In light of the Jimmy Savile scandals, I remembered that back in the 1970s, when I was a teenager and Jimmy Savile was apparently doing his thing, young girls falling for and having affairs with older men really wasn't considered anything unusual or even frowned upon. In fact, at least in the circles I moved, it was the ambition of many young girls to find themselves what we used to call a "Sugar Daddy".

Of course, this can't be compared with Jimmy's activities, and I was never a fan of the chap anyway. But back then, it was simply a different time and people looked at many things of this nature in a different way.

This is a story I wrote as a chapter in my unpublished novel "The Mummy and Daddy Christmas Fund", which tells a little bit of a story of one girl and her Sugar Daddy.

Flambeaux 

Sunday May 2nd, 1976 

We’re pretty sure that Simon Lyons is Yu Lin’s Sugar Daddy. Ashley and I plan to acquire at least one Sugar Daddy. We’re just not quite too sure how to go about it.

Ashley, Tessa and I are so sure about this because Simon Lyons picks her up in a dark blue Ferrari every day after school, and sometimes in the lunch hour. That’s a Ferrari! And she also told me that sometimes she visits him before she comes to school. So sometimes she comes in late to Assembly. Simon Lyons is a diamond dealer who lives in the town and also owns a restaurant, which is called the Flambeaux. He is a friend of the family, she says. But the thing is, he is obviously very rich and very keen on Yu Lin and she is of course very beautiful. Apart from that, he is 35 and Yu Lin is only 17! And she has been seeing him since she was 16. So why would he be spending so much time on her if he were just a friend of the family!

Anyway, Ashley and Tessa and I asked her about it but Yu Lin just continues to maintain that he is a family friend.

One day, a while ago, I had a row with Ashley. It was really stupid, and it only lasted one day. Ashley and I have been friends for years, and we had never ever had a row before. But we just got cross with each other about one small thing, and then I went into the cloakroom at lunchtime and hid in amongst the coats, and just cried to myself. And then Yu Lin came in to the cloakroom, because she was getting dressed to go out. And she found me hiding on a bench between a few coats.

“Oh, Lizzie, what are you doing here?” Yu Lin asked.

I just mumbled something about being miserable because I’d had a row with Ashley.

Yu Lin put on her hat and coat. “Do you want to come to lunch with me?” she said. “I’m going down to see Simon Lyons.”

I couldn’t believe that Yu Lin was inviting me down in the lunch hour with Simon Lyons! This was Yu Lin’s private time, her secret time, and she was prepared to share it with me. And to go out with Yu Lin! And to go to see Simon Lyons! It was so exciting, I could hardly contain myself. And although I was still very upset about Ashley, I felt a whole lot better.

So I also put on my hat and coat and we walked down the street, and in five minutes we were at Simon Lyons’ place because his restaurant is just five minutes from school! It is in a little street off the main street with a whole set of newly built houses, all very smart, and Yu Lin told me that Simon Lyons bought all of these new houses, for the purposes of living there, opening a restaurant and housing his staff.

She rang the bell of the first house, it had a very posh wooden front door and a very smart knocker, and then bingo! Simon Lyons opened it! And my knees went really weak.

Simon Lyons said, “Ah, Yu Lin. You’ve brought a friend along, I see.”

Yu Lin said, all sophisticated, “This is my friend, Lizzie. I thought you could make us both lunch. We’re starving.”

I have to tell you I was pretty speechless.

Simon Lyons was extremely charming and treated me as if I were just as important as Yu Lin, although I wasn’t of course! We entered into what was obviously a bar, and then we walked up lots of stairs, because Simon Lyons lives above his restaurant. He has a whole flat up there, bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom etc. And it’s really posh. So we went into the living room cum kitchen, and Simon Lyons said we should just sit on the sofa and asked if an omelette would be OK for lunch. He said he was a bit tired and that an omelette was about as far as he could stretch.

And Yu Lin flung herself down on the sofa as if she were just at home there and I perched on the edge of a chair and of course I said, an omelette would be just perfect, thank you.

I can tell you right now that I am not in Yu Lin’s league when it comes to restauranteurs making lunch for you, nor diamond dealers driving Ferraris, be it family friends or not, nor just walking right into their houses and demanding an omelette. I mean I know that Ashley and me are after Sugar Daddies, but even if we got one, I’m not sure that they would be quite as flash as Simon Lyons, or even if they were, that we would be quite as able to cope with them in the same way as Yu Lin.

Simon Lyons served us up that omelette and we ate it at his dining table and I have to tell you that I fell in love right then. With Simon Lyons. And that is not fair of me because Simon Lyons is Yu Lin’s boyfriend, I think. So I couldn’t tell her about it.

It must have been in the next week that I scratched the record. I borrowed an LP from the music school, it was by Smetana, “Ma Vlast”. It was a double LP. I put it on the record player that Lucy and I have on the floor in our room, the one we inherited from Aunty Mary, and I must have walked too heavily or too fast over the floor, because suddenly the needle jumped and there was a small but very deep scratch all over the record.

I knew I couldn’t return it to the music school like that, and I knew I would have to buy a replacement. But it was obvious that the LP must have cost at least five pounds, and I didn’t have that kind of money.

And that was the point at which I realised I needed a real job.

So I said to Yu Lin, Do you think Simon Lyons needs any waitresses in his restaurant?

And Yu Lin said, “I’ll ask him.”

And do you know, the next day I had a job.

I could work every Friday evening and every Saturday evening in the Flambeaux. I worked from 6 o’clock to about 1 o’clock in the morning, and I got seven pounds each night. That was fourteen pounds a week! And, plus, I got tips! So I was earning about twenty pounds a week.

Dad came to pick me up every Friday and Saturday evening, and Simon Lyons always greeted him as if he were an old friend. I think Dad really enjoyed it. Every Friday and Saturday evening really late, Simon Lyons always had some friends gathered in the bar. Often Yu Lin was there too. So when Dad came in, Simon Lyons would say, “John! How are you? Whisky for you, sir?” And he would have Dad poured a whisky on the house and seat him on a bar stool, and exchange a few words with him, and it was like Dad was part of the whole crowd. I think he really enjoyed himself. It was like Dad was an old friend of Simon Lyons’, and of the whole crowd too.

I was always a little embarrassed for my Dad, because I could see he wasn’t dressed half as smartly as the other people there, in fact to be honest he looked a bit shabby, and he was always very retiring and reluctant, and when he spoke it was in his Indian accent, which was something we had to be very quiet about in our family.

I know it sounds awful, but I do so really hate it when I am with people who think I came from a completely English family and then my father arrives and starts to talk in an Indian accent. It is not something people expect or that it is easy to explain, and the worst part is, nobody actually ever asks you why. But you know they are thinking it and puzzling over it. Because clearly, we are not Indian.

But do you know what, none of that seemed to faze Simon Lyons and he never ever mentioned it. And neither did Yu Lin.

Anyway, I started working at the Flambeaux when I was 16, and I worked there all through the Lower Sixth. It meant I had lots of money, which made a huge difference. Before that I had had an occasional Saturday job working in a caravan on the motorway, serving tea and sandwiches, or I had gone strawberry picking or I had done babysitting. Unfortunately all those jobs just brought me the occasional pound or two, which is not really enough if you’re trying to buy nice clothes or have money to go out in the evening. With my Flambeaux money, I was able to open a bank deposit account and really save up.

It was also really good fun, and I learned a lot. The actual restaurant was in the cellar, and the bar was upstairs. So everything was quite dark. Flambeaux ettiquette dictated that everything was silver-served. That meant we first of all brought a plate to the table and then we served everything onto the plates with silver cutlery from silver trays.

Most of the customers were really posh, lots of Simon Lyons’ public school friends, I think. They always made lots of jokes, like one time I asked a man if he would like some peas, “Would you like some peas, Sir?” and he replied, “Ooh, yes please, haven’t had a pee for a week.”

And people always found it very funny when I asked them if they’d like a pudding or a pause. There is no good way to ask this. Simon Lyons said you should always ask people if they’d like their pudding straight after their main course, or if they’d like to have a little pause between main course and pudding.

So I would always just go up to them and ask, “Would you like a pudding or a pause?” and then often they would end up giggling and one of them would say, “I’d like cream with my Pause,” or “Is the Pause flambéed?” or something equally embarrassing and guaranteed to make me turn bright red (good job it was in the cellar and so dark).

I didn’t take the orders, John the head waiter did that, while they were up in the bar having their apperitif. Simon Lyons provided a set menu for 3 pounds 95p, which was terrifically cheap. People got a choice of starter, which I just got the order for, so I could bring that straight to the table. Then when they finished that, they got their main course, which is where all the silver-serving came in.

And then came the pudding or the pause, which was always a stumbly moment.

After the pudding, they got fruit and cheese, and then they got a coffee. So you can see that Simon Lyons was not making that much of a profit on the whole deal!

I hope that he sold a lot of diamonds to make up for it. I think he was just running the Flambeaux as a hobby really.

It was also quite difficult being in love with Simon Lyons and simultaneously working for him. Every time he appeared in the restaurant and especially every time he walked past me my heart fluttered quite a lot.

John the head waiter was a bit like one of those butlers you see in films. He was totally butler-like, and very professional (maybe he used to be a butler?) but he was always at the brandy and after the other waitresses (not me).

The other waitresses were Jenny (the head waitress) and Kate (the under-waitress, if there is such a thing) and then me of course, I was under both Jenny and Kate, although I seemed to do most of the work (I suppose that’s what under-under-waitresses are for!).

Jenny was about thirty and she was also in love with Simon Lyons (join the queue). I knew this because first of all everybody else told me about it, then Yu Lin told me about it. Simon Lyons himself was also perfectly well aware of it. He was very nice to Jenny though. She was living in one of the houses he bought so she was very lucky, she just had to pay him a minimum rent. Plus everyone could eat all the time from the kitchen, so nobody had to spend any money on food. John himself lived in one of the other houses. Sometimes I think Simon Lyons was running a charity.

Jenny had an ex-husband who turned up every couple of weeks for the sole purpose of beating her up, I think, and then Jenny would walk into the restaurant with a black eye or big bruise on her cheek and say, “I walked in a fuckin door, didn’t I” (she is from Southampton), and everybody would turn the other way and mutter to each other, “Her ex has been down again.”

Simon Lyons would say something like, “Jenny, I’ve told you if you want me to do anything-“

And Jenny would snap back, “I told you, I walked in a fuckin door!” and Simon Lyons would barely raise an eyebrow and then turn and ask Dave how the avocados had been down at the market that day.

Dave was the enormously large chef, he also had a very bushy beard and sweated profusely all the time. The first couple of weeks he just shouted at me as if he thought I was a complete idiot (which I’m sure I was as far as silver-service restaurant ettiquette was concerned). After a while I expect he realised I was just dumb, because that was when he started flirting with me. One Friday evening, I went into the Flambeaux wearing the school summer dress uniform that Yu Lin had sewn for me, and everyone was laughing at it, although it just had an unusual, flamboyant design – but when Dave saw how upset I was, he made me sit down on his knee and comforted me.

Yu Lin could not believe that I had sat down on Dave’s knee – she said, “Lizzie, he is pretty smelly and he was probably just trying to get you into bed,” but I said, “No, he was really being kind. He is actually OK, is Dave.”

And I didn’t want to really tell her how they had all laughed at the dress she had sewn for me. It is a beautiful dress and Yu Lin is a wonderful seamstress and she would have been very hurt.

Kate was very sensible. She was also very large (very tall as well as very fat with huge breasts). Everyone liked her. She is the older sister of Sarah, who is in our year and is a real bully, so it’s a bit odd. I was really scared of Kate at first, but she was fine really, very kind to me.

And then there were the kitchen staff, Mrs. O’Hannigan, who was Irish and did the washing up, and Joe who made the starters. Joe was about the same age as me and he’d always try to flirt. But please! And Mrs. O’Hannigan was an old sweetie who Simon Lyons let take home a lot of food in plastic containers. Simon Lyons was really very kind.

So you can see that apart from Joe, I was by far the youngest and most inexperienced person there. And everything worked really fine for quite a long time.

I guess what happened was that Simon Lyons one day realised that he was making a big loss. So all of a sudden the price of the dinner went up to 4 pounds 95p, and Simon Lyons got rid of John the head waiter. And he took on a Spanish head waiter called Julio, who seemed to have quite a large family behind him who also seemed to be looking for jobs down at the Flambeaux.

And from then on, the Flambeaux wasn’t fun any more.

Oh, Simon Lyons seemed really happy with Julio. I guess Julio was more of a professional businessman than John. And he didn’t swig the brandy so much. And he picked on the staff all the time. Everyone was always doing something wrong.  Particularly me. Seemed like I couldn’t get anything right with Julio the Spanish head waiter.

It all came to a head one night. It was actually the night of my 17^th birthday, it was a Saturday night. Simon Lyons had been really kind as usual and he had given me a birthday present of a bottle of Moet et Chandon, and after all the guests had left, I said I would like to open it and give everyone in the restaurant a glass, instead of taking it home. So we all sat around a table, Julio and Kate and me, and Dave, and Simon Lyons, and Simon Lyons opened the bottle and cut open the cork and put a 50 pence piece in it, he said that was for good luck. And after we’d all drunk the champagne, Simon Lyons told Julio to open another bottle, for us all, and then he went upstairs to look after my Dad, who was sitting by himself at the bar having his usual whisky. Simon Lyons was really kind like that, like I said.

Well I am not used to drinking so much champagne, frankly. I was beginning to feel a little bit tipsy. And then Julio the Spanish head waiter, for no reason at all, started to become a little bit unpleasant.

Not that he was a pleasant person anyway!

He said, “So how old are you now, anyway, Lizzie?”

And I replied, proudly, “Well, today, I’m seventeen.”

Julio just stared at me and laughed, and then he said, “Seventeen! What! You! You look like you are just barely thirteen. Maybe twelve!”

Now while I realise that this might be a compliment when you are about twenty-five, it really is not a compliment when you are seventeen. When you are seventeen, you are trying to look like at least eighteen, not twelve! So when you are seventeen, being told that you look like thirteen, maybe twelve, is more of an insult. And I think everyone at the table knew that. Kate certainly knew it and because Dave knew how upset I got about things sometimes (like the dress), he definitely knew it too.

And so while I just kind of went, “What?”

Dave and Kate both tried to say something together that was along the lines of, “Oh come on, Julio, that’s not very fair,” but Julio just continued to bulldoze all their comments right over.

“You’re just a little girl, aren’t you? Seventeen! Look at you! Trying to act all grown up here with the grown-ups! Drinking the champagne!”

Then there was quite a silence at the table. And I thought, I have just shared my birthday champagne present from Simon Lyons with him.

And then something just went ping! inside of me. It was probably all the champagne! And then I said something that I cannot even imagine, or even begin to understand, that I actually said. Really, it is not something that I could normally expect that I would ever say at all. It was as if some other person inside of me was saying it. And I just couldn’t stop it. What I said was,

“Well, at least I am not a Spanish Pig!”

Then there was a very big silence at the table, during which Julio’s eyes narrowed to slits as he stared at me, and Kate and Dave looked into their champagne glasses. And Kate took quite a swig of her champagne.

And then just to top it all off, I spat. Right at Julio the Spanish Pig! And then I laughed!

Oh boy. You read correctly.

I bet you weren’t expecting that, were you? If you have read this far, you will probably not have been expecting that I was the kind of person that did that kind of thing!

And guess what, neither was I!

Everything finished up fairly quickly after that. Julio said, “You will be sorry you did that,” and he stood up and looked at me as if he were going to swoop out a Spanish sword from his jacket pocket and stick me through the heart with it! And nobody else said anything. But it was definitely the end of the evening and of our little drinking party. There wasn’t really much choice except for me to go up to the bar to Dad and I can tell you I was pretty happy to go.

Dad was sitting by himself and of course he had no idea what had been going on down in the cellar. He looked very pleased to see me (he was probably a bit tipsy himself!) and he said, “Hello lovely. Are you ready then?”

And I was very close to tears but I bit my lip and said, “Yes, fine, shall we go then Dad?” and he said, “Everything OK this evening?” and I said, “Great.”

And I never said a word to him about anything that had happened, and the next day, the Sunday, was awful for me. Especially, I had a bit of a hangover.

When I went to school on Monday, Yu Lin knew everything that had happened of course, and she had already tried to talk to Simon Lyons about it. But she said, “I’ve tried everything, Lizzie, but apparently you’re fired. Simon can’t do anything about it.”

I was fired. Yu Lin really couldn’t do anything more than she had tried and Simon Lyons preferred to keep his head waiter of course. And I felt very ashamed. I really had not behaved properly.

And I didn’t know what to tell my Dad.

And I didn’t have any job or any money any more.

But that’s where Ashley came to the rescue. She asked Mr. Wallington down at the Chiddlecombe Stage, where she also has a weekend job waitressing, if I could work there. And Mr. Wallington said, fine. So almost immediately I got a waitressing job down at the Chiddlecombe Stage Hotel, it is less well paid, and I have to work three shifts instead of two, and Dad has to drive a longer way, but it is just as good.

Actually, it isn’t quite as good. It is very different. The clientele are local people and the menu is very unexciting. There is no silver service. Mr. Wallington and his family come from the East End of London and they are not public school, obviously, like Simon Lyons. But it is quite fun. It is OK. It means money. And Dad fits in just as well. Mr. Wallington always says, “John! Ah ya doon mate. Me back’s killin me. Set yourself down there – Jean, get John a beer,” when he sees him, and plonks him right in front of the bar, and my Dad gets a beer on the house instead of a whisky and he always seems very happy and has good conversations with everyone in his Indian accent just the same as at the Flambeaux.

My Dad never asks me about anything that might have happened.

I am still a bit in love with Simon Lyons, although I hardly see him any more.

And still no one else asks me about Dad (the Indian accent I mean).