A First Time for Everything

Recently I spent a little time in hospital and, in a room with about four other women all of whom seemed to be making some sort of noise, unsurprisingly I couldn’t sleep. I haven’t slept well since I was about 14 so in order to try and get any sleep at all I did something that I have been doing to induce sleep for around 20 years – I attempted to recall lists of things. Over the years this has involved attempting to remember the names of everyone I have ever known, the entire cast of Eastenders (with their real life names for bonus points), the name of every book I have ever read etc. This largely works, however there was that tricky night where I ended up texting a friend of mine at around 3am asking him the name of a woman from The Bill whose name positively escaped me and was actually preventing me from sleeping.

Anyway, my usual tricks weren’t working so I attempted to relax while thinking of the first times in my life – the first memory I remember having, my first boyfriend, my first day at school etc – these memories actually surprised me as there were many times I remembered in vivid details when ordinarily if someone asked me if I remember my first alcoholic drink or something similar I would say yes but never really analyse the memory.

The first memory I have is being chased around the play dough table with Janine Robinson by Mark Smith in the nursery. Admittedly this is an odd first memory really – I don’t actually remember starting nursery but I do remember throwing back my head and laughing uproariously as Mark shouted ‘RRRAAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!’ as he chased Janine and me around and around the small circular table. I remember the play dough, the smell of it and the look of the table and as I run it in my head I can almost be back there – around 3 and a half years old, without a care in the world.

I remembered the first birthday I could remember with any real clarity. I was 8, I remember the huge card I got that unfolded to reveal a huge number 8. We went to a car boot sale and, as I have always had an attraction to shiny things, I managed to convince my dad to buy me a pair of rainbow coloured earrings from a stall. My Mum, Dad, sister and me went to Redcar and I remember my Dad singing along to ‘Runaway’ by Del Shannon (I’m not old enough to remember it from first release being that it was 16 years before my birth, my dad liked old music). I remember staring at those beautiful earrings, glistening different colours in the sunlight. I remember my dad taking us into a cafe and telling me I could have anything from the menu, ice cream, knickerbocker glory, sundae etc but I said that what I really wanted was a glass of milk!

I remember my first kiss. I was around 14 and I was with my first boyfriend. I was teasing him by saying I had written about him in my diary and I was holding the diary pressed against my chest, smiling and telling him that he wasn’t going to get to read what I had written. I remember his blue eyes sparkling and he leaned forward as if to retrieve the diary from me but instead he kissed me. The funny thing is that I remember thinking at the time ‘Oh! My first kiss! This is amazing! I’m having my first kiss!’ while in the meantime I was probably sitting motionlessly with my eyes wide open and my mouth not moving a great deal and once I realised that I was doing this I started to think ‘Oh smooth, now he’ll think you’re a bad kisser!’ while not realising that this was probably causing me to be more motionless. My boyfriend didn’t seem to mind and we went out for around 5 months after that so I can’t have been that bad a kisser :)

I think that the first time you do most things falls into a series of categories - either it doesn’t matter, is terrifying or exciting...or a combination of the latter two. The first time for things can be life changing. For example, the first time I rather foolishly smoked a cigarette led to a 10 year smoking addiction, that was pretty life changing and trying to reverse it and wean myself from that addiction was life changing too. Strange that I remember my first cigarette but I don’t remember my last cigarette around four years ago.

I remember the first concert I ever went to, it was Neil Finn at the auditorium in Glasgow. I remember how beautiful his voice was; flowing over the audience like smooth warm chocolate and tears flowed down my cheeks, not because I was sad but because I was happy. I felt alive, the first time I had sat in the same room as a man whose music I had admired for so long. I was in my twenties and I had never been to a concert before so my boyfriend at the time arranged the tickets and it was a wonderful night.

I was a picky eater as a child and I think I drove my mum to distraction by not wanting to eat anything expect potatoes, she even had to tell me that a piece of cheese was ‘orange chocolate’ once in order to get me to eat it! I remember going to a friends house and having my first meal with another family – I’m actually ashamed to admit it but I think I probably just sat there looking at the strange-to-me food such as lamb, carrots etc while hot wet tears dripped down my face; scared to eat the food as I had never really lived to eat, only ate to live and wouldn’t try anything new. I remember my boyfriends mum convincing me to try a little chicken kiev when i was around 18 and finding that it was the most wonderfully sumptuous thing I had ever tasted and that I shouldn’t really be frightened of trying new foods.

My first day at university was a prominent memory too. I was living away from home for the first time, not only from home but far from home – well 150 miles or so but it felt like a long way for a small town girl who hadn’t really left her hometown much. I had to go into a huge hall to matriculate and while waiting in the queue I got talking to a man who would become a part of my life to this day. He told me his name but on seeing his matriculation form his first name was different. I was upset as I thought he had given me a false name just to get rid of me but it merely turned out to be a misunderstanding and that he preferred to be known by his middle name. I think I actually accused him of giving a false name before he laughed and explained – he probably thought I was nuts.

As I explained before, I came from a small town and I had never been to Scotland before coming to university in Edinburgh so my boyfriend at the time agreed to drive me up to Scotland beforehand to show me how beautiful it was. Now, you have to understand that I was a naive young girl who only had experience of Scotland from TV shows (Supergran springs to mind), Billy Connelly and the cartoon ‘The Family Ness’. Also, it didn’t help that people had told me that haggis were real animals and that highland cows didn’t exist but were other cows dressed up for the tourists. As you can imagine, my expectations of Scotland such as everyone wearing kilts, bagpipe players on every corner, haggis running around hills with two legs shorter than the others etc were somewhat different to reality. Ignorance I know but I moved up to Scotland 15 years ago and I love it – even if I do sometimes think it would be nice to see more men in kilts :)

I remember my first ride on a steam train. I was about 18 and my boyfriend at the time, whom I had only been seeing for a few days, drove me far into the North Yorkshire moors without telling me exactly where we were going. To be honest I was pretty scared, despite him constantly reassuring me it was a surprise and everything was ok I still considered making a run for it when he stopped the car! We walked down to a small railway station where a steam train was waiting. We travelled from Grosmont to Pickering and it was exhilarating – hearing the actual ‘choo choo’ of the train as the wheels clacked along the track, steam billowing from the chimney as we moved along at a leisurely pace. I put my head out of the window to get a better look and was in awe – it was amazing! It would have been more amazing had I not pulled my head back inside the old fashioned carriage only to find that my face was covered in soot and dirt causing my boyfriend to howl with laughter!

I remember my first taste of champagne, having never had it before and discussing this with a good friend of mine many years ago he gave me a bottle of champagne and told me to enjoy it as I should enjoy the finer things in life. I was so touched, the bubbly liquid tickled my nose as I drank it in special champagne flutes I bought for that very occasion and I raised my glass to him that New Years Eve for giving me a taste of the good life.

Many years ago a friend of mine saw that there was to be a performance of Mozart’s Requiem in Edinburgh at the Usher Hall and as it was my favourite he asked me if I would like to go. It was a chance to dress up, I’ve always been a little tomboyish and I very rarely get dressed up – mainly due to looking like ‘a bag of rags’ in no matter what I wear. I had lost a lot of weight and was about a size 8 at the time, I bought a beautiful floaty deep purple dress and a new pair of shoes. I pinned up my hair and for the first time, probably ever, I actually looked ladylike! I remember leaving work and making my way to the pub to meet my friend beforehand, I felt like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, hoping I oozed sophistication. I suspect in real life I looked a complete fright but I prefer to think I looked ok :) My friend was dressed in a suit and looked very smart, we made our way grandly to the Usher Hall. I clattered up the smooth steps to the hall in my flowing gown, holding the arm of my friend. The music was wonderful, so beautiful and again I think I probably shed tears due to simply feeling so emotional. At the end of the night I flopped onto my bed at home, sighing happily that for one night I actually looked like a lady.

Some firsts in life are just incredible. I remember trying on exactly two wedding dresses before finding that the third was the most perfect dress I had ever seen and it was even in my size – it was pretty much exactly the same design I was looking for, it even had sleeves with tiny glass buttons. I remember the first kiss as a married couple and the first time I signed my name using my married name – yep, you guessed it, I accidently signed it with my maiden name – d’oh!

I also got to thinking about some things that I haven’t done such as go to a festival, see Egypt, watch ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, become a published writer etc. Even though I wasn’t critically ill or anything, just very poorly, it seemed that during my hospital stay my life truly passed before my eyes...

...Or it could have just been the medication they gave me that made me remember all this stuff :)