Pamela’s mother was against secondary education for girls because she thought it was unnecessary if a girl was going to get married and have a family. Pamela’s headmaster saw her academic potential. He convinced her mother to let Pamela stay on for an extra year to take her CSEs.
Pamela dreamed of being a secretary but her strong maths skills earned her an accounting job in a manufacturing firm.
On her first day at work, she was made to take papers across a metal walkway in the factory. All the men working on the factory floor below gathered to look up her skirt.
At weekends, she started going to dances in local pubs. To the background of Babycham, bell bottoms and flowered tops, she met – and fell in love with – Paul.
Like most girls, she had not had any sex education and did not know much about pregnancy or conception. When she got pregnant, her mum tried, and failed to find a doctor to perform an abortion. The abortion act of 1967 had not come into force, so abortion was still illegal. Pamela tried all kinds of herbal remedies to stop the pregnancy but they didn’t work.
Her mother would not let her tell Paul that she was pregnant, but Pamela arranged to meet him one last time. He missed his train, and Pamela thought he had stood her up.
At 17, Pamela was sent away to an unmarried mother’s home in the country to have the baby.
It was horrific. We were all in dormitories. They made us do chores. I had to polish this big bloody staircase.
Her baby girl was adopted six weeks after birth and Pamela returned home.
She met Mick the Mod at 18. Sadly, Mick turned out to be a possessive and manipulative boyfriend. Pamela felt pushed into getting engaged at 19, and married at 20.
Mick’s granddad paid for Pamela to have driving lessons. It was to stop Mick drink-driving.
Once they were married, Mick became physically violent. Pamela made excuses for the bruises.
I'd say, "I’ve had a filling" or "I was playing blinking squash and gone right into the wall."
With two full-time incomes, plenty of money and a new car on the drive, most people would have thought that Pamela led an idyllic life.
Pamela went on the pill, determined not to have children with Mick. She vowed to herself that the next time she got pregnant it would be in a caring relationship where she could look after the baby.
Eventually, benefiting from the Divorce Act of 1969, Pamela divorced Mick. By 24, she had secured a mortgage on her own house.
Just having that key to my own door. Being able to bolt my own door.
*****
Pamela later met and married her second husband, John. This was the loving relationship that she had hoped for. They had two children, and in her late thirties Pamela was reunited with the daughter who had been adopted.
Pamela gave up her successful management career to look after her children while they were young, later returning to work part-time.
After coming up with a genius idea, Pamela became a very successful entrepreneur. She formally retired in her sixties, but is still involved in the business.
Now 68, she lives alone after her husband passed away.
Looking back, she doesn’t regret not becoming a secretary, though she does wonder what would have happened if she had been able to stay on for A-levels and go to university.
Credits:
All images: Candice Purwin