Radio Songs #59: My Teenage Stalker

As a nice follow on to yesterday's post, here's the tale of my own teenage stalker, torn straight from the pages of my own diary/notebook in August 1991 when I was a naive, confused, never-been-kissed 19 year old...


(In this tale, P is the phone-in presenter at that time; J, a colleague, similar age to me; M, the station manager at that time; L... the "stalker".)

P arrived at work one night last week to find a teenage girl (L) waiting on the doorstep to the station.
She seemed like another average anorak (radio groupie) and when she told him how much she loved his show and gave him a small cuddly toy as a gift, he invited her in for a quick tour of the station...

(Different times. Nobody really thought anything about doing such a thing back then, nobody worried about security or inappropriate allegations, anything like that. It just seemed like a nice thing to do.)

The following Wednesday night, P opened a letter from L saying she'd like to speak on the phone-in. Why she couldn't just ring in with everybody else... well, we probably asked that question... but as it was a quiet night on the switchboard, P told me to give her a call on the number she'd provided. The subsequent conversation proved she had rather an overactive imagination, but no more than a lot of our callers."

The following evening, L called the switchboard. When I answered, she immediately asked me, 'What's your favourite love song?' I waffled and told her I was mostly a Smiths fan - not many love songs. She seemed disappointed - her intention had been to sing it to me down the phone.

(I'd only just got into the Smiths in the early 90s - always late to the cool parties.)

On Friday night I arrived at work around 6.30, intending to do a few hours in the library before the phone-in. I'd been there just a little while when the doorbell rang. The cleaner answered it and then came to tell us she'd let L into the building and she was waiting... for me... in reception. I sent J out to make my excuses and get rid of her, but he soon returned.

"You better go," he said.

I dragged him along with me. Now it was my turn to receive a cuddly toy. I thanked her but told her we weren't allowed to accept gifts from listeners."

"But P did," she argued. Damn you, P!

Eventually, M came and rescued us both with the old "urgent telephone call" routine. We said our goodbyes and showed L to the door.

Two hours later when P arrived for work, she was still there as I opened the shutters to let him into the courtyard.

"You better not call me tonight," she shouted through the rising shutter. ("I wasn't planning on doing," was my instinctive reply.) "I'm sad, you see."

"Oh," I replied. "Why's that?" (Well, you've got to, haven't you?)

"I've just discovered my father's got cancer." At that, she burst into tears and fled the scene. Quite convincing...were it not for the fact there'd been no mention of this two hours earlier. We let her go... what else could we do?

The next day. I was on air, co-hosting the Saturday morning show. We put out a call for contestants for our regular quiz, Outburst... and who should be first on the line but L? Bright, bubbly, laughing and joking... no mention of the previous night's drama. She didn't get on the quiz.

Then immediately after the show, at noon, a call came down from reception. L was waiting for me. I made a quick exit out the back door and caught the bus home, checking over my shoulder the whole way.

That's the last entry in my notebook involving L... I never updated her story and I doubt I'd remember it at all now if it wasn't for what I wrote at the time. It all seems quite innocent now, but at the time I just wasn't prepared to deal with that kind of thing. I've actually had a much scarier "stalker" experience since becoming a teacher, but I'll have to save that for another series of posts, perhaps once I've retired.

This seems an appropriate choice today. You'll understand why if you're a Clint Eastwood fan...