Clearly the letters had been the only way we had been ableto keep in touch. The internet was primitive enough now in 1995, and mobilephones were the preserve only of the very wealthy or ostentatious. By 1987,both would have disappeared. Disappointingly, it seemed I’d never seen Simoneagain after that first summer, the letters fizzling out over time.
Clearly I must have felt something for her, if only I couldsee the letters I had written to her I might have been able to see just howmuch.
Bearing in mind that I, too, would be sixteen in 1987, therewas a very real chance that this was not only my first love, but also the girlto whom I had lost my virginity.
My life always seemed to have more purpose when I hadsomething to look forward to, and my fascination with Simone would grow andgrow over the eight years that would pass before I would finally meet her.
Josh
February 1991
It was proving to be a bitterly cold month acrossOxfordshire. I was noticing it more than most, because now I was working as anassistant manager for a newsagent’s in Botley.
This meant starting work at 5.30am in the morning when itwas bloody cold.
More often than not my car, a horrible, mustard-coloured1978 Austin Maxi, wouldn’t start, leaving me having to trudge to work throughthe freezing ice and snow to open the shop.
It was a pain having to open the shop that early in themorning as there was hardly ever anyone about. The main reason it had to bedone was for the papers.
I had noticed as the years had passed that people were lessand less inclined to get milk and papers from supermarkets and preferred tohave them delivered.
Suddenly there was an army of milk floats on the road, notto mention eager teenagers willing to risk life and limb lugging The SundayTimes around.
I had to mark all of the papers up by hand for the rounds,ready for the paper boys to take out. They started to arrive around 6.30am, soI needed to have it finished by then.
The paper boys did not get paid very much for the thanklesstask of delivering these papers in all weathers. For taking out the morningpapers seven days a week and the Oxford Mail on six afternoons, theyreceived the princely sum of £15.
I soon noticed that several of them liked to top up theirearnings by filling their bags with bars of chocolate and sweets when theythought I wasn’t looking. I was pretty eagle-eyed, though, and confiscatedanything I caught them trying to shoplift, usually eating it myself afterthey’d gone.
Once I’d caught one of them, I could catch him every dayafter that, as I’d know his methods. The company policy was instant dismissalfor anyone caught shoplifting, but I wasn’t that daft. I knew if I sacked oneof them that there would be no one to do their round that day which would leadto a string of angry calls from customers demanding to know where their paperswere.
On top of that, I’d have to take the round out myself onceone of the shop assistants arrived at 9am, as opposed to sitting in my cosyoffice drinking coffee and reading Viz. My standard procedure wastherefore to let them off with a warning and pocket the contraband.
It wasn’t just the paper boys doing the pilfering. Severalof the staff had their own little scams going as well. We used to get a regulartobacco delivery on Monday afternoons, and I’d noticed that my fellow assistantmanager, Colin, was always most keen to take that shift.
He was most perturbed when the delivery driver was changed,so I decided to do a little detective work to find out what had been going onwhen the previous Monday rolled around.
It seemed that a 200 pack of B&H was conveniently“falling off the back of the lorry” each week into Colin’s lap, with a £10 notegoing the other way. Perhaps that was why they had changed the delivery driver:he must have been caught.
Meanwhile, my assistant, Jenny, a middle-aged, married womanwho manned the tills in the mornings, liked nothing better than to“accidentally” open a bag of crisps while stocking up the shelves and thenannounce that, as it was now damaged stock and we couldn’t sell it, she mightas well eat it.
Overall, I enjoyed working at the shop. The office out theback was my own little kingdom where I could do whatever I wanted and it wasgood fun out on the shop floor most of the time.
Apart from the occasional miserable git moaning because Marsbars had gone up to 24p and that sort of thing, I enjoyed lots of banter withthe regular customers and the staff.
Some of the pensioners treated the shop a bit like a socialclub and would hang around rambling on for hours about nothing in particular.The favourite topics of conversation seemed to be hip replacements, the war,the youth of today, and the fact that the new 5p piece was too fiddly.
I found it all quite entertaining and played alongaccordingly.
Another thing I found amusing was serving the teenage boyswho came in looking extremely nervous, hanging around by the magazines, castingfurtive glances at the top shelf.
I used to have a bit of fun at their expense, coming outwith comments like “Jazz mag, is it? What do you fancy, Escort or Razzle?”,leading to lots of stammered responses and red faces.
Still, perhaps I shouldn’t have taken the piss so much. Imight well be doing the same in a few years’ time when my supply of the realthing would have well and truly dried up.
Financially, things were looking a bit woeful for me aroundthis time. The job at the newsagent paid a pittance compared to what I had beenused to and I frequently found myself skint, despite living at home with myparents.
It seemed that I spent most of my nights frittering away mycash in the pub. There wasn’t much in the way of home entertainment to keep
