Bangtao Tales |
October 21st 2015 |
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Chapter 84 Do Not Disturb When I was , I think, twenty one, I was in love with a beautiful lady in Portsmouth. When we met I was nineteen and she was seventeen and in her final year at school. At the time, I was a milkman. Not a particularly inspired choice of work, but as a consciencious objector, I had to spend a couple of years doing something useful to the state as opposed to pushing a red buttons and progressing a nuclear holocaust. So I built muscles on my arms working on a building site and then served my country in the cause of food distribution. It was a bit boring but gave me a chance to decide what to do with my life. For sure, I did not want to remain long as a milkman. About then I met Marcia and a few months later she passed her exams and got a place at Oxford to read 'greats' which is a fancy term for 'classics' which is a fancy term for studying Latin and Greek. Now I may not have been the brightest milkman in the world but I could see that the writing was on the wall. If she went to Oxford and I remained in this job then the relationship was doomed. I had, so far, wasted most of my time at school and left at the age of eighteen witha handful of 'O' levels and a solitary 'A' level in physics, the only subject which I could do, at least at that level, without tiring my brain. I formulated a plan. I would get to Oxford university. I enrolled at my local Technical College to re-do my 'A' levels in Pure Maths, Applied Maths and Physics (I needed a better grade). The plan was that in two years time having gained three straight 'A's I would continue on to Oxford. The problem was that as I started my 'A' levels at Portsmouth Tech, Marcia was starting her course at Oxford. The bodings were not good and, of course, our relationship faltered as she was entertained by a host of glittering intellectuals, mostly in those days, from the public schools. One lovely spring day as I was sitting, studying in the library at college in Portsmouth, I had an irresistable urge to visit Marcia. I just had to go and see her. So I hitch-hiked to Oxford. It took about five hours and so I arrived at the college owned residence, in the middle of the afternoon. I climbed the stairs to her room. On her door she had hung a notice, "DO NOT DISTURB". I thought hard about this, and then turned tail and fled back to Portsmouth. What was the reason for the notice? I reasoned that it was probable that it meant she was working hard. However I feared that it meant she was playing hard. I just couldn't face that possibility. I found out years later that it just meant she was working. So what happened to all this anyway? Well Marcia married a man she met at Oxford (an ex-public school boy of course) and is still married to him. I nearly got my straight 'A's (I dropped a grade in Applied Maths for some reason) and subsequently got a degree in Physics, studying at Portsmouth for an external Imperial College degree. I have a lot to thank Marcia for. Without her I might well have still been a milkman. ...........................................
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