We began writing to each other in late 1987. We had �met� through the pages of a Smiths fanzine but soon discovered we had more in common than our love of that particular band. We wrote often, and the letters were long. Before too much time had passed, we were also phoning each other regularly. She lived in London, I lived in a little village near Glasgow.
We had a competition to see who could get the most letters printed in the music press. We�d each write to several different publications each week, under all sorts of ridiculous pseudonyms. I eventually won, but we ceased the competition after it became boring.
We used to meet in the summer. I went down to London every year with my mum, to visit my uncle and his wife and son. We�d meet in parks and drink tea and give each other gifts of poetry books. After a couple of meetings, I would go and stay at her house. She lived with her mum and sister at first, but later moved in to a succession of flats in places like Camden and Hampstead, which all seemed very exotic to me, as I had never been to these places before.
She even came to visit me once. She rolled up in her white van decorated with painted flowers and we had six days together. We went to Glasgow to see bands, stayed in a friend�s large house in the country, got drunk, took speed, got soaking wet in the rain. It was fun. When she left, she gave me a Hunter S Thompson book and I gave her a Buckfast wine T shirt.
She worked for Smash Hits magazine and got me a placement there as part of my college course. It was fun working in Carnaby Street every day, meeting her afterwards and going out in Soho for gin and tonics. It felt very exciting to be young and on my own in London. It was an adventure.
I�ve not heard from her in years now. It didn�t really end in any particular way. It didn�t really end at all. She always told me that she has times in her life when she ditches people from her past. I didn�t really understand it at the time, but I do now. We didn�t fall out or anything, we just stopped being in each other�s lives. It wasn�t like we were ever really all that close. I suppose it was quite a childish friendship in a lot of ways. Maybe we had just grown apart. Maybe we weren�t even that important to each other. But still, I think about her sometimes and wonder if she�s happy. I hope she is.