The first time she kissed me, she picked my pocket. She stole my St Christopher and my moral compass. I knew she did, because from that first moment on I was lost forever

Remembering Holding Hands

On a hazy summer day, the World War II re-enactment people had come to a seaside town in Southern England.

Union Jack bunting fluttered and young women in vintage clothes and charity shop earrings, their coiffed hair and scarlet lipstick giving them the look of 1940s pin up girls, danced with men in ill-fitting period uniforms, their hair brylcreemed and moustaches waxed. A couple of restored military vehicles were parked incongruously on the esplanade, and by the floral clock a band played the music of Glenn Miller and Vera Lynn.

In front of the band, among the bright young things in the seamed stockings and wartime dresses, a number of elderly couples danced somewhat sheepishly. The oldest of them hardly moved, holding each other as much for support as anything else, but most showed a slow-motion recollection of the Saturday night dances of years gone by. After a few numbers, a singer came on stage, a smoky voiced chanteuse with a look that was all high-tar cigarettes and low-life dives; and when she sang, I noticed something beautiful.

“That certain night, the night we met,
There was magic abroad in the air
There were angels dining at the Ritz
And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square”

Two of the elderly dancers paused for a heartbeat, and their smiles widened, just a little. As I watched a change came over them, but couldn't, for a moment pin down. Still a husband and wife in their eighties, their clothes were still shabby but clean, their shoes still old but polished; the bodies still fit together as familiarly as hands, but in their eyes they were two new young lovers.

“How strange it was how sweet and strange,
There was never a dream to compare
With that hazy, crazy night we met
When a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square. “

The two of them had closed out the world, and were dancing on memories without a word to be said, and as they glided off into a time in their past, after a while I drifted away into mine.

----oOo---

I was, what - nineteen or twenty? Something like that, and I was with a student nurse called Lisa. She was sunny and happy, tender and kind, and was unlike any girl I'd been with before. I was as shallow and superficial as any nineteen year old, and it was new to me to find someone I wanted to spend time with just for the love of spending time with them.

Someone who felt good not because she was a trophy to show off or a body to explore, but who made me feel safe and happy, simply by being. Someone, I realized with a jolt, that I had fallen in love with. And that was something I knew nothing about.

I'd been looking for love and was in love with love, but had never truly believed it would ever happen. When I realized that it had, my one thought was “What if she doesn't feel the same?”; because the one thing I did know was that no-one was about to love me.

I said nothing, believing that if I did, she would just smile her sweet smile, let me down gently as you would a child, and I would be lost.

We went down for a couple of days to a seaside town much like the one I was now. A friend of hers was having a party, so we took the opportunity to have some time away. For reasons I don't recall, we travelled down by bus. We met at Victoria Coach Station on a sweltering afternoon,and I still remember seeing her through the crowd. Dressed head to toe in white, her blonde hair held off her face with a twisted scarf, she was carrying a battered leather suitcase straight out of an old film. I called her name, and as she turned to me and smiled, she was the most romantic sight I'd ever seen.

The journey was long and dull, and we fell into the numb half-sleep of travel, but after a while, I felt Lisa's hand squeeze mine.

“Look..” She whispered

A couple of seats down from us sat a very elderly couple. I'd noticed them earlier,as they had needed to be helped onto the bus back in London. They had been sitting holding hands for the entire journey, and now the old lady was sleeping peacefully, her head resting on her husband's shoulder, their fingers still intertwined.

“That'll be us one day”

I had never been so happy in my life. I wanted to shout, laugh and punch the air. I wanted to run up and down the bus telling everyone about this incredible feeling I was the first person in the world to have. I felt  better than James Brown. No words can explain it, but if you've ever been in love with someone who loved you back, you'll understand. It's an experience that millions of us have had, but that is never less than the greatest thing in history. It is as alive as you will ever feel. Even all these years later, after all the other loves in my life, when I remember that moment, I can still feel that rush of happiness as intensely as when it happened.

And we were happy for a while; but time passes, people drift apart, and suffice to say that Lisa and I are never going to dance on a seaside promenade in our old age, whilst a band plays our special tune. If I had my time over again, that wouldn't change; it was what it was, and 'for a while' was all it was ever meant to be. When I look back now,as I did watching that old couple dancing by the sea, I don't remember much about our time together, really; but that magical moment always stays with me – so do me a favour, will you?

If you know a woman named Lisa who used to be a nurse, ask her if she's the one I've been telling you about.

And tell her that Mick says thank you.