For no obvious reason, I've found the time I spent living and working in the West Midlands coming to mind over the past couple of days. I lived in Birmingham for just over three years, from 1986 to 1989, first working in one of the 'satellite towns' in the area for a year, then two years working in the city centre. That second job was, without any doubt at all, the best job I've ever had - I absolutely loved it, every minute of it. Sadly, by the end of that two years, I'd totally fallen out of love with Birmingham itself, if, indeed, I'd ever been in love with it in the first place, which is debatable, so I went back to the Manchester area in the hope of being happier with life. It did work that way, eventually, but not at all in the way I'd originally hoped. That, though, is another story.
It might all have been different, though, had things gone in another direction with someone I met through work, and who came to mind for the first time in many years while I was thinking about my time in Birmingham. It's a surprise, really, that my memories seem to have been suppressed as much as they have, because M was someone quite out of the ordinary run. My company, or the then-nationalised version of it, used to employ juniors, from 16 years old, to work in various departments, where they gained some kind of a grounding in the industry, and giving them an opportunity to see if one career path or another might be preferable when they got to 18 and were able to choose, to a point, what to do next (it doesn't happen now, partly because under 18s are not allowed to work shifts anymore). We had one junior working with us on early and late shift when I was in the city centre job, three in total to allow for days off, basically collecting data and answering non-safety related phone calls - not making the tea, as in many places, because they were too busy! - but a couple of them were getting towards their 18th birthdays, so we were due for a new intake, and one memorable morning, two or three of the 'new boys' - and one girl - turned up, including M. I was, not to put too fine a point on it, smitten - M was 16, looked at least two years younger, was teeth-achingly gorgeous, had the most fantastic smile and wonderful, bubbly personality, and we hit it off immediately, chatting away as though we'd known each other for years, interests in common, the whole thing. He was around for a few days, on and off, and I really thought my luck might have changed. We got as far as tentatively arranging to meet up at an Aston Villa home game - he was an avid fan, and I lived ten minutes' walk from the ground, and had been to quite a few matches on my own - but it didn't come to fruition, and, as far as I was concerned, he then completely disappeared (bear in mind this is well before e-mail, Facebook, etc, and before many people had mobile phones). I found out a couple of weeks later that he'd been allocated to another Birmingham area location. I was, to say the least, absolutely gutted. I doubt very much that he was gay, and not seeing him probably saved me from embarrassing myself, or worse (the gay age of consent was still 21 in the UK at that time), but I do think I missed out on what could have been a great friendship. Why do I say that? Because I did eventually meet him again, just once, in the late 1990s, when he came on a visit to the Manchester office where I was then working - he worked in the equivalent Birmingham setup - and we took up almost where we'd left off, 10 or 11 years earlier. He was, of course, fully 'grown up' by then, still good looking, albeit not in my 'age of attraction', and still with the same personality, and that killer smile.
It wasn't entirely bad news, because one of the new juniors we did get at our place, my (real life) namesake, became a good friend in his own right, but he certainly wasn't gay - I described him on one occasion, to a friend of mine who I was partially 'out' to (out as gay, but not as a boylover), as a 'disgustingly normal young man'! I caught up with him, too, not long after we'd moved to Cornwall - he'd heard, through another of our former juniors with whom I had mutual acquaintances, that I'd moved down there, he got in touch when he and his family were due to come down on holiday, and we met up for a meal. It was pleasant, but there was never the spark there that there was with M.
So, who knows? If M had been allocated to our location rather than the other, I might have stayed in Birmingham, never met my wife, and all that followed. One of life's little bifurcations, driven by events outside of your own control. Maybe, somewhere in a parallel universe, para-me and para-M are living happily ever after. At least, if they are there, I hope they're happy.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
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