NEW EXPERIENCES

Back at school for the autumn term, life soon settled into a routine. Classes, homework, netball, the only major out-of -school activity was at rehearsals for Grease.

I decided that although my voice was still ok for singing in the Pink Ladies chorus, that it would not be good enough to take on the role of Sandy, if I was ever called on to understudy her. We swapped around a bit and I became understudy to Frenchie, one of the Pink Ladies who had a smaller part, which I was a lot more comfortable with. Rehearsals were usually held on a Friday night, which tied in with our hectic school schedule.

After rehearsals the actors split into two main groups, the older ones went to a bar for drinks, the younger ones of us headed for the local coffee shop where we just hung out for a while, talking about the show and life in general.

One night Helen one of the girls who went to a school on the other side of town, confided in us that her boyfriend Chris was pressuring her into having sex, which she didn’t really want to do yet. There were all the normal chat lines, ‘Everyone else is doing it.’, ‘If you really loved me you would want to do this’, ‘One time won’t do any harm’, ‘You can’t get pregnant the first time’, ‘I know that most of your friends have already done it, you are getting a reputation for being cold.’. All the girls, me included, decided we would need to teach this lad a lesson or two, and needed a plan to show him he was wrong.

“Helen, do you want to keep him as your boyfriend or do you just want to stop him putting pressure on you? We can easily show you how fickle he is and, believe us all lads at that age are fickle, and you can then dump him, or we can really make him feel small so that he will not pester another girl.” Sally queried.

“ I think that I am not going to have a long term relationship with him and that I want to break it off, but it is nice to have a boyfriend to be seen with, like most of the other girls.”

“Let us sort something out to show him for what he is, and meantime let’s find another boy for you, there are a few in our class that seem half decent and are pretty fit.”

A week later, we were again in the coffee shop where we were joined by Karen, the Goal Shooter from our hockey team. She was dressed up to kill with a skirt that wasn’t much more than a belt, a scooped top that dipped almost to her navel and showed off her substantial cleavage, and 5” stilettos, made up to the nines , totally unrecognisable from the quite shy demure girl she really was.

Helen had arranged for her boyfriend Chris to meet her there so they could then go off together for a walk and a kissing and petting session. When he came in we were all discussing the play in detail, chatting about our roles, and Chris sat down in the only spare seat, next to Karen, who we had introduced to him as Sharon. They both seemed a bit bored with our talk about the play, so they moved to the next table and started talking to each other. We were still doing our review 20 minutes later when Chris came over to Helen and told her that he had something else to do if she was involved with us and that he would see her the next day, and then left in a hurry. Five minutes later, Karen left too, giving us a wink and whispering “bandstand”, leaving behind the back pack she had brought.

A few minutes later we all trooped off to the park and quietly approached the back of the bandstand where we could hear their voices, and crouched down.

“Hey Sharon, I’m glad I met you tonight, I’m getting bored with that silly girl Helen, I’m on the lookout for someone different and more exciting.”

“Oh, I think I can promise you something different, all right.”

“Lets find somewhere we can lie down and get a bit more cosy where we can get to know each other better, if you know what I mean.”

“ I’ve only just met you and it’s not even a first date, what kind of girl do you think I am?”

“ The way you look and are dressed, I think that’s fairly obvious.”

“ So you think that anyone who dresses like this and wears fancy makeup is only fit for one thing do you?”

“ Yea, you dress and look like a tart and are obviously only looking to act like one , so come on and let’s get together.” and he made a grab for her.

At that point we all jumped up, making our presence known, Helen went up to Chris, gave him a good slap and screamed at him. “That’s obviously the way you treat all girls, you don’t really care for me and have no respect for girls in general, you need to learn a lesson, and don’t even think about trying to come and see me again.”

Four of us grabbed him, threw him to the ground holding on to an arm and a leg each, and between us somehow, with a lot of threats and a few slaps managed to get him stripped and into the clothes that Karen had brought in her back pack, padded bra, knickers, low-cut crop-top, miniskirt, and wedge sandals, luckily being a tall sporty girl Karen’s clothes were a reasonable fit on him. He was struggling a lot so putting makeup on him properly was difficult, but we managed to get glitter eye-shadow, lipstick, and blusher on him, before letting him free.”

“ Get yourself of home, and just hope that you don’t meet any drunken lads who think the same as you on your way, and decide that you are only after one thing. You must have noticed that we took lots of photos of you in your new underwear, and just now with you fully dressed, if you bother Helen again or make any threats to her, they will be all over social media before you can blink. Don’t worry about your clothes and things, you will get them back tomorrow. we hope that you have learned a lesson tonight, sometimes girls just want to have fun, and that does not necessarily mean sex, now clear off before we find some boys for you.”

In some ways, I felt a little bit guilty as I knew what it was like to be humiliated, but Chris deserved to learn a lesson whereas I had done nothing wrong. We all went back to the coffee bar to talk about what we had done and what we thought would happen next. we were not proud of what we had done, but it was needed to change his ways.

When we all met up again the following week, Helen told us that he had apologised to her, for trying to cheat on her and the things he said about her to Karen/Sharon. On his way home he had been mocked and threatened by a crowd of lads and had realised how vulnerable and under pressure a lot of girls felt. Although he promised to treat her better in the future, Helen felt that she couldn’t trust him anymore and they broke up on friendly terms.

“Did he give you back Karen’s stuff?”

She grinned, “ He did ask if she needed it back, he would like to keep it all to remind him of the error of his ways, at least that was his excuse but i think that he might have got to like them.”

At school, now I had adjusted to all the fiddly rules, I was becoming quite good at netball, at last I had a chance to get involved in sports without being mocked and I enjoyed the team spirit, which I had never felt with the boys. As far as the girls were concerned I was treated exactly as one of them, no better or worse, congratulated and hugged when I did something really well and shouted at when I messed it up. There was no embarrassment or critical comments in the changing rooms, after all, to all intents and purposes, I looked exactly like them.

I was asked to join the school team that played in a local league against other schools in the area, and our coach was quite happy to go along with it, as I was one of the better players, so long as my natural gender was kept a close secret. We were having quite a successful season and were top of our league, with a decent contribution from me. We were invited to join a knock-out tournament in Birmingham, which was a feather in our caps, but would mean a long-weekend overnight stay. We were to be hosted in the homes of other competitors local to the venue.
Whilst I was comfortable living as a girl in school and in my home town where people either had forgot that I was a boy, or didn’t care as they now saw and treated me as a girl, or just didn’t realise, I was a bit wary of putting myself in a close situation with total strangers where I would be living in their house for two nights and days.

The matches were scheduled for the Saturday and Sunday and when we arrived Friday early afternoon I was sent to the same house as Karen, our Goal Shooter, and we boarded with Liz, who was on one of the other local teams, and her parents.

‘Hi girls, welcome to Birmingham, your room is upstairs, unfortunately you’ll have to share a double bed, I hope that’s ok. If you go and get changed into something casual I will take you into town and show you around.” I gave a querying look at Karen who smiled and nodded and we went up to get cleaned up and changed.”

“ Are you sure you are ok with this Karen, sharing a bed?”

“ Don’t be daft Kim, what harm could you do, even if you wanted to, there is not a lot you could do, all fixed up the way you are. You are a girl now, remember that and just get on with life as normal, and stop worrying, you are more girly and feminine than a lot of the others we will be playing against.”

We dressed casually in skinny jeans and sloppy long tunic tops and sneakers, picked up our bags and went downstairs to meet Liz’s parents, before going into town. After our small home town, Birmingham was a bit overpowering, all the big shops in city-centre malls, the grand civic buildings and the amazing bustle of the café’s and restaurants in the nightlife areas of Brindley Place, Broad Street and Gas Street Basin by the canals. We didn’t really have time to take it all in or visit any of the cultural buildings and areas, so we promised Liz that we would come back and visit her again to spend a bit more time.

In the evening there was a welcome party for all the visiting teams and although we would all be rivals on the court it was meant as a friendly social get-to-know you event. We all dressed up a bit and put-on a lot more makeup than we were allowed at school. I wore my a halter neck floral dress with a flared mid-thigh skirt rather than trousers and a top as I always tried to emphasise my femininity, although Karen was happy in her mini kilt and strappy top. After the introductions and buffet there was a disco DJ and we all had a dance. It was my first time at a dance as a girl and i was unsure how to move, but I generally copied the others and soon found a natural rhythm and movement, although the hip swinging was not as free as the other girls. Although we generally kept within our own team group we enjoyed mixing in with the others, particularly Liz’s teammates in a friendly atmosphere, rather than the competitive attitudes we would have during the matches.

Back at Liz’s , Karen and I cleaned our faces, put on our nighties and climbed into bed. I tried to keep apart from Karen as I didn’t want her to think any boy feelings were going to show, but I need not have worried, she gave me a hug and a goodnight kiss and we slept soundly in each others arms.

The Saturday morning was an intensive session of knock-out matches, 16 teams playing on two courts. We won our first match reasonably comfortably 26-12 as our opposition was a bit younger and less experienced. We were one of the first to play so had plenty time to relax and recover, watching the other matches, rating the potential opposition for the next round.

The afternoon match was a bit more of a struggle, we were up against the winners of last year’s tournament, and with the help of a late goal and a free shot we managed to struggle through 20-18. that was the first day over and we had a chance to rest before Sunday’s semi and final. Liz’s team had also managed to get through but we would not face them until the final, that is if we both won our semi matches.

Although we were too young to enjoy the nightlife and bars, Liz and some of her friends took our team down to the canal-side areas and we really enjoyed the buzz of the place, it was so much livelier than back home. In a way it was a good thing that we were too young to drink alcohol, although we did sit in some of the bar terraces with colas and soft drinks, as it kept us fresh and clear-headed for Sunday morning’s semi-final.

The Sunday sessions were on one court only so there was quite a lot of buzz with the cheering , clapping, and support from the teams that had been knocked out, which lifted the atmosphere and helped the teams to raise their game. The semi-final was fast and furious end-to-end stuff, but towards the end of the match the other team started to tire while we were still full of energy, and in the final quarter we raced away from 16-17 down to finish at 27-18 to get through to the final.

After a break for lunch to recover we lined up for the final against Liz’s team. most of the match we were trailing, playing catch up and struggling a bit, the other team were a little bit bigger and faster than us.

As the game was drawing to a close we were 2 goals down at 23-25, an attack was blocked by our Goalkeeper and the ball was quickly passed through the Wing Defence and Centre to me, and on to Karen, who put the ball in the net 24-25. Our Centre intercepted a pass near the centre circle again passed it out to me and I quickly turned and threw it to our Goal Attack and we were level 25-25 with one minute to go.

The ball went out out for a throw in which was quickly taken by our Wing Attack to our Centre and on to Karen who dropped it and let the opposition run at our defence. The ball went down the court to our goalkeeper but quickly came back to me, I passed to Karen who was about to shoot when she was fouled by the opposition goalkeeper and awarded a free shot. It was a tense moment as it was likely to be the last throw of the game, but she kept her nerve, the ball went cleanly into the net, the referee immediately blew for full-time, and after a couple of seconds for it to sink in we were all jumping up and down hugging, crying and screaming.

In a wonderful sporting gesture Liz and one of her teammates came over and congratulated us even though they must have been disappointed to lose, Although it was only a little regional tournament it felt to us as if we had won the National Club Final.

Our celebrations continued in the changing room and showers, lots of semi-naked and even totally-naked bodied running around congratulating each other, in a high state of excitement, we all felt that we were part of a team that had worked really hard together and for the first time I felt I truly belonged with them all.

When we had calmed down and got dressed, there was a small ceremony where we were all presented with medals, and a trophy shield to take back to display at school. We went back to Liz’s to pick up our things, thanked her and her parents for looking after us during our stay, half-apologised for beating her team in the final, and went out to the team bus to make our way home. At school on the following Monday the whole squad were presented on the stage and congratulated by the Headmaster, we were all pleased that our efforts were appreciated.

It was soon half-term and Sally, Jane and I went back to working in the shop with Mam. Sally and Jane were mainly helping Mam with wedding outfits, although the busy summer season was over there was always a call for weddings at all times of the year, and they were kept busy, no holiday for them. I meanwhile concentrated on new designs for the winter and for the party seasons of Christmas and New Year. My summer outfits had been relatively simple and easy to make but the new designs needed to be a lot more glamorous and sophisticated., and more expensive.

I was working on three basic designs which could then be made in different materials and colours, with various trims and decorations to produce about 12 individual styles, A simple classic mid-thigh sleeveless shift dress, a V-neck waisted flared mini dress, and a figure-hugging cocktail dress. A few adjustments were made by Mam to simplify making-up , and therefore becoming cheaper to produce and more sellable. Although we were aiming for individual designs and styles, the selling price was still a major factor in how successful the sales would be. Sally and Jane loved the designs and felt that they would sell well to girls our age and the three of us made up a few samples each in three different sizes for Mam to put on display in the shop. Although Mam’s main market was for the ‘more mature’ woman and for bridal parties, our teenage range drew in the younger crowd and their mothers which helped her sales.

Back at school we were studying hard for our “Mock’* exams in January which would let the teachers assess how prepared we would be for our GCSEs** next June and to allocate predictions of our likely pass grades. There was still time however for the less academic activities.

I was now a regular on the school netball team and we were maintaining our lead at the top of our league, but more significantly, as the winners of the regional tournament in Birmingham, we were invited to take part in the National Club finals in London in the Spring. This would be a more challenging competition, as although it was still grouped by age, we would be up against a lot of club teams who trained regularly and played almost to professional level and a lot of the girls were on their way to playing for senior clubs. We however played mainly for the enjoyment, but still had a very competitive edge to our game, and we were sure that we would not disgrace ourselves.

In our design class our term project was to design and make a ‘party dress’ for the upcoming holiday party season. I already had the designs I had prepared for the shop, showed my work to Miss Standing, and used the mini-dress as the basis for my project. Sally and Jane took some of my other designs, modified them and put their own twist on everything, and we decided that if they made up as well as they looked on paper that they would go on display in the shop too. As the three of us had been working in the shop, we were now almost at professional standard and we were well ahead of the other girls in the quality of the designs, selection of materials, and speed of making up the outfits, and by the end of our next session we were finished when the others were still cutting out their materials. Miss Standing was really impressed with what we had done and assured us of top grades in our end-of-term report. We were able to use the time we had left to make another outfit each, which went onto the rails in Mam’s shop.

Rehearsals continued down at the theatre, and now that we were working on stage and learning the dance routines and songs it was much more fun than it had been earlier, when we were going through the basics and mainly script reading. Listening to how Josie performed in her role as Sandy, I realised how challenging it would have been if I had continued as her understudy and was glad that I had opted out of that. If I was ever called on to take on the part of Frenchie I only had one scene and routine and song that really featured me, the rest of the time I would just be in the chorus of the 'Pink Ladies’ with the other girls.

A week before our first performance, we were having a full dress rehearsal with taped background music and were really getting into our parts, wearing the 1950s outfits of either the flared skirts with petticoats and pink blouses or the tight leggings, ( as they are now known,) and pink satin jackets, which helped a lot to get into character, we were really enjoying ourselves. It was all going so well, too well, when during her ‘Beauty school dropout’ scene Issy who was playing the role of Frenchie went over on her high heels, twisted her ankle and fell of the stage, breaking a bone in her leg. When we all got over our concerns about how badly hurt she was, Barry shouted out from his director’s chair,

“ Ok Kim you are on now, I hope that you have been watching and listening to how Issy has been playing the part of Frenchie, she won’t be back in time for the performances so you will be taking over. We’ll take five to allow you to get your thoughts together and then we’ll take it from the start of the scene again.”

I desperately tried to refocus my mind on how Issy had been playing the role, remembering her part in the song and dance routines and her lines. My first run through was full of mistakes which was to be expected, but after a couple of re-runs it was beginning to come together, although still needing a lot of work.

For the rest of the week all my spare time was spent going through my lines again and again and polishing up my singing, luckily Frenchie’s character went with my slightly husky voice. We had a final run-through full dress-rehearsal and everything came together really well, for an amateur group it was a fairly polished performance and if we could match it on opening night we were sure that it would be very well received.

Opening night went like a dream for me, i was totally in character concentrating on my lines and routines and unaware of the audience. As normal, there were a few fluffed lines or dance routines but they mostly went unnoticed ,and at the end of the show we all received enthusiastic applause and cheers from the audience. The review in the local newspaper the next day was excellent, our performances had gone down really well, I even got a personal mention “Kim Campbell, a late replacement gave a wonderful debut performance as Frenchie, and shows promise for future productions.”

For the rest of the week we all relaxed into the roles and were really enjoying taking part rather than worrying about doing things right, and on the last night at the end of the show we each reprised our major songs with lots of the audience joining in for a sing-along.

“ Well done Kim, you did a great job, can I count on you for our next production? It won’t be as lively, ‘And then there were none’ by Agatha Christie, a straight drama rather than a musical, but they can be just as much fun.”

“ I really enjoyed it all Barry, but I will have to say no, for the moment, it’s a big year for my exams and I want to concentrate on school work, as I am sure you will appreciate. Ask me again next summer please.”

We were soon preparing for the Christmas holidays, and the last week at school was a bit of a run-down, including a disco dance for the older classes. I was so excited getting ready for my first time at the dance as a girl, I had never enjoyed them before, as I was always a bit of a wallflower, watching the others enjoying themselves, but it was different this time.

I had earlier been to the salon to get my hair cut and curled and some blonde sun-streaks added, my eyebrows shaped my nails manicured and polished, and my ears pierced and fitted with diamond-ish studs. I sat in the sexiest undie set that I had, perfecting my make-up, and when I was happy with the result I put on my new mini-dress that I had designed and made, slipped into my heels, picked up my clutch bag and went downstairs to show Mam. As I walked down the stairs Mam was filming me with her camera and asked me to stand for a few shots to remind her of my first time really dressed up.

“ Oh darling, you are just so lovely, all these years you have been hiding yourself away, now just look at you.” she said with tears in her eyes, “Let’s go and pick up Sally and drop you off at the dance. I’m sure that you will be very popular and not a wallflower this year, just let yourself go and have a really good time.”

We joined up with some of the other girls in our class and spent quite a bit of time just gossiping about our outfits and hair and make up before going onto the dance floor and giving it our all. It was not long before we were broken up by the attentions of some of the boys, and I ended up spending a lot of the evening with Peter, one of the boys who had started this all off by stealing my clothes.

Most of dancing was lively free-form stuff where we danced together without much personal contact, but the last few dances were slower numbers giving us a chance to hold each other close. I was in dreamland with my head resting on his chest, loving the moment, when he raised my chin held me tight and gave a passionate kiss on my lips. My head started to spin, I was now content and natural living as a girl, but feeling the emotions of a girl was new to me and I was unsure how to respond, but my body took over from my mind and I held him even closer and held the kiss for longer.

The magic was broken by a tap on my shoulder. “ Sorry to interrupt Kim,” said Sally, “ but Mam is outside waiting to take us home, say your goodnights and I’ll see you outside.”

All the way home Sally and I chatted away about how we had enjoyed the night, but left out the bit about the smooching and kissing in front of her Mam. We agreed to talk more on the way to school in the morning and I went home where Mam wanted to know all about my night, and went to bed with my head in the clouds dreaming about Peter.

The next day at School, Peter came over to me before class. “I had a great time with you last night Kim, can we do it again sometime?”

“ I would love that Peter, but don’t forget that I am still really a boy, you don’t want to get a reputation as gay, do you.”

“ Look Kim, as far as anyone at school is concerned you are a girl through and through, and one of the most attractive and feminine ones at that, when I look at you all I see is girl, there is no boy there at all, you are very popular and there are a lot more of the boys would like to get to know you better. Don’t worry about my reputation.”

“We are both still on a buzz from last night’s excitement, let’s leave it until next term, when we have had a chance to come down from the clouds and see if we still feel the same.”, and to soften the rejection I gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

Christmas was totally different this year, instead of playing with my new computer games and equipment as usual, all my gifts were clothes, makeup and accessories, Wearing my new dress I was in the kitchen helping Mam to prepare our meal, working with her chatting away I realised how much I had missed all these years, I had never really appreciated what she had done for me and what a rich life she had had. I made a Christmas promise to myself that things would be different in the future.

To be continued.

**
GCSE or ‘General Certificate of Secondary Education’ is a nationally set and marked exam normally taken by year 11 pupils, at age 16. These are taken in a wide range of subjects and are used to assess whether pupils want to leave school and take up work or vocational studies, or whether they want to carry on to take A-level*** exams to prepare them for Higher Education at University.

*
Mock exams are taken several months ahead of the GCSE and A-Level. These are set and assessed internally by the school to assess both the student’s performance , and also the success of the teaching curriculum.