And Ceri's mother said, thank you for calling

I am always amused when people use the phrase, "lost my virginity." As far as I am concerned, I never lost mine - in fact I knew exactly where it went and frankly I was quite happy to see it go!

In my case the first thing that springs to mind is not the age at which my virginity packed it's bags - it's the date and location. October 28 1972, in a disused graveyard in the middle of nowhere. Nothing but headstones and cow dung littered fields to be seen.

I admit that getting ones leg over in a remote graveyard is not everyone's ideal way of taking that first step towards a life of footy-night nooky, but there was a certain degree of unintentional kinkiness about it.

Her name was Ceri, (pronounced Kerry, as in John Kerry, the one who sends me newsletters thanking me for being a patriotic American). She was the same age as me - sweet sixteen. How we ended up together is a bit of a mystery because Ceri was one of the cool kids in school and I wasn't. You knew she was cool because she wore a scarlet woollen scarf wrapped casually around her neck, a navy blue sweater with sleeves longer than her arms and walked around with an air of disdain. I normally wore a synthetic sweater from Tesco and walked around hoping someone would notice I existed.

I was not one of the cool set, even though that night I was wearing a US army jacket with sergeants stripes - all the rage at that time. I wasn't so much part of the "in-crowd" more a member of the "outside-looking-in" set.

It was a Saturday night - party night. One of the lads in school lived on a small farm and his parents allowed him to use a barn as a sort of club-house. It had electricity, furniture, a hi-fi and walls adorned with posters of James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and Emerson Lake and Palmer.

The farm was conveniently situated opposite a pub, so when his parents were away for the weekend, (which was fairly often) it was time to party. Those who had motor scooters, (mostly Lambretta 250s adorned with mirrors and fur lined windscreens) would shuttle guests to the location. The boys who looked the oldest would go in to the pub's "off-licence" and load up with kegs of beer for the lads and bottles of Bacardi for the girls. Being socially responsible pre-adults, we also bought bottles of orange juice or lemonade for the wimps!

Lighting in the barn was provided by candles, which in hindsight was not a great idea considering the amount of straw lying around, but it was very "cool" and even romantic. For added atmosphere, incense sticks were scattered around the "room".

It was on one of those nights that fate somehow sent Ceri my way.

I borrowed a Lambretta from one of my friends, even though I had never ridden one or even had driving lessons. He gave me a few simple instructions and with a few pints of Watney's Pale Ale under my belt, it all seemed simple enough. Feeling like Steve McQueen in the 'Great Escape', I jumped on board - the scooter that is, not Ceri. Then we rode off in to the night. Actually, we stop-started our way into the night.

We decided on the graveyard because it looked more comfortable than the surrounding fields. We sat down on the grass, she looked around and said, "it's quiet here innit".

"Dead quiet" I replied and she responded with a girlish giggle. Gee I was cool that night! We talked and petted for a while, then she posed a question.

"Do you think we're intruding?".

Huh?

"You know - intruding on the departed."

This needed tactful, diplomatic handling.

"Well if they're departed there's no one here to worry about us is there?"

"Suppose not"

Back to business. It wasn't so much foreplay as "two-and-a-half play". Just as things were getting interesting she sat up.

"My Mam's gonna kill me."

Bloody marvellous. She had all night to work out the bleeding obvious, but she waited until my one hand was on the waistband of her knickers for it to dawn on her.

"Nah, she'll be OK. She will be mad for a while but it will soon blow over and before long you'll be able to sit down again."

My attempt at humour had a negative effect on her libido.

"I'd better go home"

I knew that in order to salvage the situation I needed all my powers of logic and persuasion.

"Look, it's almost one o'clock, so your mum will already be mad. By 2 am she will be worried about you and her anger will have been replaced with concern. She will just be glad to see you."

I haven't mentioned her dad because after almost eighteen years of being married to Mrs Ceri, he had lost the power of speech and independent thought, due to lack of practice.

"Anyway, just tell her that you're 16 and it's none of her business" I added.

"You tell her!" she suggested.

I had met her mum several times and weighed up that particular option.

"It would sound better coming from you." I advised.

I will leave out the intimate details to spare my readers blushes, but before long it was mission accomplished. Not exactly 'Paradise by the dashboard light' but the moon did shine on one of the headstones.

The next day I phoned Ceri to see if she was OK. It took a great deal of courage because I knew her mum might answer the phone.

"She knows Mike" Ceri told me. At least she used my name and not, "whats-your-name-again" so that was a good sign.

"Did you tell her? Did you say who you were with?"

"Course not, but now that you've phoned she'll probably guess. She was mad at first then asked me if I was OK, and did I want to have a chat with her about anything - anything at all".

Bloody Norah. Mrs Ceri went up in my estimation.

"And did you?"

"Course not."

Back in school, Ceri seemed to be avoiding me, so a few nights later I phoned again. Her mum answered. Oh hell.

I asked if I could speak to Ceri, but before she had chance to answer, I heard Ceri's voice in the background.

"If that's Mike, tell him I'm not home."

Silence. Then Mrs Ceri gently said, "I'm sorry Mike. But thank you for phoning."

Yep - she knew all right.

* The title of this post is derived form Dr Hook's 'Sylvia's Mother' a song that reminds me of that night every time I hear it.