I am not homosexual; never had any inclination in that
regard. I mean, I wouldn’t have any problem saying so on the blog or
acknowledging some long-ago flirtation with the idea but it never happened.
I can recall three encounters with Gay men in my life; a
Chief Architect at Northumberland County Council who had a huge project on the
boards that we thought we could become involved in, Arthur Lamb and the three
guys in Berlin.
Architect guy was decades ago, what a temper he had in fact
it was only after he had flounced out of a meeting for the umpteenth time that
I realised he wasn’t normal. Seriously, have you ever held a meeting with a project architect, already stressed out of her mind because they are running three months behind and she is having her period? To be honest, I have probably met many gay men [1.7%
of the adult male population] through my work but you really never knew.
Anyway, people steer away from talking about their personal situation in business
meetings. After, later or over a lunchtime sandwich they may open up a little
but with me at least it took the form of, ‘I’m moving house soon and could do
with a few high-security locks’ rather than, ‘No, I don’t have kids and never
will’. Plus, some men [Gareth Wright comes to mind] are terminally effeminate
and you know, you just know that they are bent until he tells you how expensive
it was to take all four kids to France for a ski-ing holiday this year. But
this architect, Jeez, I just didn’t know how to handle him: he posed, he pranced
but he was my client and I was obliged unfortunately to manage shall we say, his
changeable nature. You soon realised you were in a minefield and could upset
him with a word or a gesture . . . and you better not ignore him. If he asks
you a question, no matter how idiotic you have to formulate a reply without him
realising he has just asked a stupid question. I still remember to this day
what a handful he was.
Arthur Lamb was everyone’s idea of a poofter; he worked in
the same office as me but his real existence was played out at night, as a
cross-dressing cabaret act available to hire for pubs and back-rooms. I never
saw his act but colleagues who had said he was pretty good.
I think Arthur went through hell as a gay man in sixties
Newcastle. And it couldn’t be concealed or hidden, or managed. He had no option other than to be who and what he was
with a genetic fault that meant he was a woman in a man’s body. I sometimes
think that homosexuality and its various sub-strata has become a lifestyle
choice now: the same HMG Poll that found 1.7% of adults identify as Gay also
found that 2.4% of 16-24 year olds identify as Gay, mainly in London of course.
The whole gay/lesbian ethos is strongly biased towards London; its 1% here, God
knows what it was in Newcastle in the sixties. Statistically unmeasurable, I
expect. I’m not saying that people should resist these urges, it’s out-there
now; acceptable socially . . . just
about . . . and I don’t know, the media, Hollywood make it all seem so
positive: there are no penalties any longer unlike in Arthur’s day when
penalties lurked around every corner. But you will never have your own
children; you will now and forever be stigmatised by 90% of straight society.
Is this really, really what you are, what you want to be?
I met Arthur later in life when I took over as MD of
Laidlaws. He was there, older now living in an end terrace in Fenham that I believe
he inherited from his mother. I was pleased to see him; a friendly face in that
dysfunctional commercial disaster with no stock and nothing on order. He seemed
pleased to see me again after thirty years or more. The pantomime Dame was long
gone in fact he was quite ill with HIV/Aids and died during the three years I
stayed there.
I went to Berlin in 1967 to see the Miles Davis Quintet play
its only European gig at the Berlin Philharmonic. They were all there: Wayne
Shorter, Tony Williams, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock and of course Miles himself,
although they left the composer behind in New York. Don’t ask me what they
played. Round Midnight was one of them. Mainly for me it was an inexpensive
opportunity to get to Berlin, see the wall, Hitler’s Bunker and cross through
Checkpoint Charlie to the Eastern side. It was just as you might expect,
goose-stepping East German guards, watchtowers, floodlights, the taxi searched
underneath with mirrors on poles. The wall was frightening; Hitler’s Bunker
remarkably unaltered by the twenty or so years since the end of the war. East
Berlin itself scarily empty with bomb-damaged building frontages kept standing
with scaffolding.
I was supposed to share my room with Murray [he told me his
surname but it is long-forgotten now] a gay man from west London, maybe
ten-years older than me. Murray had come over with two of his friends and in
fact all three of them bunked together by day, when I was out; one of them was
called Michael, an achingly thin older man trying to look younger and a thin, incredibly
camp incredibly lithe black kid just a little older than me who tried to steal
my passport. Completely forgotten his name: was it Harris? Harrison? For the
sake of the story I will call him Harrison.
Murray was a theatre lighting director: had no idea then or
now what a lighting director does all day.
Michael owned a successful business manufacturing and
selling men’s underwear.
Harrison was a dancer.
The idea that all gay men are theatre fanboys, and everyone
who works in theatre is naturally gay is clearly a trope. I had never heard the
word gay until I met these three: we called them queers. I couldn’t find a handhold anywhere to connect their sad
and corrupted existence with the adjective gay.
Gay was the last thing they seemed: Michael almost always guiltily concealing a
package somewhere about his person and constantly terrified in case he found Harrison
shagging someone else; he never took his eyes off him. Vulnerable Harrison
without a penny to his name existing in some kind of after-life in which he
always had to look good although someone else paid the bills, bought his
clothes, acquired his drugs, fed him and paid the entrance fees to the Berlin
Boys Clubs. Yes, I wondered frequently how many people on that trip actually
came to see the Quintet. Me, I wanted to experience East Berlin when it was
near-impossible to acquire a visa; them, they wanted to get round as many of
Berlin’s gay clubs as they could fit in. They lived by night of course which is
why it was okay to share my room with them.
They took me to see Hair
. . . remember that? The fashionable full-frontal nude musical which at that
time was banned in Britain. So naughty.
Michael didn’t care for me; he was much older and I was
probably a Northern Oik to him, plus I wasn’t gay. Didn’t even take drugs . . .
how straight can you get? Plus I might have been a potential threat and
captured the heart of his beloved. His beloved wasn’t even remotely interested
in me, as I said, he tried to steal my passport. Murray was very interested: he
was funny and I laughed at his jokes. Maybe that’s all you need to make a
relationship in Gay-land; laugh at someone’s jokes. But despite the fact that
he received zilch signalling from me, he wouldn’t let it go, phoned and wrote
me two letters when we all returned to England.
I did see Miles, at the afternoon matinee.
It was very interesting by the way, flying in to Berlin at
night, seeing this sea of light approach in a void of darkness where a whole
country lay.
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