustrated and exasperated and sometimes infuriated me; I was used to coming home in a state of tension and frustration.
6.Be it known, that it was not in my mind to know her carnally, to lie with her (although at one time, when she particularly frustrated me as she sat on my knees, I squirmed, thinking, “Lie with me, my sister!” (2 Sam. 13:11) But I did not seriously intend to do this), but it was merely that she denied me any reciprocation whatever of my affectionate behaviour. Why, she would never fondle and cuddle me, and she would never kiss me without my having kissed her first.
7.So it was that she wearied of me, because I had no zeal for the Lord, and was thus causing hindrance to her in the Lord. I admit it.
8.And it was also, that I wearied of her as well, for the aforementioned reasons.

[1] See Crushes.
[2] This bit of the story seems a little obscure. Presumably, I admired some girl; Audrey objected, so I replied, “Don’t you ever fancy other boys?”, and she replied, “I want you.” This, however, is only guesswork.
[3] The placing here of Johannine Writings’ reference to “female pen friends” is anachronistic — see 17 March 1967.

As indicated above, I paid a visit to the Williamses in Manchester, where I met Pam after a longish absence and became re-enamoured of her. This new awakening of feelings I had forgotten I was capable of having, spurred me to consider “ditching” Audrey. So I wrote these words in my diary:

MASTER PLAN
Mk.(1)
Operates
(ANTI-EMANCIPATE — EMANCIPATE)

I was going to put her to the test, I imagined. If she improved, then I would keep going out with her (“ANTI-EMANCIPATE”). But if she didn’t… (“EMANCIPATE”). I don’t really know what I would have done; I was reluctant to take on the upset of being without her, without a guaranteed replacement. But in the euphoria of the crush on Pam, and in my consequently-highlighted dissatisfaction of Audrey’s treatment of me, I considered, in fantasy at least, the prospect of finishing with her. Johannine Writings contain a recollection of this “Emancipation” project (XXIII:4):

4.And I had in mind, owing to her undue coldness, to emancipate myself from her, and by some means finish going out with her.

However, neither reason nor opportunity for “emancipation” arose, because events took an unexpected turn.…

Monday 16th January 1967

posted by John Edward Cooper # 6/27/2009 03:11:00 pm

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