First Times

Hear this blog post read aloud:

This session we started simply. I wrote First Times on the board and spread a collection of photographs across the table.

Beforehand I was concerned that one selection of pictures couldn’t fairly represent the breadth of experience that this wonderful group shares, and somehow these small set of images would limit the discussion. However, it turned out that the opposite is true. First Times is such a broad and rich subject that it can be hard to know where to begin. The photographs gave people somewhere to start without deciding where the conversation should go. Around half the group connected quite directly with the image they had chosen. For others, the picture became a nudge towards something they had not previously been thinking about.

After a bit of time quietly reflecting, people were remembering all sorts in granular detail; bicycles, cars, journeys, leaving home, earning money, opening bank accounts, school, celebrations and meeting people beyond the worlds they already knew.

What struck me was how physical, precise and momentary many of the memories were, while containing so much more. A cup of tea being shared and a table being laid spoke of a whole value system of care and consideration. A £5 note passed from one hand to another meant more than a goodbye and a bit of beer money. Wheels turning and a bag being packed became gateways to a whole series of other firsts.

As we listened, links began to appear between apparently separate stories. Wheels, bicycles, cars and journeys led into conversations about freedom, money, responsibility, courage and personal growth. One first experience often seemed to make another possible.

The session stayed close to lived experience. It did not need to reach a conclusion. Like the topic suggests, I think we are only just beginning really!

Here are some of the stories and reflections that have emerged so far.

Jean Byrne

Learning to ride a bicycle aged 24

We didn’t have bicycles as children. There were 4 of us at home all aged under 5. Someone handed down a battered tricycle to us but I don’t remember ever riding it. My brother Gerard was very resourceful. As a teenager he built his own bike from parts he bought second hand and parts others had discarded. Someone later gave him a shopper bike. It was like the one in the photo but navy blue.

It folded in the middle, had no gears and was a fixed wheel bike. This meant pedalling backwards to apply the brake.

I was about 24 at the time and decided to learn to ride this bike.  After work one evening we took the bike to our local children’s play area. This had a large flat tarmacked area suitable for cycling. My brother helped me to learn to balance on the bike. This took quite a while and more than one visit. We went at quiet times but there were still some children on the nearby swings who laughed at my efforts. Eventually I got the hang of it and started using the bike to cycle to work. Acquiring this bike gave me a great sense of freedom. The quickest route to work at the housing office near the Albert Dock in Liverpool involved riding down a very steep hill. Doing this gave me a big adrenaline rush before starting work each day. Due to having no gears I took an alternative flatter route home. The bike had a wicker basket at the front. Sometimes I would go shopping at lunchtimes and forget how small the wicker basket was. I fell off it quite a few times due to overloading the basket.

Due to having this bike I was able to save the bus fare. This enabled me to save enough money to buy a sewing machine and attend night school to learn dressmaking. Eventually I graduated from the shopper bike and bought a new white racing bike from Halfords. My balance still wasn’t great so I fell off this quite a few times as well. When I left home the shopper bike was left unused in my mums back garden for a while. One spring, before it was passed on to someone else we had the joy of seeing blackbirds nesting in the wicker basket.

Margaret Kendall

The morning after I’d bought my first car and my brother-in-law had helped me drive it home, I remember wondering why I’d done it.  Life was simpler without it; I was used to getting the bus!  I’d passed my test three years earlier but not driven and it felt daunting to be responsible for a car.  I was also nervous about the city traffic.

I’ve driven lots of other cars since but always get that apprehensive feeling the first time I drive a different one, especially when abroad and on the other side of the road.  One first drive that really stands out in my memory is of getting behind the wheel of my cousin’s car in Canada when I was in my mid-thirties.

 I’d offered to go to Ontario with my parents to visit my Mum’s sister, my auntie and godmother, who hadn’t been well.  It was going to be a very special holiday, my parents had never been over there before, and the sisters had only seen each other twice since my aunt and uncle emigrated with their family in the 1950s.  I’d offered to be the driver as my Dad didn’t feel up to it and my Mum didn’t drive.  In preparation, I had a driving lesson in an automatic car before we went as I knew that most cars in Canada were likely to be automatics.  We planned to hire a small car when we got there to be able to drive around places as tourists, visit my other cousins (my aunt and uncle had five children) and meet their children for the first time. 

When we arrived, my cousin said there was no need to hire a car, we could borrow hers as she’d be at work.  I gulped when I saw her silver Pontiac, it looked enormous to me as there were fewer large cars in the UK in the early 1990s!  Also, I’m just under five feet tall!  However, it would have seemed ungrateful not to accept the generous offer.

I had to hide my trepidation on that first drive, with my parents and aunt on board.  Once I got over my nerves, it was easier to drive than I’d expected as it had power steering. Later in the holiday I drove another cousin’s even bigger Pontiac.  An older model, it made me feel like I was in a car from an American film!

We had an amazing three-week holiday, and I cherish the memories so much.  I’m so glad I managed to overcome my fears, that first time behind the wheel of a Pontiac!

Ann Sarge

THE FIRST TIME

The silhouette of Kilimanjaro mountain is still dark.

But, the edges of the snow capped summit begin to glow with the early rays of sunlight.

The sunrise over this magnificent mountain, for me, is one of nature’s most magical moments.

As the sun rises higher, it slowly casts light across the vast Serengeti landscape.

I witness the first light of day gently  touching the sky as the colours gradually shift, painting the clouds in soft hues of Pink, Purple, and Gold.

Here, I stand in front of the roof top of Africa, 2.5 million years old.

This shining mountain is a Sacred Bridge between Earth and the Divine.

For the Maasai it houses their Ancestral Spirits.

THE FIRST TIME.

I saw it rising above the plains, I felt as though I was witnessing something timeless. 

Nature’s Power, Beauty and Mystery.

Jane Graham

Steel and Skin made a first time for us

We were invited to a celebration at the West Indian Centre in Moss Side in the 1980s.  On arrival, Berry told us we were “Honorary Blacks” for the evening!  This was a first!  Steel and Skin, a Rastafarian music group from London, were performing at this celebratory evening.  It gave me a lovely feeling of being honoured, accepted and recognised for our involvement in the life of Manchester.

As always, the evening was great.  As people finally drifted away, Berry said to the group from London “we have accommodation for you with friends in Moss Side”.  The Rastafarians said, “Are they Vegans?”   None of them were.  Only the “Honorary Blacks” were vegan!  So, another first happened.  They, all eight of them, stayed the night in Chorlton.  Some in beds, some on sofas, some on the floor.  They had plenty to eat made from fruit, vegetables, nuts and cereals; Played football in the garden and talked about the Rasta philosophy which does not allow for the letting of blood.  They accuse the white people of doing this.

“First time” often comes when we least expect it.

Kathleen Fitzgibbon

The first time I did stand up comedy 

They say when you’re older your life gets smaller and

Yet 

I joined the royal exchange elders. A group for older people to learn about acting and being on stage. I had never done any acting before.

We were offered the opportunity of learning to do stand up comedy. A course of 4 workshops followed by two performances in the studio at the royal exchange. 400 paid audience members.

I was open to doing the course not really thinking about the performance.

The course entailed a little theory but mainly self focused. You had to write your own script 

Try it out with the other course members.

So as the date of the show came nearer…the nerves and dread hit. How do you make people laugh.

I got feedback at each stage of the course.

Instead of making me confident I became really disheartened as I had invited my friends..I didn’t want to be a failure.

The last rehearsal was very hard as I only started to understand some of the techniques and craft required to be on stage.

My material was watered down changed at the last minute.

So I gathered you can lie to make people laugh 

You can exaggerate everything.

Say outlandish things. 

And the show came. Packed audience waiting. 

I was mid way in the show and the wait to go on was heart attack territory 

And I went to the microphone and did my 10 mins story..and they laughed at some and even things that weren’t funny.

And the buzz when it finished. The adrenalin..the love. The hugs.

The congratulations.

I did it again the following evening and another performance later.

So brilliant an experience.

Not sure I would want to do it again…shows how doing new things is not restricted to age.

Tony Goulding

Firsts

What an interesting topic, with a huge number of possibilities to discuss. There is such a range of “firsts” from the momentous, such as, your first child, first leaving family home through the slightly more mundane, first school, first job and maybe, first date/love to the somewhat trivial ones like, first haircut or first pair of long trousers. Of course, your first date/love could prove to be momentous as Cat Stevens’s lyrics say “The First Cut is the Deepest”

Some firsts are unique so should perhaps be more correctly termed “onlys”.

It is interesting that our follow up session is on  “turning points” as firsts may also be associated with their attendant ending. It was such an instant that I reflected upon during the session. This was my first time moving to live away from the family home, which I vividly recall. Especially the moment when, as I stood at the bus stop waiting for a bus to Stockport to catch a night train to Cardiff where I was to start an Economics degree, my father suddenly appeared and thrust a £5 note in my hand; his way of saying goodbye and good luck.

Finally, it has occurred to me that every day is in fact a “first” being the first day of the rest of our lives!