JOHNNY'S JOURNAL
One Gay Life
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Chapter 1
My Daddy Was A Drag Queen!
  Born
in April of 1943 and labelled: Johnny Oberon Fairy, I guess I
was never destined to grow up as normal – whatever that is! My
mother was responsible for the Johnny part, and I have little
doubt that is because she would have preferred Tarzan (Johnny
Weismuller) over my father any day. She was a fan big-style,
and we would never miss an opportunity to see one of his films
should it be on at a nearby cinema, no matter how many times
we had seen it before.
My father was perhaps the furthest anyone could become from
being a Tarzan, and so how my parents ever came to hit it off
and produce me remains a mystery to this day. I am given to
suspect the local Palais needed to shift a couple of
date-sensitive barrels of Charringtons and put on a cheap
drinks night. What other reason could there be?
Merry Michaels, a never-to-make-it-big-time comedian
travelling mostly around South London from one working men’s
club to another to suffer ridicule and abuse may have kept the
wolf from the door, but it was a heavy cross for me to bear at
school whenever I was asked what my father did for a living.
Giving me Oberon, after the King of the Fairies, as my second
name was possibly his finest joke. It took me a long time to
forgive him for that one!
Strangely it was not until after my father’s death, only a few
years ago, that I learned the real truth about Merry Michaels.
He was only Merry at some of the clubs. At others, apparently
the ones that paid the most, for many years although still
billed under that name as times demanded, he became the:
Impersonator Extraordinaire, Mary Michaels – in today’s terms:
he was a Drag Queen! O.M.G! I never knew, and I now admire him
more than ever. I only wish we could have talked of those
times when so much had to be in secret.
Of course my father was not gay - a word still to be adopted
in my childhood days - or even remotely bisexual. Far from it,
he was quite a womaniser, and over time he must have used
every excuse possible not to return home after a booking.
Mother knew, of course she did, not least because he was a
great confessor, but somehow they made the marriage work and
stuck together to the end. Knowing they did not just stay
together throughout my childhood, maintaining an act to
protect me, comes with some relief. They must have been
gaining something from each other, and I am happy about that.
So as I grew up unaware of all of this, none of it can explain
my own sexuality - one that made itself known to me long
before puberty. Maybe mother had something to do with it by
dragging me along to see all those Tarzan movies, I don’t
know, but I did not need dragging for long. Soon I was looking
forward to them as much as she. Whilst she was undoubtedly
becoming damp watching Johnny Weismuller cavorting in the
trees, I was suffering some painful yearnings for Tarzan’s
sidekick – and I don’t mean Jane! Johnny Sheffield, who played
Boy, began to do strange things to me, things I could not
understand as I must only have been around eight-years-old at
that time.
Roy Rogers, the King of the Cowboys, was another who would
produce those strange yearnings, but for what I had no idea. I
would lie on my bed and spend hours drooling over the full
page pictures of him in the Annuals, touching his face,
kissing the pictures, yet I was still many years away from
becoming sexually active.
 Sexuality
is inbuilt, without a doubt one is born what they are to
become, for even before these times I had a strong preference.
I can remember pre-school days, and in those days that was
before five-years-old, once being told to give Sally, the
daughter of family friends, a kiss goodbye as they left after
one of their many visits. Repulsion is perhaps too strong a
word to use, but attraction is not because I ran over and,
jumping up, threw my arms around her older brother, David,
kissing him madly instead. He would have been about ten or
eleven then, and (as I realised only later from the fast
growing lump my knees questioned at the time) already sexually
aware and very easily aroused. I would not let go of him, and
he became deeply embarrassed, turning bright red. I used to
think of him a lot. Even at that age I knew exactly what I
wanted, though I may not have known why.
When I did finally know why, I lost no time in making up for
all those years in ignorance. From eleven-years-old there
cannot be a school chum I did not try it on with, and there
were not many where I did not succeed in having my wicked way,
some many times. My schooldays were amongst the best days of
my life, and certainly the ones when I was the most sexually
active.
A tart? I was much more than that, I was a whole bakery load
of tarts rolled into one, and so when I hit the all-boys
school after the eleven-plus it was sheer Heaven for me!
Thirty-three other guys in my first class there, and that year
I copped off with thirty of them. I wonder: is that some kind
of a record? It sure was fun!
However long before that, in a junior school in the Forest
Hill area of London, there were a lot of strange happenings.
No woman will ever know, or could possibly understand, the
thrill a boy can get out of being the one able to pee the
highest up a wall. It is something many an older man now
thankful for the force of gravity will look back on, and sigh.
A dozen or so young lads stood bare-arsed in a long line, each
with their trousers around their knees and pissing up a wall
for all their life’s worth, is a sight to behold, I can tell
you!
And what usually followed on afterwards, the comparisons and
all that involved, was hilarious to all of us, but to someone
growing up gay it was also nothing short of mind-blowing. More
on that next time, as we further explore my riotous
schooldays.
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Chapter 2
Does A Finger Count?
 With
the name Johnny, I was quite used to being ribbed.
Otherwise friends at primary school would sometimes
gleefully dance around me in the playground, pointing and
chanting out I was a French Letter. I think now I am
amazed at just how much we knew at that early age. Of
course, Fairy was a regular target for ridicule too,
though at the time none of us appreciated all of its
connotations.
Today such behaviour would be called bullying, and provide
employment for dozens of people in all kinds of social
service departments that cost an absolute fortune to run.
But then it was all a part and parcel of growing up,
everybody was subjected to it at one time or another, and
nobody thought that much of it. It was annoying when you
were the subject, but you knew it would pass and were
eager to come up with something that would make someone
else become the target. I think we were all a lot more
sensible in those days.
All the kids at our school certainly had mathematics down
to a fine art, that’s for sure. The average age was
probably about ten when the exposures started. Behind our
desks, with all the angles of possible view by the teacher
worked out to perfection and avoided, the short trousers
we wore were pulled up, usually the left leg, to expose
all our naughty bits to the girls. They in turn were
wriggling around, lifting up their skirts and pulling
aside their knickers, in an attempt to show us a smile.
Already close friends with Peter, who always sat next to
me, we soon became much closer as we noticed that neither
of us were getting whatever it was the other boys were
getting out of seeing the girls’ gashes. We were both
spending our time looking around at the boys’ bits, not
that we hadn’t seen them all many times before in the high
peeing contests. Were there to have been a “Pop A Percy
Through A Screen” competition we could have named every
single one, from the thin and knobbly David right through
to the short, fat and the brightest red bell end
imaginable, Geoffrey!
Peter lived near to the school in a prefab on a small
estate just off the Dartmouth Road, whilst I lived in a
house a fair distance away, past the railway station, in
Pearcefield Avenue - one that a nostalgic visit in 1998
revealed had long gone to be replaced by a supermarket car
park. Nevertheless in those bygone days we spent most of
our time together despite the distance. We did just about
everything together. And I do mean just about everything!
The cinema was a great pastime in the fifties. Few people
had television sets, and neither of our families did, so
like most local kids Saturday mornings at the Capitol
Cinema in London Road, often called “the sixpenny rush”,
was on our agenda. It may seem strange now, but we found a
lot of enjoyment in singing the patriarchal songs of the
day along to the ball which bounced in time over the words
on the screen before the films started. We each had a
badge with the ABC triangle on it, and like thousands of
other kids we wore it with pride. You could have caught
any one of us at some time or another marching down a
street giving it the: “We are the Minors of the ABC . . .”
at the top of our voice. They were good days.
Several cartoons, a serial, and a feature film, it was
great entertainment for sixpence. However by the time we
were ten-years-old or so, the entertainment on the screen
had started to become secondary to many as boys and girls
progressed from sitting together in gender separate
giggling groups to pairing off and sitting in the back
rows, where exploratory excursions in the dark were
undertaken. Within a very few minutes of the lights
extinguishing for the show there were slaps and squeals to
be heard, all intermingled with roars of hysterical
laughter. So everyone was far too busy to notice what
Peter and I were doing!
By the time we were eleven-years-old, we were doing it
everywhere! I can remember once, a very special once,
making our way through Mayow Park on the way to Sydenham
where there were three picture houses we would often
visit, boisterously fooling around as kids do, the mood
suddenly changed into tenderly exploring each other and
some long meaningful looks. Those hormones don’t care
where they are when they decide to kick off, do they?
A few moments later, and in broad daylight, we were at it
on the grass in the middle of the far from empty park.
Until then our encounters had always been simply fun
driven. But that afternoon was the first time it became a
lot more than fun, and we kissed. Oh, Boy! How we kissed!
Only the threat of some much older boys, jeering and
breaking off from their game of football to chase us,
forced us to flee from the park.
It was later that afternoon, in a toilet cubicle in the
Century Cinema, that at eleven-years-old we both lost our
anal virginity - but only if fingers count. If they don’t,
then it would have been a few weeks later on the last day
I ever saw Peter. A tearful, painful day. The day before I
had to leave to stay with relatives many miles away in
order to attend the prestigious school my parents had
picked for me as a day boy, rather than as an expensive
boarder.
We had prepared everything for our last time together.
Several bottles of brown ale and loads of cigarettes,
along with cloths for wipes (I don’t recall tissues at
that time, but maybe I’m wrong!), and old coats to lie
down on were ready and waiting in our den in the large and
wild untended wooded garden behind the Capitol Cinema.
Determined to go all the way this memorable time, we had a
jar of Vaseline there too in the hope that all the jokes
we had heard were based on some truth.
 After
a strange kind of day spent together, not an unhappy one
but one full of despair for we knew nothing could stop us
from being pulled apart, we both went to our separate
homes for tea and met up again later, at seven o’clock
outside the café, a Teddy Boy joint then, next to the
cinema. Several frothy coffees were stared into at the
table by the door before we left to make our way down the
side of the cinema, where at the back we jumped up the low
wall into the garden.
We had a great time that evening, discovered the jokes
were based on fact, and made fantastic love several times.
We cried a lot too. Late, at nine o’clock, we kissed and
cuddled for the last time, before rushing off in our
different directions, both of us fighting to hold back the
tears.
I never saw Peter again, although I often think of him. I
sometimes wonder if he ever went back and tidied up that
den, or perhaps used it again with someone else. Maybe it
is still there, untouched, just as we left it to this very
day. Who knows?
Peter was my first lover. He, and those wonderful times we
spent together, will always mean a great deal to me. But
he was not my first true-love; a lover I would die for if
it were needed. I met him later at the all-boys school I
was to attend in Winchester, and everything that Peter and
I had done together put me in good stead for my time
there.
When I look back on that school now, I seem to recall we
did do a few lessons in between all the wild sex and
partying, but how we managed to still escapes me. More on
that next time, when I shall also tell you how I came to
hate William Shakespeare.
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Chapter 3
Cock-a-doodle-do!
 As
the train pulled into the station to stop amidst great
swathes of steam and hissing noises, “Winchester City”
the announcer felt the need to stress, and I alighted
struggling with my two heavy suitcases, I was more than
apprehensive. I was terrified. Who in tarnation were the
Uncle Sam and Aunty Beryl I was to meet here?
Eleven-and-a-half-years-old and I had never heard of them
until recently. To my knowledge they had never visited,
they were in none of the family photographs, and I could
not recall any Birthday or Christmas presents either. How
was I to recognise them?
And then, as the crowd dispersed from the platform, my
eyes fell on the middle-aged, portly, moustached, balding,
ginger-haired guy exploding out of a far too tight
green-chequered suit by the exit. High in the air above
him he held a white placard on which in bold letters was
scrawled: FAIRY. Well, at least he looked a fun guy!
The short journey in the impressive brand new Morris
Traveller to my home for the next five years in Middle
Brook Street took only a few minutes, but it was long
enough for me to learn I had no relations in Winchester.
Sam and Beryl, a brother and sister both still single,
were performing artistes that my father often met on the
club circuit. For an undisclosed sum of money, obviously a
lot less than the school’s boarding fees, they had readily
agreed I could stay with them at their large terraced
house within walking distance of my much-envied place of
education. The fact that this “public” school only took
private pupils, and a few like myself able to pass an
entrance exam, was confusing enough to me – but now all
this subterfuge? What kind of a strange world was I
getting into?
Beryl, with the same kind of ginger hair and equally as
large as her brother, was waiting for us by the front door
at the top of some steps to the four-storied building, and
so I was quickly whisked inside what one would have to be
forgiven for mistaking as a theatrical museum, one
complete with an evil looking rooster costume, which gave
me a start, at the end of the hallway. Within the next few
minutes I was
 shown
my room, rushed around the rest of the building, told to
unpack and make myself at home, and then left as they
explained they had a booking and would possibly see me in
the morning. I was not to worry as Tommy would be home
soon to ensure I was okay. Tommy?
After unpacking I went off to explore the house again. The
guided tour had been far too rushed for me to take it all
in. Next to the bathroom I discovered a large shower room.
I had never seen one before. They were certainly not
common in my part of London - not that I knew of, anyway.
So feeling grubby from the travelling I decided to try it
out whilst I waited for Tommy, whoever he was!
No doubt it was the roar of the giant Ascot water heater
that prevented me from hearing someone come into the
shower room, and I must have been turned away from the
door. The first I knew I was not alone was when an arm
reached over my shoulder to wet a bar of soap. I jumped,
physically, and turned to see the naked young lad, a
little older than me I guessed, grinning at me. Oh, God!
He was stunning!
And Percy thought so too, for there was nothing I could do
to prevent him from popping up to take a look for himself.
Dying with the embarrassment, I quickly dropped my hands
in an attempt to hide him, and then I noticed this guy
wasn’t hiding any of his embarrassment, which was
undoubtedly larger than mine!
The heat and steam, the roaring of the gas, the shock of
finding him in there with me, his stunning beauty, the
searching looks, or his wonderful endowment, I don’t know
what it was that started it off, but within seconds we had
both silently exchanged all the communication necessary to
be hugging each other tightly, and kissing and fondling
each other as if there were no tomorrow. God! There just
HAD to be tomorrows with this guy, and many of them!
Turning off the water, the guy explained he was Tommy.
Holding my hand, he then nodded for me to follow him as
naked he led me out along the passageway and into the
bedroom next door. I can remember being overjoyed – it was
next to my bedroom, and all kinds of things flew through
my mind.
I learned a lot that afternoon, not least that there was
better than Vaseline. Before and afterwards we smoked a
roll-up that made me feel giggly and very happy - I later
discovered this was called a reefer, and then there was
this magic tin that you had to close the lid on once you
had taken an enormous sniff. “Burroughs Wellcome”, it said
on it – and it was definitely welcome for without its
mind-blowing and muscle-relaxing effects I don’t think I
could have experienced Tommy in the way I did.
 Things
just got better and better, and all these years later I
still feel a little guilty for so quickly forgetting about
Peter, my only lover until then. But this new life was
becoming unbelievable. Tommy went to the same school,
would be in the year above me, and promised to look after
me. It turned out he was the only child of Sam and Beryl’s
brother, and the only survivor of the horrific traffic
accident five years ago. Technically they were now his
guardians and looking after him, but in reality they were
rarely there because of their theatrical engagements and
he quite capably looked after himself. It was every young
guy’s dream!
A Londoner and streetwise I may have been, a bit of a
flyboy even, but Tommy thoroughly outclassed me. That
Saturday, before school started on the Monday, there was a
basement party. These events, I learned, were pretty
regular. About twenty lads, aged anything between thirteen
and twenty-years-old, turned up around seven o’clock laden
with bottles and, each handing over a pound note, were
invited in. Some had apparently come from as far away as
Southampton. I hadn’t a clue how far that was at the time,
but it sounded impressive.
The blaring pop music, darkness apart from a few coloured
bulbs - mostly red, mattresses and giant cushions strewn
about madly, the flowing drink, and the fumes from an
obvious proliferation of reefers ensured that within an
hour there was nobody who had not at least got down to
their underpants. Mostly, in the subdued lighting, all
that could be seen were parts of entwined writhing bodies.
I was the new boy – “fresh meat” as they called me – and
very quickly pulled into the melee to be enjoyed. It was a
fantastic night, and I have no idea how or when it
finished. I woke up Sunday morning in bed next to Tommy.
He grinned across at me, and asked if I thought I would
like living there. I can remember just giggling back, and
kissing him like crazy!
Monday morning, and dressed in Tommy’s school clothes from
the previous year – even that had been worked out for
economy, but they were in excellent condition! – we walked
the ten minutes to the school. Thankfully Tommy saw I was
spared the kick up the arse for bowing to a sewerage vent
that new boys were told was the founder’s grave, and after
a very quick trip around the outside of the main building
so I could be told what was where, we went in to assembly.
The smell of five hundred boys immediately made me horny,
but I was not the only one!
Standing about four rows from the front with my hands
loosely in front of me to hide a suddenly arisen
embarrassment, I became aware of a hand sliding into my
left trouser pocket. Turning my head rapidly, Tommy smiled
back at me and pushed his hand in further. There was no
pocket, and he had hold of me. I grinned at him, and then
had to spin my head in the opposite direction – someone
was now in that pocket too, and likewise it had a hole in
it. Looking around I noticed: apart from the newcomers at
the front, there were a lot of hands in a lot of pockets.
Putting my own hands, one in each of their pockets, I
realised this school was going to be fun with a capital F!
Then came something I hadn’t bargained for – nobody called
anyone by their Christian name at this type of school. It
was always surnames only, so I cringed imagining the
number of times there would be laughter as “Fairy” was
shouted out. With the first lesson being English
Literature my heart sunk even lower. The book to be
studied for the year was: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by
William Shakespeare. Wasn’t that the one about fairies,
bottoms and the fairy king, Oberon? The Hell it was!
Porky, that was the nickname given to the English tutor,
enjoyed himself no end at my expense that year. I have
never forgiven him for that – or William Shakespeare!
However for what this school offered me, along with being
shacked up with a dishy guy like Tommy, it was a small
price to pay. This school made the world its pupils’
oyster, but first it was going to be my oyster! More on
this next time.
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Chapter
4
Gorging On Turkeys In Denial!
 I
think same-sex schools are wonderful. It is a shame there are so few
left today. They are great for gay kids, but more than that they are
living proof that although sexuality may adapt to a situation, it
cannot be changed. I believe it is far better to accept a bit of
same-sex fun between kids, than all the homophobia and unwanted
pregnancies suffered today.
Obviously most of the kids at the all-boys school I attended were
heterosexual. That, statistically, is always the natural majority.
However there was another majority: those of them living in a state
of denial about what they did to relieve their sexual frustration.
Of course their denials mattered not one iota to a grateful young
gay guy like me. I was in Heaven!
There were thirty-three other kids in my first form and, to varying
degrees, I had the pleasure of thirty of them. All these years
later, those I have managed to re-establish contact with on the
Internet are, as I expected, married and have families. It is quite
strange when I hear all about their “normal” lives when (like Mr
Chips) the only way I am able to picture them is as the kids I once
knew: some with tool in hand positively oozing to find relief, and
others with legs in the air like a trussed turkey, complete with a
head that screamed for more!
As one of them told me, they blocked out boys from their minds at
the time and imagined they were doing all those things we did with
girls. I believe him, but it still leaves me wondering how those who
enjoyed being the lunchtime trussed-up turkey, one often stuffed
several times over, managed to relate that to being male in
heterosexual lovemaking!
Being a day boy I am not exactly au fait with what went on in the
dormitories of a night. The boarders would never reveal much,
however I suspect it may have been made deliberately awkward for
them to get up to anything elaborate. Suffice to say they were never
behind at coming forward for “a walk up the field”. We called the
boarders “rabbits”, because you might say they were always gagging
for it and needed a lot of satisfying!
Apart from the common practice of sharing pockets in classrooms -
and in geometrically suitable ones the full-blown meat-and-two-veg
in the lap where a love message was frequently deposited inside some
unknown boy’s desk! - there were well-worn paths up the large
playing field to where its shrubbery perimeter became a hive of
sexual activity. Lunch money was pooled to be spent on something
from the tuck shop, a packet of cigarettes, and perhaps a bottle of
cider if someone was flush, all to be enjoyed along with copious
amounts of sex in the bushes, behind the pavilion, or in an old
air-raid shelter, depending on the weather. If we were still hungry
there were the orchards of all the large houses that backed on to
the field.
Breaks and free periods were commonly spent “up the field”, and even
those forced to watch cricket matches there could never become
bored. At one such cricket match on a sweltering hot afternoon I
copped off seven times in the bushes – once even with the guy who
was supposed to be keeping the score, but who convinced someone else
to do it for ten minutes, making a complete balls up of it!
 As
only to be expected, the traditions of debagging and pill-grabbing
were rife. Any kid giving us grief would be debagged and their
clothes thrown away, however debagging was more readily carried out
simply to satisfy curiosity about a cute guy not one of our sexual
partners, with the clothes in this case being returned afterwards.
Pill grabbing was a weird and painful sport which entailed trying to
grab another’s testicles to force a submission. If nothing else, it
was very good for the eyesight and guaranteed to remove all earwax!
Today both practices are considered a criminal assault, but then
they were merely long-standing traditions boys enjoyed.
Pill-grabbing was sometimes also a way of letting a kid from a
different class know you were sexually interested in him. As one
form filed out of a room, the next class would be filing in. One
would grab at someone they wished to know better as they passed. If
the next time you passed they grabbed you back, then you could bet
you were home and dry! So it was with Tony.
I had seen him around and appreciated all his cuteness, though I did
not know him. He lived in the next street to where I was staying,
Lower Brook Street, and was possibly two years younger. Nervous
about joining the school, one day he plucked up the courage to ask
me – a total stranger, but one seen locally in the right school
uniform – whether I would take him and “show him the ropes” on his
first day.
He was nervous? God! I almost died when he spoke to me! I stuttered
– and I don’t! – and was hardly able to put two words together. Here
was someone so stunning, so absolutely perfect in every way, I would
die for him! Smart, clean, bright, polite, good physique,
symmetrical face, wonderful eyes, and a built-in cheeky grin. He was
everything anybody could want. Why did he have to be younger?
Of course I took him. He joined me regularly on the walk to school.
But as wonderful as he was, I made no advances. Firstly, it wasn’t
the done thing to go with someone two years your junior at school,
and secondly I was frightened he might reject me and I would not see
so much of him. Just catching sight of him was to have an immediate
high.
It must have taken Tony a full month to learn all “the ropes”. I
still remember perfectly the Tuesday morning when, filing out after
a history lesson I had slept through contentedly and smiling at him
in the queue waiting to enter the room next, with a larger than
usual cheeky grin he winked up at me and gently grabbed my balls as
he passed by, allowing his not wanting to let go hand drag behind
him as he went on forward in the queue. I can remember wondering:
was I still asleep and dreaming?
I wasn’t, and it was the start of a strange and unforgettable time
in my life. The free and easy sex didn’t entirely stop, at school or
at those basement parties, but it became heavily curtailed as the
two of us embarked on a secret love affair. It was intense, and
nothing like the simple gratifying encounters normally undertaken to
bash the hormones into submission. Much more than them, this was
meaningful, deeply tender, loving and romantic, and it lasted until
I was forced to leave Winchester.
 The
five years spent at this school were mostly filled with drunken wild
parties, mind-boggling amounts of sex, having lots of fun, the new
thing called Rock & Roll, and that intense secret love affair with
Tony which took precedence over everything. There was not a lot of
time for anything else, like studying. The not so good GCE results
did still mean a couple more years there and on to university was
attainable - just, however the amount of money needed to do that was
more than the family could afford.
By now, Merry Michaels had given up treading the boards. I did not
learn the real reason for this until recently, having been given an
entirely different story at the time, but the truth is following an
accident where as Mary he had fallen badly on a bottle used in the
act (don’t ask!), damaging and scarring a leg so now he walked with
a noticeable limp – not the best asset for a drag queen! – he could
no longer continue in that line of work. So the house in Pearcefield
Avenue was sold and a newsagent shop bought a few streets away. One,
as it turned out, not very profitable.
That being the case, at the end of my time at this school I was
destined to go home to live with my parents above this shop in
Forest Hill, and to look for some suitable employment. But first
there were a lot of tearful goodbyes. Throughout life there are
never bonds to equal some of those made in one’s schooldays. Leaving
Tommy, his guardians, and all those great friends I had made, let
alone my happy home for the past five years, was simply awful. And
then, of course, there was Tony. Oh, God! The crying we did! Days of
it! It was a terrible, terrible time.
The biggest regret I have of my life, and there are many, is not
having the guts to find a way of staying in Winchester to let that
love run its course. Before, then, or after – I have never found
anyone to equal Tony, not by a mile! All these years later I still
miss him deeply.
But little did I know it then, life had far worse in store for me as
I sought to make my living in a heterosexual world. A world that
would not understand me, and were it to discover the truth, the
secret I held, would delight in persecuting me. More next time when
I tell you how I tried to play it straight in a straight world. A
story of pretence, and of consequences!
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Chapter 5
From Heaven To Hell!
Of course I had been back
to Forest Hill many times throughout my schooling in Winchester.
Every holiday I spent a few days with my parents, but no more than
that after discovering on my first visit everything had moved on.
Peter was no longer around, having moved, and all my friends were
involved in things of great importance to them, mostly girls.
Although still friendly, they did not have a lot of time for me. So
returning home for good, or at least for the foreseeable future, was
not something I welcomed.
After enjoying five carefree years in spacious modernised
accommodation, the small and dingy living quarters above the shop
were claustrophobic. The bathroom, a downstairs extension to the
building, was nothing short of primitive, and my own room
overlooking the railway line was cold, pokey and in serious need of
decorating. Oh, and the bed squeaked too! I might have been home,
but my home was Hell.
Several weeks passed, and I remained unsuccessful in securing
suitable employment. The only money I had, a considerable amount
Tommy forced me to take as I boarded the train to depart Winchester,
was nearly all gone. I really missed Tommy. He was a great guy who
could fix anything, and there was a whole lot that needed fixing
right then.
I missed Tony too, of course. Terribly. I loved him so much. My mind
never stopped drifting away to wonder what he might be doing, right
then, and the tears would return. Brisk walks taken in an attempt to
put such thoughts out of my mind, only changed the focus. Everywhere
I went, for miles around, I was haunted by memories of better times,
many of these with Peter.
Then one morning my luck changed. Father called upstairs to say he
had found me a job. An old friend contacted from the Merry days, Ted
Shields, had written back. His company owned some provincial
theatres, a number of nightclubs, and several small cinemas. The
deal
 was
for me to start at the bottom, in the projection room of one of the
cinemas, and should I show promise I would be trained firstly in
cinema management and then, if I was up to it, company management.
It sounded far better than anything I had been offered so far and
declined, so I made no objections. Then I was told exactly where I
was to go, and my heart missed a beat. It was the Century Cinema in
Sydenham - a place with a lot of history for me. As the name rattled
through my brain I pictured that time in the toilet cubicle with
Peter, and I swear I felt his finger. Nevertheless I was there the
following Monday morning at ten o’clock as arranged.
I soon learned this was not so much a job as a way of life. To be
there by ten in the morning I needed to leave home by nine-thirty,
earlier on Saturdays when there was a kids' morning show, and it was
eleven-thirty before I arrived home at night. But all the staff were
friendly, like some big happy family, so I was no longer lonely -
though what they sometimes talked about frightened me.
As the newbie I had to be filled in on the gossip, and there sure
was a lot of it. It seemed everybody there spent all their time
getting off with everybody else of the opposite sex. With so little
time away from the cinema it was their whole world, and I began to
wonder: what would I do if one of the girls tried it on with me?
Noting the way in which they referred to a previous manager, one
apparently with “men friends”, there was no way I was going to let
on I too preferred a bum chum to fish dish! However, as I
discovered, playing it straight is not always that easy for a young,
randy, gay guy.
Thankfully, being the junior – technical name: Fourth projectionist
– I was always kept busy. The hierarchy was: the Chief did very
little except walk about sighing (the days when the Chief was God
and more important than the House Manager had passed, hurting the
man); the Second had conversations with him whilst watching over the
Third who ran the show almost single-handed, and would only assist
him if there was a rapid succession of machine changes required to
cope with a short Cinemascope trailer; and the Fourth made the tea.
However he also did all the machine cleaning before the show,
maintained the lighting and fans whilst at the same time sweeping
the floor with the broom stuck up his arse, and was responsible for
rewinding the reels (that flew off the machines every twenty
minutes) not forgetting to repair any bad joints or broken sprocket
holes. If anything ever went wrong it was always the fault of the
Fourth.
Nevertheless I survived it, and little more than a year later I was
running the whole shebang. A talking point for many months: after
not turning up for work one day, the Chief was discovered dead at
home – in his armchair with cock in hand and a dirty magazine nearby
on the floor! Only days later the new House Manageress, a first for
the company, Barbara call-me-Babs Bloomfield, and the Second fell
out.
 They
had never seen eye to eye, so he wasn’t going to make Chief. She
wanted modern changes; he, an “old cinema” conformist, did not.
After an enormous row it was goodbye to him. Then as fate would have
it, the very same week the Third discovered the ice cream
girl-come-usherette, Janet, was up the duff and quickly did a
runner. I alone was left.
Luckily I had spent my time there gainfully. By then I knew
everything there was to know about Kalee arcs, Simplex machines and
RCA sound systems, and had a good grounding in all the electrics
too, so for a whole month I was left to run the box, doing
everything, entirely on my own – there was nobody else. It was hard
work, but it came with a lot of kudos.
This situation, however, was against all the rules and regulations.
Made in the days before safety film, they required two people to be
in the box at all times, not even allowed to venture even
momentarily into the attached rewind room. So, in case we should
suffer a visit from the Fire Chief, a side-splitting routine was
worked out involving usherettes and doormen changing in and out of
uniforms and dashing up and down different staircases, like
something out of a Whitehall farce, to give the appearance all legal
requirements were covered. I’m not sure we would have got away with
it, all the practice runs collapsed in hilarity, so perhaps it was
just as well it never had to be enacted for real.
Becoming Acting Chief (apparently I couldn’t be a Chief so young),
as soon as we had a full complement of staff again – all of them
picked by me and dependant as much on their looks as their skills! -
I was left with a lot of spare time on my hands, and that was
dangerous. Visits from Head Office often involved a ploughman’s
lunch in the pub on the bridge whilst business was discussed, with
me having to attend. This soon progressed, on some very flimsy
excuses, to me having lunch with Babs on a daily basis.
Not encouraging them, but feeling unable to rebuke them in case I
should blow my cover of normality, her advances became more and more
pronounced. Barely eighteen, and out of my depth in a heterosexual
world, I didn’t stand a chance against the will of this experienced
older woman who was also my boss, and so one day, unsurprisingly I
suppose, it had to happen. And it went on happening for another two
years during which time I moved into her house, a semi-detached in
nearby Knighton Park Road. There were some advantages to this, of
course: it was only a two minute walk to work, and it had an
irresistible upstairs bathroom!
 With
no male lovers in my life, the regular sex obviously gave some
relief. However there was no “turn on” for me from a female body, so
I could never do it alone with her. Tony especially, but often Peter
and Tommy too, always had to be there with me in my mind. It was the
only way it would or could happen.
I guess on the whole my “straight” life wasn’t too bad, though me
living with a much older woman – and unmarried too! - was upsetting
my parents. But it all rolled along, day in, day out, being nothing
special or exciting. Reasonably well paid and holding down a decent
job, it began to look as if this was it for me - my pigeonhole for
life.
And then one day, whilst I was sitting on my stool savouring the
buns of the rather delicious but profoundly straight Third as he
peered through the porthole waiting for the change-over marks, with
a smile large enough to smother a company of marines Babs exploded
through the door of the projection box to tell me she was pregnant.
It was most off-putting.
More on that next time, when I find out things ain’t what they seem
to be – and I land up with a sugar daddy?
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Chapter 6
The Expectant Daddy?
 Babs
bursting into the projection box to loudly announce she was pregnant
came as an Almighty shock. Not only to me, I might add. Terry, the
Third, whose buns my eyes were appreciating at the time, and which
noticeably tensed to the news as he patiently peered out looking for
the change-over cues, missed them completely and the end of the film
on the other machine rattled through the gate to show a white screen
immediately followed by usherettes from both the stalls and the
circle persistently pressing their attention bells. He’d never
missed a change-over before, and so it went to add extra dramatic
effect to the statement.
Having kids was something I had never even remotely considered. We
had always been so careful, taking all the precautions. Did I want
to be a father? No, I most definitely didn’t! I was homosexual. I
was only playing at being straight. That was hard enough as it was,
how could I be a daddy too? Nevertheless I grinned, told her it was
great news, and she departed, probably to announce it to world in
every way possible but flash it on the screen. I could picture whole
gaggles of the female staff pouring over a catalogue with her in the
staff room to pick out baby clothes. God! What had happened to my
life?
Kids need loving parents, a two-some, and it had to be faced: I
didn’t love Babs, not in the way I should for being a parent. I
couldn’t. That kind of love was kept for Tony, or whoever might one
day follow him. To be tied down to a commitment for something like
sixteen years or more, whilst the child grew up, might be to lose
all chances of one day finding true happiness.
So the prospect of fatherhood hung over me like a heavy, dark cloud,
although I did not allow Babs to see it. For her sake I made out I
was happy, when all the time I was looking for a way out. I
considered what Adrian, the Third when I started at the cinema, had
done on getting Janet pregnant – he’d had it away on his toes,
sharpish! – but I knew I couldn’t do that, it was not me.
Then that Thursday afternoon, whilst Babs was up the West End doing
some necessary shopping – there was always a lot of that to be done,
she spent money like water! – I happened to be foraging around in
her office looking for a receipt for some carbon rods I was sure we
were being billed for twice, when my eyes fell on an envelope
addressed to me and marked: “Personal”. It had been opened, and yet
I was sure not by me. I had not seen it before.
Picking it up, I noticed Babs had scrawled on the back of the
envelope: “Replied 4th April”. That was a week ago! I opened it up,
and after reading the first few lines had to sit down. The letter
was from Head Office, and from none other than Ted Shields himself.
He wanted to see me. Why had Babs kept this from me? I liked Ted. He
had given me the job without question when my father asked, and the
few times I had seen him he had always made time to have a word with
me. He was a nice guy. I rang him.
 I
had to suffer the line being diverted a couple of times, but finally
spoke to him – and later that afternoon I removed all my personal
belongings from the house in Knighton Park Road, bundled them into a
taxi, and headed for a certain Guest House just outside Croydon.
The car pulled up on the gravel drive to this very large Victorian
house that stood back from the main road. As I fumbled to find some
money to pay the driver, he put up his hand declining it before
quickly driving off. I looked after him in amazement as I sauntered
towards the front door. Inside, with no double glazing in those
days, I could quite plainly hear a lot of noise, as if there was a
bit of a party going on. At least two people seemed to be jokingly
arguing in the passageway over who should open the door to me.
The teapot that finally opened it looked me up and down, comically
pursed his lips several times, and then spluttered, “Ooh! Well, I
say! Mmm . . . Oo-er. Well, yes. I s’pose you’d better come in then.
Hmm . . . This way. Ooh, I say, who’s your tailor, duckie? Can’t be
one of us!”
Gobsmacked at who it was, I followed his limp wrist into the lounge
where I straightaway recognised Ted sitting in the corner, with a
grin from ear to ear. Sprawled across his lap was quite a
good-looking guy, perhaps a bit younger than me. Then my eyes fell
on all the other faces in the crowded room. They waved and greeted
me, and I recognised several of them. This was undoubtedly a
gathering of the greatest, and many of them had young lads in
attendance.
I had not witnessed such freedom to be oneself since the Winchester
basement parties, and for those, as great as they were, who I now
realised must be homosexual too. Pushed into a chair and fussed over
for what was my poison, I was dumbfounded, absolutely speechless,
and my mouth must have been wide open, because everybody’s favourite
schoolmaster stood up, unzipped himself, and threatened to fill it!
This, it turned out, was Ted’s way of thanking me for all I had done
at the cinema - and I very nearly missed it! With the demise
of so many theatres at that time, and with them all the actors’
boarding houses, many of the famous names of a like clan that had
played them, along with some of the theatre owners, were having a
nostalgic party at this well known accommodation which had so many
special fond memories for them. But how Ted knew I was “one of them”
and would appreciate all this, I could not work out – and he refused
to tell me! But then Ted seemed to know everything. He’d certainly
opened my eyes in that phone call – stupid young fool that I was!
The drink flowed, the laughter roared, the stories rolled on and on
into the night, and the young guys in attendance were most obliging.
It had been years since I enjoyed proper sex; proper sex for me,
anyway. That night I made up for everything. Mainly going for the
young lads, but often finding myself in a threesome or a moresome
with some of the much loved people there, I had the most wonderful
time.
Next morning there were no big farewells. Few took breakfast. Cars
just arrived and people left with little more than a quick wave of
the hand. I think many were suffering from the abundance of drink.
Thelma, the lady who ran the place, handed me a large envelope.
Inside was a gold watch, and I believe I know who left it for me – a
lovely teapot. I still have it today, but I don’t wear it. For
reasons, I wear another one.
I had to wait around for some considerable time, whilst Ted held
long conversations with other theatre owners, before we left in his
chauffer driven white Jaguar. It had been a hectic night, so not
unexpectedly within minutes of departing my head kept lolling onto
Ted’s shoulder as I was falling asleep. He dropped the blinds, and
then cuddled me in his arms, pulling me in tight to him. I felt
warm, safe, and strangely at home there.
 What
about Barbara call-me-Babs Bloomfield, and the Century cinema? She,
as it turned out, hardly even missed me. Because I didn’t have that
“proper” love for her, there was none of the inbuilt jealously that
though often denied always comes with it. I could not have, and did
not, notice all the advances she made on others. She had been
putting it around with a lot of guys, including one up the West End
where there had been many shopping expeditions, but more closer to
home her talons had been in Terry, the Third. Little wonder he
missed those cue dots! No, I didn’t hate him. Why should I? But I
did miss his buns!
The cinema had enough staff to cope, and my job there was done. Ted
promised to pay for any blood test needed if Babs tried to hit me
with a paternity order, and pay her off if it was mine, but it
didn’t come to that. She had an abortion, and apparently not the
first.
Ted was a great guy, and he sure knew how to run things. Nothing
escaped him. Old Bill, the doorman who looked as old as the cinema,
continued to feed him all the latest news until his death several
years later. He had a remarkable funeral - Ted saw to that, even
closing the cinema for an afternoon.
I loved having a sugar daddy, but I was not to stay with him for
long. More on that next time, when I tell you how I go overboard for
someone and land up all at sea!
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Chapter 7
Ships That Pass In The Night?
I spent two very happy
years with Ted, and that was a lot longer than either of us
expected for such a relationship. There was a lot of love
between us, but we weren’t in love. We both knew that. The very
first day, after that party in Croydon, the rules were hammered
out. Whilst we were together I could have anything I wanted,
within reason of course. I couldn’t order a Rolls Royce – well,
not without first asking! But I was not trapped in our
relationship, I could call it off whenever I wanted - and
likewise so could he.
 He
warned me that, on average, these arrangements he had with his
young companions only lasted about six months. Around that time
either his eyes or mine would be likely to find someone else to
pursue. He was such a lovely man, so kind and thoughtful, I hold
a guilt that in the end, after lasting four times the average,
it was my eyes that found someone else. Perhaps we did have more
than we both realised.
Ted was an extremely wealthy man. His assets were a great deal
more than the few theatres, nightclubs and cinemas he enjoyed
“playing” with – and that is probably just as well, for there
must have been many “gold-diggers” in his life. I was not one of
them. Perhaps that is why it lasted so long. Everything I had
from him was pretty much forced on me – like when I passed my
driving test, immediately afterwards he took me to a showroom
and made me pick out a brand new car. He simply would not take
no for an answer, we were embarrassing ourselves on the
forecourt, so in the end I chose a middle-of-the-range Ford
Zephyr.
I was only twenty when the relationship started, and he
forty-six, so I had to get used to being called all kinds of
things. Depending on the company we were in, I could be his
other half, young companion, nephew, son, or simply a good
friend. We went to an endless stream of parties, and had four
wonderful holidays together. But it wasn’t all joy-riding.
When we were still together after six months I spent weeks with
all the different people and departments at the company’s head
office in Baker Street to learn how everything operated, and
afterwards I was given all kinds of assignments, mostly to do
with the cinemas, with a lot of them quite meaningless but where
it is good practice for it to be known someone from Head Office
might be coming. I made several such visits to my old cinema in
Sydenham, and thoroughly enjoyed every moment of them. But that
was only one of seventeen I would have to visit from time to
time.
It was a visit to the one in Southampton, one I had never had to
go to before, that was responsible for the next big change in my
life. Passing Winchester en route, how could I not stop off to
say hello to Tommy, and hopefully meet up again with my Tony?
Sam and Beryl were delighted to see me, and pleased I was doing
so well (big flash company car, not my Zephyr parked out
front!), but Tommy was no longer there. Whilst at university in
Manchester he had met someone in a club, a hotel owner, and
they’d hit it off big-style. He was now up in Blackpool with
him, helping to run the hotel.
The news was a big disappointment for me. I really wanted to see
him again, even hoping we might have had a romp. Opening my
briefcase, I quickly scribbled out a cheque, sealed it in an
envelope, and asked Beryl if she would forward it on. I told her
how he had pushed money into my pocket when I left, and how it
was the twenty pounds I owed him, with a little interest. It was
not, it was a lot more, but still nothing compared to what I
owed the guy for the way he looked after me so well.
Waving them goodbye, I cruised around to the next street and
stopped outside Tony’s house. Somehow I knew, before I rang the
bell, I was not going to see him. A young guy, topless, wet hair
with a towel draped around his shoulders, and a packet
threatening to burst out of his ice-blue jeans, answered the
door. One might say: a gorgeous bit of rough. He was obviously
amused at the way my eyes would not stop dropping to have
another look at his bulge, but he could not help me with Tony.
His family had moved in a year ago, it was empty then, so they
never met the previous owners or had any idea where they might
be.
 The
disappointment must have been obvious, as my heart sank. I stood
there wondering what to do. I knew I should just thank the guy
and leave, but I was slow in doing it. He dropped his head
lower, so he could see into my eyes, and asked if Tony was
someone special to me. I was so down that I didn’t care, and I
said, “Only the love of my life.”
“Well, I could be that too,” he said. “Do you wanna coffee?”
The coffee was delicious, and so too was he. With no one else
home we were able to have a great time on his bed for about an
hour before I told him I needed to go, I still had a cinema to
visit. We showered together and had another coffee, and then I
asked him if he would like to come with me. I could drop him off
on the way back. He agreed, so long as we were not going to do
anything that cost money. He was out of work and didn’t have
any. That honesty was, I think, the trigger that immediately
made him special to me. With my suit, and the company car he
must have seen, a lesser person would have come regardless.
To not look out of place beside me he put on his suit, one that
was obviously kept only for weddings and funerals because
although it fitted well, and he looked great in it, I could see
he wasn’t comfortable – casual was his style. We left, and the
conversation just flowed. I was enjoying every minute of the
guy. He got a little upset when we stopped off at Chandler’s
Ford for a bite to eat, even wanting to wait for me outside, but
I talked him round in the end, and judging by how quickly he put
the mixed grill down his throat, I think he must have been
starving.
The visit to the cinema was all over within half-an-hour; rushed
through. He wanted to stay outside, but I steered him around the
place, and just let it drop to the manager that he was my
brother I didn’t see very often. It was only then I realised I
had spent half of the afternoon and the early part of the
evening with him, a guy I thought was absolutely wonderful, and
yet I didn’t even know his name. One should always know the name
of a guy that you have sex with – you need to be in with some
chance of screaming out the right one!
Leaving the cinema and finally swapping names – he was Steven –
I asked him what he would like to do. He said he wanted to see
the ships. I thought: “What, at your age?”, but didn’t say it,
and we drove up and down the docks. There wasn’t a lot in, but
he knew the names of some of those that were, and stared
longingly at them.
Later we stopped off in a lay-by on the Winchester bypass and
walked slowly through the trees along the river bank, neither of
us wanting our time together to end. It was only the first day,
first date if you like, and already we were serious about each
other. But there was an obvious rich boy – poor boy conflict.
 We
swapped our histories. His had not been good, but I was able to
show him my rich boy image was only recent luck, and it might
end at anytime. Take that away, and we weren’t too dissimilar.
If he loved me as much as I already knew I loved him, I would go
back and end it with Ted. We would both be poor then, but
we could at least be together. I had my own car and a few things
I could sell if need be, and I did have some money in the bank
anyway, so we could easily rent a flat anywhere he wanted.
Southampton, so he could see the liners more often?
At that he simply bawled. Sobbed his heart out, hugging and
squeezing me until I could hardly breath. He wanted that more
than anything in the world, but it couldn’t be. After them
spending so much money they didn’t really have on him, just so
he could join the Merchant Navy, he couldn’t let his parents
down now. His first voyage was already arranged by the naval
school. He left on the SS Oriana in six weeks time – a round the
world trip to Australia.
For the second time that day my heart plummeted.
More next time when I
reveal just how stupid I can be, but how it sometimes pays off.
|
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Chapter 8
A Love Exposed - Twice!
 There
was just no way I was going to be able to hide meeting Steven
that day, or how much I thought of him. It was love at first
sight, and guilt was written all over my face. Besides, Ted had
this habit of knowing everything. I was sure he would never spy
on me, but the chances were someone would mention I wasn’t alone
at the cinema. Like Old Bill in Sydenham, he had people keeping
him up to date everywhere. An innocent mention of my “brother”
would reveal all – he knew I didn’t have one. Anyway, I was also
extremely late arriving home. It was after midnight.
Eyes met as I went into the dimly lit lounge to find him in his
dressing gown, lying along the settee, relaxing to some
classical music I was usually happy to suffer for him. I looked
at him, such a lovely kind man, one who had given me everything,
and my bottom lip went, closely followed by my eyes welling up.
Ted turned the music down, and with outstretched arms invited me
to sit on his lap. I went over to him, and sobbed on his
shoulder, “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry.”
He told me it was always likely to happen one day. I had lasted
longer than all the others, and asked for so little, he had
hoped this time it might not, but he was not surprised. I didn’t
have to give him the details if I preferred not to – I only had
let him know when I was going, and what I wanted to take. I
thought he deserved to know, I owed him that, so I sat next to
him, close up, and we both cried our way through my story.
 Ted
could always pull a rabbit out of a hat, you could rely on him,
and this was no exception. When he learned there were only six
weeks before Steven sailed away on that many months voyage, he
suggested I should leave first thing in the morning and spend
that time with him. He would book me into the Norfolk Hotel – he
knew a reputable hotel for everywhere! - and if during that time
I got Steven out of my system I was welcome to come back and
nothing more of it would ever be mentioned again. If I didn’t,
then we would cross that bridge in six weeks time.
There could never be another Ted. Even hurt, he was still kind
and understanding. I loved him so much, and I wished the type of
love could have been the same as I had for Steven, for then none
of this would have happened. But it was not.
He wasn’t there in the morning. There was just a note on the
hall table: ‘Hotel booked - Good Luck, Floppit! xxx’. It was his
nickname for me, that and: Flower.
I stood looking at it for a long time. Was I doing the right
thing? Many would give their right arm to have the life I’d
enjoyed for the past two years: brand new top of the range
company cars at my disposal; an executive status; every latest
gadget imaginable; the best seats at any show or restaurant I
desired; fantastic holidays; two luxury homes with Ted, and my
own unused flat rented nearby simply for my parent’s benefit.
Only a madman would give all this up. And then I pictured
Steven’s beautiful eyes looking into mine, put the note in my
pocket, and rushed out of the door like a madman.
Steven answered the doorbell, and I could see from the redness
he had been crying. He stood looking at me for a split second,
in some kind of disbelief, and then relief as his face lit up
and he grabbed hold of me, dragging me inside. Falling back
against the slamming door, we started to devour each other. At
every break from the lips-locked passion in order to gasp for a
breath, he would moan: “I love you, I love you, I love you,” and
then pull me in again.
I can remember thinking: now I know I’ve made the right
decision, and eagerly responded. Hugging him, kissing him like
there was no tomorrow, and pushing my hand down inside his jeans
to hold him, I was on cloud nine and never wanted it to stop. He
in turn unzipped me, without breaking away from the kissing,
pulled me out and began playing with me. I was getting
desperate; we would needed to do it soon unless he wanted his
hallway decorated. However I hadn’t bargained for what happened
next.
“Steven,” the voice said. “You haven’t introduced me to your
friend. Is this the chap you’ve been crying over ever since you
came home yesterday?”
I pulled away in a panic and stuffed that which protested, and
wouldn’t easily go back, inside my jeans, rapidly zipping them
up. Turning, I saw this woman at the end of the hallway,
obviously his mother. I know I went bright red with guilt. What
we were doing was illegal, and I was doing it right under her
nose with her son! I might I have been over twenty-one, but
weren’t in private, and anyway he was only eighteen. I guessed I
was for it.
“Yes, mum,” Steven answered, excitedly. “See, I told you I would
see him again. I told you, I told you, I told you! I knew he
would come back! You said I would never see him again, but I
knew he’d come back.” Then grabbing hold of my hand, he told me
there was nothing for me to worry about, his mother knew all
about us.
At that particular moment I wasn’t overly reassured, but
thankfully it turned out he was right. His mother was a lovely
woman, and one, as I learned over the quick lunch she prepared
for us, who had been up half the night with her son in a heart
to heart as he had confessed all: he didn’t like girls, he was
in love with a guy, and now he’d found him he didn’t want to go
to sea. He only wanted to go in the first place because that’s
where people like him often went, everybody knew that.
He had apparently told her everything that night, and I even
wondered at one point if he’d given her a blow by blow account
of what we got up to on his bed! She seemed impressed that I’d
left so much behind me just to be with her son, quite expecting
I was just someone having my wicked way with him, never to be
heard of again.
Not even asking if I’d booked accommodation anywhere, she said
she was going to make up the spare room for me. It was next to
Steven’s room she revealed with a knowing look. I hadn’t the
heart to tell her I was booked into (knowing Ted) probably the
best hotel suite in Winchester, and anyway I wasn’t going to
miss the chance of being near Steven. What the heck if I didn’t
stay at the hotel? It was only money. And as I thought it, I
knew I wouldn’t be able to say that for much longer!
All this happiness, however, was tarnished by knowing the clock
was still ticking, and that voyage started in less than six
weeks time. It mattered not to his mother if Steven decided
against going, but his estranged father, now living with another
woman, was plagued to come up with the money for the naval
training course he’d undergone, working many extra hours to find
it. He would be very unhappy - and it seemed it was never a good
idea to make the man unhappy. However we tried to put such
things out of our mind for now, and relish the present.
 As
soon as his mother left for work, we jumped into bed to enjoy
some marvellous sex, and to make plans for the time we had left
together. We decided on taking a touring holiday, and that
evening drove around many car sales forecourts in search of a
caravanette for sale. There was one in Eastleigh we both liked,
a secondhand Thames, and the place was still open.
Within minutes Steven was all over it, and under it – even
expertly driving it up and down the forecourt. I didn’t even
consider he might drive. Bringing it back to where I was trying
to do a deal with the salesman, thinking of a straight swap with
the Zephyr, he reeled off a load of things that needed doing to
it, and said if they were done and the guy took the Zephyr for
it, giving us two hundred pounds into the bargain, it would be
about right. I looked on in amazement.
We called back for it two days later having settled for all the
work being done, one-hundred-and-fifty pounds back, and a
respray thrown in. That was only the first time Steven amazed
me. There were to be many more times.
The next day was spent stocking up the caravanette, buying some
utensils for it, and generally making sure our little love nest
on wheels was ready for an early start the following morning.
Next time I will tell you how two love-struck poofs shocked the
camper world as they went on a round trip to Land’s End,
stopping off everywhere, in a barrel load of laughs.
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Chapter 9
Carry On Camp Camping!
 We
decided the first stop should be the New Forest. Travelling via
Romsey, so we would miss Southampton and thoughts of all that
held for us in the future, we beetled around like mad things,
exploring all the little towns and villages, and generally
having a whale of a time. We were only self-sufficient up to a
point: washing was possible, and cooking of course, so we could
have pulled up in any lay-by and happily survived, but a few
home comforts like a shower and a loo were preferable, so around
teatime we set off to find a campsite for the night. We found
one a mile or so outside Brockenhurst, and it was open. Whoopee!
There were quite a few tents, campers and caravans there, so we
passed all of them until we found an isolated spot near a clump
of bushes where we could enjoy some privacy. After a bit of a
session to christen the vehicle we decided to take a short nap,
but it was eight-thirty before we awoke, and the sun was already
behind the trees. As we intended walking into the village that
evening for a
 couple
of drinks, we thought a quick bacon sarnie before we left would
help to line our stomachs. But first, with neither of us
wanting to walk all the way down to the loos just for a pee, we
needed to water the bushes. I don’t know why, but the exercise
turned into a contest to see who could get it over the bush.
Steven could.
“Oy!” a voice shouted out, as two blokes in army uniform
suddenly jumped up to look over the bush, with the one sporting
a dewdrop looking extremely unhappy. About a dozen more
uniformed guys then appeared from behind various trees, bushes
and hollows in the ground, all of them helpless in fits of
laughter. It turned out the soldiers regularly spied on the
campsite as a part of their training.
After some profuse apologies, we legged it back to the
caravanette where inside we rolled around holding each other in
hysterics. A scrumptious bacon sandwich later, and with the
soldiers gone (we hoped), we set off cross-country, through the
trees, to find the river that followed would take us to very
near the village.
Fighting our way
through the branches that crossed the barely visible meandering
path as it descended in the closing darkness, and frequently
startled by strange noises or something flying up screeching
just ahead of us, my mind rushed back to all those Tarzan movies
of my childhood. Together it was great fun, but I would not like
to do it on my own! I think it was probably on this walk that I
first appreciated: there really is nothing to equal following
someone along a track if they have nice buns. I just thought I’d
throw that in!
We found the nearest pub, the one by the shop on the triangle,
and it was quite full of tourists. Too cool to sit outside for
long, we were forced to suffer the only vacant table which,
unfortunately, was near to a gaggle of young ladies that
resembled overgrown girl guides, one of them complete with the
stereotypical National Health spectacles and buck teeth. They
kept looking over, giggling, and then whispering to each other.
We were obviously the subject of their humour.
After a while of suffering it, Steven nudged me and, standing up
to frantically search his pockets as he looked all around the
floor paying particular attention to under the girls' table, he
said just loud enough for them to hear: "Shit! He's escaped. I
hope he don't run up someone's leg." He then sat back down to
continue searching, with his eyes darting everywhere.
Taking the cue, I
managed to keep a straight face long enough to say: "He'll be
okay, he's got eight legs. You couldn't keep him anyway,
 that
would be cruel."
Autosuggestion took it
from there. After a couple of squeals, as the annoyances each in
turn became fully convinced something had touched their legs,
the group quickly drank up and left to our chorus of: "Bye!"
There is no denying it, we had a skinful that night. How we ever
made it back along that treacherous path without falling into
the river, I shall never know. After a quick pee up that bush,
this time without any objectors, we scrambled into our little
love nest, threw off all our clothes, and hugged each other to
sleep.
It was nine o'clock
when I awoke. Steven was lying naked next to me, still fast
asleep and magnificently morning proud. I can remember thinking:
we really should have closed those curtains before we turned in
last night! Fortunately the windows were steamed up, so I don't
think anyone sold tickets. Nine o'clock was obviously late for
arising at such a place, for there was a lot of activity to be
heard outside. Pulling on my skiddies and covering Steven, I
slid all the windows open to find the blast of cold air
mouth-wateringly laced with the aromas of many egg and bacon
breakfasts. It was time to get up.
 It
was also time to learn not all campsites come with hot showers.
The wooden hut contained only the barest necessities so after
shaving and washing all our important little places in the
caravanette, to the amusement of many we washed our body tops
under the communal outside freezing cold water tap. Then watched
over by a whole family of New Forest ponies, we enjoyed the most
marvellous fried breakfast before setting off to Bournemouth.
Having found a street
where we could park, we spent the rest of the day exploring the
town, found the gardens that led to the front and did the pier
and the beach. On our way back we discovered a well-patronised
cottage where, after the pees we were both bursting for, Steven
started swinging his semi-and-rising pride and joy about wildly
- so all those with eyes straining sideways in an attempt to
look out of their ears could see exactly what they were missing.
Tart! Exploding into laughter, we legged it.
From stories I'd heard
Ted tell, I knew there was a "men's" club somewhere in the town,
so we went in search of it. Finding it, and from the outside it
looked okay, we decided to return later after moving the
caravanette somewhere more suitable for the night. Sandbanks car
park, under some beach huts, was the nearest place we could
find. It was a hellish long walk back, but we had nothing else
to do.
Suffering some strange
looks - I think the place existed mainly on regulars so they
were a bit wary of us - we were allowed in and spent a couple of
very happy hours there. I never doubted how well Steven would
dance, he was sex on legs, and his Concrete and Clay was a sight
to behold. Everybody stopped to watch. Pre-disco, dancing then
was very much a matter of doing your own thing, mainly based
around the twist movements but often with a bit of rock and roll
thrown in with a few other styles. Amazingly the sixties saw
over 500 dances introduced so you could get away with just about
anything. I think Steven covered all those to date that night.
Refreshingly cool when
we left, we dismissed any idea of taking a taxi and danced most
of the way back to Sandbanks, ignoring the occasional sounds of
horns and jeers from passing cars. It was brave for those days,
two guys dancing down the street, but we were far too inebriated
to care. With the music still buzzing in our heads, we scrambled
into our camper and had a lot of great sex that night. But next
morning . . .
The mother and father
of all hangovers clung to us. Hours it took, drinking coffee
after coffee whilst sitting on the vehicle's back doorstep,
nursing our splitting heads, before any resemblance to being
human appeared in either of us. Going for a walk along the
all but deserted beach to clear our heads, we noticed a couple
of young guys taking photos - of us! They looked vaguely
familiar, and then I recalled they too were at the club. Waving
at us, they walked over.
 Tim
and Jerry, they introduced themselves. Tom and Jerry, my mind
laughed. They too had a good time last night, but probably not
as good as us, they joked. It seems on returning we hadn't
noticed their car and tent-trailer parked next to us. Having
taken a taxi back, and being one of those shouting out of the
car window to us as they passed by, they were already trying to
get some sleep by the time we returned. After suffering fifteen
minutes of our noisily explicit lovemaking keeping them
awake, where they reckoned the vehicle rocked around madly, they
gave up and drove over to the other side of the car park. Oh, My
God!
They were great guys,
a close couple we learned, but not an item. Sisters, they said.
We spent the rest of the day with them, and later on our travels
our paths crossed again, which explains the photo they took
being here of Steven doing a handstand in a litter bin on
Sandbanks beach that morning. Crazy? No, just a great guy in
love.
We stopped off and
explored numerous places, too numerous to mention them all, as
we made our way towards Land's End, Staying overnight in
many good campsites - and a few bad ones - we were just out for
laughs. The area round Lyme Regis was fun. We discovered gold,
only to later learn it was dinosaur shit. Nearby we got lost on
a walk, couldn't find our way back and were chased by a wild
boar. Much further along the coast, in a beautiful little cove,
I shall never forget the oral we had on a rock as the waves
washed all around us. Sensual, it was. But by the time we had
finished it required some cold, wet feet to reach the beach. I
don't remember the name of this place, but the locals were a
little weird, they stopped talking when we entered the pub for a
beer - so we camped it up for them. Barred! Barred, we were -
they didn't have people like us there!
Many of the roads in
Cornwall were obviously only made for the local pixies at that
time, as to meet anything larger than a car meant one of you
backing up to the nearest passing point or gateway to a field.
To get over this, if that place was a long way behind us, and
the other driver didn't start backing up, Steven would jump out
and explain our gearbox was playing up, we had no reverse. It
worked for all but one guy who, not believing the story, decided
to sit it out. We'd made ourselves a sausage sandwich by the
time the, probably once a day, local bus came up behind us and
he had no option then but to reverse. He shouted a lot of abuse
at us through his open window as we passed him, so it was
annoying that night to find the bloke serving behind the bar of
the pub we had chosen. Fortunately there was another pub.
 I
think Land's End would have been a bit of a disappointment for
us, an anti-climax, had we not met up again with Tim and Jerry.
That night they joined us in the camper, parked off the road on
a grassy slope to some wilderness, and we downed a lot of drink,
told each other a lot of stories, and had a lot of laughs right
into the early hours, when we just fell asleep where we were.
They gave us several photos they had taken of us in Sandbanks,
before they left after breakfast the next morning. We never saw
them again.
Making our way back
along the north coast of Cornwall and Devon, although it was all
new to us, I don't think either of us had as much fun as on the
outward journey. Not spoken about, but always in the back of our
minds, was the knowing we were heading home and to the
inevitable: the day that Steven would have to leave. We did
Cheddar and Wookey Hole, spending a few days in the area, loved
them both and vowed to return one day, and then headed for
Winchester, arriving back there just three days before I would
have to drive the greatest guy in the world to Southampton and
wave him goodbye.
More next time when I
tell you how it went on seeing Ted again, and how stupid I can
be.
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