The Teacher and The Pupil

I don’t get time to watch the news but I am hearing whispers about the Maths teacher and the pupil running off to France together. It is an absolute disgrace. It is wrong. A grown man or woman should not have a relationship of that nature with a child. If you are under 16 you are a child, yet you can actually get married at sixteen, pass your driving test at seventeen and let alcohol pass your lips legally at eighteen. Is any of that in the right order?

When I was growing up, I remember a true love story that was exciting, glamorous and romantic. Bill Wyman, a Rolling Stone, fell in love with Mandy Smith who was just thirteen when they started dating. He was an ageing but awesome rock star, she was a beautiful chick. I was of similar age to her at the time and wanted to be her more than anything in the world. At sixteen, she married her lover. It transpired years later that they had slept together when she was fourteen. As if we didn’t know that anyway. It was a hot story back in the 80’s. The two of them were on the Terry Wogan show, the Russell Grant show, radio stations, all over the newspapers and though people were shocked, it was accepted. The girl’s Mother encouraged it; I believe she even set the two of them up. 

A few years later one of my Arsenal heroes, Graham Rix, fell in love with a fifteen year old girl. The relationship ended, the girl got angry and bitter as dumped women do and he ended up in prison, was put on the sex offenders list and labeled a peodo.  His football career was ruined. Yes, what he did was wrong, totally wrong, but why did this happen to Graham Rix and Bill Wyman was considered a hero. Was it acceptable for Bill, just because he is a Rolling Stone? 

In other races and religions, children get married at 13 and are become mothers well before their 16^th birthday. What is right and who are we to judge?  At seventeen, I dated a 26 year old.  I was still a child myself.  What man can resist a young woman in her prime? There is such a fine line here. I believe that the men that get in trouble are the ones that break the hearts. Revenge is bitter! I think I am ashamed to say that I feel a little bit sorry for Graham Rix.  Well, he did get his comeuppance.  Really, guys, you need to stick with someone your own age!!!

I love my toy boy Benny, but I certainly would not have been attracted to him when I was twenty and he was fifteen.