The Bird Watcher That Spies.

What was Dan thinking?

This isn’t just a walk in the park to me now, I’m feeling closer and closer to Joanne but not sure how she feels about me even though we have become very good close friends though this six-week holiday. It seems as if we have so much in common. Dare I tell how I feel? Now, sure I feel the confidence to so and wonder if I ever will. My fear is being turned down and if she feels the same way she may fear of me turning her down, which is not so. I just don’t want to spoil an amazing friendship we so have.

Joanne seems to understand my family background, which she has similar to me. Only that my Father Bill Richard treats my Mother Jen like hell and knocking her about, he spends all our living money and the poor woman is having to work extra hours to look after us but my life isn’t all black and white, as I do write my poetry, stories, drawing, and paint. I’m the oldest in the family so I have young brothers and sisters to look after while Mum is at work as a nurse but when Mum is at home, I get to see Joanne in the park.

 I needed to get out of the house for a while, while Mum is off work.  We haven’t had a summer holiday for at least six years before we haven’t had the money and we still haven’t this year.

That’s enough about me for now, Joanne has been in and out of foster care, which is still happening now. She’s never known her Mother Rose and Father Richard. Her mother was very young, she and her Father split, they were just young kids. She got told she couldn’t keep Joanne because she was only thirteen.

Anyway, that’s enough of the negative as I have enjoyed the hot summer this year 1960, where I and Joanne got chatting over Saint James’s Park London and we have done it ever since. We both enjoy English, art and I’m very into poetry, she loves me my Poetry but not sure if she loves me or not. I like the Beatles; she likes Dusty Springfield and Cilia Black.

We have given one another's phone numbers. Joanne bless her is always in the call box near the home she lives, forever putting money in, it must cost her an arm and leg talking to me in the evenings, but she never seems to complete about it. We only live down the road from one another and yet we send one another letter by post. How crazy are we? Maybe there’s something between us despite we are only eleven years of age.

When I have time to spare when Mum isn’t working, I take the chance to see Joanne but there’s no sign of romance. All the same, surely I can accept that this is not going to happen and stop building my own hopes up or sooner or later I may need to be done with it and tell how I really no matter the reaction but I’m just not brave enough to say least at the moment I’m but then I guess if she feels the same way she may fear the same as I do. Despite me being an eleven years boy, there’s no excuse to be a coward but that’s easy said than done. I’m so concerned about breaking up such as great friendship.

I wasn’t sure what to think when I found out she was moving to the same Senior school as me whether or not that was a good or bad thing and I don’t mean that in a nasty way, only that my feelings are getting even stronger towards her. How long can I go like this? Will it pass, do I need to do anything to make it pass? I just don’t know. Now I’m just asking myself too many questions I can’t answer, I fear to talk to adults, they will probably say I’m too young which I am.

I think my Mum is noticing I haven’t been myself for the last few weeks with eating less, sleeping less and spending a lot of time in the bedroom and not staying downstairs in front of the television when she’s at home. whereas when she’s at work I’m downstairs minding my younger brothers and sister, which is good in one way because it’s keeping me busy, then I eat a bit more to encourage them to eat. When Mum is at home, I’m on her phone then I’m walking to the call box. Mum knows Joanne is my friend but doesn’t know I’m feeling more than that.

What was Joanne thinking?

I feel so down today as I have had some very bad news, but I will be Okay. One of the staff from the Foster home had heard somehow that from someone contacting the office that my Mother died yesterday so I have no chance of meeting her now, she took her own life which is all I was told.

It has been 91 in temp today, very hard and I couldn’t stand staying in all day at the home I needed to get out for a while. I took a walk down to Saint James Park London, which is only a twenty minutes’ walk from the home and had myself a cup of tea in the café. I met this boy is standing in the queue, Dan Richards the same age as me and he’s going to the same school as me in September. I didn’t tell him about what’s as I was more interested in what he was talking about. We seem to have quite a bit in common as we are both good with art, poetry, and stories. He was talking about John Keats and his poems, the artist and S Lowy and his Paintings.

We both have similar backgrounds in our lives, Dan what he faces with his parents with his Father Bill putting his Mother Jen through violence and mental abuse and all the negative goings-ons I face in the Foster home, without our writing and art life would drive us nuts. I find myself locking myself in my room at times, but life isn’t all black and white.

I never thought I would think this about anyone, I normally shy away from boys but I’m really growing strong towards Dan, but I only met him today. We had so much of a great talk that I wouldn’t want to spoil such a great friendship and I don’t want to build my hopes up that he may feel the same way about him as I do about him but waiting and seeing for me isn’t hard for me to accept. Maybe one day we may just draw together naturally one never knows.

Joanne Evans and Dan Richards met at London Senior Grammar school when they were eleven years in the 1960s. Joanne and Dan were in the same class and Lee Deans were his best mate or should I say he was supposed to be.

Lee Deans were always is was always into mischief he took a great deal of interest in his schoolwork and he was always in trouble. Lee was a Rolling Stones fan very much into Mick Jagger but always wanted something someone else had. Dan loved his art, into poetry and History very much into the Beatles and John Lennon. Whereas Joanne was very quiet, shy artist into English, very much herself, she was 5.2, long blond hair and blue eyes, slim, very much into stars like Dusty Springfield and Cilar Black. She did very well for herself.