The Cusp
From 11 to 12 is only a year but the transition stands out in my memory. 12 was a no-man's land of limbo. Children's clothes no longer fit, but adults clothes didn't either. It was 1961-62, and I straddled the land of childhood and adolescence awkwardly, feeling as though I belonged in neither. I was always tall and prone to plumpness. Now I was decidedly chubby and in the morphing from child to young woman there was not a swan in sight. My curiosity about sexuality was partially satisfied by Mum. She did a good job of explaining what to expect physically so that I wasn't surprised by what was happening, but there was another dimension to sex that I learned about from Dad's hidden Playboy magazines and his bookshelf, which I studied with interest. Still, much of it was a mystery that I was naive, curious and confused about. Instead of walking through the churchyard with its tall elm trees and along the long, hedge lined black path to the village school, my friends a...