Craig | 40 | Brighton & London | Further Education Management/Writer
|
It hadn't been a particularly heavy night but I still felt cloudy enough to be disgruntled at the phone ringing so early on a Saturday morning. As my father began to speak he sounded every one of the 250 miles away and the background noise virtually drowned him out. "Dad, where are you calling from?" |
I politely explained that what I had to say was not for the public pay phone in a supermarket so again escaped the possibly unnecessary coming out.
Seven years earlier I had moved to London from a small town in Lancashire and I had been only too happy to leave. "You lived in London years before you ever went there", a friend told me years later; and she was right. Everything about my upbringing (not all appropriately) had frustrated me. I wasn't a sociable animal, not for want of trying, I just knew I was different. I felt too tall, too thin, too camp, not common enough, not posh enough, dull and not cool enough.
Seven years earlier I had moved to London from a small town in Lancashire and I had been only too happy to leave. "You lived in London years before you ever went there", a friend told me years later; and she was right. Everything about my upbringing (not all appropriately) had frustrated me. I wasn't a sociable animal, not for want of trying, I just knew I was different. I felt too tall, too thin, too camp, not common enough, not posh enough, dull and not cool enough.
"By the time I was 18, I was exhausted from all the trying and failing to belong. I'd had enough."
It wasn't all terrible - quite the opposite. The local youth theatre probably stopped me from killing myself and that's not an exaggeration. That place was loaded with misfits and we loved, laughed and generally hid from the horrors of the world beyond the quarry gates and usually in costume. But there was always the shadow of Monday and with it, school, cross country running and the boys changing rooms (where to look?) right around the corner.
Being gay was never an option. Even at the youth theatre queers were only just about tolerated as long as the subject of sex never came up, and occasionally a well meaning mother would tell you to 'be a bit careful of that one love, he's been watching you and they say he's more Martha than Arthur'. And there were those who suspected me. The grandmother of a school-friend proudly reported that she had been reliably informed at the bakers that I was 'a Mary-Ann but before the cock crowed twice I had denied as much a hundred and three times.'
"I did everything I could to be a proper boy. I loved Madonna, Belinda and Carol from T'Pau, and hid the pictures of A-Ha not only from my family, but also from myself." You see, there was a gay man trapped inside that lanky, undesirable teenage me and I strongly impressed upon my other self that he was never to be released. This wasn't as difficult a denial as you may think. We were absolutely in the shadow of AIDS in the mid to late 80s and it wasn't unusual, even for the kind people, to think that the gays probably had something to do with it. We wouldn't die of ignorance, but we'd sure as hell dine out on it for years. By the time I moved to the big smoke I had the intelligent plan all fathomed out. I recognised and had made peace with my latent homosexual inner secret man and had a calm, measured conversation with myself that we could let him sleep inside, forever. No prince would beat his way through a 100 year old forest to wake me with a big gay kiss, because by then my wife and children would occupy my time, and besides, sex was overrated (although how I came to that conclusion when I pretty much still hadn't had any I do not know!) The problem with being a closet gay in London is that there are queers everywhere. It was like sticking an alcoholic in a pub and telling him he can drink anything he wants from the top shelf so long as its only lime cordial. There was an iceberg dead ahead and although I didn't know it yet, my ship was not for turning. |
|
Although the initial phase of coming out was three years away, the foundations were set on my arrival at Goldsmiths College University of London. The student bar there being covered in framed safe-sex posters, tasteful, erotic and 50% of them gay. I'd find myself snuggling up to girlfriend of the month (on reflection ladies I'm really sorry, we all wasted so much time) but taking a sneaky peak over the brim of my Red Rock Cider at the two naked boys four feet above my head. Bursting at the crotch with the two naked safe sex boys firmly in mind, me and the lady would go home and bounce all night.
"The longer I spent in London the more frantic I became. Hanging out in gay-ish places, I had now graduated from posters in a student bar, and the more gay I felt the more heterosexual my behaviour." |
The internal conversation with myself was always clear, "yes we're gay dear but if we're having it away with all these women no-one, not even me will ever know". I must be the only gay man in history who suggests to his friends an evening out at The Fridge gay night 'Ciao Baby', pulls a straight woman and takes her home for hours of sensual attention to a Mica Paris soundtrack; I was a romantic you see. I discarded and broke hearts like cheap china cups from a car boot sale. What people don't tell you about coming out is that you might also be doing other people a favour. Wam Bam and 'you want me to say thank-you?' I was horrid.
|
As cliches abound, my Damascus Road experience could not have been much gay-er. It all came to a head following a Madonna concert; The Girlie Show, September 22nd 1993 at Wembley Stadium ( I warned you). We were pretty exhausted - we'd arrived at 6am to get a spot down the front (gay right?) and myself and my young lady companion had been up all night satisfying a particular need, mine. And I felt sick. There were gays, gays and more gays EVERYWHERE. Happy gays, singing gays, touching gays, kissing gays, camp gays, butch gays, vogueing gays, fat, thin or muscled gays, gays upon gays upon gays. The alcoholic was alone in a bar and cradling a yet unopened bottle of vodka. The impending arrival of her Madjesty at 2100 hours was the welcome dose of Prozac that prevented my complete mental breakdown. |
If you've never seen The Girlie Show, YouTube the Express Yourself sequence (I warned you this was a cliche) & imagine yourself stuffed into the gay mosh pit, surrounded by seemingly happy homosexuals. When her ladyship descended from the sky, straddling a six tonne glitter ball, dressed in 70s disco clobber & screamed 'Hello London England! Are you ready to paaaaaaarty!' The gay man she had years before claimed to be trapped inside her woman's body had clearly escaped, and he hacked down my forest & planted a great big gay kiss on my sleeping gay beauty forehead.
"Through a combination of deafening disco beats and an engrossed state of ogling the half naked men on stage, the friend I was with completely missed my sobbing, but the man to my left put his arm around my shoulder and kissed my cheek. We had struck an iceberg."
I told my friends almost immediately. I was starting a new college course the following week and it seemed an ideal opportunity. A close female friend took me out for a drink and halfway through the evening handed me a picture of The Queen with the question 'Congratulations?' scrawled across the back.
My straight male friends were amongst the best - I wish I hadn't expected otherwise. Letters, phone-calls and promises of 'nothing changes' were everything I needed and had been foolish not to expect. I wrote to my brother who dropped everything and (I found out years later) borrowed money for the train fare to see me. He hugged and assured me that all was well between us and got me blind drunk in the local pub.
It wasn't all roses and internationally-renowned divas astride gargantuan glitter balls. It was another four years before I broached the subject with my parents and the ride there was never smooth. They loved me and tried to be polite but for some time after were hurt much more than I was comfortable with. It wasn't until the GP they visited in some distress put them in touch with a support group, did they appreciate the everyday nature of what I had shared - but they got there.
|
And fifteen years later? I have been married for six, we are proud uncles of five nieces and nephews and Godparents to two. I work with young people who ask me when it will get better. I can't promise them when but can assure them it will. Two of my former girlfriends are now lifelong firm friends, and I even got to reference gay jokes in the best man's speech at my brother's wedding. I am a card-carrying flag-waving advocate for equality and never again will I have to pretend. "It might not come with disco beats in a stadium, it might be as gentle as a luke-warm ripple in a tea cup. There will be some who will care and those who will not, but whatever the journey, it will be worth the wait." |
|
You can follow Craig on Twitter - @CHanlonSmith
HTML Comment Box is loading comments...
