29 FEBRUARY - 6 MARCH
Monday – Sunday
We sail to England on board the Cunard Lines' R.M.S. Carinthia
2 MARCH
Wednesday
We attend a gala dinner on board the ship.
After we arrive in England, we stay with my aunt and uncle until a place becomes available for us at the base in France.
Residence:
Tunstead Road
Bacup, Lancashire, England
My uncle was a truck driver at the time, and he took me on one of his day trips making deliveries. I thought it was a lot of fun.
I develop a crush on Jenny, a schoolgirl who lives next door to my cousin. Nothing comes of it. I’m too shy to ask her for a date.
And probably too young, anyways...
MARCH
I enter Year 8(?) at Fearns Community High School.
I write a one-act play called The Mummy, which the drama class at school produces.
I wrote this play obviously influenced by the films of Boris Karloff and others.
I surprise the boys at school by throwing a cricket ball like a baseball the whole length of the playing field. Apparently, they've never seen anyone throw a ball like that.
At the local candy shop, after they hear me order something, several schoolgirls come up to me and ask, “Would yer tawk Canajun for uz?”
Since I lost my English accent just over a year after moving to Canada in 1953, I thought it rather funny that I should have a 'Canadian' accent.
My aunt is furious one day after she catches me throwing sugar on the flames in the fireplace.
I had seen them do that at school during science class and wanted to perform my own experiment.
My aunt scolds me and tells me not to do that again. “You’re not the one who buys the food around here!” However, I don’t tell her that I can hardly wait until I’m alone again so I can throw salt, or even flour, on the fire to see if that does anything.
My sister and I pass an examination in the preliminary course of First Aid to the Injured with the St John Ambulance Association.
MAY
While drying my genitals off after a bath, I suddenly experience the most explosive and ecstatic sensation I've ever felt. Trembling, I gradually realize that I've had my first orgasm.
This experience began what turned out to be a daily ritual of masturbation that lasted for at least eleven years — every morning before leaving for school, and then returning to it repeatedly during times of stress, sickness, and depression. This habit would eventually affect me physically later in life by the time I turned forty-six [1993].
The first piece of literature I happened to come upon following this first orgasm was a book in my uncle’s library that gave a rather lurid account of experiments performed on captive women in concentration camps during the Second World War. (For a long time, I thought the title of the book was ‘The Doll House’, but current searches disclose this not to be the case) For several weeks its explicit descriptions fueled my sexual fantasies until I gradually moved to illustrations and photos of naked Greek and Roman statues in Encyclopedia Britannica; mythological paintings that featured nude women; and then, the lingerie sections in various Eaton’s and Simpsons-Sears catalogues. All these because I certainly didn't have access to [or know anything about, for that matter] any sort of erotic or pornographic material.
JUNE
I leave Fearns Community High School.
We take a short holiday to the Blackpool beach.
12 JUNE
Sunday
Via the Channel Tunnel, we take the train from England to Marville, France, and then from there we drive to R.C.A.F. Station 2(F)[ighter] Wing, Grostenquin. However, the P.M.Q.s are located about nineteen kilometers away near to a village called St Avold. There, we live in an apartment block, but we come to call the buildings ‘cages’.
Residence:
#78, I Block
Grostenquin P.M.Q.s
St Avold, France
Now that we’re in France, I feel both relieved and yet secretly disappointed—I don't see any of those ‘naked women’ some of the kids sang about.
SUMMER
At the base’s Astra Theatre to catch the Saturday afternoon cartoon, newsreel, serial chapter, and main feature, I watch a trailer for Mademoiselle Striptease [original title: En Effeuillant La Marguerite, or Stripping the Leaves of the Marguerite, a.k.a. Stripping the Daisy, and a.k.a. Plucking the Daisy] starring Brigitte Bardot. I realize, then, that Brigitte is one of those mysterious ‘naked women’ about which I’d heard and fantasized. Just watching the trailer arouses me so much that I go home and, when I'm alone, I dress up in Mum's clothes and perform a striptease in front of a mirror to fire my sexual fantasies once again. The cross-dressing also feels good to me, and I start to believe I should have been born a woman instead of a man.
I also develop a schoolboy crush on Brigitte that will last for years.
After viewing the trailer and complete movie as an adult, I realized there was no actual nudity presented. Apparently, just the expectation of it was enough to get me excited as a young teenager. As well, this confusion about my gender would continue for many years.
SEPTEMBER
I enter Grade 8 at Lorraine Senior High School. My home room teacher is Norma Herrington.
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