John Edward Cooper’s Notes
Janet Aikman
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By the time of the abortive affair of Janet Aikman (1972), my habit of diary-writing had dried up. As source documents, then, we have only a contemporary letter of Aikman herself, and Johannine Writings (XXVII–XXVIII). Perhaps towards the end of 1971 or early in 1972 Gillian’s younger brother Robert had started coming to the Full Gospel Church in Fleetwood. He did this in company with a number of others who were about his age, including a slim but nevertheless full-figured girl, fairly tall, with long, curly dark hair. I am not sure how long they had been coming to the Full Gospel Church before this girl took my attention and gaze. She was wearing a long, dark skirt, and an orangy-coloured pullover—a darker colour than orange but lighter than brown—which was fairly tight-fitting and therefore accentuated her quite heavy bosom. She was an extrovert, and after the Sunday evening meeting, rather than stand around talking, she was dancing and disporting in a way which marked her out to me as agreeably different from the rest. So I asked Robert, whom I knew reasonably well from when I went out with his sister Gillian in 1970–71—I either took him aside from the company or phoned him later on—I asked him the name of this girl, how old she was, and what her phone number was. He told me that she was Janet Aikman—“A–I–K–M–A–N”—that she was 17, and gave me her number. So on the Monday evening, at home, driven and emboldened by my new crush on her, I summoned a great deal of heart-pounding courage, and dialled her number. “Can I speak to Janet Aikman?” “Speaking!”—either that or she was fetched to the phone. “You may not know me but I know you,” I began. “I’m the chap at church with long hair and ginger whiskers.” I guess, then, that she must have been coming to the church for a number of weeks, long enough to have at least registered my image in her memory. I was beardless, but my sideburns connected with my moustache, and this facial hair was reddish, though my then copious head-hair was brown. “Do you know who I am?” I asked her. I waited for a mental picture of who I might be to form in her mind. She was uncertain at first, but then seemed to recognise my self-description. So I got round to asking her, “Can I take you out?” She replied that she was about to do something different that night. She may, however, have gone on to tell me about the meetings that they held at her house. At this stage, I don’t think I was aware that Robert & Co. used to meet at her home to pray together and discuss religious matters. Johannine Writings XXVII:25–26 suggests that they were meeting there before some of them started going to the Full Gospel Church, and that not all who met there went to the Full Gospel Church. Indeed, Robert told me in 2021: “There used to be about six people meeting in the shed at Janet Aikman’s house. We all used to go to Holy Trinity Church in South Shore, Blackpool, and the members visited the Full Gospel Church occasionally, mainly through me.” Anyway, I went to one or two of these week-night meetings at her home. She lived near the start of St. Anne’s Road, South Shore, Blackpool, not a great distance from Gillian’s and Robert’s which was situated off the far end of St. Anne’s Road. So it was a considerable cycle-ride or a two-bus journey from my home. We gathered in the shed in her back yard; it was quite a big shed, and I think the floor was covered with an old carpet and we sat on cushions. I was almost 22, some four years older than they were; and their jocular references to me as an “old man” didn’t help my feeling somewhat out of place because of the age difference. I remember speaking to them—perhaps four or five of them—on the prophecies of Daniel. And she consented to my taking her out one evening—only, she didn’t show up. I returned home disappointed and perplexed, and rang her number. She told me that she’d been to Manchester that day—in connection with higher education, perhaps—and had got stuck there, hadn’t been able to get back home in time. I accepted what she told me but was tempted to think she hadn’t meant what she said when she agreed to let me take her out—shades of the old Susan Pipe brush-offs, I thought. I did finally take her out—but as far as I was concerned, the evening was a disaster. I met her at 7.30pm, probably at Talbot Road bus station, Blackpool—I would get a 14 or 14A bus there and she would get a 22—and we walked the few hundred yards to The Blue Parrot restaurant at the far end of Topping Street. Conversation was strained, and the meal was over and I was back on the bus and home by about 9pm. So I wrote her a letter and made my wishes clear. Her letter in reply to mine was as follows: …, St. Annes Rd.,Around this time, Chris invited me over to visit him in Grimsby. He had arranged with his fiancée Pamela, who worked for Provincial Insurance in Hull, that I should go out with her colleague from Provincial Insurance in Grimsby, Janet. There was a young man called Ron Green who had started to attend the Full Gospel Church. He wasn’t one of the Robert Ashworth–Janet Aikman party, but he started always to be hanging around Aikman after meetings and talking to her. It quickly became obvious to me that he had designs on her; but I took comfort from her letter, and assuaged my feelings of jealousy in the belief that he wouldn’t get anywhere with her. Although Janet Aikman’s reply to my request for a closer relationship had saddened and disappointed me, it at least reassured me that this young rival would have no more success than I had done. How wrong I was! Five weeks after receiving Aikman’s letter, on Thursday 25th May 1972, I was at the evening prayer-meeting at church. And I was yearningly, burningly upset afterwards, when, going out of the room where the prayer-meeting was held, into the darkened corridor, I espied Janet Aikman and Ron Green with their arms round each other in a close embrace. Around this time, my Mum spoke out with uncharacteristic acerbity. “I dislike that girl,” she said: “always flaunting herself!” I am not sure whether she was aware of the depth of unrequited feeling I had for her. The next day, Friday 26th May 1972, despite my disappointment and depression, I did get on the train, as arranged, and arriving in Grimsby, I was met by Chris and Janet—and I don’t remember any yearning thoughts of Aikman entering my head at all after that. |
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