I was an only child, shy and solitary, with bookish interests, a low self-image, and zero confidence with members of the opposite sex. Losing my virginity required the intervention of a girl who was not just willing to say yes, but to take me on as a project and talk me through the entire procedure in considerable detail. My gratitude to her is boundless and eternal, God bless her wherever she may be.

The 1960s arrived just in time for me, and I was lucky enough to go through University during a period when at least some girls were experimenting with the newfound liberation of reliable and convenient birth control, consciously setting out to behave against stereotype and take the initiative in affairs of the heart and the flesh. I gravitated towards the few female pioneers of Free Love at my College, offering my heartfelt admiration and gratitude, and trying to give them practical and moral support in creating a social and sexual revolution. Without them I knew perfectly well I would have been living the life of a monk, because I couldn’t operate in the conventional chat-up and “dating” culture. I needed girls who would be forward enough to make my personal shyness irrelevant, who would just say: “Let’s go to bed” or “Come and join us” or “Why don’t we have a quickie in the back of the car?” Maybe that isn’t the pinnacle of romantic love, I don’t know, but it certainly left me with a smile on my face and a great welling of tenderness for the lady or ladies in question that didn’t stop when the sun came up or we parted to carry on with our separate lives.

I ended up in an open relationship with someone whom I shall call Lindy, living in a shared student house with another like-minded couple. We read people like Gerrard Winstanley, Erich Fromm and A.S. Neill, and espoused ideals of anarchist socialism. We fully believed that our destiny was to change the world permanently, and greatly for the better. In these beliefs we drew strength from one another and tried by our preaching and our example to recruit our friends. We made lots of love and absolutely no war. The guiding principle by which we tried to live our lives was contained in a parable called ‘The Warm Fuzzy Tale’ by Claude M. Steiner. This tells how “warm fuzzies”, which might stand for any act of kindness, affection or acceptance, are not only the most important things that human beings can give to one another, but are also unique in that they do not diminish in the giving, the store never runs dry.

People don’t believe me when I say this, but I really didn’t understand at the time how much it cost these early rebels in terms of the insults, hatred and condemnation they were subjected to by straight society, both male and (especially) female. Their real crime was that they refused to acknowledge the most fundamental social contract between men and women: the principle that sex with a woman is a commodity to be restricted and traded for marriage, fidelity, exclusivity, financial security, random favours, or at the very least a few crumpled banknotes pressed into someone’s hand down a dark alleyway. Lindy and her friends were living a lifestyle that threatened to undermine the market and devalue the currency. I think at root it was pretty much as simple as that.

Our little social experiment ended tragically with Lindy’s suicide shortly after graduating. I need hardly add that I blamed myself and took several decades to come to terms with it and to be able to talk about it openly and unemotionally. I think I have forgiven myself now for the very small part I played in the network of circumstances that led her to this devastating act. I have been able to write about it, which I think was the last barrier for me, because I have ruthlessly mined the rest of my life for short story plots, but never this particular area until the last couple of years.

Lindy used to sing and play the guitar semi-professionally, and one of her great idols was Leonard Cohen. But I never heard her perform the Cohen song which for me will always be hers. It seems to tell the story of her life and her death, as though Leonard had been watching over our shoulders all those decades ago. Perhaps Lindy wasn’t unique, and I know the song was written about a girl who committed suicide in Montreal in 1961 after her parents forced her to have her baby son adopted, but for me it encapsulates Lindy’s spirit and I can only listen to it when I am on my own in case my control breaks down and all the things I feel about her and about those times well up again and overwhelm me. It’s called ‘Seems So Long Ago, Nancy’.

It seems so long ago,
Nancy was alone,
looking at the Late Late Show
through a semi-precious stone.
In the House of Honesty
her father was on trial,
in the House of Mystery
there was no one at all,
there was no one at all.

It seems so long ago,
none of us were strong;
Nancy wore green stockings
and she slept with everyone.
She never said she'd wait for us
although she was alone,
I think she fell in love for us
in nineteen sixty one,
in nineteen sixty one.

It seems so long ago, Nancy was alone,
a forty five beside her head,
an open telephone.
We told her she was beautiful,
we told her she was free
but none of us would meet her in
the House of Mystery,
the House of Mystery.

And now you look around you,
see her everywhere,
many use her body,
many comb her hair.
In the hollow of the night
when you are cold and numb
you hear her talking freely then,
she's happy that you've come,
she's happy that you've come.

Old hippy and enthusiast of communal living, former teacher, electronic technician, many other things, now works in residential mental health care and lives in large house in London with long-term partner Jean and adopted daughter Cherelle (now 24). Likes science, philosophy, travel, scuba, IT, cooking, and above all - writing. One published novel ‘Sirat’ concerns the first emergence on earth of electronic consciousness and its impact on mankind, one published short story collection: ‘The Rainbow Man and Other Stories’. Large home page here or to read David’s story, ‘A Man of Letters’ on the showcase, click here.

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.