John Edward Cooper’s Notes
Pat Lomas and Elaine
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Early Days 1. My first manual contact outside clothing with a breast occurred with a girl called Elaine, who was rather plump and whom I didn’t like much at all. Postman’s Knock at Pat Lomas’s   2.
Shortly after our triumphant return home to Thornton in November 1964 (see Ann Nurse), Chris and I went to a party at the house of someone called Pat Lomas in Cleveleys, while her parents were away. She was one of the Happy Land crowd[1] and was going out with Brian Collinge at the time, though he wasn’t there at the party. Peter Gooding, I recall, was there. Pat was small and had quite a chubby face, though she wasn’t overweight, and had her hair all back-combed and piled high on her head in a “beehive”.
3.
There was a game of Postman’s Knock, where one person was chosen to be the “postman”, went out of the room and knocked on the door; another person was chosen by the rest of the group to answer the door, and go out to pay for the “letter” with a kiss. At one point I was outside the room in the dark, snogging with Pat. I remember that while kissing she seemed to move her head around quite a lot. [2] Cathy: Chris recalled, on 28th September 2007, in an e-mail to me:Yes, the snogging sessions at Pat Lomas’ place were fun. I got to really fancy that Cathy and, although I was with her there on at least a couple of occasions, she apparently had a boyfriend. I remember that, on one occasion, she even asked Pat if she could go with me into the front-room, but this request was immediately turned down (Grrrr!!)! She lived in Luton Road. I can remember Elaine, but not very clearly.I was only present at that first “snogging session”, but evidently there were others. [3] A girl who was dressed in black: I am always reminded of her by the song Baby’s in Black from the Beatles for Sale album (released 4th December 1964):My date with ElaineOh dear, what can I do? 5. I left the party with an arrangement to meet Elaine again a day or two later, either at Collinge’s in Fleetwood, or with the intention of going there. So, at Collinge’s, in the living-quarters behind the shop, I was downstairs with Elaine, and he went upstairs with, I suppose, Pat. We lay on the carpet, kissing; and eventually my hand wandered to her left breast, which I rubbed gently. She was wearing a fine-knit pullover, which I didn’t attempt to remove or get inside. And the sensation of just rubbing that soft, featureless mound disappointed me; it didn’t meet any expectation of thrill or fulfil the promise held in Collinge’s words that there was a lot more you could do with a girl. But then, I didn’t fancy her anyway, and what’s more, her breath wasn’t all that fresh. 6. After the session on the floor, I noticed that a cigarette I’d left had fallen out of the ashtray onto the table, and had scored a great long black groove in the polished wood as it had burned all the way along to the filter tip. We left there without telling Collinge about this accident, and there was a fight (or as Collinge would say, a “feight”) when he caught up with me again—but that’s another story. I did arrange to meet Elaine again, but I didn’t turn up. |
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