German Girls , livre ebook

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd - Steve Barber

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71 pages

English

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Paul is totally smitten by the lovely Heidi during a holiday encounter in Swanage in the summer of 1978. Will their holiday romance become something much more serious when he sets out to see if his love for her blossoms in her home city of Frankfurt?

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Romance

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Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
Date de parution	06 janvier 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781528997362
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0175€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

G erman G irls
Steve Barber
Austin Macauley Publishers
2023-01-06
German Girls About the Author Copyright Information © Part 1 August 1978 Swanage, Dorset Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday – Home – Sunbury- on-Thames Monday – Back at Work Saturday – The Grafton Hotel – Swanage Sunday – The Grafton Hotel Part 2 September 1978 Frankfurt, Germany The Boy Fun Flirt Club Thursday, 26 th October Frankfurt, Germany Friday, 27 th October Heathrow Airport, England
About the Author
Steve Barber is a confident introvert who has greatly enjoyed writing since his early 20s. He has had a long, diverse and satisfying career in the health and beauty industry, and in addition to German Girls , he has written many children’s stories and poems for his beloved Sarah and Dan. Steve lives with his wonderful wife, Ine, and two cats on the south coast of England. His favourite authors are Anne Tyler, Chris Stewart and Alexander McCall Smith. Steve enjoys walking, wildlife watching and being by the sea.
Copyright Information ©
Steve Barber 2023
The right of Steve Barber to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528972949 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528997362 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published 2023
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd ® 1 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5AA
Part 1 August 1978 Swanage, Dorset
Saturday
We were stuck. Stationary cars as far as the eye could see in front of us and then around a corner. We had set off half an hour before our parents to be sure that we would all arrive at much the same time at ‘The Lymes’ hotel in Swanage. Mum and Dad had stayed there before and promised us that it was a comfortable hotel right on the seafront with fantastic food. I had chosen to drive us both down to the coast in my old mini clubman despite its regular habit of overheating in traffic jams.
That, at least, would give us the opportunity to go off on our own from time to time or come home early if it got really unbearable.
It had seemed a pretty poor option at the time, a family holiday on the south coast in Swanage or no summer holiday at all. I had left college in 1976 after passing my ‘A’ levels and had been working for eighteen months. I was saving to move away from home. Having not gone to university, I was keen to establish some independence for myself and experience some of what a lot of 19-year-olds already had, even if it was likely to be only a rented room and some space of my own.
Starting work at seventeen with good ‘A’ levels still meant low pay and a slog to catch up with the high-flying graduates that big multinationals really sought after in the late 1970s. I could have gone to uni had I had an inkling about what I wanted to study…but I hadn’t. Not well rounded enough in science to go for anything really technical…Physics and chemistry required too much maths for my liking…not interested in accountancy or becoming a doctor of dentist, so I had opted to apply to large multinationals to get in as a management trainee and had been offered places by more than one. Encouraged by this and the limitless opportunities they boasted about in marketing, purchasing or logistics, I had accepted the highest offer and spent twelve months moving from one central department to another gaining experience of how the company worked and in which markets it sold its vast array of consumer goods. I had been promoted out of my management trainee position into a permanent role and was one of only three left from the original trainee intake of fifteen.
Living at home wasn’t bad either with loving parents, a sister who was excellent company and the low rent for high quality accommodation and wonderful home cooking made it possible for me to put a significant amount of my salary each month towards some independence.
So, Swanage it had to be. At least, it would be a week off work. My younger sister, Sam, was coming along too so that would make it much more bearable. I was a bit nervous about the mini overheating as it was a scorching hot morning but had been reliably told by a friend that the best way to reduce the problem when stuck in traffic was to roll the windows down, put the heater on maximum and turn the fan on full blast. “Sucks the heat away from the engine,” he assured me. I had hoped it wouldn’t come to that but felt a little comforted that I had something I could try if we hit a problem…which we had at Wareham, where a dual carriage way became a single lane and there were roadworks and temporary traffic lights that weren’t working properly. We sat for twenty-five minutes moving no more than fifty yards. It was stiflingly hot in the car with the sun shining directly on us, the heater full on and the fan blasting hot air past our feet and faces and out of the open windows. The engine temperature indicator needle hovered ominously just below the red danger line but didn’t venture over it. We sat in silence, trying to pretend that we were listening to the music playing on my portable Philips cassette player sat on the back seat but were both willing that little black needle to move no higher.
At last, we were through the temporary traffic lights and moving at a good speed again. The engine temperature needle had returned to its ‘normal’ zone and we relaxed, laughing and joking about the coming week.
“So you reckon you’re going to pull this week, do you, Sam?” I teased.
“Oh yeah.” She giggled. “There are bound to be some dishy foreign waiters in the hotel.”
“What? In Swanage?” I laughed. “More likely to be OAPs who can’t deliver more than half a bowl of soup without spilling it!”
We both laughed uncontrollably until the car in front broke unexpectedly and I had to do an emergency stop so as not to hit it. After a moment’s silence, we both fell about laughing again. Neither of us was very lucky with romance so we had found a safe mutual ground where we joked about it.
We arrived in Swanage twenty minutes later and quickly found ‘The Lymes’ hotel. It was a medium-sized, two-storey, white-washed building. Looked 1950s’ style to me. To the left was a large car park with plenty of empty spaces to park in. Our parent’s car wasn’t there so we got out and had a walk around.
“Looks popular!” joked Sam, casting her eyes around the half full car park.
“All the more Spanish waiters for you!” I teased.
We walked past the entrance to the reception into a good-sized garden with sun-loungers, garden chairs and tables with big, cream outdoor parasols printed in dark green with the words ‘The Lymes’ all around. The grass was closely mown and well edged.
“Very nice,” I said, “but where is everybody?”
“It’s lunchtime,” said Sam, “so I suppose they’re all enjoying the fabulous food Mum promised.”
She was right. We walked around the paved edge of the garden and saw that the large circular restaurant was reasonably full of guests. The tables were set around the edge of a huge semi-circular bay window extension overlooking the garden. We continued our walk to the cliff-edge of the garden and stood looking out to sea. To our right was the main part of Swanage town with its seafront and promenade with the usual English seaside attractions including a small funfair at the far end. From the hotel garden, there were steep steps down to the shingle and sand beach which was ‘For Private Use of the Guests at The Lymes Hotel’ according to a sign at the top. After ten minutes or so, I said, “Well, it certainly looks very nice.”
“Hmm,” said Sam, “let’s go and see if they’ve arrived yet.”
We walked back through the garden and out to the car park. Our parents had just got out of their car and were stretching their legs and looking approvingly around.
“Well done, Paul,” said Dad, “you beat us!”
“Not intentionally,” I replied truthfully. “We got held up for ages at Wareham.”
“So did we,” said Dad, clearly annoyed about it. “Some fool had overheated, broken down and stopped right in the middle of the road. We had to wait whilst someone gave them a push into the nearest pub car park.”
Sam and I exchanged glances knowing that was nearly us!
“Let’s go and get checked in,” said Mum, quick to get things back onto the positive.
“Good idea, darling,” Dad responded. “We may be in time for some lunch.”
We hauled the cases from the back of Dad’s large estate car and lumbered them into the bright reception area. In front of us were two classy polished wooden desks, back-to-back with two smartly uniformed young women manning them. To the right was a low, round glass-topped coffee table with four comfortable-looking, high-backed wicker chairs with deep cushions. The sun had forced its way through the open venetian blinds in strong horizontal bands which gleamed and reflected off the top of the table surface onto the white ceiling making it look as if a modern impressionist painter had been hired to do the interior decoration.
Mum and Sam sat down whilst Dad and I checked in, gave our car registration numbers and chose from the rooms that were still available. Sam and I were sharing, which was a bit odd for a brother and sister of 19 and 16,