Here is the third episode in Dora’s Girls most recent journey. Enjoy, the ride.
Later as they lay in Dora’s cramped camp beds unable to get off to sleep, talk turned to the years the friends had spent together at school. “It’s hard to take in that it is forty years since we left school,” stated Betty.
“Blimey, it is forty years. How did that happen?” responded Helen. “In my head I am still seventeen.”
“Well you were flirting like a seventeen year old tonight. If I remember it was you who had the most boyfriends when we were at school.” Betty switched on her head torch and reached for a tatty old school jotter from her bag which she waved in the air. “Is anybody tired?” she asked.
“Not tired, intrigued,” answered Fran.
“Well, I was tidying up a little and I came across a whole pile of papers and photographs from school and when I found this I just knew I had to bring it on our road trip.” Betty cleared her throat.
“Do you remember this? It’s our funny book. We used to record all the things which were happening to us in here and it is absolutely priceless. Listen, first a list,” she said the words “been with,” and then burst out laughing so hard that she couldn’t speak. This set the others off as well. It was several minutes before Betty found the composure to carry on. “There are two lists on this page, “been with” and “asked by”. So, I will begin. “Helen… been with, John Phillips, Meatyhead, Gudgie and Jamie Robinson.”
“Gudgie, remember,” shrieked Fran, “he was so keen on you Helen, he used to send you wee notes and poems all the time and you were so cool towards him.”
Helen laughed, remembering, “Well, he had a big head and a mullet, but he was good.”
“Good at what?” shrieked Joni.
Helen tried to form an answer but was laughing so much she had to sit up and throw her sleeping bag off.
“Lordy, what are these reiki pyjamas supposed to do because I am so hot I am for heading next door to have a shower,” complained Fran.
“You have to believe,” said Helen.
“Believe what, that I am going to get a good nights sleep and..”
“Look here, look listen,” interrupted Betty, on the 4th April 1977 we wrote down what we weighed and what height we were, listen, Helen, 5 foot four, eight stone, she read out all the detail.
“Why did we write that down?” asked Joni.
“We got weighed every half-term at school,” remembered Helen.
“I seemed to have blanked all that out,” laughed Fran.
“Fran do you remember the story about your Mother getting the sheet where she had to fill in your sizes to send off to college before you started to get your uniforms and you were away and so she sent a picture of you in your bikini and asked them if they could work it from that?” Betty laughed so much at this memory that her throat hurt.
“Oh yes, I died when she did that,” remembered Fran.
“Bet it’s still hanging up in some office somewhere with a big arrow pointing at it, look at this!” laughed Betty.
“Wish I was eight stone now, think my left leg weighs eight stone on its own,” moaned Helen.
“Ha, it’s a terrible thing, menopausal weight gain but Fran’s going to Slimming World so she’s dealing with it,” laughed Betty.
“Yes, I am, and it’s the only chance I get to be sinful these days.” Fran kicked off her covers and reached for a small necklace which was hanging off the curtain rail. She put it on, fiddled with it and lay back letting out a contented sound.
“What’s that you’ve got there?” asked Joni.
“It’s my D.F.J.” Fran answered a little smugly.
“Your D.F.J.? What does that stand for?” queried Helen.
“Designed, For Joni?” laughed Joni.
“Deranged female joiners?” added Helen.
“Designer, fakey, jamas!” shouted Betty earning a ship sinking look from Helen.
“No, look closely what do you see?” Fran pointed at the piece of jewellery.
“Wait, need my glasses?” complained Betty.
“Me too,” said Joni.
“Oh god, I’ll just tell you,” said Fran as Betty started to heave herself out of the top bunk. “Look it’s my…. discrete fan jewellery. It’s a wee fan which works from a blue tooth switch. It’s marvellous. You just angle the bead up and it sends lovely cool air onto your chin.”
“I want one!” shouted Joni.
“Can I borrow, it please?” asked Helen. “I am burning up here!”
“I’ve got one for each of you, I have just been waiting for a time to give them out to you, didn’t want to pour oil on Helen’s reiki pyjamas gift.”
Fran handed each of the women a small parcel, they ripped off the wrapping paper and soon they were relaxing each of them cooling down with the benefit of their blue tooth discrete fan jewellery.
The moon rose and the women slept, their dreams full of young kilted men and previous boyfriends and having bodies which were not so badly affected by gravity.
It was very warm in the van when they stirred and they decided to sit outside for their breakfast. Fran arranged the deckchairs overlooking the loch and they sat in their reiki pyjamas sipping their black cohosh tea.
“Well, I wonder if today will have its share of nice young men in kilts or in anything actually,” Joni leaned back in her chair.
“In these pyjamas we could attract all kinds of interesting men,” laughed Fran standing up and doing a twirl in her brightly patterned attire.
“Hey,” warned Helen.
“What more is in the jotter Betty?” asked Fran.
Betty put on her glasses and opened the book with a flourish. “Right , I have just opened it randomly and ha ha,” she burst out, “listen to this. School disco twenty fifth of September 1978…”Who got with who?”
“Oh god, let me switch on my D.F.J. before we start,” Joni laughed.
“Right, Helen got with Lawrence MacDonald.”
“Remember him, “shrieked Fran, “he had a penchant for tank-tops and wranglers, ha! Helen you were potty about him.”
“Was it him who took the bottle of vodka to the disco and got so drunk he knocked over the pool table onto Fizzy Gillespie?”
“Remember Fizzy?” shouted Helen, “he was the boy who fancied you Fran.”
“Yes, yes listen, it says here Fran got with Fizzy and all his dreams came true,” read Betty.
Helen had just taken a drink of her tea, she laughed so hard she started to choke. Betty thumped her on the back and she recovered throwing herself back into her deck chair, tears running down her face. “Oh heck, I’ve to run to the toilet now.”
The women sat in silence for bit reminiscing in their heads when Helen suddenly pointed at Betty’s chin and said: “Blimey Betty you have got some good hairs on your chin, they are really shining in the sunlight.”
“Time for another intervention Helen, go get the tweezers,” said Fran. Helen opened the van door to do just that but had forgotten that Angela had been shut in. The puppy threw herself out of the door and made her escape across the campsite. She disappeared behind the toilet block with the four women giving chase in their gaily coloured reiki pyjamas. Angela didn’t see the young man on his bicycle who was returning from the camp shop balancing his breakfast carry-out on his handle bars but he saw her at the last moment ad swerved violently causing his breakfast to fall and then he landed on top of it. By the time Fran arrived at the scene he was moaning and holding his head and leg.
She got there she knelt down and saw immediately that he was bleeding badly from his head and his thigh. Angela, who had come back, jumped onto his chest and started licking his face, he moaned and Fran pulled the struggling warm puppy away.
“We need an ambulance Betty ring 999, we’ve got to try and stop this bleeding though.”
“The tampons, they will just the very dab,” shouted Helen running back to Dora.
Fran and Helen held the tampons against the gashes in the young man’s skin. He started to come round and sit up but Fran pushed him gently back down. “Lie still, we have called an ambulance, you are going to be fine.”
“Mum,” he said and passed out again.
“Keep the pressure on Helen, try and stop the bleeding.” Fran encouraged her friend to apply greater pressure while Joni put a pillow under the young man’s head and covered him with a sleeping bag.
Twenty minutes had passed before the ambulance arrived.
“What have we got?” asked the young paramedic as he stood over Iain and took in what they were using to stop the bleeding.
“Well, it’s all we had but it seems to have worked,” laughed Fran. “He will probably still need some stitches though and a good check over.”
“Right you are.”
Fran and Helen released the pressure on the tampons but they remained stuck to Iain as he was helped into the ambulance.
“Thanks Ladies, I am very grateful,” he shouted. The paramedic shook his head and waved as he climbed into the back of the ambulance with Iain. “The things you see when you haven’t got a camera,” he said.
“One for the funny book!” suggested Joni scooping up a very excited Angela and heading back towards Dora.
“Only one item left in the magic box then,” stated Dora. “Have a look and see if the cardboard box has opened yet.”
Opening the magic box and peering in, Fran said, “No, it is still a mystery. They say things come in threes so hopefully there is another young man requiring assistance.”
“Right Betty five foot three and nine stone, seven and a quarter pounds, get the kettle on my tea has gone cold.”
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