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Never In.

There was no need for me to formally announce my homosexuality. A heterosexual friend once told me, “You didn’t have to come out because you were never really in.”

I was a flamboyant child who dressed in his mother’s earrings, and slopped around in her white high-heel shoes into which she’d stuffed with scrunched-up pages of the Nottingham Evening Post to make them fit me better. I draped my shoulders with my gran’s fox fur, and my neck dripped with my mother’s sparkling dress jewellery as I paraded with her handbag over my arm. However, I never wore her lipstick or makeup, nor did I ever paint my nails. I didn’t want to be a girl or a woman, I just adored glamour.

Several years later I was talking to a different friend about these formative years of my ramshackle drag. He raised an eyebrow. “A lot of us gay boys tried on our mother’s shoes when we were young,
but my dear, you took dressing up to a whole new level.”

My mother died when I was eight, and my escape was in the music of Marc Bolan. A Top Of The Pops appearance electrified me: his cherubic face almost hidden beneath a mass of lustrous black corkscrew hair, and drops of silver glitter beneath each eye.

Glam rock opened the door upon which shone a gold star beneath which was the notice: Be Yourself.
I dressed up to extraordinary levels and my ex-RAF tail-gunner dad was my enthusiastic enabler.
I created wigs and feather boas from coloured strips of crêpe paper, and fashioned capes from old net curtains that I trimmed into batwing edges, and embellished with sequins and glitter; and stuck the tiny spangling discs and metallic dust  to my face. And, wearing the high heeled black leather boots that my eldest sister gave to me, I met my public.

Each weekend I embarked upon what I called my ‘Sunday Parade’. For one of these occasions
I informed my dad that I wanted to cover my whole face with blue glitter. With his help we made an adhesive with diluted ‘Gloy’ glue, and I shut my eyes as he carefully applied the mix to my face, then gently applied the glitter. To complement this I’d already made a boa from strips of royal blue and turquoise crêpe paper. Never once did my dad attempt to stop me. He never chastised me or ordered me to be “like other boys” as my elder brothers did. Quite the opposite: he provided active encouragement, even to the extent of helping me to concoct eyeshadow from crushed-up pastel crayons; the most fabulous being the the one that I wanted to look like the feathers of the peacocks that I’d just seen on our visit to Newstead Abbey, the home of Lord Byron. I closed my eyelids as he carefully dabbed the powdered pastels onto them.

The neighbours viewed me with a mixture of disdain and bemusement, and the local kids threw rocks and stones at me, hit me with sticks, beat me up. They called me queer, bummer, bum bandit, puff.
A passing adult man called me a shirt-lifter. Although I didn’t know what it meant, I knew better than
to ask my dad to explain.

From the first day at secondary school there was no improvement; and the abuse took on a more physical, aggressive form. I showed no interest in females in a sexual way; instead, my best friends were girls with whom I hung out. This caused considerable anger and jealousy amongst other lads who held amorous designs upon them. I was warned off a certain girl on a couple of occasions, as if the sudden lack of my presence would immediately enamour her to them.

I hated sports, and the gym changing room was a testosterone-fuelled warzone where the games masters had no worries about calling me queer, pansy, and Nancy boy. Even though my school social circle was female, it never caused problems because it wasn’t based on sexual attraction. I didn’t want
a girlfriend: it just did not compute with me. I never compromised or sold out my sexuality, and settled down for the long haul journey. Deep down I knew that somehow I’d reach my destination, and that my first sexually charged kiss would be with a man. I didn’t know where, when, or how it would happen. But my first snog would not be with a girl. I’d rather remain on my own and never have any sexual contact than sell out my homosexuality. And still the hateful slurs buzzed around my head, stinging like angry wasps.

Understandably, the relief was tremendous when I left school in 1978 aged sixteen and began my first job as a printing apprentice. I was already empowered by punk rock and had totally embraced its anti-establishment message. The sparkles and spangles of glam rock were sidelined by my home-made couture, which included a shirt emblazoned with the slogan, Gays Against Nazis. The unquestionably assertive effect of Tom Robinson’s song, “Glad to Be Gay,” a few months earlier provoked me to become angry, proud, and unapologetic in this new realm of industry. I didn’t care, and I wouldn’t lie.

A female colleague who was three or four years my senior kept on at me about gay people, her education gleaned from the mis-informed rubbish printed in the Sunday tabloids. She was fishing for information, and the constantly wriggling worm on her hook was why I didn’t have a girlfriend. Eventually, I bit the bait.

“I haven’t got a girlfriend because I’m gay.”

She ran off gibbering and drooling, and soon returned, grabbed my arm and dragged me to the cafeteria where a trio of overall-clad men were eating their sandwiches. She pushed me forwards as if
I were a felon in front of judge, jury, and hangman.

She poked my arm. “Go on. Confess.”

“Confess? I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Say it!”

“Say what?”

“Say I’m gay.”

I gave her a sweet smile. “You’re gay.”

“No, say you’re gay!”

“You’re gay.”

She punched my arm. “You know what I mean. Tell them, I’m gay.”

“You’re gay.”

“Don’t be stupid. Tell them.”

The men watched intently, cigarettes between dirty fingers trailing grey smoke above the open pages of the Sun, and Daily Mirror.

“Gentlemen, what my colleague wants is for me to tell you that I’m homosexual.”

My calm announcement generated the expected reaction, and rewound my life to the school days I’d recently left behind only in locality. The dominating memory of the homophobic violence I’d suffered remained immovable. One of the men assured me that he was going to beat me up; another said he’d get me sacked; the third warned me to stay away from him if I knew what was best for me.  

“I don’t want a queer trying to touch me up.”

Rebellion flared. “Don’t flatter yourself. Have you had a look in the mirror?”

For a heavyweight, sweaty slob he moved with impressive sprightliness, and I only just dodged his fist.

The next day, an engineer lumbered up to me, called me a child molester, then spat in my face. Being spat at was nothing new to me. However there was an unexpected ally. A man who’d broken the picket line when there had been a strike at his previous job had was labelled ‘scab’ and ‘blackleg’, and therefore cold-shouldered by the rest of the employees.  

He handed me a paper towel from a nearby dispenser. “Don’t worry, I’ve had all of that.”

I wiped the phlegm from my face. “Thanks.”

 “I won’t pretend to like what you are. I think you’re a pervert. But I’m going to shake your hand because you had the fucking bollocks to stand up to that load of morons, and be honest, and not be ashamed of what you are.”

“Thanks for patronizing me.”

He shrugged. “We’re both outsiders here, aren’t we.”

“Yeah. I can see the News Of The World headline: The pervert and the blackleg.”

We shook hands. When I turned around a sea of narrowed eyes showed that I’d done myself no further favours. Meanwhile, upstairs in the boardroom the proclamation of my rebel status was greeted with dismay. Anyone would have thought that I was Guy Burgess, blackmailed by the Russians into spying and feeding them state secrets. I was just a sixteen-year-old boy asserting his sexuality in the middle of the unforgiving 1970s.

The following weeks were uncomfortable but not unbearable, and with memories of the beatings I’d suffered at school, I kept my wits about me leaving work, especially when the clocks went back an hour in autumn, and I had to walk along dimly lit streets to the bus stop. Several weeks later I was recalled to hospital for further surgery on my injured hip, and never returned to that job.

A decade later I was in a city centre pub when a man came up to me. I recognised him, and he me. I wasn’t exactly unmissable, being six feet five, and clad in full black leather, with a shaved head topped by a four inch quiff dyed the colour of coal.

“I used to work with you. You caused that hassle ‘cos you told them you were…er, a gay.”

“Don’t you mean a queer? That’s what you used to call me.”

“Yeah, well, sorry about that. They was going to sack you, you know.”

“No, I didn’t.”

He then told me that the union representative had intervened with the management which prevented me from being sacked, although what was discussed wasn’t common knowledge.  

Many years later I was in Gatsby’s, the main gay pub in Nottingham. A slim, short, clean-cut younger man kept looking through the crowd at me. He was most definitely not my type, and when he weaved through the crowd and stood next to me, looking up with an almost adoring reverential expression, I thought that I was going to have to find a polite way of saying thanks but no thanks. But I was completely off-target in my surmise.  

“You’re Simon Smalley, aren’t you.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Do you remember me?”

“Your face is very familiar,” I lied.

“I used to live down the road from you.”

“Of course! I knew that I knew you from somewhere.”

“You used to walk around in all of that…finery. You were amazing.”

“Ta.”

“Everyone called you a queer and a puff. They were horrible to you.”

“Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.”

He grabbed my forearm. “But you didn’t give a shit, did you? You still did it. I remember one Sunday afternoon walking past you with me mam and dad and you were just standing there on the corner with a great big wig in red and yellow strips of that paper stuff, and glitter under your eyes and a great big patchwork cape and purple trousers tucked into women’s boots.” He swigged from his bottle of Budweiser. “Women’s boots, mate, you were there wearing women’s boots!”

“Yeah, one of my sisters gave them to me.”

“But you were wearing women’s boots with your purple trousers all tucked in the top like them Russian blokes, what are they, coss something.”

“Cossacks.”

“Yeah. And three big lads come past you from behind and belted you across the back of your head with a massive stick. And you just stood there, like…defiant. And my dad said, “Serves him right, the fucking poof. I don’t know what’s the matter with his parents. If he was my lad I’d kick the shit out of the bent bastard.” And all the time I’m thinking, like, wow, just look at him.”

For once in my usually garrulous life I was lost for words, drenched by his outpouring of admiration. But he hadn’t finished.

“You were like our very own Quentin Crisp. And when I realised I was gay - I mean, you always know, dontcha - I thought back all those years to when I used to see you walking around like that, and I thought, Simon was telling the world he was different, and that gave me courage. If Simon could do it, so could I. So with you in mind, I went and told me mam and dad that I’m gay. You gave me that courage, mate, so I’d like to buy you a pint to say thank you.”

“Thank you, but there’s no need. What did your parents say?”

I visualised his family bathed in golden sunshine, smiling with pride as he set sail upon a smooth gay sea towards love and happiness. And it was all down to my influence.

“My mam said, “You’ve been talking to that weird puff Simon up the road, haven’t you? Don’t let your dad hear you talking such shit.” And she kicked me out of the house. I’ve not been back since.”

This horrendous incident was so far-removed from my own progressive, accepting parents, and exemplified how for many, home is where the hate is.

Because of my openness about being homosexual, too many times I’ve found myself embroiled in arguments with people who tell me that my sexuality makes me unnatural. My response is that homosexuality occurs in nature, ergo, it is natural. Yet even in the most tolerant of societies there remain those who hate us and want to kill us. It is a societal disgrace that we still need Coming Out Day, because someone’s sexuality shouldn’t immediately result in persecution. Coming Out is not easy. It takes courage to stand up and be counted. We should not be bullied into standing up and being counted, but if possible, stand up and be counted we must.

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