The Teddy Boys Picnic

I was a Boomer. Not a male kangaroo or even a member of the Australian International Basketball Team, although that would make an interesting story. I was one of those who was born just after the war, in 1946.

My father had been based in Britain training the D-Day teams that went into France in gliders, landing deep in enemy territory to secure various bridges and vantage points. He had been in the commandos during the first part of the war and had been put into the back line due to injuries that sadly took him from us by 1950.

I was four when he died and remember Mum crying for a few days before she started carrying on with looking after us kids. I had two sisters, both born before the war. Barbara was born early in 1939, no doubt the result of his last weeks before going off to fight. Wendy was born in 1937, not long after my parents had married. My aunt told me, on the quiet, that the six months before her birth wasn’t long enough to be proper behaviour.

My Aunt June was my Uncle Henrys’ wife. Uncle Henry was my fathers’ brother. Some years older, he had been exempted service due to a required profession and a permanent disability. He was all right, as far as bankers with flat feet go. Aunt June was a hairdresser, working from home. That was where I was taken after Dad died, to be looked after until I went to primary school.

I was christened Barry, and I could tell you where I lived at that time but that would be useless information, seeing that the whole area that had missed being bombed was due to be demolished as soon as they had finished reworking the bombsites, to be replaced with high-rise accommodation. Suffice to say, it was just south of the Thames and an interesting place to grow up.

When I was ten, Barbara had been married a year and had a new child of her own. She had moved to the Midlands where her husband had work as an accountant in one of the mills. Wendy was nineteen and still living at home with a job as an assistant at the same Co-op store where Mum worked. That was a place I loved going to, fascinated by the brass money containers whizzing along the wires to the cashier and back to the counters with the change and receipt.

Wendy had a boyfriend, Bruce, who was a Teddy Boy. Of course, Wendy was a Teddy Girl whenever she was with him, and the fashion had permeated down to me. Over the last couple of years, my Sunday best had become true Teddy fashion. From a cheap drape coat with the black velvet collar, the high-necked shirt, the drainpipe pants and my black suede brothel creepers, I was as elegant as the next Teddy. For those who may not be able to picture the full elegance, just watch the ‘Belles of St. Trinians’ film of 1954 with George Cole as Flash Harry.

Bruce had a Ford Zephyr Mark 1, which he took Wendy out in some evenings. Some weekends, I was allowed in the back seat as long as I kept quiet as they sang songs that they liked together. I thought Bruce had a good voice, but Wendy sometimes sounded like a cat whose tail you had trod on.

Quite often during our trips, they would park in an out of the way spot and I would be told to take a walk for an hour or so as they needed the back seat. I may have been only ten, but I already knew what they wanted to do, as I had seen Barbara snare her husband on the lounge carpet when Mum was out. Not that it made much sense at the time, and it left a stain on the carpet that they covered over with a rug. I had learned a lot in the years since then.

It was a nice Sunday afternoon and I’d been evicted from the back seat. Bruce had parked on a dirt track south of the city. I was always surprised that he could find places like this. Perhaps he had been in the places before.

I walked into the tree line beside the track to see what I could find. I had my fathers’ old pocket watch so would take a half an hour out and then retrace my steps. At first, there was plenty of space between the trees and I could see where the sun was. I had walked for fifteen minutes and had been taking note of the trees as I passed, along with traces of the animals that inhabited this copse. With my regular lonely walks in a wide selection of country sites, I had gained quite a good knowledge of the local wildlife.

In front of me, the trees looked a lot closer together, with just enough space for me to get through. I thought that if the trees remained too close, I’d have a look and come back and try another way. I went up to the biggest gap and looked through. Oddly, on the other side it looked as if there was a large open area. I squeezed through the gap and looked around me.

It looked as if I had arrived at a grassy area, with scattered flowers around. I looked back to confirm my return route, only to see that there wasn’t a gap! My only way now was forward. This was really strange. I was sure that I had come through a gap. The trees now appeared like a palisade similar to olden day forts. I shrugged and turned so that I was still walking in a straight line. As I moved forward, it appeared that there was a faint path through the flowers. After ten minutes, I thought that this had gone on long enough and stopped. The meadow appeared to carry on for miles, even though I knew that there was a village nearby. We had passed through it on the way to the track. Bruce had pointed out the pub where we would stop for a drink before he took us home.

Making my decision, I turned back to the way I had come, intending to walk along the tree line to find a gap. There had to be one somewhere. That was when I knew that something was truly wrong. The sun had been on my right, and suddenly it was on my right again. Not only that, but there was also a bank of flowers that I was sure hadn’t been there before. On top of that, there was a blanket on the grass, laden with all the things for a picnic.

I walked up to it and inspected the food and drink. There seemed to be a range of things for kids my age, some items for later teenagers, and some other things for adults. It was a typical picnic that a family would have, not that I’d ever had the joy of attending something like this. All of a sudden, I felt hungry and thirsty.

I sat on the blanket and took a drink of the lemonade, and a bite of a nice chocolate cake. When I had eaten my fill, I felt so tired, I laid down and went to sleep. My last thoughts were that Bruce and Wendy would be looking for me soon.

When I woke up, I felt as if something had changed. My clothing felt tighter on me, but it was still light, with the sun looking that it had hardly moved.. I must have only had a short nap. Even though I had only eaten a few minutes ago, I felt peckish again and had some more cake and another drink.

The next time I opened my eyes, my clothes were so tight that they hurt. I took them off with much relief and sat in my shorts in the sunshine. It was nice and warm, so I had some more of the soft drink and finished off the cake.

I awoke again with the sun still where it had been when I went to sleep. Suddenly hungry and thirsty, I felt really strange, and my feet were further away than I remembered. Even my shorts now felt tighter. With no soft drink or cake left, I looked at the food suited to teenagers. There were pies, the sort you find in the café the teen teddy boys went to. There was a plate of sandwiches, with what looked like some sort of salad and other things in them. For drink, there was an unmarked bottle that looked like beer. I had a sip of it once and didn’t like the taste. There was also another bottle that looked, and smelt, like a grape juice.

By this time, I wasn’t so hungry and had all the sandwiches and drank all the grape juice and then laid down to go to sleep again, thinking that by this time, the police would be looking for me.

The next time I woke up I knew that something was different. There were two prominent mounds on my chest with nipples that tingled. My shorts had split, revealing what looked, and felt like, a vagina. Wide awake now, I stood up and took in the reality that I was now inhabiting. I took the ruined shorts off and stood there, in the warm sun, as naked as a newborn, with a body of a teenage girl and plaited hair down below my shoulders.

I looked for my original clothes, but they were nowhere to be seen. In their place was a neatly piled collection of clothes that I had once seen Barbara wear. Feeling suddenly vulnerable, I quickly dressed in the bra and panties, garter belt and stockings, blouse and the A-line pinafore dress. Pink, of course. When I had pulled on the pixie boots, I picked up the only thing left on the blanket, a handbag.

I opened the bag and took out the compact, checking my make-up and retouching the lipstick. Stepping off the blanket, now without any trace of the picnic, I picked it up and folded it. With my bag over one shoulder, and the blanket under the other arm, I walked towards the nearby gap in the trees to take me back to the edge of the wood. I took one look back at the small glade where I had been and smiled. This had been a good find, my own secret place.

As I walked between the trees, my memory of being Barry faded, with new ones filling my mind. I pulled my fathers’ old pocket watch from my bag and looked at it. I had five minutes to get back to where Wendy and Bruce would have finished their business. I had to giggle. Knowing Bruce, they would have been waiting at least a half an hour for me, if not longer.

Sure enough, when I got to the car, Wendy was sitting in the front seat with her eyes closed. Bruce was sitting on the bonnet, cigarette in his mouth, watching a tractor ploughing a field a little way off.

“Hi, folks. Had fun I hope.”

Wendy opened her eyes.

“Just waiting for you to get back, Barb. I bet that Terry misses your sunbathing sessions.”

“That’s for him to think about and me to remember, Wend. I do miss him.”

“He should have left school early and gone to Ireland. That way, he wouldn’t have been called up.”

I sighed. My boyfriend, Terry, had been swept up for a two-year stint in the National Service last month, and was presently at some remote camp near Wales doing his basic training. We had been in love, I think, and had gone all the way on the front room rug before he was shipped off, taking precautions of course. I wasn’t ready to be a mother. I wasn’t going to tell my sister that Terry had never been with me on my sunbathing sessions.

I got in the back and put the blanket on the window shelf, with some unfolding to not obscure the rear view. Bruce got in and drove us to the pub. Inside, he had beer while Wendy and I had some cheap white wine. There was a jukebox in the bar, and he put some coins in to select some music. We had a nice hour there, dancing to Elvis, Bill Haley and Eddie Cochran. He danced with Wendy, and I danced with a few of the other lads in the bar. It was nice to be dancing with some lad who wasn’t Terry.

When we were dropped off at home, Bruce told us that he had got me a date for next Saturday evening, and we were all going to see a new film that was all the rage in America, ‘Blackboard Jungle.’

On Monday morning, I was in my Co-op dress, and the three of us walked to the store to work. Mum went off to the cashier box, while Wendy and I tided our counters to wait for the customers. It was an odd day. The whizzing money containers made me think of Barry, my little brother. He had been fascinated by them.

Then, I realised that yesterday had been the first anniversary of his death in an accident when he was nine. Perhaps I should have gone and put flowers on his grave instead of going with Wendy and Bruce. Barry had been a real Teddy Boy in miniature. We had got him all the gear and he had looked the part. It had been unfortunate that he had been with one of the older lads when the car they were in overturned on a corner. Those Triumph Mayflowers were notoriously top heavy. They may have looked like a poor mans’ Rolls Royce but had only been sold for a few years.

The working week passed as all working weeks did. I was starting to get bored with this life. Wendy had Bruce to take up her spare time, but I now had nobody special. Terry would only be back on short leave before he was shipped off overseas. We still had camps in Germany and there was some trouble in Suez that people were talking about.

On the Saturday evening, Bruce picked the two of us up and took us to the cinema at the Elephant and Castle. Wendy and I had gone the whole hog, both of us in black stockings and hobble skirts with pink tops. We had helped each other with make-up and looked good. At the foyer, we met my date. I took one look at him, and Terry was forgotten. He was a good height, with a pleasant face and the Teddy Boy hair - all quiff at the front and DA at the back. He looked a bit like Eddie Cochrane and had very good clothes. His drape jacket was certainly not from the market.

We got seats on the end of the back row and were lucky we did. The film had been released in America the year before and had been banned in several states because of the teenage violence and racial undertones it contained. It had taken until now to be passed by the UK film censors and was so badly messed with that the cinema audience, mainly Teddy Boys here to listen to Bill Haley with ‘Rock around the Clock’, got angry with it and started a riot. They were tearing up seats and generally having a good time when Jerry, my date, stood up and pulled me towards the exit doors, Bruce and Wendy following behind us.

We ducked out into a back alley as police cars were arriving at the front of the cinema. Bruce and Wendy ran to his Zephyr, parked in the next street, while Jerry took my hand and slowed us down to a walk. He then put his arm over my shoulder, and we strolled, slowly because of my hobble skirt, out towards the front of the cinema. I was getting worried, but Jerry smiled and told me that it didn’t pay to run away.

As we emerged from the alley, one of the police stopped us.

“Where are you going?”

“Home, officer. We were so upset with the way that film was cut about, we left early. We just had a kissing session in the alley when another couple came bursting out of the emergency exit and ran off. What’s going on?”

“It’s a riot in there, lad. You’re better to have left early. We’ll have it sorted soon. You two run along now. Find somewhere better to spend your evening.”

I was trembling but Jerry was as cool as a cucumber as he wished the policeman goodnight and guided me away from the cinema. A street away, we got to a very nice Zodiac, and he unlocked the passenger door for me to sit and swivel. It smelt like a new car, or what I would think a new car would smell like, having never sat in one before. It was bigger and better than the Zephyr that Bruce drove. He got in behind the steering wheel.

We sat for a few minutes as I got myself back to normal. He just sat and watched me.

“OK now?”

“I am, Jerry. Thank you for being so good back there. That was terrible in there.”

“I think that it will not be the only time there’s trouble with that film. There’s a lot of angry lads here who will take that riot as permission to make trouble. Do you want me to take you home?”

“Not at the moment. Can we go somewhere that there’s a jukebox. All of a sudden I really want to dance.”

He started the car, and we went into a better part of town and stopped at a pub. Inside, it was more normal people, and we must have stood out. It was his obviously better outfit and our calm appearance that didn’t make waves. He had a shandy rather than a full beer, and I had a much better glass of wine than last week. We were in a booth in the snug, away from the main bar.

“So, Barbara. That wasn’t the sort of scene that I expected when I left home.”

“Nor me, Jerry. I expect that if my sister wasn’t with Bruce, he would have been in the thick of it and likely in jail tomorrow. Thank you for your quick thinking.”

“It was my gain, Barbara. I may have given you a quick kiss in the back row during the film before you were taken away again. Now, we’re sitting here where nobody knows us.”

“I haven’t had that kiss yet.”

“The night is young. Now, Bruce works for my family and told me about you sisters. I have to tell you the truth here. This outfit and haircut is purely camouflage. Inside, I’m more normal. A bit like the lot out in the bar. Are you as totally Teddy Girl as you look?”

“It’s the fashion, Jerry. Where I live and work, it’s expected. I suppose that Bruce told you that he knew a couple of easy girls.”

He blushed and looked even better.

“He did say that your sister was good, and that you had a boyfriend who was now in the army and likely to be getting horny.”

I laughed.

“That is so Bruce! He and my sister have regular sex, but me and Terry only did it the once and made a hell of a mess on the carpet. Wendy is two years older than me. So, a likely horny girl sounded attractive, did it. Should I be worried?”

“It did seem like a good idea at the time. Bruce is older and has that manly attitude. I did well in school, am in a protected business with transport so didn’t get called up. Bruce drives for us and I manage the warehouse. I haven’t had much chance to socialise.”

“You’re still a virgin?”

He blushed again and I took his hand.

“That’s something that I’ve been built to help you with, Jerry. I know a nice little country lane where we can make a man of you. I hope that you have protection in your wallet.”

“You don’t have to feel sorry for me, Barbara.”

“I’m not feeling sorry. Right now, I’m starting to feel a bit horny.”

He laughed and we finished our drink. We extricated ourselves from the booth and went back out to the car. I was able to direct him to where Bruce had parked the previous week, and he moved from behind the steering wheel to my side of the bench seat. We kissed for the first time and then kissed some more. I knew that he would be ready to blow, so I suggested that we moved to the back seat. We slid out of my side, and I allowed my skirt to drop, then picking it up and putting it on the front seat.

With my legs now freed, I got in the back, and he followed. It was a wide enough car, and he could close the back door to put the roof light out. I had to talk to him to keep him from ejaculating early as he put his Durex on, but he came almost as soon as he had entered me. He was sorry and almost cried.

I held him close and told him not to worry as the next time would be wonderful for both of us. He didn’t deflate much as I kept him in me, and when he had kissed me enough times he started getting hard again. The next time was truly wonderful. I had three orgasms before he came, and he was panting with exertion.

After a little while, we extracted ourselves from the back seat. I wiped myself with my hankie and used it to clean him off after he had tossed the Durex into the trees. I put my skirt back on as an owl hooted in the wood. He drove me home and we kissed. Then, he asked me if he could pick me up on Sunday morning and take me to lunch with his family.

Sunday morning, after some sisterly ribbing from Wendy, I dressed in the things from my wardrobe that didn’t scream Teddy Girl. I could see Wendy looking surprised when the Zodiac pulled up and I got in, sliding over to sit next to him. At his home, I met his parents, being introduced as his girlfriend. That was a bit quick, but I didn’t question it. It was a nice lunch and I got on well with his folks. I was asked if I could type, and I told them that I had learned at school but didn’t use it on the counter at the Co-op. His father told me that Gerald needed a secretary in the warehouse, with business booming, and to come in next Saturday to do a test.

After lunch, Jerry asked me where I wanted to go during the afternoon.

“It may sound strange, sweetheart, but I would like to put flowers on my brothers’ grave. He died a year ago last week, and I haven’t been there since the actual funeral.”

“Certainly, love. It’s good that you’re thinking of your sibling.”

We got into his car and drove to a market where there was a florist stall. We bought a small bunch for the grave, and he picked another bunch for me. At the cemetery, we found the gravesite. Barry had been laid next to our father. The last time I had been here, it was just a mound with a wooden cross with a number on.

It now had its own headstone with his name and dates of birth and death. Under that was a phrase that made me cry as I laid the flowers in front of the stone. It was oddly close to my heart.

‘He enjoyed life as an unending picnic but was called home far too early.’

Marianne Gregory © 2026