The use of restraining orders would become something Jamie would utilise to protect Britney in later life but back in 1980, his own wife sought to exercise those same powers against him. Indeed, if this was the extent of Jamie’s temper, it might go some way to explaining some of Britney’s reported reluctance at him being installed as her conservator in 2008.
Lynne was loath to leave Jamie because she dearly loved him and she’d been vehemently opposed to divorce, living in a less nonchalant era when the very idea was frowned upon within a Baptist community. So the fact she actively sought a decree nisi illustrates how desperate she had become. Her friends have suggested it was an overreaction in the red mist of betrayal but in that January of 1980, it could not have seemed more final. She sought a custody order over Bryan; $200-a-month child support and $400-a-month alimony; and declared to the courts an intention to find her own place. Jamie was ordered to attend a hearing on 1 February to explain himself and state his case.
For Lynne, this sad episode marked the end of the fairytale in which she’d described their union as ‘the Barbie and Ken of Kentwood’.
It was a fairytale that began in the spring of 1976. Lynne’s maiden name was Bridges and she was a 20-year-old student at a community college renamed Southeastern Louisiana University in nearby Hammond. She was an education major who met Jamie Spears, 23, at a local swimming pool in July 1976, after skipping summer school. He was relaxing from his ‘tough-ass job’ as a boiler-maker—a trained craftsman who fits, welds and constructs steel plates and sections on projects as diverse as bridges to blast furnaces. By then, he was used to going where the contracts were: from Louisiana to New York, Missouri to Memphis.
Spears was considered as quite a catch by the ladies: it wasn’t just that he was regarded as ‘high, wide and handsome’, he was renowned for being one of the region’s finest athletes, basketball and football players; the all-round sportsman whose abilities are still remembered to this day.
‘He could shoot the basket with one step over the centre-line, let alone the shooting zone. Let me tell you, when you’ve got black basketball players complimenting the skills of a white basketball player, then you’re somebody special—and Jamie was that man. He was also a mean quarterback. That big son-of-a-bitch would have had some career if someone had punched him between the eyes and made him focus,’ said one ex-peer, who believes, ‘the reason for Jamie’s ultimate downfall was Jamie himself’.
Another friend who has known Jamie since schooldays said: ‘He should have made the big-time. He was one of Kentwood’s finest but could have been much more.’
Lynne was smitten, swept off her feet by either the man or her romantic ideals. However, the same could not be said for her parents, Barney and Lillian Bridges, because they knew what everyone else knew: Jamie had been married before. In Baptist Kentwood, getting together with a once-married man could bring a shame that was community-sent. But local archives prove it was much more complicated than a blotted copybook, and ‘Mr Barney and Miss Lillian’ could be justified for harbouring real concerns for their daughter’s welfare.
Lynne has since described her husband’s first marriage as ‘a brief union that was over almost before it began’ but Jamie married a ‘real beautiful’ woman called Debra Sanders in December 1972 and it lasted a good three years. Jamie was said to be head-over-heels in love, but he inexplicably upped and left on 10 May 1975, according to legal papers served by Debra. She claimed he ‘abandoned’ her despite the fact she’d been ‘a faithful wife, given her husband no cause for mistreating her and always tried to make him happy’ He denied abandoning her. Friends say he felt ‘suffocated’.
One year later, with reconciliation unlikely, Debra sought to terminate their marriage. It is interesting to note that Jamie denied all her allegations and said that he ‘pray[ed] that the demand of the plaintiff be rejected.’ He submitted his denials to the courts on 14 July 1976 but the following day, the divorce was granted.
Fifteen days later, on 29 July, Jamie Spears married Lynne Bridges.
On the evidence of these concrete dates, they met, dated and married within the space of two weeks. The only other possibility is that they met while Jamie was still technically married but that was surely never the case in their Baptist community. Whichever way it is viewed, this headlong rush into a union will have been frowned on regardless.
No wonder the Bridges were alarmed. They always felt their daughter could do better, not to mention the fact that she was in the middle of her studies, with one year left at college. The family were ‘good stock’ and ‘Miss Lillian’ felt her daughters Sandra and Lynne deserved quintessential gentlemen who knew how to treat a lady.
Sandra’s husband Reggie, a financial wizard who went into banking, won their approval. Jamie, the once-married boilermaker, did not. He was known in the community for his ‘crazy’ ways; the work hard, play hard type, and it is highly unlikely the Spears’ and Bridges’ clans would ever have sat down to dinner together. It was the combination of chalk and fine cheese as far as Kentwood was concerned.
That might explain why Lynne chose to elope to New York and marry in Oswego, where Jamie was working a short-term contract. She sacrificed her fantasy of a fairytale wedding for a quick registration formality, without parental consent. In an action that Britney would copy in later life, she was defiant and rebellious. Nothing would come between her and her man.
In her mind, she was being responsible, choosing to be a mother and set up home with the local hero who, in her eyes, was capable and solid.
Nine months later, their only son Bryan was born.
Lynne was a mum aged 21, and couldn’t have been happier. But the arrival of their first child triggered something within Jamie and his capable mask began to slip.
All boilermakers will tell you that the unforgiving work and hours in intense heat require the reward of a cold beer to unwind afterwards. But Jamie’s cold beers turned into drinking binges. He often staggered home with a tongue poisoned by alcohol to belittle and berate Lynne. His slurred insults and frightening temper chipped away at his wife’s confidence as he criticised her efforts around the home and mocked her intention to finish the studies interrupted by Bryan’s birth. Then, in the mornings, he’d sober up and tell Lynne he couldn’t live without her. He would change, he promised; he would quit, he insisted. Lynne, demonstrating the classic response of a co-dependant, believed him.
Her need to retain this man in her life was no doubt aided and abetted by the grief she experienced over the loss of her father, two years into the marriage. Barney Bridges was killed on the family dairy farm when his milk truck rolled over. It crushed him as he attempted to jump to safety. Jamie’s response to the tragedy was to disappear for a week. But even then, and understandably, Lynne didn’t have the will or strength to let go of the only other man in her life. Grief conspired to pin her to the spot, despite the protests of her sister and mama.
She soldiered on as a mother and student, finally completing her education diploma in 1979, leaving Bryan with his widowed grandma by day, but it was obvious to everyone that she was living in an intolerable set-up. Lynne covered up and excused her husband’s behaviour. Her big heart misguided her into thinking that compassion was enough to save him but she was as much in denial over the truth as Jamie was about his drinking. Lynne felt a need to take care of her husband more than she wished to take care of herself, thereby drawing her into his web of addiction.
Then came the Christmas of 1979, and the adultery cited by Lynne.
After taking refuge with her mama, she seemed determined to make a fresh start going into 1980. For two weeks, she stood her ground and then took Jamie back. This meant he didn’t need to appear in court to respond to her divorce petition and it was officially withdrawn on 26 March 1980. It was a legal irony that the attorney’s