The Guardian, Women's Page
September 21st, 1993
Interview 1
When I first saw Sandy, I was completely overwhelmed by her. I was 14 and she walked into the classroom smoking a cigarette and wrote "Fuck" on the blackboard. She was American and that didn't happen at our school. It was an ex-private boys' school and we were only the second intake of girls. They had to ship in female teachers - and it was considered churlish not to have at least five boyfriends.
My crush started off slowly and got bigger and bigger. I would write her poems in my essays. One time I'd written a poem all about where she lived - I'd found out and looked in the window. She read out the whole poem to the class. At the end I'd written: "I worship you so much, I have you on a pedestal." She said, "The only reason you've got me on a pedestal is to look up my skirt" and threw it at me. I was mortified. She suffered it for a long time, about two years. After one school disco I rang her up, said I had a problem and that she had to come and pick me up. She did; it was about 2am and she took me to Safeway's car park. I told her I was in love with her and that I didn't care, I just wanted to kiss her - and I made her snog me in the back of her maroon Mini. I told her that I knew I was always going to feel like this about her, I didn't fancy anyone else and I couldn't get her off my mind. She said, "Look, nothing's permanent", drove me back to my mum and dad's, gave me two Polo mints, said, "You'd better suck these" and that was that.
We used to hang out a bit together but it was all in my head. She knew about it but kept me at arms length. In the meantime, I had become friendly with my French teacher and her husband, who also taught at the school. She was 25 and had just made the transition from student to teacher. I really fancied her and we became closer. For about a month her husband turned a blind eye - but then he went back to Paris.
One day I was at my house with my French teacher when my mum unexpectedly came home and opened the door. Her hair literally stood on end. I was naked, changing a record, with my French teacher lying on the bed - the last time they'd seen each other was at a parent and teacher night. I thought it was hilarious but I was 15 and my whole world was shattered. My mum ran next door to get our neighbours, who were police, to arrest us. She wouldn't let us leave the house until my dad got home. When he arrived, he threw her out and told me that either I changed or left; he didn't want my little brother turning into a poof. I knew I couldn't change, so I went and lived with my teacher.
At the time, I was adamant that I wasn't gay. I didn't think I was until I was about 19, even though I had slept with loads of women. I thought I was bisexual.
Interview 2
In my second year, when I was 12 or 13, a new teacher came along, Miss Rogers. She was just gorgeous and when she asked me to play for the hockey team, I immediately said yes. It meant playing three or four times a week and getting up really early on a Saturday. I hated the game but she was the coach, so I knew she would be there. I'Il never forget the one time when our school won, I'd scored both goals, and at the end she came up and gave me a big hug. She was so happy and I was on cloud nine for days and days.
All this constant hockey playing kept on until my fourth year, when she asked me if I would try out for the Edinburgh Young Ladies' hockey team. The situation was totally out of hand. I was playing hockey all the time to impress her, but I never enjoyed the game. It was just to be where she would be. I said yes, of course, because she was going to coach me personally. The try-outs were between three and four months away, and it meant a lot of time with her.
I was constantly attempting to get her attention. I dyed my fringe red so she would notice me. The hockey uniform was long green socks and I would wear one long green sock and one long white sock just because I thought there might be the remotest possibility that she would one day come up and asked me why my socks didn't match.
She was always so nice to me. She was a big Gerry Rafferty fan, so I went out and bought all his albums. I remember constantly listening to Baker Street and it still always reminds me of coming home from hockey practice.
A week before the try-outs, I went for a coffee with her after practice. I asked her if she was with anyone and she said yes, and that she and her boyfriend were building a house together. I couldn't believe it. She had to repeat it again and then she told me they were engaged and planning to get married. That moment was the end of my hockey career. I never tried out - I gave it up completely.
I was 15 and heartbroken but I'm pleased I went through it. It was my first serious thing for a woman and it did make me know I was a dyke - I went out with my first girlfriend a couple of months later.
Interview 3
I went to a big comprehensive school in the north of England and stood out in some ways for being popular and quite bright. Getting towards 16, I had the usual traumas of being different - I knew what lesbians were, but I certainly wasn't into the idea of being one. I assumed that none of my peers knew what was going on but one teacher did and she kept me behind one day. I was nervous, thinking I had done something wrong. She said she had noticed I'd changed - I wasn't laughing as much - and that she was concerned. She asked if anything wrong and I said no. She accused me of lying and I flounced off. This was reported and I was told to apologise for being rude. I went along and she confronted me: "Maybe I should put it to you like this - you're not like the other girls, are you?"
This hit the nail on the head for me. I just sat there and went to pieces in front of her, I couldn't string a sentence together. She thought I needed to talk to someone about it, so she set up a meeting under the guise of extra exam tuition. I went to her house after school once a week and she would literally talk at me for an hour. My parents thought it was brilliant that she was taking an interest.
After the third time, she said to me: "Maybe I ought to tell you that I find you very attractive." I had mixed feelings about it - I felt very honoured but I didn't have the emotional capacity to deal with it. I did have a crush on her, which is probably what brought me to her attention, and if it had been left to run its course, that's all it would have been. As it happened, we did have a relationship but I was a nervous wreck at school. Her O level was the only one I failed. We saw each other for about 10 months and not a soul new, which was very stressful. I had to lie to my parents and my friends, and everyone wanted know who the mystery man was.
The relationship ended when she said that I had to choose - live with her or go. She didn't want anyone to know, she just wanted me to come and live in her house. At 16 I was too young to cope with it: she was 12 years older. I thought: "I just can't live like that." Basically I was scared. If I asked her what would happen if we were found out, she'd say: "Nobody will find out if you keep your mouth shut." The power she had was amazing.
Looking back now, I view the relationship as a good thing. It made me realise there were other people out there like me. It enabled me to know that I could make the choice but it also confused me in some ways. It was too much too soon. I was so young and inexperienced I had moments, though, when I thought: "This is love."
Interview 4
The teacher I fell in love with seemed really young - she was 26 - had huge tits and was there when, at 14, I was feeling very vulnerable, just after my father had died. I collected things she threw at me to shut me up, little bits of chalk; she threw a keychain once. I kept them in a little box in the attic. I had about 50 notes she'd written. I kept asking to go to the toilet to get them. I would trace her handwriting and smell the paper. I raked in her drawers at break time and memorised pieces of information about her. I knew all her registration numbers and the names and addresses of all the places where she had taught. I would watch her play hockey - she was an international player. I was the only person standing and cheering in the rain. Once her clogs were stolen on a school outing and I lent her my trainers. I lied and said I only lived around the corner, and walked home in my socks just so she would have her feet in my training shoes for three whole hours.
When I told her I was in love with her, she said: "I'm very flattered but I'm not a homosexual. There's nothing wrong with being one, though. when you leave school, you'll meet more people like that but right now there aren't any."
I wrote massive passionate letters to her which I used to get her to read out loud to me at break time. She never got a break from my letters. I would always go up to the staff room to give her a letter. One of them said: "I love you, I want you, I really fancy you. If I don't spend my life with you, I will die. I need to have sex with you." She'd then keep the letter saying she was afraid of it falling into the wrong hands.
Summer holidays were the worst. I didn't get to see her for six weeks, but I'd phone her four times a day. I would cycle to school to stare into the biology lab where she taught during term time. I used to try to smell her in class and if I smelt her up close - she smelt of Rive Gauche perfume and tobacco - I'd want to faint, I was so in love with her. I failed all my examinations because I loved her. Whenever she left the exam hall after supervising a test, I would leave as well, even if it was only 10 minutes into the exam, and follow her along the hall just to have three minutes alone with her.
We still meet up sometimes. She says it was the notes I gave her that she couldn't handle because she thought they would ruin her teaching career. She could cope when I was 13 or 14 but when I got to be 16 and more mature, she couldn't. We both went through a lot together that we share a special place in each other's hearts. Being in love with her made me feel that being gay meant never being able to get who I wanted, any woman at all. It would always mean unrequited love, me in the background staring at some woman who was untouchable. I thought my whole life would be like that.