Mark tells me that he received a letter from Diane, possibly delivered by Karen Thomas who seems to be playing the go-between role for them. The letter explained that Mark had got hold of the wrong end of the stick and that all Diane had ever wanted was for them to be friends. Needless to he was devastated. He walked out of the common room, presumably heading for home. No one tried to stop him.

Lee thinks that Mark is being foolish and is less than impressed with the reaction of Steve and I, who naturally feel that we have to be supportive towards Mark. We know that Mark is not handling this particularly well, but I wonder if Lee would be quite so sanguine if it was he who was having the self same experience.

TUESDAY 10 JUNE 1980.

Mark and I got into the common room around quarter past eight, Mark still seemed to be depressed, but for a while it looked like he had accepted that it was over. Steve returned to his role as Beverley’s tutor for Religious Studies. Christine Arnold and Debbie Bradshaw, both former sixth formers put in an appearance today at lunchtime. They had evidently agreed to go for a drink with Diane. Whether this was connected with the business with Mark or to celebrate the arrival on the scene of Lee there was simply no way to tell. Diane returned after the pub had closed – clearly she was very drunk and decided to take a nap on the chairs in the common room.

With a terrifying sense of in appropriateness Mark decided that this would be a good time for what he called a “little chat”. He had forgotten the one piece of Latin that had been hammered into our heads by Janet Lines in vino veritas.1 He sidled over to where Diane was peacefully sleeping and began to speak to her. I wasn't close enough to hear what was said but the conversation quickly became acrimonious, then more acrimonious and finally positively hostile. In short Diane told him to go away in no uncertain terms. Mark walked out of the sixth form vowing not to return. I got the distinct impression that several sixth formers were rather relieved.

WEDNESDAY 10th JUNE 1980.

Karen is annoyed at Mark, she cast herself in the role of mediator but it seems reckoned without his insouciance where Diane concerned. They started talking and finished arguing fiercely in the study area. This did not go down well with the handful of pupils that use it for study.

Orme calls me to her study to announce that I am to give a lecture to the fifth year pupils about life in the sixth form. This strikes me as particularly foolish since life in the sixth form is no different to life in the rest of the school - other than the members of the sixth feel they have paid their dues and are entitled to do as little as possible. However given the amount of advance notice I got – about thirty minutes I don’t do that badly. I tell them about the importance of study and the need to be a group. I say how sad I will be to leave the school and how they can take up the mantle of sixth form pupils. As I do so, I notice one pupil struggling to write what I am saying in a notebook and realise they will be able to take up the mantle in more ways than one. At least there will be someone to ring the bell.

Meanwhile the sixth form far from being a band of brothers has been split in two distinct camps,the pro-Diane/Mark and anti-Diane/Mark. Pro: they feel that Diane has the right to make her own choices and Mark’s continual pursuit is causing a schism in the normally solid front of the sixth form. Anti: feel that Diane’s motives are suspect and that there should be more discussion and resolution. Moral high ground seems a bit dubious in both cases.

There is a third camp represented by such individuals as Genette Lawley and Debbie Donovan, who when asked replied said they didn’t give a fuck. The timing is very bad, right in the midst of the exams and even in GHS some important is placed on that sort of thing.

Editors note. Amongst the collection of papers in Cook's voluminous collection was this email which had been printed and preserved along with other Gaynesford connected memorabilia. It seems to have been part of Cook's attempts to get some kind of definitive account of the events of the time. We make no apology for reprinting it in its entirely since it describes the situation far better than any third hand account.

Message-Id: To: Ron Cook
Subject: Re: The angst generation
From: Mark Powell Reply-To: ron@wanderjahre.com

Dear Ron,

Right, now for the biggie – some snippets from the black box recording from when I crashed and burned with Diane. Not a great deal that I can usefully add here, I'm afraid - well, not so as to prevent you from yawning very deeply a couple of minutes in. Still, in the words of Lieutenant Ellen Ripley, "I'll tell you what I know..." Oh, the adolescent agonies of unrequited love... and unfulfilled lust...! Please bear in mind that across the distance of years, my half-remembered sense of time both stretches and shrinks rather like the sleeve of a woollen cardigan washed at the wrong temperature.

OK, first of all, the moment when I realised that Diane-Had-Stopped-Flirting With-Me. No doubt that with the archival resources at your fingertips you'll be able to pin this down to a more specific date. Well, it began one morning when Diane arrived - a little later than usual, I believe - in the Sixth Form Centre. We – that is, our little clique - had of course arrived anything up to an hour earlier. Immediately she walked through the door, I sensed that her manner had somehow changed.

For a start, she avoided eye contact, and she greeted me with little more than a brief, tight smile. Neither did she move to join our little clique, but instead sat across the other side of the room; only a few short yards away, but suddenly I was sharply aware of the political importance of even small distances.

I was probably sensitised to the situation because even before Diane arrived, I'd been feeling uncomfortable – thanks to an even more unflattering haircut than usual, the results of which had been worrying me ever since I'd first peered in the mirror that morning. To sweep the hair behind the ears or not to sweep the hair behind the ears: that was the question... the agonizing dilemma. In the end, I think I made the wrong choice, it should have been not to sweep it behind the ears, I know that now. I think I mouthed a few meaningless half-witticisms to Diane in an attempt to draw her into light conversation, but to no avail and I quickly withdrew.

At the time, I didn't think that the change in her attitude - this unusual, mysterious non-communicativeness – could have been are response to me personally. The penny only started to drop about, I think, a quarter to half an hour after she arrived. Lee Burrowes – whom I'd never, heard speak to Diane before - suddenly, approached her where she sat, and began chatting chirpily with her. Almost instantly her manner changed: she became animated, talkative - at least, to Lee - and I was confused as to why he'd been able to defrost the ice princess yet I hadn't.

Not only was Lee able to talk to her, but almost immediately he offered to help her re-fasten an elastic band around her hair – and she gratefully accepted with smiles and laughs. He actually touched the nape of her neck! Actual physical contact... Mentally I ground my teeth. The penny didn't drop heavily enough though. I spent most of the rest of the morning fretting about this sudden change in Diane's manner, yet without understanding what underlay it.

Then came a little stunt that Diane staged which reassured me that things were – almost – back to normal between us. She offered me a half of her sliced orange. I bit into it. And immediately there was something that tasted bitter and felt gritty in my mouth. It transpired later that she'd crushed a paracetamol tablet and hidden it in the flesh of the orange. I spat it out, and ran after her...I couldn't find Diane, but I did find Karen Thomas, who by that time had become, what you might call Diane's confidante and co-conspirator. After a chase and a (somewhat pleasurable!) wrestle with Karen, she admitted that the "poisoning" ruse had been Diane's idea. Well, no doubt a lot of guys would have been discomfited by the thought that their would-be girlfriend was also a would-be Lucretia Borgia, but not me - it seemed to prove that she was still thinking about me, at least! It may have been later that same afternoon there occurred The Incident of Diane's Umbrella.

I don't know how I was able to recognise this accessory as hers, but she left it behind somewhere in the Sixth Form Centre after her departure one afternoon. So, desperate not to let slip through my fingers the chance of being her white knight in shining armour, I resolved to return it to her in person. Diane had a part-time job as a sales assistant in a newsagent/tobacconist/confectioner's at Middleton Circle – you'll probably know the exact location. She did this job on Saturdays and on certain weekday evenings/late afternoons. I think I took the umbrella up to the shop on that same afternoon after school. In fact, I even entertained the fantasy that she'd deliberately left the umbrella behind as a pretext for us to meet...! Well, that lasted until I got into the shop - to find that Diane's mother was in there,chatting to her as she worked behind the counter. Diane introduced us, and I was thanked for my charitable act. I felt a little awkward, but hovered around, trying to make small talk between being interrupted by juvenile customers.

For me, what marked out this occasion was that (if my memory serves me correctly) it was the first upon which I'd actually spoken to Diane outside of the gates of GHS! Believe it or not, although in retrospect I don't think I could have acquitted myself too well at the time, I walked home and spent the rest of the evening in a mood of... well... it's best described as lovesick elation, I think. It was a fatal trap to fall into, and at the worst possible time. The hopes that I’d built up like a house of cards were cruelly toppled over the next few days...or were it weeks? (Probably just days...) …when I witnessed how close Diane and Lee seemed to be growing. I just felt paralysed to intervene, the situation slipping out of my clumsy and rather feeble grasp.

I'd just sit there at a distance, watching them talk to each other, and from witnessing the way they interacted there grew the horrible (and probably quite justifiable) suspicion in my mind that they'd actually been seeing each other outside of school hours!Fate presented me with only two straws to clutch at. First, Lee ruined a tape of Diane's that she'd brought in. I believe it was a Lou Reed greatest hits compilation. Now, remember that Steve's portable cassette player had – inexplicably – no rewind function. Nope, if you wanted to rewind, you had to do it manually – by inserting a pencil into the spool and patiently working it around, inch by inch. For some reason, Lee felt it necessary to, er, help Diane out with her cassette - and ended up disembowelling it: spilling,tangling and tearing seemingly endless yards of shiny brown tape. I sniggered to myself, thinking he'd metaphorically just cut his own throat as far as Diane was concerned... Yet incredibly, she forgave him.

Second, during some particularly clumsy horseplay in the Sixth Form Centre a morning or two later, I accidentally (I swear!) hit Lee in the testicles - I think with my knee. Sadly, he recovered. Then of course there were the rehearsals for "Todd,” at Bishop Andrewes' Church Hall. Another nail hammered into the coffin of hope when, at the end of the day, Lee offered Diane a lift home on the saddle of his motorbike. And yes, the bastard had even brought with him a spare motor bike helmet for her to use. That boy didn't act upon impulse. From then on, it was all downhill. I felt powerless to try to halt the slow but accelerating avalanche towards disaster.

Events soon after this tend to blur together in my memory, thanks to a succession of long, somewhat expensive nights at The Greyhound spent in search of inspiration or oblivion – whichever came first (usually the latter). To be honest, another thing that didn't make me feel much better at this time, but compounded my sense of rejection with one of betrayal, was that Steve seemed to be bonding more closely with Lee. This presaged a long, dark, drunken night of the soul in the lounge bar of The Greyhound when Steve completely overturned the apple cart by, of all things, inviting Lee to join us for an evening's quaffing!

Almost the first thing Lee did when he arrived was to launch into a description of how he'd spoken to Diane on a payphone some hours previously and she'd simulated noises of orgasm to him...! I felt a trifle disinclined to enjoy myself after that - in fact, I think it may have been an occasion when I departed your company rather rudely and alone and headed for home prematurely. I can't place these events into exact sequence now. But it was either shortly before the aforementioned incident, or after it, that I unwittingly precipitated the notorious Final Blow to any hopes of reconciliation between myself and Diane... I knew that she worked on Saturday mornings at the newsagents, but that she walked home for lunch. I planned to intercept her on her way home. Never a man to trust the virtues of spontaneous action, I arrived an hour or so beforehand so I could walk through the short cut she'd have to take across Selby Green! It was while I was doing this that I think either you - or one of your network of spies! – Spotted me in the vicinity, looking rather pensive. OK, let me cut a long and not very dramatic story short. I did manage to intercept Diane as she walked home - I think it was rather a surprise, or a shock, for her to find me waiting! I told her that I'd hoped we'd have a chance for "a bit of a chat.” (To be honest, I'm not sure what we'd have chatted about - I think I'd have been grateful just for her undivided attention.) She agreed that we needed to, but played it light, assuring me that she'd phone me at home. Oddly enough and believe it or not, the fact that she didn't own a phone didn't ring any alarm bells in my head...! Needless to say, although I crouched vulture-like over the phone in the living room for the next 48 hours, it failed to ring. No, instead I received a mysterious missive. I can't now quite recall how it arrived - I think it was pushed surreptitiously through my letterbox by an unknown hand, which latter turned out to belong to Karen Thomas. Anyway, you know about, as much of the letter's content as I do.

Sorry, blah blah. Sometimes I give people the wrong impression, blah blah. Steve Grantham is the man I really want - I think. Blah, blah. My stomach felt as though it had just been dropped down a lift shaft. An hour or two later, the phone rang - it was Karen, calling to make sure I'd received the letter and that I was "all right.” I'm not sure what I mumbled in reply. Well, you know most of the rest. Long nights at the pub, short days at school - and soon, no days at school. Except for the day which I recall with a shudder of hideous embarrassment, when, seized by an impulse of self-dramatising and quite self-destructive stupidity, I burst into the Sixth Form Centre's "study area" (snigger) and bawled across the room to Diane, "I love you!” Upon reflection, it might have been better if I'd wrestled a shark and left a box of Milk Tray on her bedside cabinet instead.

The final twist in the crooked, crazy-paved path of fate was the evening spent, er, celebrating at The Glyn Arms after the Staff v. Sixth Form cricket tournament at Poulter Park. The memories are wearing and painful to me now, but glancing through the window into the beer garden I watched Lee grasping and fondling her Did she slap him? Nope - she smiled and giggled. For me, that was the final nail whacked well home into the coffin. Well, shorn of most of the horrible sloppy bits of teenage angst, that was the bare bones of it.

Not much in the way of meat there, I'm afraid. I'm not sure if this is the kind of thing you wanted- I hope it's helped in some way. It's probably the best I could rattle off at short notice.

Mark.

THURSDAY 12th JUNE 1980.

We have been given a black and white television set for the common room and Steve and I along with Lee occupy ourselves watching the test match during the course of the afternoon.

I recall reading somewhere that more young people commit suicide during the examinations period than in any other time of their lives and it occurs to me that perhaps we should be just a little more anxious about the future. Our exams are finished so it's probably a bit late now. Oh well....!

MONDAY 23rd JUNE 1980.

Beverley appeared in the sixth form centre wearing white tights. Her father had told her that she was too old to be seen out wearing socks. She had dumped her school skirt for a pencil skirt, including white tights. I think Steve was disappointed at the change and so was I but for perhaps different reasons. I have a growing feeling of what can only be described as loss for this place and this time and anything that highlights that impacts on me in a way which can only be called for want of a better word, painful .

Colleen Friday is off school suffering from lacerations cause by a trip out with other sixth formers. They had been on their way home when she decided to slide down the escalators at the tube station. She arrived at the bottom minus a large amount of her skirt and some of her skin. The others manage to get her home by tying her skirt around her legs and staying close.

TUESDAY 24 JUNE 1980.

If only I had realised how accurate the term passing out would prove to be... We had been told several days earlier that during today's full assembly we would be required to appear on stage, shake the hand of our leaderine and generally receive our metaphorical demob papers and ten shillings. It had been fed back to us that after this we were at liberty to bugger off to whatever the future offered and if we wanted to do that fairly quickly that would be just fine. But it was all hands to guns for the assemby. A last hurrah for us and the school.

Steve, Mark and I were first in as usual. Since the opening of the sixth form centre we were invariably the first in and the last to leave. This had started as guard duty and turned into a habit.

After school we would listen to music on Steve's battered cassette player and generally relax after a hard day of relaxing. Having escaped the vigours of the exam process, the sixth form centre had become something of a youth club for us, a place for coffee and a chat.

In the morning we would have a coffee and wait the arrival of the rest of the sixth form. This morning there was one very notable arrival. Ashok, who with the timing I had come to expect of the sixth form was drunk. In his pocket was a half bottle of whisky and a good half of it was missing.

Unhappy with life in general and his position in the eyes of the Lathrope family he had taken the time honoured sixth form route of getting completely pissed and then coming into school. We are in deep shit...

Cook added some details to this story a short time later...

It was a crisis but one that we dealt with as best with could and with some degree of planning and no small amount of cunning...

We knew that Ashok would have to come with us, we could not leave him there, in his present state he was a giggling wreck and likely to wander out of the sixth form centre.

Besides I suspected that Trevor would be detailed to make sure that no one malingered in the centre and there were sufficiently few sixth formers to make an absentee noticed.

Strong coffee was brewed and poured down Ash's throat and even stronger perfume was liberally applied to his clothes to kill the stench of the booze. It was lucky that we had several early arrivals and access to Diane's cosmetics bag.

Firmly wedged between Stuart and Lee, our two tallest members, Ash was marched into the main hall, our hope was that he could maintain the façade of sobriety until he had been on the stage shaken hands with Orme and got off again.

On the whole I think we would have got away with it had it not been for the narrow portable wooden steps that lead up to the stage. I was first to press the flesh with our headmistress and immediately noticed that getting down was a task when sober.

I waited anxiously for Ash's turn. Several more prefects mount the dais shake hands and come down, then its Ash's turn he makes the journey up in good order, shakes hands and is coming down the wooden stair.

Suddenly he slips and falls, he hits the floor in a heap and lays there giggling. Once more the sixth form rush to the rescue and Ash is rushed out the hallway before anyone is fully aware of what is going on.

Cook's diary picks up the tale...

Ash doesn't make it back down off the stage and under the incredulous gaze of Orme and Graham is ushered out of the hall, by several of the sixth formers.

I had spotted Orme's nose crinkling when Ash had got close – the combination of perfume and whisky must have been an interesting one even in Gaynesford where many a strange stink pervades the atmosphere.

We get the giggling Ash out of the hall and back into the sixth form centre, where more coffee is administered in the vain hope that it will sober him up. Ash is getting into the maudlin stage now and is crying, comforted by Diane and Beverley. I glance around but there is no sign of Kim who had remained in the hall with several of the others.

There is some discussion about what to do with Ash, I am some of the others are all for sending him, however the counter-argument is that he will probably get himself killed trying to get home. Pat Graham was likely to be sniffing around after the assembly and sniffing around right now was very likely to lead to our drunk Indian compatriot being found. Wiser head might have couselled that being found would make little difference this late in the academic year, but this was an us versus them scenario and of course we had to win.

More perfume and coffee is the order of the day. Everyone brews a cup, on the grounds the smell will help to mask Ash. Around 9.30am, Mrs Lines make an appearance, she is curious about the location of Ashok, but doesn't go all out and say that he was pissed.

In the common room she finds the prefects not at lessons indulging in some serious coffee drinking. She might, had she been more aware of the activities of the sixth form, she might have noticed that even inveterate non coffee drinkers seem to have been converted to the bean.

She looked around the common room and even glanced in the study room – aside from a pile of Sweeney Todd props the room was empty. She shook her head and walked out.

Back in study area, the pile of properties snores gently and mutters in its sleep...

1In wine the truth.