Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 40

TFMD

After we returned from our brief detachment to Wales. The advanced engineering training course I was attending became much more routine. Classroom work, practical equipment operation and maintenance lessons and, being a military training establishment the omnipresent drill practice and compulsory PT.

Our weekly timetable included several beastings by the PTIs, where we would be subjected to circuit training, multi-gym sessions, timed mile-and-a-half runs, both in sports kit, and boots, fatigues and full packs. Occasionally they’d take pity on us and we’d get to play a bit of basketball or volleyball. One constant though, Wednesday afternoons were reserved for organised sports. This was common across virtually every branch of the UK armed forces and emergency services, allowing organisations to compete against each other in sports, such as football, rugby union, or cricket or athletics, according to season; and many others.

I was personally never any good at most team ball sports. My forte was track and field, road and cross country running, which I was pretty damn good at, captaining the team. It was after one such event that in the late winter of 1978, I met TFMD (The Future Mrs Duxass).

Winter was the season for cross country racing. Each region of the UK would hold weekly ‘heats’, competing against the other local(ish) teams, on a league basis. Each team in the region would host an event. Then the top two teams in each region would end the season, by taking part in a final race, at a chosen central location, to decide the champions for that year (Spoiler alert…it was us.)

As team captain, it was my job to organise our heat. To decide the route (a five-mile circuit over rough terrain), organise timekeepers and stewards, collate and publish results, etc. It was also the accepted norm to provide post event refreshments in the base sports and social club, usually a curry and bar facilities.

On the day, the race went off without a hitch. On that occasion we didn’t actually score maximum points, one of my best runners was injured, but gained enough to keep us in the running for the top spot. After showering off the mud we were caked in, we adjourned to the bar to enjoy a celebratory scran and a few beers.

I circulated a bit, congratulating the winners and commiserating with the ‘also rans’, before joining my own colleagues, among them, a fellow course mate, Ken. He was one of a few married guys among us, and lived with his wife in their on base married pad. Ken mentioned that he had arranged to meet his wife, Barbie, (pseudonyms, obviously) there, for a drink, when she finished work shortly.

In due course, Barbie arrived, surprising both of us by being in the company of another young woman, none other than TFMD, who was introduced to us as Jayne. Jayne was a work colleague of Barbie, and travelled with her past the base, on the same bus daily, as she returned to her home in town. Knowing she was joining Ken at the club that afternoon, she’d invited Jayne to break her journey and join us for a wet.

Jayne was a slender girl, about five feet six tall and sported jet-black hair, cut to shoulder length. On that occasion, she was wearing tight, flared blue denim jeans and a checked Ben Sherman tailored shirt, typical of the style of that era. The shirt enclosed relatively small, but well-proportioned breasts, whilst the jeans hugged a delicious looking backside and slim legs. She was pink cheeked from the chilly walk from the bus stop at the main gate, which coloured her quite pale face nicely and I noticed her nose was a bit misshapen, possibly recently broken.

Many of the visiting runners had departed, to return to their own respective establishments by then, and most of our own team had left too, so there was plenty of room for the ladies to join us at our table. Barbie asked how the race had gone, and we gave an account of the afternoon’s event and our performance. Jayne, having had no contact with military life previously, was quite intrigued that ‘this’, the sport and its after event, were considered ‘work’.

I suppose at first, to an outsider, it does seem a bit indulgent. But, even out of training, we were expected to maintain a high level of physical fitness, and were regularly tested for it. These organised sports afternoons provided just one medium for supervised exercise, as well as building team ethos and support for, and from, others. And yes, a bit of rest and recreation too. “All work, and no play… etc.”

We only had about an hour before the club was to close; it only opened restricted hours to service specific events. Us guys had stuffed ourselves with curry earlier, but the ladies had not yet eaten. So, Barbie and Ken invited us back to their gaff for coffee and sandwiches. Jayne got a guided tour of what a service married quarter was like; comfortable but nothing luxurious, but relatively cheap to rent, back then at least. (Not “you get everything free, don’t you!” as I often hear spouted.)

We spent another hour or so in pleasant conversation, before Jayne announced she really needed to get the bus back to her own place. I took that as my cue to leave also, and offered to go with her on the bus, which I too needed to take, to get back to my rented flat. She was happy to sit with me and we chatted casually en route. It turned out she only lived a few hundred yards further up the road than I, so we only parted at the last minute.

We seemed to be getting on okay and I was sorely tempted to ask her out. But I was unsure of the situation. I had caught mention of a husband earlier, but then also noted that Jayne wore no wedding ring. So, rather than put my foot in it, I decided to hold off until I knew for sure what the deal was. As we bid good night, I said it had been nice to meet her, and hoped we would see her again. “I hope so too,” she responded.

I’m pleased to say, Jayne immediately became part of our social group. She would accompany Barbie home quite often and would join our group of friends for leisure activities and pub sessions in town. I gradually pieced together her backstory. She did indeed have a husband, but had separated from him, after he got a bit too handsie for her to tolerate any longer. He had in-fact been the cause of the broken nose, which she was waiting to get properly fixed. It had put her in hospital and when she was discharged, she had abandoned their joint home and moved, alone, into the bed-sitting room she now lived in.

Jayne was now ‘one of us’ and it incensed us that she had been subjected to any sort of abuse, especially physical injury. The immediate desire was to confront the miscreant and ‘counsel him’ on the error of his ways. The female contingent of the group, as ever, sounded the voice of reason, correctly stating that meeting violence with violence was not acceptable, and could have, possible career ending consequences for us, not to mention putting Jayne in more danger. We had to accept that logic and resolved just to provide as much support and protection as we could for her going forward.

I had become very attracted to Jayne, but knowing her situation better, I did not feel it was appropriate to try and ‘muscle in’ on her misfortune, perhaps exacerbating her problems. When I subsequently heard that another member of our circle of friends, one of my flat mates actually, had made a move on her and been firmly blown off, my resolve to keep my distance hardened. And so, the status quo was maintained, and I continued to admire Jayne from a distance, albeit a short distance, as she was frequently among us.

After a couple of months keeping my distance, Barbie took me to one side and told me that Jayne had started asking about me. Was I ‘a player’? Did I have a current girlfriend, she had not heard of or seen me with anyone? Was I gay? Did she think I’d noticed her? Etc. Barbie had told Jayne what she knew of me; that I’d been engaged to a Julie before I started the course with her husband (not strictly accurate, we’d been together for some 18-months and I’d proposed, but had been turned down).

Barbie said Jayne was definitely interested in me. Despite him still pestering her to come back to him, there was no way she was going to reconcile with her estranged husband and wanted to start living her life again. A fresh life. She hadn’t started divorce proceedings yet, but had made the separation ‘legal’, meaning she was free to see anyone and do whatever she wanted, without it counting against her in a divorce court later.