I remember only too well when AIDS first impacted on my world and came into the public eye.
In 1981 I was 19 and there was talk in the gay clubs and pubs where I lived of a disease originating in monkeys that was killing Americans. I remember there was a lone American visiting for professional reasons and he was considered as guilty by association, just because of his accent. I look back with shame now on how people were afraid to approach him and how the treatment he received was similar to that in the dark ages a leper might have expected, minus the bell to ring and the calling out of the phrase “unclean”.
Over the next couple of years, probably longer, as it took time for information and knowledge to disseminate. The names of those who had contracted the condition made it appeared to be an illness that blighted the pretty boys and those who had the biggest cocks.
Of course, that is not true. It’s just where I lived there was a small gay circle and once infected those who were sexually promiscuous and practised unsafe sex were the first to be hit and through them as HIV spread rapidly.
There was too little information and it was too late, that was part of the problem. The other problem was a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) mentality. People thought it wouldn’t happen where they lived or to them as it was affecting other parts of the globe. In the 1980s the world was getting smaller and people travelled for work, holiday and to play in the gay hot-spots.
For me, it was the indiscriminate nature of the illness. There were personal losses of people I knew.
In the media, the death of Rock Hudson seemed to have an impact. In the USA I recall a movement quilting and marking the lives of the victims they knew in this way. There were powerful images of the time where over vast areas these quilts were laid out with loved ones present.
There was a TV program about a man called Terry Madeley. In interviews in 1987, he was the first in the UK to speak openly about his fight with AIDS. A year later a program about his fight for death with dignity was aired on 1st December 1988 World AIDS day. It was titled Remember Terry and 29 years ago today, I still do. He had died in the previous October and I recall an image broadcast at the funeral in a crematorium of a hand through the curtain wearing a diamante glove waving goodbye. He appeared to have such strength of character and good humour for those snippets to stay with me.
To be in 2017 when there is a more positive outlook – I can’t help pausing to consider and remember all of those who do not have the opportunity to share today.
This article was first published in 2017 and has been updated with links.
Since that time 100 years ago we have publicly remembered those who give their lives in service on just one day of the year. We can do more.
The world we live in is and has been protected by those who make the ultimate sacrifice, those who serve and are maimed and others who become veterans of service.
As a gay man within a broader LGBT+ spectrum, I am able to identify how I choose because of the campaigning that has taken place in the free democracy of the western world.
Changes to rights have been enshrined in law because of the society in which we live. The world could be a much different place if it were not for those who gave their lives.
We could show more respect by using the rights we have. Voting is the cornerstone of democracy, whether it is in general or local council elections, a mayoral vote, or a referendum on a specific topic.
The gift of freedom and the right to vote are so often taken for granted. We have them and don’t know or think what life would be without them, or under a dictatorship. There are examples on this planet that might be representative of how we could be indoctrinated and punitively treated if the outcomes had been different.
Some casually dismiss going to vote because it is cold outside or wet or they don’t feel like it, and yet so many have died that we may have the choice and the chance to vote.
Whatever your political affiliation and whatever your view on the issues of the day, when you are afforded a vote it is your chance to make your voice heard and to be counted. The dead don’t have a vote, so remember and honour them by casting yours.
There are few occasions in the modern world when we are alone with our thoughts. One such time and place is in the booth of a polling station. It feels an apt and poignant situation to consider those who died so we may be free; so I suggest a campaign to add the poppy as a symbol of remembrance be added to all future ballot papers
In Romania over the last weekend, there was a vote on changing the wording of the constitution of the nation where marriage is defined as between two spouses to between one man and one woman.
The staunch conservative government had elicited the support and involvement of the Romanian Orthodox church and mounted a campaign against gay marriage. Further taking the unusual step of extending the vote from 1 to 2 days to try and get the required number of votes
Romania is a country that does not recognise gay marriage or civil unions. So whilst the alteration to the constitution would have blocked future changes in LGBT+ civil rights it would have made no difference now. So what was all of the fuss about?
My friends in Romania, gay and straight tell me the public perception is this has all been a “smokescreen” to divert attention from what is really going on in the government. One of its most powerful politicians, Liviu Dragnea, has been convicted for his part in a fake jobs scam and sentenced to three and a half years in prison. His appeal against sentence was held up for another month at the start of this week.
Early indications from pre-voting day polls suggested up to 90% of people would cast their vote. A vote for No would have counted as part of the percentage of the overall number of voters. This is important as 30% of the voting population were required to take part to validate the referendum. In response to this the No campaign had promoted an abstention from voting as a way to defeat the vote by reducing the number of people taking part and forcing the Yes campaign to provide all of the 30% of voters required.
The referendum was not validated as only 20.4% of voters turned out. A massive result for passive resistance!
What does this mean for the future of LGBT+ rights in Romania? Is there a softening towards a more accepted view, or were the populous just fed up of being duped by the government?
Let he or she who hath not sinned cast the first stone
SBuckley-Depositphotos
What a refreshing breath of fresh air are the comments made by Dame Judi Dench at a Spanish Film Festival in relation to Kevin Spacey. It’s about time common sense prevailed and it is a shame it takes an old lady of theatre now 83, to show some realism.
We seem to be in an age of pious self-righteousness. I have long been sick of the hashtag MeToo# or however it appears. Don’t do twitter!
Kevin Spacey, the same as many others with a tarnished reputation, has worked on and contributed to our entertainment a vast amount of work, in all of which they play characters and not themselves.
What would I like to see? Those convicted lose the right to repeat fees. The fees should be signed over for a period or forever depending on the severity and number of crimes to a charity engaged in work in the treatment of their victims or others of similar crimes. In that way the general public can still enjoy the characters they have created with a clear conscience in the knowledge repeat fees are going to help others.
There has been a trend of outing big names. Always worrying when so many of those who come forward seem to derive publicity they would otherwise be unable to muster, in the absence of allegation.
In writing this I have come to realise what I thought at the outset of allegations last year was a good thing may have been exploited by some who are wannabe victims for their own end.
In many ways, it is the path of the predator to have trust, authority or image that is coveted by the vulnerable. It is a minority who are swayed by their own desire to abuse and hopefully it is a similar or lesser number of the vulnerable who exploit easy targets.
Whether gay or straight or any other designation there will always be predators and victims. It may not always be clear which is which. What I could do better is not to judge from my armchair.
This is the part where I should be telling you about the prophetic experiences in life that define us and help to clarify who the inner being is, enabling us to individually move forward with a deftness of purpose and in the sure knowledge of mind body and soul. Unfortunately, I lack any of that profundity and this is the anecdotal tale of two physical finds that made me laugh, shocked me and made me smile.
I was nicknamed years ago by a friend as Tom-The Turtleneck! Nothing to do with a long foreskin, more a proclivity for looking to the floor, in case I found something. Though I never did, but I was a trendsetter as long before mobile phones I was already bumping into other pedestrians and lamp posts, because of not looking where I was going.
A long time ago, well relatively for me, more than half my life since; I lived with the son of a scrap metal millionaire. It was before I was out and our friendship was nonsexual though, it had its physical aspects as I was discovering my sexuality and he was curious about his. I was 20 and he was 24. His dad’s company had as part of its business, a contract for collecting vehicles for whatever reason, seized by the local authority and also the Police contract for collecting cars involved in road traffic accidents. The latter was a 24/7 365 day per year service. For the pedantic among you once every 4 years it was 366 days.
The phone alongside my bed had the number the Police control centre would call after hours. It was a small double room with a wardrobe two side cabinets and a window onto an inner courtyard. The room was decorated in a muted autumnal colour. The phone was a slimline trim phone.
On a wet and windy winters night, it rang out and having taken the details I knew it was a full lift of one vehicle involved in a fatal accident with multiple deaths on the entrance to one of the inner city drive-thru underpasses which travelled below an island on the main ring road.
It was an inconvenient but common occurrence. These events often happened in adverse weather conditions and in the small hours when either speed or alcohol or both were influencing factors.
Arriving on the scene alone blue Renault 5 was on its roof around 20 yards after the junction to either go left to the island or straight on under to the city. It appeared the driver had been indecisive and at the last minute changed his mind and hit the inner kerb tipping his vehicle over. He had likely been travelling in excess of the speed limit. Driver and passenger were each killed and their bodies had been removed. The attending officers had completed the required measuring up and were now eager to have the obstacle of the upturned car removed in order they could sweep up and re-open the road.
Using the crane on the back of the lorry we lifted and secured the car, signed for it and returned to drop it off in the scrap yard. At the yard, there was a specific compound (roped off area) where insurance claims were kept. These cars were retained intact until such a time as any investigator or loss adjuster had made their visits.
Among the debris of broken glass in any such accident, there was often part of the contents of the vehicle which were not at the time of impact secured. So we always had a rummage through the cars and took things such as cassettes. This was the 1980s and a lot of people made really good mixtapes, especially for cars driven such as ours by a boy racer.
“My housemate had the torch and he shone it in my direction as I lifted my find from the floor. It was a severed hand, more precisely a partially dismembered left hand”
I was digging around in the front passenger footwell when I found something heavy. My housemate had the torch and he shone it in my direction as I lifted my find from the floor. It was a severed hand, more precisely a partially dismembered left hand. We screamed, really loud girly screams, I dropped the hand and we each ran back a few steps, before recovering our composure. Thank God for a strong sphincter muscle as I very nearly defecated in my tighty whities.
Daring each other on as only two blokes can who did not want to appear chicken, we went back to the car, shone a torch on the hand, and then ran to the office in the yard and called Police control to inform them of our find. I am not sure they believed our story of doing an inventory of contents at 3.00 AM, outside in the middle of the night in the pouring rain, but they sent a unit to collect the hand.
My second find is less gruesome. At the turn of the century, I took over a restaurant. The previous incumbent had amongst his businesses had been involved in house clearances. He had left an eclectic mix of furniture boxes and bags.
In one of the bedrooms, there were black bags filled with photographic slides. I can imagine these were once boxed and catalogued but now they were the disrespected memories of a business and a life that had ceased. They were broken and in disarray. They had been left as they were rubbish and he had been too lazy to clear them away because they had no value.
In one of the bags, there was the sound of glass clanging on metal. Inside the box I found a biscuit tin. The lid had not been removed for years and it was firmly shut. When I finally managed to lift it, inside were more photographic slides, all broken into many pieces.
On the base of the tin was something turned face down? I delved in and lifted 10 7×5 black and white photographs. They were each stamped proof and were images taken at a wedding. It was a top hat and tails affair. The style of the time suggested it was in the early 1960s.
The recurring theme in each of the images was one individual. It was not the bride or groom. When I got to a photograph of this person alone, holding aloft a drink, I recognised him. It was Cliff Richard.
This was a pleasant discovery. I am not a fan, but on a scale from severed hand to photographs; I rate it highly.
You may be wondering what happened to them. Nothing I still have them. On the back is the address of the studio, but it has gone and so has the street, so I could not return them to the owner. It is probable that the wedding party got their copies and possibly so did Cliff. I think these were just keepsakes from a day when a photographer met a celebrity.
In 2000 on the street where the restaurant was located a film crew with a boy band were making a music video. It created much interest on the day. The producer had lunch in the restaurant. He offered me £250 for the one with Cliff on his own holding a glass. He said it might have been taken before he met Billy Graham and became a born-again Christian and as such might be one of the last images of him with an alcoholic beverage. This felt invasive and disrespectful, I don’t want to hurt or offend anyone and I did not feel selling them would be in the best interest of Cliff Richard or in keeping with the wishes of the photographer, who must have known they had a value but kept them for approaching 40 years.
This has been written because someone prompted me about finds recently and I had not taken them out of the drawer where they are kept for years. In the past when people had come to dinner they had been a talking point until I moved and they became forgotten. I suppose one day after I am gone someone will be going through my belongings and wondering, ”Who are the people in these photographs, they are not his friends or family”, and they will be thrown away as just the memories of another old man.
Whenever I see images from Pride events they always seem to focus on the extremes. Do we do ourselves a disservice or allow others to exploit us?
I struggle with the identity of Pride. Is it a celebration of sexuality? Is it a human rights march? Is it an orgy of deviants on the move?
If it is a celebration of sexuality I feel it should be conducted in with restrictions in place to protect children and others who may be easily shocked or offended. The common images I see are those which are at the outer limits of extremes! Sure these are the ones the media publishes because these are the ones of kinks and fems which empower the churches to disown and parents to have a negative impression of any sexuality other than being straight.
To be honest I am not sure I would feel supported and wanting to embrace my new sexuality if I was a teenager thinking about coming out. In my own experience when I was growing up many of the pics I saw were of Leatherman/clones and I couldn’t grow a moustache until my late 20s, whilst the feel of leather made me sweat profusely and was uncomfortable to me. As a fourteen-year-old boy, I wondered how I would ever adapt.
If it is about human rights, then perhaps Pride marches are the wrong place. Not sure about the message it sends to restrictive governments. Seems to be less about sexuality and more about exhibitionism. Is it that we think we can shock countries into changing their policies?
Have a thought for children. I often wonder how Pride gets away with it. From a safeguarding perspective, I am not sure some of the behaviour or the costumes are appropriate.
LGBT+ from my way of thinking has devalued homosexuality and the identity of gay men. I never asked to be part of every other deviancy. I feel its inclusion of other sexual perspectives under one umbrella gives weight to the “Us and them” argument It always seems the choice is, straight or LGBT+. So long after gay men could have achieved equality, that position of inclusion and acceptance has been denied us because of the eternal protester and politically minded within organisations who seek attention.
Tom (That’s me) got a job working nights in a staff canteen in the next town. Dick and Harry already worked there on the shop floor. I met each of them separately when taking their order for food.
Dick lived with his sister at the outset, though desperate for independence as he wanted somewhere to take by a girl (much the same as any other red-blooded man in his 20s who is straight might). Harry lived alone and although he never said it, mostly because it was so obvious he was a ‘screaming queen’, not a bone in the wrist my dear!
Nights turned into weeks that turned into months. I had established banter with Harry who was totally blind to my undisclosed closeted sexuality and a rapport with Dick much the same as I had with many of the other staff male and female alike.
The living situation of Harry with his sister seemed to hit a crisis point and he, as a stop-gap moved in to live with Dick, who after all had a spare room. It seemed a good fit they had been friends for years and each work nights and sharing the same nocturnal lifestyle.
On a Wednesday night a couple of weeks ago Dick came to me to cancel Harry’s order for chips at break time. It seems Dick had been on Grindr whilst working and had been offered cock, so was declining the vegetarian option in favour of ‘meat’. Don’t know what pic he had on Grindr but I wouldn’t let my dog near him even if I dipped his cock in TCP first. He has the appearance of a walrus who has been shaven whilst sleeping and then immersed in water until after death bloating has occurred.
Dick was completely nonplussed in delivering this message. I queried it with him and asked why he had come to tell me Harry was going off for a sexual encounter? He told me Harry was very open and they had no secrets and he did not think it would shock me.
Around this time Dick was becoming increasingly tactile with me, appearing to take every opportunity to come into the kitchen, to be alone with me. I didn’t see the signs increased levels of touching for prolonged periods desensitising me and getting increasingly close to being intimate. I desperately need to have my Gaydar radar serviced. Then when he brushed up against I suddenly became aware he had something in his pocket the size of an electric screwdriver and it felt like it had been left on the pulse setting.
Dick, it turns out is ‘straight’ into the nearest man’s bed! Worse in a world of gay men where Harry hadn’t spotted me he had. He’s younger than me single and whilst he is not handsome; sweetheart who am I to complain? I’m so damn ugly I scare children and old ladies in the daylight and set canines a howling.
So Dick likes cock and I like Dick’s dick. It’s all very clandestine as he insists he is straight. We meet in the daytime and I drive him 20 miles back to mine and then back to near to his home. Neither of us are telling Harry who tells me he thinks Dick is seeing some ugly bird as he never brings her back!
I took a colleague with me the other night and dropped him off home as it was on my way.
Today I overheard him talking with others and he described my driving as “gay”! I felt compelled to challenge him. You see I was not out at work, but using the term gay in a derogatory way just makes the small hairs on the back of my neck stand up; I think my upper lip curls to a snarl too.
It would appear my adherence to the speed limit and signalling was the reason for terming my driving as “Gay” or ‘like a woman.’
He went on in front of his young friends to tell me all about the advances of modern technology and how quick a car could brake. One of his friends has a ‘souped up’ hatchback (I actually think it has spoilers, skirts, fancy wheels and a big shiny exhaust; but a standard engine) and he has taken the same colleague home. He boasted how he could easily take two to three minutes off my time.
I will never be a hero, well except in the bedroom, and even then my days of coming off the wardrobe in a cape are behind me. Ever the more so, as middle-aged spread makes me as aerodynamic as a brick!
I said it to them, “I will never be a hero, but I do know common sense. I agree there have been significant advances with cars, but humans are just as fragile as they were at the start of the age of the car. I may never save a life, but the way I drive could mean; I will never take a life.
I have a better chance of stopping should a child run out in front of me. Heaven forbid I should run a child over; they would have a greater chance of survival with a low-speed impact. Just for your information by the way I am gay too, proud of it and my driving.”
Perhaps I have got past the dick measuring stage and penis/car substitution, after all at my time of life its size has as much to do with the weather as any other stimulus!
I confess I am one of the people who sometimes take tests on Facebook. So what is all of the fuss about?
We need to be paying more attention to who can create and use Facebook accounts.
Pretty sure that whenever me and my single brain cell have decided to partake in these online analysis of personality and many other brain-teasing trait-identifying, pigeonholing non-entities tests there is a stage at the end to post your results.
This part of the process includes a disclaimer stating the originating program owner will get access to your personal data and friends list; if you proceed to post your results. I don’t. I take the tests out of my own curiosity with no intention of sharing so never give access to that sort of information.
If I was more worried about Facebook and how it is used and its foibles I would mention underage users. A couple of years ago I did a search for gay men in my area. Among the results were men who liked men and wanted to meet men. One of them was the 8-year-old son of a friend I worked with.
Starting the day with an awkward conversation “Hey Phil, as you know I am gay. I looked for other gay men in my area on Facebook this morning. Best if I ask you to do this search too.” To say he was shocked as he scrolled down the page and found a pic of his 8-year-old would be an understatement. He didn’t know his son had a Facebook account. His son had not got to the age of being interested in girls so had checked interested in men. Ergo he came up in my search for gay men!
If I was to scream anything from the rooftops it would be about safeguarding children. Online grooming is already a massive problem and a gargantuan organisation like Facebook was foiled by a little boy in primary school who had a natural curiosity to see what all the Facebook fuss and interest was about.
Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.
Am I a victim? Should older gay men be suing the government for psychological abuse? I am not waving the Rainbow flag whilst screaming “victim here!” It’s just a question about perspective.
Picture this – A young straight boy is dropped into a community of gay men and lesbians; then throughout his formative and adolescent years, he only ever witnesses scenes of affection and kissing between same-sex couples. He never sees any acts of sex and doesn’t know anything about it.
As the boy grows he feels he is different and recognises he has feelings for girls and wants to kiss and be affectionate with them, but knows this is not how the society he lives in functions.
Would his experience be that of a victim of grooming?
I came into a world that was profoundly and solely heterosexual or so I thought. I only ever saw kissing and cuddling between a man and a woman. It was all there was on television. Life seemed predetermined to grow up get a job a girlfriend, get married.
The answer to the question is no. I shouldn’t be suing the government. There is no retrospective implementation of compensation for a life lost or damaged whilst waiting for acceptance from society.
On a recent visit to a supermarket, I was caught short and had to avail myself of their facilities. I chose what was previously known as the ‘disabled toilet’. There was a double whammy of relief as on approach there was a sign on the door which read “Not every disability is visible, Accessible Toilet.”
Now I can walk in and leave a toilet without the guilt I previously had when people would say either under their breath or with an accusatory tone, “What’s his disability; he can walk alright?”
These are no longer disabled toilets, which in itself is grammatically incorrect as the toilet does not have a disability as implied but its user. They are accessible toilets and show a man, woman and wheelchair user.
I have diverticulitis, ulcerative colitis, and an enlarged prostate.
In the past I have stood at a urinal desperate to urinate and not a drop would pass; waiting, lingering and straining to the point of arousing the suspicion of other users as to my purpose. Not a pleasant experience, humiliating, embarrassing, and making me potentially vulnerable to abuse.
“The other conditions are unpredictable and an urgency to use the bowel can be unpleasant in a public place. This can be an uncivilised theatrical event of some duration, accompanied with my crying out in pain”
The other conditions are unpredictable, and an urgency to use the bowel can be unpleasant in a public place. This can be an uncivilised theatrical event of some duration, accompanied with my crying out in pain, voluminous flatulent sound effects and a pebble dashing with force, not dissimilar to the noise of emptying a coal bucket into a fireplace.
Dignity has long since been lost, and I have over the years adopted an approach of making fun of myself. In a motorway service station (and you know how busy they are) all fell silent at the sound of ‘parking my breakfast.’ I heard myself saying “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”, and rapturous laughter followed.
Now I can suffer and recover some composure in privacy before re-emerging, and the handrail is bloody useful when getting back up these days, damned arthritis!
