1961

I was 15 in June of that year. At Easter I went to France to stay with my penfriend and was horribly homesick! Paris was wasted on me at that age. In September I went into the 5th year and started a campaign to drop Physics and Chemistry from my O-level subjects - unheard of! No 'options' in those days - we were just expected to take every subject, but I knew I had no hope of passing science. In the end the school agreed.

I have also seen the show and was able to sing-a-long to everything in it. In 1961 I was 14 and a regular at the local youth club, where we had our own in house band. 3 years later I fell for the new drummer in the band - been with him eversince.

I would LOVE to go see Dreamboats and Petticoats! I was 18 in June of that year, and completely in love with the pop scene of the day, AND with stiff frilly petticoats!

I left school and went off to university. After a rather troubled childhood I was able to go hundreds of miles from home and start a new life where no one knew me. I have never been so happy.

Left school, went to France on the Yorkshire/Lille school exchange, and started work at a County Court in the October. I was very unhappy in the job, but stuck it for 3 years before going off au pairing to Vienna.

Loved the fashions, and loved hiking, cycling and youth hostelling in the early sixties.

oooh, even my Mum was only 13 then!

I was 7 for most of that year. Can't remember much except that I loved going to Brownies!

I was 22. I had met my DH the previous year and we were "going steady". Ithink 1961 was the year we went camping in France with another couple (old friends) . That was an adventure and regarded with suspicion by my parents, particularly as we all slept in one smallish Boy Scout type tent.

We drove in an old Vauxhall, which seized up at the top of a hill in the middle of the French Alps. Luckily it was downhill to the nearest village, where a genius of a motor engineer soldered a great hole in the radiator, and we continued on our way. French campsites then were a revelation after British camping - all these continental frame tents, and all mod cons, even if the water in the showers was usually cold.

DH (the electrical boffin) had fixed a adapter so that an electric razor could be plugged into the glove box on the passenger side, but it only worked while the engine was running. so the boys took it in turns to shave en route. As they were in what appeared to the French to be the driver's seat this caused some consternation on the road, as it seemed that they were using both hands to shave and none to drive.

I was 17 and in my second year at work as a nursing cadet.I smoked my first cigarette, very daring. We were all mad on Cliff Richard. I went on a trip to Blackpool with the girls I worked with, we met some boys who took us into the Pleasure Gardens, where we went into the tunnel of love, the boy I was with snogged me all the way through it.We said goodbye at the bus station, I cannot remember his name now.

I was 15 and just started at secretarial college. The following year I moved with my parents to Beirut for two years. Had a wonderful time!

Pregnant with my first daughter - my goodness now I feel really old!

I was 5 and living in Bramhall in Cheshire. My parents were so happy in that home and felt so proud of their first 'proper' house. I loved it there too and can remember roller skating albeit tentatively down our road and catching hold of the sign on the corner of Whitehaven Rd where we lived at number 1! Even now I still dream about living there and I'm 55! I dreamt the other night that I was able to buy our old house back and we were going to move there and then I realised that after all I was quite happy here in Suffolk. What was that all about?! My parents found a place to live here after my dad was transferred with his job down south. Not long after he was made redundant but we stayed here anyway. They are 80 and 82 now and suffering with memory problems though still living at home together. I live nearby nearby with my husband, our grown up children have left.
I loved clip clopping down our road which was on a hill in mum's high heels even though I was a through and through tom boy who preferred outdoors to dolls anyday! Joan Plowright's brother, who was in the TV business lived at the top of Whitehaven - John Plowright. A bit of useless info that my mother told me years ago. I was unsettled moving here even at the tender age of seven and it took me a while to stop feeling sad about leaving my lovely Aunt and Uncle back in Burnage where we spent many wonderful Christmasses. sniff

I was 13 in the February. Appallingly shy and lacking in confidence, style or anything else. That has changed in a major way as I have got older! (Well since I was about 40.)

I also was thirteen and envied my elder sister who brought home a little portable record player I was sooooo jealous, I used to sneakily play her new records when she was out.. really don't remember much about that time though.

I was 10. Doing 11 plus I guess or about to.
We moved house and my mother announced she was going to remarry, having been widowed when I was 4. I remember bursting into tears. Strangely prescient because he became a mean, jealous bully within months of the wedding.
I think we must have been sent off to Gran's in Porthcawl while they got married because I have no memory of this event.

I was 15 and doing "O" Levels - successfully apart from Maths. Theseus was in the Sixth Form and used to help me with my Maths homework - well, he and his friends did it for me and my teachers could never understand how I got full marks for homework and bottom marks in class.

I remember the senior Mistress who told me I'd never get anywhere unless I stopped being "exceedingly sloppy" with boys. Showed her, didn't I?!!

Gosh, that means I've known him for over 50 years! And he still does the Maths, bless him.

I was 21 and had been married for three years. We went skate dancing every night at the Nevada rink in Bolton, and at weekends we went on treasure hunts with the De Havilland car club. I saw my sister and my mother very often as we had bought a three-bedroomed semi in the same village of Little Hulton.
I had been managing a scrap metal yard in Atherton, but I got the chance to work as an unqualified teacher in a very poor private school. I had wanted to be a teacher since I was five, but there was no support in my family for me to do 'A' levels. It confirmed my ambition, and I finally got to train when I was 27, after having my two children.

I was 11 and doing the 'quali', as they call it here - (the 11-plus). Pupils at the school were never told when the exam was to take place, and only discovered that it was to be the next day, when the teacher stood importantly at the front of the class and said, "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise". Bit of a drama queen was Mr Milne.....

I was 13 and a rather large adolescent who never felt comfortable in my body. It was the age of Twiggy and short skirts and at High School I felt like a baby elephant beside all the skinny minnies. It wasn't a happy time!

I was 13 in the May and at boarding school. The 'bigger' girls were playing Elvis Presley records - I'd never heard of him before! I was shy (moi, shy - never!) and exceedingly naive and my biggest desire in life was to own a pair of slip-on shoes.

I was 11 and sitting my 11+ - which I passed. My mother was very pleased as I was the only girl in my village to do so that year so she had bragging rights!

I started grammar school and lived with my grandparents during the week only spending Friday night, all day Saturday and Sunday morning at home with my parents and brothers. I hated it as I was different. My grandparents were lovely but Victorian in their attitudes and I went to bed at 7.30 instead of being allowed to 'play out'.

I was terrified of Miss Furness, the deputy head, who taught English, smoked all the way through her lessons and consequently had a big yellow streak right up the front of her pure white hair. She also brought her dog into classes with her.

The happiest days of my life - I think not!

As a few other posters have mentioned, I too was really lacking in confidence and only had a few friends who were also 'odd'. I would hate to be back there and cannot reconcile the person I was back then with the confident and happy person I am now.

Phew - that touched a nerve

I was 14 in the January, and on 4th August I met my future DH.

I was 12. I finally admitted I couldn't see the blackboard and started wearing glasses.They were blue and black with bits that curled up at the edges like Dame Edna's

I was 10 and that was the year of my only proper birthday party. I can't remember exactly why I didn't have one either before or after, but I've never forgotten it!