‘I’ve come to see Tina.’
My mother said, ‘Do you know how old she is? Fifteen.’
‘Well, I like them young.’ Off he went, never to be sighted again.
And then came Bobby.
‘Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own.’
It’s true. It really happened that way. The band at the Ilford Palais was playing ‘Blue Moon’ and suddenly this blond boy was in front of me, asking for a dance. Bobby always had an incredible knack of staging things to perfection.
To him, I suppose, I was a pretty girl in a lovely dress. Pat Booth, who went to the Palais at around the same time as me, said she’d catch sight of me in a boat-necked long-sleeved number and feel deeply envious - which was funny, because I used to lust after her clothes, a ‘mod’ dress, bell-skirted, with cap sleeves. I discovered later that she also went out at one point with Harry the Mod; it must have been those amber eyes. After that she went out with one Billy Walker, who was a bouncer at the Palais, though not for much longer. He was just passing through on his way to becoming the golden boy of British heavyweight boxing
Bobby would go to the Palais with some of his fellow apprentices from the West Ham ground staff. Much later I found out that he’d been watching me for weeks, stationed on the balcony but too shy to approach me. What did Bobby see in me? I spoke nicely, I’d led a sheltered life and my mother had groomed me to the best of her ability. All those elocution lessons, dancing lessons and my grammar school education had combined to turn me into what, in the late Fifties, was called ‘a nice type of girl’. I’m not sure that the fencing lessons ever came in useful, but my sense of humour did. I could make him laugh and this intense, rather inhibited football prodigy needed that.
Once you’re in a relationship, you get to know and trust the other person and then your real self starts to unfold. Bobby unfolded a lot. Even now, I have a very strong image of him as a teenager, just sitting watching me, laughing because I amused him. I was the extrovert of the partnership and that’s what he enjoyed about me. I brought him out of his shell. I could always twist things to see the funny side and although Bobby projected a public image of self-control and aloofness, he actually had a very dry wit. It was so subtle that unless you were completely attuned to him, you missed it.
When we met, I was coming up to my sixteenth birthday. He seemed a bit square at first. Because I’d grown up in such a female-dominated environment, I knew nothing about football. I wasn’t at all impressed that Bobby was a player, let alone that he had just signed professional forms with West Ham and was an England Youth international. I didn’t even realize he was a footballer at first, not a proper one who was planning to make a career out of the game.
His great heroes were Johnny Haynes, captain of England, and the Manchester United icon, Duncan Edwards, with whom he was besotted. I hadn’t a clue who he was talking about - didn’t even realize that Duncan Edwards, one of the Busby Babes, had died along with seven of his team-mates earlier that year in the Munich air crash. Duncan had been a left-half and was already established in the England side, despite his tender age. Bobby was shattered when he heard the news.
He was much more taken with me than I was with him in the early stages. After that first dance I agreed to meet him at the Palais the following Saturday - then I stood him up. He waited all evening for me.
I’d told him I liked going to the record store, so he took to lurking around there in the hope that I’d walk in, but the most he would get from me was a little nod of acknowledgement. Even so, something about him must have made an impression because I told my mother about him. That was when Fate took a hand. One day, my mother and I were sitting in the back of a taxi as it crawled along Ilford High Street in the traffic when I happened to glance out of the window. There he was, sitting in a coffee bar. ‘That’s him!’ I exclaimed. ‘That’s the boy who asked me out.’
My mother leaned across me to get a better view. ‘Mm, he looks nice,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you invite him home for tea?’
Our first date took place the evening after his second game for the West Ham first team. Bobby had made his first team debut at Upton Park when West Ham, newly promoted to the top flight, had beaten Manchester United 3-2. Bobby, only brought into the side because senior players were unfit, had been brilliant. He dominated the following day’s back page headlines.
It was actually a bitter-sweet moment for Bobby when he got his first team chance, because his rival for the Number Six shirt was Malcolm Allison, who had been Bobby’s mentor and idol since Bobby joined the club as a schoolboy. For most of 1958, they had both been fighting to get out of the reserves, Bobby because he was knocking on the door to his future, Malcolm because he was trying to prove he could still play after a spell in a sanatorium recovering from TB.
Malcolm was thirteen and a half years older than Bobby. Very tall, big-shouldered and handsome, he was a man, whereas Bobby was a boy. He had a slightly sardonic air and sometimes he could be cutting. It would be a while before he developed his twin reputations as fedora-wearing, cigar-smoking playboy and brilliant, flamboyant, big-spending coach, but even then he had panache. More than that, he could tell greatness in the raw. As one of thirteen colts on the ground staff at Upton Park, Bobby had been widely regarded as ordinary, but Malcolm saw something in him that others at the club didn’t and set about coaching him. For that alone, Bobby adored him.
So Bobby’s first-team debut brought mixed feelings. He was thrilled, but sorry it had happened because of Malcolm’s illness. Malcolm, for his part, didn’t bear a grudge. Bobby was his favourite son. Who better to replace him?
Five days after Bobby’s dream debut, the complete opposite happened against Nottingham Forest. He had a terrible game, with the huge crowd shouting to the Forest players, ‘Play on the left-half, that’s the weak link.’ West Ham lost 4-0. Bobby bought an evening paper at Nottingham station and the report on his performance was so damning that he tore it up. He hadn’t any inkling that the last thing I’d be interested in was the football results.
Anyway, I had my own cross to bear. Having spent all afternoon preparing for our date and having my hair specially set for the occasion, I went to meet him at King’s Cross. In those days it was a sooty Victorian edifice with iron gates controlling access to the platforms and huge steam engines fuelled by coal. When I heard the familiar grinding of the wheels and saw Bobby’s train chugging to a stop, I decided to position myself where the steam gently wafted from the engine. I had visions of the mist slowly lifting and me emerging like the mysterious heroine of a romantic movie into a bedazzled Bobby’s path. Sadly, that was not to be. The steam had other ideas and I came out looking like orphan Annie, with the hair that had been so carefully coiffed hanging limp and damp round my forlorn face.
I did think Bobby was great-looking, of course. He didn’t have spots - well, occasionally a couple, but only very, very small ones. He was a terrific dancer; whatever he did, he had to be Mr Perfect. We used to kiss in time to the music. It was heady stuff! Looking back, though, it was so innocent.
The reason I found him a bit square was probably that he’d led a very disciplined life compared to most boys in the Fifties. He and the amber-eyed Harry were around the same age, but Bobby seemed not much more than a baby, really.
Doris was the dominant figure in the Moore marriage and in Bobby’s childhood, and she was fiercely protective of him. She called him ‘My Robert’. She was a very strong character and I think she recognized a similar strength in me. It was a while before we had a relaxed, easy relationship. In contrast, I got on immediately with Bobby’s dad, Big Bob. He was a gas-fitter and came from Poplar. He was much more Cockney than Doris, was prematurely bald and liked clowning around and wearing silly hats. His childhood had been tough - he lost his father