John Edward Cooper’s Notes
Monday 24th July 1967
1967 In the 1966 diary, after the seven-days-per-opening-plus-notes continuation for January 1967, there appeared sections entitled “NOTES” for the remaining months, two months to each page. Because I had already written in the space for NOTES: JULY 1967, I wrote another couple of July events above it, in the NOTES: JUNE 1967 space: As with Sunday, here again, we have a sad reference to Audrey’s and my happiness just before the (to me) unexpected parting. I don’t recall the Sunday walk, but I remember clearly the walk the following Monday or Wednesday. It was evening, and we decided to get out of the house for a bit, while it was still light. We walked up the newly-made embankment, near my house, which was to carry the new Thornton By-Pass, Amounderness Way, up clear of the railway line.
As we did so, we had a bit of fun. I carried Audrey—looking very attractive in a white tee-shirt and light grey slacks, and with her long hair, grown out long for me—piggy-back, and wouldn’t put her down till she gave me due payment of a kiss. It was getting chilly and the sun was setting when we went back to my house, and for a bit of fun I went in and locked Audrey out. She knocked on the door a few times, then said she was going home if I wouldn’t let her in. I retorted, “If you go home, that’s the last time we’ll see each other!”—or words to that effect; possibly: “…You’ll not come here again!” She could have stormed off, but she didn’t; so I let her in. That is why her finishing with me, and what is more her refusal after that to be reconciled, came as such an unexpected blow to me: if she had in mind to “chuck” me, why didn’t she do it then? My diary for 22nd May 1970 records a different incident, but goes on to say that it was …reminiscent of about a week before Audrey finished with me, when I took her down where the new road was being constructed, taking her on my back, asking and getting a kiss to put her down, running away from her into the house and playfully not giving her admission, then her saying, “I’ll go home, John”, and my saying that we’d be through if she did. |
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