It's Only Rock 'n' Roll: Thirty Years with a Rolling Stone. Jo Wood
walked the catwalk in three different outfits to be graded by the tutors. Mum made mine: an orange velvet dress with a fishnet skirt, a red bikini in terry towelling decorated with white daisies, and a green mini-dress that I teamed with a pair of Mary Quant green suede shoes that had square toes and little heels.
I was so nervous and excited, but as I sashayed along in my bikini, Mum’s big African straw hat perched on my head, I remember feeling I had found my calling. Out of the 10 girls on the course I came second, behind a statuesque 17-year-old blonde whom I saw later in a few TV ads.
My blossoming in looks and confidence fortunately coincided with the realization that boys were rather interesting. As well as the school builders, Dympna and I had an ongoing flirtation with a cute lad called Andrew, who caught the same train to school as us in the morning. That ended abruptly after he showed us his willy. I was totally cool with willies because I had two brothers, but Dympna blanched at the sight of it. The rest of the day I’d catch her shuddering: ‘Oh, it was horrible … horrible …’
Then there was the vicar’s son, Michael, who had abandoned indoor football for other interests. He was a strange kid. The new vicarage overlooked our house and whenever he saw me come into my bedroom he’d hold up a sign saying, ‘I LOVE YOU JO.’ I would smile and wave, just to be polite, but then one day I saw him at the window with a telescope trained on my room. From then on, I kept my curtains closed.
My first ‘official’ boyfriend was Peter Beacroft, the son of one of our neighbours on Vicarage Hill. There was a little gang of us who would hang out ‘down the circle’, a patch of ground with the big conker tree around which the new houses had been built. I’d had a crush on Peter for ages, so I was giddy with excitement when he asked me on a date to the cinema. I spent ages getting dressed up in my green dress and shoes, but when he came to pick me up at four o’ clock (we had to go to the afternoon matinée, thanks to Dad’s strict curfew) I just froze. I had no idea what to say to him. It was never an issue when we were hanging out, but this was A Date.
Things were slightly less awkward once we were sitting in the cinema because we could focus on the film, until Peter lunged at me for a kiss. I could feel the ice-cream I was holding dripping down my hand and all I could think was, What shall I do with the ice-cream? I’m getting it on my dress! It’s going everywhere!
My first kiss, ruined by a 99.
I was Peter’s girlfriend for the whole of the summer holidays. It was a very innocent relationship: just a lot of snogging. With Dad’s iron-rod style of discipline, we didn’t have a chance to get up to much more. To stop us spending too long on the phone, he had it mounted on the wall, complete with a coin slot that I had to feed with shillings as we spoke or risk getting cut off in mid-sentence. As was often the case, Mum sympathized and located the key so that we could open the coin-box and recycle a single shilling – a loophole that worked a treat until Dad got the phone bill a few weeks later.
And then September came. Peter was leaving for boarding-school and suddenly started badgering me to have sex with him before he went. ‘All my friends have done it,’ he said, when I refused. I went right off him.
A few weeks after Peter there was Paul Sidley, another of the boys from the circle. He and I were great mates. He built a platform in the highest branches of the big conker tree and would guide me all the way to the top. Then we would sit up there, chatting and laughing, hidden from the world far below. He was such a cool guy – and very cute. American, with blond hair, freckles and gorgeous lips, like a teenage Steve McQueen. He was the first person I saw smoke grass. I remember him up that tree, furiously dragging away on this weedy little joint. I had the tiniest drag, but I don’t remember it doing anything. Our romance fizzled out as quickly as that joint, but I have very fond memories of hiding in the branches with Paul.
* * *
‘Hi, Tony, how are you?’
I was fifteen and a half, wearing my hottest hot-pants and clingiest top, leaning against the garden gate in what I hoped was a seductive fashion. Oh, God, I fancy him so much …
Tony Wilson was yet another of our neighbours on Vicarage Hill. He lived with his parents, but he was six years older than me and owned a super-cool boutique called the Ragged Priest in nearby Leigh-on-Sea. In other words, he was way out of my league. Tony had fair hair styled in a mullet, was fashionably skinny and always had the coolest gear.
I’d been trying desperately for ages to get him to notice me. Whenever he was outside his house, washing his Morris Minor – like he was today, in a pair of tight velvet flares – I’d be there, hovering around.
‘All right, Jo?’ He was polishing the bonnet, which was painted blue. Like his eyes, I thought dreamily.
And then something amazing happened.
‘So, d’you fancy coming down the shop one day next week?’ he asked. ‘We’ve just got a new delivery in.’
I couldn’t believe it. Was Tony flirting with me? ‘Sure, yeah.’ Yes!
Dymps and I popped down in our school uniform, skirts rolled up to our armpits. The shop was painted black inside, Faces was playing on the sound system and there were rails and rails of the most fab clothes. Orange velvet bibbed hot-pants! A full-length Afghan coat! I was in heaven. I don’t really know which I fell in love with first – Tony or the Ragged Priest.
Not long after that, he invited me to his house while his parents were out and we ended up snogging on the living-room sofa. Wow. My first proper passionate kiss: the sort of kiss that convinces you it’s LOVE.
Well, after that the nuns of St Bernard’s didn’t get a look-in. It was my last year of school and I was meant to be studying for my CSEs but I skipped classes whenever I could to join Tony on his trips to the wholesalers in London, with Mum hiding me behind the couch in the morning until Dad had gone to work so I could sneak out. I still had a 9 p.m. curfew to stick to, but Tony would take me out to dinner to these fabulous places. I remember my first ever night out in London, at a Polish restaurant called Borscht ’n’ Tears in Beauchamp Place. I’d barely ever drunk alcohol, so I got paralytic on vodka. The next morning, Mum threw open my bedroom curtains and I felt like my head was actually exploding.
It was on a warm spring evening a couple of months after we started seeing each other that Tony took me on a walk up to the top of the hill above our houses. We ended up in this overgrown field, shaded by trees, and I remember looking out over the Thames estuary as the sun dipped below the horizon. Tony pulled me down into the grass and started snogging me – and the snogging started to get more intense. And then: ‘I’ll only put it in a bit, Jo, don’t worry.’ And that was how I ended up losing my virginity. I remember walking home on my own thinking, Is that what all that fuss is about? It wasn’t that great at all.
Then one day my period was late. Worryingly late. By this time Tony had a little flat in Westcliff, so I went round to see him. ‘Oh, Tony, I think I’m pregnant! What are we going to do? My dad’s going to kill me!’
Tony was remarkably calm. ‘Don’t worry, Jo, we’ll sort it out. This is what we’re going to do …’ He made me drink half a bottle of vodka and have a scalding hot bath. I got my period the day after.
Oh, how I adored Tony. My Ragged Priest! I was still at school, but now I had this super-cool boyfriend who owned a shop and introduced me to these amazing places. One day he took me to Biba in Kensington High Street and I felt like I’d just found Paradise.
Over the next few months my life changed to such an extent that – although I would never have imagined it possible – Tony’s appeal faded into insignificance beside everything else that was going on. The extraordinary adventure that I’d suspected life had in store for me when I was sitting in the branches of the ancient conker tree? Buckle up, it was about to begin …