Dancing

Bare

(A memoir)

by

Rigby Taylor

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Rigby Taylor

An autobiography is a selective rearrangement of reality. It has to be, because to write everything that happened would be impossible, and lives tend to be messy rather than organised. In Dancing Bare I’ve selected events from my first quarter of a century on this planet that illustrate points I wish to make about people, places and society. To make a more coherent, entertaining and interesting narrative I sometimes slightly adjusted the order in which things happened. Some names have been changed.

The 1960s were exciting years in which to be young and healthy, and with the benefit of hindsight I consider myself extremely lucky to have been born when and where I was.

Also by Rigby Taylor

Rough Justice

Dome of Death

Sebastian

Jarek

Mortaumal

Fidel

NumbaCruncha

Frankie Fey

Time to Think

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Cover: the Author dancing at Cap d’Antibes, 1962

Contents

Chapter 1 In the Beginning

Chapter 2 When the Pupil is Ready the Teacher Will Appear

Chapter 3 Escape

Chapter 4 Shelter, Fashion, Food

Chapter 5 Ignorance is Bliss

Chapter 6 Jewels

Chapter 7 Performance

Chapter 8 Farce

Chapter 9 Work and Play

Chapter 10 Dance and Sex and…….

Chapter 11 Interviews and Work

Chapter 12 Saturday to Tuesday

Chapter 13 Tuesday to Friday Night

Chapter 14 Assistant Stage Manager

Chapter 15 Cruising

Chapter 16 Riviera

Chapter 17 playing in the Parks

Chapter 18 On Tour

Chapter 19 Touring On

Chapter 20 A Winter Tale

Chapter 21 Orgy

Chapter 22 Time Out

Chapter 23 Friendship

Chapter 24 Rootless

Chapter 25 Muddling On

Chapter 26 The Grand Tour

Chapter 27 Even Grander Touring

Chapter 28 Edinburgh

Chapter 29 Of Lust and Learning

Chapter 30 Shop Assistant and Teacher

Chapter 31 Eureka

Chapter 32 Flawed Companions

Chapter 33 An Offer of Employment

Chapter 34 Up the Nile

Chapter 35 Middle East

Chapter 36 Paris and…..…

Chapter 37 Epilogue

Author’s Note

The Laws of God the Laws of Man

The laws of god, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can.
Not I: let god and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs
Their deeds I judge and much condemn
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbour to their will
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire
And how am I to face the odds
Of man's bedevilment and god's?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong
Though both are foolish,
both are strong
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must if keep we can
These foreign laws of god and man

A E Houseman.

Chapter 1: In the Beginning

When I was a lad, public buildings boasted portraits of King George VI anxiously observing secular socialism displace the colonial cringe that had for so long stifled New Zealand’s social discourse. Ladies still ‘dressed’ for afternoon tea, but royal tittle-tattle, recipes, and fashion now had to compete with politics, social welfare, child psychology, fresh air, calisthenics, naturism, and cold showers.

Mother bravely resisted indulging in the last three, but considered them essential elements in the upbringing of her only son, who had begun life looking like a refugee from Belsen.

After school one warm afternoon an odd impulse sent me straight from cold shower to sitting room, where the malignant glass-eyed scrutiny of a dozen dead foxes decorating the padded shoulders of twelve severely corseted dames; their own eyes concealed behind spotted veils adorning absurd little hats, stopped me in my tracks. Ample bosoms heaved and dainty teacups froze ’twixt lap and lip. In that instant, I knew the brothers Grimm had told it true – people could be turned to stone!

Quelling the urge to scarper, I assumed an air of artless innocence and clambered onto the copious lap of the most formidable presence in the room; my godmother. Buoyed on a cloud of powder and lavender-water I kissed her cheek, snagging the veil in my teeth. She disentangled us, held me at arm’s length and boomed, “Never kiss someone when your hair is wet, child!” before dumping me unceremoniously on the carpet and plonking a dry kiss on my forehead; a stamp of approval that allowed me to ignore Mother’s nervous flick of the head towards the door and assume my usual duties – handing round plates of club sandwiches and petit fours.

Later, with calculated cuteness, I fetched the coats of departing matrons and held open the front door; stoically enduring pats on my ‘adorable brown botty’ while Mother was congratulated on producing such a darling little man.

Mother’s irritation at losing her independence by not becoming a war widow, was manifested in a distinct cooling towards her recently returned husband, an embarrassing transfer of her affections to me, and an assumption that her spouse’s duties and obligations began and ended with the provision of food and shelter.

She was a good, caring, and supportive mother and I thought I loved her, but I suspect it was more fear of losing her support than love. In retrospect, it was unforgivable that through constant complaining and manipulation she should drive a wedge between father and son that lasted forty years.

Flag-waving homecoming parades had done little to raise the spirits of battle-scarred soldiers, for whom home was not quite the paradise they’d held in their hearts through years of filthy war. Experience of foreign lands, exotic customs, and people with entirely different expectations of life, made them aware of the shroud of bigoted conformity that had stifled New Zealand since guns, disease, and religion delivered British ‘Justice’ and near extinction to the Maoris.

Battalion reunions degenerated into drink-fests; for to recall the truth of war was to relive the nightmare and fuel a newfound fear of others. And always the nagging question: Why? What was it all for? Cancerous guilt for surviving when mates and brothers had died, poisoned joy, shattered families and bred a generation of morose alcoholics and distant fathers in whom depression, irritability, and an overwhelming sense of anticlimax stifled the words, thoughts and actions of love and tenderness.

My Father’s experiences were not unique. After recovering from the wounds and horrors of being strafed and bombed at Monte Casino, he only just avoided cremation in a tank that hit a land mine and exploded seconds after he crawled clear. Everyone else was incinerated. But the only thing he would ever talk about was the pain of having his haemorrhoids removed without anaesthetic. He said it felt as if the doctor was shoving broken glass up his backside and he bit through four thicknesses of blankets to stop himself screaming.

I was still being suckled when my father went off to fight for England, so he was a frightening stranger when he returned nearly six years later, and my reaction, together with my mother’s reluctance to share me, probably dissuaded him from forming a bond. By taking no apparent interest in my schooling, interests, plans, and spare time activities, Dad was the perfect counter for Mother’s uncritical assumption that I was God’s gift to humanity. I admired his physical strength, slim fitness, and practicality, and was proud that he was honest, hard-working, well liked, uncomplicated, and reliable.

But I feared his quick temper. He showed no interest in females, sport (except for lawn bowls), cultural activities, religion or politics, and never either encouraged or discouraged me in any activities. I was perfectly free to be me; whoever that might be. What more could any son ask?

The only criticism I received from him in twelve years under the same roof, was being clipped over the ears for shoddy table manners, and the occasional irritated sneer of “Professor!” when I was being insufferably knowledgeable. They were important lessons, because awareness of one’s effect on others and knowing how to behave are the essential skills of social acceptability. Thanks to those simple lessons, together with the self-confidence engendered by Mother’s doting, I have never felt either inferior or inadequate.

More or less forbidden to share in my upbringing, Dad ignored me when Mother was around. Away from home and alone together, we behaved like casual acquaintances – friendly but not curious. He was not protective and never tried to teach me anything; expecting me to learn by watching and emulating. That suited me perfectly. By the age of ten, when it was his weekend on duty, I was delegated to look after Saturday morning petrol sales and spare parts at his service station while he fixed tires and did mechanical repairs in the workshop. I made no mistakes and was never paid.

If I did my jobs around the house without complaining, on Fridays I received a tiny allowance, enough to go to the flicks (cinema) and buy a small ice-cream. In my spare time, I was free to do whatever I liked – and suffer the consequences.

Our seaside town was invaded every summer by 20,000 city-dwellers seldom wearing more than shorts or swimming togs, which in those days were very brief. My string bikini raised no eyebrows on the street, at school, or at the ‘flicks’.

Informality was the rule and men were expected to wear as little as possible, show they had something between their legs, and look sexy. Girls were expected to be modestly sexy in clothing and deportment. The opposite of today. Why and how the roles have reversed is a mystery, but I suspect it’s the influence of right-wing religious U.S.A.

During the holidays, I had to work and save money to pay for whatever ‘luxury’ I wanted in the following year. Dad’s contribution to my well being ended with food and lodging. Mother didn't work so had no money. Although I hated toiling in a fast-food kitchen, a grocery store, sweeping up hair, and selling cigarettes and condoms in a barber shop… it never seemed unreasonable that I should work for my keep. Every spare minute, though, I spent on the beach.

Making friends was never a problem, but as boyhood became adolescence an underlying tension for which I had no explanation began to surface. I didn't want to go looking for sheilas and sit in the back row at the flicks feeling them up. And I only wanted to be part of the group if they were doing what I wanted.

Other guys seemed prepared to subject their wills to the group, and that scared me into avoiding team sports. If I was to fail or succeed it would be because of my own merits – or lack of them. This stubborn need to feel totally independent means I've never owed anyone anything.

Neighbours and nearby retired couples let me use their libraries and listen to their classical records in return for the occasional odd job. Paper-round clients left me Christmas tips. I was popular as a baby-sitter, and after getting my driver’s licence on my fifteenth birthday, several people lent me their cars if I needed one, knowing I was prepared to drive them anywhere, anytime I was free. I also became the doctor’s wife’s part-time chauffeur when she was heavily pregnant with her third child in four years.

1956 began as inauspiciously as the previous fifteen years. The Olympics across the Tasman in Melbourne impinged not at all until my Art teacher, a neurotic, scrawny chain-smoker, asked for volunteers to assist him to make life-sized paintings of Greek athletes to decorate the hall for the school ball. No one took up the offer, partly from laziness but mostly from fear of proximity to ‘the breath of death’. It’s thanks to his rotting lungs that I became a non-smoker. Eventually, a combination of pity and secret lust for the life-sized, fig-leafed, reproduction of Myron’s Discobolus in the school entrance hall, led me to offer assistance.

We worked in the dressing rooms at the back of the stage and the results were abysmal. Sir could not keep the proportions when enlarging. A night of feverish fantasy prompted my offering to pose before a projector while he traced my silhouette. A night of feverish despair, prompted Sir to accept.

“Don’t you wear underpants?” he snapped, hurrying to bar the doors. He was impressed with my physique, however, and the modestly clad results were satisfactory. On completion, I asked if he would employ me as a ‘poser’ for his night classes. “Life model,” he corrected primly, adding, “You are too young.” I argued. He resisted. I agreed to remain mute about my contribution to the paintings on condition he gave me a trial. He conceded defeat, although after teaching me for three years, he should have realised the threat was hollow; I would never betray secrets. But teachers then, as now, seldom took a personal interest in their pupils.

Parents were no problem; Dad wasn’t interested and Mother thought that as the sun shone out of my backside, everyone should have the opportunity to admire it. I presented myself at Sir’s studio an hour early for a rehearsal. He explained the sequences – ten one-minute poses, five five-minute poses, one Twenty-minute pose, supper, then the same again.

My suppleness wasn’t in question, nor my ability to maintain a pose without drooping – the only question hung over my errant member, which wouldn’t droop! Sir threatened to cancel. Desperately, I jerked off, the show went on, and I was too nervous and busy keeping still and not sagging to entertain erotic thoughts. The proceeds from four subsequent appearances paid for a new pair of stovepipe trousers, a white shirt with button down collar, a burnt orange tie, and a fake gold tiepin. Then another art group desired the services of the only young man in the town prepared to bare all for art; adding to my coffers.

Opportunities seized lead to further opportunities, and thus it was that after ‘starring’ in the school play, The Ghost Train, I was approached by the director of the local amateur dramatic society, who was also an incompetent draftsman in one of Sir’s ‘life’ classes, to take the role of Cupid in Cupid’s Dart… a musical comedy.

The curtain rose revealing Cupid posed on a plinth more or less like Mercury/Eros in Piccadilly Circus. I was stuck up there for most of the production, sharing with the audience my despair at the idiocies of mortals, and firing ‘arrows’ into confused young lovers to stimulate desire. Occasionally I'd leap from the plinth and spread confusion before ‘flying’ back up with the assistance of a concealed mini trampoline.

The costume was a brilliant pair of wings, bow, quiver, and arrows, and a wind-tossed swathe of cloth fluttering coyly across my loins. Except it didn't - it hung like a sad rag. Grandmother, who before a successful marriage had been a tailoress and crafter of hats, fired up her steamer and moulded in milliners’ felt an elegant, gilded fig-leaf, held in place with spirit gum. According to the wife of the director, it was my naked bum that put so many clothed bums on auditorium seats. This second theatrical success in one year proved beyond doubt, to me at least, that the stage was my destiny!

Any qualms I might have felt about jettisoning plans to become a public intellectual in favour of public nudist, were quashed when one of the actors in the show, a professional photographer, took several photos of me in and out of my fig leaf and sold them to an overseas magazine; sharing with me the thirty-five pounds they fetched.

When I told Dad about the money, he told me not to waste it, but didn't ask how I'd earned it – just asked why I hadn't mowed the lawns.

Paradoxically, his lack of interest in me caused me to pay a great deal of attention to what he could teach me. It’s thanks to his inventive mechanical skills, practical know-how, and ability to make anything out of whatever was available that’s enriched my life and saved me many thousands of dollars. I admired him while feeling mildly disappointed at his indifference; but I’d have rebelled if he’d attempted to organise my life.

Chapter 2: When the Student is Ready, the Teacher Will Appear

A scrawny, redheaded chap of about thirty had been watching us dive off the jetty after school, clapping and shouting encouragement. An embarrassing creep in dire need of exercise, he followed us into the changing shed, dropped his togs and started towelling himself, rambling on about ‘sand between the toes’. His skinny white legs and flabby belly made me want to puke. Geoff giggled and we all looked away because he was getting a hard-on. Then he stood up on the bench and started rubbing his groin and playing with his cock – red and raw like uncooked meat; asking questions to make us look at him.

We threw on our clothes and took off. A nut case I couldn’t help feeling sorry for. I sort of understood why he was doing it, but not with that body!

If he’d been a tough guy with muscles then at least he'd have been worth looking at. As it was, he was lucky he wasn’t beaten up. A few weeks later, on the beach in front of the Surf Club where I was a pretty useless lifesaver [although I carried the flag at surf carnivals], Leon, who’d just won an award for the fastest time to swim out, ‘rescue’ a drowning man, bring him to shore, and start resuscitation (Holger Nielsen – mouth to mouth not having been invented), put on a similar act, but with such flair he became a legend.

It was a quiet afternoon – no one drowning – and he’d been annoying two other guys by yanking down their Speedos when they stood up. Their girlfriends were laughing and I could see the guys were planning revenge, so I whispered a warning.

He winked, loosened the string in his waistband, then hoisted a girl over his shoulder and strolled toward the water. He hadn’t taken ten paces before one of the guys raced up behind and pulled his togs down to his ankles. Instead of dumping the girl, he simply stepped out of them and, muscles rippling, bronzed buttocks firm and the girl still struggling and shouting, he picked his way between sunbathers, tossed her into a wave and sauntered back to a round of applause, cock swaying proudly. If he hadn’t already been the most popular guy in the club this would have done the trick.

In the fifties, ‘real men’ played rugby, drank beer, and leered at sheilas from the ‘stag line’ at dances. I had an aversion to both alcohol and rugby, danced till I dropped, sang, acted, laughed aloud, painted, walked straight, chatted with girls, read novels, and listened to classical music – a perilous path to negotiate and certainly not deliberately chosen. The sole explanation for my antisocial behaviour, gained through hours of introspection, was that my brain had been programmed in the womb – an inheritance from a maternal uncle who I resembled physically as well as mentally.

Free will? Forget it! Try choosing not to eat, sleep, or breathe. I felt as if I had no choice over whether I wanked, paid my debts, or even which swimming togs I bought. Ok, we can choose to do or not do certain things, but our inbuilt urges can get very strong. It’s easy to choose whether to have honey or jam on toast, or which shirt to wear, but I reckon that poor bloke just couldn’t help flashing to us teenagers. And Leon couldn’t help succumbing to the urge to drop his togs, just as I couldn’t resist doing things that gave me pleasure and hurt no one.

Childhood was safe but uneventful. My parents had little formal education and, being somewhat in awe of their smart-arse son, had the sense to leave me to my own devices while providing necessities but no luxuries. If I wanted more, I had to earn it. Puberty sent powerful sexual urges that had me clambering naked out the window at night, climbing the trees in the back yard like Tarzan; doing pull-ups until I got my rocks off – simply to be able to sleep.

When that no longer did the trick, I'd carefully make my way to the beach about a kilometre away; hugging the shadows of hedges, trees, and walls that bordered the dark sandy roads. There were no street lights.

Aflame with exhilaration, I imagined the headlines: Naked Kid Haunts Streets. After a swim, I’d slink home the same way, impatient for bed and ‘release’ as I relived the thrill. One evening, Dad was standing at our gate, smoking. I hung around in the shadows until I began to freeze. There was nothing for it; I had to go in.

“Been for a swim?” he asked, as if running naked to the beach for a swim at 10 o'clock on a cold evening was perfectly natural.

“Yeah.”

“Bit cold.”

“Yeah.”

“Had you worried, didn’t I?’

“Yeah.”

“In future, wear your togs.”

“Good idea. G’night, Dad.”

Mother’s façade of pleasant tolerance was eggshell-thin and easily cracked. Thick ankles, solid figure, and a tendency to hirsuteness fed bitter disillusion and spite for women who were wealthier and more elegantly appointed. Unsurprisingly, friends were thin on the ground.

Dad’s gentlemanly speech and demeanour, and refusal to criticise anyone or be involved in an argument, ensured he was universally liked. I'd watch him negotiating with clients and reps; disarming, charming, until they offered more than he’d asked for, being sufficiently rewarded by a boyish smile of incredulity and a smiling, “You’re a gentleman!” uttered with such sincerity, he’d made a friend for life. Any success I've had in the manipulation of people, I owe to him.

At the beach, Mother would sit in a long-sleeved sun frock arranged to conceal her upper arms and ankles, gossiping about everyone in range. Dad, broad-shouldered, slim hipped, beautifully muscled, hairless and energetic, would be running around in the same pale grey woollen togs he’d worn at school – a strip of perilously thin fabric held up by a white webbing belt with a slightly rusty buckle.

He was well hung, and to see him jogging back up the beach from a swim was a memorable experience. Unlike other guys’ fathers, who spent the day under umbrellas swilling beer to swell burgeoning bellies while thighs and arms grew thinner, Dad let us climb on his shoulders to dive off, built sand castles, and turned bright red.

In the evenings, I had to smear calamine lotion all over him and later peel off the skin in great sheets. His body refused to tan.

High School was a half-hour ferryboat ride across the harbour and presented no intellectual problems – apart from boredom. It seems odd that teachers couldn’t make learning stimulating, even for the top 15 boys in a large school. The only memorable things were performing in concerts and plays, athletics, and wrestling instruction from a young exchange teacher from Kerala.

Our instructor was lean and tough with a thin moustache and sweat that smelled of herbs. He wanted us to wear a loincloth like his, because that’s what they wore at wrestling schools in India, but the other guys took one look at his brown bum and clung to their Phys Ed. shorts as to a life jacket; covertly sneering at the ‘black curry-muncher’. Then, when they realised they weren’t going to learn how to kill an opponent with a single blow, they changed to boxing.

I've no idea of the teacher’s name and I don’t recall exchanging a single word that wasn’t about wrestling. He was obviously pleased that I continued and was prepared to wear the loincloth. I was never sure if it was my dedication to the sport or my bare bum that persuaded the sports master to allow us to continue, despite the lack of other students. It was wrestling that taught me I could defend myself physically as well as verbally, and gave a boost to my burgeoning self-confidence.

Friends were easy to come by if you wanted to be part of a social group or gang. I didn’t. I'd have loved to have a really good friend with whom to share secrets, but there was no one like that, so I created a respectably gregarious façade that led teachers to think I was popular, but a bit of a flibbertigibbet – not suitable to join the hallowed band of Prefects. A false but welcome assumption. I'm both reliable and trustworthy, but have no desire for power over others.

The social image I was after didn't include mixing with physically unattractive, stupid, or vulgar people, so I avoided them. My trick for survival was to appear non-threateningly eccentric; but that didn't include going to prize-giving to collect the beautiful silver cup I won for singing! Real men didn't sing and I'd kept my participation in that competition a well-guarded secret. Every school day was like a never-ending tightrope dance. If my observable differences should ever be perceived as a threat to the shrine of manly vigour, I'd be dead.

A giant of a lad, ineptly named David – Goliath would have been more appropriate – a mooncalf whose brain had been warped when a falling tree crushed his skull as a kid, was hatchet man for a gang of would-be teddy-boys who had taken it upon themselves to decide who was manly enough to live.

Every now and then some poor guy would appear on the school ferry bruised and nervous. No one dared complain, as that would prove they weren’t a ‘real’ man. Inevitably, my turn arrived. They reckoned I talked too ‘posh’ and needed taking down a peg. It started with David dropping a bag full of schoolbooks on my toes and asking how it felt to be in the top class.

My first impulse was to knee him in the cods, which would probably have resulted in brain damage as severe as his. Instead, I answered politely that it was probably the same as he felt in the bottom stream, then ran for my life!

Rumour had it he was a whiz at making model aeroplanes, so the following afternoon I cornered him on the way home – he was quite tame when alone – and asked as if I really cared, if he would teach me to make models because I was so useless at those sorts of things and I really admired people like him who were good with their hands. He puffed so far up with pride I was on the point of seeking shelter from what was looking like a Hiroshima type event, when he invited me home.

His mother was pleased he’d brought home a human instead of the usual animals from his class, and provided fizzy fruit juice and sultana cake – not a good combination. I bought a starter kit and we spent several hours in his sweat-scented bedroom… cutting, gluing, breaking, re-gluing – me making sure I was useless and offering suggestions that made him snort with disbelief. He would patiently explain and correct my every move, until we both agreed it would be better if I chose another hobby.

He seemed reluctant to let me go that last evening, and kept showing me his ‘treasures’. Then suddenly he blurted, “When the tree fell on my head it damaged my pituitary gland.”

I was impressed, having not the slightest idea what that was. “That’s why my voice is high, and that’s why… look!” He whipped down his trousers to expose a hairless crotch and a penis as large as an eight year-old’s, with balls to match.

I looked into his eyes. He was crying. How could I console him? I realised he wanted me to be his friend – someone in whom he could confide his darkest secrets. But I had secrets of my own that I would never share with him. From somewhere I dredged up an anodyne. “There are more important things in life than sex, David. Character’s what’s important; and deep down you're a really nice bloke.”

What a load of crap. From the dozens of people who have confided their secret hopes and fears over the years, I've learned that sex is the most important thing in just about everyone’s life. Why people tell me their secrets I don’t know, but it always feels like a compliment and I never betray their trust. But as for humans being the apex of evolution… muddle-headed seems a more apt epithet.

Years later, on a visit to my home town, a fluting soprano hailed me on the street. David had grown as large as the chief eunuch of a Turkish harem, had a good job in an office, and seemed reasonably, if wistfully adjusted to his lot.

Winning, in the conventional sense, has no interest for me. The only thing I want to win is my independence. I enjoyed tennis, but everyone in the club was obsessed with the “Ladder” and playing in weekend competitions against other clubs. I could never understand that. For me the game is fun enough. By putting up a fair fight but usually losing the match, I earned the reputation I desired; OK for a social game, but don’t have him in the team!’

Elderly spinsters had a habit of falling in love with me, and Kath was no exception. I gardened for her and, as she disliked driving at night, as soon as I got my licence I drove her to plays, concerts, the ballet, and anything else she wanted to see; my payment, a free ticket. No one else I knew was interested in theatre or classical music, and I couldn’t have afforded to go on my own. She also lent me her car if I needed it. Dad wouldn’t lend me his.

Kath wrote and illustrated children’s books that were suffused with pathos and a weird sense of humour. She’d sit on her patio pretending to write, but I could feel her eyes following me. She told me about her twin brother who had gone to London, and showed me a sepia tint of a naked young man with a long, unattractive head, standing in slightly too elegant contrapposto before a classical pillar.

I didn't let on that Mother had told me Keith had been too smart for the police and skipped the country before they prosecuted him for being more interested in men than women. Mother was obviously pleased at his escape, and so was I, although I didn't think it had any relevance to me… I had a girlfriend. But sadness pricked me whenever I thought of him in exile in London where he owned a private hotel.

“Keith is not ashamed of his body,” Kath announced as she passed the photo across.

“Neither am I,” I responded, reminding her of Cupid’s Dart.

“You wore a fig leaf!” she snorted, as if it had been a cop out. “I had to – the law says....”

I knew what she was doing, and she knew that I knew what she was doing; it was a game I became proficient in over the years; bantering around the subject until both are sure they want the same thing – me to take off my clothes. We both knew I would prove I was as good as her beloved twin by gardening naked – but it would have been impertinent to have simply dropped my tweeds and started mowing.

Ladies like to keep their reputations unsullied and be treated as if they harbour no impure thoughts. I'm pretty sure Kath was a virgin who'd chosen to remain faithful to her brother.

In winter, I painted her ceilings and in return, she taught me to dance. Not classical, but in the style of Isadora Duncan, whom Kath admired. It was another important brick in my temple of self-confidence. Buoyed on the exuberance of Rossini overtures I became a wild satyr, pure energy without constraint, performing for an enraptured audience of one; which, I discovered a few years later, is infinitely preferable to a discordant audience of hundreds! Indeed, ‘one’ is perhaps the perfect audience, because the performance can be fine-tuned, and altered according to the responses, assuring success. And there's no malicious gossip afterwards.

Once, when posing for the illustrations in a book she was writing about a dancing bear, she explained that the poor things only danced because their owner jerked roughly on a collar that had sharp spikes facing inwards, causing terrible pain and damage to the neck. I felt sick. In her story, she explained, the bear was a metaphor for the human condition. Most people have mental nail-studded collars that are jerked by the law and the expectations of others.

“Look around you!” she said angrily. “Everyone is dancing to the tune of conformity, suppressing their individuality. And for what? To have the same respectable little house in the same respectable street, with identical children being brainwashed into becoming boring, respectable slaves of commerce! If that’s living, I don’t want it!”

I couldn’t speak. It was as if an electric current had shot through me. She had just explained why I avoided getting close to others. I'd unconsciously avoided their conformity that waited like quicksand to suck me in.

“Please don’t become like that,” she said softly. “You have the wit to be yourself, and the opportunity. Don’t waste your life.”

“I'm not a dancing bear,” I shouted, dancing wildly round the room. “I’m dancing bare!”

It took several seconds for her to get the pun, but when she did, she smiled. “Well, I hope you keep dancing bare all your life; it’s the best way to avoid that collar.”

Like every adolescent, I was plagued by self-doubt and fears of inadequacy. Why wasn’t I like everyone else? Why did I back out of the parties that all the other guys and their girlfriends seemed to enjoy? Why did I prefer to go to dances alone and dance with a different girl every time the music changed? Why did I like sitting for hours on top of the mountain gazing out over the sea? Why did I want an all-over tan?

None of those things seemed like choices – they were things I had to do. Why was sitting for hours in a car, petting, kissing and ‘feeling up’ my girlfriend the most boring activity on the planet?

I came to the same conclusion as every outsider who remains sane; I am what I am, and it was pointless to fight it. This brilliant self-analysis did not, however, prevent my experiencing a constant sense of impending doom that kept me vigilant.

In Mathematics, I sat beside Ronnie and we’d feel each other’s erections through our pockets. His was huge! Sometimes he’d take it out – a smooth, shiny monument in ebony! I loved wrapping my hand around it, feeling the heat and the spasms when he came, although that was dangerous in class as he grunted a bit when ejaculating.

We never met outside school. I lived a half-hour boat-ride away; he a long bus trip in the opposite direction. He was sharp, quick, and cute, and I was consumed by equal quantities of lust and jealousy.

Exactly ten years later, my partner and I were walking briskly along the streets of Wellington – there’s no other way to walk in that benighted city if the wind’s behind you – when a physically worn man in a sad, brown suit (no one should ever wear brown) approached timidly and said, “Rigby! It’s me! Ronnie.”

I was on a flying visit, due to return to Paris the following week. He was on his way home to a mortgaged box in the outer suburbs where his wife and three kids waited, squalling for food and scraps. His government job was secure – but boring and ill remunerated. He was sad, beaten, and tired, and my heart shrivelled in pity.

Sexy little Ronnie had become a pathetic ‘dancing bear’. It was several days before I could shake off the horror of what might have been my fate, had I been afflicted with a desire for women, marriage, and kids. My partner was as shocked as I to view the effects of heterosexuality on someone about whom I had waxed eloquent on more than one occasion.

University differed from Secondary School only in the freedom from petty rules and teacher supervision. Unversed in the art of discrimination, first-year students bond easily and lightly, scurrying to form gangs of like-minded souls with whom to argue, socialise and strut. Those on the outside are pitied; those on the inside pay the heavy price of conformity. Groups curtail as well as support, and group dynamics bend multiple wills to act as one.

Invitations to pub-crawl so I could get bombed out of my mind and compete in the technicolour burp stakes, didn't appeal; even when regaled with tales of Alan’s vomit-map of the world in colour! Goodness knows what he’d been eating!

Being allergic to waste, crowds, and the tongue-loosening effects of alcohol, I'd excuse myself from most socialising, usually managing to keep my reputation as a ‘good bloke’. Born hyperactive, self-control has always been a priority and early on became second nature.

I was friendly with everyone, but joined nothing. There were plenty of other loners – but for them it was seldom a choice; they were socially unattractive and usually a bit crazy.

Peer pressure and the hierarchical crap that permeates heterosexual male society, transformed my embryonic scorn for humanity into aversion when I realised that most guys’ gregarious urges are stronger than their yearning for autonomy. I began to fear the mindlessness of the group. Like everyone else, I want approval, but not if it costs me my soul! I sought a friend – not friends. I was prepared to be a lone ranger until I met someone who shared my interests and was interested in me.

During my first year I studied, kept fit, did a few photographic shoots for newspaper advertisements, modelled for both the University and Tech. College Art departments, acted in Arthur Miller’s All my Sons, earned a few cheers as Lord Godiva in the Capping parade, and maintained my independence.

In my second year, I changed digs. The house was old and smelled of rot. Ten rooms on two floors for twenty young men; each room containing two lumpy beds, two small wardrobes, two small chests of drawers, two school desks, and two hard-backed chairs. Showers, toilets, kitchen, and laundry shared the cold concrete basement. A bitter old bible-bashing Christian with a drink problem inhabited two rooms by the front door, from where he guarded his domain as jealously as Cerberus. When he wasn’t wandering the house enshrouded in a miasma of life’s disappointments, he’d be checking we weren’t brewing tea or making toast on illegal appliances in our rooms.

Waita, my roommate whom I met swimming lengths of the tepid baths, was tall, lean, and impenetrably dark, with a head as wise as the kingly eponym of his country. A parsimonious Anglican scholarship left him little spare cash, and I was born fundamentally frugal, so we explored the pleasures available for free in a port city; secret bays and coves that enabled me to keep my bum brown; the cheapest theatre seats; the pie cart, reading in bookshops, the run-down University gymnasium, and nine hours of sleep that were essential to us both.

We’d been sweating over assignments for an hour one night when Waita begged a favour. Coming from an alien culture – his words – he was at a loss as to how to treat females. He had taken a girl to the pictures and then back to her digs, where he shook hands and left her. The following day she had snubbed him. When he asked her why, she said he’d insulted her by not kissing her. It sounded like a case of delayed racism to me, but to let him down lightly I said she was clearly a slut and not good enough for him

“I'd like to have kissed her,” he muttered, “but I don’t know how Europeans kiss! Teach me!” It took several minutes of pleading to convince me he was serious, but once persuaded I gave of my best, and afterwards we agreed that, in the interests of frugality and logic – we were both very strong on logic – it wasn’t worth forking out a couple of pounds to take a girl for a meal followed by the flicks, when we could eat at home, sit in the cheapest seats, keep fit at the gym together, help each other to study, and had each other to kiss.

The most interesting and useful thing I did that year and the next, was take acting classes with Heath Joyce, a somewhat famous English director of plays and pageants who’d come to New Zealand to work with the local repertory society. I was lucky enough to be given major roles in two large productions at His Majesty’s Theatre: Charley’s Aunt and When Knights Were Bold.

My 18th birthday present from the state was the call up for an Army Medical. A score of us were told to strip and wait in a cold, bare room. The only naked guys I was used to seeing were at the pool, the gym, or beach, so I wasn’t prepared for such an unappetising pack of scrawny, pale, droopy young men. There were pidgin chests, narrow shoulders, wide hips, slack bellies, spindle thighs, knock-knees, sweaty feet, pimpled backs, hairy bums… only one looked healthy enough to touch. Judging from their talk, however, they were all God’s gift to women.

One at a time we were called to a desk at the end of the room to be weighed, measured, and inspected for fitness. The young doctor was handsome in a neat, militaristic way, so I gave him my best smile, which he ignored. He weighed me, checked my reflexes, pulse, blood pressure, lungs, then without warning, grabbed my balls.

“Have they always been this big?”

“I think they were smaller at birth,” I quipped.

His lips drew to a thin line. “Don’t get smart! Any lumps?”

“Not as far as I know.”

He kneaded softly and I sprouted a sudden, hard erection. He took a wooden ruler and before I could withdraw, whacked it down hard on my knob. I thought my entire shaft had shattered. The pain! I gazed through streaming tears at the poor, shrivelling thing and stifled a sob of agony.

“Filthy queer,” the doctor hissed rather too audibly, grabbing my shoulders and turning me round so he could look up my bum for haemorrhoids.

It took two days for the tingling to stop, and weeks for the horrifying realisation that someone thought I was a queer, to dissipate. I knew I wasn’t! Queers were weak pansies with floppy wrists who giggled loudly and did their hair all the time. Queers were like that perverted creep who flashed at us in the changing shed! The horrible old man with horseshit breath who had tried to feel me up in the evangelist tent at the beach when I was ten, was queer! The unwashed sailor who’d invited Graeme and me onto the bridge of the coastal steamer when we were 12, and then stroked my neck and slipped his hands up my trouser leg, was queer! I'd run for my life from both of them in fear and loathing! The middle-aged man who’d appeared and plonked himself down beside me when I was sunbathing naked in the sand hills when I was 16, was queer. I'd been unable to move when he began to stroke my bum. Brain almost blank with fear, I made excuses so he wouldn’t restrain me, grabbed my things and bolted. There was no way I was queer!

I was tougher and fitter and better dressed than just about anyone I knew! I’d been asked to judge the University Beauty Contest that year! That proved I knew about girls. I just wasn’t ready yet. I confided my dreadful secret to Waita and he agreed; we were certainly not queers! Nevertheless, we took our gear off his bed and mussed it around to look as if he slept in it.

The year flew by and suddenly Waita was flying to Sydney, from where he set sail for the Solomon Islands, leaving me bereft. I received a postcard from Norfolk Island. Despite having paid for a cabin, the Australian stewards had refused to let him go inside the ship. Cabins were only for whites. He’d had to sleep on deck and beg for food at the galley. Twenty years later he occupied a position of importance in the Solomon Islands government, and Australian officials were wondering why they weren’t loved.

In my third year, most of the guys I started with had invested in steady girlfriends who demanded they quit spending so much time with their mates. Several had married. I was Best Man for my best friend’s wedding. Coffee-houses and bars were filling with cubic miles of hot air expelled during interminable metaphysical debates.

Increasingly a stranger in a strange land, I booked a berth on a ship that would sail for Europe at the end of the summer break. I’d have gone earlier, but needed the holidays to earn more money. Three years of penny pinching had earned me the fare, but I needed enough to survive for a few months once there.

Modelling jobs for Life Classes had dried up because fat and ugly was the new fad. Popular artistic wisdom decreed that my body type lacked character. I tried manning petrol pumps at an all-night service station, but without my eight or nine hours sleep every night, my brain dissolved, so ended up working weekends in a market garden.

Exams over, I slogged for ten weeks in a grain store where I built up a stunning array of muscles in all the right places, and discovered that labourers can be just as smart, pleasant, interesting, and amusing as academics, and a lot less bitchy.

Then, one star-filled calm evening, two months before my birthday, I waved a tearless farewell as tugs dragged the ship out into the stream. My paranoia had reached alarming proportions. I saw danger on every side. I craved the security of anonymity before my dread secret was revealed. The truly bizarre thing was I had not the faintest idea what that secret was! I just knew I needed a place where I could be ‘myself’ without fear of condemnation. I longed, as I had not longed for anything in my life, to walk along the streets of a vast city where no one could possibly know me, or care who I was or what I did. It sounds histrionic, but twenty-year-olds are full of noble sentiments and melodrama. That’s why they make perfect soldiers – ready to sacrifice their lives for a dream.

“Never will I return,” I vowed as the propellers thrashed into life, sending a shudder through the ship that echoed my own shudders of relief.

Chapter 3: Escape

An ocean liner is a small town replete with gossip, intrigues, and scandal, fuelled by enforced idleness. When these floating cities set sail from New Zealand for Europe, the nervous and somewhat prim young passengers wandered around an almost empty ship.

On arrival in Sydney, hordes of noisily confident young men and women invaded the bars, saloons and decks, determined to remain in a drunken stupor for the entire voyage – spending more on booze than the fare.

For a young male intent on spending nothing, it was a month of waiting for meals sprawled beside the pool, swimming, dancing every night, walking briskly round the deck every morning, avoiding becoming too intimate with people determined to make friends in case they needed one so far from home, and fending off the relentless advances of young women rendered skittish by the intoxicating whiff of freedom. Excitement! Adventure! Romance!

In order to spend as little of their capital as possible during the voyage, most girls managed to snare escorts to shout them to entertainments, cocktail hours, bars, dances; paying for it with sex in his or her cabin, a life boat, or a quiet spot on the deck, considering it wasteful to just sit on the little goldmine between their legs. But they weren’t prostitutes! Just smart with money.

I had the good fortune to share a cabin with an extremely shy, pale, overweight, and abundantly hairy young man who seemed to spend the entire voyage, apart from mealtimes, glued to his bottom bunk, sweating profusely and reading spiritually uplifting tomes while surreptitiously eyeing my flesh when I came in to change. His constant presence was invaluable because it made it impossible to take a girl back to the cabin for a fuck.

His incredulous delight on discovering that I had not the slightest prejudice against his religious inclinations, ensured our journey together was free of stress and, as ogling was clearly the outer limit of his sexual desire, in the four weeks we shared the tiny space I ensured he had plenty to satisfy his interest – it seemed little enough reward.

The Patris was very old; on its 13th reincarnation someone averred, and desperately tired. We were passed several times by the P&O liner Canberra, whose jeering passengers arrived in all ports of call before us, and left after. If there was a tail wind, we were asphyxiated by clouds of smuts belching from the funnel, and a twenty-degree list prevented the pool from being properly filled and made it seem, when in it, as if the water was defying gravity, being piled up against one side. We ran aground in Aden – marooned on a mud bank for most of the hours we should have been savouring the delights of that exotic British outpost.

In the gossipy hothouse of heterosexual lust that is the intended norm on every cruise ship and ocean liner, those interested in less conventional pastimes have little to occupy their time. The fancy-dress ball – advertised as a wicked romp – was the usual tediously sedate Greek event. Encouraged by poolside acquaintances, I’d decided to go as Adam in my Cupid fig leaf, but was manhandled out the door by two breathtakingly handsome sailors before the first dance was over. The Captain did not approve.

I told the others I'd be back, but a sudden pique sent me to the pool where cigarettes glowed from half a dozen deck chairs. Their occupants called me over, admired my costume – or lack of it – and, after I'd explained the provenance of the fig leaf, they persuaded me to perform in someone’s huge first-class cabin on the promenade deck. I hadn't realised such luxury existed.

During an impromptu, somewhat erotic dance, my hosts became rather too frisky. Middle-aged, decaying bodies lusting after a piece of my flesh were intimidating, not arousing, so I left them to it, deciding that future audiences could watch but never touch. Sex would always be one-on-one, and only with someone reasonable looking, slim, fit, clean, healthy, sexy, near my age, and fascinated by me; a restrictive list that ensured I'd not have to confront my sexuality in the near future.

Leaving them to their fantasies, I slipped back to my cabin, observed by no one except a gaggle of spinsters playing bridge. They wolf-whistled, so I blew them a kiss. I never retrieved the fig leaf.

After the debacle in Aden, I thought it better to take the land route through Cairo, rather than risk running aground in the Suez Canal. It was worth the dust and hours in a bus. Not for the pyramids, which to me seemed about as interesting as any large pile of rocks, but to become embroiled in the chaos and exotic turmoil of the bazaars and teeming narrow streets of old Cairo.

At sea again, the captain announced that he'd decided not to go further than Piraeus and we’d all be given ferry tickets to Brindisi and rail tickets to London. It seems the ship was in such a poor state it wouldn’t have made it.

I went to the cinema in Athens to get warm, as it was well below zero outside. Inside, I was enraptured to discover a unisex audience. Females were not permitted in many Greek cinemas in those days. It was wondrously relaxing. To my chagrin, however, these modern Greeks bore no resemblance to the heroic statues that had sustained me in my youth. They were dark, stocky, and bundled up in dark overcoats. Where was Discobolus when I needed him? Even the acropolis is not inspiring in a blizzard. It was Europe’s coldest winter on record.

My first encounter with squat toilets and refugees was on the ferry to Italy. While my companions griped about cramped conditions, poor food and inadequate lighting in our warm little cabins, families of economic refugees were huddling under tarpaulins on deck, splashed by wild seas and frozen by glacial air surging down from snow-clad Albanian mountains, the sight of which was impressive from Corfu, but failed to compensate for the biting winds. New Zealand’s Southern Alps had competition here, I realised.

With profound relief, we boarded a heated train in Brindisi, arriving in Calais after a stopover in Milan, smelling like a herd of camels, according to French customs officials. On the trip, my six travelling companions had decided who was going to share with whom in the flat we were going to rent together in London! As I had no wish to hurt their feelings, desperate measures were called for. In Dover, I had the good fortune to be selected for a full search by Customs Officials suspicious at my lack of luggage – I had but one small suitcase and a camera.

The inspection process only lasted a few minutes, so, leaving my bag in their bemused care, I raced out to the platform to inform the others that the Customs Officials were being officious and I’d have to catch a later train – but we would meet up in London.

I then returned to sit beside a slender, handsome young Kenyan who had also aroused serious misgivings in Official minds by arriving in their land bearing a suitcase packed with very smelly dried fish and not much else. His cute smile and perfect teeth were more than adequate compensation for my not having been considered sufficient threat to warrant a full-body-search. I had to wait until East Berlin to experience that delight.

Discovering that our attraction was mutual, we shared a compartment in the next train and swapped names – his was Mik, an abbreviation for something very long and complicated. He was on his way to Manchester to meet his cousin. However, thanks to the search he had missed his connection so we would share a hotel room in London for a night.

Although this was my first visit, that great city was not new to me – Monopoly had been my favourite game for years – but I was unprepared for the vastness. The miles and miles of monotonous housing estates, grey wet streets, row upon row of terraced housing that we hurtled through at a hundred miles an hour.

Victoria Station disgorged us into heaving traffic, and rank upon rank of black taxis. Rows of red double-decker buses going to places I had heard of but only dreamed of visiting, and more people in one place than I had ever seen before – all knowing exactly where they were going and why.

Panic filled all my empty spaces. I had no idea where I was, where to go, or what to do! We bought a couple of pies, and then, following directions from the information kiosk, wandered through narrow streets behind the station. Most cheap hotels were full. After about an hour we found one grotty establishment with a vacancy, but the fat old tart took one look at Mik and snapped, “No blacks!”

The next place was cleaner and the bloke didn’t even look up from his telly as he took our money, handed us a key, and pointed up the stairs.

It was half-past four and already getting dark. Mik, exhausted from not having slept for days on the deck of a ship from Alexandria, and then standing on the train all the way from Marseilles, crashed on his bed.

My impatience to see all those Monopoly names come to life, overcame fatigue and I raced for the nearest underground. The train seemed to be going very fast, but it was only about ten miles an hour.

Quivering with excitement, I stepped out onto the platform of Piccadilly Circus, gaped at the vast bank of escalators rising through the gigantic cavern, drifted up through the circular concourse, and raced through the exit tunnel to emerge in front of Eros – who looked exactly as he should, encircled by endless traffic and backed by the gigantic Wrigley’s sign.

Wet streets reflected a myriad of lights and the endless whirl of traffic. A thrilling muted roar resonated in my chest. My hair stood on end. Goosebumps erupted over my entire body and I drew a deep breath of diesel fumes. I was at the centre of the world!

After wandering along Coventry Street to Leicester Square, down the Haymarket to Trafalgar Square, and back to Piccadilly Circus, I re-entered the underground dying for a piss. A bowler-hatted pinstripe suit followed me and held open the door to the toilets with an engaging smile. I nodded graciously. Before leaving New Zealand, I'd been warned not to expect the denizens of London to be as nice as people back home. “They’ll cut your throat as soon as look at you, Rigby,” I'd been warned. Huh! No one had ever held open the door of a toilet for me in New Zealand!

He followed me into the vast white-tiled space that appeared to be a popular meeting place. Groups stood here and there – usually several older men with a younger fellow. Pinstripe stood beside me at the urinal, which surprised me, as there were at least twenty free spaces. I ignored him and concentrated on the job in hand, which was rendered slightly difficult by the activity two stalls away to my left – a boy, scarcely more than fourteen, was being masturbated by an older bloke while several others looked on.

I guess I was surprised, but astonishment ran a distant second to the prim thought that it was scarcely a hygienic spot for such an activity. It was arousing, nonetheless, and my own spout sprang to attention.

“Mmm… nice.”

I looked up in alarm. Pinstripe was staring. Pissing was impossible. My brain stopped.

He reached out and grasped it. I pulled back involuntarily. He grabbed at it again and hung on. “How much?”

“What for?”

“A fuck or a suck. Half an hour for two quid?”

As the average weekly wage was between seven and ten pounds, that seemed pretty fair. However, I was terrified. Images of being dragged into a cellar and raped and dismembered flashed through my head. Within seconds, he had strangled me, sold me as a sex slave and… I looked at his hands. They were clean but huge. He was about forty, thick-set. Educated accent but rough around the edges. I gazed around. Dozens of men milling. Nobody taking any notice. I shook my head in denial. This had to be a nightmare! Should I scream or run for it?

“You’re scared!”

I nodded.

“I only want a fuck – not murder you.”

That did it! I was a virgin! The only thing that had ever passed the wrong way through my rear entry was an enema Mother had given me when a kid. Still unable to speak, I buttoned up and, bladder undrained, raced for the escalators, risking my life by running down three at a time, found the right platform and concealed myself behind a pillar in trembling trepidation until the next train.

Mik was still asleep and the room was an icebox. I stripped, washed in the basin, slid between the grubby sheets, felt something sharp and leaped out. The bed was full of broken glass! I checked the window directly above – no wonder the place was freezing! Mik woke. It was only eight-thirty. I said I'd have to go down to the reception for new linen.

“Forget it. Come here.”

He opened his sheets and I slithered in. Wrapping him in my arms, I told him my adventures. He laughed and reckoned I was a scaredy-cat… I should have earned an easy couple of quid.

I confessed my shameful state of virginity – my year with Waita had been one of tender kisses and mutual masturbation. Mik admitted to being a rent boy in Nairobi; it was how he’d earned his fare. But at twenty-four he was now too old, so had come to England to work on the buses in Manchester, like his cousin. The revelation silenced me. I felt very ignorant. Very stupid. Overprotected and obscenely innocent.

By morning, I was a virgin no longer, and my heart and head were bursting with the sheer wonder of living, despite the somewhat painful parts of the initiation that I was in no hurry to repeat. I couldn’t decide whether to burst into song or tears.

In the end, it was tears. Mik was catching the next train to Manchester. Oh, the irony! Having plotted, planned, and succeeded in arriving solo in London, unencumbered by others… I was already prepared to throw away my freedom.

Mik was made of more realistic stuff and we waved a lump-in-the-throat farewell at St. Pancras that afternoon, having done a whirlwind tour on the top storey of a big red bus, seeing everything you have to see if you don’t want to seem like an idiot when encountering other colonials.

Chapter 4: Fashion, Shelter, Food

There was no time for sadness; I had about four hours of daylight to find digs. A nightly rate, even at the slum where we'd spent the night, was out of the question. Fortune favours the brave according to purveyors of proverbs, but it also favours the ignorant. Unaware of the accommodation shortage and the overcrowded hostels of work-seekers descending on the capital, I hoisted my bag onto a bus labelled Victoria.

“Hold very tight, please!” called the conductor, “ting, ting,” went the bell as we lurched off – causing all those standing to lose their footing, and grab in panic for the straps. Flanders and Swan would have been delighted. I took it as a propitious omen.

‘Pimlico,’ the street signs said. I liked the name, so alighted outside a corner store with a noticeboard in the window. Under “Bed-Sits” were a dozen flyblown cards interspersed with several newish ones. A bed-sit is a wonderful invention. Enterprising couples bought up large old houses in the inner boroughs, divided them into as many rooms as possible, installed the minimum of furniture, a gas ring, and cold-water hand basin, added a couple of communal bathrooms and toilets, then let them out as individual flats.

The owners lived in the basement, hitherto the province of the servants, and raked in the shekels, having nothing to do except keep the stairways clean and bathrooms functioning. A bed-sit was exactly what I, and thousands of other young people, wanted.

Boarding houses with their fixed meal times, nosey landladies going through personal effects as they ‘serviced’ the rooms, were not appreciated by the new generation of individuals who wanted to be free to come and go as they pleased.

I noted the addresses on the newer looking cards, sought directions from a series of passers-by, suffered the words, “Sorry, love, it’s taken,” three times, crossed my fingers at the fourth address, and rang the bell at an impressive, red-paint-peeling door stuck between a pair of soot-blackened Doric half-columns. A head that bore an uncanny resemblance to Raphael's Galatea appeared in the doorway of the basement flat directly below.

“Yes?”

“I’ve come about the bed-sit.”

“Wait!” The door slammed and several long minutes later the red door opened.

Built like a bison. The epithet flopped into my head unbidden. Galatea’s melancholy head was supported on massive shoulders and breasts, over which a gorgeously flowered mini housecoat strained its buttons. Rolled up sleeves revealed great red hams of arms, terminating in tiny fat fingers. This awesome thorax tapered to normal hips, satisfactory legs, finely turned ankles and small feet tucked into purple slippers.

She looked me up and down, spun on her heel and barked in a harsh contralto, “Follow.”

I followed into a high-ceilinged hallway containing a side table, a pay telephone, and a flight of stairs with an elaborate curved banister. Double doors were set into the right-hand wall.

“That’s Mr. Sanders,” she said as we passed. He's been with me for nine years, so don’t annoy him.

I assured her I wouldn’t, and trailed her up three flights of stairs – the third markedly less elaborate as we mounted towards what used to be servants’ quarters.

“It’s a nice little room with morning sun,” she announced, shepherding me through a narrow door into what appeared to be an under-the-stairs cupboard. Inside was like the Tardis – unexpectedly large because it opened out into the blocked off end of the hallway, providing space for a bed, gas ring, cold water hand basin, coat hooks, and easy chair. A grimy window overlooked a narrow, walled garden containing an incinerator, a broken garden chair, a dead tree, and the backs of similar dark grey terraced houses, one of which was missing – like a pulled tooth.

“Bomb hit that place,’ she announced, pointing at the vacant spot. “The old bloke next door’s still deaf. Whole family incinerated.” With a grim smile and scarcely a pause for breath, she continued, “Two pounds a week, and how long since you washed?”

I decided not to take offence, and explained the train journey and the hotel room with cold water.

“It’s only a hop and a jump down to the bathroom, so that’s convenient,” she stated positively, marching me down to the twin of my little closet that had been converted into a bathroom.

A gigantic claw-footed bath crowned with a showerhead shaped like a crown occupied the centre. On the wall behind hung a geyser; its gas meter below. A washbasin, mirror and hard-backed chair completed the furnishings.

There was little room to move. She flattened herself against the wall to allow me to squash against enormous soft breasts to see how to work the meter. If she was aware of the intimacy, she didn’t let on. Very often as a shirtless boy or teenager, matrons would find excuses to press their breasts against my shoulders. I always assumed they didn’t realise they were doing it, but of course women are well aware of the exact location of their tits and what they’re squashing them against. It left me with what I can only describe as ‘tit terror’ – occasioning the odd nightmare in which large breasted women smother me.

My reverie was interrupted by Mrs. Hockey’s abrasive contralto announcing proudly, “Sixpence will give you enough hot water for a shower and shave.” It seemed fair enough, so we descended to her warm cave where I was introduced to a strikingly handsome but gaunt man in a wheelchair, knees swathed in a blanket.

“This is Mr. Hockey,” she said, waving her hand in the general direction of the invalid. We shook hands. “He’s in a wheelchair because the French barn his unit was sheltering in took a direct hit.

“Bloody Yank bomb! Everyone else died,” she continued callously. “I suppose he was lucky – if having no legs can be considered lucky.”

She started banging pots and dishes in the sink as if in protest. I was embarrassed by her candour, but her husband merely smiled, took my details, wrote a receipt for two pounds, gave me my room and front door keys and wished me luck. I hoped I didn't look as if I'd need it.

The Hockey halls were empty, so wearing nothing but the towel I'd pinched from the hotel as compensation for the broken glass, I skipped down the stairs. Sixpence in the slot, turn on the tap, blue flames roared, hot water sprayed… bang! No flames, and freezing water. Should I go back to my room and dress? The place was a morgue and it was only two flights of stairs to the basement, so I raced down and knocked briskly.

She glared at my towel, informed me that two of her tenants were Scottish lassies of a Calvinist persuasion, and she would be obliged if I would wear something more conventional in future. I apologised and explained the situation.

She waved me back upstairs, arriving almost on my heels clutching a spanner with which she loosened a nut, banged on the pipes and set it all to rights, slamming the door on the way out.

Luxuriating in the hot, steamy, soapy sensuousness of a long overdue shower, I was taking great care to inspect and thoroughly clean the bits of me that had come into intimate contact with Mik, when Mrs. Hockey’s head peered around the door.

“All working?”

Before I had the wit to cover myself, she had barked a laugh and gone. I got out and locked the door, as I should have done before. I didn’t mind being looked at, but I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of the Calvinist lassies.

It seemed a crime to cover clean flesh with less-than-clean clothes, but with no choice, I chose the least smelly and lugged my bag down to see if the house contained a laundry. Mr. Sanders, a pleasant, somewhat corpulent man of indeterminate age, was just locking his door, so I asked him, and he directed me to the nearest laundrette… a novelty that had not arrived back home where everyone had a clothesline and the air was full of sunlight, not smuts.

He accompanied me, pointing out things he thought might be of interest on the way, such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s studio, and the house where Thomas Carlisle had written his last novel. Mr. Sanders had been active during the war, but apart from indicating a few spots where evidence remained, refused to be drawn on it.

The War. I hadn’t given it a thought back home. But in London the war remained very much in evidence. Empty spaces where houses must have stood. A ruined wall. A pile of stones. Great holes in vacant land. Building and reconstruction work everywhere. Derelicts wasting away on park benches, empty-eyed, sad. Lame men standing in doorways or wandering like ghosts. To me it was an aeon since the war. To those who had endured it, it was but yesterday; a mere sixteen years.

I shook off the melancholy, dumped the entire contents of my suitcase, including the towel into a washing machine, and spent the next forty-five minutes exploring the neighbourhood. Filthy brown brick terraces with the occasional brightly painted door piercing the gloom. Narrow streets with a few shouting infants, opening on to wide, busy thoroughfares full of similar terraced houses, shops, a supermarket (from which I purchased a dozen bread rolls, a packet of cheese and a few bananas), a post office, and a modern, six-storey block of council flats. Layer upon layer of identical boxes accessed by a front walkway open to the elements. Red painted doors did little to alleviate the cheap monotony.

I wandered into one of the stairwells. Rubbish, broken glass, scratched and damaged paint, graffiti. One lift was open – the door smashed. Inside a pile of human shit and the stench of urine. If the only other lift broke down, I felt sorry for those on the top floors. Clearly not everyone was benefiting from the post-war boom. As I unloaded the dryer, I realised I hadn’t seen a single tree or plant. I was in a concrete jungle. The thought was bizarrely thrilling.

After a meal of bread, cheese, and banana in my room, I took a walk through nearby streets, then home to sleep like a dead dog. I’d neither seen nor heard any other tenants.

I woke early the following morning. The sun may well have shone through my window, had clouds not been piled up in front. My clothes looked tacky after their battle with the washing machine and a too hot dryer, so I selected the least damaged and decided that job hunting would have to wait. If I wanted to be taken seriously I needed to look reasonably well dressed. After a breakfast of bread, cheese, and banana, I bounded downstairs.

The high-pitched squeals of spicy female gossip were issuing from the stairs leading to Mrs. Hockey’s basement. I’m not an eavesdropper, but I wanted to ask Mrs. Hockey’s advice on shopping for clothes, and it would have been rude to interrupt.

“No! Really?” The accent was different from Mrs. Hockey’s Irish lilt.

“I swear, like a flagpole!” insisted my landlady.

“And…” a squeal of incredulity and a gasp of excitement, “he let you see everything?”

“Everything! He wasn’t shy in the least. You’ve no idea how innocent he is. He’s a colonial, although you'd never guess it from his accent – talks like a toff. Colonials are much easier about these things – it’s all that sun; goes to their loins.” Then followed a trivial anecdote as Mrs. Hockey led the way to the front door and opened it.

Well! Talk about embellishing the truth! She’d caught a mere glimpse of my manhood. And as for letting her see it, I’d had no choice in the matter; she’d barged in! Was I innocent? Ignorant, I admit, but innocent? I decided I didn’t mind being labelled innocent. It might be useful. At least she’d made me sound interesting.

Mrs. Hockey was sorting the mail so I pretended I'd just come down, and asked where to buy cheap clothes.

Fulham Broadway markets lay beyond Earl’s Court where the guys from the ship were possibly still waiting to share digs with me. They were pleasant enough, but respectable, and I didn’t want to be respectable. Nor did I want to be disreputable. I simply wanted to be free to discover my essential self – whoever that was. I knew they'd want to party, do the usual colonials-in-London thing, while I wanted to remain healthy, well slept, drug free, fit, and honest – like the noble younger son in all those Grimm’s’ Fairy Tales I'd imbibed with Mother’s milk. I was determined to be worth inheriting the Crystal Castle and the Princess, (I still wasn’t admitting I’d prefer the Prince.) Foolish dreams? My head’s always been full of those.

The market provided me with sharkskin stove-pipe trousers, so tight they had zips on the lower inside leg, two white shirts with two spare collars (London air was so filthy that collars needed washing twice a day, while the shirt could last a week if you didn’t sweat) collar studs, string tie (no male was permitted anywhere in those days without a tie) black socks, and a bum-freezer collarless jacket as worn by The Beatles. No underpants because I've always hated them, and they’d show through the slinky tight trousers.

The slender, green-eyed assistant joined me in the tiny changing booth, his outrageous compliments earning him the right to defuse my erection so the trousers could be buttoned up. Feeling mightily relieved, I thanked him and falsely promised to come past again soon.

As I left, he popped into my bag a colourful knitted string tie that I wore until it disintegrated. I stuffed my old clothes into a carry bag and, sartorially resplendent, added a shiny pair of winkle-pickers with newspaper-stuffed points that extended three inches beyond my toes. Horrendously uncomfortable, but it was an essential component of a fashion that, it must be admitted, suited very few.

The streets were awash with young men looking like big-bummed pixies – from their long hair down to their skinny legs and ridiculously long pointed-toed shoes that frequently caught in escalators. But we were fashionable; until corns grew on little toes and crippled us.

The girls fared no better. Boots grew higher as skirts grew shorter and disappeared. Despite the chill there were young women with boots up to their knees, bare thighs mauve-veined from cold, and bulky sweaters that exposed one shoulder and barely covered their lacy knickers. Thousands of young women stood on trains, buses, in parks.... afraid to sit down for fear of receiving a summons for indecent exposure. But it was fun.

I'd always worn my hair brushed straight back, but the hairdresser informed me that a bare forehead did me no favours with such a large nose. He washed, rinsed, combed, snipped, and blew it dry with a hand-held dryer, a degree of attention reserved strictly for women where I came from.

Feeling wondrously decadent, I gazed in rapture at my new façade. Hair brushed forward took the arrogance off my nose and I felt like Marlon Brando as Marc Antony. It was five shillings well spent.

Mrs. Hockey grinned. “Got yourself some Westminster Abbey trousers then?”

“Westminster Abbey?”

“Yes.... the ballroom.”

“But.... there’s no ballroom in Westminster Abbey.”

“Exactly!” She hooted like a drain.

She was right; I was only comfortable when standing, but I was fashionable and ready to storm the footlights!

Having been blessed with a mother whose idea of cooking was boiling everything to tastelessness, I've never developed a lust for food. As long as I’m not starving I’m contented. Eating only if you’re hungry, makes mince as attractive as steak; bread and cheese as satisfying as any plat du jour. I still never go to a restaurant or fast food outlet if a bread and cheese merchant is handy. The savings over my life amount to tens of thousands of dollars. Until I found a job, I'd decided to eat nothing except bread, cheese and fruit, washed down with tap water.

Stomach satisfied; light of heart and head, I caught the tube to the West End. I had about four hours of daylight to find work.

Chapter 5: Ignorance is Bliss - Sometimes

Conceit, ignorance, and optimism are the main ingredients of youth. Without a fair dollop of all three I'd never have dared turn up in the largest city on earth, the centre of the English-speaking theatrical world, expecting to land a job as an actor. I was nervous, of course, but that added spice. An existence devoid of unease would be pretty dull. Even hunger triggers exhilaration.

Ignorance – some would say stupidity – sometimes propelled me into situations that later, in the light of calm reason, brought blushes and self-recrimination at my crassness. I can only blame the opiate of anonymity. Failure I can cope with – but not if there’s a witness! No one I cared about was around to witness any rebuff, so I dared.

London commerce had shaken off the vicissitudes of war with a vengeance. Shops overflowing with goodies, food plentiful and varied, restaurants of every persuasion opening their doors to an increasingly adventurous public; theatres full, film studios on a roll, television had taken off, and best of all, war had exposed religious dogma to rational scrutiny. A god that allowed such a bloodbath was not a god to be worshipped. The blinkers of faith-based lies were dumped along with their burden of guilt regarding the pleasures of the flesh.

European civilization had teetered on the brink of annihilation. Memories of destruction, death, and grievous bodily and mental harm were burned into the brains of all who had lived through it, and Europeans embraced democratic egalitarian social welfare, free thought, humanism, and a fairly harmless hedonism.

Cinemas were showing nudist movies. Strip and sex shows were opening everywhere. The Windmill Theatre that boasted it had never closed its doors, now allowed its naked girls to move.

In even the most traditional theatres, plays were presented in which men took down their trousers and indulged in sexual innuendo previously reserved for pubs. In movies, heavy petting and kissing and simulated sex titillated the masses. Magazines brimming with sexually explicit photos were liberated from under-the-counter closets to flap proudly in the winds of change alongside their more august counterparts at roadside kiosks.

While New Zealanders had to go to the barbers or wait till the male assistant was not busy at the chemist shop to make a furtive request for condoms, in London, large signs enjoined everyone to use Durex! Assuring us they were lubricated, for smoother satisfaction, leading many innocent young Australians to wonder why the English lubricated their toilet paper.

The contraceptive pill was the greatest liberator. No longer reliant on men to take precautions, women were demanding the right to fuck with the same reckless abandon as men, and to be treated equally in all other respects. The right to fuck they got, but they’re still waiting for the rest.

Their new sexual freedom, however, created problems in an unexpected quarter. Along with thousands of other unwilling young men I was dragged, mentally kicking and screaming, into too many female beds before I learned to read the warning signs and retreat on time.

A dirty yellow sun shed pale light on ancient monuments as I strode forth, secure in the knowledge that Fortune favours the fearless. I was heading for Shaftsbury Avenue and a theatre – any theatre. The main doors to the Lyric were locked, so I searched around and found an alley that led to an unattended stage door, which led to stairs and… ‘The Boards!’ I was on a London stage! The fire curtain was down concealing the auditorium, which tempered the thrill a little, but couldn’t dilute the glorious mystery.

Backstage was huge, dim, freezing, draughty. Scenery and ropes disappeared up into the flies from which drifted down masculine curses and the tap tapping of a hammer. The only illumination a couple of working floods.

A harried fellow carrying a clipboard emerged from the gloom to demand my provenance. I asked to see the director. Why? I was an actor. He stared at me in confusion before trotting briskly away to be replaced a minute later by a tall, willowy frowner wrapped in a heavy duffle coat and scarves – it really was cold!

I asked if they had any vacancies for actors. His jaw dropped and for a brief instant I thought he was going to open his arms and declare that I had just saved his show, because the junior lead had fallen from the stage and broken his neck. His laugh was a bark of hysteria. I smiled nervously and explained my predicament. He shook his head, and started wandering around the stage, waving his arms and shouting disconnected words: “Lights, rehearsal, scenery run-through, props disaster, script changes…”

Eventually he turned a hoarse voice on me and hissed, “This is a West End production not some provincial Rep! Why must I be plagued by madmen?”

I retreated from his onslaught into the arms of a couple of stagehands who hoisted an arm up my back until I yelled, which prompted the director to bellow for the doorkeeper, who came racing on stage doing up his flies. While the director was threatening the poor bloke with garrotting for leaving the place wide open as an invitation for the IRA to plant bombs, I was bundled down and out into the street, scuffing the toes of my beautiful new shoes on the stairs.

Self-assurance somewhat undermined, I retreated to Piccadilly Circus where I bought a copy of the ABC London Street Guide and, as the pockets of tight trousers were unusable, a woven Greek peasant shoulder bag to carry it in; fashionable with London youth, although no Greek I'd seen in Greece had carried one.

I'd been told that if you walked eight hours a day for your entire life, you could never walk down every street in London, and I was beginning to believe it. All those narrow lanes, service streets, cul de sacs, Squares and Places.

I also bought a newspaper – not for the news, I’d never been interested in that, but to check the addresses of theatres and what was on. Near the entrance to Piccadilly Circus underground, the Criterion was presenting Iris Murdoch’s A Severed Head. When I eventually discovered the stage door, confidence deserted me.

I think I imagined West End theatres would be like amateur dramatic societies back home. You'd meet the director and he’d say, “We’re putting on such and such a play next week, and there’s a part that would suit you. Come along to the auditions next Wednesday evening at Mary’s place…” something like that.

I decided I'd be a little more circumspect this time and sound out the doorkeeper first. When he heard what I wanted he guffawed, patted me on the shoulder and reckoned that was the funniest thing he’d heard in years. Instead of convincing him I was serious, further protestations merely convinced him I was several shillings short of a quid. “Go and buy an Equity mag,” he said patting me on the head, mussing up my hair.

“Equity mag?” I parroted.

“Actors newspaper,” he said gently, as if I was mentally challenged. Then with another pat on the shoulder, sent me on my way.

Back to the newsagent. It was already darkening. Neon signs and vehicle lights were turning the place into a noisy, fume-filled fairyland. I'd wasted an afternoon. After consulting my ABC, I set out for home. Along Piccadilly, across Green Park – losing myself when the gate to The Mall wasn’t where it was supposed to be – around Victoria’s statue in front of the floodlit Palace, then up Buckingham Palace Road to Sutherland Street. About six kilometres and one of the most entrancing walks of my life.

From then on, I decided, I’d walk everywhere. There were loads of people, plenty of traffic, the streets were well lit; London felt ancient, mysterious, and safe, and I loved every stone – despite stupid theatre directors.

An evening reading Equity magazine from cover to cover disclosed plenty of vacancies – mostly house-cleaning jobs for ‘resting’ actors. Actresses were needed in Aberdeen, Carlisle, Bath. A vacancy for an ASM in Wolverhampton, whatever an ASM was. Lighting mechanics, ‘Demonstrators’ in department stores. Olympia Exhibition Hall needed barkers, organisers, specialists in displays for the upcoming Better Homes Exhibition. Middlesex Council wanted a drama teacher for an infant school. Advertisements for drama workshops, modelling academies, artistic development courses, self-actualisation dance.

The back page listed theatrical agents, most managing to suggest they were only interested in already famous actors. I was becoming intimidated. One advertisement stood out: Wanted… actors and actresses for a variety of employment opportunities – not housework. Probably nursing grandfather, or temporary butler, but still worth a look. After all my walking, I slept like a log.

Saturday dawned gray and cold. My agent – I already thought of him as mine – had an office in a short lane between Soho Square and Charing Cross Road. Greek Street’s tawdry signs announced Sexy Girl Shows, Total Nudity, Sex Club… in garish letters over brashly painted doors shut against the healthy light of day. No Sexy Men Shows, I noticed. In between sprouted a grocer, a pub, a few restaurants, a clothing boutique, and a hardware shop. In the Square, restaurants of the Italian, Greek, Armenian, Chinese, and Indian varieties; film company offices, an insurance agent, and Club Strip, an upmarket version of those down the street. A few bare trees permitted the watery March sun to trace their shadows on the damp grass.

The street door to Feeney’s Theatrical Agency was open, so I crossed my fingers and mounted a clunky old wooden staircase to a second floor office door that brandished the name in sparkling gold letters, plus the hours of business – I was too early. Much too early. But a dose of Dad’s innocent charm might achieve results?

Inside, all was old wood - clean and polished. On the walls a few theatre posters. To the left of the door a vase of plastic chrysanthemums occupied a small table surrounded by a dozen empty chairs. Opposite, at an ancient desk, sat a magnificent bouffant wig and a dozen petticoats containing a no-longer-young woman in thick suntan-coloured pancake makeup that stopped at her ears. She didn’t dare smile. I asked to see Mr. Feeney.

“You are too early,” she snapped looking up irritably from her crossword.

My face fell as if my whole world had collapsed. “I'm so sorry! I didn’t realise. How stupid of me – I didn’t think to check your hours. Can I sit and wait?” I gazed around pathetically.

She stared at me in slightly diminished annoyance. “You have to make an appointment. There's nothing until tomorrow.”

“I... I've just arrived from New Zealand, so I'm totally ignorant about how to go about things.”

“About what things? Why are you here?’

“I’m an actor looking for work.”

She held out a hand heavy with sparkling rings and sighed, “Equity card and portfolio.”

“What are they?”

As if speaking to a mentally challenged five year old she explained that all professional actors needed to belong to Equity, the actors’ union, and carry their membership card at all times, adding that a portfolio contained studio photographs and a list of the productions the applicant had been in, references, graduation certificate from RADA or other drama school, and anything else that might convince the agent the would-be actor was worth promoting, and persuade a director to employ him.

I nodded sagely and thanked her profoundly, obviously astounded at her depth of knowledge and wisdom.

“Acting’s a business, dearie,” she continued, clearly mollified by my humble acceptance of her superior status. “There’s huge competition. You have to sell yourself… it’s a buyer’s market.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to be thought of as a commodity, but kept such reservations to myself while explaining that I wanted to act in a London theatre. The information briefly stunned her, but she recovered enough to congratulate me on my lack of a colonial accent and ask about my experience. Three plays and a musical for amateur dramatic societies, a year studying acting with Heath Joyce, and modelling for amateur artists brought on a frown instead of a smile of delight.

The only photo I had, was of me as Cupid, which I was using as a bookmark in my street guide. Somehow, I didn’t think she would appreciate it.

An inner door that had stood ajar throughout this exchange, opened quietly, emitting a large, pale, ovoid fellow of indeterminate age in a tweed suit and long, unnaturally black and very straight hair. He waved me into his office, sat behind his desk, and motioned me to a chair.

“I couldn’t help overhearing – you have good projection,” he said sharply, as if I'd been talking too loudly. “My secretary is correct in saying you need a portfolio when applying for acting positions.”

He made a steeple of his hands. “Acting is a difficult profession to enter, and even more difficult at which to make a living,” he intoned with ominous gravity. “You are entering the theatrical jungle. First you need experience as an ASM in a regional Repertory Theatre.”

I shrugged incomprehension.

“Assistant Stage Manager. General dogsbody. The lowest of the low – not to be confused with Stage Manager, who is Emperor of Back Stage. The ASM is responsible for everything no one else is prepared to do: checking props, curtain, backstage effects, running errands for the actors, making tea, accepting blame for all minor mishaps and, if lucky, taking walk-on parts. After a while, roles with words will arrive and, if there is talent, progression to supporting actor, to junior lead, to… as other actors move on.”

Mr. Feeney fixed me with a sceptical eye. “Success in the profession requires sacrifice, dedication, and patience.”

Apparently satisfied he had sufficiently demoralised this colonial upstart, he told me to forget London theatres; they were mainly investments for faceless men with spare capital who demanded a popular play and one or two famous actors supported by cheap hacks. All plays in London had first been tried in large provincial theatres and only moved up to London if they'd proved profitable.

My silence as I digested this information was taken for defeat. As if throwing me a lifeline, he then asked if I was interested in film or TV, because young talent could sometimes leap straight into those media and he had a few opportunities on his books. I wasn’t interested. I wanted the stage… a live audience. What fun can there be in acting to a camera and crew?

We talked about my two years learning stagecraft from Heath Joyce, of whom he had heard but didn't appear impressed – tossing away some remark about fleeing to the colonies. I mentioned the roles I'd played, and as he seemed more sympathetic than his wife, showed him my Cupid photo, which he was polite enough to admire, and then I mentioned my dance lessons and experience as artists’ model.

“Nude?”

“Yes.”

That perked him up. “Are you interested in jobs other than acting? Just to fill in, of course, until you get yourself organised?”

He was careful not to make it seem like a cop-out. As my finances were dwindling even faster than my self-confidence, I agreed to consider the idea so he pulled out a manila folder.

“I think this will be right up your alley. An advertising agency is promoting a new line of Danish jewellery. They need a fit young man. You would be ideal. Shall I arrange an interview?”

He took my name, address, and contact details and warned me not to sign anything he hadn’t perused. I signed a contract giving him a percentage of all earnings I made through his agency; he made a phone call, and I stared at the address written in cramped script on his business card. Peter Street! My middle name is Peter, so if that wasn’t an omen, what was it? It was just across the square and I was there in two minutes flat, certain my life was about to change. I wasn’t wrong.

The agency was chrome and glass on the ground floor; linoleum, steel drafting tables and useful work spaces occupied by harassed young men and women trying to get their drawings and ‘concepts’ finished yesterday on the second, and small functional offices on the third, in one of which I was interviewed by the thinnest man I had ever seen. About thirty-five, dressed in black. Black leather trousers, black shirt and tie, black leather bomber jacket. The sepulchral effect was relieved only by a gold ring in the left earlobe of a painfully narrow face. He introduced himself as Sam and extended a limp hand, which I waggled. He placed six photographs on the desk.

“One of my clients has branched into mail-order jewellery aimed at modern, free-thinking young men and women like you. These photos are of the Danish launch during the pornography Expo in Odense that stirred such a furore. You'll be modelling what this guy’s wearing.” He passed across a stack of colour photos.

A heavy, blond fellow too thick of waist and too pugnacious of jaw for my taste, prowled along a catwalk, wearing white harem trousers and a series of heavy gold chains, medallions, earrings, bracelets, anklets, and headbands.

“It’s just cheap gold plate,” Sam explained, “The whole collection’s junk, but proved popular in Denmark, and they reckon now’s the time to corner the market here. They're not selling from shops, only mail order. My job is to make our target group aware of the range and desperate to buy. We’ve had ads in the sexy pictorial magazines, and a photo shoot next Monday will give us posters of you and the girls wearing the stuff. They’ll advertise the mannequin parades the following week. If I can get the pink press to those, we’ll have a bit of free advertising and, if we sell enough, my client’s considering taking the show to Amsterdam. Interested?”

“How much are they paying?” I had no idea how much I ought to receive, but thought I should sound as if I knew what I was doing.

He named a figure that made my eyes pop.

“Yes!” I whispered, not daring to believe what I’d heard.

He placed another half dozen photos on the table. “These shots were taken during the second half of the program.”

The same model was now naked, apart from more chains and bracelets as well as ball and cock rings. He looked even less attractive. My heartbeat increased and in a voice that had become suddenly hoarse, I whispered, “I have to be naked, like him, walking along a catwalk?”

“Yep, that’s the deal. Any problems?”

I attempted a nonchalant shrug, but had to clear my throat. “No. No problems.”

“Good. We’re running a bit late. Feeney’s first hopefuls were useless. Last one had a great body, but steroids had shrunk his cods so he wouldn’t have been able to find them to wear this stuff. Another was covered in scars – boils or cigarette burns it looked like.” He shuddered elegantly. “Right, off with your clobber so I can check the goods.”

I stripped and he squatted – conducting a slightly more intimate examination than I expected. But I didn’t want to jeopardise things.

“Great tan. Healthy. Excellent.”

While I dressed, he showed me the contract. Publicity photos would be taken the following Monday. I was to report to him at 9.00a.m. as the venue wasn’t decided. Unable to avoid it, I waggled his moist, limp hand again to seal the deal, picked up my copy of the contract and had just turned towards the door when he stopped me with a question.

“Why are you doing this?”

“What?”

“This!” he indicated the photos. “You're not the usual type for this game.”

“What type… what game?”

“Homeless, ignorant kid from Liverpool slums… rent boy offering his arse for cash for drugs… that sort of thing. Do you also…?” His smile became a leer.

I told him I certainly did not! I was in the process of becoming an actor, but needed cash urgently.

He grinned as if he’d heard it all before.

A disconcerting tingling in the tailbone trailed me out into the smog of Soho, across the square and into Feeney’s office to sign the contract.

Chapter 6: Jewels

Sunday was my birthday. A brisk walk in soft old desert boots because of budding corns on little toes, took me to Hyde Park Corner and Marlborough Arch, plonked like a gigantic 18th-century folly in its island of grass, then along Park Lane to where a crowd of goggle-eyed fame -watchers was standing opposite The Dorchester.

A black Rolls rolled up and discharged a small woman who hurried straight into the foyer without a glance at the crowds. According to the woman next to me it was Elizabeth Taylor.

A ten-minute stroll took me to Marble Arch; according to urban myth, yet another folly - built for Victoria’s wedding but too narrow for her coach. In fact, it was designed as the entrance to the Court of Honour of Buckingham Palace in 1827, and built between 1828 and 1830 before Victoria came to the throne. Queen Victoria’s coronation procession passed easily through the Arch as it left Buckingham Palace on its way to Westminster Abbey in 1838. Shortly after that, the Court of Honour was enclosed to provide extra accommodation required by the royal court and Victoria’s expanding family, so the Arch was dismantled and moved to its present location in 1847. Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation procession travelled safely through the Arch at its current location in 1953.

I had to keep reminding myself it was real. I was actually there. That I could smell, touch, hear, and experience those places was more like a dream than reality and I couldn’t stop grinning. I felt as if I'd been grinning ever since I arrived on this ‘Sceptred Isle’.

At Speaker’s Corner, a variety of soapboxes from cheese crates to elegant lecterns were stages for the riotous ravings of communists calling for the overthrow of private property, Christians calling for the overthrow of civil liberties, republicans calling for the overthrow of the monarchy, socialists calling for the overthrow of capitalism, libertarians calling for the overthrow of censorship, fascists calling for the throwing out of all non-whites, and a few who were simply taking the opportunity to throw out a few ideas.

Harangues, even the most sincere, appeal mainly to the converted, and as I was too ignorant to realise I held political opinions, I was filled with admiration for both speakers and hecklers whose ripostes were as interesting as the diatribes. How did they come up with such ideas? How did they dare try to convince others they were right and everyone else was wrong?

My sole concern in life so far had been to ensure I was left alone to work out my own path to salvation. When someone started singing the New Zealand national anthem I scurried away and spent the rest of the day wandering through Hyde Park to Kensington Palace.

The park was more beautiful than I'd expected in winter; bare trees sharp against a startlingly clear, cold blue sky, everyone in warm woollens and bright scarves, kids standing on their heads in drifts of leaves, walkers, joggers, even brave boaters on the Serpentine where I noted they permitted swimming in summer. The park is huge, but so is the population it serves. I guess I saw a few thousand people. What were the other millions doing on that first sunny Sunday for months?

I bought a sandwich at the kiosk; a celebration in anticipation of my first pay. As I wandered away, debating the value of the tasteless morsel, I noticed a lean, Gypsy-looking fellow leaning against a tree; face up to the sun, collar open, red tartan scarf worn like a turban. The urge to talk stirred in both head and loins, so I asked the name of the structure that looked as if it had fallen off the top of a cathedral.

“Is that the best you can manage?” he yawned – unsmiling.

“What do you mean?”

“If you're trying to pick me up, at least be original.”

I was mortified, insisting I wasn’t doing any such thing, I had no idea what the building was because… He grinned and we wandered over to the Albert Memorial, the prodigality of which I found somewhat indecent. What right had anyone to erect such a gothic monstrosity in a public park? I doubted then if Victoria’s suffering at losing a loved one was greater than anyone else’s, and I doubt it still. Methought the lady did protest too much.

When I asked about the red brick ‘colosseum’ across the road, we crossed to the Albert Hall to check out the programs. Britten, Vaughn Williams, Beethoven. Quoting Kath, I declared that Romantic music was mere emotional bombast lacking intellectual rigour. My companion smiled at my pomposity, not revealing his own opinion. I discovered later he didn’t have one, never having been interested in classical music. We couldn’t get inside, so wandered back to the park.

His name was Melvyn. He managed the men’s department of a clothing store on Bond Street and, like me, loved brass bands so we spent an hour on flimsy seats at the Kensington Gardens Rotunda listening to somebody’s guards play stirring tunes that made your chest thump. Afterwards we wandered past Peter Pan, watched boys sail boats on the pond, and arranged to meet for lunch later in the week.

Being alone isn’t lonely. It’s the best way to meet people. A person on their own is not threatening, whereas two people can be. When alone, experiences seem more in focus. Senses are more alert as there’s only oneself to rely on. Emotions surge and the yearning to share a view or experience triggers a delicious ache in the heart. When with someone else, powerful emotions seem silly. Sensations are diluted when filtered through others’ eyes, and passions are dissipated if your companion doesn’t share your enthusiasm. Every new place should be viewed for the first time alone.

As for my birthday, I’ve always thought that either every day is a celebration – or none is. Therefore I'd never celebrated it – still haven’t. I’d received the expected letter from Mother and one completely unexpected from Dad – the first and only letter I received from him in my life. After reading them, I was more convinced than ever that I was now in the right place.

I’d exchanged amiable greetings and a few words with about a dozen people during the day, cementing my belief that I was living in the most civilized city on the planet. Genial men and women – noble souls inhabiting a noble metropolis. My heart was full.

The following morning, Sam was waiting in the same black gear, not so fresh, and thinner than ever, if that was possible, twitching and irritable although I was on time having left home at eight. He dragged me across the square to Club Strip, the long, narrow interior of which was dressed up as a Wild West Saloon waiting for Tom Mix to swagger in and let loose with his six-guns.

The owner ran other less salubrious strip joints and clubs in the area, and was also the importer of the jewellery. Club Strip would be the venue for the publicity photos and the first show. The second would be somewhere in Chelsea.

In the centre of the long right hand wall, a proscenium arched over a tiny stage hung with red and gold tasselled curtains. Wooden tables and chairs were arranged in front. A mirrored wall behind the bar on the end wall reflected an astonishing array of liquor in colourful bottles, and the walls opposite the stage were hung with huge gilt framed mirrors creating an impression of spaciousness.

Two heavyset men – bouncers I guessed – perched on stools at the bar. One flicked his unsmiling head to indicate I should go through the door beside him. The sound of Sam’s urgent whispers to them followed me.

I arrived in a functional room. Six dressing tables with well-lit mirrors, and chairs. A row of metal lockers along the opposite wall, a couch on the near wall, and a large table at the end where a nondescript middle-aged man in a grey business suit was putting jewellery into fabric bags. Two sullen girls sat on the couch; one a washed-out blonde, the other darker – exotic. I can never remember names so mentally labelled them Blonde and Brown. Both would have been pretty if they’d smiled.

The two bouncers came in and perched their bums on the table; staring at us. Unsmiling. The grey man looked up. As no one was speaking, I took it upon myself to be civil and with a smile that could melt icebergs, stepped forward, extending a hand in greeting. “Hi, I’m…”

“I don’t care who the fuck you are, get your clothes off. You, too.” He nodded towards the girls. It wasn’t said rudely, merely as if he was bored out of his mind. Chastened, I followed the girls’ example, hanging my clothes in a locker; glad I’d brought nothing of value because there was no key.

The two bouncers were immobile basilisks apparently as bored as their boss. One was bald, pockmarked, about thirty, in a shiny sharkskin suit stretched to bursting over either fat or muscles. The other was older – fortyish, red of hair, face and hands, fingers like saveloys. Their silence made me feel vulnerable. It took an effort not to cover my cods with my hands.

Pockmark saw me looking at him and snapped, “You a queer?”

I shook my head in horror at the suggestion.

“If you are, I’ll fucking rip ya balls off!”

I assured him I wasn’t, inventing a girlfriend waiting at home.

“You talk like a fuckin’ homo; all la-di-da. Poncing around in the nud in front of everyone… like a girl.”

“Leave the kid alone,” Redhead snapped, “or we’ll never finish.”

“Queer cunt.”

Pockmark’s sneer was the last straw and I’d opened my mouth to resign when the boss handed me eight numbered bags. We would each make eight appearances, wearing a different selection of jewellery each time. A trot along the catwalk and back would take about two minutes, so with an interval to sell alcohol; the show should run for about an hour and a half.

Some of the pieces were complicated – like the coiled silver snakes that had to be more or less screwed onto Blonde’s large breasts, and the large gold coin attached to a plastic cucumber thing, which when inserted into Brown’s vagina looked as though someone had stuck a medal on her slit.

My bracelets, anklets, and chains were simple to put on. The cock rings slipped on easily and the ball rings were hinged; held closed with a small pin. There was a ‘gold’ set, a filigree pair, another made to look like plaited rope, and intertwining snakes with emerald eyes. The earrings needed a hole, so Red iced my left ear lobe, then shoved a red-hot needle through it. It didn’t hurt until they rammed in an earring. The fashion for piercings was well into the future, thank goodness. I'd have baulked at the piercing of nipples – or worse! I looked in the mirror and laughed.

“What’s so fuckin’ funny?”

Instead of the family jewels dangling tastefully between my legs, they were bunched up and thrust slightly forward, outlined in gold. The boss grunted and asked the girls’ opinions. They thought for a bit, then reckoned it was good because just as men didn’t like to see women with sagging tits, women weren’t turned on by men with sagging bits. That settled it.

Throughout the ‘dress’ rehearsal we were pushed, pulled, told to shut up, stand, sit, bend. When I suggested they treat us like humans, Redhead smashed me across the side of the head, knocking me to the ground. I staggered up expecting the boss to support me. But all he said was something about not giving me any bruises, nodding agreement when Redhead said they’d be gone by Saturday.

Later, the girls told me I’d asked for it, and I shouldn’t talk so la-di-dah… it made me sound like I was up myself, and that’s why the boss didn’t like me. They spoke the same as the heavies; ‘somefing’ and ‘nuffing’ and glottal stops. They were creatures from a parallel universe; looking like humans but missing what I'd always thought of as ‘humanity’.

As the afternoon progressed I was ‘accidentally’ knocked and pushed several times. Not hard, but it wasn’t funny. I'd have walked out if it hadn’t been for the money and the fact they knew my address and looked as if they'd gladly tie rocks to my feet and chuck me in the Thames if I annoyed them. We were merely shop fittings.

I had a go at discussing this with the girls, but their eyes glazed, mirroring their flat, dull voices. They were just pretty zombies, as different from the girls I grew up with as the boss and his heavies were unlike the funny, smart-arse guys with whom I used to hang out. A type of human I had no way of reading; no way of winning over… and I felt a twinge of fear.

Weighed down with chains, bracelets, anklets, earrings.... we posed for the photographs in an overdressed bedroom. As the posters were going on the streets we had to hide our bits and after a few minutes of pressing my groin against Brown, to my relief I got a hard-on that I made sure Pockmark saw to prove I wasn’t a homo. That made Sam ask about the forty-five degree law, but the boss said not to worry because Phil was going to be on duty.

Afterwards, Sam explained it was illegal for a penis, either in public or print, to stray more than forty-five degrees from the pendant vertical. Phil was a tame cop who would overlook such minor transgressions in return for favours.

I spent the rest of the day wandering along the Embankment to the Tower, and then climbed “The Monument to the Great Fire of London”, gazing over the City in an effort to rationalise my nervousness. Evening found me in the gods at the Criterion watching Isis Murdoch’s A Severed Head. My sole memory of that purportedly funny play is the low rumble of the tube trains on the Piccadilly line, running only a few metres beneath the theatre.

Monday’s unpleasantness kept bugging me, so late Tuesday I called on Mr. Feeney. As I had no appointment, I had to wait while an assortment of performers came and went. A fellow dressed as a butler; a couple of clowns; two women wrapped in furs and carrying stilts; a one-man band, and a girl who appeared to have been cloned from Blonde.

Mr. Feeney, it seemed, was agent for loners with special skills. I had no special skills and told him so when I finally got in to see him. Not so, he assured me; Sam had contacted him and reckoned everyone had been pleased by my professional attitude on Monday. This made no sense, so I told him what had happened – showed him the bruise on my face. He dismissed it as a misunderstanding. The Boss’s tough exterior hid a heart of gold. Yeah. Right.

It was late, the secretary had gone and I stood to go but he told me to stay, poured himself a whiskey, offered me one, which I refused, leaned back in his padded leather chair and asked, ‘What’s an educated, well-bred young man like you doing in a job like this?”

“Like what?”

“Taking your clothes off for cash. Don’t you feel embarrassed?”

For once I answered honestly. “I need the money and no, it doesn’t make me feel embarrassed – it makes me feel powerful.”

That surprised him. “Powerful? How do you mean?”

“I dare - they don’t. They’re cowards, ashamed of their bodies; I'm proud.”

It was several years before I realised that it was also a way of expressing contempt for a society that tolerated laws that made me a criminal for simply being myself. It was giving the finger to people with irrational prejudices and prissy puritanical double standards; and it helped defuse the scorn I felt for people who think nude equals rude. Feeney’s smug smile provoked me to provide a list of things we ought to be embarrassed about such as greed, dishonesty, laziness, intolerance, and unhealthy bodies – the wrong thing to say to a man of his build.

With an irritated grunt, he asked if I’d be interested in half a day’s work. I was, and on Thursday morning met two guys in a small office in Paddington. They were slim, witty, sharp, polite, and as different from the Boss, Pockmark, and Red as you could get, and the money they offered was nearly as good.

In the dead hour after the midday rush, two of us waited until the platform of Canon Street Underground Station was empty, then as we ascended the escalator towards the exit I stripped and handed my clothes to my companion. We then made our way nonchalantly towards the ticket collector. The other bloke was waiting with a movie camera and filmed me walking towards the booth and then caught the reaction of the unsuspecting ticket collector as I patted myself as if checking the contents of pockets while offering excuses for losing my ticket. The poor old bloke didn't know what to do; kept trying to tug me into his booth in case someone saw me.

I remained in view of the camera, smiling as if concerned for his sanity. When the ticket collector asked the fellow holding my clothes for assistance, he acted as though nothing was amiss and asked the ticket collector if he was feeling OK.

Promising to come back with the shilling I owed him, I slipped into an overcoat behind his booth, having been seen by no one else because it was ‘Exit Only’, and raced for their van, illegally parked nearby. We stopped on the street near their office, where they set up a camera that drew a crowd. I had to walk about twenty yards to a doorway and enter as if I'd been walking naked all the way from the station. The crowd cheered and someone raced in front of the camera so we had to do a second take. Then I went in and shut the door, walked up the stairs, knocked on a door, tried the handle, peered through the keyhole, registered excitement, and sat down and masturbated. It wasn’t cold under the lights they'd set up. Later they would insert the scene I'd seen through the keyhole – something pretty bizarre I suppose; they hadn't decided yet.

When I asked if it was for Candid Camera they laughed. They were making an ‘adult’ erotic film in the style of the Running Jumping Standing Still Film. I’d loved the Goons and all the crazy things in that; the old woman scrubbing a paddock, the guy racing round and round a record on a tree stump holding a needle.... so was thrilled to have had a part in it, but disappointed not to see the final cut. That’s the problem with acting in movies; you never see anything except your own scenes until the complete show is on screen – and then it’s too late to say no. The only downside of the experience was the soles of my feet got so filthy it took hours to scrub them clean.

Friday lunchtime I presented myself at Melvyn’s menswear department; an alcove in a large Bond Street emporium dedicated to discreet and elegant women’s fashion. He sold discreet and elegant ties, handkerchiefs, belts etc… men’s accessories for women who thought they ought to buy some little thing for their husbands after spending a fortune on themselves.

Melvyn shouted me to a pork pie and a glass of ginger ale - he drank real ale - in a charming little pub nearby. When I told him about Saturday’s performances and what I'd be wearing, he promised to come and cheer me on at the evening show in Chelsea. Afterwards, he’d take me to a club that had recently opened in Victoria.

I had money in my pocket with more to come, and, although Melvyn was slightly older than I'd realised in the park and somewhat camp, the possibility of friendship. Moreover, I was sitting in a genuine old London pub… What more could a young man desire?

Chapter 7: Performance

Fears about Saturday’s show prompted a long walk to soothe the seething senses. I always think best when afoot, sometimes wandering blindly for hours as the little grey cells wrestle with disorganised thoughts.

Plenty of men were photographic models – I'd been one myself; sitting in front of the fire with an ex Miss New Zealand on an IGA calendar; carrying another young woman over the threshold of a new house for a housing developer’s brochure and newspaper advertisements… but they weren’t live shows. Men never ponced up and down catwalks… that was for women.

Everyone knows that men are attractive simply because they are men – no matter how old, what shape or intelligence. A woman, on the other hand, is attractive only if she is young, slim, nubile, and beautiful.

Heroes in films were usually ten or more years older than the females they rescued and married, thick of waist, craggy (or saggy) of face, and pretty bloody sexless in my opinion. They were ordinary, run of the mill Anglo-Saxons. Heroines were slim, sexy, beautiful, perky, and yearning to pander to their master’s vanity. They could be cunning, deceitful, flirtatious… but never clever, independent or, greatest sin of all, plain.

Comfortable images of masculinity had bred complacency in European men, who swam publicly in brief togs with never a thought about the effect on their ‘image’. They ran around shirtless displaying a variety of chests, unworried that they didn’t resemble Tarzan. Young men played sport in shorts that barely covered their buttocks, and wandered the streets in clothes that drew attention to their genitals. Men thought they were sexy; ipso facto they were sexy – even if they didn’t always look sexy.

Women, on the other hand, have always gazed with apprehension on the impossible images of females in all media; fearing they could never be so beautiful, so slim, so fashionable. However, to their credit, they tried! And they’re still trying! Filling to bursting the coffers of hairdressers, make-up merchants, clothing and shoe manufacturers, health, dietary and weight loss clinics, aerobics classes. Women seem prepared to hurl themselves into the clutches of anyone who promises they’ll make them look as good as the airbrushed girls in the ads.

Today, men are also confronted by perfect specimens of their sex on hoardings and advertisements, films, and internet porn sites, but instead of attempting to emulate them, they concede defeat by concealing their sex and deficiencies under baggy clothes. They’d rather die of heat than expose their chests to cooling breezes, or swim in anything briefer than knee-length baggies that fill with water and drown several kids every year. Exhibiting an abhorrence of their own flesh worthy of a religious flagellant, they let their bodies run to seed before they’re thirty and refuse to show more skin than absolutely necessary.

But all this thinking didn’t alter the fact that I had contracted to prance along a catwalk in front of a few hundred strangers, wearing nothing but jewellery. I was going to look ridiculous, conceited, and boring! Two years with Heath Joyce had instilled in me the absolute necessity for preparation. “Never go on stage simply hoping things will turn out ok – they never do!”

While sifting my wits for ideas, I recalled a bodybuilding contest in which, instead of pumped up muscles wrapped in a network of straining veins and tendons, one competitor had been merely lithe and fit. Rather than take up the usual poses, he cart-wheeled in, stood on his hands, flipped onto his feet, flexed his cute body, did the splits, then finished by adopting a pose impossible for his muscle-bound competitors. The audience loved him; the judges didn’t. He came last. It was the audience’s reaction that interested me.

I was nothing like a bodybuilder. Nor did I consider myself handsome. I had to think of something that wouldn’t get me laughed off the stage. I couldn’t do the splits, but could just about manage the rest. I closed my eyes and imagined the scene – then immediately wished I hadn’t! The whole idea was ridiculous! The sole certainty was that it would be suicide to appear to take myself seriously. I had to act the clown so the audience would think it was all a bit of a laugh. But I had to get them to laugh with me – not at me. It would be my first appearance on a London stage! My dream! Surely it wasn’t going to be a nightmare? Ok, so it would be a farce. But it was live, and farce is just as difficult to do right as serious theatre.

Having a plan calmed my nerves and I slept peacefully, arriving at Club Strip after a good hard jog, only to receive my first set back. The show was going to be on the floor. A blue carpet had been rolled the length of the building with rows of chairs placed about a metre from it on either side, making seating for about a hundred and twenty people. The rest of the audience could stand behind them or on the tables. On stage, a small band was playing where I should have been.

The place was crammed with youth and excitement. The bar was crowded. The band belted out rock ’n roll. Dimmed lights left only a glow over the walkway. In the dressing room I’d just time to rub on scented oil to make the skin shine with health, don the muslin harem trousers and the first load of jewellery, when the band struck up a raunchy tune and Blonde strutted forth.

Cheers erupted at the sight of bare breasts. I peeped out. There were only women in the front row, their partners standing close behind. Behind them others stood on chairs, and tables groaned under bodies straining for a look. Blonde took her time, stopping and turning as instructed, fingering and drawing attention to the jewellery, yawning as if bored out of her mind. As she turned at the end, Brown took off. Another cheer.

Watching Blonde sauntering towards me I was shocked. Dead eyes in a dead face. Lips dragged into a sulky sneer. Then I realised she was very clever! Acting the slut. It certainly turned on most of the males. The females looked bewildered as if wondering if they should also walk and look like that. The music thumped on.

Brown was the opposite; a flirting, smiling coquette, walking with a jaunty swing to the hips and handling the jewellery with deliberate eroticism. She reached the end and it was my turn. Heart a-flutter I staggered out as if I’d been unwillingly pushed, then stood as if had no idea what on earth I was doing there.

I started to run along the carpet, did a stage trip, fell onto my hands, flipped into a handstand, converted to a cartwheel and then stood, visibly shaken, mopping my brow in relief at not having crashed into the women sitting so close to the carpet; mouthing ‘sorry’ to those nearest. Then I beamed a mad grin – and it worked. They laughed – with me. I was a clown in gold chains, earrings and see-through trousers; not to be taken seriously. Brown blew me a kiss as she passed, stroking my chest, raising a lewd guffaw.

In subsequent sorties, more or less incompetent gymnastic exercises raised laughs, and each time I met Brown we danced a bit. Then I had the idea of dancing a few steps with some of the women in the front row, holding them well away from oiled skin. They loved the attention and husbands and boyfriends were rapt that their girl had been chosen. When passing Blonde, I also tried to dance with her, but each time she sidestepped and pretended to hit me. That raised more laughs. I was a nervous wreck by the interval.

Topped up with alcohol the audience became raucous. The roar when Blonde slouched on wearing only a tiny fringe of gold chain at the loins and her spiral bra drowned the band. She glowered an angry sneer – still the sullen bitch. Brown’s vaginal medallion proved equally popular, but a shocked silence descended when I bounced on wearing nothing but ball and cock rings, a bracelet and earring. Luckily, it was followed by a roar of laughter.

Unscripted performance is much harder work than it appears, requiring total concentration to avoid repeating actions, to choose different women to dance with each time, to maintain the pace and be funny and sexy, not ridiculous. There was no time to think of anything else – certainly no time to be aware that I was naked or feel sexual.

Afterwards in the dressing room, I told the girls what great actresses they were. Blank stares. They weren’t actresses! They were strippers and worked the clubs owned by the boss. This had been a doddle compared with that! But at least they’d warmed a little towards me, grudgingly admitting I was better to work with than they’d expected. Sam nodded in agreement.

“Beats me how you did that, Rigby,” he said. “I was sure it was going to be a madhouse and you’d get booed off the floor.” He grinned. “The boss wants to keep you on.”

I told him there was no way I'd ever do anything for him again. I hated the whole outfit – the boss and his ugly goons. With a nervous glance towards Pock and Red, Sam warned me to be careful. Something in his voice made me uneasy.

The boss wandered in, draped an arm across my shoulders and, with sour, smoke-laden breath, congratulated everyone on a great performance, announcing that sales of jewellery were looking positive and I'd be staying on for a bit – maybe even permanently.

Before I could argue, a policeman barged in to announce that I was under arrest for contravening the forty-five degree law. The boss nodded sagely, took my elbow in a vice-grip, and apologised contritely, asking if there was anything he could do about it.

Phil nodded sourly at Brown and me, and strode into the bedroom we’d used for the photos. Brown followed docilely and the boss shoved me towards the door. I resisted. “You only have to flog the stupid prick with the whip,” he whispered. “It’s worth another fiver in your pocket. But don’t fuck this up! We need him.”

I won't go into details; it’s enough to mention that the sight of a bulky, hirsute, middle-aged man pounding into a tiny, pretty girl while he’s being thrashed, is not an edifying sight. I wasn’t shocked – merely sorry for Brown. I tried to hurt Phil with the whip, but the harder I slashed the more he liked it. Short of shoving the handle up his arse I couldn’t think what else to do.

My mind drifted until suddenly the dangers of independence hit me. No one knew I was there. If I refused the boss’s offer I could be throttled, bagged, and shoved into a hole in the ground with no one giving a stuff. Fortunately, common sense prevailed. Instead of refusing the boss’s invitation to join his merry band, I’d go along with it, then run for my life as soon as the next show was over.

Meanwhile, the hands-on experience of heterosexual prostitution was instructive. It was not a glamorous occupation. It was sleazy. No way would I have indulged in such sordid coupling! Sex for me was going to be consensual, fun and relaxed, with someone physically attractive of my own age, who I liked; or better still, loved.

A great grunting and shuddering preceded Phil’s ejaculation. He clambered off the bed, dressed and left us to wash off our shame in the bathroom. Back in the dressing room there were plates of fish and chips and bottles of beer and coke. We dressed and ate… I'd had nothing since breakfast. It was too late to go home so we just sat around. I felt like a prisoner. Nervousness racked up a notch. No chance now to get a change of clothes to make myself presentable for Melvyn.

The boss and Red discussed expected financial returns from jewellery sales, but their hopes were premature. It was to be another dozen years before Viva magazine’s sexy naked men were wearing exactly the jewellery I'd been modelling. And that fashion only lasted a few years, to be replaced by the age of disfigurement. Piercings – even barbed wire – through lips, noses, eyebrows, nipples, penises, scrotums, labia... mutilation madness! Instead of celebrating the body and rejoicing in its perfection, too many young people began to deface it… perhaps because most of them don’t have the bodies they desire?

At 7:30, the girls and I squeezed into the back of an Armstrong Siddeley with Pock. The boss sat in front with Red, who drove. Half an hour later, the car pulled up near the back doorway of a pub. It was freezing. We ran inside to be engulfed in ear-shattering Rock music, the stench of stale beer, and the hum of humanity. Sam ushered us into a tiny room barely large enough to oil up and don the jewels.

It didn’t feel good.

Chapter 8: Farce

While typing this in the pleasant shade of trees beside the fishpond, I was distracted by a shaft of sunlight in which a dense column of tiny midges spiralled above the water.

Tens of thousands of them swirling in luminous eddies; tiny particles of light soaring up and down, in and out, round and round apparently at random but never colliding in their fantastic dance. The purpose of this extraordinary aerial ballet, is the raison d’être of all life, from the tiniest protozoon to the largest mammal. Reproduction. They will mate on the wing, sink to earth, lay eggs, and die; their brief lives thus rendered as significant as the lives of all other organisms in the incomprehensibly complex system we call Life. For humans, as for midges and every other form of Life, their sole ‘purpose’ is to reproduce.

Control sex and you control the world; as religious leaders have long understood. By proclaiming sex and nudity to be sinful, popes and imams have their congregations by the short and curlies – riddled with guilt, unable to function without bouts of confession and punishment for even thinking about sex – let alone doing it!

After WWII, Organised Religions lost their stranglehold on the minds of many Europeans and they began to think freely. In the 1960s, religious observance fell to unprecedented lows as people sloughed off the mantle of guilt and embraced natural instincts.

In recent years, however, the ‘Religions of the Book’ have been clawing back lost ground – some by marketing themselves as more democratic, freer thinking, sympathetic to difference; others by reinforcing the calls for death to all who fail to observe the commands of their prophets as declared in their Book.

The success of their campaigns can be measured by the amount of porn on the Internet. Natural urges that are repressed have a way of bursting forth in violent expressions of revolt. The resulting overwhelming preponderance of pornography on the Internet has encouraged people to imagine they live in a sexually liberated society, whereas the truth is the opposite. Porn is the result of repression of healthy, open discussion, and sexual activity, which is why sexual violence and loveless sexually explicit entertainment are seen as the products of diseased minds, by societies where sex and nudity are considered as normal and healthy as eating, sleeping, working and playing.

That column of midges reminded me of London in the ’60s. A myriad of swarming humans, fluttering in the bright new light of liberation with one thing on their minds – sex.

The crowd at The Six Bells pub was riotous. Sam reckoned they’d been waiting all afternoon to see the naked chicks and were well and truly lubricated. Instead of a blue carpet, someone had just shoved a few tables aside to create a zigzag alley. Without clear separation from the audience we’d be open to abuse. I didn’t like it, nor did the girls. Pock said not to be so pathetic, but it wasn’t his arse on show. There weren’t any spotlights; not even a live band – just the thumping house muzak.

Blonde traipsed out to drunken cheers. She coped as she had before – they didn’t dare muck with her. Brown’s cute charm had little effect and the catcalls were crude. I received a barrage of “Queer! Homo!” so gave them the finger – not a smart move. I only just made it back; terrified of what would happen when the harem trousers came off! In the middle of Blonde’s second sortie there was a crash at the front and a gang of yobbos burst into the pub wielding what looked like cricket bats. At the same moment, a group of young men on the far side of the pub raced for their nearest exit.

“Everyone out!” called the Boss, as police whistles shrilled, giving the weapon-wielding youths plenty of time to follow the fleeing young men. Red seized the jewellery. Pock grabbed our bags and tossed them into the boot of the car. We squeezed into the back seat with him and Sam; the boss scrambled into the front; Red put his foot down and our tyres squealed.

After a couple of blocks, he stopped to check we had all the jewellery. When everything was accounted for, Sam got out and I said I’d do the same, as there wasn’t going to be a show that night, and I wanted to get back to the pub to see Melvyn. I didn’t tell them that, of course. The Boss apologised for leaving his chequebook back at the house. I'd have to go with him if I wanted to be paid.

Somewhere between the Cromwell Road and Kensington High Street, we parked in a tree-lined avenue flanked by large houses fronted with Doric columns, porticos, and wide steps leading to impressive front doors. Our entrance, however, was the service stairs to the side, down which we scampered, arriving in a large, warm, modern kitchen smelling of toast and coffee. I was ravenous.

Red busied himself at the sink bench, Pock handed me my bag of clothes, then he and the girls disappeared. I dumped my bag on a shelf and followed the boss into a small office. He took out his chequebook, wrote in it, tore out a cheque and placed it in front of me… it was for only half the sum offered in the contract.

“You only gave one performance,” he said to my look of surprise.

“It wasn’t my fault…”

“Next time, read the fine print,” he stated bluntly. He then wrote another cheque for three times that amount and showed it to me. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “You can leave now with the smaller cheque, or you can wait half an hour until a South African woman arrives expecting to find a handsome young man to pleasure her for an hour. If you do that small thing, this second cheque is yours. If, however, you don’t please her and don’t last the hour, you get nothing.”

He assured me she was a wealthy woman, very pleasant, divorced, and ready to part with chunks of her alimony in a fruitless effort to regain her youth and enjoy pleasures too long denied.

When I suggested I might not be able to raise it for an older woman, he said that was not a problem; I could use a specially made condom of thick rubber. She was doubtless vain and silly, but not stupid enough to imagine a young man would fancy her. She just wanted to feel and see young male flesh while being screwed, and was prepared to pay for the pleasure.

While I considered the idea, he explained that the house was a high-class brothel and he was in the process of expanding into the relatively new market of providing men for newly liberated women. The trouble was, the clients were all wealthy old bags seeking sex, and it was next to impossible to find presentable males to service them.

Teenage boys preferred selling themselves to men because it was quicker, paid better, and there were no emotional problems. Older guys in their twenties, like me, if they were still selling their bodies were usually burnt out, raddled with drugs, diseased and not too attractive – that’s why he’d decided to keep me. I'd proved I was prepared to work, wasn’t a prude, was clean-cut, fit, intelligent, classy. I’d be ideal for the job and would retire a millionaire by the time I was Thirty.

I had memorised La Fontaine’s fable of the ‘Fox and the Crow’, and taken to heart the lesson the fox gave the crow after tricking him out of his cheese: ‘Every flatterer lives at the expense of he who listens to him,’ but the sight of the cheque elbowed common sense aside.

I took the bait. We shook hands on the deal and joined Red and Pock in the dining area for toast and coffee. Everyone had suddenly become jolly and agreeable. After a necessary shower in an adjoining bathroom, I donned a very short kimono, then Pock instructed me in the art of using a ‘dildo’ condom.

The remaining minutes were spent chatting about nothing in particular. I was a man among men. Red reckoned the fracas at the pub had nothing to do with us – it was just queer bashing. The pub had become popular with homos, so bullyboys occasionally raided the place for a bit of fun. I got the impression he was sorry not to have been with them.

The phone rang; the boss answered, looked at me, winked, said, “He’ll be right up,” and replaced the receiver.

“Go for it,” Pock said warmly, patting me on the shoulder as I took the cold stone back stairs up to room 17.

Swathes of beige tulle, lace and tassels adorned windows, bed and walls, and my godmother rose from an elaborate escritoire to greet me. Tightly corseted in tailored grey suit, frills of a creamy silk blouse at the throat, gigantic yellow diamonds like car headlights on each middle finger, hair a helmet of permed, blue-rinsed curls.

It wasn’t godmother of course, but this woman had been cut from the same pattern as the lady whose fox fur had gazed so balefully at the world thirteen years before. She smiled coyly, told me I was a young god, untied the belt on my kimono, ran wrinkled, liver-spotted paws over my chest and shoulders, then slipped the flimsy garment off.

With scarcely a grunt she sank to her knees, removed her false teeth, concealing them skilfully in her left hand, then took my manhood into her mouth while I ran nervous fingers through blue hair as coarse as a terrier’s. Undeterred by an unsuccessful attempt to bring life to my flaccid organ, she surreptitiously replaced her dentures, asked me to hoist her to her feet, and cooed, “You’re nervous, darling. There’s no need to be… I don’t bite.” Then smiled demurely and invited me to undress her.

It was like unpacking an eiderdown. When the wrapping is removed it fluffs out until it’s three times the size. Doughy white shoulders and arms bulged; swollen bosoms freed from their black lace brassiere sagged alarmingly, triggering stretch marks as fragile skin strained under the weight. Removal of the corset revealed an apron of flab that rolled over the tiny lace panties from which drooped dimpled buttocks and thighs. How, I wondered, could the cute little cream-horn legs of chubby infants mutate into such vast, quivering columns of pale, sickly, shapeless flesh, criss-crossed with a network of blue veins?

She perched coyly on the edge of the bed fluttering mascara-smudged eyelids at my anxious assurance that I was crazy about mature women. Which was literally true. I was nauseous as well. She lay back. I stroked her thigh and, eyes gleaming with lust and desire, said I’d been so excited to get to her I’d forgotten to piss, could she wait for just a minute while I dashed out for a slash?

She giggled girlishly at the crudity and told me to be quick….

The boss, Pock, and Red were playing cards. No one looked up.

‘Get going, Graham,” the boss said with a sigh of resignation.

Pock stood, glared and snarled, “I knew you were a fucking queer bastard. Fucking useless homo! This is the third time this week I've had to screw an old trout! Fuck you, Rigby!”

He threw off his clothes and raced up the stairs while I dressed in silence and the other two continued playing cards.

I slunk out the door and up the stairs, understanding why dogs ram their tail between their legs. A most uncomfortable sensation of tingling vulnerability and failure tickled my ring as I trudged down the road in search of an underground station.

Chapter 9: Work and Play

By the time I arrived home I’d convinced myself I’d been lucky to have experienced a bit of the ‘low life’ one reads about; emerging unscathed – apart from a dose of well-deserved embarrassment. I hadn't lost any money – just performed for free. And it was rather funny – but not something I’d tell anyone. Best of all, it was clear from they way they ignored me at the end that the Boss had lost interest in me so I was perfectly safe. After a hot shower I slept like a log.

On Sunday, a twenty-seven year-old red haired South African in a bed-sit on the floor below, invited me for a pub lunch and drink with his colleague. They were clerks in the same legal firm; friendly, normal, non-athletic blokes whose idea of fun was to unsuccessfully chat up females well outside their league and talk about TV programmes. To assist digestion we walked slowly down to the river, across to Battersea Amusement Park, then ended up at a Poets’ evening in a barn of a pub.

Amateurs performing their own stuff is not riveting entertainment, especially when I could only understand half of what they said, and what I did hear sounded maudlin. I'm a philistine when it comes to poetry. I only like stuff in which the poet’s meaning and intention is crystal clear. I also demand that it rhymes and either triggers a smile or makes me think. Pleading an early appointment, I returned home to read and sleep.

On Monday I bought the new Equity magazine, checked it and a newspaper for jobs, then visited Melvyn at his large and discreetly elegant Bond street emporium. The demure assistants were far too polite to question my less than elegant apparel, but swapped knowing smiles when I said I was just going to see Melvyn.

In a dark suit, polished shoes and a pale grey silk tie, he nodded vaguely and said he’d be with me shortly. I thought he’d forgotten who I was, but after disposing of a fussy customer he glanced around to check he wasn’t being watched, then dragged me into a dressing room to apologise for missing my show on Saturday. I graciously granted absolution; very relieved he hadn’t witnessed the fiasco.

That evening we visited a classically porticoed house in a Belgravia terrace, the ground floor of which was devoted to a bar and lounge opening on to a tiny garden containing tables and umbrellas to keep off the freezing rain. It was super in summer, someone assured me.

The décor of the ineptly named Apollo Club was subdued creams and beige, chosen to match the clientele. Middle-aged, well-fleshed queens dressed casually in smart cavalry twill trousers, white shirts, ties and reefer jackets or sports coats with leather patches on the elbows. About ten of these fellows were glued to comfortable armchairs around a low central coffee table, sipping pink gins or something equally upper.

A fat, camp and irritatingly jovial barman served drinks. I carried mine to a table at one end while Melvyn chatted languidly to a large pompous fellow resonating with Home Counties vowels.

According to Melvyn, he was the Queen Mother’s butler and, if you believed him, her confidant. His coterie included a parliamentary under-secretary, the second son of a lord, the secretary to someone important, a bullish guardsman from the Queen’s Royal Regiment, and a couple of soft, well-fed fellows of sycophantic mien. A few younger, but not better-looking fellows slumped over the arms of chairs or stood awkwardly behind, whispering together.

Melvyn was acknowledged by the ‘royal’ table because he was the manager of a Bond Street Boutique – I was merely ‘trade’. One’s worth, in this rarefied atmosphere, was determined by one’s place of work or one’s antecedents. I guessed that Club Strip wasn’t on their list of respectable workplaces, and felt mildly incongruous in revealingly tight trousers, T-shirt and cheap leather jacket from C&A. The music was discreet but danceable, however Melvyn preferred to gossip with acquaintances, leaving me to roam.

I tried to chat with a couple of uninteresting young men who eyed me up and down as if wondering what I was, before turning back to their equally frumpish mates. I felt unloved and unlovely.

No dancing, no kissing, no touching or holding hands. Everyone shit-scared they were going to be raided and caught in flagrante delicto.

It’s impossible to imagine anything more different from the gay bars and dance halls that in recent years have resurrected Soho, which is now like a big gay village with dance halls and bars on both sides of Old Compton Street and in the side alleys; not to mention the busy clubs at Vauxhall and in the East End from Hoxton Square to Stratford. As for film festivals and Gay Pride… not even in our wildest dreams could we have imagined such things.

At the time, I just thought they were pathetic. A few weeks later after a brush with bigoted Catholic homophobia, I learned the reason for their discretion – fear. Every queer male lived with the constant fear of police harassment, public humiliation and criminal convictions. If it was thought someone was homosexually inclined they could be summarily dismissed from work or evicted from their rented apartment. At any time of the day or night, police could break into a house where they suspected homosexual activity and drag the miscreants down to the station in whatever they were or were not wearing, there to be publicly disgraced, humiliated, fined, or imprisoned and, too frequently, raped.

These laws were a useful tool of business and politics, because a homosexual label was sufficient to ruin the promising career of a rival, or rake in an income through blackmail. It’s difficult to imagine anything more iniquitous than branding individuals as ‘criminals’ for being perfectly natural variants of human sexuality. It was, and remains in most countries, a lonely, terrifying life for a queer boy, surrounded by rabid homophobic parents, siblings, schoolmates teachers and neighbours.

On the street it was dangerous to respond to a smile from a man because police entrapment was the norm and the penalty was prosecution, fines, and imprisonment for soliciting – even if the cop smiled first. The shame and opprobrium attached to homosexuality was so omnipresent, so suffocating, that thousands suicided. I knew three young men who slashed their wrists from fear of exposure to parents, workmates, bosses, and friends.

Most queers got married simply to prevent any rumours. You had to be very brave or very stupid to be open about your orientation. Thus, those with something to lose frequented clubs like the Apollo, while those with nothing to lose went to bars around Earl’s Court where daring young men in crotchless jeans, tattoos and boots posed for admirers.

But they could just as easily be queer bashers, so if you didn’t want to end up as one of the thousands of murdered or maimed young homos for whom no statistics have ever been kept, then caution was essential. Those bars held as little attraction for me as the Apollo. I wanted somewhere civilized, friendly, pleasant, and fun. I’ve since learned that heterosexuals also often have difficulty finding that.

Melvyn took me back to his serviced apartment where the sex matched the evening… beige, although he did teach me the joys a tongue and lips can bring to sensitive skin – for which I remain very grateful. As the evening progressed I learned he had no interest in laughing, running, dancing, opera, ballet, theatre, reading, swimming, keeping fit, and, most important for me, getting enough sleep. It was my first lesson in the sad truth that sexual orientation has nothing to do with character.

I'd gone to the club imagining I'd find a room full of people like me – instead, I found myself further from the norm than usual. We made noises about keeping in touch, knowing we wouldn’t.

Things were tight on the fiscal front. Still no jobs for me in the latest edition of Equity, so I tried my hand at selling central heating for a French company whose young manager was disturbingly sexy – especially compared to his English counterparts.

English houses would have been cold in Queensland in winter, with their single glazed windows, no insulation, and poorly fitting joinery. Almost all houses had been heated by coal fires until the killer smogs of the 1950s finally induced the government to ban all fires, replacing them with electric heaters, leaving it to Battersea Power Station in the heart of the city to now belch millions of tons of smoke every year. But that wasn’t so bad because the chimneys were high enough to ensure a wider distribution of the toxic soot that covered everything.

Water was heated either by electric immersion heaters in uninsulated copper tanks that had to be manually switched on a few hours before anyone wanted a bath, and then switched off to prevent them boiling over, or by gas geysers. Constant hot water was a luxury unknown to the majority of people in 1960s Britain.

I was assigned to Poppy, a ‘girl’ in her forties who looked like a wrestler and dressed like Twiggy. Knee-high leather boots, legs encased in purple tights, crotch-length skirts and fluffy angora sweaters. She drove her new Austin A40 with its revolutionary transverse engine as if competing at Brands Hatch, scaring me witless as she tore through, rather than around the innumerable roundabouts on the new Ring Road that was supposed to cure London's increasing traffic problems, but merely ensured more vehicles entered the city. Instead of turning on the radio she kept up a monologue about her famous neighbours, her WWII experiences as an army driver, and her sex life.

She lived fairly close to me in Dolphin Square, a prestigious Art Deco apartment block built in the 1930s, set in three-and-a-half acres of private landscaped gardens. It was home to some of the nation's most celebrated people and, according to Poppy, they numbered amongst her closest friends. To her chagrin I didn’t recognise any of the names she dropped.

It was a quick jog from Mrs. Hockey’s to Dolphin Square, where I'd arrive about ten o'clock to meet Poppy, looking as if she’d slept in a haystack. She’d rev the engine, spin the wheels, and hurtle away while launching into detailed descriptions of the sexual athleticism of her paramour, Bertie, and the fun they’d had the previous evening. I faked awe and admiration while wishing she would pull her tiny skirt down a tad and concentrate on the road.

Every day we raced south through Bexley Heath to Seven Oaks, Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells – the stockbroker belt of detached houses, half-timbered cottages, vast Victorian mansions up long tree-lined drives, and mock-Tudor estates with brass coach lamps and Elizabethan porticoes on curving, tree encrusted streets.

Poppy would park somewhere quiet to recover from the previous night’s excesses while I went from door to door pretending I was conducting a survey of home heating. On discovering they had no central heating, I’d sing the praises of this essential home improvement, insisting they deserved it. An English winter without it was unthinkable and it cost less than they’d imagine – indeed, they’d eventually save money!

Once the unfortunate housewife realised she would become a social pariah without central heating, she would beg for a visit from a representative of our company who just happened to be in the area. I was always able to juggle appointments and arrange one as a favour for her and her husband the same evening, for which she would be pathetically grateful.

I had a talent for salesmanship; the most immoral and shameful occupation humans have invented. An upper-class accent, genuine smile, sympathetic mien, appreciation of their feminine desirability, squeaky clean appearance, and a healthy body with a generous bulge at the crotch of tight trousers, were an open sesame to the hearts and minds of lonely housewives desperate to confess how cold their house, how far the shops, how unsympathetic their husbands, and how sexless their lives. Had I accepted every offer of tea I'd still be drinking.

Jacket off and shirt sleeves rolled above my biceps, I'd sprawl elegantly in a chintzy armchair sipping tea, gazing in sincere sympathy as they complained that travelling sixty miles each way on the train to the city to work every day left their husbands with no energy for ‘other things’. Did I really have to go so soon? I assuaged their misery with sympathetic noises and praise for their taste, charm, paintings, books, pot plants, gardens, and anything else I laid my eyes on, at the same time failing to register the gentle stroke of hand on bare arm as I gazed at a prized portrait of the favourite grandfather.

England was not a rich country so soon after the war. Despite the tree-lined streets and cute village-green atmosphere, the interiors of many houses were as Spartan as monasteries. The middle classes will sacrifice everything for the ‘right’ appearance and a ‘good’ address, even if it means having to share a single cup-cake at tea time with one’s half-starved spouse.

Alarmed at the ease with which these women could be manipulated, I decided it was morally indefensible to talk them into buying something they couldn’t afford and would regret as soon as they’d signed their names.

A quick look around was all it took to gauge whether they could meet the expense of our product. If I thought they couldn’t, I'd salvage my self-respect by confiding that the product wasn’t really all it was cracked up to be and they’d be better off just double-glazing and putting in draft stoppers. Dewey eyed with gratitude at my honesty they’d promise never to mention what I'd said to anyone, and we’d part bosom friends.

In the evenings, Poppy and I would visit the houses I’d arranged interviews with to hard-sell our package of insulated cylinders providing continuous hot water, thermostatically controlled electric radiators, and basic insulation. The husband would be standing nervously at attention, I'd effect the introductions, then flick a tape measure around while Poppy extolled the wonders of central heating, dropping names of famous neighbours in Dolphin Square where, as she never tired of informing everyone, the continuous hot water and central heating were not luxuries – they were essential to a civilized life.

Her bizarre dress and perfectly modulated contralto vowels convinced clients of her aristocratic antecedents, for only a member of the upper class would dare call themselves Poppy and dress so outrageously. Our victims, while envying the boldness of their betters, could never relinquish polished brogues, suits and waistcoats, pearls, twin-sets, tweed skirts, stockings, and sensible shoes. After a scrutiny of my measurements and a swift flick through pages of calculations, a price would be agreed on, pressure applied, contracts presented and, if we’d done our job properly, signed.

One filthy night after I had changed a tyre in the rain I was grudgingly invited to indulge in Dolphin Square’s endless hot water while Poppy took my drenched clothes to the drying room. The studio apartment was really only a bed-sitting room with tiny bathroom and kitchen alcove. However, as it was in Dolphin Square the rent was more than ten times that of my bed-sit. Poppy, impatient to get rid of me as soon as my clothes were dry, was hustling me towards the door when the fabulous Bertie arrived.

He was scrawny and fortyish, sandy moustache and thinning hair, slight stoop and an affected stutter. “Oh, I-I say, jolly dee, old chap!” he burbled, shoving out a hand. “I’m B-Bertie and you must be R-Rigby. F-Frightfully good of you to t-take care of young P-Poppy. She’s such a jolly ch-chum.” In his flannels and blazer, old school tie and brogues, he was straight out of Wodehouse. I doubted he was screwing the lusty Poppy more than once a month – if at all!

We shook hands and chatted about this and that. He and Poppy were childhood friends who went to restaurants and the theatre together, and partnered each other to parties but preferred to remain independent. My mother had a couple of friends like that who had been engaged for over twenty years with no desire to take it further.

Poppy and Bertie were perfectly matched; both harmless cranks still living in the 1930s when as children they’d worshipped their flapper parents. I enjoyed their company for half an hour but that was enough. I prefer to live in the present and was perfectly happy to be myself… not a caricature from a fictitious past.

As a salesman, I earned seven pounds a week with the promise of five percent of successfully concluded sales – roughly another fifteen pounds. Commonwealth citizens were lucky then; we could work for two years without paying tax while receiving the benefits of free dentists, doctors, and so on. That made it easy for employers too – no National Health Stamps and other bureaucratic bumf.

A pound a day was enough to live on but not enough to splurge. There were plays to see, places to go and things to do, and my cheap clothes were already looking shabby.

Chapter 10: Dance and Sex and …

Live bands in a large cellar on Kings Road drew dancers with their excellent Rock ’n Roll and Twist. Unlike in many of today's clubs, dancing was a social occasion as well as a meat market, because megawatts of amplification didn’t prohibit conversation and endanger hearing.

I would arrive as the band was setting up and dance till midnight without stopping; often with Suzie who had three excellent attributes. She was slim and attractive, a natural dancer, and had a boyfriend who didn’t dance but sat at the bar and watched us. One night we found ourselves alone on the floor bathed in a spotlight dancing to Twist and Shout. Synchronised footwork, Suzie’s neat athleticism and my ‘shake’ – a rigid quivering of the entire body that occasionally triggered orgasms, earned us applause and free passes for the rest of the month.

We’d been dancing for a couple of weeks when Suzie asked me to partner her to her sister’s wedding in Ipswich. I was to pretend to be her boyfriend because, instead of living with a nice Jewish boy, she was shacked up with a snub-nosed, well-hung, French Catholic. Her mother could tolerate her living in sin in London, but not with a goy! Using my maternal grandmother’s maiden name, Godber, Suzie presented me as the boyfriend. After handshakes and embarrassing embraces, parental curiosity was fortunately interrupted by an incomprehensible wedding ceremony.

I remember almost nothing about any of it, not even the food. We had to stay the night, but fortunately, fornication was not permitted in the Karabovsky residence, so I shared a room with Suzie’s absurdly handsome eighteen-year-old brother. He sat on my bed in nothing but his underpants asking questions about London, the scene, if he could get a job there, was it easy to pick up girls... So innocent, so desirable, so heterosexual, so frustrating! Still, better than a night with Suzie; that would have been a nightmare.

Back in London, Suzie and her boyfriend started inviting me to their parties. I think he was becoming jealous and hoped to offload this apparently eligible bachelor onto one of the multitude of predatory single girls who continued to descend on London from the counties in search of paradise. Concocting excuses why I couldn’t take them home became an intolerable burden, so before unpleasant rumours began, I found another place to dance.

Meanwhile, back at the Hockey residence, one of the Scottish lassies had taken to flashing large, perfectly toothed smiles. Heather wasn’t merely pretty, she was beautiful, with smooth olive skin, clear brown eyes, and black hair: the inheritance of centuries of Spanish sailors shipwrecked on the rocky shores of her homeland – the Outer Hebrides. Her gaze was direct, smile guarded, interests intellectual, and speech enchanting. Her friend was plainer, smaller, chattier and sillier, and had therefore already ensnared a boyfriend.

We began bumping into each other in the hallway as I was going out; as I was coming in; as I was going up; as I was going down… and always Heather was ready with a cheery word and an invitation to chat. I tried changing the time of my arrivals and departures but her doorway was usually ajar and her window faced the street.

One evening, I ran out of excuses and we went to see the musical, Carnival. It had received poor reviews, which I thought served them right, as it was this very theatre, The Lyric, from which I’d been ignominiously expelled a few weeks previously. I remember nothing about the performance except that I fell in love with the red headed puppeteer and, until his face faded from memory, thought it the most wonderful show I'd ever seen.

My Achilles’ heel is a powerful disinclination to hurt people’s feelings, so instead of just telling her I wasn’t interested, our outings, in which we shared expenses, continued. Mischa Ellman gave a cello concert that pleased us both. We wandered the Tate Gallery, agreeing Francis Bacon was a con man. After a week of platonic pleasure in which she proved to be excellent company, I wondered if perhaps I’d found the only girl on the planet who simply wanted friendship. Foolish dreams.

Frankie Howerd’s over-acting in Something Funny Happened on the way to the Forum triggered an extraordinary reaction in Heather. At least I can think of no other reason for the sullen and silent journey home, after which she pushed me roughly against my door and demanded, “Am I ugly?” I assured her she was the opposite.

“We come home together,” she hissed, “we get to your room, and you just say, ‘good night’! You don’t do… anything! Why don’t you kiss me? It’s insulting!”

Unwilling to shatter her self-confidence by explaining that the thought of kissing her was as alluring as kissing the banister, I stuttered and stumbled and mumbled about always being tired… didn’t realise she felt like that… did she… want to come in… now? Despite my obvious lack of enthusiasm, a wide smile tinged with a trace of triumph lit Heather’s handsome features and before I had time to wash my hands, a naked, perfumed body was curled up in my bed. I dislike perfume, so held my breath and slithered in beside it.

“You can do anything you like,” she whispered.

Big deal! There was nothing I wanted to do except have my bed to myself and wank, as I’d been doing every night since arriving on this island.

Perhaps if she had taken a healthy interest in my body. Maybe if she’d told me I was handsome and desirable. Conceivably, if she’d said I had sexy legs and bum. If, perchance, she’d stroked my chest and cock while writhing and squirming in anticipation. Or if she’d laughed a little while flirting with fellatio, something might have stirred in my loins. After all, it was she who was lusting, not me! Instead, she lay like a log. A blow-up doll would have been more responsive.

It wasn’t entirely Heather’s fault. The Church of Scotland kept its adherents pure with threats of fire and brimstone, and it would be another ten years before popular magazines contained detailed instructions for women on how to pleasure their man, and vice versa. Like every woman foolish enough to drag me into bed, she simply lay on her back as responsive as a mattress.

From what my friends told me at the time, that was the norm. Girls thought all they had to do was open their legs and, hey presto! Lust would fill their lover’s loins. Even for heterosexuals that doesn’t always work, so I've been told.

I drew a deep breath and while she gazed in quiet contemplation at the ceiling, played with her tits and bits, spread her legs, peered at all the odd wet folds that were growing fatter and darker and hotter; located the right hole with an unwilling finger and, by pulling the shaft of my penis back hard, managed to make it stiff enough to pop the knob in. Even then there was no reaction from my listless lady.

A modern miss would at least have grunted and flexed her vaginal muscles. Bravely, I wiggled the poor thing around; petrified it was going to pop out again. After an age, I closed my eyes and thought of Suzie’s brother undressing and… a rush of blood and I pounded away, just in time remembering that this was how babies were made. With only seconds to spare I whipped it out, shooting a string of pearls onto breasts and belly.

If Heather gained any pleasure from the event, she didn’t let on. There were no gasps and cries of anguished exaltation during the exercise, and afterwards she wiped herself with a moist flannel then dressed calmly, wearing that irritatingly smug smile women put on when they know something you don’t.

Sheer relief that it was over made me imprudent and I kissed her for the first time. She responded by thrusting her tongue deep into my mouth. I gagged, said I had to get up early, helped her to the door, locked it behind her, gargled with a strong salt solution, and washed every part of my body with freezing water.

I have to be in control of my life. No one else’s, just mine. I didn’t want to live at the Hockey’s any more. I felt violated. A new place would cost more and I hadn’t saved anything. Living hand-to-mouth as I'd been doing was stupid because it makes you dependent on others in emergencies. In the bank there was enough money for the boat fare back to New Zealand, but that was for a real crisis – untouchable. And I was hoping to go to the Continent in the summer.

At work I couldn’t forget the previous night’s humiliation and hated every woman I met. After Poppy dropped me off I couldn’t go home – Heather would be waiting, wanting another fuck.

Fuck!

I'd made a firm decision after the fiasco with the South African woman never to sell my body out of desperation. However, I wasn’t really desperate, was I? The guys looking for sex I'd seen at Piccadilly Circus were mainly in their 30s and 40s, and some didn’t look too bad. And if Mik could do it …

After all, if I could make in one evening as much as I was getting selling central heating in a week, then I'd be pretty stupid not to try. Wouldn’t I?

I wandered aimlessly into town, but not to the toilets in Piccadilly Circus. The idea of finding a sexual partner in a toilet, no matter how clean, repels me. Because of the need for secrecy and fear of exposure, married men who wanted man-to-man sex would ‘take the dog for a walk’ in the evening to a park or public toilets known as ‘cottages,’ for anonymous encounters with other lonely, sad and horny men. It was very dangerous. Queer bashers knew these places and frequently maimed or murdered anyone they thought might be queer.

Policemen made up their arrest quotas by entrapping men in toilets, and there must have been a disease risk. I was sickened and angry at queers for ‘cottaging’. I’m certain it delayed by decades the repealing of homophobic laws. But what else could they do?

When things are going well I'm hyperactive, but sluggish and depressed when I feel I’ve lost control of my life. I'd sure lost control, so I did what I always do – walk and walk and think and think until the facts can be rearranged to seem better. Coventry Street, Leicester Square, Wardour Street, across Shaftsbury Avenue, a street of cheap strip joints with loud-mouth bruisers promising weird and wonderful sexual delights to every passing male if they’d only step through their garishly lit doors.

It was about seven o'clock and already several drab and sad ‘exotic dancers’ in shabby raincoats were lugging their suitcases from club to club. The girls worked for eight hours at a stretch, doing up to ten shows a night in half a dozen clubs. Some also turned tricks afterwards.

Other doors held well-worn, over-painted tarts swinging the keys to their upstairs room. None looked healthy, clean or happy. Their clients were ugly, dirty, unshaven, unappetising. And I felt sickened. How could these women bear to let such sordid creatures touch them, let alone fuck them? No wonder whores never kissed their clients – that would be the ultimate obscenity. They're stuck with society’s rejects; the men no woman will cheerfully fuck or willingly marry. Good-looking, unhappily married heterosexual males seldom fall into the clutches of prostitutes, because the world is full of women eager to leap into bed with fine specimens of manhood.

With queers, on the other hand, laws that forced young men to marry to avoid ostracism, also prevented well-heeled professionals with too much to lose, from joining gay clubs or picking up guys for casual sex at ‘beats’. Unable to find sexual satisfaction with their wives, they were prepared to pay well, and became a valuable source of income for well-presented, discreet young men ready to satisfy them.

I can see no logical objection to choosing prostitution as a job. There’s no rational difference between selling one’s body as a labourer or dancer, and selling it for sex. If being paid for using your mouth to sing or act is ok, then it’s ok to receive money for using it for fellatio. It’s only a matter of taste and assessment of risks.

We have Christianity to thank for making the sale of sex a dirty, criminal activity, thus handing it to crime bosses to profit from. Why was it ok for me to have sex with Heather for nothing, but it would have been a criminal offence if one of us had charged? If I could find a man with whom I would enjoy having sex and who would pay me, then I could see nothing wrong.

A few years ago, I corresponded with Noel Virtue, a New Zealand author who arrived in London after an abused youth as a Brethren Boy. He made a living for a while as an ‘escort’ for respectable, wealthy older men. He has nothing but pleasant memories of the way he was treated, the kindness of his clients, and the insight he gained.

I returned to Leicester Square, by now bustling with crowds queuing for a show at the Empire Theatre, crossed to the darker, southern side and sat on a bench to think. A few well-dressed young men were wandering aimlessly around. Every now and then a man would stop and talk to one of the boys and they’d go off together. My gloom lifted and I laughed aloud… I'd found a pick-up place without even trying. It had to be an omen!

A fat fellow in a tweed suit sat down beside me. I panicked. Mouth dry. A fit of the shakes. He asked if I was ok. I nodded. He shrugged and left me to my seizure. A few minutes later a skinny redhead in an army uniform, with dead white skin and fat lips who reminded me of a kid I hated at school, stood impatiently in front of me and asked how much. A cold dread filled my guts. I needed a shit urgently. Images of gangs waiting around the corner to maim, rape, murder filled my head and closed my throat. I shook my head as if I didn’t understand and mumbled odd sounds. He shook his head, shrugged, and wandered over to the normal guys.

A sad shudder shook my bones. I was a wimp. A scaredy-cat filled with admiration for those brave girls taking hundreds of strange men up to their rooms – or going off with them in cars to destinations unknown. And those other boys across the square, some of whom had been off with a stranger and already returned, ready for another client.

Was I too decent, or too cowardly to be a prostitute? A mixture of shame and relief washed over me and I relaxed. I wasn’t desperate. I didn’t have to do it. There was no shame in having an over-developed sense of self-preservation. With a sigh of relief I stretched and prepared to get up.

At that moment a fellow in a suit; trim, about forty, plonked himself onto the seat beside me, stared into my face and demanded, “Are you a policeman?” It was so unexpected I laughed. “You are obliged to tell me if you are,” he cautioned. I assured him I wasn’t, so he sat back, crossed his legs, gazed off in the direction of Trafalgar Square and demanded, “Are you diseased? Crippled? Demented? “

“No, I'm healthy.”

He leaned forward, cupped his hand behind my neck and before I could object, pulled my head towards him, sniffed my breath, then leaned back as if it was the most normal thing to do to a complete stranger. We sat for several long seconds, gazing into space. Then:

“Do you kiss?”

“Yes.”

“Have you done this before?”

“No.”

“Are you house-trained?”

“Yes.”

“Have you eaten?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you know which knife and fork to use?”

“Of course!” His serious mien and the rapid-fire questions struck me as funny, so I burst out laughing.

He grinned and stood. “Come on, then.”

I followed him to a pleasant restaurant on Charing Cross Road where I ate tossed pork fillets, followed by fried bananas with lashings of whipped cream and raspberry jam, and then coffee. I've no idea what Alan ate. We chatted like old friends. Well, I chattered, he sat and chewed slowly with a bemused smile on his face.

I sometimes think it’s my only skill – to fill every silence. I've been told to shut up more times than I can remember. With me around there’s never an awkward silence – the odd awkward conversation perhaps, but never silence.

The only time Alan became animated was when I told him about Heather. He barked a short laugh then leaned forward and confided that he lived in Hampshire where he had a wife and two kids. His son was fifteen, his daughter twelve. He returned home every Friday night, staying in his London flat during the week. He loved his family dearly, however, if he had his life over again he would not marry – it was far too much of a strain. Natural urges could not be denied and he warned me in great seriousness to beware of husband-hunting girls.

“I’ll bet you think it’s just a phase you're going through and one day you’ll meet the right girl and settle down and marry,” he said wearily. I smugly agreed. He sighed and muttered, “You’ll learn.”

His flat was only a few streets away; neat, clean and spacious. We showered together, soaping each other and laughing a lot. His bed was comfortable and he kissed like an angel. It was the exact opposite of the previous night. I was admired, touched, stroked, brought to orgasm, and made to feel like a prince. Then I did my best to return the favour.

If women understood that their men need as much positive reinforcement and compliments as they do, and that criticism has a totally negative effect, then I suspect there would be fewer divorces and wife-bashings. It’s no different from the way we should treat children. A child who is praised is always well behaved; the child who is criticised becomes naughty.

I’m always irritated in films when the man brings presents and tells his wife/girlfriend how attractive, lovely, desirable she is, while never a single compliment goes the other way. Later, after sex, desperate to hear something positive, the poor bloke will ask, “How was it for you?” to be greeted with ridicule for being so conceited as to ask for compliments.

Compliments and praise don’t have to be true; it’s the intention that matters. We all know we aren't god’s gift to the human race, but it’s nice to think that our partner likes us enough to want to make us feel good.

In the morning, Alan pressed ten pounds into my hand. I handed it back because I thought I owed him for the meal and the experience, and I really liked him. I guess that’s one of the pitfalls of being a loner – every now and then you get tired of fending for yourself and long for someone to be a friend. He frowned. He loved his wife, and this had been no more than an enjoyable business transaction! I had the wit to grin, grab the cash, and say I was only kidding.

An hour later I bought a copy of Equity. Colchester Repertory needed an ASM. Apply in person at the Albert Hall, High Street Colchester. I checked the date. Today was the last day for applications. I raced to Liverpool Street Station and was soon flying across the gray, flat expanse of Essex.

Chapter 11: Interviews and Work

While other passengers read or dozed, I clung white-knuckled to my seat as the train careered along none too even tracks at over a hundred miles an hour. Exhilarated at having broken my land-speed record I jogged to the centre of Colchester, rehearsing a speech that would convince any interviewer I was deadly serious about acting.

Colchester was a large Roman garrison and is the oldest recorded English market town. Half-timbered houses, remains of walls and gates, a grim old castle, the river Colne, and a few parks and bridges… pleasant, but like every old city, encircled by a tumour of ugly new suburbs. Old towns may have been inconvenient, but at least they were visually appealing.

Albert Hall in the High Street was in need of repairs and freshening up. Colchester Repertory in those days was a tenant that had to make way from time to time for touring companies, pantomimes, and the like. They provided Weekly Repertory; that’s a new play every week; very demanding on both actors and backstage crew.

I announced myself to the doorman and was taken to an office in which stood the manager – nicotine-stained, harried and twitching; and the director – lean, chain-smoking, and worried. He grasped my hand, and in an opulent voice redolent of incinerator enquired after my well-being. Gagging on the malodorous exhalation I manfully resisted the impulse to turn my head away and informed him I was rude with health – a response that triggered the lighting of a Woodbine. At that moment the stage manager arrived, in his forties, healthy, neat in khaki overalls, white shirt, and tie. He shook my hand then retreated a pace and looked me up and down as if assessing my worth. I felt like a bull at an auction.

After an interview in which I received more information about the company’s problems than I gave about myself, I mounted the stage to declaim my set piece. It should have been thrilling to gaze over the orchestra pit to the stalls and dress circle in their faded crimson and gilt, but gloom seemed to permeate this temple of the muses. I’d uttered only three words… “Now my co-mates…” when there was a shout from the back of the stalls. “This isn’t the fucking Old Vic! It’s weekly rep!”

I nearly shat myself, swallowed my bile, and launched into Teddy Deakin’s entry in The Ghost Train. I was allowed three lines then told to go for a walk and come back in a couple of hours.

Colchester had an excellent cake shop providing the best cream buns I've ever tasted, and a good selection of shops. Two hours later I had the job – starting in ten days on Saturday week at 10.00 a.m. I’d be assisting at the matinee of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. I signed a contract – six pounds ten shillings a week, no set hours, no set duties, no guarantee of acting parts, two-week’s notice required by both parties to terminate the contract.

It was two o'clock, so the actors were resting before the evening performance. Frank, the stage manager, showed me backstage, dressing and rehearsal rooms, green room, etc. and introduced me to the stage crew. Two stagehands were touching up the set and a fat woman was organising props on a table in front of the cyclorama, spitting venom at a lighting technician whose unsecured cables were interfering with her arrangement. A fellow hauling backcloths up into the flies eyed me up and down and grinned. I grinned back. He tied off the ropes and held out a massive hand.

“Hi, I'm Harry. Want a bat’s eye view?” He flicked his head towards a ladder attached to the wall on the prompt side of the stage. He was tall, lean, and rangy. All legs, arms, and huge hands. Hollow-cheeked, lantern jawed, large hooked nose, deep-set eyes and cavernous mouth overflowing with teeth. He looked friendly so I nodded and up we went, me first, Harry’s hand unnecessarily supporting my buttocks – he must have climbed with one hand. At the top, we stood in silence on a platform gazing down. It seemed much higher from up there. Harry’s breath fluffed the back of my neck and his hand followed suit. My guts went gooey and I broke out in gooseflesh – but I didn’t pull away.

“Can I kiss you?” His breath was sweet.

Heart hammering.... “If you like.”

With a mouth as large as his I expected it to be wet and sloppy, which I hate, but it was firm, dry, and pleasurable. One hand found its way down the front of my trousers, and another wrapped mine around something hot and hard poking through the fly of Harry’s overalls. And thus we stood for several long sensuous seconds till Harry grunted a laugh, zipped himself up, and took off along a catwalk.

I followed, intrigued to see the battens, cables, pulleys, counterbalances, floods, and other stuff. Audiences don’t realise that what they see is only a fraction of what’s actually behind the curtain.

The stage manager was peering at an exercise book when we descended.

“Frank, Rigby needs digs so is it OK if I take him to a couple of places I know?”

Frank nodded. “See you Saturday week, Rigby. 10.00 a.m.”

A ten-minute trot took us to a small brick terrace house in a street devoid of all life. On the way, I'd learned that Harry was eight years older than I, had no girlfriend, and kept racing pigeons. We shared a mutual interest in keeping fit and hiking, but he didn’t like dancing, reading or classical music. When pressed for an opinion, he reckoned I got the job because the other applicants had been scrawny little runts, and as actors with my physical type were as rare as hens’ teeth, I was a shoe-in. Not exactly an ego boost – I'd hoped it was my thespian skills.

Inside, I sat at the table in a spotless kitchen while Harry made tea. This was his own house and, if I liked, I could stay with him – his mortgage was taking more of his wage than he wanted, and although he valued privacy he reckoned we’d get along ok.

“How did you know I wouldn’t object to you doing those… things?” The question really bothered me because I was terrified that anyone might think I was queer. As bizarre as it might seem after the previous night, I was still a hundred percent certain I wasn’t really a homo. I knew in my bones, as my grandmother used to say, that I was as normal as the next fellow. I would only have sex with men until the right girl came along.

And if anyone thinks that’s an unreal bit of doublethink, compare it to the mental contortions religious people get into in order to prevent themselves freaking out at believing there's an invisible, omniscient, omnipotent fellow who not only made the entire universe, but is personally interested in their sex life!

“I didn’t know you were queer. You looked sexy so I took a gamble. You didn’t object to my hand on your bum, nor on your neck. If you had, I’d have said I was just testing, because most actors are queer and I wanted to make sure you weren’t, before becoming friendly… something like that.”

“Are all actors homos?”

“At least half, they reckon. I’m the only one backstage though.”

“But, do I look like a homo?” I had to get this clear. If he’d said yes, I'd have run away and become a hermit.

“No way! You wouldn’t be here if you did! I hate those pansy queens.” He grinned and his over-endowed face became almost handsome. “So. You staying? No sex – you're not my type. Just friends who understand each other?”

I didn't tell him he also wasn’t the man of my dreams, but checked there really was a spare bedroom, paid four weeks rent in advance, shook hands manfully, and set off for the station, suffused in a vague feeling of regret. Although I'd lived only a few months in London, it was the first place in my entire life where I felt completely at home – and I didn’t really want to leave.

It was after eight that night when I rang Poppy’s bell, expecting to have a strip torn off me for not turning up for work. She buzzed me in and was waiting at her door impatient to confess her own sin. Her friends downstairs were having a ‘Cultural Soirée’ the following Saturday in their apartment. However, the Ugandan who was to have danced for their well-heeled guests had come down with pneumonia, so an important part of their programme was in jeopardy. On the strength of a few secrets I'd let slip, Poppy had promised her friends I would take his place!

I refused.

She didn’t take this gracefully. I couldn’t refuse! She would lose face! Her friends would never trust her again! They were relying on her and… she took time out for a sob before mentioning that I would be well paid for my efforts.

That swung it, but I wasn’t going to let her off lightly. I told her I was leaving in just over a week for Colchester and asked what would happen with the five central heating contracts we had secured. She promised on her father’s grave she would forward my share. That settled, I said I’d go and see her friends but I wasn’t promising anything. She took me downstairs, introduced me, and slunk back to her cell.

Mrs. May and The Colonel were in their forties or fifties – it was impossible to tell, aristocratically trim and as gracious as a pair of Dobermans. I stood humbly before them wondering if I should tug my forelock. She sat upright and alert on a hard-backed chair; he sprawled on a sofa, legs wide, eyes predatory. She wore a dark blue silk dress decorated with a matching scarf pinned with a gold brooch, elegant dark blue shoes, hair scraped back into a tight bun. He was splendid in toothbrush moustache, slickly greased auburn hair, houndstooth suit, white shirt, old school tie, and polished shoes.

Was this casual at-home wear for the moneyed classes? They hadn't been expecting me. It was too late to go out for dinner and they gave no indication they were going out later. My crumpled dull-green corduroys, white polo neck, leather jacket, and scuffed desert boots paradoxically gave me a sense of superiority.

“We are patrons of emerging artists,” Mrs. May announced, pausing as if for applause. “We buy tangible works, and give performers a platform to demonstrate their abilities to agents looking for talent.”

I gazed around. The high-ceilinged drawing room was about twenty metres long and twelve wide. Concealed lights, mirrors, luxurious and understated furnishings, chrome standard lamps, statues in niches, Persian carpets glowing richly on polished parquetry, and a grand piano looking perfectly at home in the centre of the wall opposite long windows that would have gazed over parkland during the day. An end wall of bevelled glass doors, one of which was open, separated the dining area. Sprinkled like detritus among the Art Deco excesses of this sumptuous apartment were several garish minimalist paintings, overwrought little sculptures, and hand-woven panels in primitive frames.

“We are offering you a chance to perform before a sophisticated audience which might result in the launching of your career.”

I explained that Poppy had got her wires crossed. I was an untaught amateur who would fail miserably to impress their guests. I wasn’t underselling myself – I was telling the truth as I always do in these situations because I'm terrified of disappointing people. If they expect the worst then if I'm lucky they’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Silence. Then… “You carry yourself like a dancer, and your modesty does you credit. However, I’ll be the judge of your talent. Dance for me now!”

The severely coiffed head swivelled towards The Colonel, “Felix, record three!” The Colonel sprang from the sofa and placed an LP on the turntable of a magnificent, walnut-encased radiogram.

“I’m sure I'm not the person you want.”

The Colonel looked up. “From what Poppy told us you certainly are! Twenty pounds for three, five-minute dances?”

“But I ....”

“Poppy told us about your recent modelling and TV experiences, and that your teacher made you dance au naturel.” Madam May’s French accent was perfect and she glared as if daring me to contradict. “The young man from Uganda was to have introduced a note of primitive eroticism, performing three traditional fertility dances in varying states of nudity. Our soirées have a reputation for daring, avant-garde entertainment. You will be introduced as ‘Dionysius… naked pagan passion.’ Note that I do not use the word ‘dance’, so you will be judged for your expressiveness, not your similarity to whatever Covent Garden is producing!”

She held up a hand to forestall interruption. “Our guests are well educated and worldly – they know the difference between sleaze and art.”

The blank, expressionless stare of both husband and wife was intended to convey superiority, but I knew it was merely camouflage for nervousness. They needed me more than I needed them. I thought I knew what they wanted, but they’d only referred to the fact that I’d danced naked in the past. I had to make them state explicitly that they wanted me dancing bare for their soiree. Otherwise, if it flopped they'd tell everyone that I'd insisted on it and they'd had their doubts from the start. Then I'd be the pervert, not them.

“I'd like to be perfectly clear about what you require,” I said firmly. “You are asking me to do… what exactly?”

“To dance naked,” snapped the Colonel. “So, get on with it!” He pressed a button causing a giant speaker and dozens of valves to produce a richness of sound that no number of transistors can emulate. It was the last five minutes of Tchaikovsky’s Italian Caprice. I knew it and loved the final orgasmic crescendo, so, obeying the imperial command, I stripped behind a delicate Japanese screen, pulled at my fear-shrunken cock to return it to a semblance of normality, called to The Colonel to turn the music up loud, and leaped out; swirling, twisting, crouching, writhing… a relentless flood of movement that would have left Kath enraptured, climaxing with arms and legs outstretched in a rigid X as the last chord evaporated. Then, as if the music had been my sole support, I collapsed like a stringless puppet.

“Hairy chest and legs are distracting. Shave them. Some of your transitions are awkward and the final slump is not right,” Mrs. May declared with authority. “As the music fades hold the extension – arms and legs utterly rigid for ten seconds as the lights fade! And you must never, ever look at the audience.”

I opened my mouth to remind her I’d made the whole thing up as I went along, but she held up a finger to forestall me. “The difference between art and sleaze, young man, is audience involvement. Watch.”

She stood and, to my astonishment, sensually stroked her hair, breasts, abdomen, and thighs, looking ‘inward’ as if unaware of my presence. It was strangely moving, but neither crude nor sexually inviting. Then she repeated the same movements, this time making eye contact with me. The effect was electric. Suddenly she had become more than a flirt… almost a slut. It was a most useful lesson.

“Do you see the difference?” she asked. “As long as you appear totally self-absorbed and remote from your audience as if you were utterly alone, your nudity is sacred and nothing you do is obscene. But the minute you involve your audience in your actions you become a whore.” Her lips curled in an odd smile as she continued. “Now, once again, but this time I want you to hold the pose at the end until I tell you to relax, leaning back, gazing at the heavens – hips thrust forward.”

Opiates produced by the effort I'd put into the first dance were by then flooding through me and, despite tiredness and hunger, I was suffused with energy and ‘saw’ myself dancing with vivid clarity. I was boneless. Forming and reforming my body seamlessly with the music. Jettisoning all constraints. Exalted. Free. Then freezing - arms stretched wide, head thrown back, hips thrust forward, chest heaving as I struggled to catch my breath, my heart continuing to pump blood to all extremities.

The music stopped and I continued to hold the pose while the Colonel leaned forward and in the tone that one might use to enquire if I took The Times or The Telegraph, asked, “Does it embarrass you to hold that position now you have an erection?”

“Not at all,” I answered truthfully. “But my arms are getting tired.”

“Would you like to masturbate before the next dance?” he inquired politely as if asking if I wanted a cup of tea.

I don’t remember experiencing any sense of surprise. After all, it wasn’t the first time I'd been asked that question and I'd seen it coming. Drunk on elation I was excited by the idea, but not so carried away as to forget myself, so I lowered my arms and asked, “Now? In front of you both?”

“Yes.”

“No, thanks.”

“Why not? Too shy?”

“Not at all. It’s just that I think you’re both laughing at me, and I hate being laughed at!”

“We aren't laughing at you.”

“Then why do you want me to do it?”

He looked at his wife. “We enjoy watching young people pleasure themselves.”

“If you’re too shy, forget it,” Mrs. May snapped dismissively. “However, we did have another job that would have earned you thirty pounds…”

“Art or sleaze?”

She smiled thinly. “Always art.”

She moved to sit beside her husband on the sofa. Their obvious voyeuristic desire had reversed our roles so I shrugged, put on the same record and wandered back towards them stroking myself sensually. It wasn’t a dance, merely crudely erotic, energetic, and self-absorbed moves until the final crescendo when, sinking gracefully to my knees, I arched my back, lightly fingered my manhood and jetted onto my belly sufficient semen to fertilize every female of child-bearing age on the planet.

Mr. May tossed me a clean handkerchief. His wife nodded coolly. ‘Thank you for not spilling on the parquet.’

While I mopped up the discharge, she told me I’d be performing a similar act in a week’s time – the details to be confirmed once Saturday’s soirée was over.

While dressing, I was informed that the Saturday event would start at eight with cocktails. At nine, a Negress from Whitechapel would sing jazz, followed by a young Albanian pianist, an eccentric young woman who wrote and read poetry, and then me. We would each perform three times for about three minutes each. I would be on fourth, eighth, and last. Then we’d be paid, and go.

The Colonel played the other two bits of music he’d chosen for my dances so I could think about them at home. They were adamant that the dances should be impromptu, not choreographed, so I would be influenced not only by the music, but also the audience reaction. That suited me perfectly, of course, and I promised to come for a walk-through with the other performers on Saturday afternoon.

Wednesday dawned dull and wet. I woke in a quicksand of despair. Descriptions of depression always sound melodramatic but they’re usually not far off the mark. I was a whore. A fool for leaving London. A slut for jerking off to please a couple of perverted well-heeled wankers. Idiotic to think I could concoct a dance off the top of my head for a group of art cognoscenti. Trash for consenting to jerk off for an audience next week. I was seriously crazy! I had to die to escape the net of self-inflicted stupidities. Mind in a whirl of inadequacy, headache, self-reproach… I spent the day in bed, dehydrating, starving, unable to sleep, delirious with self-recrimination, refining plans for suicide. No other thought would stay in my head.

But I wouldn’t starve myself – people always found you and shoved tubes into your stomach through your nose, and that hurt! Hunger eventually drove me to make a pot of fudge – crushed biscuits, cocoa, egg, sugar, and a little milk. I ate the whole batch of sweet, sticky stuff in one go, washed down with London's heavily chlorinated water. Threw it all up again. Went for a walk. Banged my head against every tree I passed; careful not to make damage that showed – a tacit admission I wasn’t terminally insane.

When I was ten, I deliberately drank from a bottle labelled poison… but it was just a mild carbolic cleaner and only burned my throat. At twelve, I bashed my head against a concrete wall to end my woes until, blinded by streaming blood, I realised it would hurt too much to kill myself that way and cycled home, telling Mother I'd fallen off my bike. Those experiences taught me that I'd probably not have the courage to kill myself; I'd have to wait for an accident or illness.

For about three weeks when I was fifteen, I suspended my disbelief in the supernatural, and prayed each night for the angel of death to carry me off in my sleep.

The wish not to be alive has always been with me. It’s not a death wish; it’s simply a wish I'd never been born. Even after a life that most people can only dream of, and having everything any rational human could possibly desire in this world – I would prefer not to have lived. It unnerves people. They say I'm ungrateful. According to psychologists I’m insane.

But I'm not. I realise I've been very fortunate to have lived when and where I did and had the life I've had and still have. And I'm not sad, not at all. Quite the opposite. I’m considered a fun person by all who know me. I take some things too seriously – but hey, that’s not a fault – is it? I just don’t like what humans are doing to the world and each other, and seldom find pleasure in their company. Humans seem like a plague of fleas on a dog – sucking it dry until it dies. But those fleas can find another host. Humans can’t. Our desecrated planet is the only one we have, and that makes humans the stupidest animal to have evolved. Everyone else I know wants to live forever, so I guess that means ‘Life’ has been wasted on me.

I've studied suicide methods. Bought books on it. Own a rifle of which I can reach the trigger when the end of the barrel is in my mouth at the correct angle. Sounds like despair, but it’s the opposite. The knowledge that I have the means to end things is what makes it possible to live calmly. I have to have a secure exit strategy from every situation. I can’t park the car nose in – it’s always rear end in for an easy getaway. As for sitting in the middle of a row at the theatre? It’s an aisle seat or nothing.

Dragging myself out of the slough of despond, I bought bread rolls, cheese, apples, and mince. Cooked up a stew. Filled myself and slept for another 17 hours. Woke Friday lunchtime feeling better, wondering what all the fuss had been about and excited at the prospect of the performance the following night. It’s always been lack of sleep and exhaustion that sets me off – but when on a ‘high’ I don’t realise I'm getting into that state.

Shopping shook off the last of my doldrums – I went to Burtons’ Bespoke Tailors and ordered a suit. Dark turquoise with gold taffeta lining. I might need it in Colchester. In those days ‘made to measure’ was half the price of ‘off-the-peg,’ because they used such shoddy fabric and sweatshop labour. I also bought a white shirt with three separate collars, an expensive set of hair clippers to satisfy Mrs. May’s desire for a smooth body to match the smooth transitions, and a basic kit of stage makeup – five, nine, eight, seven, eyeliner, shadow, carmine, powder, and cold cream, in case I was asked to act in Colchester.

After a small meal, I checked to see if the hall was empty of Scots lassies, then went down to pay next week’s rent and tell Mrs. Hockey I would be leaving the following Friday. Her husband’s face creased into his sad, beautiful smile as he said he’d be sorry to see me go. She just shrugged.

I’m not a very hairy person – just an even sprinkling on chest, belly and legs, but after removing every hair below the head I had to agree that for the sort of dance I was contemplating, hairless was definitely more artistic. With nothing to obscure the body’s contours I looked as sleek as an eel. Luckily, there was enough tan remaining to make me look healthy.

A little subtle makeup would complete the picture. Warm brown eye shadow and black eyeliner to make my eyes seem large and soulful; slight outlining of lips and subtle hollowing of the cheeks, highlighted cheekbones, and thicker eyebrows transformed me into ‘Dionysius, the sexy pagan’.

On Saturday morning, Mrs. Hockey knocked brusquely at the door and asked me to come down. We descended and sat around the kitchen table. She had a proposition. I could live rent-free for the next week if I would keep an eye on the place and Mr. Hockey, so she could take her first holiday in eight years – go back to Ireland to see her family. All I had to do was check the cleanliness of the hallway and toilets and bathrooms, and make sure that if Mr. Hockey had an accident he wasn’t left unattended for too long. It was his suggestion that she ask me, so his problem if I proved untrustworthy. I would have to stay in their flat. Mr. Hockey sometimes had nightmares… her voice trailed off and I began to realise what her life had been like since the war.

A week’s rent was not to be sneezed at and I could come and go through the basement door and avoid meeting Heather, so of course I agreed. She perked up, phoned the travel agent to confirm her booking, then someone to tell them they could take my room the following day. After returning my rent, she reminded me to have the room clean and to bring all my gear down before nine o'clock when the new tenant would arrive.

An efficient woman.

Chapter 12: Saturday to Tuesday

Packing and making a bundle of the things I couldn’t squeeze into my imitation leather holdall took four minutes. By nine o'clock the room was clean, my bag was in the Hockey’s spare room, and Sean [Mr. Hockey] was brewing tea. His wife had been up since dawn and after a quick peck on Sean’s cheek and a cautionary nod at me, she stumped up the stairs to the waiting taxi.

Sean’s wheelchair didn’t confine him to the house, but bureaucracy confined him to the immediate neighbourhood. He could haul himself up the stairs to the street with a block and tackle of his own design, and propel himself to the corner shop, but there were few wheelchair ramps off curbs or into shops, no disabled toilets, and no hope of using public transport on his own.

At the walk-through with the Mays that afternoon, I demanded amber filters in half-dimmed Fresnel spots illuminating the twelve-foot diameter semicircle in front of the piano. My faded tan would disappear completely under white light and I'd look as attractive as a witchetty grub. Pasty as a Pom! Performing for a clutch of cognoscenti sitting within touching distance was going to be confronting enough. I hoped a healthy amber glow would distract from the lack of technique and other gross inadequacies in my dancing.

When I returned, I took Sean down to the Thames to see the low-tide mudflats and houseboats rotting in slime. Although his shoulders and upper arms would have graced Mr. Universe, curbs and other obstacles meant he hadn’t seen the river for years, as people strong or willing enough to drag a wheelchair up onto footpaths and lower it down onto roads were thin on the ground.

Typically, it rained on the way back so we arrived home freezing and soaked. Sean ran a hot bath, undressed, and let me lift him in. He could manoeuvre himself on and off his wheel chair from his bed, on and off the toilet, even into a bath on his own, but unlike many disabled people didn’t mind being helped. I was amazed at how little he weighed! Legs make up about half our weight, apparently.

The other astounding thing was lack of buttocks. The gluteus maximus is for standing upright and walking, Sean did neither so his bum had withered away – he had to sit on an aircushion to prevent bruising his pelvis. I got in the other end of the gigantic tub and lay back, luxuriating in the heat. We agreed that his lack of legs made it much easier to fit two, and I was able to examine his stumps.

The left thigh had been sawn off just below the groin, the other just above the knee; very neat, smooth and clean. His legs hadn’t been blown off; all he’d suffered were deep gashes. It was infection that did the damage. Had he received his wounds a few months later, penicillin would have stopped the infection and he’d still have two functioning legs. At that time amputation was the only way to save his life, and accounted for the lack of limbs on so many ex-soldiers.

After a light meal, I had a nervous shit and an intensive once over with a sponge dipped in aftershave to ensure the sweet-smelling purity of all orifices. At eight I jogged to my rendezvous with the Colonel’s cultured cohorts.

The other three performers were already twitching nervously on an ottoman in a small office accessed from a door behind the piano, or via the kitchen. They were in their late 20s, had studied their crafts, and already performed privately for gatherings like this while waiting for professional recognition. Smiles of greeting mutated to wide-eyed alarm as I stripped, rubbed on a little scented oil and applied makeup. Having anticipated their questions, I was more or less prepared.

The pianist broke the silence with a shocked, “You’re dancing naked?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” from the jazz singer.

“A naked body is a unity. Clothing breaks the line.”

“But… your genitals are exposed.”

“So are my nipples, knees and ears.”

“But… shouldn’t you cover them?”

“Why?”

“They’ll jiggle around and look silly,” the pianist giggled.

“Or natural.”

“And you’ve shaved…”

“To preserve the unity of line.”

“I adore Unity!” That was the poetess – dreamy. “You are right… unity is harmony. I think it’s beautiful. I try to make my poems harmonious unities…” She drifted into rapturous mumbles, gazing at my groin, suddenly letting loose a great whinny of excitement. “I’ve never dared to look properly at a man’s… things before!” She sighed rapturously. “It’s so… so liberating! I’m going to write an ode – to the penis!”

“Don’t forget the balls,” said the jazz singer wryly.

“My body is my instrument,” I explained somewhat pompously. “What if poets were forbidden to use any word starting with ‘L’? Or pianists had to avoid using middle C?”

He nodded sagely, unsure if it was quite the same thing.

“I get it,” said the singer. “It’s like if I wasn’t allowed to use the full range of my voice?”

“Yes.”

“Then I agree. After all, dancers in tights are virtually naked.”

They nodded self-consciously, incredulous that I wasn’t, like them, ashamed of my bits. Looking back I’m incredulous that I dared. Not that I dared to be naked, but that I dared to improvise dances. I guess it was the same ignorance that had me asking for a job at a West End Theatre. Fools rush in. But if I hadn’t been so innocent I'd have missed a lot of fun.

We left the door to the drawing room ajar so we could hear and see a little of each other’s performances. The pianist was excellent. I’ve never understood jazz, so didn’t appreciate it as much as the audience did. The poems just seemed a jumble of phrases. They all received heart-warming applause.

Dionysius was announced, the music started and, heart pounding fit to burst, I leaped in, mind blank, allowing the ballet music from the last act of Mozart’s Idomeneo to be transformed into movement more or less by reflex – the conscious brain having nothing to do with it – at least that’s what it feels like.

Too soon, it was over and, bathed in amber light, I accepted applause from dinner suits, shimmering evening dresses, diamonds and tiaras. Poppy and Bertie were in the second row, mouths split in wide grins. Mind you, after an hour of cocktail swigging they’d have applauded a dancing pig.

All three dances were well received, and after the final, which finished artistically, not crudely as it had in rehearsal, I was towelling off in the dressing room when the Colonel arrived carrying several cards bearing a name and telephone number. These were offers of employment from members of the audience.

The pianist got half a dozen, the singer a couple, and the poetess, like me, only one. We were given our money and the others were seen off through the kitchen door. I was allowed to collapse onto the ottoman to cool off and let the sweat dry. Depression loomed. Actors want their brief moments of glory to go on forever. The end of every show seems like the end of life.

The Colonel was wearing a condescending smirk. “That went quite well, Rigby – at least one person wants you to perform for them, and there’s someone else who wants to meet you. A business acquaintance so I could scarcely refuse to introduce you. However, you owe him nothing so it won’t be rude for you to refuse his request.”

Talk about firing up the imagination. Was I going to be invited to perform at the London Palladium? Dance for the Queen? The Colonel beckoned in a swarthy chap of indeterminate age, introducing him as Sheik something-or-other.

There had been much public debate about Arab money taking over England. Middle Eastern puppet despots had decided the profits from oil were theirs, not their subjects, and were spending up big. Several Oxford Street department stores had surreptitiously changed hands, as well as racehorse studs, grand hotels, country estates and other businesses. Stories abounded of wealthy oil sheiks taking whole floors of the Dorchester, the Ritz, Grosvenor House… for their entourages and harems, and several films of a comic nature had exploited the theme.

The short, dumpy, sweaty, dinner-suited sheik ignored my outstretched hand, instead reaching with hirsute paws to grasp at my shoulders; staring up my nostrils as if assessing a camel. I stared back. The whites of his eyes were brown, the skin pockmarked, and a baroque beard and moustache framed unpleasantly moist, full lips that rasped, “I want to fuck you.”

To underline his intentions, the height-challenged fellow ran clammy palms over my chest, felt the stubble and recoiled as if from a plate of pork. “But… you are not smooth! I want a smooth boy!” Turning on his heel he stalked out, leaving the Colonel to splutter.

“Dreadfully sorry, old chap.” He said softly; a glint of amusement in his eyes, the first natural human expression he’d exhibited, and asked, “Would you have let him?”

“Never!”

“For a hundred quid?”

“No way… too old; too repellent!”

“Do you…?”

As it was clear he had known the sheik’s proclivities before introducing him and was not upset by the notion, I answered negligently, “I have done.”

“How much?”

“Twenty guineas.” It was the first number that popped into my head.

He whistled. “Top league, eh?”

I shrugged.

He handed me an envelope containing the money for my performance, then opened his wallet and took out two ten-pound notes, flapping them in the air.

I shook my head.

He rummaged in his fob pocket and produced a florin and a leer. “That makes Twenty guineas. Or am I also too old and ugly?”

“Now?”

“Now.”

“What about your guests?”

“I’ll not be missed for a while.”

What could I say? It seemed churlish to refuse, and now he’d dropped the arrogant aristocrat act, he was quite pleasant. Ex-military lean, not bad looking… I shrugged indifferent assent, determined not to fuel his vanity. He popped the extra cash in the envelope, thrust me back onto the ottoman, then slowly removed all his clothes. It was a performance of sorts during which he seemed unjustifiably proud of an erection about the size of my little finger, with balls to match.

Like most men he was interested in one thing only – his own pleasure. Within a minute I was on my back, legs in the air, oiled up and he was pounding away. There was no pain, no sensation at all apart from mild discomfort occasioned by my undignified position and his pounding hips. I don’t think it touched the sides.

He thrashed around, heaving and grunting, eventually culminating in a sigh of heartbreaking proportions. At that moment Mrs. May put her head around the door.

“Felix, they are asking for you! Do hurry up.” She glanced at me. “A good performance, Dionysius,” and was gone.

Her husband withdrew and lay panting beside me.

“Doesn’t she mind…?”

“She has a guardsman whose tool rivals that of his horse.” He gazed down affectionately at his own appendage. “I’m happy with mine… gets up and stays up. Do you think it’s too small?” There was no suggestion he cared – merely curiosity. I told him it was perfect – which it was for me, being a tight-arse who dislikes visitors at the back door. We dressed.

Sadly, his snootiness returned with his clothes so I rejected him as a potential sugar daddy. After a smug glance in the mirror he hustled me out through the kitchen like a stray dog, with a curt reminder to be waiting downstairs at 8.00 p.m. the following Tuesday. I felt amused, not abused. Twenty guineas for lying on my back for ten minutes? He’d been had!

Sunday was clear and cool, no rain in sight, so after a quick mop along the corridors and a wipe of the bathrooms, I pushed Sean through Sloane Square, Belgravia, Knightsbridge, across Rotten Row where we spent a few minutes admiring the horse riders, and then let him propel himself among the still skeletal trees of Hyde Park.

It wasn’t all altruism. Wheelchairs in those days were heavy things with hard wheels and no suspension; constructed of wood and steel. Very different from the modern lightweight, collapsible, pneumatic tyred vehicles that the disabled can manoeuvre with such dexterity. Pushing and dragging the thing was perfect for toning up my chest and shoulders.

Sandwiches and a thermos of coffee tasted great on a hired rowboat on the Serpentine, having padlocked the wheelchair to the railings, then an ‘oom pah pah’ brass band in the Kensington Gardens rotunda with not a microphone or amplifier in sight, rounded off a perfect afternoon. Sean had been excellent company. Interested, interesting, never complaining. Simple tastes, like me.

I went dancing that night at the old club – no Suzie, but chatted with a Brazilian as crazy about dancing as I, only much better – loose-limbed, supple and smooth. I felt like a wooden marionette beside him. When he discovered I was an opera fan he offered to sell me a ticket to Il Trovatore on Thursday night – his mate had broken a leg or something. A cheap seat in the gods, so I jumped at the chance, paying for it then and there.

I’d just fallen asleep that night when a great howling had me leaping from my cot and rushing in to see who was murdering Sean. He was having one of his nightmares – more like an epileptic fit. Blankets on the floor, him cold and shaking. I drew up the blankets and climbed in to warm him quickly. Stroking and muttering calming nonsense eventually quietened him.

After about five minutes he came to his senses and apologised. I returned to bed glad he didn’t know I was a bit of a queer, otherwise he’d have imagined ulterior motives.

Heterosexuals are pathetic like that. Paranoid. Think they're irresistible and every homo wants to have sex with them. Perhaps because they aren't too fussy when it comes to fucking, they think we’re the same, whereas in most cases there’s no one more choosey than a queer. He was nice, but nearly as old as my father!

After breakfast the next morning, looking as fit as a fart, he asked if I wanted to go to a Turkish bath. It seemed a good idea as I was wilting somewhat, not having enjoyed my essential eight hours of sleep.

Until about forty or so years ago, British local authorities provided public bathhouses where the locals who had no baths – and that was about half – could go and scrub up. For the princely sum of two shillings, you had half an hour in a huge tub filled to the brim with wonderfully hot water, a large soft towel, and soap.

The bathhouses I went to in London were vast – scores of cubicles serviced by aloof attendants; everywhere steam and noise and the sweet smell of soap, cleanliness and warmth. I loved them. You didn’t even have to clean the bath afterwards!

In the same complex was usually a large tepid swimming pool – men and women on alternate days – making togs unnecessary. Upstairs you could often find a gymnasium, and at the rear, a Turkish bath replete with steam rooms, dry rooms with ‘Eastern’ style vaulted ceilings, plastic couches, massage room, cooling-off lounge, and private cubicles.

Unfortunately, as people installed baths in their houses and flats, the bathhouses disappeared. Then newer, more glamorous private swimming pools opened, offering mixed bathing every day, forcing the closure of cheaper public pools. Private saunas then took clients from the magnificent Turkish baths, and an era vanished; mourned only by the few who value the good things of the past, and those women and men who would love to swim, but for various and valid reasons don’t want to exhibit their bodies to the opposite sex.

Sean directed me past a vast, eight-storey, dirty-grey tenements of Dickensian horror. Tiny windows, netting-enclosed tarsealed ‘exercise’ areas, rubbish, decay, decrepitude, despair. It looked like a prison, but was the Peabody Estate, one of many such horrifying slums owned by the Anglican Church who were, Sean informed me, the largest slum landlords in England.

The notice on the doors said: “Male War Wounded, Mondays 1.00p.m. – 4.00p.m.” The seriously disfigured did not like to parade their wounds in public. Some came from nursing homes and were attended by carers, some were on their own, some accompanied by a friend or relative.

We stripped – no togs required. I carried him to the pool and threw him in. He bobbed like a cork. No legs to sink him. He could swim like an otter and raced me easily. Afterwards we took a Turkish bath, and while Sean had his free massage, I chatted to a group of war wounded men.

Not one miserable moaning man, yet many of the wounds were dreadful. Great holes in chests, thighs, buttocks, stomachs. Half a face missing. Legless, armless, missing genitals… all were maimed, but on Monday afternoons for a few hours they threw off their fear of ridicule and no one pitied them or wept insincere tears; here they were normal men again. French war-wounded are called Mutilés de Guerre. Mutilated. A much more accurate word than wounded.

Europe was awash with such misery. However, it was the destruction of their cities that converted them to pacifism. The U.S.A., Australia and New Zealand have suffered similar human casualties in their endless foreign wars, yet remain warmongers. The unpleasant inference being that only the destruction of civic infrastructure is a deterrent – soldiers are expendable.

That evening I telephoned the number on the card the Colonel had given me after the performance. A woman wanted me to dance and model for her “Life” classes. When I told her I was leaving London the following Saturday, she insisted I retain her card and call her when I returned, as I was exactly the sort of young man she was seeking to broaden her pupils’ horizons. Sounded odd, but it felt good to be wanted, and even better when Sean invited me for a pub meal.

After a few beers (I stuck to ginger ale) he confessed that his wife had never been able to accept the amputations. She loved him, but they hadn’t had sex since his return. I was deeply shocked. He was legless, but still handsome and fun. The wounds were neat and clean. He admitted, with a sly look of hope, that he wouldn’t mind going to a whore.

I had to pick up my new suit in Charing Cross Road on Thursday, so promised we’d go for a wander and see what turned up. Unlike today, newspaper personals did not have columns of ads for sex-workers.

Chapter 13: Tuesday to Friday Night

Although I had no idea who I’d be working for or where I’d be performing that night, I trusted the Mays and wasn’t worried. As for Sean, despite spending five days with him, I had no idea what he would think about such things, so in an effort to discover more I said I'd been asked to dance in a ‘g’-string for some wealthy people; what did he reckon?

He chewed on his lip for a bit, then asked why I would do such a thing.

“Thirty quid!”

“You’d be selling your body. No better than a prostitute.” This, from the man who was intending to visit a whore!

“What’s wrong with prostitutes?”

“Where there’s prostitution, there’s crime, drugs, and worse!”

“Not my exp… I mean, not always!” This was getting a bit personal.

“If you participate in filth, you’ll become filthy.”

“Come on! I'd only be dancing nearly naked. Anyway, why’s prostitution different from a labourer selling his body as a builder?”

“Because it’s sex.”

“What’s wrong with sex?”

“You know perfectly well!” he snapped.

I didn’t, but Sean was ready to patch this gap in my education. “An obsession with sex caused the collapse of the Roman Empire! I may be a lapsed Catholic, but I know right from wrong!”

I wasn’t sure what a Catholic was, except I'd been told that if Catholics didn’t have loads of children the priests would harass them. Methodist Sunday School had taught me nothing useful or interesting. Catholics were as uninteresting to me as Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, or any other religion.

On Sunday mornings Mother sometimes went to the local Methodist church because although she rejected the prim and intolerant bigotry, she loved singing. Occasionally I kept her company. Once when I said how incomprehensible the sermon was, she’d laughed.

“Oh! You mustn’t listen! He’s a dried-up old stick who’s never lived, telling us how we should live.”

I’d listen to the drone of blowflies, watch dust motes, inhale Mother’s eau de violet, and join in the singing – but only if it was cold and wet. If it was sunny I'd be at the beach. Sitting indoors on a beautiful day is an insult to life.

My moral education hadn’t been neglected, however. ‘Treat others as you would like to be treated’ had been drummed into me from birth. It makes sense and I've no regrets and tried to live by the motto, ‘At least do no harm’. I've had as good a life as anyone can expect and seldom been swindled. As for what I value: - loving and being loved, nature, interesting work, independence, health, and thrift.

Perhaps because he was at heart a puritan and therefore obsessed with sex, Sean had read a great deal about decadent societies and regaled me with lurid tales of debauchery. According to him, the Victorians were even more dissolute than the Romans, and to make matters worse, this depravity stemmed from royalty!

He had an Irishman’s distrust of the English monarchy, and with mordant relish informed me that Queen Victoria’s Prince Albert had been an enthusiastic participant in orgies, starting a fashion for nipple piercing and ball and cock rings! I decided not to inflame his ire by revealing that I’d recently been an unwitting disciple of Albert. Instead, I praised his moral rectitude, thanked him for his warning, and set off for the Mays’ – imagination ablaze with tales of noble lust.

In the taxi, I sat on the jump seat while the Mays ignored me. It is tempting to dismiss the overweening arrogance of the British upper classes as foolishness, but that would be a grave mistake. They know exactly what they are about – maintaining their social and fiscal advantages. As we pulled up at the house, Mrs. May turned her gaze on me and said quietly, “You do not know us, and if you tell anyone about this evening, or your dalliance with the Colonel, you will regret it for life.”

Her smile merely added acid as she continued, “Your performance tonight will be good, because I have promised our hosts it will be good.”

My guts froze. However, before I could leap from the taxi in panic and escape, a firm hand squeezed my upper thigh. “See you after the show,” said the Colonel with an easy smile as if it had been prearranged. Before I could respond he was out and opening the door for his wife.

She fixed me with a basilisk stare; hissed, “Be discreet!” then took her husband’s arm like any loving wife as they walked demurely towards the front door of a large, redbrick, Hampstead villa.

An elderly gentleman ushered me through to a semi-circular conservatory attached to the rear of the house. Bamboo blinds ensured privacy, and luxuriant exotic plants created a jungle-like atmosphere. A small stage against the house wall was surrounded by about 20 cane armchairs with floral pillows. The warm, humid air felt like summer at home. The sound of cultured laughter, the clink of glasses and elegant voices drifted through open French windows to our right.

I was taken up a short flight of stone steps at the rear of the stage, through French doors into a dressing room, where I was introduced to three young women and two men of about my age. The girls were attractive, but indistinguishable. One of the men was a West Indian; loose-limbed, fuzzy-haired, with a mouthful of white teeth. The other looked like an adolescent choirboy. Smooth, clear skin, straight light brown hair hanging over hazel eyes, generous mouth and angelic demeanour. They were politely uninterested in me. We all stripped, checked ourselves for cleanliness in an adjoining bathroom, oiled up, and waited on chairs overlooking the conservatory, concealed from the audience a few feet blow by a row of pot plants.

The spectators, dressed for a cocktail party, drifted to their seats carrying drinks, chattering, at ease, comfortable with themselves and their companions. There was no music. Concealed lighting bathed the conservatory in a golden glow. I was the ice-breaker, to be followed by one of the girls, then the choirboy and his partner, finishing with the West Indian and his girl. A mixed-race coupling – very daring when Letters to the Editor were riddled with complaints about the influx of West Indians, Indians and Pakistanis lowering the tone of the nation.

All eyes turned to me as I negotiated the steps down onto the stage, feeling much more nervously excited than I had before dancing at the May’s. There, I'd had music to act as a script, and I knew I could dance – sort of.

But could I get an erection? I thrust the thought away, took a deep breath, relaxed and let my autopilot take over. So what if it didn’t work? I'd never see these people again and the experience was worth it. After that, it’s all a blur. I remember smiling to myself and stretching like a cat before running light fingers across nipples, belly and thighs; my ‘unseeing’ eyes roving dreamily above the heads of the circle of elegant spectators lounging almost within touching distance.

I could hear them breathe, swallow, shift in their seats, and clear their throats. I smelled perfume; saw the hands of a man in the front row tremble; a woman licking her lips – eyes fixed on my erection. The ambience was sultry, tense, expectant, arousing, and extraordinarily intimate.

It was a silent performance, physically demanding, explicit, and I hoped artistic; culminating in a creditable cascade – back arched as if suffering a tetanus spasm. The thought made me laugh, the spell broke, and the audience clapped reasonably enthusiastically.

As I skipped back up the steps I noticed Mrs. May sitting next to an ugly, bullish young fellow, while the Colonel sat some distance away next to a similar military type. And I was supposed to be discreet! Back in the dressing room, the elderly gentleman gave me my envelope of cash and said, “Well done. Contact me if you want further work.” His card was in the envelope.

I dressed and watched the others and didn’t feel too outdone until the West Indian thrilled everyone by doing the ‘limbo’ – a popular game at parties at that time. Very sexy shimmying under a stick held about a foot above the floor, his ten-inch penis dragging across the stage beneath him. He then picked up his partner, carried her around to exhibit her intimate bits, turned her to face him and lowered her onto his instrument, eventually letting go and strutting round the stage. We’d all read about a fellow doing it in Fanny Hill, a book still banned at that time in Britain but available in France – but to see it live was brilliant.

A surge of happiness engulfed me. I felt clean, refreshed, contented and, as I said to the ‘choirboy’ – “I'd have done it for nothing.”

He pulled a face. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d had to endure that smelly slut,” nodding at the girl he’d just fucked. I was surprised, as she looked ok. His comment stuck in my head, though, and reinforced a determination never to have sex with someone I didn’t find pleasant. It was too precious an experience to waste.

The audience drifted back inside and the elderly gentleman gave a diplomatic cough and beckoned me to follow him to an upstairs bedroom decorated like an army tent, where I was instructed to shower and prepare myself in the adjoining bathroom. The Colonel arrived, showered, then joined me on the huge bed after depositing another twenty guineas in my envelope. The sex took much longer this time, and there were no interruptions. He was an experienced lover, very gentle and well versed in foreplay. To my surprise I enjoyed it.

A taxi was waiting and I was home by 12:30, where I slept the sleep usually reserved for those for whom virtue is its own reward.

Wednesday morning was given over to scrubbing and polishing the stairs and hallways, after which I got stuck into the bathrooms and toilets so Mrs. Hockey would have nothing to complain about when she returned on Saturday. At lunchtime, I ran into Heather at the mail table; the first time I'd seen her since she’d ‘raped’ me. She raised an eyebrow in unsmiling silence. A surge of pity for the girl loosened my tongue. I was going away so what the heck – I'd be honest.

“I’m leaving on Saturday. Got a job.”

“Acting?”

“Yes. Look, I unintentionally misled you. I only wanted to be friends, not lovers because, you see…”

My courage vaporised and suddenly I wasn’t certain I was queer. Perhaps she simply wasn’t the right one? Perhaps it was only nerves. Perhaps it was only a temporary condition? “You see,’ I explained lamely, “I never know how long I’ll be staying anywhere, so it’s unfair to start a relationship and…”

Tossing her head to show she had no interest in my excuses she said with the hint of a sneer, “Enjoy your acting… you’re very good at it.” Trembling with relief at the ease of my escape, I admired her straight back and proud head as she walked away.

Thursday was also easier than I'd anticipated. Sean accepted the first prostitute to wiggle her tits at us. As she wasn’t put off by the idea of servicing a legless man, I padlocked his chair to the railing and carried him up a flight of rickety wooden stairs to an incense-laden, unsuccessful attempt to turn a cheap little room into an Arabian Nights fantasy. She said to come back in half an hour.

My new suit fitted perfectly and looked classy. Burtons must have employed slave labour to get it done so fast and cheaply. I wandered across the ineptly named Golden Square and into Carnaby Street, just another grotty lane of cheap fashionable junk, where I bought a pair of tight jeans that had eyelets with cord lashing instead of fly buttons, and a pair of white canvas ‘sailor’ trousers with a flap instead of a fly.

A year later, Carnaby Street had become internationally famous as the hub of men’s fashion.

Sean chortled all the way home, describing in nauseating detail the attributes of the Venus who had succoured him.

His exhilaration continued through an early tea, and when he asked obliquely about my sex life, I told him I had a date with someone at the opera that night. He gave a knowing wink and said that as this had been his best week for years and I was obviously an A1 chap and thoroughly trustworthy, I could bring my ‘date’ home if I had nowhere else to go – as long as Mrs. Hockey never found out about either of us. I promised his sexploits would remain a secret, and we shook hands.

Gwyneth Jones replaced an ill Leontyne Price. Emil, my Brazilian acquaintance, reckoned that was a stroke of luck. Price had not been performing well because of stress after receiving racist hate mail, stones thrown through her hotel windows, and being refused entry to whites-only hotels on her tour of the U.S.A..

The performance was thrilling – almost as thrilling as the hand that slipped into my shirt and stroked my belly. I was slightly overdressed for the gods in my new suit, but Emil reckoned I looked a million pounds. I've no idea what he was wearing.

After the performance we stood awkwardly, unwilling to part, and equally unwilling to go on somewhere that cost money. Could we go back to my place? He lived with his family in a small flat and…

Of course, we could, I had Sean’s permission! It was a night to remember. I kept the light on so I could marvel at the wondrous specimen of manhood in my bed. He was a quiet, intense lover, as inexperienced as I, so that made the pleasure even greater – I wasn’t intimidated. It was too perfect. Something had to go wrong. Surely my run of luck since arriving in London wasn’t sustainable?

We heard Sean making breakfast as we dressed. He turned from the sink with a smile that froze on his lips. Blood drained from his face – literally. He choked, then whispered, “Is this the… ‘date’ I let you bring to my house?”

When I nodded, his face had become ugly. Very ugly. I worried he was having a fit. He was.

Waving his arms frantically he shouted, “You sick, vicious, perverted bastard! Get out! Out! Out!” He spun his chair around heading for the telephone. “I’m calling the police!”

Emil grabbed my arm. “Get your stuff! Now! Get away before they get here! Hurry!”

Shouting at me to get a move on, he shoved me back into my room. I grabbed my bag and wallet and put on some shoes – luckily, I hadn’t unpacked much, and we raced up and away, not stopping till we reached Victoria Station where we collapsed onto a bench. I had no idea why we’d run; I was simply responding to Emil's panic.

“If the cops had caught us we’d be in prison now, waiting to see the magistrate,” he gasped. “We’d have been roughed up, fined… criminals! It’s illegal to be queer. Surely you know that?”

I knew it was illegal in public, but in private? I knew people didn’t approve. I knew I had to be circumspect; not tell anyone because they were always making sick jokes about queers and stuff. But I hadn’t thought why… after all, I wasn’t really queer, I was just adventurous. I thought others’ opinions didn’t really concern me as long as I didn’t offend them. I had no idea Sean would mind. I was that innocent!

Emil had to go to work, so we downed a couple of bacon sandwiches and a coffee at a café, and arranged to meet at 5:30 outside the Haymarket Theatre.

Anger replaced shock and fear when I realised I'd left my new suit and winkle-pickers back at the Hockey’s! It took all my self-control not to go back and try to talk sense into Sean. I'm usually pretty good at talking people around to my way of thinking, but then I remembered his face and changed my mind. I have no defence against irrationality – I go to pieces.

After dumping my bags in a locker at Victoria Station, I wandered over to Westminster. There were dozens of policemen standing around, plus a few on horseback – an IRA bomb threat, one told me when I asked. He seemed pleasant enough, so I asked him if it really was illegal to be queer. He said it wasn’t illegal to be a homo, but it was illegal to do anything about it. Why was I asking?

His suddenly suspicious tone nearly loosened my bowels and I stuttered that I was just curious. He grunted, gave me a look that penetrated to my core and suggested he knew every wicked thought in my head, so I thanked him and raced away, literally twittering from insecurity and mental fragility.

It was the first time in my life I’d experienced real fear. What I'd previously taken for fear had been nothing but nervousness. Always I'd been secretly confident I'd manage, because there was always a rational answer to every problem, and people were basically reasonable – weren’t they? One of the pillars that had been supporting my ‘temple of admiration for humanity’ began to crumble.

Sick and slick with nervous sweat, I pretended to be just another tourist and wandered across Parliament Square and Broad Sanctuary, winding up in front of a large circular building. To my surprise it was the London base of the Methodists – Central Hall Westminster. Very impressive. Inside, it was a bit like the Colosseum. The sight of a dark-suited, dog collared fellow approaching middle age seemed like a beacon of kindness in a world suddenly turned hostile, so I approached in the hope that, like Jesus, he would gather up this lost sheep and offer shelter – or at least wise words that would assuage the hurt, bolster my flagging self-esteem, and set me on the path to redemption.

He saw me approaching, pulled a worried frown and busied himself with an unnecessary straightening of brochures. When that didn’t work, he demanded with ill-concealed impatience if he could help me. I said I had a bit of a problem and wanted his advice. His frown deepened, he checked his watch, cleared his throat and said he had an appointment; was it really urgent? He was good – very good. Made me feel an intolerable wimp. A nuisance. A waster of important people’s time.

Suddenly I realised he was a Pharisee, not a Samaritan, so instead of unburdening myself of my dread secret, I said it wasn’t that important, I'd come back when he wasn’t so busy, and wandered out hoping I didn’t look as much of a prat as I felt. Served me right for forgetting Mother’s advice about ministers. I'd been let off lightly. If he hadn’t been wearing a dog collar, I’d never have approached such a miserable, pinched specimen of humanity.

I vividly recall shouting with relief and racing madly across Birdcage Walk to St James Park where flocks of extraordinarily colourful wildfowl calmed my tortured psyche and let me view things in perspective.

Nothing bad had happened. I'd simply had a timely warning and a lucky escape from the clutches of both the law and religion. Had the recalcitrant prelate been all loving, forgiving, and understanding, I'd probably have struggled to change. As it was, he had failed in his duty to an obviously distressed young man, and my faith in myself was reinforced. I felt older, wiser and street smart – no longer the innocent young colonial fatuously in love with the big, kind, caring city of London.

Blue-uniformed nannies and their young charges fed ducks. Strollers strolled. Important people hurried to appointments. The sun glistened on the fairy-tale tower of the horse guards. In the distance, the royal standard fluttered atop Buckingham Palace and I made four vows. I would keep my sexual orientation a secret from everyone except real friends; of which I so far had none. I would trust my own judgement and find wisdom in experience and the writings of wise men. I would always be independent and debt free. I would never enter a religious building as anything other than a tourist. A great lightness filled me. Only I knew how I should live.

The day passed quickly – I wanted to see everything for the last time. After climbing The Monument again, I went to the city branch of the bank to change my address for forwarding mail. Banks were caring institutions in those days. Not only did the BNZ pay 3% interest on all deposits, they forwarded or held mail for collection, arranged travel and travellers’ cheques, organised visas, and the branch in Regent Street just off Piccadilly had a lounge serving tea and biscuits. Even small-change customers like me were considered valuable assets.

It’s astounding how different London looked in the light of my recent experience. Suddenly I was pleased to be leaving my silliness behind. New adventures awaited. I was also pleased Emil didn’t turn up at the Haymarket Theatre. No one likes to be associated with a failure, and I had failed him utterly – putting his life in danger. I wanted to leave no debts behind.

After collecting my bag from Victoria, as a penance for my stupidity I lugged it all the way to Liverpool Street Station, arriving so exhausted it was a relief to stretch out on a hard bench in the second-class waiting room for the remainder of the night.

My companions were a couple of drunks, a madwoman spouting poetry, a thin, exhausted-looking girl who kept whimpering, and two bearded young American tourists who, after informing the entire waiting room of their drunken Icelandic Airways flight from New York that morning, curled up in sleeping bags in a dusty corner and snored.

Chapter 14: Assistant Stage Manager

There was no welcoming committee at the station and the town was not as I remembered. It was quieter, older, tattier, and less interesting. So was the theatre, where the doorman had no idea who I was, refused to let me in, told me to come back at one o’clock, and shut the door in my face. It was just after ten, so I shouldered my bag and legged it through streets lined with terrace-houses and cluttered with pallid, soccer-playing youths to Harry’s, where I’d get the welcome I deserved!

An unshaven scarecrow opened the door, frowned as if I was the last person he expected to see, found his voice, and invited me in with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. I knew Harry wasn’t handsome, but… that gigantic mouth, those hands… I must have been out of my mind to let him feel me up! To think I'd been worried he’d be expecting an amorous relationship! He was obviously having second thoughts about even renting me the room!

I sat at the table while he made tea, clattering cups, spilling water, dumping a packet of biscuits on the table and himself on a chair. After a couple of false starts he finally repeated more or less what we’d already agreed. It was OK for me to rent the room, but I shouldn’t get any ideas because of what had happened backstage. I wasn’t his type, and it was better to get that straightened out. Also, I had to be very discreet about… you know… because this was a gossipy small town and he couldn’t afford to let rumours start and…

I let him ramble till he'd run out of worries, nodded seriously, told him I was keener than him to maintain a low profile, was grateful for his honesty, and considered his suggestions very wise.

He flashed a perfect-toothed grin, regaining his ‘almost handsome’ status, and we dunked ginger nuts and chatted – Harry waxing lyrical about some of the guys at the gym – tradesmen and labourers who liked kicking a ball around, downing a few pints at the pub, throwing darts, and occasionally coming home with him for a bit of rough and tumble.

At one o'clock, actors were preparing and the backstage crew were making last-minute checks for the matinee of Arthur Miller’s All my Sons. I wandered around the set admiring the clever fake perspective, then sought out Frank, the stage manager, natty as ever in white shirt, tie, and khaki overalls. He finished an internal phone call to the lighting guys in their box up behind the dress circle, grunted a friendly greeting, told me to keep my trap shut, eyes open, and out of the way. There was no time to meet the actors then or between shows, because they all raced home for a meal.

I watched the sixth and final performance of the play that night from the rear of the stalls, joined by the director who placed a firm hand on my thigh, instructed me to call him Alfred, and explained with peppermint-diluted halitosis that All My Sons had been popular because during the war there had been an American military base nearby and several servicemen had married local girls.

It was a good show, but I wasn’t overawed. After greasepaint and costumes were removed, friends milled backstage offering congratulations, getting in the way of stage crew who had already started dismantling the set.

The party that night was at the house of one of the actresses. It wasn’t far, but Alfred took the prompt and me in his Austin Mini. Once inside the mock Tudor, two up and two down semi-detached, he introduced me to the hosts.

Rosemary was a vivacious, slightly buck-toothed redhead pushing 30, married to Paul, a mathematics teacher at the Grammar School. Paul was tall, thin, and pleasantly pale, with a shock of dark hair, and black-framed glasses. He shook my hand firmly, welcoming me in a rich baritone that reverberated in my chest. I admired their house, thanked them for the invitation, reluctantly extricated my hand, and followed Alfred to meet the other actors.

“Alan, this is Rigby, our new A.S.M.”

Alan, who looked to be in his mid-20s, lounged on the sofa, stared rudely over my shoulder, and yawned.

“Alan’s the junior lead,” Alfred whispered as we moved away, as if that excused offensive behaviour.

Alice was Alan’s female counterpart; an innocent-looking blonde who boarded with Rosemary and Paul. She shook hands, smiled, and welcomed me with charming earnestness.

Totty and Terence, a husband and wife team in their 40s who had already drunk too much, offered limp hands and muttered something about not needing a taxi yet. Totty was fighting a losing battle with weight and the ravages of time; Terrence began a long story about his misadventures at the greyhound track, but Albert dragged me away. “Terry’s a good stick, but he'll bore you to death if you let him.”

Jeremy was in his late 30s, sandy-haired, pleasant, and running to seed. He offered a soggy hand, leaving it to me to grip it and waggle, said nothing, then wandered off to sit beside Alan on the sofa.

Hugh and Marjorie were in their 50s, had retained more than their fair share of good looks, and shook hands with an aristocratically vague, “How d’you do?” before turning back to their respective spouses, to whom I wasn’t introduced.

I thanked Alfred for the tour, removed his hand from my upper arm, and made my way back to rejoin Paul, the only person in the room I felt comfortable with. As I passed the sofa, a beautifully modulated voice cut lazily through the smoky fug.

“Jerry, who the fuck was that fellow Fred dragged over?”

“The new ASM.”

“A Jew!”

“How d’you know?”

“Bloody great honk… and circumcised.”

“You’ve X-Ray vision?”

“Thin trousers and doesn’t wear underpants… conceited cub. Needs a kick in the cods!”

“Or a codpiece.”

I pretended I hadn’t heard. He was wrong about me being a Jew, so he was also wrong about my conceit. Arrogant prick! Of course I didn’t wear underpants because nothing looks more ridiculous than an underpants-line halfway up your bum. As for my cods, as Dad’s friend said when he sold me my first bikini, “A real man is proud of his manhood.”

Paul was alone at the drinks table in the kitchen and seemed pleased to see me, so I told him what Alan had said. “Huh. Alan’s jealous. He’s a mummy’s boy boarding with a wealthy widow. Rumour says she rapes him every night. As for your trousers, they're perfect… if you're looking for clients.”

His easy laugh didn’t stop my heart thumping. Had he guessed? Did he think I was a queer prostitute? I forced a laugh and moved away. Five minutes later, I was jogging home through frosty air, the best experience I'd had all day. If that was a party they could keep it. Smoke, booze and noise do not for me a party make.

Weekly repertory is relentlessly demanding. A new play was presented every Tuesday night, running through to the Saturday matinee and evening performance. During the day, the play for the following week was rehearsed in a stuffy rehearsal room upstairs. Inevitably, the lines of the play in rehearsal sometimes found their way into the current show, but being experienced they knew how to extricate themselves.

Actors’ hours were midday to five o'clock, then seven o'clock to whenever the show ended, Monday to Saturday. Sunday was a rest day to finish learning lines. Monday afternoon was the first time on stage with the new play and the new set, and was followed by a lighting rehearsal that could go on all night if the director wasn’t satisfied. Tuesday morning saw the set dressed, and Tuesday afternoon was a last run through with costumes before the first performance that night.

The following morning they’d begin rehearsing the next play. They were professionals who learned lines rapidly and needed only minimal direction. All were secretly seeking fame. All were wisely prepared for disappointment.

Actors had to supply their own costumes, personal props, and makeup, which they applied themselves – even for character roles. They dressed in crowded, poorly ventilated dressing rooms under the stage with scant assistance. It was an exhausting schedule for little financial reward. No wonder tempers frayed and bitchiness prevailed. It’s difficult to imagine anything less like the light-hearted fun and pleasure of amateur dramatic clubs, where rehearsals get bogged down in laughter and silly games, and acting is just a pastime – an enjoyable way to spend a night with friends of similar bent.

There’s nothing light-hearted about being a professional actor because there are always hundreds of ‘resting’ actors waiting to take your place if you lose your touch. Despite everyone calling each other ‘darling’, professional theatre isn’t a fraternity, it’s dog eat dog. A few decades earlier, cinemas had lured audiences away from music hall and theatre; and now television was increasing the pressure – also on cinemas, hundreds of which were being converted to bingo parlours.

After lunch on the Sunday following the party at Rosemary’s, a ferocious looking young fellow with long incisors took Harry and me in his Land Rover to an old warehouse that backed onto a private woodland through which ran a tributary of the River Colne. About a dozen men aged from 18 to 40 went for a jog through the trees to the stream, dipped in the freezing water, raced back, lifted a few weights, then held boxing matches – that I watched in alarm.

Boxing terrifies me. My pain threshold is minus ten, which is why I took up wrestling. I also reckon wrapping your arms round a man’s loins is more fun than punching him in the face. Harry was the founder and organiser of this gym, and popular. After delivering us home, our driver remained for a noisy fuck with Harry, before returning to his wife and kids for supper. I wasn’t jealous.

On Monday, I assisted with the lighting rehearsal of The Chalk Garden, followed by the props and costume rehearsal, during which, in a notebook containing a page of script faced by a blank page, I recorded every change, detail, or organizational point of lighting, scenery, costumes, props, noises off… that had to be corrected before the evening show. Cigarette fumes belched as Alfred shouted, sulked, and enthused in turn. Nobody took offence – nor did they take much notice. We were finished by seven o'clock.

“That went well, don’t you reckon?” Alfred demanded, placing a hand on my thigh. I nodded. He scanned my notes, said he hoped I was able to read them because he couldn’t, so I’d better rewrite them, and the manager wanted to see me the following day.

Head buried in an account book, the manager peered over a desk littered with ledgers and ticket butts. Between smoke-induced coughs, he outlined my responsibilities, then reminded me of the duty, respect, and loyalty I owed the company and the public, and that I had until the summer break in July to prove myself – ten weeks.

All that respect and work for the princely sum of six pounds ten a week! No wonder so many actors were hiving off to the relative riches of TV. After bringing up a wad of phlegm, catching it in a stained handkerchief, examining it and folding it into a pocket, he flapped nicotine-stained fingers in dismissal.

Life as an ASM is frantic. I had to assist anyone who asked; stage manager, director, wardrobe, prompt, set-building, fetching food, ironing costumes, sound effects, electrics, working the follow spot, pulling up and bringing down the curtain, clearing rubbish from back stage, carrying messages, going out for cigarettes, calling the actors… My job was everything and nothing.

If a walk-on was required – waiter, servant, friend, prisoner, accomplice, chauffeur… I was he. Sometimes I even had a few lines. The work wasn’t mentally demanding, merely endless. I learned a great deal about how to run a theatre; how a good stage manager is the true boss – the lynch-pin of a theatre company, how sets were made, stored, and converted; how to kill someone’s funny line; how a director can reduce actors to impotent tears and backstage hands to revolt; how to design a lighting plan and execute it… but I wasn’t acting! ASMs could expect to wait a year or more before being given a substantial role.

Everyone except Alan was friendly, but then he got up everyone’s nose. I had no desire to go for drinks with them after performances and sit in their smoke, or socialise in any other way. I was always too tired. On Sunday mornings, I caught up on sleep, then went to the gym with Harry’s mob. A couple of times Harry had tried to talk me into bedding someone, but rough young men who had been pushed into marriage, had kids, fucked their wives once a week, and enjoyed a bit of male flesh in between, was not what I was looking for. The last thing they wanted was what I wanted – emotional attachment. Probably more natural than my pathetic hopes of one day finding a lover for life.

Alice and Rosemary were always fun to be with and I often went home with them and Paul for a snack between five and seven. One afternoon, Rosemary suddenly asked if I liked Paul. I took it as a joke and laughed, “Yes, of course,” hoping they didn’t realise how much I liked him – not because he was sexy, which he wasn’t, but because he was so nice.

Then, out of the blue, Alice casually asked if I would deflower her – her words – because she was a virgin and as I was a homosexual I would be gentle and wouldn’t laugh at her ignorance. A chill swept over me – I'd been so careful! How on earth had they guessed?

“What makes you think I’m queer?” Defensive.

“You haven’t tried to sleep with me.”

“You’re not my type.” Harry’s line.

They all laughed – but not unkindly, suspicions confirmed.

In fear that my dread secret was out, I asked Harry later what to do. He snorted derisively. “Alice and Rosemary are lizzies. They shag each other.”

“But… Rosemary’s married!”

So was the guy I fucked last Sunday.”

“And Paul?”

“Paul’s queer as a coot. I've seen him at the baths ogling guys. It’s the usual marriage of convenience. He’d be kicked out of teaching if they thought he was camp. He’s probably got his eye on you.”

Putting that thought aside to savour later, I told him about Sean’s reaction when he discovered I'd brought a guy home. Harry was furious. Couldn’t believe I'd been such an idiot. Where the fuck had I been living? Surely, I knew that homos could be brought before the courts, imprisoned for up to 20 years and be raped, have their crimes published in the papers, be fired from their jobs, kicked out of rented accommodation (which is why he wanted to own his own house), disowned by families, incarcerated in funny farms, given electric shock treatment and…” He dropped his head onto strong arms and let years of anger and anxiety erupt in sobs of impotent misery.

I knelt and stroked his head. I felt sick, angry, and helpless. It was much worse than I’d realised - no wonder Emil had fled! I’d sort of known all those things but hadn’t really understood. It had just been words. Harry’s anguish created vivid pictures in my head of what I’d escaped, and as the full, technicolour realisation percolated, a chill invaded and something in my spirit that had been large and untroubled, turned to dust and vanished, leaving behind the twittering fear that had pursued me after talking to the policeman outside the Houses of Parliament.

Harry raised his head and sadly explained that this was our life, and we had to learn to live with it, to use all the tricks we could to fool the enemy. And never become a victim because the world hates victims.

It may sound melodramatic, but it wasn’t – it was the truth for us then, and remains the truth for most same-sex-oriented men in the world today.

After the anonymity of London, even large provincial towns feel claustrophobic. Everyone seems to know everyone else. You come to work and discover you’ve been seen wandering along the river, eating at Lyons, buying food in Tesco’s. For someone like me who needs privacy as much as fresh air, it’s very stressful.

Not that I want to do anything bad, but because I’ve always known I was ‘different’, I’ve always been slightly secretive. One day, Alfred asked me how well I knew Mr. X. “I don’t know any Mr. X,” I replied. “Yes, you do. I saw you smiling at him in Sainsbury’s.”

I remembered the incident. A handsome fellow caught me staring at him. I blushed, he smiled, we nodded and walked on – he to join his wife, me to a lonely supper. No wonder so many gays took off for London as soon as they could! You couldn’t even smile at a bloke without someone noticing and reporting!

I'd been ASM for six weeks, it was the beginning of June and the first leaves were appearing on trees that had been bare for over six months. Daffodils lifted their heads in the parks. There were still morning frosts and freezing winds slicing across Essex as if they wanted to cut everything off at ground level. I missed the sun and needed more sleep. I longed to lie on a sandy beach in the sun, go body-surfing, or stay home at nights to read and sleep instead of hanging around a freezing, draughty theatre.

I was eating a snack with Rosemary and Alice when they asked my opinion of Alan, and if I really wanted to act. We agreed he was arrogant, prim, fussy, selfish, vain, and a wimp, and I assured them that all I wanted to do was act! Satisfied, they outlined their plan.

The next play was Kenneth Horne’s A Good Young Man; a comedy about a shabby family living in a cramped basement flat, who are visited by a distant cousin, a missionary’s son brought up in Papua New Guinea. He’s come to England in search of a wife and nothing could be more tiresome, his cousins imagine. But he turns out to be a dreamboat; Tarzan in a lounge-suit, and the family is galvanised into self-reinvention, seduced by muscles and a smile. In one scene, The Good Young Man wanders in shirtless, and is taught to kiss by one of the sisters. Alan and Rosemary had been cast in those two roles. With a pang of sadness I recalled Waita using exactly the same trick on me. Where was he now?

From the stalls, Alan looked and sounded pretty good and was the heart-throb of many a middle-aged woman. However, without clothes he was pigeon chested, slack bellied, and spindle-shanked.

Rosemary’s plan was that during the second rehearsal she would insist that Alan take off his shirt so she could get used to it. I would be taking notes as usual, also shirtless because the room was hot and stuffy. Rosemary would stumble and fall. I would rush forward to support her, forcing a comparison with Alan. Later, they would work on Alfred, and the role would be mine. Yeah, right…

The trap was sprung on Thursday afternoon, and on Friday morning we were told that Alan would be away from Sunday to Thursday visiting a sick relative. I was relieved of ASM duties and had until the following Tuesday evening to learn the lines. The girls and Paul coached me, but Rosemary kept cracking up during the kissing scene, reckoned she couldn’t get the hang of grabbing me and planting a kiss. Paul offered to show her how to do it. I felt his hard-on through his trousers, so gave him a real kiss – a good move.

He suggested I stay over on Saturday and all day Sunday to give us one-and-a-half days of uninterrupted rehearsal. Later he admitted he’d only agreed to the plan in the hope of getting me into bed. I was hopelessly flattered. Paul was an intelligent and cosy man and an undemanding lover, content to pleasure me while telling jokes and babbling head-swelling compliments. Sharing a bed with him was no penance.

By Monday afternoon’s dress rehearsal, I was word perfect and we’d planned another little ambush, this time for Alfred. He was so relieved at my progress that when Alice mentioned a bare bum had been seen on stage at The Royal Court theatre in London, he reluctantly agreed to bring the play into the 60s by having me appear in underpants, instead of merely shirtless; but only if the entire cast agreed.

Paul had already plastered me with artificial tanning lotion for two days, and we’d bought a pale blue Jockey bikini in anticipation. I looked pretty good, as long as you didn’t get close enough to see the somewhat streaky ‘tan’. A black-and-white photo of me in my briefs appeared on the posters outside the theatre on Tuesday afternoon, and in the local Wednesday paper.

We had full houses as usual, so although reviews had judged my performance ‘adequate’ and my ‘near nudity’ as ‘tastefully done’, at least I hadn’t put anyone off. In a moment of weakness after the final performance, Paul talked me into growing a beard and moving in with him permanently.

Moving out from Harry’s was as much of a relief for him as for me. We had little in common. I liked him, but it was exhausting to pretend I liked his pop music, thought his jokes were funny, and his boyfriends sexy. For me, ejaculation takes a back seat to mutual cuddling, kissing and arousal – something Paul was good at because he fancied me rotten.

For the next four weeks, we stayed home as much as possible, and if we went out it was as a foursome – Rosemary and Paul, Alice and Rigby. No better camouflage has ever been invented and no subterfuge is more soul-destroying for a young man who’d always thought of himself as honest and self-reliant.

The season continued with more of the silly drawing-room comedies and lightweight thrillers that were so popular. Did I really want to be an actor churning out stuff like that? Wasn’t my dancing and performing for the Mays just as entertaining, more liberating and much more fun? Or was I simply an exhibitionist?

After careful thought, I decided that actors and performers are the opposite of exhibitionists because they're not themselves when performing; they’re playing a part, concealing their true selves. Off stage they're usually unrecognisable.

I once stood beside Alice listening to a couple of women gazing rapturously at her photo on the theatre posters. “Oh! Ain’t she lovely, she’s so beautiful, I’d love to be like her.” Then they turned, brushed us rudely out of the way and wandered off, not realising the object of their envy had been standing right beside them. Alice was delighted. Like most sensible people she valued privacy more than fame. Privacy and attention seeking are not mutually exclusive, but privacy and fame are. Celebrity puts you on a very wobbly pedestal in a glasshouse – not my idea of fun.

I’d been with the company for nine weeks; it was decision time. Did I want to spend at least another year in this cold, dark theatre with only one free night a week, not enough sleep, no real acting? I'd learned just about everything they could teach me and I was bored. Paul had been fun but he was too old – turning thirty and not someone I'd be proud to show off in a dancehall. Does that make me shallow? I don’t think so.

I liked him, but was too young to get stuck with the first man who asked me to hang around – especially not in a County town! I might be a Colonial, but I couldn’t bear to become Provincial.

Alfred and the stage manager said they were disappointed, but understood, and the manager appeared resigned to losing his ASMs. Paul hid any disappointment, merely insisting he wanted a photo to prove he'd once had a manly lover.

Poppy never sent the money she owed, but I guess her introduction to the Mays covered that debt.

As the train hurtled back to London, I felt I was riding the crest of a wave of relief and exhilaration. In my pockets I had five exciting documents; a letter from Waita telling me he would be arriving in London in three days; an invitation to a function at The Victoria League; an appointment for an audition with the Westminster Shakespearian Company; and the cards of both the fellow who organised the show in the conservatory, and the woman who wanted me to model for her art classes. My cup was running over.

*****

Notes:

The position of A.S.M. was seldom a dead end. It was a valuable apprenticeship for professional acting. It just didn’t suit me. A few weeks after I became an Assistant Stage Manager, Ian McKellen took up an identical post in the North of England. He persevered and became a famous actor of stage and screen; Knight of the realm; heroic gay icon and magician.

Robert Farrar, the grandson of Kenneth Horne who wrote The Good Young Man, is now also a playwright. He’s gay and regularly has plays produced on the London stage that include nudity and simulated gay sex. I’d arrived in London too soon.

Chapter 15: Cruising

London was transformed! Summer’s tints and light-filled spaces had replaced wet, drab and cold. Streets had become leafy avenues and the sun shone through gaps in fluffy clouds.

From the top of the bus, Hyde Park was a sea of green, the Victoria and Albert Museum peeped coyly through verdant foliage, and the Cromwell Road boasted overhanging boughs and dappled shade as we made our way to Earl’s Court, where, to celebrate my return to civilization I planned to take a room at the Overseas Visitors’ Club, then walk to Kensington Gardens and through Hyde Park to Oxford Street.

Instead, however, after paying for a room I succumbed to a gnawing premonition that someone else was going to get the job with the Westminster Shakespearian Company. Throwing common sense to the winds I took the Circle Line to Victoria, hoping the casting director would think being four days early for an audition was a sign of keenness rather than stupidity.

Anticipation became anxiety as I jogged the last half mile to Alderny Street. Well-kept Victorian facades gave way to run-down tenements, treeless cul-de-sacs, glowering terrace houses and streets strewn with snotty urchins and mouldering rubbish. I knew it wasn’t going to be the Old Vic or Stratford on Avon; but had hoped it would at least be a presentable little touring company. After all, it was the Westminster Shakespearian Company so it had to be OK. Didn’t it?

No one had told me the Borough of Westminster ran from The City of London to Kensington and Earl’s Court, and included Mayfair, Buckingham Palace, and Belgravia, as well as the almost-slums of Vauxhall, Pimlico and Victoria. To compound my disquiet, the heavens opened and I arrived thoroughly drenched in front of a three-storied, one-room-wide terrace house in the centre of a street of similar dirty, run-down abodes. A battered Austin Van was parked outside.

My bold knock on the only painted door in the street, prompted a dark head to pop out of the van’s side door.

“Shhhh! What do you want?”

“Westminster Shakespearian Company.”

“You’ve got it.”

“I’m a little early for my audition.”

“How early?”

“Four days.”

“Ten ticks for keenness. I’m Edgar and you’re?

“Rigby.”

“Alwyn’s asleep and mustn’t be disturbed for at least another twenty minutes. Hop in out of the rain and tell me about yourself.”

The accent was Home Counties, the voice rich and theatrical, the owner short, slim and perky, and the back of the van dim and warm. A blanketed mattress occupied the centre, and wooden frames were lashed against the sides.

“Take off your wet things before you catch your death. The blanket’s clean.”

Edgar could have been any age between twenty-five and forty, and it was a pleasure to talk about myself to someone who listened as if he was interested. Satisfied I was indeed keen on the job, he explained that if Alwyn approved I'd be given most of the younger male roles, be responsible for getting them safely to their destination, and in charge of van maintenance.

Euphoria at the prospect of becoming a real actor with real roles was my sole excuse for permitting Edgar to conduct a physical as well as verbal audition. Only later, as my host quietly digested the upshot of a satisfying fellatio, did I wonder if I'd been subjected to the ‘casting couch’ – or in this case, casting mattress. Whatever, it certainly wouldn’t do my cause any harm – unless the somnolent Alwyn was a jealous type.

“Don’t tell Alwyn!”

Ah…

The ground floor was rented to a woman no one had seen for years. The freshly-painted green door on which I had knocked so thoughtlessly, gave onto steep, narrow, well-swept stairs leading up into gloom.

The first half-landing was also a shallow kitchen, with windows looking onto the drab, grimy backs of similar houses. The next landing contained a door leading to the two rooms occupied by Alwyn and Edgar. The next half-landing was the bathroom, overlooking the same squalor as the kitchen. The final landing had two doors; one to a small storage room facing the rear, the other to a bed-sitting-room overlooking the street, rented to an elderly war widower who crept in and out when no one was looking, and kept an eye on the place when the show was on tour.

Alwyn, in beige trousers, shirt, and cardigan, was sipping tea in the living/dining room – a pleasant, cosy space filled with old furniture. The view from the windows was of the street – uninspiring and therefore curtained. My future boss was in his fifties, bespectacled, lined and severe. A professional grump, like just about every man over fifty I had ever met. He offered tea and shortbread, asked to see my driver’s licence, then thrust a copy of Coriolanus into my hand and instructed me to go down to the kitchen and read. I firmed up my diaphragm, read the prologue, projecting in the approved manner, and returned.

“Where were you last?”

I told him.

“You had better luck than Eurydice, then.”

I glanced helplessly at Edgar.

“Escaping from hell,” Edgar explained.

Alwyn’s brain and sense of humour was anything but beige. He was sharp, witty, and delightfully intolerant of everything. “Are you comfortable wearing tights?”

“I wore Jockey briefs in The Good Young Man, and recently danced naked for a private party, so … no.”

Alwyn’s face lit up. “You dance! Classical ballet?”

“Just moves I make up.”

“Humph. That beard will have to go.”

“It’ll be off tonight.”

“Good. Take us shopping.”

Neither of the men could drive, or knew anything about motors. We clambered in, Alwyn in front, Edgar on the mattress. The starter motor ground away merrily, but no spark. No fuel gauge either. It was still bucketing down, but fortunately the motor was situated between the front seats so I checked the fuel line – petrol O.K. Cleaned the plugs, wiped out the distributor, touched up the points and away we went.

Motors then were not the highly specialised power sources of today that require a degree in engineering to open the bonnet. Any reasonably lucid fellow with a clean rag, a couple of adjustable spanners, and a screwdriver could cure most problems. We filled shopping trolleys at Tesco’s, collected Green Stamps, and then I earned my supper by acting as porter.

“Where are you staying?”

I told them.

“Why waste money? Clean out the upstairs room and you can sleep there.”

Obviously, I had the job, and they had a free chauffeur. It seemed a fair exchange. I liked them both and although we’d only known each other a few hours they gave me a key to the van and front door so I could come and go as I pleased. The storeroom was chockers with scenery and props for the multitude of plays they presented. With Edgar’s assistance, I cleared enough away to give access to the bed, made it up with fresh linen and promised to return the following day as I'd already paid for a room.

That night I showered and shaved – enjoying the feel of fresh air on my jaw, then danced till I dropped in the basement nightclub of the Overseas Visitors’ Club. Great live band; loud, but you could still hold a conversation – not that I met anyone I wanted to converse with. I was rejuvenated and life was continuing, as it usually seemed to, to obey my wishes.

Waita had been granted a scholarship to complete his doctorate at Edinburgh University, an institute that specialised in further education for Commonwealth citizens. Our letters had been sporadic, but enough to keep the friendship bubbling so I was waiting impatiently at the BOAC Terminal.

Suddenly shy, we shook hands and he gave me a shell necklace and a garish shirt – neither of which I'd be seen dead in. I hadn’t bought him anything. I dislike receiving presents and therefore don’t think to give them. After a brief minute of smiles and meaningless chit-chat, he presented a shy young woman with piebald gums, tiny teeth and a nervous smile.

“This is Ellie… my wife.” He read my face. “In the Solomons, Rigby, everyone marries.”

I tried to be pleased for him, and to like her, but she was a dull little mouse. As for Waita; where was the daredevil in tight black trousers, long oatmeal jacket and suede boots who moved as if he had been born without bones? Where the wicked grin? The casual arm across my shoulders and secret smile of shared disdain for others? The small, religious, gossipy, conventional Pacific island had stolen his spirit.

They only had that afternoon and the following morning in London, so after dropping luggage at their Paddington hotel, we viewed all the ‘must see’ tourist spots from the upstairs front seats of London buses – a better tour than they’d have got anywhere else in the short time they had. Then I shouted them a meal at the Piccadilly Lyons Corner House.

I derived no pleasure from the day. I'm not good at sharing people, and wives and girlfriends are especially difficult. Instead of enjoying themselves and looking at the sights, women look at who their man is looking at, and become suspicious. Old intimacies were stifled. She as unwilling as I to share.

And then they were gone. It was over. Waita and I had travelled a short way together – now our paths had diverged; a pattern I’ve repeated many times. In a way, I was relieved. Foolishly, and unnecessarily, I harbour a sense of responsibility for friends, that eventually becomes a burden. He had a wife and could look after himself. And I was again ‘free’.

That night Alwyn played a record of Florence Foster Jenkins singing the ‘Queen of the Night’ aria from Mozart’s Magic Flute. I laughed till tears ran down my neck, stifling my guffaws so as not to miss a note – nearly choking in the process. Alwyn was delighted. I’d passed the musical test. Later we listened to Maria Callas on the radio, live from Covent Garden in one of her last appearances. I forget the opera, but remember we held our breath every time she sustained a note, waiting for the wobble.

My elegant and widely travelled grandmother of Cupid’s fig leaf, had engineered an invitation for me to a function at the Victoria League, imagining I'd be interested in meeting well-connected Brits and other colonials, and possibly securing an invitation to a Royal Garden Party. She never understood that I was born without the patriotism gene, left home because I felt no affinity with my countrymen, and had not the slightest interest in sipping tea with the patroness of that worthy organisation – the purpose of which is to promote friendship and understanding among the peoples of the Commonwealth.

The invitation was for a cocktail party and lecture to be held at Chiswick House – a delightful Palladian Villa designed for the third Earl of Burlington. Curiosity made me accept the invitation, but I had nothing to wear so Edgar took me to a warehouse of clothing seconds on Vauxhall Bridge Road, and the following afternoon I strode manfully up the drive, mounted the magnificent staircase and strutted through the classical portico resplendent in a cream linen suit, cream shoes and white silk shirt open to reveal a heavy gold stage-jewellery chain from Edgar’s property box. Total cost of outfit, two pounds five shillings.

A doorman in brocade and medals directed me through to the spectacular octagonal reception room, swarming with tweed sports coats, grey flannels, charcoal-grey double-breasted suits, and Ming-blue ties. A tinkling piano competed with nasal whines. “Gidday, Bazza! Get a load of this, mate!” “Fuck I'm starved – where’s the bloody food? Jeez, cobber, this sweet guk’ll make ya puke!” referring to the sherry, served by waitresses in black dresses, frilly white aprons, and caps.

Nearby, a handful of Canadians in loud plaid jackets and ill-fitting trousers were trying not to sound like their south pacific neighbours, while a small group of Nigerians in pillbox hats and colourful robes ogled mini-skirted girls boasting bouffant hair, pancake makeup, frilly petticoats, and spike heels. True to form, antipodean males gathered on one side, females on the other. No wonder they were always complaining about lack of sexual success.

A bevy of tight perms, tweed costumes, well-aligned stockings, sensible shoes, silk blouses, and modest strings of pearls, shared hostess duties with a few couturier-clad bosoms swathed in yards of silk, stiletto-heels, smart hats, handbags, and demurely clasped gloves. Their owners, mostly accompanied by testy, Savile Row-clad spouses, offered polite conversation and tense smiles.

I chatted, thanked, assured them this was the highlight of my stay, then mingled; astounded at the apparent obliviousness of most other guests to both the sensibilities of their hosts and the beauty of the environment. I was also worried by a short sallow fellow in a smart suit who appeared to be following me around.

Everyone was affable, but as I had no interest in the touring cricket team, the latest pop music, what horse had won the race, which car was a cert for Brands Hatch… it was difficult to find common ground. Bottles of spirits circulated among the Australians, while smokers fouled the air and sprinkled ash and butts over the marble floor.

A fight broke out. Waitresses wrung their hands. Distraught matrons gazed at their males in mute and pointless appeal. Fortunately, the buffet was announced and everyone charged for an adjoining room. Without an audience, the fracas folded.

As usual I was unable to either eat or drink when all about me were gobbling and guzzling with gluttonous fervour. This inhibition is in part due to my father’s strict insistence on my observing correct table behaviour – eating with my mouth closed, sipping, taking small bites – that sort of thing. I forgive him because it kept me slim and made me socially acceptable.

I wandered out to the portico in melancholy mood and was gazing down the driveway wondering whether to stay for the lecture on The White Man’s Burden in Swaziland, or slip away, when a couple of young women made the decision easy by thrusting their tits at me with tipsy familiarity.

“Are you English?” one asked with flat vowels, a slur and a hiccup.

“Yes,” I answered, temporarily ashamed of my origins.

“You’re the first Pom I've met who looks healthy,” the other giggled, spilling her drink onto the terrace. “What’s your name?”

“What’s yours?”

A high-pitched giggle and burp accompanied a nail-bitten finger that fondled my fake gold chain then ran down my chest. I pulled back in alarm – you never know where girls’ fingers have been!

“They reckon Poms are useless in bed, but I wouldn’t mind trying with you,” the first one leered.

“How kind,” I murmured. “Fortunately, I have to go.”

“Not before you’ve kissed me,” she threatened, grasping the lapels of my coat and dousing me in alcohol-sodden breath.

I was on the point of kneeing the drunken bitch in the cunt when a voice of authority announced, “I need to speak to his Lordship – please excuse us… ladies.” His timing was superb and they melted away, awestruck by the cultured drawl that had so subtly reminded them of their distinctly unladylike behaviour. My elbow was taken and I was led down the stairs.

“It looked as if you needed rescuing,” smiled my saturnine stalker.

“Thanks – and for the elevation to the peerage.”

“It always impresses colonials. I’m Kenneth, and you're?”

“Rigby.”

Up close he wasn’t handsome – nose too short, ears too large, and mouth too wide. But neither was he unattractive with his well-defined jaw. Although he only came up to my shoulder, he was perfectly formed and perky, with olive skin and a heavy ‘five o'clock shadow’ – always a turn-on for me.

We wandered down the drive, discovered a pub with a garden bar, and spent a lazy hour – he with a pint of Guinness, me a glass of ginger ale. He didn’t smoke, hated team sports, liked the movies, reading, sex and swimming.

It was six o'clock on a Saturday evening, so we decided to grab something to eat, swim at the local baths, then go to the cinema. The swim was spoiled by about a million kids splashing around and screaming, and I've no idea what film we saw – all I remember is how expertly Kenneth opened my flies in the dark.

“How did you know I wouldn’t mind being interfered with?” I demanded during interval.

He grinned. “Sexy tough boys like you love to be groped – it confirms they’re desirable.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere.”

“I’m counting on it.”

Kenneth’s slightly run-down block of serviced apartments was nearer than my grotty little bedroom, so we chased each other up four flights of uncarpeted stairs to a pleasant two-roomed flat. After sharing a shower and cocoa he threw himself onto the bed, waved his legs in the air and invited me to aim for the bullseye.

Over coffee and rolls at breakfast I discovered to my surprise that Kenneth was an old man of thirty-three, an unpublished poet, and freelance journalist – very impressive! Being a left-handed, impetuous and impatient thinker, I was unable to write fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. I’d written a few love poems, of course, but they were to my physics teacher and my best friend’s sister’s boyfriend… so never saw the light of day. And I'd once started a novel, but completed the entire thing in two pages.

Kenneth had been at Chiswick House because he earned a few quid as the Victoria League’s link with the Telegraph Newspaper – as long as his pieces were complimentary. There would be no mention of the drunken fracas, for example. He promised to read me his poems one day.

It was a grey, drizzly Sunday. Summer seemed to have made its brief appearance for that year, so when Kenneth mentioned he and eight friends were leaving London in three days’ time for a Mediterranean cruise on a chartered yacht, I was somewhat jealous.

“The tenth man has come down with hepatitis, so it’s going to cost us all a bit extra, which is a nuisance. I don’t suppose you’d like to take his place?” he asked, adding with an irritatingly coy fluttering of eyelashes, “You’d be sharing with me.”

My body ached for the sun. I yearned to roll in the sand, dive into the sea, swim, and feel natural again… I had saved about eighty pounds. There were four-and-a-half-weeks till Alwyn needed me to begin the touring season, and as my share would only be twenty-two pounds, we shook hands on the deal. The drizzle turned to rain.

Over the next three days I helped Alwyn and Edgar stock up enough food and other supplies to last four weeks, promised to be back in plenty of time for the start of the season in the second week of August, then set off for Victoria to catch the train to Dover.

You could hear them four platforms away. A gaggle of fucking galahs! Screeching, laughing, and drawing as much attention to themselves as possible. There were pink suits, large sun hats, loud shirts, green trousers, a gaudy sun umbrella, and cut-off jeans showing about three inches of sagging buttock above pea-stick legs in bovver boots! I couldn’t believe that on the Dover platform of Victoria station in full view of everyone, half a dozen of my future shipmates were posing like mad mannequins, as camp as a row of tents. The others were acting more or less normally, but didn’t seem to care if everyone knew they were travelling with a clutch of queers. That was bravery! I couldn’t join them. My aim, when not on stage, is to blend in. OK, I try to be best dressed and attractive, but that’s to win approval, not disapproval! If I'm recognised as a tourist or foreign – I've failed. I certainly won’t hang a camera around my neck!

Kenneth kept looking around to see if I was coming, but I hid, waiting till they were all aboard before racing along the platform and getting into a different carriage, not joining their party until we arrived in Dover.

Then as soon as we embarked, I got ‘lost’ on deck, watching the setting sun turn the cliffs to gold. In Calais, night had fallen. I joined Kenneth and two others searching for our reserved couchette compartment, then pretended I was tired and climbed into my berth while the others trolled the corridors for amusement.

We clattered through the night across France, arriving in Marseilles in time for breakfast. Never again, I vowed, would I travel by night. The journey has always been at least as important to me as the destination, and to travel while asleep is not to travel at all.

From the forecourt of Gare St Charles, we could see the Mediterranean, bluer than any sea should be. The city was an exotic tessellation of white, cream, and green; the sky cloudless and light. My lungs sucked greedily of the warm, musky-dusty air and I realised that an English sun was no sun at all. Exotic charm and lack of sleep had fortunately quelled our party’s excesses, and we wandered peacefully down the grand staircase and along tree-lined boulevards to the Old Port.

Our yacht was waiting, manned by three villainous looking men of indeterminate age. But it wasn’t a yacht! It had a motor instead of sails, needed a coat of paint, and looked too small to leave port, let alone accommodate thirteen men!

Each cabin contained a double bed, wardrobe, and room for one person standing. The salon could seat seven – just. The deck boasted ten deck chairs, three tables, ten chairs and a tarpaulin for shade – it was where we would spend daylight hours while at sea.

Without an audience, my companions calmed down and became normal and pleasant. I think they suspected I'd been ashamed to be with them, but they were used to that and didn’t hold it against me. Ages ranged from eighteen to fifty; occupations from bank clerk to carpenter to teacher to librarian.

The three older men were somewhat plump and queenly, the younger were assorted sizes of slim, and temperaments varied from sweet and innocent to arrogant and slightly aggressive. All were verbally proficient, amusing and fun, but preferred sitting around to physical activity. However, with a bit of encouragement they all had a go at leaping into the water while tied to a rope so they didn’t get left behind, and everyone sunbathed. Only Kenneth and I and three others tanned, the others turned crimson and peeled within two days. Not a pleasant sight.

But no one complained – not even about the greasy food and surly crew. Goodness knows what they thought of ten naked queers frolicking over their tiny ship, fucking on deck because it was too hot below, screaming at inane jokes, and singing and dancing to the latest pop songs when we could get music on the radio.

Over the next five days we followed the coast from Marseilles to Toulon, Cannes, Nice, Monte Carlo, and then back to Nice. Toulon was awash with handsome sailors, but no beaches. The city is pleasant, but not worth more than the few hours we had. We were dropped at a marina, then picked up a few hours later. One reason it was so cheap was the yacht never berthed for more than a few minutes, and never overnight – that’s when high charges accrue.

We’d rejoin the yacht at about sunset, motor out a little, drop anchor and rock to sleep with the waves. With only three crew and minimal equipment, it would have been dangerous to sail at night. Kenneth reckoned the ship boasted a sextant, a compass, and little else; we never thought to ask about life jackets or lifeboats!

Cannes was a day of lazing on the beach, where, amongst similarly attired, sexy young Frenchmen, my backless pouch didn’t attract much attention, although the guys sweetly reckoned mine was the briefest and the best stacked. Our envy of the ostentatiously wealthy ‘beautiful’ people promenading and dining in the expensive boulevard restaurants, made it not so difficult to leave.

In Nice, we wandered the city for an hour, then lazed on the pebbly public beach before buying a dozen one-frank chips each and spending a couple of hours at the Casino. We were all equally gauche, it was our first experience of roulette – illegal in England, and so we simply bet noisily and excitedly on odds and evens or red and black, to the annoyance of the croupier, until we lost everything.

Monte Carlo has no handy beach, but we visited the Royal Palace and waved to where we imagined Princess Grace was sipping tea, before wandering the steep streets and shoving a few franks fruitlessly into fruit machines in the magnificent entrance loggia of the fabled casino, which boasts what surely must be the most luxuriously appointed toilets on the planet. When the others decided to go inside and play roulette, I returned to the quay, found a private spot beside a luxury yacht, stripped, dived in for a swim, then lay in the sun.

I was nearly asleep when an elderly fellow from the yacht came and invited me aboard for a drink. It was a cruise for wealthy Englishmen and their toy boys, and included famous writers and performers – none of whom I recognised. They had sailed across from Algiers for a night at the casino. After offering me a drink and asking a few questions, they lost interest and continued arguing and gossiping and downing more alcohol than anyone should ever imbibe.

They might have been rich, but they weren’t beautiful. It was an afternoon to forget – which I did until twenty-two years later when a lecturer in English literature approached me in the staffroom bearing a recent biography of his hero, Anthony Burgess. Pointing to a photo he asked in an awestruck whisper, “Rigby! Is that you?”

There I was standing behind the ‘great man’, on board that luxury yacht. Naturally, I didn’t admit I’d had no idea I was sharing the same deck as the genius author of A Clockwork Orange. And it would have been churlish to disappoint the fellow with the truth, so I modestly admitted it was me, stoically enduring his reverential regard.

From the shore, passing yachts are apparitions of autonomy; fabulous ferries transporting beautiful people to enchanted islands and exotic ports, liberated from the shackles of fences, streets, highways and borders.

From the yacht, the land is a passing delight of forested hills and mountains, rocky headlands, hidden beaches and coves, palm fringed shores, exotic old cities overlooked by ruined chateaus, beaches thronging with scantily clad, bronzed young bodies… freedom inaccessible to those trapped aboard the throbbing prison of a ship.

If I'm honest, the five days and four nights of cruising on the Mediterranean, rank among the most boring of my life – and I think the others also came to that conclusion. There’s a limit to how often you want to leap overboard to cool off, or how many buckets of water you want to throw over yourself to cool down, or how much of the greasy food you can ingest. Sunbathing and fooling around on deck soon lose their appeal, as does the close proximity of a group of people with whom one would never normally associate.

Being born without a gregarious urge, I found myself unable to laugh at the same old jokes, play another game of I Spy, swap yet another scurrilous bit of apocryphal gossip, or watch another camp young man sashay around the deck for laughs. To my alarm, I began to align myself with the crew, whose basilisk gaze should have withered the spirits of our frivolous little band. Even Kenneth’s bronzed body lost its appeal, and how tiresome his constant witty banter.

At least I’d regained my all-over tan and learned that a holiday shared with others means you never do what you want. I don’t think anyone was unhappy when the yacht docked for the last time in the picturesque Old Port of Nice.

After farewelling them and forwarding most of my luggage at the station, I set off with a light heart and a small duffel bag containing a spare pair of shorts and shirt, a blanket, plate, and mug, to walk along the coast to Cannes. I had three weeks and twenty pounds to prove myself as independent as I thought I was.

Chapter 16: Riviera

In the days before credit cards and instant international money transfers, travellers used traveller’s cheques that had to be exchanged at a bank or major international hotel for local currency, using passport ID. Arrive in a country on weekends or after the banks closed and you could be penniless.

Passports and money are a problem if you're on your own and want to swim. My tatty canvas duffel bag probably wouldn’t have been any sensible thief’s target, but to be on the safe side I left it in a locker at the station, taking only a towel and a bit of cash. I was halfway to the exit when a gendarme directed me to a door where I was herded into a room with several other large-nosed, olive-skinned young men, there to be frisked and asked to show my papers. The others produced Cartes d’identité carefully protected in special wallets, and were released.

My attempt to explain was quenched by a curt, “Fermez la gueule!” Eventually, a solid, perfectly presented officer arrived and demanded my provenance. High school French had not prepared me for either police pressure or the local accent so I gave up stuttering and resorted to mime, eventually gaining permission to lead my inquisitor to the locker and produce my passport.

In exchange, I received some colourful abuse for wasting his time. Didn’t I know there was a war on? Fortunately, the question was rhetorical and my ignorance of the Algerian War of Independence that had produced some devastating attacks on French soil wasn’t exposed.

Self-confidence waned further as I wandered along Avenue Jean Medécin. Young Frenchmen were dressed impeccably in neat slacks, crisp shirts, and smart shoes. Tourists, in their gaudy shorts, shirts, sun frocks and sandals, offended the eye, clashed with the architecture, and spoiled the ambience. Nice may be a seaside resort, but it is also France’s third largest city and possessed glorious avenues, elegant buildings, palaces, and squares that deserve the respect of equally well-presented humans. It was an insult to my hosts to be attired so casually.

Shame led me to pay three times what it would have cost in London for perfectly fitting fawn slacks that could be washed and dried overnight, a cream drip-dry shirt with a modestly embroidered Russian collar, and a pair of tan loafers in woven Spanish leather – airy and not requiring socks. My duffel bag was swapped for an equally inconspicuous, but elegant Italian zipped holdall that lasted the next ten years.

Avenue Jean Médecin opens onto Place Massena, a very grand ‘square’ surrounded by salmon pink arcades where once was a bridge over the river that meanders into the city from the Alps, and now disappears under a series of magnificent avenues, parks, and boulevards a couple of kilometres before the coast; then slips under the beautiful Gardens of Albert the First and the Promenade des Anglais before finding freedom in the sea.

The seafront is lined with palms, gardens, trees, luxurious hotels, apartments, a couple of casinos, and the Promenade des Anglais: a spectacular, wide esplanade shared between cars and pedestrians who stroll along the balustraded paths, gazing out to sea or down onto acres of almost naked flesh sunning on the pebbles below.

The beach is divided into generous areas for people prepared to pay for sun beds, handsome attendants, sunshades and boardwalks, and slightly less generous stretches for those who are happy to lie on their towels and bring their own food and drink.

I gazed down on the crowded scene, looking for someone I could trust with my bag so I could swim. A lithe, bronzed young man strode purposefully between clumps of sunbathers, arrived at a group of equally beautiful people, shook hands seriously with each in turn, spread his towel, removed his clothes to reveal a blue bikini, folded everything carefully, then sat and spent several minutes massaging oil into his skin.

The perfect formality of the French enthralled me. How I would love to have been part of such a group; to shake hands so courteously with them in greeting, to chat amiably in such perfect French…. Or, like another young man who was leaving – probably to go back to work as it was around two o'clock – kiss each of his companions, both male and female, twice on each cheek before taking his leave.

What would they think of, ‘G’day mate, howzitgoin’ accompanied by a slap on the back?

A solo male near the water, and a middle-aged couple directly below the promenade, looked like promising bag minders, so I descended.

The single male was not attractive, but looked reliable and there was plenty of space beside him. However, before I had time to spread my towel he muttered, “Va t’en,” (piss off ). Hot with embarrassment I pasted a distracted expression to my face and, feeling somewhat foolish as I was passing open spaces, arrived as if by chance about a metre from my prey, spread the towel, stripped to my pouch and sprawled.

There was an audible intake of breath. “Alf! He’s naked!”

“Calm down, Hilda – you’ll get an asthma attack. His cods are covered.”

“Not quite! When he lifted his leg, I could see just about everything.”

“Stop staring woman… he’ll notice!”

They were in their forties. He, a giant of a man – not fat, but shapelessly huge, extremely hirsute apart from a bald head, in ballooning turquoise boxer shorts that enhanced his bulk. She was large of breast, belly, bottom, and thigh, and exposed far too much flesh in a red bikini that clashed with livid sunburn. I gave Hilda’s asthma a few minutes to subside, then asked in French if they knew the time. The question visibly shocked them.

“We only speak English,” Alf announced, as if to do otherwise would bring a charge of treason.

In what I hoped was a convincing French accent, I admitted to speaking a few words of their lovely tongue and within minutes knew they came from Leeds, owned a dry-cleaning business, were staying in a bloody expensive hotel, thought the food was airy-fairy, had tried the paying beach but hoped the free one would be more fun, but it wasn’t because the French are bloody unfriendly – present company excepted – and everything was too bloody pricey. Next year they’d go somewhere they could speak English, meet friendly people and get a decent fry-up.

Each complaint was underlined by Hilda’s laugh, a sort of whinny that sent shivers down my spine and caused heads to turn.

Although uninterested in my origins, they professed themselves delighted to mind my bag while I took a swim. When I returned, mightily refreshed, Alf went in search of ice creams and Hilda cheekily admired my body and ‘teensie weensie pouch’. I rewarded her by absent-mindedly lifting my leg as if to inspect the sole of my foot, recreating the gap between fabric and flesh that had so excited her when I arrived. After enjoying the ice creams, I rolled onto my stomach and asked if Hilda would be so kind as to apply sun lotion.

Despite an almost terminal attack of asthma, it was probably the highlight of her holiday. Alf watched for a bit, told her to rub it on the bum as well and not be so namby-pamby, then invited me to join them for dinner. Clearly not the jealous type.

I had nothing planned, but didn’t fancy pretending to be French in a French restaurant accompanied by a giant and his whinnying wife, so thanked them graciously, shook hands in the French manner, and watched them waddle off.

As the beach was emptying, I risked leaving my bag down by the water while I swam again, relishing the return to solitude.

After a remarkably fine and cheap meal in a self-service restaurant, I relaxed in the Park of Albert the First, where a parade of handsome young couples looking self-assured and elegant, shook hands, embraced friends, chatted amicably, and strolled arm-in-arm around a more or less oval path that meandered between the trees. The delightful Mediterranean habit of taking an evening promenade is partly the result of the climate and cramped living quarters, but also their natural gregariousness and urge to gossip. It was an ever-changing parade of happy and pleasant couples walking off their evening meal and renewing friendships.

Why hadn’t I been born French?

It was still too light to find a place to sleep, so I remained watching. The scene changed. Now it was mainly young men parading and flirting – eyeing the competition, surreptitiously wandering into the shadows with other young men or one of the car-key-toting older men who, like me, were admiring the passing parade. Beside these slim, confident young males I felt gauche, unkempt and ugly.

I caught the eye of a middle-aged man in a suit, considered the idea, then jettisoned it. I wasn’t cash-strapped, and sex was not why I was there – casual or otherwise. I wanted to see the cities and countryside, to meet people and take my fill of sun, sea and self-reliance, so I picked up my bag and crossed to the beach. It was flooded with light from the Promenade and would be like that all night.

To the east, Quai des Etats Unis follows the coast below The Chateau on its hill overlooking the Port. I mounted a steep path through relatively wild gardens, found a dense bush, crawled beneath, folded my clothes, stuffed my valuables down the front of my shorts, wrapped myself in my blanket, tied my bag to my arm, rested my head on it, and closed my eyes.

I should have guessed it’d be a cruising spot – so near the port. I'm not a cruiser; there are too many warships out there, and as I've said before, I’m not usually interested in anonymous sex. I like cuddling, chatting, stroking, intimate cosiness with someone I like who likes me. That’s a rare sexual mind-set. I have a friend – a wise fellow despite being from the U.S.A., who is the exact opposite. Whereas my body count remains well below a hundred, he has enjoyed sex with over eight thousand different people in his life. The mind boggles.

My primary interest is the pleasure of acquaintance – a chat, swapping ideas, taking pleasure in each other’s company. Then, if it happens, sex can be a load of fun. If it doesn’t, nothing is lost. It’s the same with books – if I don’t like the hero, I stop reading. If I'm not attracted to a man, I don’t want intimacy – it’s simple. Well, usually.

At about two a.m. the whispering, bargaining, shuffling, and grunting in the bushes around me drew to a close and I slept sweetly until path sweepers arrived at eight o'clock.

After breakfast, I set off for Cannes. The heavily trafficked Promenade des Anglais led to the airport and then followed the coast on its way to Cannes, passing restaurants built right on the beach with sexy waiters in bikinis. I decided it would be more pleasant to walk along the shore than the motorway, but this proved next to impossible because most beaches and headlands were private property, often with metal fences jutting into the water to prevent trespass. Sometimes I was shouted at and abused from the owners or guardians of grand residences on the cliffs above.

Rocks and headlands eventually blocked my way, so I was forced to follow the road. Forty-five years ago, it seemed busy and dangerous to cross, but compared to the multi-lane motorways that now hurtle across the Riviera, it was a mere country lane.

Somewhere near Cagnes I came upon a small, perfect little bay enclosed by cliffs. Much of the vegetation on the surrounding hills had been replaced by the grey concrete skeletons of future multi-storied apartment blocks, waiting to be filled in with bricks, windows, balconies, and patios to accommodate the ever-increasing hordes of tourists flocking to the south of France.

The beach was sandy, the turquoise water clear, and the air warm. Out of deference to the half dozen families sprinkled here and there, I took out my Speedos. Just then a group of young people arrived. The boys stripped and played nude beach volleyball watched by their girlfriends, who remained clothed. Then I looked closer and realised most of the family fathers and their children were also naked – only the mothers wore bathing suits, so I too discarded all and watched the young men play, hoping they'd invite me to join. But I didn’t exist. They were the beautiful people and I wasn’t. At least that’s what it felt like.

A few years later in Paris, a friend told me I'd been foolish to be so sensitive. Frenchmen usually make friends at school and keep them for life. They go on holiday together, remain in contact and see no reason to get more friends as they grow older. It would not occur to them to invite a stranger into their circle – nor to be invited had they been in my place. By ignoring me they were granting me the freedom to do as I liked. It wasn’t rudeness, merely normal social behaviour.

As the afternoon cooled, the beach emptied and I was wondering where I’d sleep when five young men arrived in dusty overalls. They stripped to their briefs and on their way to the water called to me to join them. Good humour was restored and we had fun splashing around. They were Tunisian labourers with temporary work permits, brought to France because of a labour shortage.

The invitation to eat with them seemed genuine, so I followed to a building site where they’d taken over one of the unfinished but enclosed ground floor rooms as living space. This made them night watchmen as well as labourers, so they lived rent-free and could send more money back to their wives and families.

Couscous cooked on a petrol stove with fresh bread and tomatoes and salad, washed down with mint tea and water was followed by a shower out the back under a hose. Wrapped in towels we sat on our bed rolls and, by the light of a hurricane lamp, listened to a tape of Arab music. At first it seemed to be all on one note, then I began to appreciate the intricacies and subtlety of quarter and even eighth tones. It was mostly songs by a woman who, they assured me, was the most popular singer from Casablanca to Cairo – despite her fifty years.

Ali, the ‘leader’ – a handsome fellow whose word seemed to be everyone’s command, got up and, with his towel slung low on his hips began a sexually suggestive dance. A few years later in Tangiers, I saw dancing boys in cafés, but they were pre-pubescent, dressed as girls and not sexy. This was a similar dance but the dancer was unashamedly masculine.

Compared to his understated subtlety of movement, every dance I’d ever performed seemed, in memory, to have been coarse and clunky. In dancing, as in life itself, more than enough is too much. The uncertain light rendered significant the slightest thrust of hips, flick of head or lowering of eyelashes. Long brown fingers resting lightly on lean belly emphasised the least movement; outrageously sexual but never lewd.

After a last drink of mint tea, blankets were spread and Ali placed his open wallet next to his pillow. It was a sign, and one by one the others placed money in his wallet, then fucked him, doggy style, without embarrassment. Then it was my turn. I was aroused – no doubt about that – but what did I know about these guys? Didn’t syphilis come from Arabs sleeping with camels? Desire drained and I shook my head. He shrugged, rolled over, the light was extinguished and a minute later I was the only one awake – relieved at my caution while recalling the previous scene during which I'd noticed a quirk of the men’s physiology.

The guys’ erections had all stood out at right angles to the body, whereas European penises tend to curve up at an angle approaching forty-five degrees. I'd read that the doggy position is favoured in Arab societies for heterosexual sex, and over the centuries the penis has accommodated. Here was proof.

The following morning I quizzed the men and, bearing in mind my imperfect French, I think I learned that Allah understood they were far from their wives and had need of regular sexual release. Masturbation was frowned upon, so as long as the sexual act was purely commercial and not committed because of lust or desire for the male body, then it was not a sin; more like a visit to the doctor. If they had kissed and cuddled, that would have been a sin.

Ali, realising he was sitting on a gold mine, had set himself up as the reliever of stress. After a breakfast of strong mint tea, bread and boiled eggs, they insisted I note their addresses in Tunisia and visit them should I ever pass that way.

Halfway between Nice and Cannes, Cap d’Antibes juts into the sea. Antibes city, situated on the eastern side of the peninsular, was first a Greek, then a Roman garrison, and on this visit a quiet fishing port with narrow streets, ancient walls, a fortress, and a few yachts.

Today it is the largest port for luxury yachts in the Mediterranean, and the peninsula that I knew as a quiet stretch of rocky land covered in pines and scrub, dotted with hidden private villas, is mostly built-up and boasts the most expensive real estate and the most luxurious residences in France, being the preferred choice of the really wealthy – more prestigious even than Cannes. On the western side of the peninsula is Juan les Pins, a modern seaside resort with a perfect sandy beach, hotels, restaurants; popular with Parisians.

A partially sealed track heading out to the cape hugged the western shore, stopping several hundred metres before the end. I clambered over the rocks until I found a tiny beach that hid a naked, chubby, middle-aged German called Helmut, and his somewhat younger mate, Brunhilde. At least that’s what I called the flaxen-haired fräulein with gigantic breasts, a waist you could wrap your hands around, hips you couldn’t even wrap your arms around, and legs you could moor a ship to. She was charming nonetheless. As Helmut was in the habit of saying, Nichts ist vollkommen – nothing is perfect.

They were as friendly as only Germans can be; innocently assuming I would be interested in their life, thoughts, dreams, desires, future plans… and that I wanted to do exactly what they were doing. I joined them for a swim.

After a meal of raw sea urchins that a snorkelling Helmut had picked off the rocks, with bread and olives, we wandered around the cape to another small beach that opened onto lawns, gardens, and Eden Roc, a fabulous villa whose wealthy owners owned most of the end of the cape, including this beach. We risked our liberty by trespassing.

Back at our beach we gathered a few sticks and lit a fire. It looked as if it was going to rain, so, accompanied by Helmut on his bongo drums, I performed an ‘anti-rain’ dance while Brunhilde sang an eerie aria of her own composition. Her voice was pure, yet odd, and raised goose bumps.

They were professional entertainers from Stuttgart, taking a break in the sun. Their specialty was clowning. Helmut could make his drums almost talk and tell jokes, and when Brunhilde joined me in the dance – galumphing around like a clumsy elephant, I collapsed in laughter.

Most evenings, Helmut and Brunhilde busked on the beachfront in Juan les Pins, earning enough to pay for food and modest lodgings. Helmut invited me to join them that evening. I wore my pouch, he provided me with a medallion and a feathered skull cap. He wore a pair of baggy yellow shorts, and Brunhilde swathed herself in a sari, open to expose her magnificent breasts but concealing those legs.

Scores of people were enjoying the last of the sunset. Lights from the promenade spilled onto the beach, the air was warm and balmy, and we were the only outdoors entertainment that night.

Helmut sat cross-legged on the sand; Brunhilde perched on a rock above – a Lorelei; beautiful face framed by long, blonde tresses. The Tunisians’ subtlety of movement was not required for the dances dictated by Helmut’s bongo drums. I was Jack the giant killer; stealthily approaching and running from the drum-playing giant, then attacked by his ‘singing’ wife who chased me around, making everyone laugh even harder with her grotesque expressions and gargantuan movements.

Eventually, she cornered and played with me like a cat with a mouse, then ‘ate’ me. I spent the last minute wrapped in the copious folds of Brunhilde’s sari as she stroked her belly and licked her lips, still chanting those weird wordless songs, accompanied by the laughs and screams of excited kids. [A photo of me dancing that night on the beach is on the cover of the eBook of Dancing Bare].

Sounds crappy, but it was very funny and earned us enough to buy a meal at a pleasant restaurant set among trees, overhung by vines, and decorated with urns and statues of pagan gods and goddesses. Kitsch as hell, but I loved it. The owner had been watching us on the beach and offered a free meal the following evening if we’d perform afterwards in the garden restaurant.

I spent the night on the little beach at the end of the cape, lulled to sleep by the gentle swish of waves on pebbles. A perfect night in a perfect spot. I was almost sorry when the others joined me around lunchtime for a rehearsal.

‘Liberty, Pursuit and Capture’ we called it. Helmut wore a sort of Hindu snake-charmer’s loincloth and turban; Brunhilde, a diaphanous sari; and I discarded the medallion and cap. Helmut's drums became a sort of ‘Greek Chorus’, I was the innocent young traveller, Brunhilde the wicked witch.

It was a sexed-up Grimm’s Fairy Tale of the wicked witch trapping passing young men - not too different from the previous night, but with Indian overtones. It earned us a capful of francs and the free meal.

They asked me to return to Stuttgart with them and join their troupe, which I might have done if I hadn’t already committed myself. Instead, the following morning I set off to walk the twenty kilometres up to Grasse. A Renault stopped and an attractive woman of around thirty offered me a lift. It was already hot and the road ahead was steep, so, marvelling at the fact that a single woman dared to pick up a male hiker, I accepted her invitation. The road zigzagged up and up between rocky outcrops, through old pine forests, tiny stone villages with views back down to the coast.

Halfway up she drove off the road to a river where we swam. Just before the old town of Grasse, she stopped at her apartment to change her clothes, and invited me in for coffee. While changing, she popped her head around the bedroom door and asked for my help to fasten her bra. She was naked except for lace panties; slim, tanned, and fit.

I fastened the brassiere as I had done on the odd occasion for my mother, without the slightest suspicion that she was offering herself. After all, she was at least thirty. I left her to finish dressing and returned to my coffee. She joined me a few minutes later wearing an odd smile.

“Tu es pédé?” Literally, are you a pederast? – except that pédé is slang for homo. [Today it’s been replaced by the less offensive, ‘gai’.] There was no menace in her tone, so I shrugged apologetic assent. “Pourquoi les hommes sympas sont toujours pédé?” she sighed, not expecting an answer. To an emancipated French woman it was a mild disappointment – to me it was deeply exciting. I'd admitted I was queer, and she’d reacted as if that was normal. It would be another quarter of a century before I'd have the courage to admit such a thing again to a stranger.

Grasse was beguiling; gardens overflowing with flowers, villas peeping over ancient walls, charming churches, narrow streets, enchanting squares, old men shuffling from café to pétanque and back, women gossiping, their shopping bags sprouting baguettes and melons, garlic and fresh greens. Tourists had discovered Grasse, so it had been cleaned up, prettified and gentrified and land prices had soared beyond the range of the middle classes.

I didn’t fancy spending the night there as it would be much colder than the coast due to the altitude, so after a few hours and lunch, I set off on the road to Cannes, arriving in Mougins, another postcard village, about an hour later. It boasted excellent coastal views, a charming church, square and market, and a discreet arrow directing me to Atelier Picasso, which I followed until I encountered a dozen tourists in a queue that snaked into a workshop where an old, shirtless man stood behind a bench with a paint brush in his hand.

An assistant passed him a saucer or ashtray; he dipped his brush in coloured glaze and without stopping his conversation or looking at the thing, made a quick squiggle, eliciting gasps of adulation from his audience. The assistant placed the decorated artefact in a stack to be fired and added to the hundreds already cluttering the walls, together with vastly more complex creations.

Some sycophants bought dozens of the things for about twenty times their real value. You could hear the hysterical cries of delight as they returned to their cars, “Honey! We've got an original Picasso! Wow the folks back home are gonna be green with envy!” I bought nothing – I've never been a fan of the man.

Cannes was still a beautifully dull town bounded by a perfect azure sea bobbing with pleasure boats; perfectly designed to wring as much money out of holidaymakers as possible. The sight of so much wealth and so many ‘beautiful’ young people threatened to hurl me into depression. Why wasn’t I rich? Why was it easy to meet and chat with older men, but attractive guys my age were unapproachable? What was wrong with me?

I was sitting on the beach chatting morosely with an elderly lean and handsome Dane who had paid for the privilege with outrageous but welcome compliments, and mentioned how much I wished I was like the slim, confident, hand-shaking and kissing young French men with their elegant savoir faire.

“They would envy you!” he declared. “They have only these four weeks holiday and then must return to Paris or Lyon to their tiny family apartments and boring jobs in offices, while you are on permanent holiday, doing what they would love to have the courage to do, but daren’t. What you see as savoir faire, is merely the following of social rules they daren’t ignore. Most French boys could not even dream of taking off for a few years on their own with nothing but their youth as security.”

I tried to feel consoled, but decided it was time to return. I wanted to be well prepared for life as a touring actor, and was determined not to let Edgar and Alwyn down.

The daytime express to Paris was a ten-hour delight of charming villages, grand rivers, rolling fields, distant mountains, and forests, with not an arid, desiccated square metre to be seen. Today the TGV does it in about three hours, but it’s not so romantic. Two nights in a grotty little hotel near Gare St. Lazare left me feeling suitably bohemian, and in one day I managed to race around all the essential sights, gob-smacked at the beautiful architecture that even layers of soot and scaffolding couldn’t hide. Cleaning of that beautiful city was well underway and I was determined to return as soon as it was complete.

Too soon, the train and ferry were carrying me relentlessly north and at five o'clock on a wet, cold and windy August afternoon, I arrived at Alwyn’s sad little flat.

Chapter 17: Playing in the Parks

My early return was lucky because the Company had secured a contract to “Play in the Parks.” The London City Council arranged for a stage to be erected in a different park every morning and afternoon, on which we would present an hour’s entertainment for the local kids. Easy work and good money.

Alwyn had written half a dozen action-packed plays, the first of which was a version of The Willow Pattern, to be presented at 11.00a.m. the following morning at Crystal Palace. I was to be the evil Mandarin, so had lines to learn.

Our Company boasted five males and two females. Alwyn and Edgar; Hal, who was seventeen; Margaret, a blonde and somewhat toothy girl of twenty; Terry, a short, scruffy muscle builder in his thirties, and Agnes – a sad spinster in her fifties who dressed like a bag lady in shabby blue gabardine, red knitted hat, and scuffed brown brogues.

There was no jealousy as we were typecast and had other responsibilities such as costumes, props, lights, setting up the portable stage and, in my case, driving and van maintenance. We all dressed ourselves and applied our own makeup, of course.

Alwyn wrote his characters as archetypes of either unadulterated evil, perfectly good, or despicable fence-sitters. He had made all the costumes and they were excellent. My mandarin outfit glittered, the peasants’ rags were rags, and the prince and princess strode the boards in magnificent brocades. When the mandarin was cast down and stripped of his finery, there were screams of glee. The kids cheered, jeered, laughed, screamed, cried, stamped their feet, and clapped in all the right places. I celebrated by going to a party that night.

The Dover-London train on my way home the previous day had been composed of old-style carriages with no corridor; each compartment having its own door onto the platform. If you were unlucky enough to be incarcerated with a knife-wielding lunatic, the only escape would be to hurl yourself from the carriage while it was racing along the tracks at great speed. I was standing in the doorway staring mindlessly over the platform when three large young men and their girlfriends elbowed through old ladies, children and cripples, shoved me inside, clambered in and slammed the door to prevent anyone else from entering. The girls put their muddy feet on the empty seats as the train pulled out of the station.

“G’day, mate,” said the largest and ugliest. “Wanna beer?”

My refusal didn’t deter them from opening half a dozen bottles with their teeth and downing them in quick succession, laughing and joking at the expense of wogs, women, and queers. There was no way to get to the loo, so one of the guys whose bladder was burdened beyond bearing, attempted to piss out the window. Blowback drenched him in acrid aerosol. One of his mates laughed till he chundered. Not over the floor, fortunately, but into an umbrella hastily unfurled by one of the girls. She had obviously been there before. She closed it carefully then manoeuvred it out the window where it blew inside out, spraying the windows of the next three compartments with technicolour burp. A joke worth telling the blokes back home, they reckoned.

Despite our common ANZAC heritage of mateship, had there been a corridor, middle-class prissiness would have had me out in an instant. Such disregard for the niceties of civilized life had me both appalled and enthralled. These were the types I had loathed for their schoolyard terrorism. The skites who reckoned they'd been feeling up and fucking girls since primary school. The arseholes who'd sneered when I won the singing cup – engendering enough fear of the jeers to prevent me accepting free lessons from an almost famous singer.

These were the idiots who reckoned anyone who got more than fifty percent in any exam was a conch, a crawler, a smarmy slime ball, because to work harder than necessary was the mark of an arse-licker. These fuckwits had made up the stag line at dances guzzling illicit beer, leering at the sheilas, but refusing to dance because only queers danced. These were the guys who proudly displayed their beer bellies at twenty, wore sandals and socks with shorts; jeans with suit-coats; burnt orange ties with double breasted suits; brown shoes with blue trousers; boxer shorts to swim in, and pyjamas to bed! Conversation was limited to rugby, cricket, sheilas, booze, chundering, hangovers, and bragging about the sex they’d like everyone to believe they were having.

With no possibility of escape I swallowed my bile, pretended not to be shocked, forced myself to laugh at their jokes, and experienced a shameful thrill at being accepted. Perhaps my week imprisoned with a bunch of self-absorbed homos followed by days of quasi-monastic meandering had predisposed me to company. I even wondered if I could become heterosexual if I behaved more like these guys. [Such delusions kept recurring until I was twenty-five.]

The sole explanation I have for what followed is a minor brain malfunction due to breathing air so thick with alcohol fumes I was oxygen deprived. Somehow their bonhomie, lack of pretension, and good humour lowered my guard to such an extent that I began to quite like them, even accepting an invitation to a party the following night. The largest and ugliest took my hand, pushed up the shirt sleeve and wrote the address on the skin of my forearm in ballpoint. His touch was gentle and his breath moved the hairs on my arm. He pulled the sleeve back down, grinned, burped, and I changed position to hide an erection.

Young London males were not following the elegant French dress code, so I wore a black shirt open to the navel, gold chain, skin-tight jeans with the top button missing, no belt, and desert boots.

The royal-blue paint on pillars supporting a classical portico was peeling and scarred. Uncarpeted stairs to the third floor boasted three comatose men of unattractive mien, and the large room that was home to my new friends, was jammed with smoke, loud music, the stench of stale alcohol, and an assortment of unattractive, poorly-dressed partygoers. My railway companions welcomed me vaguely, having forgotten who I was. There was no one I'd like to be seen walking with in the street. No one I'd consider taking to bed. I wondered why I had come and turned back.

Before I could escape, I was plucked from the doorway by a pale slip of a girl who offered me a beer and sat on my knee recounting scandalous details about our hosts. Beside us on the malodorous couch a young man with enough acne scars to arouse pity had his tongue down the throat of a fat girl, and his hand up her knickers. A pale, sweaty, overweight Lothario was shuffling to the music, one arm draped over the shoulders of his underdressed, empty-eyed partner as if for support, the hand on the other arm, grasping a bottle.

Around the bar, half a dozen young men, egged on by their girlfriends, were racing to see who could down the most the fastest and wait the longest before joining a group piss into the bath; which is why someone had been calling for volunteers to take a golden shower. The lass on my knee was dribbling into my ear so I prised her off and approached a woman in calf-length boots, miniskirt, torn blouse, wild black hair and long, Buddha-like earlobes, dragged down by solid brass elephants suspended on chains. Lacklustre eyes gave me a brief once-over before resuming their vacant stare into a more attractive realm.

Emptying my untouched beer into a massive glass ashtray with ‘Australia House’ emblazoned on the underside in gold, I snuck downstairs where a darkly handsome Spaniard was using his boot in an ineffectual attempt to wake another young man snoring on the doorstep. He shrugged and followed me out into the cool fresh air.

Alwyn was in bed and Edgar was making cocoa in the kitchen. His greeting was cool as we passed. The Spaniard interpreted the look and whispered that Edgar was in love with me, and jealous. With a shock I realised it was true.

With typical Latin macho arrogance, he assumed a dominant role and attempted penetration with no foreplay, no seductive patter, and no lubrication. Predictably, I proved a disappointment, so it was only about ten minutes after returning home that I locked the street door behind him and returned to my room where Edgar was waiting with a cup of cocoa, unable to conceal his pleasure at my erstwhile paramour’s evil tempered and premature departure.

It was our first real tête-à-tête, and in an effort to prove he had once been as young and adventurous as he imagined I was, he told me his story. At the age of fourteen he had escaped a Dundee slum and swarming brood of siblings by attaching himself to a touring theatre company run by Alwyn and his wife, who were then in their thirties. A plethora of small touring companies in those years did reasonable business bringing culture to the provinces. Edgar was a cute, dark-eyed, black-haired, skinny kid who seduced Alwyn, made a good ASM, took bit parts, and eventually became Alwyn’s partner in business as well as bed; Alwyn's irritating and unfaithful wife having long since eloped with another wandering minstrel.

Over the years they’d taken holidays in Italy and Sicily where Edgar’s diminutive stature and deep tan rendered him indistinguishable from the delectable, seducible local lads. Then came the war. Neither was eligible for the army but those dark days held enough terrors once the blitz began.

They performed for troops waiting to go to the front and gave public concerts to keep up morale. Afterwards, holidays became fewer, money harder to come by. Alwyn developed a type of rheumatism that made movement painful and at times reduced his temper to a snarl.

When I joined the Company, Edgar was a youthful forty; Alwyn an old, tired, sometimes funny, sometimes crabby old man of fifty-seven. There was still love, but… would I like a little fellatio? The Spaniard's warning about Edgar troubled me. I liked him, but not that way and I have never wanted to be a home breaker. Anyway, I was looking for someone my own size, age, and character with whom I wouldn’t feel self-conscious going to plays and concerts and art galleries or simply walking down the street.

A significant difference in size and age is natural in heterosexual couples, but unusual among male friendships. Camouflage has always been my prime concern so I needed to avoid appearing unusual – somewhat difficult considering my extrovert temperament, but possible if I was careful. Edgar was diminutive and twice my age so I pleaded exhaustion.

The plays were about princes, princesses, noble younger sons on quests, evil magicians, good soldiers, and dishonest merchants… Grimm’s Fairy Tales revisited. Alwyn's costumes were ‘medieval’ doublet and hose, wimples, and flowing gowns and cloaks because, he insisted contemptuously, there was nothing either magical or poetic about the modern world.

Perhaps fifty years ago people were nicer – I don’t know. But the kids, who came from a wide variety of socio-economic backgrounds with a preponderance of poor, were always well-behaved, became involved, and for the entire season we had no unpleasant incidents although there were no guards or officials; just us and a few parents who became as involved as their kids and frequently remained to thank us. I had no idea London was blessed with so many parks – some mere pocket handkerchiefs, but all with good equipment, no vandalism, and well cared for.

The three weeks sped by and by the end I knew the city about as well as a taxi driver – better than I knew the other actors because they all went home afterwards and there wasn’t much time for chatting during setting up and playing.

Every morning I'd get up at 6.30, take a bus to Hyde Park, swim in the special enclosure reserved for nude male swimming on the Serpentine, jog home for breakfast, drive to the parks, and perform. Afternoons after the performance were spent shopping with Edgar and Alwyn, van maintenance, checking maps – I was never late and never lost in all my time driving that awful old van. I certainly earned the price of my room. In my spare time, I memorised my parts in the first plays we would be presenting on tour… The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night and Midsummer Night’s Dream in which I was to play Bassanio, Anthony, the Duke, Snout and Theseus respectively.

Despite this, evenings stretched. I didn’t want to spend them alone, nor share the tiny dining/sitting room and radio with Alwyn and Edgar every night. I painted a few back-cloths, ready for the touring season, went to a bar in Earl's Court and a club where no one seemed interested in me. In the second week, I decided to telephone the gentleman for whom I had performed in someone’s conservatory, and the woman who left her card after my performance at the Mays’.

She remembered me, said she had been waiting for my call and had work perfectly suited to my talents. We made an appointment.

The elderly gentleman didn't remember me and refused to discuss anything over the phone. “Come around looking ‘respectable’ at seven o'clock, sharp.”

At five to seven I was ringing the bell at a modest wooden door in a service lane on the edge of Mayfair. After a peephole scrutiny and demand for my name, I was directed up a flight of thickly-carpeted stairs to the second door where I was again scrutinised, then admitted to what I’d imagined the foyer of a “Gentlemen’s Club” would look like. Polished wood panelling, dim lighting, candelabra, paintings in gilt frames, Persian carpets… I was taken to a small office where sat the elderly gentleman – coolly suspicious.

After listening to a brief recap of our last meeting, he phoned Felix May to check. Satisfied, he explained that this was an exclusive club guaranteeing total discretion. Clients were wealthy and sometimes public figures. They could ring and reserve an escort, or come to cocktail hours that were held every night where they could speak to and choose a congenial partner. This was an establishment for normal people who wanted normal sex. There were no drugs and nothing kinky such as S&M. If I was after that sort of thing I should leave immediately. I told him if they did those things I’d be out like a shot.

A middle-aged fellow who I discovered later was a registered nurse, escorted me to the staff shower room, afterwards scrutinising all orifices, skin, scalp and between the toes. “We don’t want to give our clients crabs or tinea, do we?” In the staff dressing room, eight other young men were undressing and placing clothes in lockers.

All the guys were handsome, slim, and under twenty-five. All had clear, healthy skins, but I was the only one with a decent tan. Body types ranged from smooth body-builders to hairy chested macho. Slim and willowy, to solid ‘rugby’. The atmosphere was pleasantly competitive – desultory chatting in educated, upper-class voices. Two were Guardsmen from the Royal Household – younger sons who ‘traditionally’ augmented their Guardsman’s pittance in this way. I had already seen the not-so-good-looking ones plying their trade on Rotten Row in the evenings.

The youngest was Raymond, a kid of fourteen; well built but still hairless and cheekily self-confident. He adopted me as his protégé, concerned because I appeared nervous. He’d been doing this twice a week for a year and assured me I had nothing to worry about. The clients were ‘gentlemen’ – otherwise his father wouldn’t let him do it. His father was the nurse who had examined me in the shower. I asked whose idea it was that Raymond became an escort, and he said he had pestered his father until he gave in – a believable scenario once I knew the lad. He was still at school and expected to go on to university and become a millionaire banker. I wondered what sort of man would want to have sex with a kid that age.

As for his father’s acceptance, that is not as unusual as we are led to believe. All over Western Europe you can find unemployed fathers from poverty stricken Eastern European countries, who have brought their attractive young sons to earn more in an evening than the father could in a week – if he could find work!

At Raymond’s age, I had lusted over men – from teachers to sports coaches to surfies and body-builders. Sometimes my smiles and chatter were rewarded by a ride in a boat or on a motorbike; but nothing else. I knew that an adult who likes sex with youths is called a pederast, but there was no word I could find for a youth who fancies sex with men. However, I had only desired fit young men – not middle-aged businessmen in suits, so I wondered what went on in Raymond’s head. Probably nothing but a lust for money.

And that made me wonder what on earth I was doing prostituting myself in a bordello! I might be called an escort, but what was the difference? This would be my third paying client, but this time I hadn’t the right to refuse! The others were chance encounters with attractive men I might have gone with anyway. I considered running away, then wondered if I'd be hunted down and shot, in case I blabbed.

No, Raymond’s summation of the place seemed accurate. I've good radar for trouble and this place didn’t raise a blip. It felt secure, friendly, and pleasant. Here I would come to no harm.

Just before eight o'clock the boss joined us, greeted his charges pleasantly, inspected ears, fingernails and bum-cracks, smelled armpits and checked for jewellery. The rule was clear. Nothing artificial. Clean, healthy bodies smelling as nature intended – no perfumes, deodorants or cosmetics. No jewellery and definitely no ‘camp’ or ‘feminine’ mannerisms or behaviour.

In that respect, the place was sexist. Only butch, manly young men were welcome as escorts, and that suited me. I hated limp wrists, camp affectations of walk, speech or head, and didn't use deodorants, perfumes, or drugs. Over the years I've become tolerant, or more accurately, sympathetic to the plight of visible gays, but still want nothing to do socially with them. Pricilla, Queen of the Desert nauseates me.

Before going to the drawing room the boss made us hug each other as a bonding exercise. Normally not something I would enjoy, but they were all so handsome it worked. Any inadequacies I felt, dissolved into a sense of common purpose and ‘brotherhood’. I guess it’s what team sport players feel when they get into huddles before games. Suddenly I felt powerful and sexy and everyone’s manhood jutted proudly as we marched in to meet the clients; six businessmen who were discretely downing whiskey from cut glass tumblers reflecting gold from a dimmed Venetian chandelier. We introduced ourselves and initiated polite chitchat. The lighting was as flattering as their tasteful compliments, which I accepted gracefully.

At eight-thirty we left them to reveal their choice to the boss. If two wanted the same escort, they had to bid – but we were not told the price. We were sent to numbered rooms to wait for our clients. Two of us were not going to be chosen, unless someone wanted two – which happened occasionally. I tried and failed to hope I would not be chosen. Curiosity was now my primary emotion.

The bedrooms were beautifully appointed. Not the kitsch tulle and silk whorehouse of the brothel in Holland Park where I’d disgraced myself with the South African woman. This was a manly room; hunting prints, oak furnishings, writing table. My client, a smart suit and old school tie of about forty, threw himself onto the huge bed and asked me to ‘perform.’ He seemed pleased with a gymnastics routine and a few judo poses. Once on the bed he stroked me and explored, then removed his clothes to reveal a soft, white body that I avoided looking at or touching by smiling at the ceiling as if enraptured.

Not long after imbibing a gob-full of my cum, he shot his own load into my armpit or somewhere equally bizarre, and then filled my ear with proud tales of wife and kids, youthful prowess and manliness.

As reward for my evening’s endeavours I received twenty pounds and an invitation to return as often as possible. It had been an evening fraught with languor rather than excitement; lethargy rather than danger; banality rather than exoticism. Certainly, it was a very easy way to take money from amiable, clean, gentlemen. And I was home in bed by ten-thirty, determined that would be my last night as a prostitute.

But we had another two weeks in London and when I thought about it, it had been sort of fun. The other guys were pleasant and it was flattering to be desired, so before leaving on tour I relieved half a dozen other polite and courteous gentlemen of their cash in the boss’s luxurious bedrooms.

Two evenings after my debut as a whore I rang the front doorbell of a large house a couple of blocks behind the British Museum. An elderly maid in apron and cap conducted me to an overdecorated Victorian sitting room where an ageless woman attired in expensive silk, pearls, softly permed hair, elegant stiletto-heeled shoes in the same silk as the dress, several large diamond and gold rings, and a pince-nez suspended on a fine gold chain pinned to her bosom with a diamond clasp, sat with knees together and lips slightly apart. She extended a hand. I touched the fingers and bowed slightly. She smiled and indicated a straight-backed chair.

“You can’t dance,” she announced in matter of fact, clear and cultured tones.

I smiled inanely, wondering if she was spoiling for a quarrel.

“Your performance at the May’s was a sham. You were lucky not to be howled off the floor! Do you know why you weren’t?” Without waiting for a reply, she answered herself. “Because you were naked and sexy!”

I nodded.

“Do you know how many people look sexy naked?”

I shook my head.

“Fewer than one percent. Most people are repellent without their clothes.”

My head moved in ambiguous agreement.

“Have I upset you?”

I thought for a bit; realised she hadn’t, so smiled and shook my head.

“Good. One must be honest about one’s talent, or lack thereof. You move well, but have clearly never had lessons. It’s the modern disease. Everyone thinks they can be an artist, dancer, actor, singer without submitting themselves to the rigours of intensive and long training! Stuff and nonsense! Very few people will ever excel at anything. Certainly, no one will excel without proper tuition and a lifetime’s devotion. You are an exhibitionist and dilettante, not the type to devote yourself to one thing only. And anyway, it’s too late and you would hate it. The life of a dancer is nasty, brutish and short.”

Vague relief permeated my pores. I knew I wasn’t a real dancer. I’d said as much to the Mays. I certainly didn’t feel insulted. Indeed, I was grateful to hear the truth! But what did she want with me? As I had not yet uttered a word I remained mute; unwilling to interrupt such an upwelling of wisdom. After a short minute during which I unflinchingly returned her penetrating stare, having been taught that he who lowers his gaze first is guilty of nameless sins, she filled me in.

Having been left with a mansion but no cash when her husband died, she had gone into business as a facilitating hostess, organising afternoons and evenings for wealthy women suffering from an overdose of alimony, or spousal neglect – of which there were vast numbers, apparently. She offered courses of mildly educative persuasion, with names innocent enough to quell the curiosity of inquisitive spouses. ‘Travel in the Balkans’, ‘Soups of France’, ‘Foot Fashions’, ‘Drawing Classes’, ‘Tarot Readings’, ‘Spiritualist Séances’ and the occasional weekend house party for provincials.

Frequently, these innocent-sounding courses hid agendas that drew on the extremes of human behaviour. Recent lectures on African marital customs had included live demonstrations of bizarre sexual practices.

“Your course will be called ‘Natural Exercises’, which translates as ‘Sexy Strip Tease’. It mustn’t be rushed. You will gradually remove all your clothes while performing sexually explicit exercises. Your audience will be wealthy, bored, upper-class ladies whose husbands, if they have them, have mistresses; and they want revenge. I noticed you became slightly aroused during the last dance at the Mays. I want you to become fully aroused during this performance, and finish with ejaculation.”

She didn't beat around the bush! I pretended indifference and nodded nonchalantly.

“Come to the rotunda and listen to the music I’ve prepared. But I insist we drop the pretentious Greek nonsense. I’ll call you Clovis after a character you remind me of in Saki’s short stories; and you can call me Hazel.”

The ‘rotunda’ was a semi-circular room jutting out into the garden. A beautifully upholstered banquette filled the space beneath long windows that flooded the room with gentle light. Elegant chairs completed the ring around a circular, tiled area reserved for my performance. It was a mere three metres in diameter, so my audience would be sitting almost on top of me.

As if reading my mind Hazel warned, “Ensure your bowels are empty and sphincter scrubbed, and I want you as hairless as you were at the May’s. Your audience will be able to smell as well as see and touch you.” She rang a bell and the maid brought the ‘handyman’, who arrived in overalls, was slightly sexy, and the only one who could work the tape recorder. The music was a potpourri of quick-steps, waltzes, rock’n roll – the sort of light stuff her ‘ladies’ listened to. She demanded an ‘undress’ rehearsal on the spot with the maid and handyman watching, to ensure my body was in the same condition as she remembered. It was, so we agreed on a price – the same as the May’s – and a performance the following Saturday afternoon.

The ladies were sipping tea. Late afternoon sun flooded my ‘stage’. The freshly starched maid served tea and cakes, and for the second time since arriving in London, I was pitched back fifteen years. Twenty-three corseted, overdressed women holding flowered cups to pursed lips while balancing tiny plates on tight laps. Hats, veils and dead foxes were missing, but everything else seemed the same. There was just room for them all and the odour of assorted perfumes and excitement was overpowering. The handyman, in a suit this time, opened the windows, then attended to the tape recorder.

I was wearing my Chiswick House suit, blood pounding with excitement. This was my first real strip tease. While rehearsing me, Edgar had told me to be subtle and not too fast, like Gypsy Rose Lee who could trigger male orgasms merely by the seductive manner in which she removed a glove! I’d wrapped a bit of semi-transparent curtain netting around my cods, under my pouch, under my swim suit, under my shorts, under my trousers; and a singlet under my shirt under my jacket. With shoes and socks and Alwyn’s Panama hat, I had thirteen items of clothing to remove. Two and a half minutes per item would last half an hour. The fear of making a fool of myself grew. As always before a new venture, I came close to quitting.

The music played softly and I started the ‘exercises’ fully clothed, explaining what part of the body was being stretched or strengthened, then used the transparent excuse of over-heating to gradually remove clothing, each time asking innocently if they would mind it if I removed one more thing, because I didn't want to shock them. It became a great joke and considerably enlivened the atmosphere when they realised they were allowed to laugh and indulge in sexy repartee.

By the time the bit of net curtain fluttered off, the ‘girls’ were perched like fat hens on the edges of their seats, audibly aroused. The music changed to a slick foxtrot, every toe was tapping, tits bobbing, heads jiggling to the music and suddenly I remembered the jewellery show – I'd dance with every woman in the room! This stroke of genius guaranteed me receptive female audiences as a stripper for the next twenty-eight years.

At the male-oriented strip clubs I’ve been to, female strippers are often treated like cheap whores at whom men shout the rude things they'd like to shout at their wives.

Most women I've stripped for are not like that. They want it to be good, clean, fun – not sleazy. They want to be treated like ladies and dislike having a sticky erection slapped against their faces, a naked bum thrust against their breasts, or a pair of sweaty testicles dumped into an unsuspecting palm. They are generous in applause, laugh a lot, giggle, and are not ashamed to be shy, fearful, gleeful, and excited. They often seem grateful that a man has deigned to perform especially for them, and if, as I did, this man dances with them – not because it’s part of the act but because it seems he wants to – then he wins their hearts, even if he hasn’t the most perfect body on the block.

I danced with everyone except Hazel, the maid, and the handyman. Only a few dozen steps, but long enough to give everyone a personal compliment – ‘You have beautiful eyes’. ‘What great taste in earrings.’ ‘I love your smile.’ ‘You dance like a professional’. ‘You are so light on your feet!’ ‘Your husband is a lucky man……’ Compliments fall effortlessly from my lips – always have done, and are completely sincere – at the time. I’d discovered by the age of seven that as long as it is delivered with sincerity, no compliment is ever too improbable to be believed by man or woman.

As we danced, faces softened, mouths that had seemed cast in plaster stretched and smiled, stiff torsos relaxed and swayed to the music, lines and wrinkles smoothed, years fell away. Fingers ran timid explorations over my buttocks, belly and back, lingering along the thigh when I ‘reluctantly’ returned them to their seat.

Twist music was playing when I began the end game. At that age, I only had to touch my nipples to gain an erection. If I’d been in a room alone with one of these women I'd have shrivelled away in fear that she’d expect me to have sex with her. But a score of lustful ‘girls’ within touching distance but forbidden to touch was stimulating and it took only seconds to prime the pump, and a little light-fingered tugging to make the fountain play, as they say in France.

Hazel reckoned I was probably the first man for years to give them the compliments they desired. The first male to invite caresses. The first to want to dance with them. The youngest and firmest flesh they’d touched in their lives! She declared that twenty-three women who thought they had seen it all, were in love with the idea of me by the end of the afternoon, and everyone thought their love was requited after our brief, electric contact. I didn’t tell her, but it was. I loved them all, at that moment, for their compliments and innocent delight in my body.

The morning before leaving London, the Grammar School at which we were to perform Merchant the following afternoon, telephoned and requested we substitute Macbeth because the set play for the year had been changed. Macbeth was listed on the brochure as part of our regular repertoire, available at all times, so the request was reasonable.

As I was the only one who had never done the play I had the worst night of my life attempting to memorise the part of Banquo before a long drive to the Midlands the next morning, followed by a performance that triggered nightmares for the next twenty years.

Chapter 18: On Tour

The curtain rose on fiery gloom in which Edgar, Alwyn and Agnes in fluttering rags capered and cawed, “When shall we three meet again…?” As the stage lightened, Terry strode heroically on with me in his wake. After that, all I remember is I fluffed most of my lines. Shakespeare is difficult to learn and Macbeth the hardest – the harbinger of doom if quoted off stage.

Terry was a hard, introspective Macbeth, and like the others an unflappable actor. After saying his lines, if I dried he’d turn his back to the audience and hiss mine, completing the speech if I stumbled, as if the lines were his own… I was sweating and dry-mouthed within seconds.

When Alwyn, having sloughed off his witch’s weeds appeared as Duncan, he took over as ventriloquist to my dummy. Fortunately, Banquo is murdered relatively early on, reappearing briefly as a ghost. After that a beard, hood, or wig transformed me into Ross/soldier/messenger… requiring a panicked memorising of lines by the light of a torch just before going on. By curtain call I was a nervous wreck.

Alwyn had edited the plays, conflating bit parts and merely referring to scenes such as the English Court and the murder of Lady MacDuff and her children. An army became two soldiers on stage with the others in a tape recorder. The plays maintained their tension, were less complicated, and the action never flagged. Schools preferred these shortened versions as long as we included all the quotes and soliloquies their students had to learn.

Under Alwyn’s direction we spoke our lines naturally, like ordinary speech. The first time I heard Terry’s rendering of Macbeth’s misery, cynicism and poignant insight into the folly of life “…and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty deaths…life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; it’s a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing!” I was moved to tears.

Shakespeare is one of the greatest English philosophers. His dramas with their perceptive insights, wit, and moral lessons illustrate humanity’s basic flaw – the inability to be satisfied, and the destruction wrought by lust and greed, whether it be for love, power, wealth or revenge.

Alwyn researched and designed unfussy costumes that captured the period while occupying the least amount of space. For Macbeth our ‘kilts’ were simple wraparounds of rough fabric held in place by a leather belt containing a scabbard and dagger. A square of heavy cloth secured across the shoulders by a brass pin served as a cloak over a rough linen blouse. ’Boots’ of hessian painted to look like leather were cross-lashed to above the calf, and a ‘broadsword’ completed the outfit.

My predecessor had been considerably smaller than me and as there hadn’t been time to alter anything, my ‘kilt’, instead of hanging chastely below the knee, exposed a good four inches of thigh, and the cloak when thrown back off the shoulders exposed a shirtless torso.

When the teacher in charge came backstage to hand over the cash, he remarked on my interesting interpretation of Banquo as a hesitant, sensitive soul. It was the joke of the week – my ‘sensitive’ interpretation. Twenty years later I still suffered the occasional nightmare that I was ready to go on stage but couldn’t find the script and had no idea what the play was!

In the Sixties, parents were given a chit for their child’s education that they could submit to the school of their choice. Co-ed private schools specialising in art, drama, and music, and single-sex private schools were our main clients. The schools were small; two or three hundred pupils, often housed in pseudo-gothic Victorian mansions in which the Ballroom had been converted to a theatre, complete with elegant proscenium, adequate stage lighting and cramped dressing rooms. The pupils were polite; their parents worldly, educated, middle class. Parents and ‘friends’ of the school were expected to fill and pay for empty seats, as all money received above our fee went into school coffers.

We also played to adult audiences three evenings a week in ‘Little Theatres’ that had been taken over by Amateur Dramatic Societies when professional companies collapsed. In return for more or less free advertising through their members, we paid a reasonable rent that plugged holes in their maintenance budgets. The first ‘adult’ play that season was a knockabout farce Alwyn had rewritten, based on ‘Sweeny Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.’

Sweeny’s shop is next to Mrs. Bardell’s bakery. When sailors came in for a shave they were quizzed. If a sailor had no near relatives Sweeny hit him on the head and pulled a lever tipping the chair backwards through a hole in the wall into Mrs. Bardell’s, where the hapless fellow was hung on meat-hooks before being slaughtered and butchered to become the filling of ‘Bardell’s Famous Meat Pies’.

There is a pretty girl anxiously in love with a poor sailor, an inheritance, and complicated comings and goings that eventually culminate in the discovery of a ‘human button’ in a pie. The sailor is rescued just before he is butchered, collects his inheritance, claims the girl, and lives happily ever after.

Our ‘territory’ from September until Christmas was the Midlands from north of Birmingham to Stoke on Trent; the environs of Bristol from mid-January to Easter; and Essex until summer. After an exhausting but exhilarating first fortnight in which we presented Julius Caesar and The Merchant of Venice as well as Macbeth and Sweeney, Alwyn discovered that a new company offering the same plays as ours had poached so many of our usual schools we were in danger of going out of business. I don’t think I have ever felt so deflated.

To suss out the competition we became ‘spies’ at the school that two days previously had cancelled our presentation of Julius Caesar, and watched our enemies present the same play! It was a company of older, experienced actors. Antony, my character, was played by a fellow twice my age and instead of a set they acted in front of the school’s grey stage curtains. Costumes were white sheets with hairy white legs and modern sandals dangling beneath.

Back at the digs Agnes ranted, “They’re dreadful! No set, no costumes, and they're old!”

We muttered angry agreement.

“Old fashioned,” said Terry

“They acted well, though,” Alwyn said softly.

“So do we!” snapped Agnes, adding unnecessarily, “Except for Rigby. But who did the teacher comment favourably on in Macbeth? Rigby! Our weakest actor! Why? Because his kilt was short, he was bare-chested, and looked sexy! If we want to regain our clients, we must modernise.”

It was somewhat discouraging that no one disputed her assessment of my abilities, however they all agreed we could do with a spruce up.

Our portable staging had been designed and built by Edgar, and remains the finest I've ever encountered. The ‘skeleton’ was three, 3’ x 6’ wooden rectangles that supported four horizontal wooden rods and two hinged flats. When decorated with flimsy pelmets, back-cloth and curtains, it became a stage ten yards wide and one deep, with two separate curtained ‘stages’ and two curtained entrances. The whole thing took four men four minutes to erect, and the same time to dismount and store away. It took up only a small portion of the van, leaving plenty of space for the costume baskets and four passengers in the rear.

Alwyn and Edgar owned the company and controlled all finances, mail, and telephone bookings. However, apart from appearing on stage, they left most physical contact with schools to Agnes. As soon as the van and costumes had been unloaded I drove her to the school we had spied on. In her faded blue gabardine raincoat, brown lace-up shoes, and knitted beret, a less attractive ambassador would be difficult to imagine. To me it seemed senseless to send a frump to persuade people we were a modern and classy company.

“You’re coming in with me,” she snapped.

“Why?”

“Because,” she sneered, “despite your vulgar skin-tight trousers, you ooze respectability.”

From her, respectability was an insult. “And that impresses these sorts of people.” She had as little esteem for ‘those sorts of people’ as she had for me. “That’s why you’ll never be a real actor!” she added dismissively.

I'd noticed that the other actors didn't bother about ‘respectability’ or looking or being either fashionable or socially acceptable. Acting was all they wanted in life. It made them seem slightly two dimensional and a bit strange – sort of empty, only appearing ‘normal’ when viewed from beyond the footlights wearing make-up and reciting someone else’s words.

It was funny that she considered my homosexuality to be perfectly acceptable, but my good manners and ordinariness offensive. Fortunately, the others just accepted me as I was. I knew I'd never be a ‘star’ because I lacked the blinkered drive. And I dreaded becoming another miserable ‘resting’ actor. Being on stage with an appreciative audience was what gave me a thrill.

To my shame, I realised I derived nearly as much pleasure from prancing around the May’s drawing room and stripping for Hazel’s ‘girls’ as from performing in Shakespeare. Although I did love the Bard for his philosophic insight and the fact that he conferred the ‘respectability’ Agnes so despised. People were impressed to learn I was a Shakespearian actor, not so excited when told I was a stripper. Agnes had been spoiling for a fight since I joined the company, and she grasped the opportunity to let me have a piece of her mind like a drowning woman grabs at the nearest swimmer, prepared to drown him as long as she survives.

“You always act as if butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, and yet you were a whore in London,” she sneered.

Alwyn must have told her. Perversely, I felt proud of the fact… no one would pay for the use of her body! The thought made me smile.

“And you are irritatingly complacent which is why you are a mediocre actor,” she snapped, determined to wound.

I could feel nothing but pity for this ugly, down-at-heel woman whose life’s work was making bookings and acting minor parts in a tiny touring company on the point of collapse. She was nervous, and it was better that she vented her spleen on me than on the school’s representative we were hoping to impress.

The Head of English was approaching forty. Ordinary face improved by a broken nose, short hair, solid torso in a white shirt and reefer jacket, massive thighs squeezed into grey flannels; black shoes. He greeted us politely, crushed my hand in a massive paw, then indicated we should sit facing each other on leather armchairs. Those thighs forced his legs apart to reveal a substantial bulge.

Agnes, burdened beyond bearing by the injustices of the world, chose confrontation over diplomacy. How dare he cancel our booking at such short notice, replacing us with an inferior company? Had he no respect for…. I interrupted, and gently suggested she make our offer.

She blushed angrily but calmed sufficiently to inform him we would perform Julius Caesar for no charge because it would be beneficial for the students to compare two different renditions of the same play, and Macbeth, also for free. Zero cost to the school on condition that if he thought we were better than the opposition he would contact the schools that had cancelled our performances and recommend they change their bookings back to us.

If they did, then we would return at his convenience with another free performance of whatever play he chose. It was a generous offer and not an unreasonable request. Most of the private schools belonged to the same ‘club’ and were in regular contact with each other. She sat back in breathless triumph. “Well?”

He hesitated too long. Agnes leaped to her feet screaming that he and his type were leeches on the body of humanity ready to sacrifice quality for profit…

“Shut up, woman!”

She blinked and shut up.

“Please, wait outside. I’ll discuss this with your colleague.”

Agnes slunk away.

He returned to his seat. “As I was about to say,” he said, absentmindedly rubbing his crotch, “I was unimpressed with the other company and had already decided to return to The Westminster Shakespearian Company.”

“Unfortunately, so many schools have switched that we are about to fold,” I said.

“That bad? Hang on.” Instead of going behind his desk, he reached over me to pick up the phone, enveloping me in an effluvium of testosterone, soap, and fresh sweat. After speaking briefly with the Headmaster he replaced the handset and, remaining directly in front of me with our knees touching, said “It’s all sorted. Bring your troupers tomorrow at 12.30 sharp, and give us Macbeth; we’ll take it from there.”

I made as if to stand but he didn't move; legs apart, crotch at eye-level.

“Is it true all actors are queer?”

“No.”

“Are you?”

“Do I look it?” I was becoming nervous. Was he setting me up so he had an excuse to make my nose look like his?

“No, but those trousers display your genitals rather well.” He stepped away, frowning. “What’s the matter? You’ve been looking at my crotch ever since you arrived and didn't move away when I leaned over you. You are camp, aren’t you?” A frown of doubt flickered.

“Are you looking for an excuse to thump me?”

“Christ! No! No! Quite the opposite!”

“You mean…?

“Yes…”

“Then you should tone down the butch act.”

“I used to be a champion boxer.”

As an excuse it was no excuse, but I let him show me several pretentious silver cups and feigned interest while he stroked my neck. At the door he turned sheepishly. “Can I apologise by buying you a meal tonight?”

He was passably handsome, and we desperately needed his assistance, but my father had always cautioned against paying in advance. First, he had to see our plays and be impressed, then telephone the other schools. “Let’s leave it till tomorrow night after our show and you’ve rung the other schools.”

That made him laugh. “You’re that confident?”

“I saw them – they’re bloody terrible.”

“And you’ll be my reward – if I'm successful?”

“Something like that.”

“Cheeky monkey. Tomorrow it is.”

Agnes was slumped in the van, morose, accepting without dissent or visible pleasure my assertion that our success was due entirely to her strong stand.

The following day in breechclouts, short kilts, and cloaks flung back off the shoulders to expose well-oiled chests and legs stained golden-brown – Edgar, Terry, Hal, and I strode the boards as Macbeth, Banquo, and assorted other thanes and warriors. Margaret was a sexy Lady Macbeth in an almost but not quite see-through nightdress as she bewailed her inability to wash off the blood. Alwyn kept to his leggings and full regalia, to add gravitas. With the new costumes and spruced up set, it was like acting in a new play – plus we were galvanised by fear of losing our jobs. The kids seemed impressed.

For Julius Caesar, Terry as Brutus, and I, as Antony, wore magnificent metallic-painted shin guards over sandals, and breechclouts under short tunics that exposed a shoulder, a nipple and, if we turned too abruptly, a fleeting glimpse of buttock. I always dreaded “Friends, Romans, countrymen…” after Marlon Brando’s performance in the black and white film. Thanks to Alwyn I realised those three words were merely exhortations to the crowd to shut up and listen – an irritated plea for their attention, so if you yell, ‘countrymen lend me your ears!’ in one loud rush, it sounds perfectly natural.

Edgar didn’t let me down with the tape recorder, blaring jeers and applause from the off-stage ‘crowd,’ and no one in the real audience sniggered. They certainly applauded more for us than our opponents.

When the English Master came backstage, we avoided eye contact. Alwyn gave him the list of schools that had cancelled, and said he’d ring later to check progress.

Today, with mobile phones, fax machines, emails, and internet, it is difficult to imagine what it was like only a few decades ago when our only link with the world was a single pay phone in the boarding-house hallway shared with all the other guests.

While we were loading the van, several girls asked for my autograph - my first taste of ‘fame’. A couple of the girls reckoned we’d looked “tough and sexy.” Margaret was jealous that no boys asked for hers. Terry didn't notice. Agnes was furious that the worst actor should once again get the recognition, and Hal jealously reckoned it was because as Cassius his toga concealed his body. I knew it was only sex and to me it seemed of no significance. Of course, had there been boys brave enough to ask for autographs I might have thought differently.

That evening my ‘date’ arrived at the restaurant with an elderly woman in a turquoise evening dress and craggy face framed by grey hair scraped back into a tight bun. Rustling taffeta accompanied the chomping of tough steak for the next twenty minutes, followed by a tasteless dessert. When two prying acquaintances stopped to enquire after our health, the mother bared yellow teeth and introduced me as a distant relative from the colonies. We repaired to their house for coffee. Although it was only nine o'clock, the mother excused herself and tottered up to bed.

As we undressed, the English Master explained that his widowed mother, terrified some woman would carry off her son, encouraged his dalliances with ‘suitable’ men. He was passive, for a prize-fighter, with tender touch and taking ways – taking all I had the energy to offer after a strenuous week.

In return, I learned that all except one of our cancelled bookings were willing to change back to us. I let Alwyn discover this for himself the following day, and soon our programme was full once more.

Chapter 19: Touring on

We were a strange mob. Alwyn in love with his Company and Edgar; Edgar in lust with me; Agnes at war with the world; Hal in lust with Margaret; Margaret in love with her rugby-playing psychologist fiancé back home in Guildford; and Terry in love/lust with himself.

Apart from one unpleasant week in which I shared a double bed with Hal, who showered and brushed his teeth only occasionally, and placed a row of pillows between us - threatening murder if I crossed the line. Usually, I shared a room and double bed in our cheap but clean theatrical digs with Terry. The rooms were always too small for twin beds but okay for doubles. In those days it was considered perfectly normal for men to share a bed.

Terry was handsome on stage because his features were larger than life – nose, chin, mouth, pores.... He was clean and didn't smoke or snore, and kept fit by using the local gymnasiums. In front of a mirror before bed he’d stroke his nipples, kiss his shoulders and massive biceps, then lean forward to kiss his reflected lips before masturbating.

I saw nothing sinister in this, which was a great relief to him. I was the first person in whom he’d confided his secret and the first he'd allowed to witness his ‘lovemaking’. My easy acceptance assured him he wasn’t a monster. He was attracted to neither men nor women, did no harm, and I liked him.

It was the end of an era. TV was enticing away even the few theatregoers the cinema had left us. Within twenty years, a small number of theatrical companies backed either by public money or wealthy entrepreneurs would have control of theatres, providing blockbuster sure-fire successes at the expense of daring, experimental diversity. Professional actors could work in TV or film, but that has none of the allure of the stage. I would rather tread the boards of a high school stage every day with two hundred adolescents applauding, than act in front of the Cyclops eye of a camera and an irritated neurotic director, while half a dozen crew members chat amongst themselves, uninterested in what’s going on.

To perform the same play many times is not boring – it’s stimulating. Every audience is different, and you adjust performances to suit them while trying to make each one better than the last. It was very hard work, despite the plays being shortened versions. We had to keep five Shakespearian plays in separate compartments in our heads, present them five afternoons and sometimes one or two mornings a week, and switch to Sweeny Todd on three nights.

The Midlands was a far cry from the “Black Country” I'd been expecting. One could easily walk from red-brick terraced-house towns to woodlands, lakes, hills, and countryside. When the sun shone it was delightful; when cold, bracing; when wet, horrible. At home I was used to endless suburbs sprawling over the land, but in England, houses were stacked closely and even towns with large populations seemed small, ending abruptly at a fence and fields.

Nor were the provinces devoid of culture. In Wolverhampton I saw Joan Hammond in concert. I'd been in love with Joan since the age of twelve when, as a babysitter for the local doctor, I’d always play a 78 r.p.m. recording of her and David Lloyd singing ‘Lovely Maid in the Moonlight’ from La Boheme. Saddlers Wells brought an excellent production of Mozart’s Magic Flute to the city opera house, and also a selection of ballets. The London Symphony Orchestra gave two concerts, and Sybil Thorndike appeared in a drawing room comedy.

Alwyn accompanied us to the ‘Roland Petit Ballet Company’s’ performance of The Rites of Spring in which the most perfect and sexy specimens of manhood, naked apart from posing pouches, ‘fucked’ bizarre stuffed dolls during the last orgiastic scene. Alwyn was strangely silent afterwards. [In 2007, at the age of 84, Roland Petit choreographed a ballet for the Paris Opera based on Proust’s Temps Perdus, in which a totally naked man appears.]

It was a trip to Stratford-on-Avon that cemented Alwyn's determination to ‘sex up’ the rest of our costumes. We saw Peter Hall’s King Lear, in which Lear’s ‘fool’ was naked during the final scene; and a production of The Tempest, in which Ariel wore only a pouch, and Caliban’s sole garment was a phallic bone dangling between his thighs.

On our return, Alwyn called a meeting and said that as our sets were minimal, exactly enough to suggest the scene, so our costumes should be minimal; suggesting the period and style rather than trying unsuccessfully to recreate it. We were all sick of the pantaloons and thick cotton hose that wrinkled at the knees, velvet jackets, and frilled blouses worn for The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night, so were delighted when they were replaced by waist-length jerkins, felt boots and the ‘new’ stretch-nylon tights – one size fits all, guaranteed never to wrinkle. They were immensely strong, so we attached braces front and rear and dragged them up until they fitted like a second skin; deep into bum cracks, splitting balls, and squashing cocks against our bellies.

That looked pretty horrible, so as he didn't want exterior codpieces that would draw attention to the bulges, Alwyn made snugly fitting flesh-tinted pouches that bunched our cods into a smooth lump under the tights; like ballet dancers.

From the auditorium with the stage lights on, the effect was magical. We looked as if our naked bums and legs had been sprayed with slightly luminous paint. At first, Hal had balked at exposing his bulge, but after being mobbed for autographs after our first appearance he changed his mind.

In Merchant, Edgar, who played Antonio, insisted Shakespeare had intended a homosexual relationship between Antonio and Bassanio, because only a lover would put his life on the line for another man. Fortunately, his tastefully subtle interpretation went over the heads of the students.

I loved being Bassanio, wearing nothing but turquoise tights that stopped a hand-width below my navel, a tiny embroidered waistcoat that ended a hand-width above the navel, soft felt pixie boots, and a cheeky little cap with a feather. Audiences always became audibly excited when Bassanio wins Portia by artfully choosing the correct casket, and when Shylock is foiled by Margaret’s coolly efficient Portia. Her ‘Quality of Mercy’ speech was the best I've heard.

Twelfth Night was great fun with Hal superb as both Sebastian and Viola. He lightened his voice to a husky contralto for both parts, and when playing Viola, simply pulled his jerkin down to conceal his cods. I was the randy Duke with a hugely padded codpiece; Alwyn a hilarious Malvolio, Terry played Sir Toby, and Edgar played everyone else. As usual, Agnes played all the minor female roles. We managed the final scene in which both brother and sister appear, by dressing Edgar in the same clothes as Hal, while keeping his back to the audience. It worked well. The kids were certain we’d used identical twins.

The weather turned cold. The van wasn’t keen on continuing to go so far; once refusing to turn right when a steering rod gave up the ghost. I had to navigate right-hand turns by first turning left, then backing around in a circle until we were facing the direction we wanted to go, then setting off again. We were never late, never lost, and I remained respectable, which Agnes still could not forgive.

I usually accompanied Terry to the town swimming pool and gymnasium, and while he lifted weights I swam or took a Turkish bath, once finding a handsome local lad with whom to share a cubicle. In Stoke-on-Trent I was wandering around the bath house sans towel as usual – they charged extra for a second towel so I wasn’t going to waste it by sitting and sweating on it - when the fellow in charge of the place, a hefty guy of about fifty, belligerent in black woollen togs, came up and tapped me on the shoulder.

Everyone else was modestly swathed in towels – staring. They were an ugly bunch – as ugly as only North Country English can be. Doughy white flesh, red-necked, pot-bellied; I had clearly offended their sense of propriety and was about to be ejected. I was ready to go anyway. He took me by the arm and led me to a room with an altar-like slab of marble in the centre, and a freezing plunge pool on one side.

He’s going to throw me in the water, I guessed. Instead, he led me to the ‘altar’ and said he’d give me a free massage. He was a hulk so I didn't dare refuse. We had been followed by a dozen of the be-towelled occupants of the steam room, who gathered in a tight circle around the ‘altar’ and watched as the flesh of my back and buttocks were separated from the bones, legs bent to breaking point, arms hoisted up beyond bearing and muscles pummelled to pulp.

Then I was turned over and kneaded, pressed, stroked and intimately interfered with until, accompanied by a great sigh from the audience, I ejaculated. The audience drifted away, I dived into the freezing water, and as I emerged was offered free entry on any third Wednesday of the month.

While in Stoke, Terry and I visited the Royal Dalton potteries. Very old, dusty wooden buildings on multiple levels; unchanged since first built. All these old potteries have now gone. Cheap imports have closed them down and the few potteries that remain are automated factories. I was hoping to see throwing and other traditional stuff, but everything was slip cast and the decorations only transfers until in one area I found guys skilfully hand painting designs on ‘one-off’ vases and plates.

A handsome fellow of about my age let me paint a stroke on a plate while hovering over me. “I’m off in twenty minutes. Wait at the front entrance,” he whispered, breathing mint-flavoured air down my neck. Terry left me with dire warnings about sexually transmitted diseases. My artistic paramour shouted me to fish and chips, then back to his place for a shower and cuddle.

Agnes was type cast as the vicious Mrs. Bardell in Sweeny Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, but the houses had been disappointing, and we’d barely broken even financially until a slight costume change let us post ‘house full’ signs every night. Alwyn didn't alter the eighteenth-century costumes… sailors in bell-bottoms; lawyer in black with stovepipe hat; policeman red-faced and blustery, heroine in billowing muslin; he merely removed most of mine in the final scene.

During the play, after sending unconscious young men through the hatch to Mrs. Bardell’s, Alwyn, as the malicious and evil Sweeny, would race next door and hoist them onto a huge meat-hook before ripping off their shirts and plunging a stage knife into their hearts, releasing great gouts of blood and screams from the audience – then blackout.

When I, as the sailor hero, was lifted onto the meat hooks, Alwyn ripped off my trousers as well as the shirt. His original intention was for me to be naked. Nudity on stage had become almost an obsession with him. I asked if it was to distract from my bad acting. He just smiled and explained that I was the only actor he knew who’d not only look good naked on stage, but would enjoy it, so it seemed a pity to waste the chance when the times were demanding it.

The others voted against it from fear of contravening the law, so we compromised with a posing pouch of optically white butter muslin so soft it clung like a skin, and so brief it barely covered my bits. Sweeney had to ‘sharpen’ his butcher’s knife for a full minute before audience excitement subsided.

What followed was carefully choreographed mayhem! The door was smashed in; I was revived with a bucket of water that rendered the muslin transparent. There was a dagger fight with Sweeney and a wrestling match with Mrs. Bardell. I revived the fainting heroine, then was shoved from policeman to lawyer, to girlfriend to Squire and back until the whole mad caper was resolved, my identity ascertained by a star-shaped birthmark on the right buttock that everyone, including the by now thoroughly involved audience, had to inspect, inheritance assured, marriage planned, and lovers’ kisses planted. My naked bum appeared in the Bilston Weekly Advertiser.

Ten weeks passed too quickly. Every day was exciting; every performance a challenge. Although we spent a great deal of time together we remained on good terms by deliberately not getting to know too much about each other. I only remember once discussing private thoughts, when Margaret’s psychologist fiancé came to visit and used us as guinea pigs for a personality test. After analysis of dozens of personal questions that I, at least, had answered honestly, he declared everyone except me to be some sort of social misfit.

My activities since arriving in England were common knowledge, thanks to Agnes, so there was some disbelief when I scored ‘normal’ in every category. Unlike Agnes, the others were amused and didn't consider it an insult that I was openly ordinary among theatrical folk. But I wasn’t surprised – I've always known I was completely normal.

When Margaret announced she was leaving to marry, Alwyn decided we’d become a traditional Shakespearian Company – all male. He wrote to the kids from the drama schools we’d played at who had asked to be contacted if we had a vacancy, telling them we needed a young male to play female roles. The sole response was from a fifteen-year-old from the bizarrely named village of Tittensor.

Jeremy came to our digs with his parents, who interviewed us over tea in the boarding house parlour, then watched as Jeremy was auditioned. He was nothing to look at; medium height, slim, light brown hair, and no distinguishing features apart from a disarmingly candid gaze through one green and one brown eye. His voice, projection, and quick understanding, though, were impressive.

Alwyn told them bluntly that it was not a glamorous life; Jeremy would have to share a bed, ride in the back of the van, and help with everything, as well as act. After a whispered conference with his son, the father said he approved on condition that I took him under my wing.

Babysitting a fifteen-year-old was not on my list of desirable activities. I often needed to be alone to do what I wanted. How could I go to a Turkish bath? I let my annoyance show.

The mother smiled disarmingly. “We saw you in Sweeney Todd; you were excellent.”

As she intended, I began to melt.

“I've been kicked out of school, so I have to have the job,” Jeremy pleaded. “I’ll be no trouble.”

Alwyn frowned at me, I shut up, and it was arranged. Jeremy would join us, unpaid, until the end of the term to learn as much as he could from Margaret, then take over next term.

That afternoon Agnes disappeared, leaving a tear-stained note saying she knew when she wasn’t welcome. We all cheered, and Jeremy had a baptism of fire playing Agnes’s roles of maids and gentlewomen with heavy makeup and wigs for the last week of the run. He was unflappable, had a blotting paper brain that learned lines after two readings, did everything asked of him unquestioningly, and was universally liked.

Terry moved in to Hal’s room, which had two single beds. Jeremy watched as I undressed and diplomatically threw his pyjamas back in his bag before joining me in the double bed. With the light out, he confessed he’d told his father to insist I became his mentor because after seeing me in Merchant and Sweeney I was the main reason he’d joined the Company; I looked so sexy.

I felt sick. A hero worshipper was the last thing I needed! And I’ve never been interested in youths! When I was his age, I fell in lust with a couple of older men, but since then only with guys my own age.

Suddenly I realised how my physics teacher must have felt when I used to lean against him while he checked my workbook. He was about twenty-five and I was sixteen. He’d snap at me to stand up straight. I once took hold of his hand and pretended to look at his signet ring. He pulled his hand away and frowned disapproval. He was duty teacher when I was hit in the nuts with a cricket ball, so drove me to hospital and attended while a doctor examined me. I helped him with laboratory equipment on Thursday lunchtimes, and one day he cut his hand. I guess I fussed over it too much – showed too much concern - because he said tersely, “I don’t know what's the matter with you, Taylor. You're tough enough but sometimes you act like a lovesick schoolgirl! Cut it out!”

My guts froze. Thank goodness I hadn't given him one of the love poems I'd written! I began to sweat. I wasn’t acting like a girl! Why should only girls feel sexy about men? Wasn’t I also allowed? I’d have preferred to die but settled for pathetic silence. After that I discovered I was too busy to be his Lab assistant.

To my relief, after off-loading his secret, Jeremy curled up and slept like a kitten till morning. The following night, however, he suggested it would be easier to act a woman if he knew what it felt like to be one. I protested, but he was persistent, so I kissed him. He wanted more. I said no way. He produced a pot with some margarine he’d pinched from the kitchen, threw his legs in the air, shoved a dollop up his bum and rubbed the rest on my erection. What was a man to do? To my astonishment the entry was easy and instead of squeals of pain, he emitted grunts of pleasure.

“This isn't your first time, is it?” I asked; angry at being fooled.

“A prefect’s been shagging me twice a week since I turned fourteen, and the guy I was caught with in the cupboard was in the same position you're in now. That’s why we were kicked out.”

I felt like hitting him, but he guessed my problem and said with a laugh, “Don’t worry, I'm not in love with you. I just think of it as a pleasant massage. Don’t be such a prissy puritan. Relax and enjoy it.”

I couldn’t. Even though the law considered sex between two adult men exactly as evil as between a 23 year old and a15 year-old, I couldn’t convince myself I’d been a trustworthy guardian. I certainly didn't do it again – we’d be living far too close for that sort of relationship; and anyway, I preferred to be friends with this intelligent and self-willed adult in a youth’s body.

Over the Christmas/New Year break he went home, and I assisted Alwyn and Edgar to move to a larger but cheaper flat in Chiswick. I asked if we’d have to change the name of the company, but was assured that Edgar’s mother’s friend had a daughter in Westminster who was willing to attend to all our mail, forwarding it when we were away etc. so Westminster Shakespearian Company was still a legitimate appellation. A more pressing need was a replacement for Agnes.

A call to Hazel resulted in a summons. She needed a nude butler for an upcoming ‘Katherine Mansfield’ weekend: was I available?

Chapter 20: A Winter Tale

Alwyn was in freefall; plummeting from the high board of mania into a puddle of depression while his nest was dismantled, carted off to Chiswick and reassembled. Edgar, a tight bundle of self-restraint, helped me to shift enough costumes to clothe a small city, a bookshop of scripts, and the pathetic collection of sticks that was their furniture. By the time we’d finished I'd climbed the equivalent of the Eiffel Tower and gained two inches on calves and thighs.

Their new bedroom was half the size of the old but had four times the space because the bed wasn’t buried under all the essential paraphernalia of a travelling theatre company, which now had its own work/storage room. There was a kitchen that did not double as a throughway for the people upstairs, a bathroom, a pleasant sitting room, and a small spare bedroom – all on the ground floor to save Alwyn’s aching limbs.

While Edgar and I laboured, Alwyn interviewed new recruits. His howls of despair as each unhappy hopeful was hustled out were disquieting. I feared for his sanity. Edgar flapped around in ever decreasing circles making tea, packing and unpacking, twittering about shopping, supplies, possible adverse reactions to an all-male troupe, forward booking confirmations, mail, and a thousand other things that would have floated over his sensible head a week before.

Once settled in Chiswick, I had time to wonder what I was doing and where I was headed. I needed to clear my mind. To think. Something I do best while walking. It took but one circuit of a nearby park to reach the conclusion that I was an aimless drifter of no particular talent, content to be wafted along on the draughts of chance as long as I was independent and on stage. A recipe for mediocrity rather than fame.

A reverse circumnavigation of the park delivered no hidden depths of character. My sole requirement from life, I realised, was to avoid danger while feeling at ease in the world. I had the mental depth of a thimble.

So far, I'd made no enemies. I knew several friendly people, but I’ve never wanted close friends – they expect you to be like them, want what they want, and go where they go. Worse, I'd have to hide my predilection for handsome young men and give up my freedom to do whatever I wanted without fearing censure.

Since the cradle it seemed I'd been searching for 'one real friend’; the sort you would die for like Batman and Robin or the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Loving companionship, that’s what I wanted. He wouldn’t have to be a handsome stud. I've always had a fairly accurate grasp of my own inadequacies and knew that if you want to be loved you have to be lovable, and if you want someone sexy and attractive you have to develop those qualities in yourself.

It was cold enough for a white Christmas, but we had to make do with freezing pea-soup fogs that suited my feelings in regard to that festive wank. Christmas when I was a kid meant bad tempers, visiting relations I had no desire to see, and embarrassment at my Christmas presents which, in our house, were handkerchiefs and underpants wrapped in last year’s gaudy paper. Only once did my father give me anything; a little grey plastic water pistol that didn't work. He’d found it on the side of the road and you could see the tyre marks of the car that had run over it.

Watching unlovely relatives and others stuff fodder into their gobs like starving pigs should have featured in Dante’s circles of hell, along with all that determined jollity among people who normally wouldn’t give each other the time of day. While the adults slumped over after-dinner drinks, I’d suffer my cousin’s gloating about his sparkling new BSA bicycle with six-speed Sturmey-Archer hub gears, or a top-of-the-range pump-action air gun with which he shot a few defenceless birds. I didn't envy him. He was neither bright nor handsome nor popular. Indeed, I thanked my lucky stars I was me and not him.

I read a while ago that most people suffer from low self-esteem – I've always enjoyed a sufficiency.

Meanwhile, back in Chiswick, the final aria from La Cenerentola was bel cantoing from the upstairs flat, so I crept up to listen as Victoria de Los Angeles trilled forgiveness. Gooseflesh lifted the shirt from my back. The aria ended, I remained transfixed, and the door opened to reveal high cheekbones, square jaw, sculpted lips, golden skin, black eyes and long, black, glossy, dead straight hair.

“What are you doing there?” Unfriendly.

I found my tongue, apologised, introduced myself, explained I was starved of such music, and was invited to listen to the other side of the record when he returned from the corner shop. I walked there and back with him, giddy from the aura that surrounds truly handsome men who are unaware of their beauty.

When we returned with the milk [real milk, not the boiled, sterilised stuff they served up north in narrow necked bottles because no one had a refrigerator] two young women, also of the Chinese persuasion, were arranged over the settee – one good looking, the other plain of face but sweet of character. I was introduced, and we drank instant coffee. The record ended, and I was invited to join them the following night at a nearby church hall where a soprano of unknown abilities would be singing ‘something classical’. Sounded risky, but I would have gone to hell with him.

Back on the ground floor a thirty-eight-year-old male of slim build and forgettable countenance was now the seventh and final member of our all-male cast. He had been doorman at a cinema for three years, could sustain a pleasant falsetto, and leaked gratitude at being given a chance to tread the boards once more. His stage name was Rolando, handshake firm but clammy, eyes moist, figure manly, and posture erect.

Actors are not paid during holidays and we were off for nearly four weeks, so as I didn't fancy registering with the unemployment office, Hazel’s offer of work was appreciated and I visited her that evening. In the previous three-and-a-half months I'd taken tea and enjoyed polite discourse with female teachers and headmistresses after performing at their school, as well as with ‘friends of the theatre’ after performances of Sweeney Todd. Compared to those candid, provincial faces, Hazel looked like a raddled tart, with a hardness to her eyes I hadn’t noticed before. She cut to the chase.

“What do you know about the Bloomsbury Group?”

I shrugged ignorance.

“Katherine Mansfield?”

I'd been presented with a leather-bound collection of her short stories after taking the role of Papageno in The Magic Flute at school – stories I read and re-read for their disturbing undertones; secrets I was too inexperienced to unravel.

According to Hazel, Mansfield and her partner, Middleton Murray, had lived nearby and were more famous for their nude butler and orgies with the notorious Bloomsbury Group of writers and artists, than for their contribution to literature. She was holding a ‘Katherine Mansfield in Bloomsbury’ party, directly after New Year and needed a couple of ‘heavies’ in case of trouble. One would be her ‘man of all work’ who had arranged the music for my previous performance, and I'd be the other – posing as the naked butler.

“What sort of trouble?”

“Nothing worse than helping a drunk to the bathroom.”

“Will there be readings from Mansfield’s work – that sort of thing?”

“It’s an orgy!” she snorted derisively!

Well wrapped, my Chinese acquaintances and I walked the half mile to a hall that was old, cold and smelled of dust. The piano was in tune, but the soprano needed her vocal chords adjusted. A wobble on the high notes and breathiness on the low were not balanced by mellow mid-tones. I spent the evening in a sweat waiting for her to hit a bum note or run out of breath.

I blame the euphoria of release after the third and final encore and the chance of a few more minutes in the company of the perfect male, for agreeing to accompany the hand-holding homely lass upstairs where we discussed her plight as a ‘coloured’ person in South Africa, while drinking more instant coffee.

My three hosts nodded to each other conspiratorially, stood, and invited me to follow. In the bedroom they removed their clothes. Common sense screamed, “Flee!” But I was transfixed by the naked perfection of Perfection, as I'd begun to think of him. Smooth, golden skin. Wide shoulders and narrow hips, tiny thatch of dead straight pubic hair above a proud erection.

Hoping for a foursome, I stripped, but Perfection and his girl lay on the other bed while my girl thrust me on to the other, sucking on my penis with all the enthusiasm of a nervous limpet while I watched him thrusting powerfully, triggering little miaows of delight from his woman. I could scarcely breathe from lust. What an incredible waste!

Meanwhile, encountering little success with her vacuum cleaner impersonation, my torturer thrust me back onto the bed and meddled inexpertly with everything else while I wracked my brains for an excuse to escape. Eureka! I had no condoms – neither did she so we couldn’t do it!

“It’s safe,” she whispered. “I’m wearing a diaphragm.”

What followed was an embarrassing replay of my night of carnal displeasure with the Scottish lassie. After a great deal of tiresome manipulation, I forced the knob in. She wriggled in deluded anticipation. I fiddled around some more and managed to force in another inch but being unable now to look at Perfection groaning in apparently endless orgasm, things were shrinking fast. Eventually, after much ineffective thrusting we both faked frenzied paroxysms of excitation.

The following morning, she was outside our door waiting to invite me up again that night. I made excuses. The next day Perfection came and abused me for abusing and dumping. She had sacrificed her virginity for me. A decent man would marry her! I had no excuses that would be acceptable. I'd been dishonest and must pay the price. Angry looks and unpleasant remarks about both my character and masculinity whenever I encountered Perfection failed to dent either my steely determination, or my unrequited lust.

Alwyn thought it funny. Edgar sympathised which earned him a cuddle and permission to practice fellatio after dinner in my room if Alwyn fell asleep in front of television. He explained that South Africa was now out of the Commonwealth, so the girl only had a temporary residence permit. Unless she married a British subject soon, she would be sent home. I felt pity, but not enough to commit hara-kiri!

Everyone was raving about the Christmas decorations in Regent and Oxford Streets – the best since the war. So I took a look. I've never understood adult desire for tinsel; to me it was a total waste of money. One’s ‘amazement’ lasted all of two minutes before the lights became merely a backdrop scarcely more interesting than street lighting. Kids were satisfied with the miraculous animated window displays in department stores, so it wasn’t for them.

The millions of pounds spent on those enormous electrified garlands, as well as the gigantic tree in Trafalgar Square sent over by the Norwegian Government, was money down the drain. As bad as fireworks. [A few years ago, the Queensland government couldn’t afford $25,000 for an Aboriginal volunteer group desperate to buy a utility truck so they could patrol the town at night; but spent two million dollars on a fireworks display that barely animated a populace sated with extravagance].

Humans seldom get their priorities right. And it’s not just the English. That Christmas, thousands of Netherlanders flew to London to do their Christmas shopping! London was the place to buy. Everything was cheaper and there was a better selection of presents no one wanted than in Holland or anywhere else in Europe. Not for the first time, human idiocy and waste sent me into a spiral of depression and anger, making me not very nice to be near.

Conspicuous consumption – the English are especially good at that. If you were obscenely wealthy then your chauffeur could take you shopping to Selfridges and Harrods, park the Rolls illegally – there were no parking fines given to Rolls Royce owners – and then trail you around the store carrying the lap-dog and your purchases while you spent a worker’s weekly wage on ‘a little fruit for the table.’ Benson and Hedges epitomised this attitude with their advertisement – “Benson and Hedges; the most expensive cigarettes you can buy.” They topped the sales charts!

Christmas Day arrived. I'd told Alwyn and Edgar I'd be spending it with a group of colonials in Earl's Court. At breakfast they gave me a present – huge embarrassment as presents never cross my mind. It was a small book of poems by A. E. Houseman that I treasure to this day. ‘The Laws of God, The Laws of Man’, and ‘The Colour of His Hair’ remain two of my favourite poems; powerful indictments of religious and political oppression.

It was cold but clear. Well-wrapped, I followed the river to the city, crossed to the new South Bank development, then back up to Battersea Fun Park. Won a ballpoint pen at Bingo; was spun on the giant centrifuge [I was the only one who could stand out at right angles to the wall] took a few more rides; ate fish and chips followed by saveloys in batter washed down with cola, then up through Sloane Square to Hyde Park; west through Kensington. Gobbled peas, pie, chips, and eggs in a pie cart; arriving home about 7.00pm. My best Christmas day ever.

Two days later a telegram: Rigby. Meet at Shipley hotel 1.00 p.m. It was from Jeremy’s father. Alwyn told me to be careful – parents are protective of their offspring and if they smelled a whiff of sexual impropriety I'd be taking Jeremy’s place as Lady Macbeth!

The Hotel was Paddington passing itself off as Bayswater; a residence of faded gentility and chintz curtains. I was freezing by the time I arrived, despite a new lambskin half-length coat, skin-tight ski trousers, calf-length boots, and a Russian style fur hat. Jeremy’s father was waiting in the foyer. He shook my hand solemnly then led me down the road to a café [pronounced kaff]. Sipping tea in a quiet corner he informed me that I had subverted the peaceful running of his household.

My heart skipped a beat.

Apparently unaware that his son had already confided in me, he explained, with what I imagined to be quiet menace, that it was not only my performance in Macbeth that had prompted Jeremy to apply to join our company, but my lack of clothing in Sweeney Todd. After seeing the show Jeremy and his mother never stopped talking about the sexy young naked man. Then at school Jeremy had been caught in flagrante delicto with another young lad in a broom cupboard, and summarily expelled.

I pretended surprise.

Instead of admonishing her son, his mother had joined him in discussing what sort of boys he fancied while planning the roles he would have when he became an actor. They had been very relieved when Jeremy was selected to join our company, but when he’d arrived home for Christmas and regaled them with every detail of his entry into professional theatre – including his sexual relationship with me… The voice tailed off leaving a portentous silence.

My heart fluttered off into space.

“It wasn’t…”

The father heaved a sigh of resignation “I know, I know. Jeremy always manages to get what he wants.”

“But I only… and he…”

The father wasn’t listening.

“Sir, I accept that as I'm seven years older I should have refused. I'm sorry.”

“Sorry? What for? I thought you blokes enjoyed a bit of sodomy.”

“You mean you don’t mind that he’s…?”

“Good lord, no! I’m sixty-five and beyond caring about such trifles. I'm a lawyer and believe me a bit of bonking among young men is not the source of society’s problems. As long as he’s happy, that’s all that matters. His older sister’s divorced and offloads her brood on us far too often, and his older brother’s being sued for maintenance by at least two women. Queer can only be better than that!”

I breathed short-lived relief.

“My worry is something else. Please don’t be offended but I've made an appointment for you to be checked by a specialist in sexually transmitted diseases.”

“But I haven’t any…”

His patronising smile silenced protest. I had no idea whether I’d picked anything up, so we walked a couple of blocks to an unimpressive door behind which an impressive gentleman in tweed suit and waistcoat, stunning gold watch chain across his corpulence and a stethoscope round his neck, ordered me to strip.

“You’ve had lice!”

“No!”

“Then why have you shaved your body?”

I explained about my Sweeney costume and the brief Caesar and Macbeth costumes, and that the director considered hair on legs, chests and other bits to be aesthetically displeasing on a stage. He grunted, then tapped and prodded, listened and observed, and did what doctors used to do and still should – checked my tongue, pulse, breath and sweat odour, skin quality, reflexes, diaphragm, lungs, spine, feet, scalp…. a long but simple list of diagnostic procedures that, if still used, would spare the country the expense of most of the x-rays, scans, blood tests and other hi-tech nonsense that have replaced observation and common sense.

After an intrusive but not unpleasant inspection of every orifice, I was declared haemorrhoid-free, infection-free, and disability-free, with the heart and lungs of a horse and the reflexes of a fly. After relieving me of a flask of urine and a test-tube of blood to be screened for diseases unable to be otherwise diagnosed, I was released.

Jeremy’s dad puffed along beside me back to the hotel, chirruping about his impending retirement and a tropical cruise – without Jeremy. He didn't bother to conceal a smile of satisfaction as he said that.

A lift brought us to the fourth-floor private sitting room where Jeremy sat reading while his mother dozed in front of a gas fire. She turned with a smile.

“It’s the sailor! Did you know the tiny bit of cloth went totally transparent when they threw the water over you?”

Jeremy laughed. His father harrumphed.

“Every woman in the village would like to sleep with you,” she said as if informing me of the state of her rose garden.

“That sounds exhausting,” I replied, hoping I'd achieved a similar air of insouciance.

“But Jeremy informs us you’re homosexually inclined. Tea?”

I sat beside their son on the settee, sipping weak tea and dunking rock cakes, wondering if they were insane, having me on, or delightfully liberal. Despite my well-honed diversionary tactics they proved superior in the conversation stakes and I remained the sole topic.

Charming inquisitiveness combined with steely determination meant they eventually knew both my provenance and philosophy of life in all its shallowness. No sordid details, though! I'm not that soft in the head. But the pleasure of being with a charming, intelligent family, their seemingly genuine interest in me and my life undermined my guard and when the mother said I moved like a dancer I laughed and repeated Hazel’s assessment of my abilities.

She sighed deeply. “Ahhh… dancing. I learned classical ballet, but marriage and children… I would love to see you dance. Please?”

I didn't think it was quite the place to prance around naked, but agreed to perform a comic mime I'd been working on.

In The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter, a sweet young thing skips out to pick flowers and is seduced by a young lad. Father sees it from the lighthouse and suffers a heart attack. Sweet young thing discovers father, finds doctor, then undertakers who carry the corpse down. I play all six parts and the humour lies in the facial expressions and the manner in which they each mount and descend the narrow spiral staircase [five circuits each time] starting off OK but becoming progressively exhausted.

My little audience laughed with enough gusto to convince me I hadn't made a total fool of myself and then it was time to go.

Jeremy stood and picked up a suitcase. “I’m coming with you. Mum rang Mr. Fox and he said it would be a good idea for me to stay with you at his place in London, so I can be properly prepared.”

“But… there’s no room!”

“He said I can share yours.”

“It’s a single bed.”

“There’s a folding bed in the storeroom.”

I turned to his mother. “I’m unreliable,”

“You’re every mother’s ideal chaperone. Jeremy told us you get plenty of sleep, don’t drink, smoke, or waste your money. Be firm and don’t let him run you ragged.”

From the haste with which the parents hustled us out the door, I gathered they were as determinedly pleased to be shot of their self-willed youngest son as Alwyn was to keep him!

Chapter 21: Orgy

Orgy. The word conjures up a mysterious room filled with bronzed naked bodies bathed in pools of amber light, writhing in serpentine ecstasy in an ambience warm and heady with exotic perfumes, while slaves offer grapes, and wine in silver goblets, and naked youths sway sensuously to languid harmonies from lute and flute.

Hazel was a demanding employer. The naked butler was to be a ‘catalyst of liberation’ for the guests from the moment of entry into the mansion. Therefore, if possible I should be at least partially aroused on greeting them, thus giving them ‘permission’ to do as they liked from the word go. Then directly after dinner I had to ‘disport’ with the maids on the dining table to set a suitable tone for the rest of the evening and remove any lingering inhibitions in the guests.

Despite my reservations it appeared to work; guests who arrived irritable, pinched and nervous, perked up remarkably; although it’s just as likely their sudden rush of bonhomie was relief at entering a warm house after trudging through freezing sleet. Whatever the cause, by five o'clock twenty relaxed and increasingly frisky strangers of both sexes between the ages of thirty and fifty, in a bizarre assortment of “twenties” style beaded, fringed, low waisted skimpy frocks, dinner suits and tails were sipping cocktails in the drawing room, served, like Katherine Mansfield’s somewhat more literary crowd, by a nude butler and, unlike Mansfield, two maids in nothing but frilly aprons.

Dinner was a decadent affair of a dozen courses around an immense, candlelit table glittering with crystal and silver, during which the maids and I endured timid groping from both sexes. Hazel was absent the entire evening, apparently attending to the catering while leaving it to her right-hand-man to preside in his dinner suit from the head of the table. His wife, a buxom woman in jewels and little else, held court at the foot.

After the fruit and cheese were removed and glasses refilled, the maids and I ‘disported’ on the table top. They pleasured each other while I stood over them with an ineffective toy whip; a sort of impious umpire.

Leaving the sumptuous dining room we descended to the ‘dungeons’, where, reclining on low couches in the well-heated, blue-carpeted, dimly-lit cellar, clients were plied with cheap wine and entertained by the brutish copulation of the naked and hugely hung right-hand-man and his bejewelled Frau, which prompted in their enraptured audience a frantic abandonment of clothes and inhibitions in unconstrained orgiastic frenzy.

As Rudyard Kipling didn't write: - If you keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, then you’ll be disgusted!

The writhing, cavorting, grunting, heaving, fucking, and licking in a miasma of smoke and intoxicating fumes would have turned the stomachs of a cage of randy baboons. That all participants, both male and female, expected others to lust over their unlovely carcasses indicated either egregious conceit, or unmitigated insensitivity – or both.

If I had resembled any one of them I'd have hanged myself! Active pimples, varicose veins, bruises, sickly white flab, dirty toenails, sagging tits and bums, scrawny arms, thin legs, bloated bellies, body odour, bad breath… It can only have been the befuddling effects of alcohol and the white powder some were sniffing that permitted them to parade their degenerate corpses and take pleasure from the touch of others equally repellent. Orgies, I realised, are for those too unattractive to find partners in normal circumstances. An exceedingly valuable lesson.

Poor Katherine Mansfield; used as an excuse for debauchery. She paid for her naughtiness with the physical and mental agony of gonorrhoea and a long and painful decline from tuberculosis, which, perversely, seemed to ignite her creative drive, as her best works were written during those sad days.

By the time they ran out of energy in the small hours, the floor was littered with comatose bodies – even more disgusting in repose. I grabbed a few hours’ sleep in the Butler’s room. Only five guests appeared for breakfast, the others let themselves out and disappeared. My announcement when Hazel handed me my wages that I would probably not be available again, sparked no outpouring of grief. She merely nodded and turned to greet three head-scarfed cleaning ladies who had arrived to mop up the vomit, stains, spilled food, semen, and wine.

Jeremy’s tastes did not coincide with mine. I sat in awe before Turner’s paintings at the Tate Gallery while he practised seduction on a spotty youth who’d come in out of the rain. Joan Sutherland in La Traviata at Covent Garden triggered a spasm of yawning in Jeremy; gooseflesh and cascades of tears from me. The bombast of Beethoven at the Albert Hall thrilled him but had me checking my watch. Jeremy arrived home ecstatic over a Beatles concert that I couldn’t be bothered to waste money on. I worshipped the enduring beauty of the classics – he adored the ephemeral thrill of superficial emotion.

Naturally, being Goon Show fans we both enjoyed to the point of hysteria Spike Milligan in his own play, The Bed Sitting Room. Not surprising considering the cast: Ralph Richardson, Arthur Lowe, Rita Tushingham, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Michael Hordern, Marty Feldman, and Harry Secombe.

Harry Secombe in Oliver, however, failed to please either of us, although the set was very clever, and the boys sang well.

Unlike most of today’s young people who have never been asked to clean their rooms, do their washing, mow lawns, dig gardens, or contribute to family welfare, Jeremy, like me, had been expected to take responsibility for himself. Not for us an allowance without having to perform sometimes onerous tasks around the house and garden. He was truly independent and prepared to take responsibility for both his successes and failures.

On condition this was a one-off and merely to gain insight as an actor, Jeremy suggested he go dancing dressed as a girl. I could see no harm in that, so we stitched together a mini skirt and found high heels and a suitable top in the theatre wardrobe. Natural shoulder-length dark blond hair and a minimum of makeup turned him into a presentable, if not beautiful young woman.

Blokes fancied him, pressing their crotches against him and massaging his bum while dancing. He didn't like it, and neither did I. It had been a stupid idea. Guys had been seriously beaten up or thrown in prison for pretending to be girls. Fearful some randy male would go too far, I took him home. He reckoned he was very pleased not to be a girl!

By the time we were ready to leave for Bristol he had mastered words and moves for Tempest, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Merchant and Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as our new ‘adult’ play, The Apollo of Bath, which was Alwyn’s very free translation and adaptation of L’Apollon de Bellac by Giradoux.

Set in the foyer of a large corporation, Apollo revolves around a young girl’s failure to be taken seriously by her male employers. In the original, ‘Apollo’ is a down-and-out tramp-like figure (therefore ‘invisible’ to the businessmen) who instructs the young woman to say with sincerity to every man she meets, “How handsome you are!” She follows his advice and all men become putty in her hands.

Alwyn, in his inspired pursuit of bums on seats and therefore a suitable vehicle for nudity, replaced the vagrant with a naked statue of Apollo that miraculously descends from his plinth at the side of the stage, befriends Agnes and dispenses advice, while every other actor remains oblivious.

Alwyn maintained the light-hearted, almost fey air of the piece, while never losing sight of the underlying truths. Always careful to be even-handed in apportioning roles, he offered Terry the part of Apollo. Although grateful, he refused, well aware that his steroid enhanced muscles had been built at the expense of his genitals. Hal jumped at the offer until Alwyn told him to strip. There were only the seven of us sitting around the room, but Hal was suddenly overcome by shyness. The ability to feel relaxed and correctly dressed when naked among fully dressed people in drawing room, studio, or theatre, is not a gift that everyone enjoys so, as intended, I was the one to be shaved smooth and swabbed with bronze body paint.

When in Bristol we stayed in the old gaol – up the hill from the city centre. It had been converted into a hostel but remained bleak. Small barred windows in bare rooms that opened onto the echoing central well. I kept thinking of the misery of past inhabitants.

The city itself was dull. It would be another few years before there was enough money to clean up and prettify the town. Shop facades in need of paint, shop windows small and unattractive, a large messy and dim arcade. Nothing remained of the romantic, bustling port city of old except for several large metal bollards in the marketplace that Alwyn said were the original ‘nails’ where merchants would pay their backers – giving rise to the expression ‘pay on the nail’.

Alwyn found a somewhat decaying hall with a nice little stage that the council was renting to anyone who could pay the rent. Apollo was only a moderate success because instead of the ribald romp that nudity promised, patrons were presented with a play that took an amusing and intelligent swipe at many social stupidities.

Our audience numbers were not on a par with the Bristol Old Vic, the oldest theatre company in Britain and one of the most prestigious theatres outside London. In those days the Company inhabited an unimpressive building that has since been remodelled. We saw Ibsen’s Hedda Gabbler. Well-acted, of course, but it confirmed my opinion that ‘free’ humans are, for the most part, the authors of their own misery. When I expressed that opinion to Alwyn he said I was too stupid to understand the beauty of the work. He was probably right. One day I’ll read it again.

An all-male environment is relaxing. Men get absorbed in their work and seldom start arguments. They're also less demanding of food and comfort. We were happy to grab a pie and bottle of Coke and sit in a park, or even go without food if we were late. The schools were spread far and wide so we frequently spent days away from Bristol. I slept in the van, or, if it wasn’t raining, under the stars. No one gossiped or created tensions by playing one off against the other. All jobs were shared equally, and it was surprising how much time we saved by not having to find toilets (we just slipped behind a hedge) or wait for the ‘girls’ to make themselves presentable in the morning.

Jeremy soon learned how not to get himself upstaged or to upstage others. Rolando’s old women, maids, and similar characters were thoroughly convincing and neither actor overplayed their roles. All teachers were pleasantly surprised. Shakespeare’s women are as determined, courageous, and ‘worthy’ as any man, and therefore not demeaning to play. And there’s no sex. No one kisses, smooches, or fucks on stage so there was nothing to complain about.

Deliberately looking butch after a show, Jeremy was asked for as many autographs as any of us – which settled his nerves. He had no need to worry; there was nothing camp in his performances. The female caricatures that drag queens love to portray bear no resemblance to real women – which is why so many gays (including me) dislike them.

More stone and less red brick was the main difference between West Country schools and those of the Midlands, and the season passed without hitches until our entry in the West Country Shakespearian Festival had us denounced from several county pulpits and threatened with closure by the police.

Chapter 22: Time Out

Alwyn hadn’t always been a travelling player; he’d owned the Horsham Repertory Company until its financial collapse a few years previously. Actors had fewer and fewer choices now TV had stolen audiences, and touring Shakespeare to schools was an embarrassing comedown for him. As if to compensate for his drop in theatrical status, Alwyn delved ever deeper into the Bard’s texts, arriving at obscure interpretations and cryptic intentions.

In The Tempest, for example, he was adamant that each character represented but a single aspect of the human psyche. Alwyn as Prospero was ‘intellect’; Hal as his usurping brother was ‘iniquity’; Edgar’s Ariel was ‘cunning ingenuity’; Terry’s Caliban in slime-green greasepaint would embody ‘brutishness’; Jeremy’s demure Miranda was ‘innocence’; Rolando as Trinculo and the drunks represented ‘humanity and wit’.

In Renaissance art (Shakespeare was a Renaissance man) purity, honesty and truth were portrayed as naked men or women – hence the naked truth. Thus, as Ferdinand who personified those qualities, I would be naked. This, Alwyn insisted, was called for in the script when Miranda says at her first sight of Ferdinand, “I might call him a thing divine, for nothing natural I ever saw so noble.” Natural, he insisted, meant the same as in naturists – nudity. About fifteen years later the BBC thought so too with a naked Ferdinand in their ‘Made for TV’ Shakespearian series.

Foolishly enthralled at the prospect of portraying ‘A Thing Divine’, I asked Alwyn if I had a future in acting. He choked on his biscuit. “You aren’t an actor!” he spluttered. “You’re always the same – yourself as you want the rest of the world to see you!” I wasn’t hurt so much as shocked at how little he understood the subtlety of my acting.

“Remember The Executioner?” he added heartlessly. I hoped he’d forgotten my attempt to show the ‘decent side’ of an ugly, evil, killer in Grand Guignol. The fact that he was correct didn’t sugar the pill. So what if I preferred to play heroes? And why did he keep me on if I was so useless?

“Someone has to play the virile good-guys,” he said without malice. “The others aren’t butch enough - and you’re competent; which is more than can be said for most people who call themselves actors.”

Having rebooted my ego, he told me that at Horsham Repertory he’d also taken on a masculine young man for the same reason. The fellow eventually found his vocation in films and, according to Alwyn, was about to become very famous. His stage name was Michael Caine. [It was an accurate prediction as not long afterwards Caine’s performance in Zulu launched him on the road to stardom.]

In Caine’s autobiography, he writes about his theatrical initiation with the irascible Alwyn D. Fox, along with the sad fact that Alwyn died alone in a Hammersmith hostel for penurious old men, bragging till the end that he had ‘discovered’ Michael Caine.

I often wonder what happened to Edgar. For a while I felt guilty at failing to maintain contact, but I've never kept in touch with anyone – always made friends then moved on, severing ties. Once people’s paths diverge they develop differently and the bonds that secured the friendship dissolve.

The Shakespearian Festival was held on a Saturday in the courtyard of a restored medieval farmhouse a few miles south of Bristol. The audience would perch on flimsy tiers of wooden planks on three sides, with the stage protruding from the fourth. For the posters, Alwyn had submitted a photo of the cast that included an arty glimpse of my buttocks. The festival program was two, one-hour excerpts from different plays by local amateur dramatic societies in the morning, and another two in the afternoon, to be followed in the evening by our full-length version of The Tempest.

Both morning and afternoon performances were pretty awful. Saggy stockings and pantaloons; fluffed and forgotten lines and such a confusion of bodies it seemed that every member of each drama group had been permitted to tread the boards. It didn't matter. The audience was mostly composed of relatives and friends determined to enjoy themselves, and it meant we didn’t have to worry about comparisons.

Edgar, ethereal in silvery tights, flitted athletically around his master, triggering excited murmurs from the expectant audience. Caliban, scarcely human, writhing under the onslaught of Prospero's curses, earned spontaneous applause. They were hooked! It was going to be a success!

Act One, scene 2. My entrance. A half-drowned prince dragged himself onto the stage, drawn on by Ariel’s eerie song. Seeking its source, he stood, staggered, gazed around… “Where should this music be? I’ the air or…”

At that moment, a group in the centre of the audience stood and shouted that I was an obscenity and an insult to the god-fearing… or similar absurdities. In utter silence, two helmeted policemen marched onto the stage, grasped an arm each and frog-marched me off. The festival was over, and it began to rain.

At the police station Alwyn’s impassioned plea for ‘Art’, and my honest anguish that I had caused offence, convinced the arresting officer to merely bind me over to keep the peace – or something equally kinky. The last thing I want to do is shock people. I want them to be amused, entertained, aroused; but never shocked, disgusted or upset.

It helped to learn later that it was an organised protest from a tiny religious minority and the rest of the audience were furious with them, not me. But it remained a very nasty experience because I knew if the police suspected I was queer they'd toss me into a cell with rapists and murderers.

[It appears audiences are becoming more prudish. In a production of King Lear by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford in April 2007, Sir Ian McKellen’s Lear was naked in the last act. This provoked outrage among theatregoers who are happy to see murder and mayhem on stage, but want warnings posted in the foyer if an old man bares his pubes as the script indicates. Whereas in the sixties, I saw Robert Stephens play Lear at Stratford, when Simon Russell Beale as Edgar finished the play naked… with no audience outrage.]

The following morning, we received a mention in provincial papers and learned that pulpits rang with denunciations of the permissiveness attacking the foundations of society. It wasn’t good publicity. Cancellations from several religiously inclined schools and the withdrawal of permission to stage The Apollo of Bath, forced Alwyn to reschedule the two remaining schools so we could pack up a week early for the Easter school holidays.

As we sat glumly considering our misfortunes, a telephone call from the drama department of the university invited us to perform Tempest in their theatre that evening for a satisfactory fee. Relief swamped us. All that work hadn't been for nothing and we drove across to set up. The theatre was intimate; circular with terraced seating encircling the acting area except for a narrow passageway on one side for the actors to enter through curtains. Students helped us construct a roof to represent Prospero’s cave. It couldn’t have sides otherwise half the audience couldn’t see what was going on.

Theatre-in-the-round was new to all of us and it was difficult to know which way to face or even where to walk. Stage right and left had no meaning, nor did upstage and downstage. Eventually we decided to simply pretend we were actually on an island, play it as it came, and ignore the audience who would be so close the front row would have to rest their feet on the acting area. At least in such an intimate space there'd be no problem with projection. Even with our backs to the audience they could still hear the slightest whisper making it an even more realistic experience. We had a walk through and reckoned we’d be OK.

And we were. The place was packed, and the mainly youthful audience loved every bit. It was exhilarating to act in what felt like an island of light in the midst of darkness. ‘Prospero’s Island’ became as real to us as it did to the audience and I wished it could always be like that. There's no doubt the height of a normal stage above the audience and the proscenium create a distance between audience and actors that is often unbridgeable.

They stamped their feet and clapped at the end, erupting onto the ’stage’ to shake hands and discuss the play, acting, the future, what it was like to be a professional, how to find work, what it felt like to be naked in front of an audience and how terrible it was that the play had been stopped by wowsers. We literally had to drag ourselves from their enthusiastic grasp to change, or in my case put something on, pack the van, and depart. I couldn’t imagine a more uplifting finale.

Exhaustion is the constant companion of itinerant actors, with afternoon and evening performances, travelling, setting up and dismantling the stage. My problem is that I have but two speeds – flat out or stopped. I'd been flat out for weeks and, while still loving the acting, had become drained, filthy-tempered and depressed by grey skies, cold, damp, ugly people and the prospect of at least three months more of the same dispiriting weather until summer – if it ever arrived!

My moody outbursts had become as embarrassing to me as everyone else, so no one attempted to dissuade me when I stopped the van in a village fifty-miles east of Bristol, wished them a happy Easter and said I’d see them in four weeks. Hal could drive the rest of the way.

Someone had told me Morocco was the place to go in winter, so there I was headed, having bought Thomas Cook Travellers Cheques, a rucksack, and sleeping bag. When I turned up at the village railway station, however, the line had been closed. Every ‘uneconomical’ branch line in Britain was being shut down, the lone attendant informed me, leaving only profit-making routes. I was stunned. They were destroying the greatest railway network the world had seen, replacing it with a mish-mash of motorways that ended at the outskirts of cities. We could drive from Birmingham to the edge of London in an hour, but it took another hour or more of virtual gridlock to drive the remaining 20 miles home. Only insanity could have inspired the squandering of beautiful land on millions of acres of multilane highways, overpasses, gigantic interchanges, vast parking spaces for huge restaurants and service areas, with no thought for the obvious consequences.

I think it was pressure from car manufacturers. The British auto industry was still churning out cars, but the warning signs were clear to everyone. The Rootes Group, Nuffield, Standard, Rover, Jaguar and other smaller marques were being throttled by union demands. Manufacturers hoped better roads would create demand and boost profits. There was demand all right, but not for too expensive and unwieldy local cars, and the mighty British automotive industry is history. Predictably, all cities were soon experiencing traffic jams, pollution, noise, ring-road construction, and endless expense.

I’ve always considered it a citizen’s duty to point out mistakes to those who want to govern, therefore, I wrote to the Minister of Transport, advising Mrs. Castle it would cost less to upgrade the rail network and provide free public transport over all of the British Isles, paid for by increased freight, than to continue with her crazy motorway plans that would only end in ineradicable urban congestion. She signed her reply, which was polite, and I imagine the British Government are now wishing they'd heeded my warnings as the country grinds to a halt and poisons itself with exhaust fumes.

Hitch-hiking was the only alternative, and within minutes a Humber Super Snipe, driven by the relatively youthful owner of Thorensen Line – a new ferry service plying between Southampton and Le Havre – took me to Southampton. We chatted amiably, and he generously organised a free berth for me on that night’s crossing.

While waiting for the ferry I saw Fellini’s ‘8½’ in a small ‘art’ cinema. I thought it insane then, and a recent screening on TV confirmed this opinion. As we floated down the harbour, a hovercraft enthralled everyone by attempting to burst our eardrums as it roared past. How modern! How fucking awful!

My cabin companion, a taciturn wine importer from Lancashire, was too polite to refuse to take me to Bordeaux when I offered to share the driving. Two more lifts the following day took me to the foot of the Pyrenees south of Pau, where I slept in a dry culvert.

At daybreak a hike of about 20 kilometres up the pass through magnificent mountain scenery brought me to the border. The French guards shook their heads in amused disbelief and waved me through; the Spaniards thought I was a Basque terrorist or worse; were suspicious and unfriendly; inspected everything and manhandled me unpleasantly before grudgingly granting entry to their fear-filled realm.

I had no knowledge then of the politics of Spain, but this was an unpleasant foretaste. I hadn’t even heard of the Civil War and didn't realise Franco was a dictator. The monetary exchange rate, however, made up for the unpleasantness and as everything seemed incredibly cheap I splurged on a third-class train ticket to Jaca, where I spruced up in the station and stepped into a world of perfectly coiffed, handsome, slim, olive-skinned young men with sculpted lips and firm jaws, dressed impeccably in neat dark slacks, white shirts, and shiny shoes.

It wasn’t the ‘fashionable’ style of France, but the more enduring ‘classical’ simplicity that renders the wearer perfectly dressed no matter what the occasion. In my jeans, scuffed desert boots, and black shirt I felt like a tramp. Worse, their faces were smooth, unlined, calm and yet lively. They greeted each other with genuine smiles and when they laughed, which was often, their eyes flashed. The shock on seeing my reflection in a shop window has left lasting trauma. Deep vertical lines of tension scored my brow. My mouth a thin hard line. I looked anxious, stressed, old, and ill tempered. I would not have wanted to know me.

The Guardia Civil were everywhere in their evil shiny hats with the back turned up so they can stand against a wall and spy. The mere sight of them made me nervous – and that was before I knew of the horrors that secret service had perpetrated. Despite my miserable mug, everyone was friendly and open until the Guardia came into view. Tourists in Jaca were as common as hens’ teeth, so I was not charged for my meal of bread, sausage, tomatoes, and well-watered wine. I bought a pair of rope-soled shoes, neat trousers and a white shirt, then attempted to hitch to Madrid.

The only cars were small Seats (rhymes with Fiat); the Spanish version of Fiat. Hardly anyone could afford them and the few that passed were full. Trucks belching diesel fumes were jammed with passengers as well as goods. The road, a narrow strip of seal, bordered by dust. Six hours convinced me hitch-hiking was not an option, so I endured third-class in a Rapido – the slow train that stops at every station. Wooden seats, surrounded by fat mothers shouting, “Jose, Maria, aqui!” as they peeled boiled eggs, tore open bread rolls, and gossiped while their scrawny, wrinkled husbands drank wine from basket-covered bottles and smoked foul-smelling cigarettes.

Windows didn't close, rain swept in, wind howled, I froze and gratefully accepted food from one of the suspicious but sympathetic women, obviously wondering why a ‘rich northerner’ was not only travelling third-class, but making such a trip unprepared. I had to be on the run from something. Proudly, she refused payment.

Evening in Madrid. As cold as London but not raining. Streets full of handsome young people strolling, sitting in cafés, chatting. Beautifully presented young men sent testosterone surging and the sexual frustration that had been building for weeks threatened to explode.

I bought a coffee and roll in an almost empty bar – chosen because of the handsome waiter who winked at me as I passed. After a friendly chat in heavily-accented English he asked where I was staying, told me I'd be arrested if I slept in a park, and offered to put me up so he could practise speaking English, because he hoped to go to London the following year to earn real money as a waiter.

His room, at the end of a dark corridor, was cold, drab-green and tiny, furnished with a bed surmounted by a plastic crucifix, one hard-backed chair, a small table, and a hand basin in which we washed thoroughly before leaping into bed.

We talked for hours and I learned that most of the ‘beautiful young men’ would be living as poorly as he. They wandered the streets day and night because they hadn’t enough money to do anything else. Their well cared for clothes were probably the only respectable ones they had, and in their hearts they were sick with misery at the hopelessness of their prospects.

My young man’s mother lived in a village in the north. He sent her as much money as he could spare to support her and his sister. His father had ‘disappeared’ ten years previously. “The Guardia,” he whispered, looking around furtively as if expecting them to pop out from under the bed. It wasn’t funny. I also learned that the crucifix was for his landlady – he despised religion, and like so many young men in countries where girls are constantly chaperoned, was happy to satisfy natural desires for bodily contact with other young men. As we parted in the morning I thrust a few thousand pesetas into his hand. “For your mother!” I insisted through vehement protests. He couldn’t refuse that.

Anglo-centred education had left me ignorant. Spain meant only Armadas and inquisitions. We hadn’t been told about the horrors of British colonialism and the terror regimes of Calvin and Knox. The British were superior beings in every way. Yeah, right, but they weren’t as friendly, generous and hospitable as some of the Spanish people I met.

Madrid was astonishingly beautiful. Grand boulevards, parks and magnificent architecture placed it among the most beautiful cities I'd seen, and yet I’d never heard its praises. Foolishly, I wore sandals. While idly absorbing the lively, cosmopolitan ambience of Plaza Del Sol, I was accosted by a woman who, covering the eyes of her two young offspring, hurled abuse. She was followed by three nuns who hissed that I was an affront to decency; pointing at my bare toes.

Shocked at the intensity of their disgust I hastened into a side street and swapped sandals for shoes.

What a difference a few years makes. Spain has thrown off the yoke of religion and is now among the most liberal of countries, allows gay marriage and adoption, and films containing nudity are common. Meanwhile, Australians seem to hanker for a return to Medieval theocracy.

For uncountable hours I peered through soot-smeared windows, numb-bummed, aching and cold as the train rattled slowly south. If I’d realised how far Morocco was I would never have set off. On the map it looked like nothing, but it was a voyage to the end of the earth. The railway takes the shortest route between points so usually missed villages by miles.

In Seville, while changing from a regular train to a type of old bus that ran on the rails, the platform was full of angry-looking women dressed flamboyantly in hundreds of petticoats. I’d also not heard of the Easter Feria, and wouldn’t have wanted to see it if I had. Religious festivals depress me. What do they celebrate? Their misery? Stupidity? Always repressive religion. That people living in grinding poverty should waste their money on frippery is insane. Families sometimes spend their lives in debt to pay for the finery of their child’s first communion. A decent religion would ban such nonsense.

Algeciras was warm, but Morocco would be warmer, so I took the first ferry to Tangiers. Disembarking visitors were accosted by boys offering cheap tours, hotels, hashish, sex. I pretended to understand nothing until they gave up. Tourists who agreed to a guided tour usually found themselves loudly and publicly abused at the end until embarrassment made them hand over far more money than the brief look around had been worth.

Every human type bustled through the narrow streets of the old town, and promenaded in the Grand Socco. Berbers, Arabs in woollen jellabas and yellow babouches, their women in blue or green gabardine, hoods up and a gauzy cloth covering nose and mouth. Every possible mixture of race bartered, sold, carried, chatted, inspected, and conducted animated business.

All roads led to the Petit Socco, the lively hub of small commerce. Behind the square, Hotel Chairen advertised double rooms at four dirhams a night. As I pondered the expense a large, pale, red-headed young man from the U.S.A. who had been pestering me on the ferry, tapped me on the shoulder and offered to share the room. He'd been following me! Foolishly I agreed. Dumping my rucksack in the sparsely furnished, airy, clean, green-painted room, I took off alone to explore.

Snake-charmers, metal workers, cloth merchants, food stalls, carpet makers, leather merchants, shoe makers, water sellers… all peddled their wares in open-fronted shops in the Kasbah. Glimpses of courtyards, flashy brass pots, barred windows, Arab music, strange and enticing odours… This was real! It wasn’t a film set or tourist trap. This was how the locals lived!

Young women sat chatting in cafés, jellabas parting to reveal elegant legs in sheer stockings and high heels. Delicately they lifted yashmaks and puffed on cigarettes stained with lipstick. In other cafés men sat around hookahs, drinking tea, eyeing passing traffic. So many different styles and types of clothing were on display I felt at home in jeans, shirt, and scuff sandals. Several people spoke to me in Arabic, asking the time, offering goods for sale. My aim as a traveller is always to pass for a local, so although my Arabic was non-existent, at least I didn’t look out of place. The Yank was out when I returned, so I stripped and sprawled on top of the bed, surrendering to heat and exhaustion.

I awoke to a nightmare. The room was almost dark and something large and heavy was squashing the air from my lungs. Fruitlessly I attempted to heave off the moist, flabby object before realising it was the Yank – naked and snorting with the effort of holding me still while thrusting his erection against my belly. Pummelling his back only caused him to increase the pressure on my windpipe. “You’re a filthy slut!” he snarled. “Lying there naked to tempt me. I know you want it so you’re going to get it!” Not being well-placed to refuse his offer I lay limply till he'd deposited a gob of North American semen and, wheezing slightly, clambered off and returned to his bed, passion spent.

I wasn’t damaged. It had been unpleasant, but perhaps he was right. I should have realised he might return and imagine I was trying to seduce him. Some guys have no idea of their basic unattractiveness. I'd given him the brush-off on the ferry – perhaps this was revenge. Arousing uncontrollable lust in others certainly gives a fillip to the ego, but I felt soiled so washed myself thoroughly in the hand basin, scrubbing somewhat ostentatiously at the ‘contamination’. Self-esteem restored, an exotic Arabian night awaited.

Pimps prowled the Petit Socco, offering women, girls, men, boys, or whatever took one’s fancy. A kid of about fifteen – pale skin and rich curly chestnut hair took a fancy to me. Goodness knows what his parentage was. He wouldn’t have looked out of place in Scotland. He was selling hashish and sex. When I turned down his offer of a girl, he suggested a boy, then offered himself and followed me around, pleading with me to go with him for sex. It would be free because he really liked me and wanted me.

Flattering, but who would be waiting at his place to strip me of my belongings before committing rape and murder then selling me into slavery? An Australian I’d met in London had foolishly gone with such a fellow in Egypt and ended up raped by half a dozen men from whom he’d contracted hepatitis.

With this cautionary tale in mind I resisted the young fellow’s charms, absorbed the atmosphere and felt alone, starved of affection, stupid, ugly, tired, and sad.

I, the proud loner, was suffering an overwhelming urge to sit with a friend in a café; to wander hand-in-hand and share the experience of Tangiers at night.

Chapter 23: Friendship

The beach the following morning was a wide sandy expanse facing the Straits and Spain. The wind was cold, the water probably partly sewage, but the sun was hot – a perfect cure for depression. Men sunbathed behind wicker wind breaks. No women visible. As I gazed at the view, a perfect specimen of well-endowed manhood in a tiny red bikini, headed purposefully towards me.

Handsome Spaniards are fine and splendid. Handsome Arabs are coarse and splendid with large noses, jaws, eyes, cheekbones, shoulders, hands… They often appear intense; unafraid to expose strong emotions such as delight, concentration, ecstasy, anger… especially self-righteous anger as I was about to experience. What they never seem to suffer is self-doubt.

Gazing arrogantly down he launched into a diatribe.

When he finally realised I wasn’t an Arab, had understood nothing, and my abbreviated swimwear didn't mean I was touting for business on his patch, he calmed down and in sexily accented English asked if I would like to be fucked for five dirhams, shaking his head in disbelief at my refusal. He was offering me half price because he was so attracted to me. Mmm… heard that one before.

Before leaving to find someone more susceptible to his charms, he pointed out a large restaurant built on the sands a short distance up the beach, on the flat roof of which men could sunbathe naked. As a seamless tan is preferable, I wandered nonchalantly through what was clearly an expensive restaurant for well-heeled male tourists, and mounted the stairs.

The flat roof sported recliners and umbrellas and about forty pale, flabby executive-type Europeans between the ages of thirty and eighty. A dozen or so beautiful young men – slim, golden-brown, fit, and healthy, were chatting up the tourists, lounging nonchalantly around the parapet or sitting on mats oiling themselves. I'd stumbled on a few of the hundreds of sex-starved, wealthy Englishmen fleeing the cold and laws of their homeland.

At the time, however, I was as ignorant of this sexually inspired migration as I was of everything else. I'd been to school but had no education. One of the Englishmen might have been Joe Orton who, along with other writers and actors, was wont to enjoy the fleshpots of Tangiers in the halcyon days before his murder. But of course I'd never heard of him so didn't think to look.

The hospitable Tunisian labourers on the French Riviera the previous summer had demonstrated sexual flexibility, but I hadn’t expected the trade to be quite so blatant! It certainly wasn’t legal – Islamic and Moroccan law specifically denounced it. The big hotels never permitted Moroccan boys on the premises, to avoid being accused of running brothels, so wealthy foreigners rented luxurious villas in the better areas of Tangiers where no holes were barred, so to speak, at parties and soirées.

Today, a resurgence of Islam has resulted in the creation of the Moroccan Tourist Police, charged with stopping western decadence from defiling their pure Islamic heritage. Young men still ply their trade, but it is very dangerous for the foreigners. Those caught in ‘sin’ are cast into Moroccan jails and punished severely. As a result, Tunisia more or less replaced Morocco as the gay-sex venue for older, wealthy men who fancy arrogant, tough, and contemptuous Semitic men and boys. According to an acquaintance who made an annual pilgrimage to Tunis, even policemen augment their pitifully small wages by peddling their penises. Although that trade too has now become dangerous.

No sooner had I stripped and spread myself over a towe, than a dinner-suited waiter arrived with tea, a sweet cake, and a bill for ten dirhams! It was going to be an expensive tan. Reverie was disturbed by a discreet cough. I gazed up at a pair of sunburnt testicles dangling beneath a slightly flabby, but excessively well-bred Englishman. Would one pound entice me to lunch at a restaurant, followed by an afternoon in bed?

I declined in heavily accented English, because my fee was twenty-five pounds. His jaw dropped along with his breeding. “Fuck off!” he snorted, heading for a boy several years younger and superior in every way to me, with whom he left a few minutes later. Perhaps he had hoped that as I looked so pale and tired I'd be cheap.

The cake sufficed for lunch and I stayed until the sun lost its heat. As I dressed, a lean and desperate young man asked if I'd like him to go home with me – only one pound. When he learned the name of my hotel, however, he shrugged in contempt and disappeared.

I admired but wasn’t tempted by the rent boys; put off by their air of superiority and derision for men who enjoy tenderness and kissing and sex with other men. Up close, even the most perfect body has flaws. If I love or like that person and my feelings are reciprocated, then the blemishes can add to their charms. If, however, my bed-mate simply sees me as a fool to be used to satisfy his own desires, then those little imperfections; mole, scar, pimple, crossed tooth or blackhead… become impossibly disfiguring and passion is quenched.

I knew from experience that rent boys usually feel disdain for their patrons. They might hide it well, but sex for cash is always a mercantile transaction; never love, mutual respect, or friendship. And for me, unless I was being well paid, sex without those things is pointless. Having been blessed with a vivid imagination I preferred to pleasure myself with fantasy companions who were both flawlessly beautiful and in love with me.

The old city and Kasbah are densely populated but not large in area. I never read guidebooks before going anywhere; they destroy the sense of adventure and discovery. Suddenly entering the forecourt of an ancient mosque, the huge, studded gates of the old fort, or peering into the courtyard of a sultan’s palace are memories that stick with me because of their complete unexpectedness. The rest of Tangiers seemed relatively modern, dull, and not worth seeing. I didn't traipse goggle-eyed around the villas of obscenely wealthy ex-pats such as Barbara Hutton – the Woolworth heiress – or hang around the cafés and expensive yachts in the harbour.

My major interest when travelling has always been to discover how I would have lived had I been born in that place. I was lucky to have been among the first of the young European back-packers to travel to North Africa and experience extraordinary generosity, kindness, and hospitality; both on this visit and when hitch-hiking from Morocco to Egypt a couple of years later. It was a hospitality I never sought, was at pains not to abuse, and for which I was hugely grateful. Today, anti-Arab propaganda has been so successful it’s difficult to convince Europeans of the inherent kindness and generosity of those much-maligned people, which I'm sure continues despite the religious extremism that has arisen as a counter to western hegemony.

By 1970, swarms of penniless youths, having heard tales of wondrous hospitality, were cadging their way around the southern Mediterranean and across the Middle East as far as India, deliberately bludging off the inhabitants whose hospitality soon curdled to hostility when they realised they were being used by the relatively wealthy youth of Europe who would return home boasting how they had stayed in someone’s house, been taken everywhere and treated like a prince – and it hadn’t cost them a penny! That same generation is responsible for skewing world trade for the benefit of ‘the West’, to the disadvantage of African and other ‘developing’ countries.

Needing to buy something, I asked directions of a young man who took my hand and led me through a maze of alleyways to my destination, waited till I'd finished, then invited me to mint tea in a café where we sat holding hands while swapping experiences in French and English. He was a student in mathematics hoping for a scholarship to the Sorbonne. Holding hands was not considered sexual – it was friendship.

Later that afternoon, my chestnut-haired pimp also took me by the hand through even more densely packed streets to buy some hashish – an essential rite of passage, so I'd been told, for all Europeans when staying in Tangiers. A green wooden door in an inconspicuous lane opened into a courtyard surrounded by three tiers of wrought-iron-decorated balconies belonging to a dozen apartments: a ‘termite hill’ of mothers, children, old men and older women.

Washing hung from lines strung from balcony to balcony. Shutters gave privacy to darkened rooms. A gnarled fig tree shaded a central well. Braziers glowed in darkened interiors, cooking food emitted odd odours. A radio blared Arab music. Children cried, called to each other. Mothers scolded…

An unpainted, ornately carved door opened into a long narrow room containing men in traditional dress sitting on cushions around a hookah on a low carved table. After an animated discussion with the owners in which Chestnut had to assure them I was ‘safe’, I was sold a small quantity of dark brown sticky stuff and an elegant little turned-wood, hashish-pipe stem and three little terracotta bowls. I was then ushered to a cushion and given a fresh mouthpiece, so I could join the men at the hookah and draw the cool, rose-scented smoke into my lungs, hold it, and slowly exhale as they did.

The room began to revolve. I shook my head and things cleared. By the time I realised Chestnut had gone, I was wobbly. Gravely, I shook the hands of my unsmiling companions and left. It took an hour of increasing panic to find the hotel. I knew it was illegal for foreigners to smoke hashish and had been told it was the eyes that gave you away by remaining more or less fixed and unfocussed. To conceal this, I flicked my eyes around constantly – must have looked demented. A deep breath would clear everything for a few seconds, enough to orientate, then the world folded up again and I drifted to the next corner where another deep breath would give me a few seconds of sanity.

Back at the hotel, I collapsed and slept till evening. There was no hangover, but it was an experience I had no desire to repeat, so went out into the square and gave the packet to a delighted Chestnut who took me to the men-only Dancing Boy Café where an obviously bored and far too succulent pre-pubescent lad wearing yellow harem trousers slung low enough to reveal a deep navel, and coin bracelets around wrists and ankles, performed a belly dance. I didn't find it erotic and said as much to Chestnut.

We sipped tea and applauded modestly, like the other locals. Foreigners were not welcome in that café; thankfully, I passed as a local. However, four Americans had somehow bought their way in. They were raucous, loud, and destroyed the ambience. Why do people travel in groups? They insulate each other from reality and experience little of value. When alone, sensations are magnified, casual acquaintances are possible, and life becomes a vivid experience. The occasional bout of loneliness is a small price to pay.

The following afternoon while returning from the beach, I collided with a young man carrying a crate of fruit. Together we gathered them up and he invited me back to his house – a green door in a blank wall opened into a courtyard surrounded by many rooms, with a small fountain and several orange trees in pots. His bedroom was on the left of the entrance where he left me to go and speak with his mother, returning with lemonade and cakes.

He worked for his father, a fruit merchant. Would I like to go with them to an orchard the following day? I would, so he took me back to the hotel, cancelled my room, obtained a refund and carried my rucksack back to his place. We ate with his father, sitting on cushions around a low, beautiful table in a room decorated only by a large panel of Arabic script. Food was served by his mother, yashmak firmly in place. She ate with her daughters in the kitchen.

That night, and for the next two, I slept in his bed; he on mats on the floor. There was no way I was allowed to sleep on the floor and, sadly, for he was a most agreeable young man, he exhibited no desire whatever to share the bed.

The trip to the orchard was through bleak and inhospitable hilly land, cut through by stony dry riverbeds. Occasionally we passed a fertile patch with a few houses of the most primitive kind – mere adobe huts like something out of a western movie. I couldn’t see how anyone scratched a living from such aridity. The orchard was in a fertile valley. Several acres of magnificent fruit trees in full flower.

Craggy, lean workers ignored us. The owner was fat, self-important and garrulous. Business concluded, we took a different route home, eating in a roadside restaurant. In the evening my friend took me to an outdoor café with his friends where I was shouted soft drinks – no alcohol, of course. It took a great deal of persuasion before I was permitted to also shout everyone a drink. The simple presents I bought for his parents were received with embarrassment. I was a guest and it was their duty as good Muslims to treat strangers well. They neither expected, nor wanted a reward. That would come from Allah when they died.

Too soon it was time to board the ferry for Gibraltar, which looks exactly like the photos. The town was a narrow street lined with English tea houses, English shops, and English commercial establishments jammed between the western side of the rock and the naval base, where a cricket game was in progress, watched by elderly men in slacks and reefer jackets and their sun-frocked wives sipping tea in the shade of a marquee beside a grandstand.

Most workers, shop assistants and so on were Spanish, adding an exotic touch to the dull, whey-faced Englishness of the place. At the far southern end of the main street was Toc H, a series of bomb shelter bunkers that an enterprising fellow had converted into a youth hostel. It was cheap and friendly, but one day in that outpost of empire, during which I shared a taxi tour of the sights with four Canadians, was quite enough. Early the next morning I walked the mile to the Spanish border.

Spain claims Gibraltar as its own (never mind that Spain refuses to relinquish Ceuta, a tiny bit of Morocco). To underline their displeasure at the continuing English occupation of its territory, the border across the narrow neck of the peninsular was regularly closed to create annoyance. Only Spanish passport holders were allowed through so the workers who kept the tiny colony functioning could keep their jobs.

I waited all that day with aircraft taking off right next door – the airport traverses the peninsular virtually on the border, and sensible people fly in and out to avoid the inconvenience I was experiencing. That night I slept on the ground behind the guardroom in case the border opened early the next morning. As he was going off duty, one of the guards, a sad Welshman, brought me some sandwiches and a mug of tea and warned me to be very careful if I ever got to Spain, because Spaniards weren’t Europeans but a bastard race – mongrels of Arabic, Moorish and gypsy blood; thieving, lying brigands who carried knives and would stab you for a few pesetas.

The following morning at eight-thirty the border opened for half an hour. Many commercial vehicles left the colony but only three cars, all English, all heading for London, all turning their heads away in silent disdain when I asked for a ride. I walked the hundred yards to Spain, was frisked, interrogated, searched, and dismissed as an idiot.

A few minutes later a Spaniard took me on the back of his motorbike to the nearest town where my luck ran out. It took three days of busses and trains to reach Port Bou, just south of the French border.

All the way up the Spanish Mediterranean coastline, signs of the horrors to come were visible. Miles of high-rise apartment blocks being constructed right on the beach. Soon, the Spaniards wouldn’t have access to their own beaches. Again, I had to walk across the frontier – no one wants to take a hitchhiker through border crossings; if they’re carrying contraband everyone suffers.

The French were difficult when they saw Moroccan stamps in my passport, so I was glad I'd not kept the hashish. Rain, cold and storms right through France persuaded me to jettison parsimonious principles and take trains, sleep in pensions, and eat in restaurants.

I arrived in London with one and sixpence in my pocket; re-born, refreshed, and raring to go despite the damp drabness of everything. I'd only been away a few weeks, but it seemed a lifetime in which I’d regained my enthusiasm.

The usual chaos surrounded Alwyn and Edgar. Jeremy had been accepted for RADA (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) and left. Hal had been offered a part in Coronation Street and was now in Manchester hoping for more roles in TV soaps. Terry had suffered a heart attack – a by-product of steroids, according to Edgar. With our first show in a week, we had to find three new players.

Chapter 24: Rootless

“It must have been great living in the sixties,” students would sigh as the nineteen eighties ploughed into the mire of political correctness, hijackings, over-population, multitudes of localised wars, birth-pangs of globalisation, deregulation of currencies, Reagan-Thatcher inspired dismantling of publicly owned social services and unions, and the privatisation of everything.

For nostalgia-merchants yearning for a return to a ‘golden age’, the sixties had become a symbol of freedom, social liberation and carefree sex, in which the potential for humans to live harmoniously together in flower-power love and harmony had been virtually realized.

Well, maybe. It just seemed normal to us – the only life we knew, so we lived it; ignoring the constant threat of nuclear annihilation if we could; marching to Aldermaston if we couldn’t. The adventurous grabbed hold of life while everyone else played ‘follow the leader’ as usual.

Compared to today, people tended to be participants rather than observers; creators of their own fun rather than consumers of pre-packaged entertainment, probably because TV had not yet taken over their lives and the electronic revolution of PCs, CDs, DVDs, mobile phones, iPods, web-cams, and video games, was years in the future.

In retrospect, the sixties were like the opening of a tiny window, through the dark glass of which a few philosophers and dreamers had glimpsed a life liberated from the constraints of religion, social class, and oppressive law. A sweet, innocent, emancipating breeze drifted in, transporting us through the seventies, blissfully unaware that entrepreneurs were already commercialising, cheapening, and destroying the innocence, while religions were re-grouping.

By the nineties, the ‘window’ had become a TV/computer screen where ‘beautiful’ people acted out our dreams for us, turning us into a population of voyeurs instead of actors, and sex into a second-hand, vicarious commodity so omnipresent it’s become banal; in the process emasculating men because their bodies can't compete with the godlike virility of porno studs, while encouraging women to dress and act like porno chicks.

A parcel awaited me when I returned from my holiday south – a 21st birthday cake from Mother that had spent 3 months in the sweaty hold of a ship. I tossed the moist mound of mould into the bin in case Edgar thought I wanted to celebrate. When I turned twelve, Mother had insisted I have a party. She baked for two days and invited a dozen boys from my class. I left the house immediately after breakfast and spent the day alone at the beach. If she invited people without consulting me she could entertain them. My explanation that either every day is worth celebrating, or no day is, was met with incomprehension. She never suggested I have another.

Our short-lived experiment as an all-male troupe ended when three ‘resting’ actors from Alwyn’s Horsham Repertory days arrived to fill the gaps – Valerie, a blonde of thirty-five who could pass for twenty as long as she stayed behind the proscenium; William, a gaunt but well-made queer in his forties; and Ruth, who looked like Hansel and Gretel’s witch. This term we were performing at schools within an hour’s drive north of London, so I picked the others up at pre-arranged tube stations on the way. Most of the schools were single-sex grammar schools, with a sprinkling of the new co-educational Secondary Moderns – those much-maligned institutions of social, intellectual, and cultural deprivation.

Both Rolando and William looked good shirtless, and had the legs for kilts, tunics, and tights. Valerie, sans brassiere in a flimsy nightdress as Lady Macbeth, sent waves of testosterone wafting onto the stage at boys’ schools. As Ruth remarked wryly, at least our costumes kept the audience’s attention, even if the immortal words of the bard passed over their heads.

The highlight for me that term was five performances of The Tempest for the drama classes of two Technical Institutes in South London. The students took my nudity in their stride and were just as appreciative as those in Bristol, and as with the students of that university, they were invited on stage immediately after each show to discuss whatever they liked. It was about then I realised teaching might be a pleasant alternative to acting. A dozen years later it had become more than pleasant; it was just as rewarding, more secure, and very much better paid.

With no ‘adult’ plays, my nights were free, but options were limited because too much of my meagre wage was returned to Alwyn for board and lodging. Needing part time work to replenish my nest egg, I applied for a job as waiter at the Piccadilly Lyons Corner House.

The personnel manager was pleasant, and we discussed sheep. I can't remember anything else. He promised to contact me and three days later I received an offer of employment – head chef at a Lyons Steak-House in Blackheath. I knew I'd impressed him, but that was ridiculous.

London County Council was a generous provider of free night classes from flower arranging to hypnotism. Valerie supplemented her income by posing for life-drawing classes and when I told her I'd done it before, gave me a few addresses. It was good money, but each class only needed you for four sessions, so after exhausting all the nearby classes I tried the Royal Academy of Art – more prestigious but the pay wasn’t any higher.

“Are you smooth?” the secretary demanded when I handed in my application form. I nearly cracked up. It was like Beyond the Fringe when the preacher keeps quoting Cain’s plaint, “I am an hairy man and my brother is an smooth man.’

“The tutor of the only class available prefers his models smooth,” she explained. I said I was, which was true because of Alwyn’s insistence I be hairless for Ferdinand. In the studio I was sent behind a screen to disrobe and handed a brown paper bag that, as I wasn’t feeling sick, I tossed in the bin and stepped out to applause.

The tutor, André, a disturbingly thin young Frenchman with floppy black hair, sidled up and whispered, “Ze bag is for ze genitals.’ I whispered back, ‘It was too small.’ He grinned. “And where are ze pubic hairs?”

“The secretary said you wanted me hairless.” He laughed aloud and got on with the lesson. Pretty soon after that, males were no longer required to cover up. Whether I had anything to do with it I've no idea.

After the session he asked if at the next lesson I would allow him to take measurements so the students could compare the proportions of my body with those in a recent women’s magazine survey on the ‘ideal’ male, and those favoured by Renaissance artists. Naturally I didn't mind and was heartened to discover I was reasonably close to the magazine’s ideal, although puny when compared to Renaissance nudes, showing that great Art is inspired by nature, not a copy of it.

André and I hit it off rather well and before his return to Paris at the end of term to marry his sweetheart, we made several sorties together into the countryside in his deux chevaux, visiting stately homes and gardens.

There’s a myth that life drawing is about sex. It definitely isn’t. The model is too busy keeping still and not ‘sagging’; the students are too busy concentrating on drawing and giving ‘life’ to their renderings. There’s no time to think of sex. Of course, there are people who join just to see nudity, but they don’t stay long. Most bodies are not very attractive and after a couple of hours of scrutiny in fairly unflattering light, some become repellent.

Strip-tease, on the other hand, is all about sex. The audience is primed with alcohol and fantasies, the stripper has a better than usual body that’s been primped and prepared, and there's no time to see faults as he or she gyrates in a sexually provocative dance. Lighting is filtered to hide blemishes and not bright enough to see faults, and loud throbbing music removes inhibitions.

I enjoyed modelling because it’s relaxing, you're not worried about your body not being perfect, and there is the chance of social contact with the students who sometimes invited me to go with them afterwards for a coffee. Stripping, on the other hand, can be nerve-wracking if you’ve a pimple or don’t look as good as the previous bloke, but it’s exciting and can be as creative as you want. I loved both.

Without realising it, I'd joined Quentin Crisp’s ranks of “Naked Civil Servants”. He was still working at the R.A. but hadn’t written his book, so I didn't know of his existence and never met him, which was lucky as I'd have run a mile from his queenly presence – fearful someone might think I was like that! The number of famous people living in London I never met is astronomical.

One of the students who cheered at my exposed shaven genitals shouted, “At last! Bones,” pleased at having a lean model after years of fat males who, until then, had been thought more ‘interesting’.

In his autobiography, David Hockney reckons he said something like that in a life drawing class at the R.A. during those years, so it might have been him… but then again, it might not. I did run into Peter Sellers in New Bond Street. It had started to rain so I held a newspaper over my head and bumped into him. He snarled, “Idiot,” and hurried off before I could sing ‘Ying-Tong iddle i po’.

Cruising for casual sex was subtle and omnipresent… a sly smile in shops, a wink and turn of the head on the street, the accidental touch of a hand on the bus, the not so subtle groping among crotchless trousers, business suits, and fashion plates in the meat markets of gay pubs where patrons chattered with their ‘in’ group, eyeing outsiders and prospective partners with practised disdain, then hovering alone on the footpath after closing time, having rejected one suitor too many.

To even think about a long-term relationship was heresy. Queers were liberated individuals evolved beyond the primitive need for one special mate, with a duty to share themselves among as many men as possible.

I lacked queer credibility by dreaming of a life of respectability and independence with a permanent lover. Perhaps if, like Francis Bacon, I'd been horsewhipped as a boy, or thrown onto the streets to fend for myself, or been sold into slavery, I too might have become a tortured, drug-raddled soul, living a life of towering highs and debilitating lows with an entourage of devoted sycophants encouraging my physical and mental self-destruction. But I lacked the required ‘devil may care’ abandonment of social niceties combined with total self-absorption and single-minded pursuit of my ‘art’. Instead, I was becoming master of the middle ground; a priggish Jack of all trades whose epitaph would read: ‘He did nothing to excess and offended no one’.

Virgil, a gym-toned pool attendant at the Fulham Baths, admired the brevity of my togs so we chatted, and he took me to a sauna – beautifully appointed and harder to gain entry to than the Bank of England’s vaults. Hot rooms, shower rooms, dim cubicles for love, and an astonishing variety of modestly towel-wrapped bodies drifting decorously in an atmosphere redolent of the daunting respectability of a gentlemen’s club.

The social centre was a large and luxurious coffee lounge – tables and comfortable chairs around a tiny, blue-carpeted raised platform. “A stage,” Virgil whispered when we emerged hot and sweaty from the sauna. “Let’s put on a show.” As no real actor can see a stage without feeling an overpowering urge to perform, we spread our towels and put on a show that was more athletic than aesthetic but earned nods of approval and a couple of free passes.

Near Portobello Road Market skulked the Atlas Club; an ancient gymnasium smelling of sweat and liniment, patronised by muscle-builders disporting before large foggy mirrors, and wrestlers straining sinews in energetic embrace. Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill were at that time the very down-market refuge of immigrant Africans and West Indians. The Atlas Club Gymnasium was a sanctuary for sons and husbands fleeing overcrowded flats crammed with wife, children, and mothers-in-law bemoaning the cold, dirt, lack of sunshine, and leaving their tropical paradise.

After a workout most of the guys took a steam bath, then sat around playing cards, chatting, or enjoying the non-competitive, genial atmosphere generated when men relax after rewarding exercise. A new experience for me, but probably how primitive hunters felt after a successful sortie, and football players after a match; triggering jealousy in their wives.

Weekly wrestling matches brought in a paying audience turned on by swollen muscles and bulging crotches in skimpy cotton wrestling suits. I usually competed in one fight a week, surviving through flexibility rather than skill, worming out of steel-muscled grips before my back broke. I never won a bout. You needed bulk for that.

The manager’s wife, a hatchet-faced bottle-blonde whose heart must have been solid gold because the rest was flint, asked if I'd strip for ladies’ nights (she asked everyone, so it was no big deal). She booked me for five shows and took twenty-five percent, but I never felt completely comfortable thrusting my bits at raucous women shouting smut while swigging pints in the private rooms of pubs.

Unlike Hazel’s elegant ladies, there was a predatory deadness in their eyes. I was naked and alone and the fearsome prospect of rape loomed large. It was a relief when my ‘tour of duty’ ended.

Impotence. Dread state. Virgil had invited me to his flat after a swim. We leaped into bed and nothing happened. I felt a fool. He said it didn't matter – but the second time I failed to rise to the challenge he took it as an insult and that was the end of that. When alone, everything worked perfectly. I had never been healthier so what was the cause?

Public and political rumblings about decriminalisation (which didn't arrive till 1967, the year Australians finally accepted that their indigenous people were human) had sent the police into overdrive. Entrapment, home invasions and prosecutions increased in an effort to convince legislators it would be unsafe to legalise ‘perversion’ (and threaten their arrest quotas.)

Everyone seemed to know someone whose flat the cops had burst into, who’d been beaten up, imprisoned, humiliated, fined, and sent to jail to be raped or worse. I suffer from overdeveloped empathy, which Edgar reckoned was causing severe anxiety and my impotence. What a wimp! How much worse must it have been for my hero, James Baldwin? As he said in an interview: “Left-handed, black, and queer in the U.S.A. – man I sure hit the jackpot!” He fled to France from the horrors of homophobia, segregation, and the KKK. It would be another couple of years before I gave up on the UK and followed him.

I bought a cheap guitar and joined a night class. Had it been classical I might have persevered; but it was folk, and the weepy bleatings of Pete Seeger, Nana Mouskouri, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez bored me witless. Bob Dylan wasn’t even good-looking! His name was Robert Allen Zimmerman, so why would he take the name of alcoholic Dylan Thomas, whose poems are about as daft as Bob’s stuff? The only protest songs I liked were ‘Little Boxes’ and the Kingston Trio’s wickedly cynical ’They’re Rioting in Africa.’

Dread of hippie group-gropes and love-ins kept me away from the guitar group’s consciousness raising evenings, and thus I remained in contented ignorance of colonial atrocities, Khrushchev’s antics, the Arms Race, Cuban missiles, or any other potential threat to western civilization.

No one I knew was voicing concern for persecuted queers. When the government has declared you to be a criminal for the way you were born, you don’t feel much responsibility for, or interest in, the machinations of society and the woes of others. If they wanted to annihilate themselves, the sooner the better I reckoned.

Monique, a thoroughly agreeable Canadian lass in the group, taught me French-Canadian songs. We sang in harmony, and on a few sunny Sundays, gambolled on Hampstead Heath with her two flat mates and their boyfriends, traipsed around markets, and tried out Dirty Dick’s and other East End pubs, which increased my aversion to beer and drunkenness. As our extremely pleasant relationship had been entirely platonic it didn't seem strange when Monique suggested we share a weekend in Paris.

The quickest and cheapest way to that fabled city was a train from Victoria Station to Gatwick airport, a twenty minute hop in a Vickers Viscount over the channel to Le Bourget, then a fast train to Gare St Lazare. We stayed in Pension Famille on Rue Monge in the Latin Quarter. The room contained a washbasin, a bidet, a double bed and a single bed. After a night at the Opera where La Traviata failed to bring tears to our eyes (probably because I didn't like Chagall’s new ceiling and we were a mile high in the ‘gods’ and could only see half the stage) Monique coyly washed, donned a long flannel nightdress and climbed into the double bed.

I used both hand basin and bidet, which made her giggle, then stood naked at the window to dry off. Directly below amongst the plane trees of a small square, some very handsome young men were circulating. It was a beat and I wished I had the courage to join them. While sadly slipping into my celibate single bed, I wondered a little at the confused and hurt expression on Monique’s face before the light was extinguished.

On Saturday she stomped off to Versailles on her own while I wandered the Paris of my dreams. Pavement cafés, tree-lined boulevards, enchanting squares, avenues along which James Baldwin must have strolled, the Deux Magots Café where Sartre and his literary mates drank. La Sainte Chapelle – mind-bogglingly ethereal like being inside a perfect jewel, the quarter where Andre Gide grew up… all confirmed a life-long love affair with Paris.

Agents de Police in their capes and pillbox caps, the architecture, the boulevards, the… everything was heartbreakingly perfect. And it was warm and sunny and two handsome guys winked at me! Truly, my cup overflowed.

We’d arranged to rendezvous that evening in a café in front of the Opéra. Monique mistakenly went to one at the back. Many hours later we met back at the Pension. She was angry at having to wait so long and then find her own way back in the dark. Being a man, and therefore always in the wrong, I graciously apologised, although it was she who mistook the back of the building for the front! And my coffees at the Café de la Paix had cost three times hers! Ensconced on her double bed, she snapped that I had no right to wander round the room naked.

On Sunday morning, we drifted tetchily through the Louvre, but by the time the train arrived back in Victoria we were friends again. I still had no idea why she’d been angry. Edgar laughed till he cried. “The poor girl planned a sexy weekend in Paris and ended up with a queer!”

I did feel rather stupid.

Chapter 25: Muddling on

Through the models’ grapevine I found work sitting for professional artists in a studio run by Martha, a robust woman who usually wore a technicolour tent decorated with tiny mirrors. There were armies of commercial artists in those days who, with great talent and skill, painted all the signs, decorated shop windows with gold leaf and beautiful drawings, turned concrete pillars into marble, wrote price tags with wondrous flourishes, created advertisements – all by hand. If they needed a drawing of a man digging, or a woman wearing a bra in front of a mirror, they used models.

Life drawing was an essential exercise to maintain skills. It is a great tragedy that fifteen years later their astonishing creative and technical proficiency was no longer required. Pattern books and Letraset required no expertise. Then they in turn were dumped in favour of computers. Virtually all practical human skills have disappeared from western civilization over the last half century, from shoe-making to chair-seat weaving – to be replaced by the depressing competence of the unimaginative machine.

The artists, a dozen or so men and women ranging in age from thirty to sixty, were very friendly (a characteristic of life drawing classes) and left it to me to take up poses – merely offering vague ideas such as stretching, dressing, searching… One evening someone suggested ‘thrusting masculinity’. Someone else failed to stifle a giggle. What could she mean?

I settled for hands on thrusting hips, staring aggressively ahead. Seconds later the familiar rushing of blood to loins had me glancing nervously down at six and a half firm inches, then across at Martha, whose eyes, like everyone else’s were looking everywhere except there, and I understood what it must be like to have a deformity. This thrilling proof that my impotence wasn’t permanent sent even more blood pulsing, but the scratching of charcoal on paper remained the sole sound. Suddenly Martha boomed, “Miriam! The title is thrusting manhood, not wizened worm! Don’t insult the model!” The room erupted in laughter.

Artists needing private models used a warren of well-appointed studios upstairs in the huge Edwardian terrace in Baron’s Court, for which Martha charged ten shillings per hour-long session. Whether I was being drawn or photographed, it was money, and more fun than my next experience as an ‘extra’ for a film.

I never discovered what the title was. Dressed in cloth caps and workingmen’s clothes, half a dozen of us waited in the cold at Pinewood Studios for hours before running several times down a fake street screaming ‘Fire!” I hung around to watch a few scenes being shot. With no audience, apart from the crew and director, it must be next to impossible to gauge one’s performance. Film actors, I realised, are just the director’s puppets; reliant on him to tell them how to act, performing scenes out of order and context, never seeing the whole production until all the ‘takes’ have been edited and joined. Frequently not even knowing the whole story unless they go to the cinema.

In a theatre it’s the audience that ‘instructs’ the actors. The director suggests, but it’s up to the actor to interpret and constantly adjust his performance as he goes along. That’s why every presentation of the same play is different and exciting. An actor’s reward at the end of every show is applause. Film and TV actors receive no applause. They never know if their work is good until it’s screened, sometimes months or years afterwards, and then it’s too late to change anything. And that’s why they are so media hungry. Why they’re constantly seeking public attention; needing to be ‘seen’ here, there, and everywhere, causing scandals, going to every opening, award ceremony, divorcing, remarrying, joining odd religious sects… in a vain attempt to find the acclaim and satisfaction that performing for a camera can never give.

What pleasure is there in knowing ten million people are watching you on a screen somewhere if you aren’t there to see their reactions and receive their applause? A stage play is a living, mutating organism that breathes life into the actors as much as they breathe life into it; and that’s what gives satisfaction, and why stage actors remain sane, more or less private people, while film stars go insane.

Between dances at the Overseas Visitors’ Club I checked the notice board. An Australian and New Zealand ex-pat social badminton group wanted players. I said I was from the Seychelles – no one knew where it was, so they didn’t ask questions. They'd arrived with mates for their obligatory ‘overseas experience’, working in jobs arranged from home. After two years and a ‘grand tour’ of Europe, they’d return to their old jobs, marriage, two kids and a mortgage.

They’d temporarily left a country they loved and admired – I’d fled in fear and despair. They didn’t budget, relying on top-ups from parents. My independence was too precious to jeopardise. They were impatient to return home. I suffered recurring nightmares that I’d been whisked back and couldn’t return to Europe. Their lives were planned; I scarcely knew what I'd be doing the following week.

They were Barry McKenzie’s clones – binge boozing on weekends, chundering and hung-over for days; nurturing beer bellies and lung cancer while bragging about the sheilas they were going to lay; although from what I could gather, bragging was usually as near as they got. All hope that I'd discover commonality with my countrymen evaporated – instead, the gulf widened.

Charlie, the boyfriend of Jennifer, the only Englishman in the group, asked me to join them for two weeks of sun and sea in Ibiza at the end of June. I couldn’t resist. Alwyn had booked the company for a season at Brightlingsea – a seaside resort on the north bank of the Thames estuary, starting in the second week of July, so, promising I'd meet them there in plenty of time, I joined Jennifer at the Heathrow BEA terminal, waiting for Charlie and a standby midnight flight – the cheapest – to Barcelona. There were two British airlines then, BEA for European flights and BOAC for the rest of the world.

Jennifer was called to the information desk. Charlie wasn’t coming. She shrugged and said they’d had a bust-up the previous night. You'd think Paris would have taught me a lesson! A sleepless night followed by a day tramping the hot and humid streets of Barcelona, followed by another sleepless night on the deck of a pitching ferry, left us both exhausted and ill tempered, but it was worth it.

The sun rose over the ochreous fortress city of Ibiza floating above a turquoise sea, looking much the same as it had for thousands of years to Phoenicians and Romans and all the other seafaring marauders who used it as a base for pirating or defence. Leaving our bags in Los Pasageros, a neat, clean, cheap albergo in the old part of town, we explored the ancient walled city on its hill. But what I really wanted, was reached via a long subterranean passageway beneath it – the sea, sunshine, and the rocks from which you could dive into sparkling clear blue water. Perfection!

Jennifer couldn’t swim so didn't like rocks and deep water. She took the ferry across the harbour each day to the sandy beach, returning lobster red and ugly. I spent my days swimming, snorkelling, and fending off females.

Queers were going to Île du Levant, not Ibiza, I discovered too late. Jennifer and I met only briefly each day at the albergo where the water was turned off for several hours – always when she wanted a shower. She wanted to be fucked, so, ever the gentleman, I tried, managing an exact replay of the Scottish and Chinese affairs.

On a hired pushbike I toured the island alone. Olive groves, vineyards, ancient haciendas with subterranean cisterns, donkeys, pomegranates to die for… A sandy beach at the eastern end was occupied by French tourists staying in a three-storey white apartment block that defiled the pristine beauty and local architecture.

An American took me to a hacienda in the centre of the island that he and six others had rented for the summer. No electricity or running water, a solid-fuel stove, and oil lamps. Arcadia. But the ancient house with its heavily beamed low ceiling, cool shutters, patio shaded by grape vines was doomed. A year or so later, it was bulldozed along with scores of others to make way for an international airport where dozens of screaming jets now land and take off daily throughout the summer, providing thousands of coarse, boozy, drunken, loutish, packaged tourists from the U.K. and elsewhere to stay in hundreds of faceless high-rise holiday apartments so they can destroy their ears, lungs, and livers in noisy night-clubs; take drugs, fuck, gorge themselves, shout, and vomit.

In the evenings, Jennifer sat in cafés and drank and sulked. I star-gazed, dreamed of romance, wandered the ramparts and discovered a night market next to the cemetery. A handsome local led me among the shadowy tombstones and said in an enchanting accent, “I want to put my cock in your bum.” This somewhat direct approach, I later discovered, is the opening gambit of many queer young Mediterranean males. Their holy books instruct them not to play the part of a woman and this statement establishes that they will not be doing so; therefore, whatever they do next is not sinning and they remain a proud male. I didn’t allow him entry so he took off in a huff.

Too soon, Jennifer and I endured another exhausting night on the ferry, a gruelling day stomping around Barcelona, and a midnight flight back to the drear grey skies of London, where a train took me to Colchester, and a bus to Brightlingsea, just in time to learn my parts for a couple of forgettable drawing room comedies and a thriller, and the sad discovery that my impotence had returned; confirming it was the subconscious effect of punitive British laws on my psyche that was the problem, not my body.

Brightlingsea. A flat expanse of cold, windswept, Thames estuary mud, peopled by meagre, dead-white bodies. A nightmare. It would have cost them less to fly for two weeks to Spain or Greece than to spend a fortnight in this godforsaken stretch of bleakness, entertained each night by our less than enthralling plays… but they didn't dare. They are a timid race, the Brits, opting for what they know over a bit of a risk. Stodgy and predictable like their cooking. I was repelled, and my love affair with the Sceptred Isle continued to crumble.

We toured Yorkshire and Wales until Christmas. Cold and windy. A season of Sweeney and Apollo in Bradford saw my gilded bum in the paper captioned “Theatrical Grin and Bare It” or some such, so we played to good houses. Valerie and I received roughly equal numbers of admirers who wanted to spend time with us. I refused from depression triggered by exhaustion and impotence; she refused because her father had died of syphilis.

The Yorkshire moors are bleakly beautiful and school audiences were polite and attentive. We crossed the Pennines on a narrow winding road in a storm – disturbingly desolate, lonely, isolated, magnificent. The Lake District was not as enchanting as Wordsworth had led me to believe, perhaps because the trees and hills were bare.

In Cardiff, William decided he was in love with me. A delicate situation when sharing beds and rooms for weeks on end. He took rejection better than Edgar, who was still plaintively proposing we flee to the colonies and start a touring theatrical company. London on our return was covered in soft white snow, encrusted with soot.

I escaped the gloom via a cheap fortnight over Christmas and New Year, skiing in Westendorf – a tiny village in Austria. It was one of the best holidays I've ever had, despite having to share a large feather bed in a warm, double-glazed room in the local shoemaker’s house with a Canadian and a South African. The days were full of clean, crisp, sun-filled air on the slopes, the nights dancing in the nightclub with Maureen, a fun lesbian Australian who, a few months later, wisely refused my offer of marriage. I put on a humorous skit at the nightclub with a handsome New Zealand ski instructor, who had led me higher up the mountain than I'd have dared on my own, then let me feel his taut bronzed abs before the precipitous descent.

One evening while drinking mulled wine in the café at the top of the ski lift (Dutch courage before a toboggan ride back to the village) a flamboyantly wealthy, title-hunting American woman suffering from the delusion that I was an English aristocrat (having had that thought implanted by Maureen for a joke), proposed a liaison leading to marriage if I proved ‘satisfactory’.

All I'd done was share a few jokes and dance with her out of pity because she was older than most of us and seemed sad. “What’s your family name?” she whispered coyly, eyes glistening with social climbing lust, only to recoil in horror when the dread name was pronounced. “Then.... then you're common!”

When I stated politely that although I was a commoner, I certainly wasn’t common, she stomped off to the ski-lift and we never saw her again.

They reckon if you stand in Piccadilly Circus long enough you’ll see everyone you know. As anonymity is the garment that best suits me, I never hang around, so it was a shock one evening to see my cousin striding purposefully towards me. Being chief mechanic for Bruce McLaren meant he was always travelling, but I never expected to run into him. We got along well enough at home, but I wasn’t at home and had never been the person he thought I was.

As he hadn’t actually seen me, rather than revert to my closet I turned and raced into Circlarama, the latest cinematic experience – a dark, circular room in which a dozen cameras projected film onto screens, giving a 360° experience. It was funny to see everyone staggering to right and left as the racing car or speedboat swerved etc. but standing up for half an hour was irksome, so the backers lost their cash.

The next four months sped by in much the same fashion as the previous, with no major upheavals and suddenly it was the end of May and spring was bursting out all over, as they say in Oklahoma. I was visiting the Tate Gallery for a Turner retrospective and the extraordinary flamboyance and daring of the works triggered a sudden insight.... I was in a rut!

Manics tend to treat complete strangers as if they’re old friends. Unwary recipients of my uninvited chatter usually eye me with alarm and quickly make excuses to flee. But sometimes they welcome the chance to discuss the exhibition, the state of the universe, or something equally portentous. The balding, well-tailored, middle-aged gentleman standing before Turner’s Great Fire of London, responded to my enthusiasm by inviting me to share a pot of tea in the cafeteria.

He was Director of Education for Clackmannanshire in Scotland, and upon learning I was a Shakespearian actor with tertiary education, asked if I'd like to organise and run drama courses at his shire’s month-long residential schools. This is not as bizarre as it might seem – his purpose in visiting London was to recruit colonial teachers for these camps, and he’d been interviewing applicants at The Overseas Visitors Club for the last week.

He who hesitates misses out, so I gave my details, which he noted in a ledger he carried in a briefcase, we shook hands and I promised to arrive in Alloa in time for lunch on the second Friday of September. It was convenient because the company would be in Edinburgh with our version of Macbeth for the Fringe Festival at the beginning of that month, and I was to play the lead.

As always, I needed to top up the treasury, having spent most of my nest egg on the winter holiday in Austria, theatre tickets, and weekends away like the trip to Stonehenge with André. That was amazing – no fences, no charge, and we were the only people wandering around. Today there are never fewer than twenty tour busses pumping diesel into the air, and ticket prices are astronomical.

Near a post-card village called Chipping Sudbury we had stayed in a four-hundred-year-old thatched farm house owned by a jolly farmer and his wife who served lashings of bacon and eggs for breakfast. Stuff of dreams.

Prostitution no longer appealed, and no matter how cute, you can only strip or model half a dozen times before audiences and artists demand new talent. I didn't fancy clubs because of the drugs and crime, so tried out as a barman; but I couldn’t stand the smoke and missing out on eight or nine hours uninterrupted sleep. I paid a visit to Martha’s studio and she referred me to a mail-order catalogue photographer. Suits, shirts, underpants, swimwear, pyjamas. The money was good although wearing clothes before a camera felt slightly perverted.

After the catalogue, I was referred to a fellow in Richmond who specialised in ‘odd underwear’ photos for the back pages of Men Only, Picture Post and other cheap very soft-core sexy magazines. ‘G’ strings, backless briefs and so on. From there I was passed on to a fellow who made black and white, Super 8 movies for ‘underground’ distribution. I didn't like the atmosphere, the types, or the offer of drugs, so gracefully backed out. Sex is fun – sleaze isn’t.

The scale of remuneration reflected society’s values; being photographed in sexy briefs paid twice as much as wearing a suit; naked and alone paid four times as much; and performing naked with others would have rewarded me with ten times as much as standing in pyjamas.

There are thousands of “must-see” spots in Europe such as the Eiffel Tower, Nazaré in Portugal, the Colosseum, Hadrian’s Villa, Jungfrau railway, Copenhagen's Tivoli Gardens… and it is profoundly demoralising to be condescendingly informed by other ‘globetrotters’ that if you haven’t seen this or that significant cultural icon, then you haven’t really travelled. Eventually, I decided to make the effort and check them all out in one go by responding to an advertisement for a sixth man to share the costs of touring for three months through fourteen countries, visiting every ‘important site’ in Europe.

Anthony, a pale and wan New Zealander who had organised everything from minivan to tents, green cards, and maps, explained that I would be replacing a chap who’d died when the gas cylinder heating his shower water had exploded. Sixty pounds covered all food and travel, and as I'd arrived so late on the scene, there would be nothing for me to do except be ready in three days’ time, on the first Saturday in June with my international driver’s licence, sleeping bag, and clothes.

Sickeningly certain I was burning my boats and making a dreadful mistake in quitting a job I loved so much, I handed over the cash.

I'd been spending evenings at home where Alwyn was always a stimulating and amusing font of disillusion, giving vent to philosophies that echoed my own. Like Dr. Rieux in Albert Camus’s ‘The Plague’, he was “…a man who was sick and tired of the world he lived in – though he had much liking for his fellow men.”

I like some individuals enormously but have never found much to admire in humanity in general. After reading Two Hours to Doom, the book on which Stanley Kubrick based Dr. Strangelove, I remember thinking that if I was in charge of a button that could kill every human on the planet instantly and painlessly, while leaving the rest of nature unaffected, then I would probably press it. Today, I almost certainly would, out of pity for the hopelessly oppressed and, more importantly, for the rest of nature.

When I told Alwyn I’d be leaving in three days - four weeks before the end of term - to tour Europe, but I still desperately wanted to play Macbeth in Edinburgh, and after that I'd be teaching in Scotland, he merely grunted and said he was surprised I'd stayed so long, not being dedicated enough to cope with the insecurity, or make the sacrifices of time and money that were inevitable if one chose to be a full-time actor. He also said he’d miss me – which was nice, and Edgar got a bit teary.

I wasn’t leaving them in the lurch; good actors were two a penny by that time as work dried up, so they easily found a replacement, a twenty-three-year-old South African of pleasant but not handsome mien, who could also take over as driver. With a lump in my throat I promised to be word perfect for Macbeth, and to arrive in Edinburgh in plenty of time to rehearse properly.

Chapter 26: The Grand Tour

Three months sharing food, tent and transport with five others was going to make concealment of my penchant for attractive young men somewhat difficult, so after much agonising I'd decided to come clean. If they reacted badly I’d ask for my money back.

As I climbed into the van, Anthony peered across at Alwyn’s front door and sneered, “Who’s that poofter?”

Edgar was waiting to wave goodbye. In the harsh light of morning he looked his age; face lined and pale, accentuating his obviously dyed and thinning hair. The fluffy sky-blue woollen cardigan and bottle green tights he always wore around the house suddenly seemed queer, not endearing, and his stance was definitely not butch.

Instead of bravely snapping, “Up yours, wanker, shove your fucking tour!” courage deserted me and, following Falstaff’s notion that the better part of valour is discretion, I answered vaguely, “He lives upstairs… I think,” mightily relieved that Anthony’s grunt of contempt wasn’t directed at me.

It was even more disquieting to discover that the four other travelling companions were young women from ‘good’ homes and the sort of schools where they wouldn’t have been allowed out the gates without panama hats at the correct angle, gloves, ties, blazers, neatly aligned stockings, and polished shoes. They were also healthy, level-headed, well mannered, confident, self-controlled, and sensibly dressed in skirts and blouses, low-heeled shoes, no makeup, and hair styled so it would need only a quick brush in the mornings.

Unlike me, they’d done the prudent thing; met each other first, decided they were compatible, and then agreed to the trip. I was clearly an unwelcome wild card in tight jeans, black shirt and desert boots; an unpredictable ‘bohemian’ – probably untrustworthy.

Marion, a blonde South African, introduced me to a red-headed Australian and two robust New Zealanders whose names escape me, then stated bluntly, “We’re travelling with you and Anthony because we don’t feel up to driving on the right in foreign countries, and women travelling alone can be taken advantage of. We will do our fair share, expect to be treated as equals, and do not want sex!”

“Neither do I!” I responded with such exaggerated relief that it should have raised an eyebrow, if not a laugh. Instead they frowned, unable to decide whether it was a joke or an insult. Anthony gave me an odd look. Fuck! Was I already acting a bit over the top? It was going to be a very long three months!

The ferry was half way to Ostend before I realised I had no idea where Ostend was. In Belgium, Anthony had said… but where was Belgium in relation to the rest of Europe? Fortunately, before my ignorance was exposed the girls produced a briefcase containing Michelin road maps with our route marked in green; tour guides; city maps: brochures, addresses of camping grounds, opening times and closing days of museums, ferry schedules and a hardback note book in which was listed every sight we had to see in the next twelve weeks – hundreds of them!

We’d be travelling through Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Austria, West Germany, East Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway - then back through Denmark and Holland to Ostend. There wouldn’t be time for sex!

Fewer than three thousand million people lived on Earth in the Sixties. Ninety percent of them were too poor to travel, and even fewer owned cars; hence, driving and travelling was a stress-free activity. Virtually the only tourists in Europe were North Americans, Australasians, and northern Europeans. Passport control, if you held a British passport, was negligible – unless you were me. Border guards always seemed to take exception to my face and checked their files to see if they could match my name to a criminal. There were no queues at frontiers; no long crocodiles of tourists waiting to see famous art works, buildings, museums, or natural wonders. Sterling was one of the strongest currencies so everywhere else was cheap, and young travellers were still enough of a novelty to be treated politely.

Today, with a human population of 7.6 billion, and tourism now de rigueur for everyone on the planet able to afford a cheap packaged tour, travelling has become a high-stress activity with horrendous queues, rigid passport and ‘terrorist’ control, and expensive visas. Roads, planes, and trains are jammed with vast numbers of tourists who are whisked through all the must-see monuments and other scenic spots at high speed by exhausted guides as busload after busload arrive and disgorge their hordes to wait in endless lines and queues.

Sadly, even the four-week restful sea voyage from Australia or New Zealand to the U.K. has also gone – replaced by tin boxes shuttling everyone at ridiculous speeds through the stratosphere; adding to the permanent cloud layer and dumping tonnes of spent fuel particles over the planet.

We stayed in camping grounds. Anthony made up a bed for himself in the van each night and the rest of us slept in a tent partitioned into three spaces – cooking, girls’ bedroom, and my tiny cell. On our first night together, with a maximum of fuss four of us erected the tent for the first time – a complex structure of interlocking, spring-loaded tubes, while two girls prepared a tasty meal.

After planning the next day’s itinerary, we retired to sleeping bags. Suddenly a muffled noise from the girls. I leaped out of my enclosure and by the light of a torch discovered half the tent had collapsed, almost asphyxiating them. They pushed from the inside while I went out and reinserted the pegs that had come adrift. Back in the tent they were sitting up in sensible nightdresses like a quartet of maiden aunts.

“You're naked!” the red-head stated somewhat obviously.

“I sleep naked but thought it more important to rescue you than look for trousers.”

“Aren't you embarrassed?”

“Why?” I asked, anxiously inspecting myself. “What's wrong with me?”

“Nothing… nothing,” she stammered. “It’s just that….”

“What? What's wrong with me?” I demanded in a voice edging towards panic.

“Nothing, nothing,” she responded placatingly, vainly turning to her wide-eyed sisters for support.

“That’s a relief!” I heaved a dramatic sigh. “For a moment there I thought I'd grown a tail.”

They didn't laugh.

A sudden loud farting made everyone jump, and then laugh, and then commiserate. The airbed of one of the mousey girls had split open – probably because they’d all been standing on it while pushing the tent up. It was beyond repair, so I took mine, which I'd been using as a groundsheet, blew it up and presented it to her with a flourish. They were so absurdly grateful I didn't tell them I didn't like airbeds, being more comfortable sleeping on the ground. I would use the damaged airbed as a groundsheet.

Anthony arrived in striped pyjamas to see what the fuss was about.

“You’re naked!” he blurted – clearly shocked. “That’s disgusting!”

“No, it isn’t! Rigby doesn’t wear pyjamas,” Marion snapped as if it was Anthony who was abnormal. “And he’s a perfect gentleman, like my father who also likes to wander around the house nude.” The silence after that tit-bit of family gossip was absolute, reinforcing the young lady’s venomous tone.

The following day one of the girls explained that Anthony had propositioned Marion on the boat, and it was retaliation for that, rather than concern for my feelings that had prompted my rise from mistrusted bodgie to perfect gentleman.

Anthony and I were the only ones insured to drive; the girls’ responsibilities were shopping at markets and cooking excellent meals on our gas cooker. They were exemplary specimens of womanhood – never complained, never nagged, always well tempered; a pragmatic and sensible bunch. When we bogged down they were out there heaving and pushing as hard as me. When Anthony overturned the van just before Lausanne, leaving us teetering over a fifty-metre drop to Lake Geneva below, no one screamed. We calmly clambered out a window, one of the girls rescued the eggs, and it wasn’t till after we’d been righted and towed to a garage that the redhead said quietly, “I think I've broken my collarbone.” She had, and after an hour at the hospital wore straps and sling for the rest of the trip; not once complaining.

Superficially, we shared similar outlooks on life. None of us smoked, drank, or were interested in nightclubs. All took our responsibilities seriously and did our fair share of work, and we all wanted a spouse someday to share our lives. However, their husbands would be chosen for reliability, financial prospects, and respectability. My criteria were compatibility and mutual love; two qualities they had not deemed worth mentioning. They would marry as virgins, whereas I thought it more sensible to sample the goods first. Anthony usually remained aloof, which suited everyone. He was a good organiser and we were all happy to let him be ‘captain’.

I never discovered what their interests were – or even if they had any. Certainly, they were uninterested in the ‘Arts’. I spent hours wandering the Louvre again. They marched up the stairs to the Winged Victory, crossed it off their list, trudged along to Venus de Milo, crossed her off, then without gazing to right or left, hurried along to Mona Lisa – at that time without its bullet proof glass and alarm systems. Twenty minutes after paying the exorbitant entrance fee they were window-shopping on Rue de Rivoli.

They ‘did’ Rome’s Borgheze Gallery in ten minutes, then went shopping while I sat until closing time, fighting back tears and sobs; unable to tear myself away from Caravaggio’s Young Bacchus who epitomised all my aching sadness, loneliness and longing for perfect love.

In Vienna, I stood for hours in the ‘gods’ at the Opera to hear Fritz Wunderlich in Der Rosenkavalier, and The Flying Dutchman, while they rode on the giant ferris wheel in the amusement park. Our well-planned grand European tour was for them a duty; a ‘rite of passage’ which they would execute diligently before returning to bore the pants off friends and family with slide shows, and then begin the serious business of snaring a husband.

My heterosexual façade, sustained by unrelenting monitoring of every utterance, gesture, reaction and unconscious mannerism, was almost undone in Nazaré, at that time an almost untouched fishing village on the Portuguese Atlantic coast. We’d been travelling for two weeks, so two days were set aside to wash our clothes properly and relax in the first really warm weather we’d had.

The camping ground was in beautiful park-like grounds behind a decaying white-stuccoed mansion decorated with blue tiles. The area near the office and shop was crowded with tents and caravans, so we drove further back where it was private.

The following morning, after watching fishermen in long tasselled caps drag their wooden boats, with eyes painted on the prow, up the almost deserted beach, and admiring voluminously petticoated women carrying vast loads of food, washing, and even outboard motors in baskets on their heads, we returned to the camping ground to sunbathe.

The girls were in bikinis, Anthony in boxer shorts, and I wore nothing. It was a good opportunity to regain my all-over tan and I didn't think they'd worry because they’d seen my cods on the first night and hadn't seemed shocked. Of course, Anthony said I should cover my prick, giving the girls the opportunity to offload their irritation at his recent bossy behaviour by telling him not to be such a prude.

Exotic foreign culture, the absence of familiar restraints, clean fresh air and sun on naked flesh make the perfect aphrodisiac. It had clearly aroused the latent sexuality of even these well-bred lasses. We’d all endured an English winter, the dank, cold, drabness of which is difficult to imagine, and even harder to endure. Responding to the sweet sensuality of the spot, the girls placed their towels near mine and massaged oil into pale flesh while none too covertly eyeing my groin.

“Typical Dago! He’s coming to perve on us,” the Australian warned primly as the manager sauntered along the track towards us. “Ignore him, girls!”

Impeccable in black trousers and white shirt, the young man looked at us for a few long seconds, nodded at Anthony and the girls, swept me with a cool gaze and in exquisitely mispronounced English, ordered me to go with him.

Fearing I was breaching Salazar’s purity rules I politely asked why.

“I have problem English.”

Unable to refuse such a pleasant specimen of Latin masculinity I leaped to my feet and said I'd put on shorts, but he shook his head impatiently. “Here private, you good.”

He led me down a path through trees to a side entrance of the mansion and thence to a pleasantly cool, whitewashed bedroom where he stripped and fondled his arousal. A vision of living happily ever after with this young man in this exquisite old house in this delightful sunny country flashed before my eyes like a ‘B’ movie.

“I want put sword in bottom.”

Fortunately, unlike the Spaniard, he was satisfied with something less invasive. I, however, was left unfulfilled when the sound of car tyres on gravel had him on his feet and shoving me out the window hissing that they mustn’t find me there. Before I could discover if ‘they’ were his wife or parents or bosses, I was standing on a sandy path wondering what to do with an obstinate erection.

At that moment four middle-aged men wearing nothing but suntans and white sandshoes appeared round a bend in the track. There was no time to hide so I smiled and asked where the main drive was. With unconcealed amusement they introduced themselves, congratulated me on my prowess, and pointed the way, explaining they were Germans who belonged to a naturist group that came there every year. Why didn't I join them for coffee?

I gazed back at the now shuttered window, accepted that the house was in fact a crumbling wreck and the manager wasn’t husband material, and followed my new friends to a small village of tents where a score of middle-aged men and women were drinking coffee in a circle of deck chairs and assorted sun beds under the trees. The coffee was very good, their English excellent, and their friendship easy and genuine. If all Germans were like that, my traitorous brain decided, perhaps it wouldn’t have been too bad if they’d won the war.

Impatient and slightly worried, Anthony and the girls sat on the ground beside me when I flopped onto my back on the towel to catch the last bit of sun. I said the manager had just wanted to know the meaning of a couple of words in a letter he’d received, and I'd spent the rest of the time chatting to a bunch of elderly German nudists.

Nudists! The word excited the girls in a similar manner to that of the people who’d watched my performance in the conservatory for the Mays. There was a restrained but palpable sexual tension, both liberating and arousing and I decided to see how far I could go. I drizzled oil over chest, groin and thighs, and casually rubbed it in, paying equal attention to my heavy but still flaccid manhood. Then with a sigh of contentment lay back and closed my eyes so they could look without embarrassment.

Dread silence, then Anthony hissed, “You're a disgusting pervert!

I felt myself harden.

“And you’re pathetic, Anthony!” snapped the usually quiet New Zealander. “Loosen your corsets!”

It was so out of character that everyone laughed too loudly, to prove they weren’t uptight prudes. Someone giggled, “I think it’s going to burst!” Someone else whispered that she had no idea a penis could grow so huge and wondered what it must feel like to have it inside – surely it would be painful? Even tampons hurt her.

Through half-closed eyes I saw that Anthony had moved a few yards away, so he could watch but not seem part of the action. The skinny runt was so uptight no wonder he never had any success with women. The silence grew, and I was on the point of turning over, having obviously misjudged the mood, when the redhead announced that when she was twelve she’d spied on her older brother masturbating. I opened my eyes.

“He went like this,” she giggled, jiggling her hand up and down wildly. The laughter was universal and almost hysterical.

“He did it every night!” More laughter.

“Was it as big as Rigby’s?”

“As long, but skinnier!”

They squealed in manic exhilaration at their own daring, and I knew I'd not misjudged. As long as a bloke has a half-decent body, his success as a stripper, especially at small private functions, depends on his ability to ‘read’ the audience and never embarrass them. I was pretty good at guessing how far to go – whether they wanted to dance, touch, rub oil, watch me jerk off, or would prefer to see nothing more than the bulge in the last G-string. I've often been thanked as I left, for not embarrassing ‘the girls’.

In that soft afternoon of Arcadian tranquillity with cicadas chirping and the sun driving out inhibitions, I felt like Hylas surrounded by water nymphs. It was a delicate situation. I had to live another ten weeks with them so if it went wrong I'd be up shit creek good and proper! But it had never felt more right, so I wrapped my hand firmly around my cock.

“Mature men like it slow.... like this.” I said, grinning while demonstrating, keeping my eyes fixed on what I was doing so they wouldn’t feel watched.

To me it was just a bit of fun; to them it was a revelation that such an activity, usually done secretly in the dark and in shame, could be treated as normal. Anthony had moved closer to stand frowning behind the girls as if ready to intervene if I leaped up and raped them. I caught his eye, winked, then arched my back as the fountain played. He scuttled away and disappeared.

Another key to success is to know when and how to leave the stage. It isn't sexy to watch a naked stripper gather up his own discarded clothes, or to see a proud erection shrivel, so I immediately jogged to a nearby tap and washed and massaged it back to normal under the very cold water.

When I returned the girls were whispering among themselves. Worried I'd gone too far I lay on my stomach because it’s easier to weather disapproval if you're not facing it. After a respectful silence, Marion suppressed her giggling long enough to thank me for such an interesting and useful lesson – but suggested that once was enough.

I agreed it was definitely a one-off tutorial, and they skipped off to prepare the evening meal. I could barely suppress a laugh. These paragons of private school rectitude were just as fascinated as the men and women who paid to watch me. I felt relaxed and calm; better than I had for days.

Why did I jerk off in front of the girls and Anthony? Why did I do so many similar things for the first fifty years of my life? It always just seemed like harmless fun, and as far as I know there have only been positive consequences. As a youth it was also an act of mutiny against the puritanical attitudes of my peers and their parents. Then as I grew older it became an intellectual revolt against a world that judged me a criminal, while the governments that made those laws waged war, assisted multinationals to destroy the environment and rip off indigenous people, encouraged religions to brainwash kids with mind destroying crap, and put out the welcome mat to trading partners that torture their prisoners.

It’s always been an act of defiance against a society I have seldom found cause to admire. Intelligence and reason are affronted by laws that declare it’s OK to show in graphic detail someone being murdered, or the clear felling of forests, or killing in war; but it’s a criminal offence to show a penis. Ridiculous!

My ‘protests’ salved my conscience without endangering either privacy or health, and confirmed my ability to manipulate people. If I could perform an act that was totally outside society’s norms yet retain their respect and friendship, then I was not only pretty smart but had probably lodged a sliver of doubt in their minds about the wisdom of blindly following convention.

The sequel was just such a confirmation. Both Anthony and the girls began to treat me with respect, listening to my opinion and consulting me until I began to feel like the dominant male in a pride of lions. In the tent things also changed. The girls decided it was unhealthy for me to sleep in the airless little ‘room’ as summer advanced and nighttime temperatures rose, trusting me to dress and sleep in the same space as them. When Anthony knocked at the tent, however, they’d shout, “You can't come in, we’re naked!” He seemed to accept this philosophically.

The experience reinforced a budding conviction that humans are merely sexual animals, not exclusively hetero or homo or nympho or frigid or lezzie or starved or frustrated or anything else. To pin a label on someone was not only stupid, but cruel and restrictive. I wasn’t like anyone I knew in any way; not only sexually – I was just me - not a stereotype.

Many people’s attitudes have changed since then and there seems to be nothing we can’t talk about, yet many laws still reflect the religious conviction that sex is a divine activity, the sole purpose of which is producing children for god, making it a sin to be naked, wank or pet or root for mere pleasure. It’s not surprising there are so many frustrated and angry people, when they've been taught their genitals must be concealed because they are God’s instrument for creating life, not ours to do with as we please.

Chapter 27: Even Grander Touring

“Have you noticed all those soldiers?” someone remarked as we were driving from Madrid to Valencia. Every hundred metres for about twenty kilometres, fully kitted soldiers had been standing at attention, rifles at the ready on both sides of the road. Suddenly, an ear-splitting siren heralded a police car roaring towards us, blue lights flashing, loudspeakers blaring “Estop! Estop! Estop!” on and on and on.

We pulled over to the side of the road. After several minutes, four police cars, sirens screaming, followed by three black stretch limos with darkened glass and another two police cars, hurtled towards us at well over a hundred and fifty kilometres an hour. Generalissimo Franco was returning to Madrid. As soon as they'd gone, the soldiers broke ranks and we continued on our journey. It was a disquieting experience.

We all lost money in the Casino at Nice – at least five shillings - but made it up by sleeping on the beach near Hyeres, spreading out the tent and clambering underneath to keep off the dew. The girls reckoned the Monte Carlo Casino toilets with their liveried attendants were the best in the civilized world.

In Rome we filled our bellies with delicious cherries growing wild on the roadside near the centre of town, and splurged on coffee with the ‘beautiful people’ on Via Veneto – an experience spoiled by young Italian males who, in the sixties, considered unaccompanied young women fair game. With only two males for four females, the girls’ bums were pinched so hard they locked themselves in the van in tears. Painful bruises were visible the following morning.

While the others took the Swiss mountain railway through ice caves to the top of the Jungfrau, I trekked up alpine meadows above Lauterbrunnen to the snow line – very high as it was mid-summer. It was fairy-tale perfect. Waterfalls lined the track, wild flowers everywhere, cowbells clanking, and I even found gentian and edelweiss, which surprised the woman running the hostel. It was very dangerous to go so high, she said – especially alone without telling anyone. But it had been very romantic.

The Austrian business partner of one of the girls’ parents had invited us to visit them for afternoon tea at their home outside Vienna. The long driveway wound its way through an ancient forest. It wasn’t just a house, it was a Schloss surrounded by lawns, formal gardens, and topiary trees. The heavy front door responded to my pull on the bell by revealing a liveried butler who ushered us through grand hallways to a sun-filled room overlooking private gardens and a small lake. Plates of strawberries and cream were placed before us and we ate in awed silence, served by two starched maids.

Finally, our host and hostess appeared, immaculately presented and too dauntingly polite to remark on our less than formal attire. Compared to them, Colonel and Mrs. May were proletarians. The girls were presented with a rhinestone necklace each; Anthony and I received a handshake. Duty done, our hosts withdrew. We were politely ushered out and drove away; relieved not to have the burden of such riches.

In Bonn, the interim capital of West Germany, we saw a crowd, stopped, joined them, and a few minutes later President Kennedy was driven past with Chancellor Adenauer in an open car. The absence of obvious security made poor Generalissimo Franco seem paranoid – but then he had cause to be. We were less than five metres from Mr. President who had a piggy face.

Four months later he was dead, and the outpouring of grief amazed me. I'd seen him up close and thought he looked a bit self-satisfied, so I wasn’t upset, not realising his foreign policy ideas would have ended the cold war and set the world on the road to peace – which is no doubt why he was assassinated. Fifty-five years later I am belatedly very sorry.

Aldous Huxley died the same day and, although his admirers and I felt the loss deeply, his death went almost unnoticed by the rest of the world. I was greatly influenced by Huxley's pacifism and writing – especially Island - and shared his detestation of mass culture and popular entertainment. Later that day when I was buying camping gas for the cooker in a hardware store, the owner offered me a job. So easy was it to find work in Germany then.

“That guy’s staring at you,” Anthony warned in the spotlessly clean washroom of the Cologne camping ground. “I know,” I responded carelessly, “he fancies me.” I hadn’t had sex with anyone since the start of the trip, unless I counted the performance in the Nazaré camping ground, so ignoring Anthony’s protests I followed the young man back to his tent.

That evening Anthony announced he was returning to London. He had business interests that demanded his attention and was leaving me in charge. In fact, he was starting up a travel agency specialising in cheap tours of European highlights for colonials. Ours was a trial run to check all the camping grounds and iron out possible glitches at frontiers and so on.

He didn't tell the girls about my dalliance with the camper, so I accompanied him across the footbridge to the main railway station beside the cathedral.

“I wish you'd told me earlier!” he said irritably. “Seeing you naked and fooling around with the girls had me worried you'd rape one and ruin my reputation.”

His reputation! How about the girls’ reputations? I didn't bother to explain it was his own fault for sneering at Edgar. To celebrate his departure, the girls forewent cooking for once and we enjoyed a dozen different varieties of sausage, followed by a giant cheesecake, at a traditional German restaurant.

The road through East Germany to Berlin was a securely fenced, high-speed Autobahn policed by army vehicles. Stopping verboten at all times! Our tent site in the Potsdam camping ground was right against the infamous wall – a deceptively slight affair of concrete that we could walk up to and touch, topped with barbed wire.

On the other side, soldiers could be heard marching and ordering each other around, and searchlights stayed on all night. There was no surveillance whatever on our side. It was extraordinary to swim in the lake that formed part of the boundary and know that the people we saw on the other side were prisoners who'd be shot if they tried to swim across to us.

Three East Berliners had been shot and killed trying to escape by driving a car through Checkpoint Charlie the day before we crossed. The blood still stained the road, so it was unnerving to have my passport taken, be hustled into a windowless room, and ordered to strip! A guard in jodhpurs and high-peaked cap who looked like the ruthless German soldiers depicted in War Comics of the period, shoved my head between my knees while his companion spread my cheeks and thrust a rubber-gloved finger up my ring. It hurt!

I’d read the spy books so showed neither anger nor fear; a mistake. They wanted fear and the War Comic character threw an unexpected solid punch into my guts just below the ribs – calculated to paralyse the diaphragm and have me gasping for breath in agony on the floor.

Fortunately, I’ve excellent reflexes and good abs so it didn't hurt physically. Mentally I was a mess! How could this be happening to me – a nice boy from a nice family? The room grew very cold and I stopped thinking – terrorism does that. Afterwards, I couldn’t tell the girls. I guess it’s what raped people feel – as if it was my own fault for acting too arrogant or something. It was several years before fear stopped catching me unawares at the mere mention of Berlin.

East Berlin was dead. Shops with nothing to sell, streets void of cars. We drove a kilometre or so away from the main business area and parked in a treeless street flanked by featureless, five-storey, beige apartment blocks. Within seconds a dozen poorly dressed kids and adults arrived to gape, stare, and ask questions. We were ‘outsiders’, few of whom ventured so far from the main square. Their relatives in West Berlin hadn’t been seen or heard from since the wall went up just over two years previously, and they were starved for news.

An older woman took my hand. I was like her son, she said, breaking down and sobbing against my chest. I wrapped my arms around her heaving shoulders, helpless. What had she done to deserve this? How could I comfort her? What could I do to stem the tide of misery, poverty, fear, and stupidity? They didn't dare invite us inside – indeed were nervous the whole time that the Stasi might see them talking to us. After carefully checking we weren’t being spied on, we accepted half a dozen hastily scrawled notes and promised to post them when we arrived back in West Berlin. If we’d been caught it could have been dangerous, but we couldn’t refuse.

Kruschev was due to appear at a rally in Karl Marx Square that day and we’d planned to attend, but the sky turned black and the most violent electrical storm to hit Berlin for decades sent everyone scurrying for shelter from torrential rain, hail, and lightning. Poor Kruschev – his audience fled as we did, locals to their miserable apartments, us back to the safety, bright lights and bustle of West Berlin.

After Hamburg’s overcrowded industrialisation and the sleazy, commercial sex of Herbert Strasse, Scandinavia’s fresh air and openness was a relief. Danish magazines fluttering in the breeze outside roadside kiosks showing nudes with nipples and pubic hair were terribly exciting – we were used to under-the-counter magazines containing photos of women with airbrushed pubes and no nipples or slits. And Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens deserved their reputation as the most beautiful and elegant amusement park in the world.

Picking blueberries in the pine forests of Sweden, laughing at goats grazing the roofs of chalets in Norway where the sun only set for an hour or so at night and no one ever seemed to go to bed, was much more interesting than I'd expected. On our return along the North Sea coast to Ostend, we attracted crowds of bored campers each night, amazed at our well-practised tent erection and food preparation, and clearly curious about a G-stringed young man and his harem of four slightly nubile young women.

A couple of unexpected expenses had blown a hole in my personal budget, so I had no spending money for the last few days. We’d decided to spend two days shopping in Amsterdam before driving to Ostend for the ferry. Credit cards, electronic banking, and instant telegraphic transfers were twenty years in the future, so I had no way of getting more cash until I returned to London. It was a nuisance as there were several things I'd planned to buy. I couldn’t help wondering if, being the gay capital of Europe, the city might offer a fit young twenty-two-year-old an opportunity.... if he kept his eyes open.

People often doubt the truth of my experiences, labelling them impossible coincidences, because it’s not possible that something always turns up to save my bacon. But there are no coincidences in life. People of a similar bent do similar things and go to similar places and ‘recognise’ each other, so it is inevitable they will meet. Those whose lives appear to unroll more or less smoothly have kept their mind and eyes open to the real world and the opportunities that arise, grabbing what’s on offer even if it’s something they hadn't planned.

Most people I know always have a plan, and if that plan goes awry, they're stymied; feel cheated, and tell everyone life is unfair because they didn't get what they wanted. I've never had fixed plans, merely a vague notion of the general direction I might go in. So whenever an opportunity arises that looks more or less useful, I go for it. Contented people are those who, like natural animals in the wild, uncomplainingly accept whatever circumstances they find themselves in, take their chances, and make the best of things.

Marion had arranged to meet her forty-two-year-old, alarmingly good-looking and wealthy father in Amsterdam. He was on a cigars and coffee-buying trip for his wholesale business in Johannesburg and invited us for lunch at his hotel. Elegant and lean in a well-tailored suit; face as barricaded against the world as I felt mine must be; I couldn’t take my eyes off him and made certain I sat beside him at the table. While the girls chattered about our holiday over coffee, he stroked my thigh under the table. I placed my hand on his and kept it there.

The camping ground that night was right beside the new Schiphol International Airport. When he heard this, the father said he would pay for two double rooms at the hotel for the girls, as it would be a pity to spoil the last two days of the holiday trying to sleep with noisy jets screaming overhead. They could scarcely contain their delight – a private shower at last! While they took their things up to their rooms Marion’s father asked if it wasn’t a bit odd my holidaying with four young women. I agreed. He asked what I did for a crust. I told him.

“Actors don’t make enough for you to take three months off. What else do you do?”

I took a gamble and told him I was an occasional escort with an exclusive Mayfair agency.

He nodded, giving nothing away. “Are you healthy?”

“Very.”

He grinned. “And how much does this healthy young man receive for a night?”

“Twenty guineas,” I admitted modestly.

He thought for a bit. “As we’ll be using my room, plus meals if you want, how does twenty-five pounds for two nights sound?”

I opened my wallet and he deposited two tens and a fiver.

He grinned. “A true professional. Cash up front.”

Much later that evening after a pleasant interlude, someone knocked on the door. I grabbed a towel, opened it and Marion came in and pulled up a chair. Somewhat confused, I returned to bed and listened to father and daughter share gossip and news while he stroked my shoulder and neck. After half an hour she ran out of steam, stood, stretched, apologised for keeping us up, bent and kissed her father, leaned over him and kissed me on the brow, then turned at the door.

“I knew on the first night when the tent collapsed that you were just like daddy. That’s why I liked you.” A well-bred smile and she was gone.

It turned out her parents had divorced when she was ten and she’d lived with her father and his partner ever since, so was perfectly used to seeing him in bed with a man. He was, as she had said three months earlier, a perfect gentleman.

The van’s battery had died in the north of Holland and the girls had to push so I could start the thing every time we wanted to go anywhere. It was a bit embarrassing on the wharf at Ostend, and on arrival at Dover in front of laughing motorists, to be pushed through the hold to the ramp so we could roll down, start with a bang, and arrive in London exactly on time to return the van to Anthony.

Everyone promised to meet up again, but I knew I wouldn’t. Spending twenty-four hours a day with people for three months doesn’t mean you get to either know or like them enough to have reunions. I remained as much a mystery to them as they did to me. Was it ever possible to really know someone, I wondered?

After more than fifty years living happily with the same partner, I'm certain the answer to that is ‘no’. Other people change just as we do, and they can always surprise us. In fact, sometimes I think I scarcely know myself.

Chapter 28: Edinburgh

The trip had been fun and much more useful than I'd expected. I was now familiar with every major city and country of Europe, had discovered that England was not the most civilized land on earth; London was not the most beautiful, interesting, or cultivated city; and the English were not as well educated, friendly, or attractive as most Europeans. In fact, I had felt more at home in Europe than the UK and was determined to move there immediately after my stint as a drama teacher.

Eight youngish actors had joined us to prepare for our Edinburgh Fringe offering of Macbeth, probably hoping to emulate the success of Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore whose revue continued to amuse worldwide. Beyond the Fringe had reduced me to tears of laughter in London, but I couldn’t see Macbeth receiving similar accolades. I'd been promoted to the title role because I was the tallest and looked the fittest and Alwyn knew he could trust me.

I stayed with Alwyn and Edgar in Chiswick in the week preceding our trip north, and we rehearsed in their parlour – a hell of a squeeze! Positive audience reaction to the nudity in Apollon and Sweeney, and the London performances we’d given of Tempest, gave Alwyn the impetus to pull out all the stops in the costume department.

The extra actors were in their twenties and thirties, lean and pale, not handsome, but healthy with fine legs and good bums. They looked manly and tough in coarsely knitted G-strings that Edgar had dipped in metallic paint, so they looked as if made of chain mail. A dagger at the belt and a broadsword completed the costume for Warlords. Nobles added a narrow red cloak slung back from the shoulders, servants wore a simple short shift, and Valerie stormed around magnificently in an ankle-length, semitransparent embroidered gown.

Instead of the customary tormented soul vacillating between noble urges and amoral lust for power, Alwyn demanded that my Macbeth be pure evil. In the soliloquy; “Is this a dagger which I see before me…” there was no ambivalence about regicide; instead, Macbeth revels in the prospect. And in the famous speech when learning of his wife’s death that ends… “Life’s but a walking shadow… a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing!” that had moved me so deeply when declaimed by Terry, I maintained a tone of sneering contempt for humanity from start to finish – no pathos for my Macbeth, and the more I learn about human history and politics, the more I think it’s an accurate portrayal of the sort of leaders most humans admire.

We rehearsed in the afternoons, so I was free at night to top up the treasury. I visited my old boss in Mayfair. He was pleased because Colonel May had been asking for me. I phoned him, and we arranged to meet at his pied à terre in Soho the following night. That evening there were two stripping jobs – a bevy of Bayswater queens who were thrilled when I gave them a little more than the simple strip they’d paid for, and a middle-aged heterosexual couple in a private hotel who needed a naked young man to perform, and then watch them; otherwise they couldn’t screw. Heterosexuals are no less odd than queers.

Felix May’s invitation surprised me. Perhaps he wanted to set me up in a flat and give me an allowance? I'd often wished I had someone to take care of me when lonely and depressed, and wondered if I'd give up Macbeth and Scotland for security.

Felix answered my knock with a sharp, “What are you doing here?” I told him. “Silly old fool got his names crossed.” I felt an idiot and turned to go but he took my arm and, as if he'd been delivered the wrong flavoured pizza, said, “You’ll do instead.”

Cheap and ashamed was something I'd never felt before, so I pulled my arm away and left. His look of wounded incredulity went a small way to restoring my self-esteem. After that, I stuck to stripping until it was time to go north.

Driving the old van again transported me back to when I first joined the Company. I'd been happy with Alwyn and Edgar, sharing their cosy flat, talking, laughing, solving the problems of the world. They were, I realised with a shock, the first gay couple I'd ever known, the first real friends, the first people with whom I felt totally relaxed and free to be myself. I liked them both and felt guilty at leaving the Company, worried about the new job, and so miserable at giving up acting it felt as if my heart was being torn out.

I think the most worthwhile human occupation is Public Art, which is another name for entertainment whether it’s writing, dancing, painting, making music, or acting. By worthwhile I mean entertainment that amuses, informs, and stimulates ideas for the improvement of the human condition, by positing an alternative universe where things are better arranged. In this way it gives respite to burdened spirits, and the impetus to go on.

But to be a good entertainer required sacrifices I wasn’t prepared to make. I needed financial security. I had to be able to refuse roles I deemed not artistic, and I couldn’t sacrifice all my interests simply to excel at one. Also, I wanted to be the judge of my own worth. An entertainer has to please the critics, not himself, or he’s out of a job. And perhaps the most important objection of all is that I hated wasting sunny days in a dark, cold theatre. I've always been a child of the sun.

The real Edinburgh Festival features grand orchestras, ballet companies, operatic ensembles, famous theatrical companies, and famous solo performers. The ‘Fringe’ is about alternatives; new and challenging works or ways of looking at old ones. Among the scores of offerings that year were poetry reading while dancing to bongo drums, a play extemporised from shouted audience suggestions, a living sculpture exhibition, patron participation in the production of expressionist painting, jazz on skipping ropes… and dozens of similarly fascinating and bizarre productions. The competition for audiences was fierce.

Macbeth in chain mail G-strings was pretty bizarre but was it oddball enough to attract interest? … Alwyn held up one of our flyers ready to be distributed - a photo of me taken from behind; apparently naked with sword raised and the words: “Macbeth – Naked Lust for Power”.

“Macbeth and Banquo were Warlords,’ he said quietly before our first run-through. “Scotsmen frequently went into battle naked, so…” he looked at the actor playing Banquo. I knew what he’d planned, it was I who put the idea into his head, but the short, chunky actor playing Banquo shook his head.

“If they both wear G-strings the Warlords will be confused with Nobles,” Alwyn stated. “There’s a nude ballet down at the Haymarket. Don’t you want an audience?” Banquo caved in on condition he was naked only in the first scene where we’d just finished a battle. He refused to believe that I felt more relaxed before an audience naked than dressed. But then he wasn’t me.

The performing space was a small, amphitheatre type lecture room on the ground floor of a tertiary education institute. Five semicircular tiers of seats looking down on an acting area about twelve paces across, could seat a hundred. It would be an intimate experience, but I was used to that. Our portable set concealed the electrics and sound and provided entrances and exits. Lighting was full strength spots with straw filters, creating strong, warm highlights, deep shadows, stark contrasts, and discrete acting areas. Scene changes were indicated by very short blackouts that barely interrupted the flow.

Bodies oiled and polished till they glistened, we presented our final rehearsal to a long-haired representative of the Fringe committee, who stamped our permit, said something about us looking like “well-oiled cogs in the machinery of state”, handed us stickers to paste over the flyers proclaiming our production to be ‘adults only’, and left. It was a relief as rumours of Scottish Puritanism were rife and we’d almost expected to be refused permission.

The first performance went without a hitch. It was very warm on stage so fears about a derisory, cold-shrivelled penis didn't materialise. My cock hung loose and full, slapping reassuringly against my thighs as I trod the boards plotting, murdering, and brawling over power until the final humiliation. It was a revelation to the other actors that a naked body can be at least as expressive of both power and despair as one draped in expensive costumes. It permits the actor to use his entire body, not just face and voice. It was the absolute highlight of my ‘serious’ acting career, and the memory still thrills a little. The audience of mainly students took it even more seriously than we did – not a snigger at our entrance! And the final applause was loud and genuine.

The review in the newspaper supplement reporting on Festival events wasn’t so complimentary; ‘Sassenachs arrogantly bringing Scotland to Scotland in a somewhat hysterical production, rendered absurd by needless nudity.” No mention of our interpretation, or Vivienne’s stunning madness. The word ‘nudity’, however, was exactly what we needed to ensure good houses for the rest of the short season.

When not performing, the other actors ‘networked’, drank, smoked, brawled, and sought work. They and “The Westminster Shakespearian Company” could now put Edinburgh Festival on their CVs, boosting chances of work. I went sight-seeing.

The Royal Mile below the castle and adjacent areas that are now the most expensive and gentrified real estate in the old city, were at that time riddled with ancient tenements without running water or services, inhabited by poverty-stricken families the like of which I hadn’t seen since Naples. Skinny, ragged kids who must be freezing in winter. Beggars, prostitutes in dark corners, dirty, grimy cobblestone streets. I couldn’t find the city beautiful.

The railway line through the middle of the city cuts off the old town from the newer, elegant Georgian terraces, parks, and gardens. The Art Gallery is very fine and exhibited a Renaissance St. Sebastian whose superb torso is pierced so realistically with arrows that I felt physically sick. A guard came to my assistance but he wasn’t young and handsome so there was no point in fainting.

Edinburgh (Dun Edin before the name was anglicised) thinks of itself as the ‘Athens of the north’, and a hill above the town is sprinkled with pseudo Greek follies. While munching there on my butty (Scots for sandwich) I was approached by a ragged, pale, ill-looking kid who asked if I wanted a fuck. Only five shillings. I took him for a meal in a pie-cart, to C&A to buy a windcheater, gave him a pound and advised him to stop before he caught the clap. My charitable behaviour surprised me; I’ll usually give time but not money. And the kid wasn’t even grateful. I think he thought I was mad.

The morning after our final performance, Alwyn grumpily shook my hand, Edgar gave me a hug, and with a lump in my throat I waved goodbye. They had been the most influential and important people in my life to date – apart from my parents. Through them I'd gained independence, insight, and the courage to accept myself. I promised to keep in touch, but never did. I've always had to keep ‘closing doors’ because the present is as much as I can handle.

Life is like hitch-hiking. You're on your own, not sure where you're going or if you'll get there. Everyone else seems to know who they are and where they’re headed as they zip past. Then you get a ride and you too are travelling with purpose, in company… until the car stops and you’re again out in the cold on the roadside, on your own…

I'd seldom felt more alone than on the train rattling across the Forth Bridge on its way to Alloa. I was one of the last travellers on that train – the following month the line was shut down.

Chapter 29: Of Lust and Learning

Clackmannan is the smallest Scottish shire - a narrow strip ten miles by eleven, squeezed between the River Forth to the south and the escarpment of the Ochils to the north, along the base of which nestle grey stone villages, rugged glens, and the ruined Castle Campbell.

The shire’s largest town, Alloa, boasted the largest whisky storage facility in the kingdom, several bonny kirks preaching John Knox’s brand of Calvinistic misery, a woollen garment factory, and all the usual amenities including a fine indoor public swimming pool, gymnasium, and exotic Turkish bath. The air is suffused with odours of brewing and distilling, and the old town is built of pinkish stone with a sprinkling of Flemish-style stepped gables, witness to Scotland’s ancient preference for alliances with France and the ‘Low Countries’, rather than its treacherous neighbours to the south.

The month-long school camp was in a converted army barracks in the mountains near Aberfoyle in what is now the ‘Trossachs and Loch Lomond National Park’. Each class had two teachers – either a Scot and a colonial, or two colonials. There were ten dour Scots assisted by four Aussies, two New Zealanders, three Canadians, and one South African. All the colonials were in their early twenties, and keen to show the kids that school could be fun. After an initial pep talk by the camp’s head teacher, I was waylaid by a scrawny Scottish fellow reeking of tobacco.

“Macbeth!” He hissed as if passing on a secret code.

I nodded, wondering if I’d be given a bouquet or brickbat.

“Dinnae fash y’sel, I willnae tell a soul.”

“Tell what?” I asked, holding my breath so as not to gag on his BO, praying I wasn’t going to be assigned to him.

“What a liberating experience it was to see a Sassenach penis in full swing on a public stage.”

Baring nicotine-stained teeth in a smug leer he wandered off leaving me baffled. Why should I worry? I was proud of it and mildly disappointed he wasn’t going to spread the word that I was a great Shakespearian actor.

The Scottish teachers were pleased to have a month out of the classroom, but not keen on getting too physical with the kids. We colonials would be moving on after the camp, whereas they had to teach their students for the rest of the year so they daren’t lose face. Usually, they left us to do everything, contenting themselves with the occasional appearance, in between times chatting and playing bridge in the staffroom, attending the Sunday religious service with their class (while we infidels wandered down to the pub) and accepting credit for their students’ success on parents’ visiting day. The two groups seldom mixed, which suited us as most of them threw wet blankets over fun, deeming it not quite Christian to laugh out loud.

Teaching is acting with a captive audience. Most teachers cope with the fear of losing control and being asked questions they can't answer by rewarding obsequiousness and punishing individuality, turning their charges into the sort of lick-spittle employees most employers want. Questioning, sensitivity, courage, inventiveness, and tolerance are not much use to an entrepreneur impatient to make his first million.

All I've ever asked of my pupils is to treat me the same as I treat them: with politeness as equals while doing my best to amuse as well as edify. It makes for lively lessons and happy kids. The smile from a kid you're teaching is personal. The applause of an audience is not. You seldom have individual contact with an audience or discover what they really think about you. But kids tell you exactly what they think; laugh at you, ask questions, say they wish you were their father, and even twelve-year-old boys sometimes hold your hand without thinking while on a walk.

I was spared the incinerator-breathed Scot, and shared a classroom with a tall, blonde, Canadian lass and twenty pupils. We went hiking, climbing, identifying trees, drawing, and painting. We wrote scripts and made scenery and costumes for our segment of a grand pageant glorifying Scottish history. With no radios, TV, or other intrusion from the outside world, we made our own innocent fun in the evenings with party games, concerts, dances, talent quests…

A few years later in Stirling, I met a businessman in his thirties who told me his month at a similar camp as a child had been the finest in his life.

The food was good – a big breakfast, dinner, and high tea, with morning and afternoon snacks, and cocoa and a butty before bed. For some kids, it was the first time in their lives they’d had three good, healthy meals each day, and they blossomed. Pupils were rostered to help local ladies in the kitchen.

The assembly hall had a good stage with lights and curtains; the ablution blocks were adequate; and the staff-room was cosy and friendly. I slept in a small room at the end of a dormitory, in charge of twenty, twelve and thirteen-year-old, high-spirited laddies. I had only to begin telling about my recent travels to send them to sleep each night, leaving me free to join the other colonials for a game of cards, a natter, or a walk through an oak forest to the ancient Aberfoyle Pub where Rob Roy was supposed to have wet his whistle, and they didn't mind serving me soft drink – unlike a pub in Glasgow where I was threatened with a thumping for daring to ask.

Just about all kids have an aptitude for acting, inventiveness, and mimicry – as long as they feel secure and not criticised. Scottish Television heard about my drama classes and filmed us for an education documentary. They arrived in a giant articulated van filled with electronic gadgetry, tapes, dials, and lights. Two wrist-thick cables snaked from the van into the hall to be plugged into a large camera on a tripod – too heavy to carry. Floodlights brought daylight to the stage and we were off.

The film was black-and-white and the maximum length of a tape about five minutes, but it was magic to have instant replay. Today, my cigarette-packet-sized digital camera can do more than that entire lorry load of electronics – and in colour. I'd never seen myself on film, and neither had the kids. It gave us all a welcome boost of confidence.

From a queer perspective, heterosexual relationships seem fraught with difficulty. Men and women can't be simply friends. If a man treats a woman like a chum, she thinks he wants to sleep with her, and vice-versa. And if they really are after sex, they daren’t seem too keen because it suggests they’re desperate. For years I unconsciously gave out all the wrong signals: friendly and fun but hard to get – a combination guaranteed to arouse primal desires, resulting in demands to indulge in sexual congress, or marriage, or, from independent types, at least to provide a baby!

My blonde associate managed to contain her lusts for three nights before creeping into my room, sloughing off her duffel coat, sliding naked into bed and licking my ear, interrupting a very pleasant wank. I hate having my ear licked so pulled away. She grabbed at my cock, unaware that it was the memory of the Cologne German, not her, who was the source of its tumescence. Anger made me careless and I pushed her out of bed, remarking somewhat cruelly that I didn't do overtime. Not surprisingly, she spread the rumour I was ‘playing for the other side’.

Thanks to the ubiquitous and still current stereotype of limp wrists and wimpish effeminacy, I was the last man in camp anyone would think was queer. Instead, she was labelled a ‘vindictive scorned woman’ and suffered a nervous breakdown; her departure proving that homophobia doesn’t only hurt homos. Despite the ‘happy’ ending, it was a most disquieting experience. I could have been summarily dismissed and deported as a paedophile – because, as everyone ‘knows’, all queers are child molesters. The experience shoved me to the back of my closet again, a place from which I have never completely emerged.

After Aberfoyle I taught at Sunnyside Primary where I was accused of being rather too affable with the pupils and not respectful enough of tradition. My kids would be belting out ‘There is a Tavern in the Town’ while the Church of Scotland Minister’s wife’s brow-beaten pupils next door were singing hymns. I think they assumed I was a communist until the day an “Important Visitor” arrived to address the school. All four hundred and ten pupils aged from five to thirteen were seated on their bottoms on the hard assembly room floor when we learned the VIP would be delayed for half an hour.

When the sole means of discipline is the strap or cane, even young children are prone to take advantage of such situations and become riotous. It had taken half an hour to get them in their rows! What to do? The headmaster knew I'd been an actor, so asked me to entertain. I sat on a high stool and told them Grimm’s tale of “Faithful John”. For the full half hour no one moved. I finished just as the VIP entered, imagining the applause was for him.

From that day I could do no wrong, and when I was in the dock for riding my recently acquired Lambretta motor scooter without either licence or ‘L’ plates, the Headmaster spoke to his friend the Procurator Fiscal. The Scottish legal system is based on the French and differs from England and the colonies in that, instead of looking for legal loopholes and scoring points, they attempt to get at the truth. It was an interesting experience, because it didn’t seem real. It was like being in a play and I understood how kids who get on the wrong side of the law can't get their heads around the seriousness of a court appearance.

Being led in by a policeman and locked in an elegantly carved and polished wooden ‘dock’ seemed ridiculous. I knew I wasn’t a bad person, but all those long faces and serious expressions suggested I was. When asked why I'd been riding without a licence, I replied, “I'd just bought the scooter and couldn’t resist having a go.” Chuckles were audible; I was let off with a caution and earned a small headline in the local paper.

To avoid beer-soaked, vacuous heterosexual evenings with other colonials staying at the Royal Oak and another hotel down the road, I frequently soaked up the heat under the exotic dome of the Council owned and operated Turkish Baths which were in the same complex as the swimming pool and town gymnasium. In southern Europe, I would never be considered handsome, but in the U.K. I always felt good-looking. There's something doughy and boneless about most British faces, and the lack of sun and exercise shows in their bodies.

A small, very hot room opened off the main room, to which groups of men would repair, leaving someone to stand casually on guard at the door. Curious, I went in when it was empty and stretched out on a bench. Within a minute I had an audience and was offered fellatio. Apart from the risk of disease and prosecution, romantic notions of finding a soul mate to share my life, shoved a public blowjob by a tough old labourer in a bathhouse down to the level of ‘not bloody likely!’

They seemed decent blokes, but you never know, so I thanked them politely and let them watch while I took care of it myself. It was like old times having an appreciative audience, but I didn't stay to watch the others. Carnal cavorting of bodies in less than prime condition is unappetizing viewing.

One evening, a dark green Wolseley followed my scooter back to the hotel. Panic! Cops? Guilty fear is a queer’s constant companion. An elegant, middle-aged man in a suit who'd been eyeing me in the baths, invited me for a drink at his place; a beautifully restored terrace house on Broad Street in Stirling, a dozen doors down from the grandest Castle in Scotland [two hundred and fifty feet above the plain on an extinct volcano, the favourite residence of the Stuarts, including Mary who spent her childhood there and returned to be crowned.]

It was only ten miles away so how could I resist? George was Director of Musical Education for Stirlingshire and a pillar of the Music Society. His mother lived downstairs, (I never met her) he up, with a magnificent studio occupying the entire attic – most romantic with a grand piano and sloping roof, dim lights, and a red velvet couch on which we fumbled and groped to the strains of Beethoven’s fifth symphony – or something similar. I remember the bombast outdid the orgasms. But he was a nice man and at that moment being a ‘kept boy’ seemed infinitely preferable to lonely bachelorhood.

Fortunately, perhaps, George only wanted an occasional lover because he couldn’t risk anyone guessing. So, we met occasionally and very discreetly at his place where one evening at a soiree I sang a couple of Schubert lieder to his piano accompaniment, and later wowed the carefully selected guests with a striptease. The best fun I'd had for ages, despite being the youngest there by about twenty years! One morning as I left for work he gave me his house keys and tickets for a concert, so I could meet a friend who always stayed with him, a pianist who'd be performing in Stirling, and bring him back for the night – George had to travel to London.

After the brilliant Mozart, Brahms and Rimski-Korsakov recital, I waited with the ‘Friends of Stirling Music Society’ beside an indigestible buffet until Peter Katin appeared. His ill-fitting suit concealed a slim, athletic figure topped by a handsome face framed by longish, black straight hair – he was about thirty. I introduced myself and he made a joke about George setting him up with the only good-looking man in Stirling. As soon as decency permitted we escaped the boring old bats and their house-trained husbands (his words) and took a taxi back to George’s.

Over a glass of wine that went straight to my head, we chatted about his music, his tours, his latest recordings, and his latest love – Turkey where he'd recently made a concert tour and found the men friendly, sexy, and not averse to same-sex frolicking. I immediately determined to go there. The guest-room bed was large, and I lay back and watched as he removed shirt, trousers, underpants, and right leg from just above the knee. The stump was covered by a neat white cloth. He asked if it disturbed me. I replied truthfully that it didn't. I found it fascinating – nothing like the dreadful war wounds suffered by Sean Hockey and those other poor men I'd encountered at the baths in London.

Peter was the first person in the world to successfully test run an artificial leg with a flexing knee. Until then only stiff prostheses had been available, and the recipient walked with a pronounced limp – unattractive in a heartthrob young virtuoso – Lord Byron’s club foot notwithstanding. It had been an extremely arduous and painful experience for him, but well worth it – his limp was scarcely noticeable. The wine, though, had a disastrous effect. It was my first alcohol for years and I gazed down in stupefaction… brewers’ droop! But he was so sexy! He sweetly blamed the wine and I tumbled into dreamless sleep. In the morning he gave me his card and insisted I call him when I returned to London. He continued his tour of the UK, I returned to Alloa.

Several times a day, incompetent women teachers at Clackmannan Primary, where I taught next, would send boys to the headmaster to be punished, and the ghastly old Victorian structure echoed to sadistic thwacking. There wasn’t another Camp until the following March so, sickened by the cruelty, I decided to spend winter in London.

Rosie, a 30-year-old teacher I’d met at the camp, begged to ride pillion as far as York where her parents lived. The ride was cold, wet, dangerous – Lambrettas are top heavy and lethal at the best of times, but in rain with a fat-bummed female behind? We made it to York in driving rain only to be hit by a car. She slid off the back, undamaged; I woke in hospital. Nothing serious, and my recuperative week on her parents’ small farm just outside the city was wonderful.

Rosie’s mother’s meal of roast beef and real Yorkshire pudding was the first food I remember being ready to die for. Not so welcome was Rosie slipping into my bed demanding a fuck. I closed my eyes and thought of Portugal.

York is a delightful medieval city surrounded by Roman walls, and its Lord Mayor outranks the Lord Mayor of London. He was a simple ex-farmer, an old friend of Rosie’s parents, and invited us to tea and gave me a pen emblazoned with the City of York’s coat of arms.

The next day I set off for London, only to fall off at the first corner.

Chapter 30: Shop Assistant and Teacher

In the weeks over Christmas and New Year, the fruit and vegetable department of Selfridges, the second largest and classiest department store in London, benefited from my servitude. Wealthy hostesses and film stars would dreamily request “A little fruit for the table, darling,” then spend the equivalent of my week’s wages on a bowl of grapes, granadillas, and a few peaches. The variety and quality of fruit both exotic and local was staggering and I became the melon and grape specialist, assisting Madam to select the perfect Israeli Ogen or Dutch Net melon, or, wearing white gloves and holding tissue paper, knowledgeably adjudicate over the selection of a pound of delicately bloomed Muscat grapes.

With an accent and lofty demeanour worthy of Jeeves, I was soon in demand by Lady this, Marquise that and the Duchess of Dogsbodies whose long-suffering chauffeurs trailed behind carrying both purchases and lap dog. One evening after bedding the stock for the night, the manager took me to the packing room where gorgeous baskets of fruit were concocted, and placed a firm hand on my shoulder. His breath was sweet, olive skin flawless, lips full, and intentions clear – I thought, so was somewhat surprised and just a tad disappointed when he merely asked if I’d become a permanent fixture, and he'd guarantee I'd be a buyer within a year. Buyers were powerful and very well remunerated – as they should be, having to be at Covent Garden markets at five o'clock every morning and not leaving the store till six. I thanked him profusely but declined. Three weeks had been sufficient for me to realise that ‘serve’ meant ‘serf’ and if I didn't quit soon I’d run amok with a peeling knife among the smug clientele.

A week later, I was scootering to Acton Town Infant School to take charge of the new entrants until their teacher returned in March. It was a portentous appointment as I was the first male to teach in that century-old establishment. Five-year-olds are as sharp as adults, a thousand times as quick at picking up new things, capable of tremendous affection and trust, disarmingly ‘angelic’ and supremely independent. I was in love with all of them.

Alwyn and Edgar, I didn't contact – instead, I phoned Peter Katin and we arranged to meet at the Seven Bells in Chelsea – scene of my genital jewellery debacle. I arrived too early and was so nervous I raced downstairs to the loo for a quick vomit, returning with stinking breath to find him waiting. Of the dinner party with several of his friends I remember nothing except a feeling of superfluity. It was all shop talk – who was performing where, what recordings had been made, the perfidy of agents, and other gossip. Still hoping to make amends for my sexual fiasco in Stirling, I accepted an invitation to be his guest at a concert in Croydon that weekend.

It was a long and perilous scooter ride to his house – a grand two-storey edifice where I was somewhat taken aback by the presence of a wife and two children. After minimal introductions we repaired upstairs to a huge, soundproof studio where, instead of a cuddle on the couch I had to listen to his latest recording – a Rachmaninov concerto. Half way through the interminable thing he shouted, “There! Did you hear it? They’ve skipped a note!” My ears were obviously clogged. There were notes aplenty – far too many in my opinion. With all those runs, trills and hammering, one note more or less seemed neither here nor there and I gazed at him in blank amazement.

After pancakes, served by his charming and obviously not so innocent wife, we drove to the concert hall where he was the first half of the programme. During interval the ‘Friends of Peter Katin Society’ gathered backstage to feed his ego, then we all drove back to his place. I was sorely disappointed. I wanted to hear the second half of the concert – a Mozart symphony. But no – we were there for Peter, not the music. It was my first close encounter with the gigantic egos essential to anyone contemplating the life of an entertainment superstar. Not having the sycophant gene, I withdrew – unnoticed and unlamented - and scootered the midnight miles back to my modest little bed-sit in Philbeach Gardens, Earl's Court.

The following morning the scooter was gone. The police eventually found it minus wheels and things. Insurance replaced and rebuilt it, but the first time I drove it to school in the rain a mini stopped abruptly in front of me. I smashed into the back, flew over the top and landed on the bonnet, before slithering onto the road. Cuts and scratches to me – scooter and car undamaged. The headmistress, a grandmotherly spinster of indeterminate age, viewing my ashen countenance and blood oozing from trousers and shirt, had a bowl of warm water and detergent brought to her study where she and her thousand-year-old secretary pretended they weren’t excited when I stripped.

I should have listened to Mother and worn underpants in case I had an accident; but they were old enough to cope and didn't seem the slightest bit incommoded. Secure in the knowledge that no one would dare enter her sanctum without first knocking, the headmistress and her ancient acolyte tutted concern and gently swabbed and applied ointment and plasters to gashes and grazes.

The anonymity of London was a necessary tonic after the School Camp and Alloa, where I soon knew too many people and was often recognised on the street by kids and their parents. In London, the evenings were never boring; I was either dancing in a club or going to concerts and poetry readings at a queer-friendly pub with one of the best friends I've ever had – an Australian called Geoffrey. Blond, healthy, interested in many things, intelligent and fun. No sex, as I wasn’t his ‘type’.

He was enamoured with Terry, a slim, pimply and emotionally insecure seventeen-year-old who kept slashing his wrists. Geoffrey is one of the few people I am genuinely sorry to have lost contact with. He visited me twice in Paris and we corresponded for years, but I kept moving, lost addresses, he moved, and is now somewhere in Melbourne, or India, or Timbuktu, or dead – he was very adventurous.

For social dancing to be pleasurable, it requires a good partner and I teamed up with a mad Irish girl who one night secretly followed me back to my room and hammered on the door creating such a fuss I had to let her in, whereupon she produced a condom (something I've never bought in my life) and I, deciding submission was preferable to the neighbours calling the cops, let her ride me like a horse across the Irish bogs.

Two days later, itches. A bath that night revealed crabs! Blood-sucking parasites! Humiliated, I took the tube to the all-night chemist in Piccadilly Circus and joined the queue of druggies waiting for their National Health ‘fix’. The assistant didn't even blink when I confessed my shame, merely handed me a bottle of milky liquid. On the up side… I had a good reason to tell Irish to bugger off.

When the permanent teacher failed to return to Acton Infant School at the end of February, the headmistress asked me to apply for her position. I thanked her with a peck on a withered cheek, and regretfully declined – it had been wonderful, but I was promised to another Camp School in Scotland.

Unable to face another scooter ride the length of England, I popped it on the train to Edinburgh, and scootered to Aberfoyle during a blizzard. It snowed the entire month and was great fun, as were all the camps, usually with most of the same colonial crowd with whom I became good friends – keeping my secret by sighing over a fictive photo of a fiancé prominently displayed in my wallet, and taking my mother’s weekly letters away to a quiet corner to read with dewy-eyed excitement – behaviour that usually kept would-be lovers at bay.

Prue, an exuberant Melburnian with mauve hair was at every camp and I fell deeply in love with her – platonically. Our relationship was cerebral/emotional intimacy, not sexual, something I hoped would continue because her husband was also teaching at the camp. Therefore, when she snuggled into bed one night, nuzzling my neck, caressing the cods, and stifling sobs, I felt cheated. Between sniffles she told me her husband never slept with her any more, had been having affairs, and she was so miserable… couldn’t I just… hold her and…

She had a slim, hairless body, which I found interesting, and although I didn't enjoy the experience, neither was it unpleasant, perhaps because I liked her more than any other woman I'd known. But I couldn’t do it again. She was deeply hurt: rejected again! But what was I supposed to say? Sorry Prue, I'm a poofter? I didn't dare! How much happier and simpler life would be for everyone if no one had to dissimulate.

Fortunately, most of the boys were too young for sex to be a problem. The girls thought the boys were immature, and the boys weren’t interested in them. However, one afternoon a noise in the store room opposite my bedroom demanded investigation. Instead of slithering through mud and bushes to steal the flag of the opposing team, a couple of young toughs had hived off and were tugging at each other’s erections. Idiots! The room was frequently visited by staff. I grabbed their shorts, checked no one was coming, thrust them across the corridor into my room and let loose. Didn't they realise if they were caught they'd be expelled from both camp and school and their lives ruined? They didn't and were visibly shocked to discover that unpalatable truth. I let it sink in, told them to find somewhere safe next time, and handed back their shorts.

That night after lights out, they crept into to my room to thank me and ask if what they were doing was really bad. I told them it certainly wasn’t, but the law was, so they’d have to find a way to live with it.

It was another twenty years before I understood that laws could be changed, and joined the fight to decriminalise my natural behaviour. Such is the power of childhood indoctrination that, being brought up to respect the law, we imagine it to be immutable.

Most Scottish Education Authorities ran camps, and all were good, although by today’s standards we took incredible risks. While tramping with a group from Lanarkshire the kids nearly got blown off a mountain by sudden hurricane force winds. On another occasion, a score of boys from Perth fell through the ice on a lake and nearly drowned. We lost a girl for an hour as dusk was falling in a forest; and couldn’t see more than a foot in front of ourselves for a week during a ‘Ha’ [dense fog] at a camp in a grand old mansion south of Edinburgh where three kids got lost for nearly a day in abandoned and dangerous mine shafts.

Best of all was a month by a lake in the highlands with a middle-aged Scottish teacher and his class of eighteen fourteen-year-olds from a private Edinburgh boys’ school for ultra-high achievers. They were smart, witty, hard working, hungry for knowledge, adventurous, and sensible. Without the giggles and mocking with which girls habitually draw attention to themselves, the boys lost inhibitions and calculated the river flow, mapped the stars, climbed rocky escarpments, skinny-dipped, used trigonometry to work out the height of hills and trees, held impromptu concerts, made up plays and, throwing off the shackles of convention, accepted my assertion that they'd enjoy participating in ‘free movement’ to the strumming of their teacher’s Spanish guitar.

Their enthusiasm for this liberating and exhausting exercise was so great that on the last night, on their own initiative they choreographed and performed an exuberant ten-minute ‘ballet’, some of the moves of which were so expressive I used them the next time I performed.

Not once was I tortured by a tongue in the ear; expected to fondle udders; or invited to venture into a vulva. So relaxing yet stimulating was this all-male environment I determined to join a monastery – if I could find one for homosexual atheists.

Back in Alloa one evening during high tea, (dinner in Scotland was at noon) a hotel guest to whom I'd spoken a few words mentioned a New Zealander he thought I'd like to meet. Curious, I telephoned and that weekend a smooth, Italianate young man of about my age picked me up in a Triumph Sports car. Marvin was a designer of woollen fashion clothing, and rented an up-market flat in Bridge of Allan with views across the Forth River and the ruined old bridge to Stirling Castle. He took me to William Wallace’s memorial – a giant neo-Gothic Victorian phallic tower, where, after climbing the three hundred steps, he remained paralysed by propriety, haltingly pointing out the grand view.

So, I kissed him. He was taken aback. “I didn't dare hope you were queer! You look so straight!” Quite the nicest words anyone can say to a closeted homo. He took me home for the weekend and proved to be yet another selfish lover who fell asleep as soon as his lusts were quenched. Frustrating, but in other ways he was good company and I knew it was foolish to expect perfection in others when even I had a few faults. At least I now had someone with whom to share weekends and evenings without having to pretend I lusted over girls, or laugh over unfunny jokes about queers.

George had found another occasional lover to seduce in his attic, and Marvin took me to a private house where an oleaginous Catholic priest held court among a gaggle of somewhat histrionic and nervous queers overburdened by their unwanted outlaw status. That was more or less the sum total of the Stirling ‘Queer Scene’

From Friday night until Monday morning we were a couple. Cooking, eating, playing, sleeping, sightseeing in the Triumph to romantic Castle Doone, abandoned villages like Blair Logie with its crumbling crofts and strange tombstones, and ancient Fife fishing villages whose silent, unwelcoming menace fed my nightmares for years. Marvin was friends with a gay couple in Callander whose bathroom was decked out in pink tulle. Embarrassment at it and the queenly behaviour of one of the pair, an otherwise pleasant young man who made hats, caused me to refuse further invitations.

At the few Glasgow parties Marvin dragged me to, I'd spend a great deal of time outside wandering the streets or, if the smog and clouds lifted, gazing at the stars to avoid cigarette smoke and alcohol-induced stupidity. A party should be fun. There should be games, jokes, banter, intelligent one-on-one conversation, a chance to get to know new people – make friends. But what hope of that if everyone’s blind drunk and sex crazed? And I wasn’t the right ‘type’, apparently. Whenever I tried to chat with anyone, even gargoyles, I was given the cold shoulder. It didn't bother me too much as they weren’t remotely desirable – still, it was a tad discomforting to discover I wasn’t universally admired.

The existence of a supportive gay subculture bent on subverting societal values is a heterosexual fabrication designed to excuse homophobia. The truth is the opposite. Neurotic, self-absorbed, shallow, bitchy, and downright unfriendly is more typical of gays in groups. In other words, they're no different from heterosexuals.

Our crumbling ménage was finally dismantled after a weekend in Edinburgh staying in a dank Georgian mansion with Marvin’s tenuously-connected-to-royalty second cousins, whose notions of hospitality were chillingly similar to the Viennese couple of the strawberries and cream and rhinestones.

In the early sixties, John Knox’s ghost still held the Scots in thrall and Edinburgh sans festival was dead. I'm not a night owl, but even I was amazed that the entire city was shut down by ten o'clock! If you didn't arrive back at your private hotel, guest house, or hostel by ten-thirty, you spent the night on the street.

Marvin wasn’t interested in the theatre, art, classical music, or walking too far, and was profoundly shocked when I showed him where we’d staged Macbeth and described my role. The revelation rendered him speechless and we drove in silence to Arthur’s Seat, Holyrood House, and home. When, a few days later, he checked up on whether I'd sent a ‘thank-you’ letter to our hosts, I realised that living with him would be like living with a strict maiden aunt. We’d talked about travelling together, but he was dismissive of hitch-hiking, camping, and youth hostels. For him travelling meant cars, first-class trains, aeroplanes, and hotels. It did seem a shame that pomposity and cringing conventionality should be so attractively wrapped.

I gleaned one useful snippet of information from our Edinburgh weekend. In the window of a photographer specialising in ‘art’ photos of muscled men in posing pouches, I spied a discreet little notice: Creative male models required.

Before the digital age permitted us to take and print photos of ourselves, every large city boasted at least one such photographic studio. Marvin snorted with derision at the pumped-up bodies and walked on. I took note of the phone number and later made an appointment for the following Saturday.

As I suspected, ‘creative’ meant uninhibited and ‘model’ meant stripper – but I was too old, the manager informed me. Twenty-three and already too old? To compensate for my disappointment, he invited me to see for myself, and that evening I joined a few dozen middle aged to elderly, well-heeled and well-filled gentlemen in the well-appointed rooms of the Athena Club. It boasted a library, billiard room, steam room, gymnasium, dining room and kitchens, bar room, several bedrooms, and a charming little theatre complete with stage lights, curtains and seating for about a hundred, in which sexy entertainment was provided every Saturday night.

At nine o'clock, a series of skinny boys sullenly removed their clothes, a few revealing needle marks, then jerked off to the beat of pop music. The applause was grudging. I was indeed older than the fourteen to eighteen-year-olds who performed so poorly, but it was a delightful stage that cried out for professional performers, so I offered to give a show the following Saturday, promising not to charge if the audience didn't like me.

I've never understood why people think it’s demeaning to perform a good striptease. They’ll go to a museum and ooh and ah over a vase or carpet or painting; happily gawping at nude sculptures and scantily clad dancers and circus performers without imagining their interest cheapens the object of their admiration, so why should the lustful gaze of sad and sex-starved men cheapen me?

On the contrary, it made me feel worthwhile – of value and decent. I've given up expecting anyone to understand the fun and thrill it gave me. Living a life of pretence in a small town or crowded camp was like being sucked into quicksand. I had to do something totally different – something that would shock them if they knew, merely to avoid emotional suffocation.

I gave my standard show – a real striptease with several layers of costumes, many laughs, and audience involvement – even got some of them up to dance. The owner paid me ten Scottish pounds issued by the Clydesdale Bank, equivalent to Bank of England notes but only tradeable in Scotland, and said I could perform any Saturday night I was in the city. No need to ring in advance. Twenty minutes on stage and home in bed by ten-thirty having earned as much untaxed lucre as a week in the classroom – not bad.

Three youthful experiences indelibly coloured my perceptions of women. The first was reading about Mr. Pickwick’s lucky escape from Mrs. Bardell’s accusation of ‘breach of promise of marriage’. The second was when a family friend, a confirmed bachelor in his thirties, was astounded to read in the paper of his engagement to a woman he’d only been seeing on a casual basis for a few months. So unnerved was he by this announcement and the huge engagement party her parents had without his knowledge organised, he capitulated and spent the rest of his life in marital disharmony. Third and most distressing was the case of a young man I'd been to school with who’d just completed his training as a doctor. He was so distraught by a marriage into which he'd been trapped, that on the morning of the wedding his mother found him hanging by the neck in their basement garage.

A pleasant, middle-aged female teacher at my school in Alloa, invited me to dinner. The Victorian villa was sturdy, the décor sombre, the cutlery sterling silver, the husband aloof, the food unmemorable, and the daughter on the cusp of spinsterhood. Suspicious of her motives I refused the offer of tickets to a concert if I would accompany the daughter, told them I'd soon be heading for Turkey for an indefinite period, and declined further invitations.

Ishbel, another youngish woman galloping towards spinsterhood, partnered me at badminton several times and misunderstood my familiarity. One evening a knock at my door while I was reading in bed. Imagining it was one of the other guys at the hotel I called, “Come in.” She entered shyly and stood staring gooselike at my naked chest. I patted the bed. She sat down, then realising what she’d done, bounced back up as if scalded. When her lips finally came unstuck she stuttered an invitation to a ceilidh the following week. I love dancing, but not at a Scottish Ceilidh where the whole family from mewling babe to incontinent ninety-year-olds would be there to meet Ishbel’s young man.

Seldom have I been grateful to religion, but this time John Knox proved useful. Unlike her colonial peers to whom sex was simply a bit of fun, Ishbel was virginal and pure. Sex was sin. Happiness was sin. The body was sin.

“OK, if you’ll sleep with me,” I said, throwing back the covers to expose my ‘sin’. She gazed down in fascinated horror, opened her mouth, licked her lips, stepped back as if from the edge of the abyss, stuttered that she couldn’t!... It wouldn’t be… not before… and fled.

School holidays arrived, so I saddled up my trusty Lambretta and, ignoring unseasonable forecasts of blizzards and storms, set off for John O’ Groats.

Chapter 31: Eureka!

If we accept that life imitates Art, then writers, artists, architects, and musicians are culpable for most of humanity’s blunders. Certainly, the architects of cold, grey, granite Aberdeen must take some blame for that city’s dour inhabitants. The bleak youth hostel squatting in a row of similar stone dwellings, opened its doors at five o'clock. Hikers were given preference, so veteran hostellers parked their cars and motorbikes a block away, donned rucksacks and staggered to the door.

I parked my scooter outside, was rewarded with a scowl, allocated a bed, and informed that doors would be locked at ten. An unattractive Norwegian in the next bed jerked off noisily then snored all night. Before I was granted parole in the morning, I had to clean the toilets.

Apart from the gothic tower on King’s College and the grim Salvation Army Citadel, all I remember is a dank park inhabited by vicious ravens cawing abuse as they plummeted from bare trees, razor-claws raking the air inches from my scalp. Aberdeen is a port at the confluence of two rivers, and also boasts sandy beaches, but as the temperature seldom gets above 60°F even in mid-summer, they aren’t often used. The North Sea, as grey as the city and as wild as the ravens, was smashing itself against the granite sea wall, launching spray dozens of feet into the air.

A blue-kneed old codger in a kilt was barking noisily at a grizzled Scotch terrier that was yapping back at him from its vantage point on the wall. Thinking the old man was literally barking mad and the terrier was too frightened to move I bounded up, copped a drenching from a wave, and carried the startled hound back to its master.

“Stupid interfering idiot,” he snarled. “The dog was obeying orders!” As I'd been wearing just about every stitch of clothing I possessed, I wasted an hour in a launderette drying wet things.

The following morning, I discovered the source of all that grim granite – a circular quarry of incredible depth that attracted not only tourists, but an unsurprising number of suicides, according to a depressed and very fat woman peering over the edge. As she sounded ready to hurl herself into the void, I extended her the courtesy I hope to receive when I'm ready to quit this mortal plane – wished her luck and left her to it.

The home of highland games in Braemar was a bleak and windswept oval graced by a grandstand just large enough to seat the Royals and local Lairds. The village might have been cute in summer, but it rained, and with a dozen other drenched and freezing youth-hostellers I endured the meagre shelter of bare trees until the hostel guardian, visible through his window imbibing tea and cakes beside the fire, checked his watch, slowly walked to the door, waited until the clock chimed five o'clock, then unlocked and grudgingly granted us entry.

Everyone raced for the kitchen where the smells of bacon and eggs, baked beans, toast and coffee set tastebuds watering. My oatmeal porridge didn't really compete, but it was muscle-building, occupied scant space, and required little preparation and clean up.

I always felt out of place in youth hostels and avoided them when possible – all that bonhomie, sharing of tales, swapping of information and addresses, promises to meet again. Everyone anxious to ensure they would never be alone; forever travelling in groups surrounded by a babble of banality; never experiencing places in silence, never faced with the scary truth that your survival is up to you – in those days without a mobile phone.

My map, torn from an old school atlas, showed a road that ran more or less direct from Braemar to Inverness, so I set out, not realising it crossed a range of mountains. Sleet was falling as I passed the fairy-tale towers of Balmoral Castle, and snow set in an hour later. The road climbed and narrowed. Snow drifts piled up on both sides and a pair of skiers zipped across directly over my head, unaware they’d missed me by inches.

Poor little Lambretta struggled on through the blizzard – alone because no one else was stupid enough to take that road. I had no goggles and again was wearing every piece of clothing I owned, keeping an eye out for a croft, a barn, or a snow drift in which to burrow in case the scooter broke down. I knew igloos were warm because ice is an insulator, so wasn’t too worried; not realising that arctic ice is dry; Scottish snow melts and makes you very, very wet and cold.

Fortunately, I was spared that discovery and arrived just on nightfall in Inverness, made straight for the railway station and collapsed in front of a cup of tea and sandwiches in the cafeteria, unable to do anything except shake uncontrollably. My teeth were clattering so hard I feared they’d shatter. The waitress thought I was suffering from Delirium Tremens – gave a little scream and retreated.

Shortly after, a young policeman approached and demanded to know what I’d been drinking. I managed to explain, so he took my arm and led me to the police post at the end of the concourse; a tiny room containing a desk, chair, and a large electric heater going full blast.

“You’re soaking wet! No wonder you can't warm up. Change your clothes!” I stuttered I was wearing everything I owned, so he closed and locked the door and told me to strip. I couldn’t, my fingers refused to move. He cautiously undid all the buttons and zips, peeled everything off, handed me a towel and went to retrieve my tea and sandwiches. He was very tall and pale and gangly with a pleasant countenance, so I laid on the charm as I towelled, giving him the chance to ogle my bits if he wanted.

He ogled, a promising sign as heterosexuals always look away, and by the time I'd finished my tea he knew the essentials; I was from London, knew no one in Inverness, was looking for a place to sleep the night, would be gone in the morning never to return, and thought he was extremely handsome. He grunted and left the room, returning with trousers, shirt, jacket and overcoat from the lost property box.

The following morning, having proved the truth of the rumour that tall skinny guys are well hung, I donned my dry clothes, bade him a fond farewell, scootered around town to admire the river, park, and castle, then puttered north.

The Duchess of Sutherland’s Victorian ‘medieval castle’ had been converted into a youth hostel. Half a dozen self-conscious students on a university biology trip were the only other inmates. After my evening porridge, for lack of other diversion I surveyed with sinking heart the castle’s kitsch decorative excesses. In the Great Hall I was approached by a short, dark young man of about sixteen; one of the students. He’d been following me. We chatted briefly about everything except his overt desire for sex; and I felt old.

The difference was only seven years, but into those seven years I'd squeezed a hell of a lot of experience. I didn't want a callow youth filled with innocent ignorance. I wanted someone who had experienced the world and knew who he was and what he wanted – someone I could grow old and more experienced with. Such obvious interest from a young man was flattering, but didn't turn me on, so I wished him luck and retired to my cot for a wank.

Far north Scotland is bleak, treeless, and mildly hilly, and the east coast road provides pretty sea views, bays, and bridges. Dounreay Nuclear Power Station looked suitably ominous and uninviting. The northernmost tip of the British mainland (as far north as the Alaskan state capital of Juneau) boasted a boatshed, a broken dinghy on a sandy beach, a few rocks, and a view across to the Orkney Islands. I was the only person there and desperately wanted to plunge naked into Scarpa Flow, but it was too cold.

Today, hundreds of thousands of visitors descend on the place every year, so there's good accommodation, caravan and camping sites, a craft village, shops, ferries to the Orkneys, wild-life tours, exhibitions, and museums. I remain grateful to have seen it in its ‘original’ state.

It’s always an odd feeling to reach the ‘end of the land’. The only thing one can do is return – which I did, taking the inland road, arriving at nightfall at a petrol pump in front of a crumbling croft. The suspicious woman who served me 2-Stroke mix, gave grudging permission to sleep in the hay loft above the cow shed, pre-empting any further requests by snapping that it wasn’t an inn and her man would soon be home for his tea. He would be tired, so I wasn’t to make a nuisance of myself. A dour evening with a Highland crofter was to be avoided, so I hived off to the barn, swallowed cold porridge and, wrapped in a horse blanket, made myself comfortable, if not warm.

On a lonely stretch of road miles from anywhere I passed a road sweeper’s cart containing half a dozen handmade birch brooms. A hundred yards further, an old man was busily sweeping. Highland cows swathed in long, rich red hair peered curiously through their fringes from the shelter of pines. Glens provided long vistas to the lochs of the west coast, where inward-looking, ominous stone villages still endured the heavy yoke of Scottish Calvinism.

Villagers would have stones thrown through windows if they played the radio, sang, or did any kind of work on Sunday – even urgent repairs. Prettification for tourists was inconceivable, and a proposed naval base in one of the more beautiful, deep-water lochs was arousing great anger. Ancient hills covered with springy heath promised grand views, so I climbed. They are hard walking and the curve of the hills so regular and gentle it’s impossible to know when you’ve reached the top. It just keeps on curving until eventually you realise you're descending.

The Isle of Skye is only a few hundred metres across the water from Kyle of Lochalsh. Today a modern bridge carries thousands of tourists. Then, an ancient ferry conveyed the few travellers and locals. Prince Charlie’s island is bleakly spectacular with mountains, valleys, hundreds of inlets, and a rugged coastline. Halfway to Uig, my accelerator cable snapped. I slipped it from the sleeve and rode with one hand pulling on it till Portree – a tiny village with a friendly, creative mechanic who made one up, charging me only for parts. His sister ran a guest house, my base for a couple of days. I was intending to return to the mainland on Sunday – except when I arrived at the wharf: no ferries! God forbid.

Sure by Tummel and Loch Rannoch and Lochaber I will go, by heather tracks wi’ heaven in their wiles… I won a beautiful silver cup singing that in a competition at high school, and belted it out as I rode in the opposite direction. The lakes are beautiful. There was a lone piper in a kilt by the water in Lochaber. I seemed to be the only traveller scooting along through a mysterious quiet world of swirling mists and barren hills.

“Why get a scooter instead of a motorbike?” I'd been asked. The first reason was Italian films in which handsome young men zipped around Rome on scooters. But the main reason is you sit comfortably upright, able to see the scenery without straining your neck. It’s the next best thing to a magic carpet. And there’s no temptation to race – top speed was about forty miles per hour; and no need for special clothing.

As a kid I loved travelling and hated returning home to the drab bickering of family life. The journey, I realised, is the fun part. The final destination is the same for us all – death, so we might as well enjoy the trip and not be in such a hurry. Hurtling through the sky in tin tubes seeing nothing is not travelling, especially when you arrive at a place virtually identical to the one you’ve just left.

On what turned out to be my last trip to Edinburgh, I was saying goodbye to arrow-pierced Saint Sebastian in the Scottish National Art Gallery when someone said, “Taylor?” I froze. The only place I'd been called by my surname was at high school and although I hadn't had a bad time I hated everything about it, especially the assumption that everyone was a patriotic, rugby-playing philistine. I pretended I hadn't heard but he said my name again, so I turned.

It was seven years since I’d seen my physics teacher, but he looked no older – just a trifle shorter and less imposing. The olive skin and heavy five o’clock shadow was the same, but instead of cool disdain, his eyes seemed insecure.

I think I was too surprised at running into him so far from home to think, so I just nodded a greeting and wondered how I could have been in love with him. He wasn’t really sexy. Politeness forced me to accept an invitation to coffee in the cafeteria where, after swapping superficial details about our lives, he said he'd been thinking about me lately and wanted to apologise. I wondered if he’d lost his marbles.

After a fair bit of beating around the bush, he told me he’d recently endured an acrimonious divorce and, unable to remain in New Zealand for a variety of reasons, had returned to his roots and was teaching in Glasgow.

I nodded, wondering what on earth he had to apologise for.

“I'm sorry for saying you were like a lovesick schoolgirl,” he blurted.

I was surprised, of course, but more by the tears that began trickling down my cheeks than by his apology. At the time, I'd been ashamed that my ‘love’ had been dismissed so callously, but thought I'd got over it. Obviously, I hadn't.

“You see,” he continued, “I've since realised that the feelings men have for each other are just as valid as those they might feel for women, and it was callous and hurtful of me to say what I did, especially to a sensitive sixteen-year-old.”

There was a silence while I wondered where this was heading, and then the penny dropped.

“You mean you…?”

He nodded self-consciously and looked so pathetic I decided to let him off the hook.

“Me too.”

He sighed, smiled and told me he had a ‘friend’ in Glasgow and…

I felt slightly jealous but happy for him.

We shook hands as equals and wished each other all the best. He, relieved to have righted what he saw as a wrong; me, uplifted by the proof that my feelings and hopes had been validated. Because of what he’d said all those years ago I'd unconsciously assumed that if I loved a man it would be an inferior type of love to that of ‘real’ men for women. A burden had been lifted and I realised my spirit was dying in Scotland. I needed to travel again. Returning to Alloa, I handed in my resignation effective from the end of the camp, and sought out Prue.

If my ex-teacher was courageous enough to set the record straight, I should be too. Relations had been strained since I'd made excuses for not continuing a sexual relationship with her, and I knew she was suffering badly from this second rejection. I took her aside and explained. She stared at me to make sure I wasn’t lying, then said, “That means…”

“That means you’re a very sexy lady indeed to have aroused me. It’s never happened before, but it wouldn’t be fair to continue. Forgive me?”

She was quietly ecstatic. Grinned and cried a little and hoped I'd be happy. Insisted we keep in touch – which we did for several years until she found a new lover who appreciated her – and I felt decent again.

Foolishly, one evening in the staffroom I mentioned that I was going to hitch-hike across North Africa. Gerald, an uncoordinated, lanky denizen of Toronto offered to buy my scooter. Duff, who hailed from Halifax, Nova Scotia, asked if he could join me. The scooter I was glad to sell, but travelling with a conservative, taciturn, straight male? No way! I needed to be alone! But he insisted in front of everyone. If I'd refused he’d have looked an awful ass and I didn't dislike him that much, so caved in.

On the day the camp ended Gerald set out for Ireland and fell off a couple of miles down the road, smashing his teeth and jaw, wrecking the scooter, and spending a fortnight in hospital.

Duff and I hitched south.

Chapter 32: Flawed Companions

We had little in common. I made friends easily, Duff frightened them away. I chattered constantly, giving my opinion on everything. To get an opinion out of Duff required Dominican Inquisitors. I kept fit through useful activity; Duff swore by 5BX, the Canadian Air-Force fitness programme. He was strongly muscled but narrow of body and face as well as outlook. In his swimming togs, he looked tough but not attractive. Eyes too close together, lips pursed, frowning, humourless, pinched, grudging, no apparent interest in sex, other people, or places.

I recall him in the south of Spain demanding in a truculent drawl of a young boy who wanted to practice his English, “What’re y’ staples?” When the poor kid didn't understand, Duff growled exactly the same question again and again, only louder each time. As I too had no idea what he was on about, I asked him. Staples, it transpired, is Canadian for the most common foods.

Spain was still hopeless for hitching so we caught buses and trains. Arriving towards evening in Seville, I had to wait for my rucksack to be unloaded. When I looked around, Duff had disappeared. Imagining he’d had an accident I wasted two days searching at embassies, hotels, everywhere. When I saw him in a café, I raced across mightily relieved. He just shrugged, indifferent to my concern, and offered no explanation. I assumed I'd annoyed him by chattering too much and vowed to improve.

In Algeciras two days later, he missed the ferry to Tangiers. In preparation for his arrival I took a room at the same hotel as last time behind Socco Chico, and met the next ferry. But he’d met three other, equally unattractive and sour Canadians on board and decided to stay with them at a hostel in the modern part of the city. No thanks for my efforts, apology, or explanation. I realised I'd again annoyed him, but had no idea how, and he didn't care enough to enlighten me. Somewhat relieved to be once more alone, I set off for Fez, the most perfectly preserved medieval Arab city in the world, and also the most attractive.

Surrounded by a magnificent wall, Fez is a labyrinth of narrow alleys lined with tiny shops open to the street selling everything from fruit to herbs, leather to silver – the trader sitting on a shelf behind his wares. Laden donkeys and their drivers squeezed past djellaba-clad pedestrians. Magnificently decorated arches offered vistas through to grand ‘squares’ jammed with traders, merchants, noise, colour, and life. The river gushes through barred arches in the ancient encircling walls, watering very old trees in parks and gardens. Secret courtyards can be glimpsed through tiny grills. At the lowest point is an ancient tannery where, in execrable stench, near-naked, slim, brown young men up to their thighs in round stone vats full of steaming coloured dyes, knead with their feet the beautiful, soft Moroccan leather.

If a load was too small for a donkey or the street too narrow, porters hoisted heavy bundles on their backs. One such, a handsome young man who called himself Texas because of an infatuation with the Wild West, took up with me, said I could stay at his place, and became my guide for three days. After traipsing the hot, scented alleys, wandering around the old fort and cemetery, watching eagles in the surrounding hills, we sweated in Turkish baths and exercised in a cellar gymnasium with other scantily clad young men lifting weights, wrestling and drinking sweet mint tea. Everywhere in Morocco, it seemed, on roadsides, construction sites, in shops and houses, mint tea would be bubbling aromatically in blue, exotic shaped enamel teapots on tiny primus stoves.

Texas lived in three rooms in an ancient courtyard house near the centre of the city. His grandfather, a lean sixty-year-old with cheekbones you could slit your wrists on, spoke excellent English although his smile was a trifle disconcerting – exposing a full set of stainless steel dentures. Over scalding mint tea, I learned that he and Kiril [Texas’s real name] were Persians. Not Arabs, not Muslim. When the rest of the family had been murdered by the Shah these two had fled to Fez. He doted on Kiril but worried that one day one of the foreigners he ‘entertained’ to supplement his meagre income as a porter, would either bring disease or take him away. The grandfather too had taken wealthy lovers as a young man… but… he shrugged acceptance of fate.

So! It wasn’t my magnetic charm that had attracted Kiril. I was expected to pay for what I’d once been paid for! Too late to find somewhere else to sleep – and I didn't want to.

Kiril led me through a beaded curtain to his bedroom and undressed. Naked, he was as smooth and lithe as an eel. Powerful shoulders, narrow hips, strongly muscled legs, and bubble bum. He sprawled cheekily over the bed and grinned; very professional. Taught me a few tricks and it was fun – except for the fear of disease. He looked clean, but you can never be a hundred percent sure. As always, I withheld a large part of me, unwilling to reveal the yearning for my other half who was out there somewhere. I had to keep searching.

Grandfather brought in breakfast bowls of warm milk and pastries dripping with apricot jam, Kiril planned the day, and I relaxed for the first time in what seemed like years. Three days and nights cost about the same as I earned in two hours as an escort. Too cheap by far, so I trebled it.

If he’d asked I would have settled down with him for life. But I had no security. No job. He wouldn’t have understood, anyway. He expected to marry and have children when too old for clients. The notion of being exclusively gay or straight was foreign to him and all the other boys. Sexuality for them, as with most animals, is fluid. Only in western democracies are we forced to choose one thing or the other, and it’s for that reason that Muslim rulers say they have no homosexuals. What they mean is they have no exclusive gays living like heterosexual couples.

Fez was where Sebastian retreated with a handsome young Arab lover in Brideshead Revisited. I didn't envy him his drug addiction, but I did envy him the chance to live in such an ancient romantic city. Life, I was beginning to realise, is like wandering through a storm of leaves – we grab at a few as they flutter past, but millions escape us. We have no idea where or how other people end up, or what their life is like. We touch only a few, scarcely knowing them at all. Barely knowing ourselves.

Ahmed, a young Algerian returning from job hunting in France, hitched with me across the border into Algeria, and in Oran introduced me to Arab ‘doss houses’. For a few pennies we had a scrupulously clean bed in a vast room filled with single men. No one would steal, he assured me, Muslims treated guests with respect. That evening we wandered down to the port, me foolishly worried about an outbreak of plague, having recently read Camus’ La Peste. The town was more attractive than I'd expected and before long Ahmed was chatting up a pair of pale Swedish businessmen, who, imagining I was also an Arab, invited us back to their hotel, shouted us a meal, and after an athletic romp in their room handed us twenty American dollars each.

The road to Algiers was unmemorable except for my first view of fundamentalist Muslim women, draped from top to toe in white sheets with only a tiny gap left for one eye. When they became aware of our approach even that tiny hole was closed, and they stood still, solid white ghosts gleaming in the sun until we’d passed. So friendly were the men that even in central Algiers I had only to put out my hand and passing cars would stop and offer lifts.

The friendliness, honesty, hospitality and generosity of North African Arabs amazes me still. It was only a few years since Algeria had thrown off France’s colonial yoke and their pride was palpable. Hatred was reserved for Israel and the countries that supported it.

Before admitting me to their car or truck drivers would ask to see my passport. If I'd been an American I'd have been spat on and left by the roadside. The USA was blamed not only for Israel, but also for water hyacinths clogging Nile cataracts, and every other disaster, war, coup, and atrocity in the Middle East, as well as Viet Nam. At the time I thought it a trifle paranoid, but now I realise it was pretty close to the truth.

Probably the most spectacularly situated city I've ever visited is Constantine. It straddles a very deep, rocky gorge, spanned by a delicate looking bridge perched on the hundred-metre-high vertical cliffs. Young men from the Algerian Resistance, “Sons of the Revolution”, attached themselves to me as I trudged into the city. I was a novelty; very few hitch-hikers dared to visit Algeria so soon after their war of independence. They insisted I stay for a few days in their headquarters where they recited poetry, we listened to music, and they talked deep into the night about revolution, the meaning of life, and the nature of humans – I gained the impression that Arabs are far better educated culturally, philosophically and politically than young people in New Zealand and other British commonwealth countries. They have fewer inhibitions about expressing their feelings, singing, dancing, and reciting poetry, and enjoy physically embracing and touching their friends in ways that would have them labelled queer at home. They never seemed to question either their masculinity or their right to hold opinions about life and everything else.

Someone asked my opinion of Israel, a question I was sick of answering. Foolishly, I said I didn't care about it. The truth was I didn't really know anything except that every Arab I'd encountered hated it, although Australian friends had spent six months there in a kibbutz and raved about the wonderful experience. I didn't know the land had been stolen, the Palestinians evicted, thousands murdered, and great misery caused. How could I? I never read newspapers and it had never been mentioned in history at school.

The point of a knife pricked my throat. Quickly apologising for my imperfect French, I said I meant Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth! The knife was withdrawn, and friendship resumed. Had they checked my rucksack they would have slit my throat – it contained a duplicate passport stamped ‘Valid Only for Israel’, so I could visit and not have it recorded in my regular passport, making subsequent entry to Muslim countries impossible. I hadn’t felt threatened by the young warrior; it was a wonderfully theatrical gesture I'd love to have made myself. They had all killed people, but not for nothing.

They taught me to write my name and a few numbers and words in Arabic, and I praised them for freeing themselves from their colonial overlords. All were devout believers, very excitable, with apparently inexhaustible energy. When I'm with people I seem to have no control over my energy output. It’s full bore till I suddenly run out of gas and fall asleep. The energy of these young revolutionaries outlasted mine by megajoules and, despite the affection I felt, I was pleased to bid farewell.

Eighteen months later I gave a public lecture in Paris about my time in Algeria, in which I praised the Algerians for their kindness, hospitality, honesty and enthusiasm in the rebuilding of their country. Afterwards, ex-colonials in the audience who'd been forced to leave, argued angrily with me. Algerians were lazy, uncouth, untrustworthy, dirty, heathens. I should be ashamed of myself for telling such lies.

Tunisia was a relief. No revolutionary fervour, merely a gentle acceptance of the good and bad things in life. In Sfax, an impeccably uniformed young soldier took me by the hand and led me through the vast and ancient walled city to a café in cool gardens where we sipped coffee, holding hands and sniffing small bunches of daphne flowers attached to a stick; behaviour that attracted no attention – all the young men were doing it. When he discovered I was staying at the youth hostel, not a hotel, he sweetly excused himself and struck up a conversation with a portly German in a ridiculous white linen suit. I wandered down to the port, bustling with large ships and dotted with romantic looking dhows.

Duff arrived at the Sfax Youth Hostel while I was arranging with Bruno and Adolph, a Swiss couple I'd just met, to spend a week on the islands of Kerkenna. He looked harassed and ill-tempered, having endured a dreadful trip from Tangiers, being forced to take crowded buses because “…the fucking Arabs were so fucking unfriendly.”

Bruno invited him to join us on the island before I could warn him.

Once on the islands – mere date-palm-speckled sandbars about twenty kilometres off shore - Duff succumbed to dysentery and returned to Sfax, leaving us to enjoy paradise. The locals, with whom our communication was reduced to gestures, entertained us in the evening with palm wine, a brew guaranteed to take the lining off your stomach. They declared themselves honoured that we had chosen to sleep on their beach. It was more likely they were checking us out in case we were thieves.

A young lad of about twelve took it upon himself to arrive with water, fresh eggs, and fruit every morning, refusing payment! I took his address and promised to send him stamps. When we left, leaving our camping site cleaner than when we arrived, it was only with great reluctance that these extremely poor islanders accepted payment for their hospitality.

Chapter 33: An Offer of Employment

At Gabes, Tunisia’s largest oasis and the closest to the sea, I swam at a deserted beach and to my joy was joined by a perfect specimen of Negro manhood who arrived, stark naked, on a bicycle. We swam then romped in the sand where I gave succour to the largest penis I have seen in my entire life – a horse would have been jealous!

Gabes is supposedly where Odysseus was enchanted by Circe. I was enchanted by my young man on a bicycle, but he had work to return to and cycled away, still starkers.

Duff, whose bowels had regained a measure of self-control, had also arrived at the youth hostel and reckoned I should join him on the road before daybreak, because we were both heading for Tripoli in Libya and no one drove through the desert in the heat of the day. But I was tired of his sullen moods and he set off alone.

In Spain, I'd given up pointing out that drivers were more likely to pick up hitch-hikers if they smiled and looked pleasant instead of glaring angrily. He’d snorted disbelief. He was a North American! That should be good enough!

Four hours later, washed, refreshed, and well fed, I left the youth hostel, waved to my Negro on his bicycle – now wearing a pair of shorts, and within a minute was in the front seat of a chauffeur-driven limousine, chatting over my shoulder to the Tunisian Minister for Education who was on his way to a remote desert oasis, before visiting his counterpart in Libya. To my shame, I couldn’t resist waving cheerily to Duff, still waiting morosely at the roadside.

After a few kilometres, the chauffeur – a dark, lean, moustachioed, villainously powerful fellow who spoke better French than his master - was told to stop and I was ordered to get in the back – an immense compliment. I'd been promoted to social equal of a well-fed government Minister overflowing a tropical suit. We conversed in halting English which he was hoping to improve with my assistance.

While struggling to understand the meaning of the word Goodyear, emblazoned on a roadside hoarding, he placed ring-cluttered fingers on the inside of my thigh – I was wearing shorts that covered barely half an inch of my legs – and gently stroked. It was pleasant enough and I was in no position to object. Hitch-hikers place themselves at the mercy of whoever picks them up, yet I never felt nervous except with people who drove too fast. Sadly, the grand era of hitchhiking is over – everyone’s too afraid.

The oasis was very romantic; like a Hollywood film set. They needed an English teacher. Would I....? I prevaricated, promising to seriously consider his extremely generous offer after I'd completed my trip. The Minister gave me his card, promised a job whenever I returned to Tunisia, then joined the patient welcoming committee. The chauffeur dusted and serviced the car while I wandered apparently deserted streets. A few kids peeped from shadowed doorways, disappearing when I spoke. I don’t think they'd seen a man in shorts before. I don’t think they'd seen a man’s thighs before.

I was invited to the male-only dinner that evening, feeling out of place in sandals, slacks, and white shirt among elegant full-length flowing robes. I understood nothing, but from the slightly obsequious welcome, wondered if I'd already been promised as a teacher of English. I hoped they wouldn’t be too disappointed. But then I suppose experience had taught them that politicians never keep promises. We were entertained with food, singing, a poet, and three men who danced some very complicated routines to music played on a two-stringed instrument.

In the guest house, a cool, spacious, thick-walled dwelling opening onto a small courtyard shaded by a tree but lacking a splashing fountain, the Minster was led to the room with the bed; the chauffeur and I to mats in the adjoining room where I removed my clothes, it being far too hot to contemplate sleeping in any sort of clothing. My room-mate was shocked. Allah would be offended if a Muslim exposed his naked body!

A few whispered words in Arabic from next door caused him to pick up his dagger and pistol. Baring his teeth in what I hoped was a smile he tossed a towel at me, mimed wrapping it round my loins, then, satisfied I wasn’t going to offend either Allah or his boss, prodded me into the presence.

The Minister wanted to talk. My heart sank. Desert air is hot, dry and enervating – I was very tired and would have preferred to impale myself on the chauffeur’s dagger than struggle to converse in my increasingly inadequate French and his six words of English. He wanted to know what I thought of the dancing. Naturally I was fulsome in praise, mentioning how much better it was than the Moroccan Dancing Boy.

That pleased him so much I foolishly let slip that I'd danced a bit. He snapped something in Arabic, the chauffeur began to wail tunelessly, and I was commanded to dance. I tied the towel firmly, low on the hips like the Tunisian worker I'd met in the south of France, and attempted to emulate his slinky sensuality.

The Minister nodded in aristocratic appreciation and patted the bed. It would have been foolish to refuse in front of his chauffeur, so I let him slip his hand under the towel. But his heart wasn’t in it and within a minute we were dismissed; it was merely to prove he was a powerful fellow who could do what he wanted.

Back in our room the chauffeur casually suggested a fuck. I said OK, if I could do the same to him afterwards. Before I could blink the dagger was at my throat. I'd insulted his Muslim manhood! Men fuck but they are never fucked! Infidels aren’t real men so it’s OK to screw them. Understood? I nodded and gurgled, “Oui, monsieur.”

Masculine honour confirmed, he let me go, rolled onto his side and was instantly asleep. I lay awake wondering if having a dagger at the throat twice in a month meant there was something lacking in my character. It didn't stop me from sleeping though, and I woke refreshed.

On the drive to Tripoli, the chauffeur was perfectly friendly and I was invited into the back seat again, so obviously I hadn't offended anyone. There are no problems at frontiers when travelling with a Government VIP, so we whisked through without even showing our passports.

If anything, the Libyans were even friendlier than the Tunisians. In Tripoli I shared a room in a cheap hotel with three workers, never worrying anything would be stolen. During the day I’d leave my rucksack in a shop or police station with no fear of pillage. My only problem was that I literally had no idea where in the world I was!

Just as I’d been surprised to discover the location of Belgium, I'd also been slightly surprised to discover that Tunisia was squeezed between Algeria and Libya. So it isn’t surprising that what lay ahead was a mystery I suppose it’s surprising that I had never consulted an atlas before setting out – the thought never occurred to me, especially as you’ve got to know a few place names when hitching so you can ask if people are going there. I guess I thought I’d jts ask directions – it had always worked in the past. Fortunately, Tripoli boasted an excellent library in the same Italianate style as many other civic buildings, so I found a good atlas and with pencil and paper copied my route as far as Cairo, discovering that Libya borders Egypt, and is crossed by only one road, more or less along the coast, with a T-junction in the middle just beyond Sirte, where it is joined by a road from the deserts of the Libyan Plateau hundreds of kilometres south. Looking at the satellite photos on Google Maps today, I am astounded. I realised at the time it was dry, and had marvelled at the mirages, but hadn’t realised how dry! The entire country is shades of ochre with the narrowest strip of vegetation along the Mediterranean shore. I read and watched TV footage of the recent American invasion and wept. Such a pleasant country. Such friendly, hospitable people. Such a decent society destroyed, broken, at war with itself. The misery Westerners spread wherever they go in their lust for global hegemony in trade is beyond evil.

I spent a night at the desert junction midway between Tripoli and Benghazi, up a thorn tree to avoid a pack of wolves. During a sleepless and uncomfortable night, I formulated the notion of ‘oneness’. The idea that every single thing on the planet is inextricably bound up with every other thing. It seemed clever at the time, but now it’s commonplace and everyone not infected with creationism understands that Earth is a closed system in which every living thing is made up of the same ‘building blocks’ and therefore totally interdependent.

In Benghazi, the driver of another car was desert drunk… a sort of madness; and crashed his car into the back of ours. My rucksack was in the boot! The police came and refused permission for me to open the crushed boot as it was evidence. As soon as their backs were turned I grabbed a bar, forced it open, grabbed the rucksack and ran. I'd had some experience of bureaucracy and the associated bribery by then and didn't want to spend the next month in Benghazi.

Drinks and food were offered by people I passed on the street, so keen were they to be hospitable to the stranger in their midst. I saw no other foreigners. It must have been like that in ancient times when travellers were treated with generosity and respect.

Rather than risk meeting the police, I didn't stay long in Benghazi, hitching to Derna with three men who drove hundreds of kilometres out of their way to show me ‘Green Mountain’, so called because fifty years previously it had become green when it rained for the first time in centuries.

Derna, a pretty town on the coast at the base of cliffs that drop precipitously from the Libyan plateau, was the birth place of King Idris – absolute and not very popular monarch at that time, kept in power by Europe because he let them do as they wanted. A recipe for revolution if ever there was one. But when it happened in 1969 – Gadaffi was the bad boy, not the Europeans who’d created the tension in the first place. The hotel was cheap and spotlessly clean, the streets tree-lined, the ambience civilized and friendly, the river rocky and dry. No one could remember the last time there'd been water in it.

Only Tobruk lay between Derna and Egypt, and apparently no one was going there. After a day on the roadside when the only thing that passed me was a boy on a donkey, a student of about sixteen rode up on his bike and invited me home. That evening we went to a bar situated in the middle of the ‘river’, to meet his friends – soft drinks only, being Muslims. It was Tangiers repeated. I tried but wasn’t permitted to pay for anything! Which left me feeling like a sponger; ashamed I wasn’t as generous and friendly.

Despite vigorous protests I slept in his bed – he on the floor. I was fed, met the father but not the mother, of course, and the next day was handed a bus ticket to Tobruk! No! I couldn’t pay for it. I was his guest and a good host takes care of his guest. I look sadly at his photo today and wonder what happened to this good-looking, clean, fresh, innocent and honest young man.

Every now and then the bus stopped and families would descend, women proudly displaying gold bracelets, necklaces and nose rings: the family wealth. Everyone impeccably, colourfully, and cleanly dressed. Then they wandered off into the desert! There were no visible tracks, no indication of civilization. Where were they going? After more kilometres of vast mirage ‘lakes’ ‘reflecting’ the low scrubby hills, we’d stop and take on board another group of perfectly healthy, fit, clean, and well-dressed men and women. Where had they come from? How did they live? No indication of human habitation was visible – and from the bus we could see for miles.

The warm hospitality I received across North Africa still causes a lump in my throat, and I curse Europe, the U.S.A. and its sycophant states like Australia for their arrogant aggression and contempt for decency in the Middle East that has destroyed trust and much that was so wonderful in those people; encouraging a militant form of Islam with such miserable consequences for them as well as us.

The smartly presented border guard in the lone concrete bunker at the edge of Libya where the bus stopped, waved me through with a smile. A hundred yards down the dusty road sloppily dressed and unkempt Egyptian border guards said there were problems with my visa. I asked them what. They shrugged and went back to their card game.

The wretched straggle of decaying concrete structures lining a dusty track could scarcely be called a town. There was no bank, but I still had a few Libyan coins. A sort of general store with little to sell accepted them but only sold dry bread, dates, and dry beans. A dozen of the scrawniest, sickest-looking cows I'd ever seen were munching on cardboard cartons they’d scavenged from among the dust and rubbish that looked as if it had been accruing since the war. A deserted war-time hospital bred flies and mosquitoes. The water supply was a tap beside the border police hut from which trickled brackish, beige water.

The beach was only a hundred yards away, so I slept there, plagued by mosquitoes and the dreadful heat that never lifted. On the morning bus, Duff arrived. I wasn’t pleased to see him, but he was pleased to arrive in a country where they more or less spoke English – he’d had a lonely trip.

It took us a full day to realise the ‘problem’ with our visas; we hadn’t offered a bribe. Five American dollars or the Sterling equivalent, an exorbitant amount, suddenly produced permission. We caught the daily bus, as the only other traffic on the road was an occasional car laden to the axles with Libyans driving to Alexandria for sex. Poverty-struck Egyptian women were pleased to sell themselves to cash-rich, sex-starved Libyan males

Egypt under Nasser was a more or less secular dictatorship, identical to that soon to be created by Saddam Hussein, at that time languishing in prison.

Lawrence Durrell’s description of Alexandria in his Quartet cannot be beaten. Beyond the grand, palm-lined esplanade encircling the bay, lay slums the like of which I'd never imagined. Duff took off on his own and I took up with a young Egyptian student eager to practice his English. He led me through streets deep in rubbish, swarming with half-naked kids begging, carrying loads, and hawking useless oddments.

“If you weren’t with me, those guys would slit your throat, strip you of everything and throw your body in the canal,” my guide said casually, indicating a gang of excessively lean and menacing youths. “Don’t ever leave the main streets on your own.”

His family house was three rooms up a barren concrete staircase lined with chickens and their shit, snotty-nosed kids, women gossiping, evil cooking smells, and the ubiquitous Arab music on radios turned up too loud. Open doors showed bare rooms with old men sleeping on mats, women squatting over a primus, their kids playing. Water had to be brought up from a tap at street level. Electricity was only enough to power radios and lights. My friend shared a mattress on the floor with four brothers, one of whom showed me his school history book.

I read enough to learn that the Egyptian view of the British occupation was radically different from what I'd been taught. It was the first time I'd realised that history is not fact, it’s a selective recreation of the past – just as art is a selective recreation of reality. All maps had the state of Israel blacked out.

Back in the street, an ancient crone sat in the dust holding out five wrinkled tomatoes, offering them for sale. She had nothing else. I slipped an Egyptian pound into her hand but didn't take the tomatoes. My companion thought I was stupid.

Cairo hadn’t changed, of course. While Duff explored the pyramids which I'd visited while my ship was passing through the Suez Canal what seemed like a lifetime ago, I spent the afternoon in the swimming pool of Mena House Hotel. Free, if you were cheeky enough to breeze through reception as if you were staying in that luxurious establishment.

The concrete tenements surrounding old Cairo were as poverty stricken, filthy, and miserable as those of Alexandria. Streets so clogged with years of rubbish there was only room to walk single file through the waist high stench. The Nile offered no respite. Even in the middle of the city, the river was lined with people washing clothes, washing themselves, shitting, and filling jars to take home to drink! It was a nightmare.

I saw a man walk down to the water between two people washing, lift his robe, expose a bare bum, do a dump, flick a bit of water on his ring, and wander off. Dust-filled lungs caused everyone to spit. I quickly learned never to walk out a doorway without checking that someone wasn’t about to hawk a gob of thick yellow phlegm in my direction.

The night train from Cairo to Aswan was the final ring of Dante’s Inferno. Platform and carriages jammed with aggressive men and screaming women carrying children, pigs, chickens, baskets… everything they needed to survive. They fought for every inch of space. The wily threw themselves and their luggage into the racks above the seats, where they lay for the duration. My mind emptied. This I could not handle!

With a bellow of despair that opened a temporary gap in the seething morass of diseased bodies, I hurled myself and rucksack out an open window back to the slightly more tolerable insanity of the platform. Duff was made of sterner stuff. Whereas I relied on charm and friendliness for survival, he, having none of either, had learned to be combative and competitive and managed to hold his own, arriving in Aswan only slightly battered.

I was rescued by four machine-gun-toting soldiers who laughed at my stupidity for trying third class. One shouldered my rucksack and, by waving their guns around, cleared travellers off two wide seats facing each other in a not so over-crowded, second-class carriage.

Of course I felt guilty; especially when the ticket collector was threatened when he asked me to upgrade my third-class ticket. Nervous too, when shots were fired out the window for fun during the night, because my rescuers’ guns appeared not to have safety catches and the rifles were always pointing at someone – too often at me!

Chapter 34: Up the Nile

Egypt is a narrow strip of ancient black dust that becomes fertile if it is wet; hard as stone if lumps are left to dry. The railway line isn’t wet, so interminable hours later, black with dust, thirsty, hungry, and exhausted I joined Duff on the platform at Aswan. The edges of the old town were disfigured by featureless concrete apartment blocks built for Russian workers constructing the High Dam.

After cleaning up at the youth hostel we visited the construction site and my heart bled at the sight of kids as young as five or six carrying loads of stones, cement, concrete, steel… in baskets on their heads in suffocating heat. We were warned not to pick up anything metal that had been lying in the sun because it would cause blisters and burns.

Duff didn't share my horror, he was too impressed by the magnitude of the work. I agree it was impressive, but it’s now silted up causing the delta to sink because it no longer receives its annual top-up of silt. Humans aren’t very bright.

Back at the hostel I became delirious. Couldn’t cool down. Kept taking showers. When I collapsed an ambulance was called. At least that’s what I was told – I remember nothing. Wearing only a pale blue bikini I was roused by a slap on the face administered by a Russian doctor who, after a cursory examination, pronounced me fit. I wandered out to a foyer teeming with men and women draped from top to toe in voluminous garments, men pale pink and blue, women in black. Fortunately, my abbreviated costume caused them to draw back in alarm, for I blacked out and crashed to the concrete floor.

The heat, when I awoke, was so suffocating I thought I'd gone to hell – an impression reinforced by the presence of a nun shaking me. I was lying on a sheet on a mattress on an iron bed in a bare room. The nun was dressing me in a long white cotton gown to hide my shame. The three-year-old, Russian-built hospital was already terribly run down. There was no trained staff and because Muslim men refused to allow Muslim women to nurse them, all nursing was done by a dozen nuns clad in their traditional medieval garb despite daytime temperatures that usually rose above 110°Fahrenheit. (45°C)

Despite enormous obstacles, those hard-working and admirable Sisters of Verona never lost their calm patience. My favourite, Sister Adèle, spoke French and explained that I was in one of only four private rooms because I would not survive visiting day in a ward when the families arrived. She sacrificed her daily potato to me as I could no longer stomach the staple food of Egypt – foule and falafel (red beans and fried vegetables).

Unused to European toilets and unable to find the usual more sanitary hole-in-the-floor type, desperate Arabs squatted in the showers and left them filthy.

It was unbearably hot and smelly and noisy and after three days I was healthy enough to be ejected into a mass of keening, mud-plastered women tearing out their hair to mourn a death. I had no money, no passport, no clothes, and no idea where the hostel was. Bikini-clad, barefoot, and dizzy, I wandered for hours: my unshaven, unkempt, almost nudity attracting less attention than you'd expect. I was taken for just another sun-crazy Arab lacking food and shelter. Not that uncommon.

Duff had gone north to Luxor, payback for me leaving him to his dysentery in Tunisia. The young assistant at the youth hostel had gathered my things and stored them in his room – a bare cell out the back with a sleeping mat. Nothing was missing. How could I thank him for taking such care? He was poor, having come to Aswan from his village to make money, and had delayed his regular visit home until I returned. He could have sold my passport for a good sum and taken off with more than two hundred American dollars carefully stashed in my money belt. It was a fortune - all the money I had in the world! But he hadn’t. Not a dollar was missing!

He was twenty-two, powerfully built with dusty black skin, and his name was Kanu. When I asked about his background he invited me to return with him to his village; it would give him kudos to arrive with a foreign friend. I was curious so accepted and paid for a large basket of tinned food and our tickets on the heavily laden, ancient Nile steamer that transported the poor and other cargo up and down the river.

In my determination not to look like a tourist, I wore one of his shifts: a loose, sleeveless, collarless garment of rough white cotton that slipped over the head and came to just below the knees. With no buttons or fastenings and nothing but bare skin beneath, it felt both liberating and cool with the breeze able to circulate everywhere; ten times cooler than shorts and shirt. In my cheap scuff sandals with car-tyre soles, he reckoned I looked like a poor Arab, which pleased me enormously. He had soles as tough as car tyres so didn't need footwear.

I imagined we’d be going just a few miles up-river, but the boat chugged on and on all day. When we passed Abu Simbel temple, at that time still standing beside the river, I began to get nervous. Wadi Hafa and Sudan were not that much further south! When the light faded, the steamer moored at a jetty. Like all the other passengers we ate our meal of flat bread and boiled eggs and slept on deck, sucked dry by mosquitoes.

A couple of hours further south the next morning, we joined about a dozen other passengers disembarking into waiting dinghies that took us ashore to a small, dark-grey village of mean, mud-brick dwellings, with a tiny store selling dates, several varieties of dried beans, lots of other dry stuff I didn't recognise, and a few eggs.

A two-hour walk towards the mountains gave Kanu plenty of time to explain that although we were in Nubia, his family weren’t Nubians, they’d been dispossessed from their home in the south by the British, generations earlier, and resettled here. When pressed as to my religion I bravely admitted I had none. He smiled and admitted his people were neither Christian nor Muslim, but didn't elaborate.

I admired the pride he took in his ancestry; I’d never had the slightest interest in mine. Why my great-grandparents had emigrated to the colonies and where they came from, I had no idea; economic refugees I suppose. There are displaced people everywhere; torn from their roots by war, poverty, famine… and frequently they're the most friendly and generous. In reality I too was a displaced person, unwelcome in my homeland, wandering the planet looking for love. The difference being that as a white European male I could live and travel freely throughout a planet that had been cruelly conquered and partitioned between a few rapacious colonial powers. For the billions of humans not of Western European descent, their country’s borders are a prison and the chance of improvement in their lot approaches zero.

We were by then so far from civilization I'd given up worrying that I was going to be cooked and eaten by savages. More pressing was my imminent physical collapse. Then around a bend, a cluster of date palms and a village of reed-thatched, neat mud-brick dwellings that were clean, spacious, and surprisingly cool. I stayed under the shade of a tree while laughing naked kids and about two dozen women of all ages welcomed Kanu with noisy joy, especially when he produced the basket of tinned food from Aswan.

When he called me over smiles were replaced by suspicion until he explained I wasn’t an Arab, but a European. Then I, too, was accorded smiles and words of welcome. Of course, I understood nothing. No one spoke English, but it mattered not. Too frequently words get in the way of friendship and understanding. Kanu translated anything essential.

The men were fishing half a mile away. They had powerful, hairless bodies and mud-spattered black skin from making dams to herd fish into shallower waters of what I supposed was a tributary of the Nile. We dropped our shifts and joined in the chase, with much laughter at my pale skin, three-day old beard, and hairy chest. There were only a few men of my age because, like Kanu, the others had left to find work, preparing for the flooding of their land and livelihood when the Aswan dam filled.

I think the men were pleased to have another body for a few days to help carry posts and hammer them in for a goat enclosure, assist in cleaning out the well, and other physical activities that, together with the simple food, completed my cure and restored strength. There were no expressions of thanks. According to their reasoning I was an adult doing what I wanted, so to thank me for it would be patronising. If I didn't want to do it, why was I there? I felt profoundly moved and deeply honoured to be accepted, because I couldn’t help thinking they were superior to me in all the ways that counted.

The days were very hot, the nights cold, and I fretted that I wouldn’t be able to sleep without a cover, but I was always tired and the bodies of eight other men sharing the space soon made the air quite warm. I'm pretty sure I heard a couple of the guys taking pleasure in each other, but fortunately Kanu showed no such interest. I liked him, but his face was ugly, and his breath smelled of dried fish.

By the time I left I'd decided my previous life had been vacuous, vain, and pointless. A simple life does not mean one is simple. These people seemed wise and introspective. Their days were spent ensuring survival, and communal leisure activity in the short evenings left no time for boredom. They suffered from no delusions that they were owed a living, nor did they owe anything. When Lake Nasser filled they would own nothing. Such was their tragedy.

Luxor today is awash with tourists; then it was awash with poverty and flies that filled the mouths and nostrils of homeless boys sleeping on the street, and settled in great black swarms on clothes, yet didn't torment those who were awake, unlike Australian bush flies that can drive strong men insane by invading eyes, nostrils and mouths.

After exploring the scant delights of Luxor town, I wandered along a lengthy avenue of sphinxes to the impressive Luxor Temple, then further on through dusty lanes until another, even vaster temple reared above the palms.

I had no idea what it could be. A massive stone gateway fully five stories high led into a veritable forest of gigantic columns, each fifteen metres in circumference and twenty-three metres high. At one side of the vast temple behind some rubble, a series of rickety ladders led up onto the flat capital of one of the gigantic columns, large enough to hold seven elephants I later learned. An exultant paean to the skill and artistry of the builders escaped my throat unbidden. My skin prickles still when I recall sitting there, alone apart from an Arab so far below he looked like an ant beside immense statues of Ramses.

I had discovered Karnak!

The following day I crossed the Nile with a pleasant Dane and we hired horses to ride to the Valley of the Kings, where we were among the few visitors to those extraordinary galleries of the dead. On the way back, we explored Queen Hatsheput’s tomb – unfenced, open to the desert as it had been for over two thousand years. Shouting and laughing we raced up and down the ramps and into the inner sacred chambers hollowed out of solid rock; senses numbed by overwhelming grandeur. Two-thousand-year-old frescoes were clear and uncovered on walls facing the river, the incredibly dry air protecting them from moulds.

I recently Googled Hatsheput’s tomb, and in a photo counted eighteen tour buses parked in front, five souvenir outlets, and noted the price of entry the long queues of visitors had to pay – about twenty dollars!

A pair of vast statues of an enthroned pharaoh and his wife stood unremarked in the middle of a ploughed field. We took our photos standing on the base, barely coming up to their ankles.

Ancient Thebes was too grandiose, too wasteful, too ridiculously pretentious after the serene simplicity of Kanu’s village. I could marvel at the works, but not admire the mentality of the builders.

After another nightmare train trip, I arrived back in Alexandria with its canals and swamps, where a charming Lebanese took me by the hand and we wandered the city, drinking sherbets. A handsome young Arab tried to pick my pocket, but my purse was tied to my belt. His look of terror when I put my hand over his was shocking – understandable if you’ve heard about Egyptian prisons. Before I could tell him not to worry, he’d disappeared; a pity as I'd willingly have given him the few Egyptian pounds it contained.

I took a room in an elegant apartment belonging to an ancient Greek lady, emotionally stranded in Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria. ‘If you bring a boy or girl home,’ she said sweetly, ‘please introduce them to me so I won't worry they are criminals.’ If only! I was lean, fit, and randy, but Egyptians were insanely excitable; not as beautiful as Moroccans – except for the pick-pocket, and I was pretty sure anyone who ate crickets and sparrows and other small birds couldn’t be trustworthy. No meat was sold on two days a week to save foreign currency. The unavoidable foule and falafel were sending my bowels into panic mode. The gulf between obscene wealth and nauseating poverty was so vast, so obvious, I had to get out of Egypt or go mad!

At the port, Robert, an Englishman, and Mike, a blond Californian with a mouthful of perfect American teeth, were also buying tickets to Beirut. We decided to spend the day together until the ferry sailed that night. While eyeing delicious but very expensive cakes in a shop window, an Egyptian in his thirties approached, glanced at the bulge in my shorts, gave me a smile and offered to shout us whatever we wanted. He was a Suez Canal pilot – one of the incredible young men who seven years earlier had piloted boats night and day with no mishaps; proving to the world that Egypt did not need the British to run the Canal.

An ancient Buick transported us and our perfectly wrapped goodies to his flat where he made coffee while I arranged the cakes on a low table. Before I could get stuck in, however, he invited me into his bedroom, there to unveil a lean brown body decorated with gold chains. He slapped my bum and demanded access. Apparently, I had to pay for the cakes, but he had to settle for a blowjob. Mike and Robert never questioned why a total stranger would shout us expensive cakes, nor did they wonder why we disappeared for ten minutes, leaving them to eat most of the cakes. Heterosexuals are sometimes very thick.

My Lebanese visa had expired two days before I arrived, so I changed the 1 to a 2 on the date – making 13 into 23. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as smart as I thought, and my Arabic 2 apparently looked like a 3 to the port immigration officer in Beirut who took one look, glowered and asked if there were thirty-three days in a month in my country. Speechless with shame I was hauled before the chief – a breathtakingly handsome, youngish man in an impeccable uniform, scathing and furious. I cringed and quailed and stammered abject apologies, careful not to challenge his sense of importance and masculinity.

Lebanese superiority over cringing British wimp having been established, he could afford to be generous and waved impatient dismissal. I should have been thrown in gaol or sent back to Egypt. Tampering with visas is a criminal offence! Today I'd be incarcerated and tortured as a terrorist suspect.

Chapter 35: Middle East

After changing money at one of the innumerable Beirut Bureaux de Change advertising competitive exchange rates, the others went sight-seeing, shopping and night-clubbing, I said I'd meet them in two days and hitched north to Byblos. Poetry in stone. An amphitheatre topped by a row of elegant Roman columns on a small hill against a backdrop of the azure Mediterranean. Below nestled an ancient little port with fishing boats the Phoenicians might have sailed in. After making a couple of sketches, I hitched to a gorge that boasted caves with stalactites that were not as grand as Waitomo. A short distance from the caves a track led down to a small river. I descended, checked it was private, then after a refreshing wash, let myself drift a little downstream. When I returned, a woman was standing beside my rucksack.

She was devoid of make-up, wearing a skimpy white sun frock with nothing underneath. Scrawny, angular, a large mouth and looked about forty. I didn't believe her compliments about Greek gods, I'd seen too many genuinely handsome Lebanese to know I wasn’t in the same league. She was French; a spiritual beatnik practising natural healing in a commune with a dozen other similar people. Would I like to visit? It was late afternoon; I had to find somewhere to sleep and she looked harmless, so I agreed and went to put on my shorts. They were gone. She held them up, said I wouldn’t be needing them, and tripped lightly up to her ageing Renault. I followed, put my rucksack in the boot with my shorts and joined her in the front. She had removed her dress.

“I love driving naked,” she laughed, “Don’t you?”

I agreed it was liberating, silently hoping she didn't fancy me, and suggested she concentrate on the road that wound deep into a gorge with cliffs on one side and a drop to the river on the other. But she kept chatting. She’d been shopping for food for her commune and always stopped by the caves on the way home because young foreigners often visited and some, like me, were sympathique. I was the sixth one she’d taken home that summer.

When I asked why French women weren’t frightened to pick up hitch-hikers, and how she knew I wasn’t a desperado, she laughed again and said girls in France aren't taught to be frightened of men; and criminals didn't choose romantic streams in which to bathe naked.

To my relief we arrived safely at a clearing in front of a rundown villa, the garden overgrown with weeds. After dumping my bag and the supplies in the kitchen she led me through to a sun-drenched terrace scattered with a dozen naked men and women lounging under sun umbrellas or sitting on the edge of the pool. Ignored by everyone, a couple were copulating on a tartan rug spread over the grass.

“This is Rigby,” my hostess announced proudly. They hoisted themselves to their feet and came across to shake hands and inspect me with impertinent curiosity, asking personal questions and commenting bluntly on my appearance. They were all tanned and healthy, aged between forty and sixty, bodies ranging from emaciated women to stocky men, all, except a perky Ethiopian who looked as if he’d spent his life running marathons, were European.

I'd expected spiritual beatniks to be ethereal; skin translucent from fasting; drifting around in flowing white robes thinking noble thoughts and exuding auras of empathy with the cosmos. But there was nothing spiritual about these worldly people. They were sharp, at ease, and confident of their intrinsic worth; indifferent to the opinions of others. The copulating couple separated, complained about the heat, drifted across and shook my hand, dived into the pool and after a few lengths went to prepare the evening meal.

The Ethiopian invited me to swim. He had the fine, acute facial features I find irresistible, so we splashed around in the pool, then lay on sun beds and talked about this and that. When I asked about ‘Spiritual Beatniks’ he laughed and explained it was our hostess’s little joke. Every summer the same group, all wealthy ex French Colonials, came here to relax and remember the ‘good old days’.

But the Lebanese government was no longer sympathetic to ex French colonists (he was French with an Ethiopian mother) and Lebanon was becoming increasingly politically unstable. As for the locals, no matter how much they offered, young men and women from the surrounding area would no longer come to ‘entertain’ them, so they had to put up with the occasional tourist like me. They couldn’t even get household help, so they'd probably go to Tunisia next year.

I was surprised to learn that the sectarian system of government in Lebanon specifies that the resident should always be a Maronite Catholic, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, the head of the house of representatives (in Arabic called nayeb - the plural nawwab) a Shi'ite Muslim, the Minister of Defence is a Christian when Foreign Affairs is a Druze (which switches around at times) and the Chief of Staff and Head of the Army a Christian. Surely governments had nothing to do with religion? I was indeed very ignorant. I was also a bit disappointed that instead of the spiritual enclave of peace and harmony I'd been looking forward to, I'd stumbled on a pack of wealthy, middle-aged nudist libertines who had only invited me along because they couldn’t get a local youth to ogle.

After supper, to stave off boredom, they asked what I'd been doing. I told them about hitching across North Africa. They thought I was very brave – but of course I wasn’t. Ignorant is nearer the mark. It isn't brave to react sensibly to an unforeseen situation when you have no choice. Bravery is deliberately putting oneself in danger for altruistic notions. However, I’m not convinced altruism is more than a wishful concept.

When they learned I'd danced for a Tunisian Government Minister, they put on Arab music and I had to perform, joined after a few minutes by the Ethiopian whose sleek flexibility and sensuality rivalled that of the workers in France. The atmosphere was liberating and arousing. We writhed together in simulated sexual congress, encouraged by clapping and increasingly bold comments.

These people didn't care if we were queer or straight, they simply wanted to be amused and, as they'd given me shelter for the night, it seemed only polite to complete the exercise. The Ethiopian sank to his knees and leaned back, obsidian obelisk pointing to the sky. I grasped it firmly and worked it until short bursts of semen shot into the air. Then to add a little variation, I did a handstand against a trellis while my partner performed delicate fellatio.

It was athletic and fun. Not as spectacular as Rudolph Nureyev’s amusing exhibition in New York, when he hung by one arm from a balcony and masturbated over his fellow partygoers – but it indicates I had the mind of a dancer, if not the ability.

Everyone there seemed to be physically healthy and in full control of themselves, even when voyeurism mutated into what I can only describe as a genteel bacchanal. The evening was natural fun, bearing no resemblance whatever to Hazel’s nauseating ‘Katherine Mansfield’ orgy.

The following day Ethiopia drove me to Baalbek where my stupefaction at the colossal temple ruins of ancient Roman Heliopolis so entranced him that he asked me to live with him in Paris. He was wealthy, owning many apartment buildings and a car radiator factory. With disarming honesty, he admitted I wasn’t very handsome, but character was more important. Naturally, I'd have preferred to be handsome than characterful, and couldn’t help wondering how long it would be before a truly handsome and younger fellow proved more appealing. Grateful for the offer, I declined and returned to Beirut.

Robert, Mike, and I shared a taxi to Damascus – an hour’s drive during which I was regaled with lusty tales of their night clubbing with naked strippers shoving whole vegetable gardens up their fannies. One had wrapped her bra round Robert’s neck and squashed her tits against his face. I didn't tell them about my adventure – they would have been deeply shocked.

At the border, the Syrians were difficult and demanded payment in exchange for a dodgy visa we knew we didn't require. Mike became irate and harangued them with details of how much aid the USA was pumping into to the area. It was a load of codswallop, but they didn't know, so let us through. It was nice to learn I wasn’t the only politically ignorant person.

At the Damascus youth hostel, we encountered Pamela and Barbara, (Dutch) and Monique (Swiss), who were too terrified to leave the hostel because of the abusive attentions of Syrian men. I was surprised because I’d found them to be exceedingly friendly, helpful, and generous—like most of the men I met across North Africa and the Middle East. I still have a small wooden sculpture, carved while I watched, then given to me by an amusingly energetic roadside wood turner in Damascus.

Robert willingly accompanied Barbara, Mike thought he'd won the lottery with Pamela, and I was talked into protecting Swiss virtue. We hitched in pairs, then met up and shared a room in Amman where we admired the amphitheatre; then again in Petra, where we rode horses into that fairy-tale gorge and Pamela and I sang duets in a cave.

After two days crossing a moonscape we arrived in Aqaba, Jordan's Red Sea port, where we slept on the beach near the old town, at night looking across a few miles of water to the lights of Eilat in Israel. Four countries almost meet at that ‘point’ and if they hadn't been at war with each other and it wasn’t too hot, a fit man could sprint around the coast from Egypt through Israel and Jordan to Saudi Arabia in a single day.

I snorkelled in the limpid Red Sea with lean and handsome Arabs who lent me their gear and cured spiny-sea-urchin wounds on my legs and back with a burning cigarette. Their gentleness and concern for my wellbeing were a further revelation to me regarding the possibilities of male behaviour. Courage, fiery pride, nobility of carriage, a love of poetry and gentleness are all combined in so many Arab males – and beauty too in the young. Nothing could be further from my experience in New Zealand and the U.K.

The Swiss Miss, offended at my lack of sexual interest, gave herself to the local police sergeant and went clubbing and dancing and, I imagine, fucking in the modern town near the port. I remained for a few days after the others left, snorkelling with my handsome but sexually uninterested young men, then got a lift with a Bedouin family who sold me a fake old silver dagger with a jewel-encrusted handle. The silver wore off with the first cleaning and the stones were glass, but it remains a very lethal weapon.

Like Kanu’s clan, their simple life did not mean they were simple people. Their philosophy was encapsulated in the saying: Nature is god; thought is prayer, the sanity of which appears to be beyond the comprehension of westerners.

The Dead Sea was as buoyant as predicted, and revoltingly greasy and abrasive. I descended into a very deep hole near Jericho where an archaeologist assured me the pottery shards had been handled by the ancestors of the locals ten thousand years before. Black Bedouin tents spread their wings on barren hillsides as they had for millennia. Donkeys carried loads. Arab kids smiled and asked questions. Old Jerusalem was nearly as perfect as Fez – unchanged for a thousand years, encircled by ancient walls pierced by arched gateways. It still belonged to Palestine/Jordan and was treasured for itself and its history as the major city of the ancient homeland of the Semitic tribes of Palestine. I wanted to remain forever in the calm, timeworn guesthouse with walls a metre thick in the heart of the city.

It was 1964. Three years later, everything I'd seen and enjoyed was destroyed in six terrible days – if not physically, certainly spiritually and culturally.

After so many months immersed in Arab culture, my first hours in New Jerusalem were traumatic. If I could, I'd have retreated to Jordan/Palestine, but it was a one-way trip to Israel. Women with painted lips and faces wearing revealing clothes designed to sexually arouse were deeply shocking. Everywhere, huge advertising hoardings, vulgarity, commercial activity. Cars, noise, western music and obscene graffiti! All senses were assaulted, and I despised my own culture that the Israelis had brought with them when they migrated from Europe and the USA.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was that Israelis were mostly not Semitic. My nose was still larger than everyone else’s! Many years later I learned that ninety percent of Israeli Jews are descended from Ashkenazy Jews who originate in central Europe, converting to Judaism in the middle ages in the vain hope of avoiding war. As they have no ancestral links to Palestine, it is unsurprising they have no regard for the land and only contempt for the history and culture of the original inhabitants.

Hitching was easy, and Israeli social workers took me to Hebron – a Palestinian enclave where we visited elderly people and dispensed ‘assistance’. Compared to the Israelis, here was dire poverty and I was repelled at the patronising way they talked to and about Arabs - as if they were retarded. They’d had nothing to do with them except invade and displace them! To give me a treat and prove their lack of racism, we lunched on Arab food: foule and falafel! My excuse that a diet of those things for a month in Egypt had hospitalised me, was dismissed as ingratitude.

After an idyllic night alone on a quiet beach at Lake Tiberius, I hitched north to a small town on the coast. I'd just set out my sleeping bag on the beach when Duff arrived. An unpleasant coincidence. He was also not pleased to see me. I asked how he’d been, but he interrupted.

“Are you queer?”

“Sometimes.”

“That fellow in the camping ground in Spain?”

I grinned and nodded. His mouth opened in dismay. “And I slept in the same tent with you!”

I nodded.

“Why didn't you…?”

He didn't take it well when I told him he was physically unattractive as well as a selfish, morose prick. Heterosexuals always think they are infinitely attractive and every gay will want to screw them. He shouldered his rucksack and disappeared – and that was the last I ever saw of him.

A happier coincidence occurred the following day. Mike, Robert, Pamela, and Barbara were on the same ferry as I, heading for Cyprus. It was a joyful reunion until an Australian as dour and repressed as Duff asked if he could join us. I'm far too polite.

Cyprus was divided, and the Turks were treated abominably by the Greeks under Archbishop Makarios. I was sitting on the walls of the old city of Famagusta, in which Turks had been incarcerated for years, when a carload of Turks attempted to drive out through the arched entrance directly below. They were reduced to pulp by Greek machineguns. Blood poured from the car and ran into the gutters. It was my first experience of the horrors encouraged by theocratic government.

We wanted to see Kyrenia on the northern, Turkish-controlled coast. The British army in Nicosia invited us to an alfresco lunch and warned us not to go because the mountains each side of Kyrenia pass were lined with gun emplacements and that very morning a convoy of cars had been shot up. We thanked them politely, shouldered our rucksacks, and walked. The Greeks waved to us from their forts in the hills on the left, the Turks from theirs on the right. They weren’t at war with us and Kyrenia was very beautiful.

After Rhodes, the Australian and I crossed to southern Turkey and the others returned home. In Turkey I was back among the simple kindness, hospitality and intelligence of a sectarian Muslim state. They weren’t as handsome as the Arabs, but less excitable and easier to live with. My Australian companion didn't see it like that. To him the country was primitive, the food inedible, transport antediluvian, the villages decrepit, and Istanbul when we eventually arrived, was smelly, dirty, overcrowded, and backward. Even the jewel-like Eyup mosque failed to move him. He became increasingly impatient with my increasingly voluble enthusiasm for all things Turkish, and one day simply disappeared without a word, never to be seen again. Like Duff in Seville.

I've figured that I am initially attractive to straight men who don’t make friends easily, because I look and act like a regular bloke and they confuse friendliness with friendship. Foolishly, they imagine I'm the mate they're searching for. However, when they realise I'm nice to everyone and don’t share their views on most things, easy chatter that used to amuse gets on their nerves and they leave before they succumb to the urge to strangle me. I’ve finally learned not to be easy and friendly with heterosexuals of either sex.

Teaching at an exclusive boarding school for a hundred boys in Istanbul just up the hill from Galatea Bridge seemed the perfect job. It was like being in an all-male Scottish camp school without the outdoors. I was ‘father’ to twenty fifteen-year-olds, taking them for physical education, swimming, and English, as well as sleeping in a room at one end of the dormitory block. None were Turkish – all were the sons of foreign businessmen, diplomats, and other wealthy people who either travelled a lot or simply couldn’t be bothered to keep their children at home. English was the lingua franca.

The boys were polite but basically dull. I always thought it a shame that money couldn’t buy enthusiasm and intellect. Istanbul was exciting at times and often beautiful, but although they insist they are European, the culture was an unhappy compromise between Muslim East and Christian/Secular West with an insufficient leavening of secularism.

After six months without finding a nice young man to share my affections, the contrast between the wealth of the parents and the daily struggles of the city’s poor, of which I was one, became so distressing I handed in my notice and hitched west.

A Spanish Jew on his way home from holiday offered me a ride all the way to the South of France – all expenses paid as long as I shared his bed. Seemed reasonable – he wasn’t too bad looking. Unfortunately, I had no Bulgarian visa and my passport was too full to permit their full-page stamp, so I had to walk back into Turkey and then hike several miles toward the Greek border.

Turkey and Greece were at war on the mainland as well as Cyprus and their joint border was closed. About a kilometre before the old frontier the road had been dug up and the army was dug in with gun emplacements, bunkers, barracks – the works. A courteous officer watched me approach, saluted, asked my business, then warned me to go no further or the Greeks would shoot me. Remembering Kyrenia, I thanked him and retraced my steps until I was out of sight and found a good spot to sleep. It was getting dark and too late to cross, anyway.

The following morning the guard had been changed, so before they realised what I was doing and tried to stop me, I told them Turkey was tjok guzel (very beautiful) and marched briskly along the bombed and torn up strip of old bitumen toward the Greek military post about a kilometre away, just becoming visible through rising mist.

As I approached, Greek soldiers called out, “Hurry! The Turks will fire on you!”

So impressed were they with my bravery, they gave me breakfast. War! So utterly stupid; if only the soldiers would learn they are simply pawns in the profit-making intrigues of banks and big business.

The train from Thessalonica to Cologne was worse than that from Cairo to Aswan. Greek guest workers occupied every square inch of the train including corridors, entrances, and even toilets, so getting rid of waste products was a complicated procedure. I sat on my rucksack jammed against the toilet door for two nights and a day, unable to sleep, no food, only a small water bottle. I daren’t move or I'd lose even that hellish spot.

The train stopped at the Yugoslav border for hours, so I got out to look for food, found none, but they wouldn’t let me back in! My rucksack was in the train guarding my place, the train was taking off, so I hung on the outside of the open window unable to let go as we gathered speed. Eventually someone reached out and pulled me inside.

Chapter 36: Paris and…

Cologne. So tired I slept on the concrete platform of the railway station all night waiting for the London train. I arrived in London a wreck. Cold, dank, dirty, described both me and the city. Misery compounded by the realisation I'd come to the wrong country. Why hadn't I gone to France? A public bath restored my appearance enough to enquire at London Berlitz about a job in France, hoping for Nice so I could laze on the beach in the sun and join all those elegant, sexy young men promenading among the trees in the Park of Albert the First. But Paris was looking for teachers and that was even more exciting.

I needed a photo for my application. The nearest place boasting the new instant portrait cameras was Swan and Edgar, the very upmarket menswear store on the corner of Piccadilly and Regent Street. In jeans, scuffed desert boots, and a once attractive Egyptian cotton shirt, I sauntered in and charmed a pleasant assistant who risked his job by letting me borrow an expensive tweed sports coat. I bought a tie, and together we went up three flights to the photographer.

The photo must have impressed Julie, who ran the Paris Berlitz English Department, because before long I was taking the metro each morning from my apartment near Place des Fêtes, which I shared with a piss-elegant Australian convinced he was one of the ‘beautiful people’, to the Arte Nouveau Palais Berlitz on Boulevard des Italiens.

Paris was now my home and even more heartbreakingly beautiful than on previous visits. Magnificent tree-lined boulevards, grand avenues, squares, vistas, pavement cafés, grand architecture that had recently been cleaned back to the original pale gold stone, elegant people speaking perfect French, handsome young men dressed like peacocks, friendly students, sunny skies.... I was living in a dream and had never felt more alive.

I enrolled at the Sorbonne for a diploma course in French Language & Civilization; stood in the open backs of buses on my way to University and work; goose fleshed at the romantic sight of caped Agents de Police directing traffic as morning mists lifted to reveal Chatelet, Pont Neuf, the Pantheon… I thought I’d fallen in love with London, but that was only because it wasn’t New Zealand. In Paris I'd truly come ‘home’ and was determined never to leave.

Recurring nightmares that I was back in New Zealand haunted my sleep. I'd wake sweating from fear that I couldn’t return to Paris. Never before had I felt such a sense of liberation, culture and rationality. I might not have found someone to love – but Paris was the next best thing.

The Berlitz administration liked my style, so hour-long classes at the school, of up to ten young shop assistants desperate to learn enough English to keep their jobs, soon gave way to private lessons for the wealthy. In the morning I'd be whisked in a private lift to the St Cloud penthouse suite of the man who designed and built the Mont Blanc Tunnel, then after lunch Prime Minister Pompidou’s wife told tales about her husband. The Personnel manager of Chausson, a spare parts factory for cars (who, to please me, gave a job to a Spanish boy with whom I was having an affair) offered me rides home in his large Citroen and stroked my leg.

The wives of two film directors in a grand apartment just off the Champs Elysées took me to the cinema and for walks in the park instead of lessons. Bank managers served me tea during private lessons in their sumptuous offices. Obscenely wealthy wives would weep on my shoulder at the banality of their boring lives and the fact nannies wouldn’t allow them to see their children more than twice a day. One poor soul dissolved in tears every time she had to go to dinner with President De Gaulle. After six years of marriage to the richest man in France, she’d realised it was no compensation for losing the simplicity of her previous life in Marseille.

Everyone I knew had problems. Jacqueline wanted my babies. When Barrie realised I didn't want to sleep with him he went on a desperate search for a boyfriend who would treat him as if he was royalty. Bill bought me presents and hosted ‘Joan Sutherland’ breakfasts for friends, when he played her records and no one was permitted to speak. He handled my rejection of a physical relationship like a man, but confessed he desperately wanted to be a woman instead of a dumpy, extremely hirsute young man. He later became one of Texas’s best-loved drag queens.

Fernando spent all his money on beautiful clothes and nursed espressos for hours in expensive cafés, hoping to be rescued by a wealthy sugar daddy. Miguel wanted not to be bald, so he wouldn’t have to do a total comb over just to keep his job as a butler. Jacques wanted to marry an American girl even though she didn't love him, so he could escape the oppressive restrictions of his Jewish family. Annette hated her nose and was saving for a nose job. Beryl’s Catholic indoctrination had convinced her that every natural joy and pleasure is a mortal sin.

Jerry was in love with Paco, a young Spanish guy who was in love with me, but whose Catholic upbringing made him terrified someone might guess he was queer. Arthur was a failed journalist who hated everyone. Marc was a Canadian harpsichordist in love with a Portuguese boy who had stolen all his money. No one I knew admitted to being happy to be themselves. Everyone let their perceived problems eclipse pleasure and blight their lives. It seemed I was the only one who didn't drink or smoke, had no inhibitions, got enough sleep, and was more or less happy with the hand fate had dealt me.

The only improvement I could imagine to my life was a permanent lover to share it with. Students invited me home to dine with their families; others took me to plays such as Les Escargots Meurent Debout, (Snails Die Standing Up), a farce as silly as it sounds. Alone, I went to the theatre, but the French style of acting seemed false – it was twenty years before I could go to a play and not criticise every production ‘fault’. Bill took me to the Comédie Française to see Les Contes d’Hoffman five times. Barrie decided I was too gauche to be seen with at the opera and concerts, so I went alone.

Jacqueline insisted on coming swimming with me to the large public pools constructed in barges on the Seine. I wore a semi-transparent black nylon backless pouch that attracted a fair bit of attention, so I imagined I was going to be ejected when a life-guard approached while I was waiting for the diving board. He took my arm, raised it, and loudspeakers blared. The crowds on the tiered seats stared and clapped and whistled. Instead of throwing me out for indecency as I’d imagined, I was handed a dozen free passes: I was the lucky-spot winner for the afternoon. To Jacqueline’s chagrin, I went home with a particularly delicious Spaniard instead of her.

Jacqueline let me maintain my all-over tan on the flat roof of her apartment block, where we were usually overlooked by half a dozen binocular wielding men. She had been titillating them for some time, but as there was no access between roofs she was safe. Her intentions were sexual, I discovered, and I admit it was rather arousing to have my penis fondled in the sun on a roof top in Paris with a view of Sacre Coeur on one side and the Eiffel tower on the other. On one such afternoon the surreal sight of lone men on rooftops masturbating with one hand while holding binoculars to their eyes with the other, was sufficiently stirring to permit me to manage intercourse. I had no condoms, so intended to pull out in plenty of time.

It began to rain, so we finished off inside on the floor of the sitting room. Although the carpet was a bit rough on bare skin, the novelty was sufficient to keep an erection until Ruth and Beryl walked in, watching in shock as I withdrew, ejaculated, and rolled onto my back grinning up at them. Jacqueline cheekily asked Ruth to pass a face flannel so she could wipe her belly clean. Beryl woke from her trance, took out her rosary, and began loudly chanting – never taking her eyes off my crotch.

In winter I discovered a men-only underground swimming pool near Place de l’Etoile. Inside was like a Roman bathhouse smelling strongly of chlorine. The incredibly expensive price of entry was prohibitive, but as I turned to go I saw a discreet notice: Jeunes hommes sympa – libre (Young, friendly/sexy men – free). I entered, accepted a locker key, and submitted to a thorough inspection in a small clinic-like room for lice, sores, disease, scouring, bad breath, rotten teeth… it was a relief to know I wouldn’t be picking up any bugs.

In the pool area a pride of sparsely clothed men older than thirty wallowed in the heated blue waters or lounged on chaises longues, casting covetous glances at about a dozen slim, naked youths, some of whom appeared to be in their early teens, sitting by the steaming pool, swimming, diving, or standing in elegant contrapposto against the columns.

I'd stumbled upon a very upmarket, public pick-up joint that would have been raided by police in England, and the owners, clients, and rent boys would all have ended in court. Thanks to Napoleon, homosexual acts were not illegal, but thanks to the church they were severely frowned upon. A pleasant looking but slightly overweight fellow of around forty gave me a wide smile full of perfect teeth and beckoned me over. I slipped into the deliciously warm water beside him to be greeted by, “Combien?”

I said I wasn’t on the game, having decided I’d done my bit for the sad guys who had to pay for it. I was beginning to feel repelled at the idea of close physical contact with anyone who wasn’t slim, clean, young, and sexy. He frowned, shrugged and swam away; not interested in a friendly chat. I guess he had a wife and friends for companionship, and when sex is a simple commercial contract there are no strings attached – neither person imagining it’s a love affair with all the complications.

I had a lot of acquaintances, but could never think of them as friends. Other people collected ‘friends’, cramming address books with the names and addresses of every person they met, sending Christmas cards and landing on their doorsteps to stay if in the vicinity. Too often if I make a ‘friend’ I soon wish I hadn't because people who think I'm their friend always seem to expect me to like what they like and be interested in the minutiae of their daily lives – while seldom evincing the slightest interest in mine. They demand too much attention for too little reward. It’s the same reason I've always disliked team sports and parties. There's an expectation of conformity to which I'm unable to subject myself, along with a concomitant dilution of intellectuality.

Julie, the boss-lady, invited me to join the “English Club”, where ex-pats played tennis and frolicked. It was an honour, I suppose, but thirty-eight-year-old Julie was going to be part of the deal. She was an attractive woman and her Renault Capri sports car was alluring, but… At least she hadn't guessed I was queer! That cheered me up for a day.

The Spanish boy I met at the swimming pool offered to share the rest of his life with me, partly as a means of escaping his tiny Chambre de Bonne and being at the beck and call of wealthy masters who treated servants like a lower species. But our only commonality was sex. I wanted a lover with the same sort of education, the same values, hopes, and desires as I. Not someone too afraid to be seen with me in public in case their brother or cousin or aunt saw us and put two and two together! I wanted someone with whom I could discuss the ‘meaning of life’, disagree and argue about an opera performance or tennis match. As Professor Higgins might have said: “Why can't my lover be like me?”

Friends who went swimming didn't like reading. Readers didn't like sleeping rough. Opera-goers refused physical exercise and dressed unfashionably. Those who enjoyed walking for miles through the parks and forests that surround Paris, liked pop music and B-grade films. Everyone seemed two-dimensional with little depth to either interests or character. They were Mr. Sole the fishmonger, or Miss Silk the couturier. Never was Mr. Gross the Grocer also a poet, hiker, opera buff, handyman, and creative dancer.

Parisian male fashions were more daring than those of London. Tight trousers very low on the hips, worn with abbreviated, fine woollen sweaters exposing several inches of bare flesh above and below the navel. Berlitz management demanded jacket and tie, but on the streets and in the dancing clubs, fashion ruled. However, no matter how much or little I wore, there seemed no hope of finding Mr. Right in a gay club, because they're meat markets, not meet markets. Furthermore, I was ‘out of fashion’!

Young, cute and androgynously boyish was ‘in’. Over twenty-two and butch was ‘out’. At twenty-four I was already over the hill! The men I fancied no longer fancied me. Wilting flowers casting lovelorn glances my way were two a penny, but they didn’t appeal. I might as well have searched for hens’ teeth as look for love in those places.

And then I danced with a wild twenty-eight-year-old Yugoslav at Club Caesar, a gay venue run by a couple of ageing lesbians, with a cosy bar downstairs and a large dancing floor above. Broad shoulders, narrow hips, large hands, straight brown hair, strong jaw, amused eyes, he danced like the professional stripper/dancer he had been in a club near Place Clichy. We danced as if we’d been partners for years, and when he learned I'd had similar employment he took me to a nightclub in a cellar a few streets behind Théâtre Odéon.

The entrance price was steeper than the stairs – three hundred franks! (At least $500 in today’s currency). He apparently enjoyed a surfeit of money because he didn't turn a hair, paid for me, and bought mineral water at twenty times the normal price. The rest of the audience were not only well heeled but overtly, elegantly, and ostentatiously worldly. Everyone sat on comfortable café chairs around a large, solid wooden oval table.

A trapdoor opened at one end of the table and a naked couple stepped up through it and began to dance. The music was vaguely classical. They didn't dance well, and after about five minutes ran out of ideas, lay down, and fucked gracelessly. They were followed by four other equally uninspiring acts. Frankly, it was boring. They weren’t athletic or artistic or original, and although the girls were pretty, all five guys were heavy, no longer youthful, and physically unattractive. The audience seemed as jaded as us by the time the last couple did their thing.

“Do you miss performing?” Yugoslav asked.

“Desperately, sometimes.”

“One of the great pleasures in life is ritualised sex. It frees us mentally and physically, turning us into gods,” he said as if reciting a mantra.

“Ritualised?”

“Choreographed dance.” He grinned. “Don’t you reckon we could do better than them? Are you game?”

And then I realised why he'd brought me there. I pointed out that they were heterosexual couples and, although I'd quite like to perform with him, I wasn’t going to be fucked on a large table – or anywhere else for that matter! He laughed and said that would be his role. Unable to think of any other difficulties I accompanied him backstage where he told the producer the show needed more originality, more artistry, more athleticism; offered our services to liven things up and arranged an audition for the following afternoon.

I had no classes on Sundays, so spent the morning at his luxurious apartment in the fifth arrondissement where he lived with his partner, a Chinese doctor a few years older than him.

We decided on a sequence of ten erotic positions, then worked on dance routines to link them seamlessly, emphasising our strength, flexibility, energy and technique: lifts, back flips, pirouettes… all things our competition lacked! It was crude, funny, and fast. But then I realised I'd be so busy concentrating I'd never get an erection. Yugoslav’s doctor partner had solved that for him when he was performing at the nightclub, with an injection of poppy extract before he went on. It seemed a bit drastic, but he was a doctor so should know. I didn't know then of the dangers inherent in such interference.

The audition was a formality. They must have been desperate for new acts, so on the Tuesday night we shaved ourselves smooth and Yugoslav gave himself an enema. At the club we oiled and polished the bodies, plunged a tiny needle into our cocks, pressed the plunger and scarcely felt a thing, then waited nervously in the tiny underfloor dressing room while the others performed – we were on last.

Success. The audience didn't stop gasping, clapping, and laughing throughout a performance that liberated, exhilarated and indeed, made me feel godlike and added appreciatively to my bank balance, especially as Yugoslav gave me his share of the money, reckoning the pleasure of the performance was reward enough.

I told no one about this, of course, they'd have thought it disgusting, being unable to comprehend the fact that we weren’t having sex; we were performing an elaborate dance in which sexual intimacy played an intrinsic part. It was no different to a stage kiss, or the sex that is almost de rigueur in films today if they want to attract an audience. I felt purified, not defiled. What the audience felt was their concern, not mine.

I still had not had a French boyfriend, so when at the local swimming pool a pleasant, ‘typically’ French young man smiled and invited me to his room near Place de la République, I accepted with alacrity. He made coffee then excused himself for a few minutes, returning dressed in a sumptuous blue taffeta ball gown, wig and tiara. I felt sick. If I wanted a woman I'd have one. I didn't want a man/woman, and he looked gross. What could I say? He was such a nice person and had gone to a lot of trouble, but I couldn’t stay. I suddenly remembered an appointment and ran to the nearest Metro.

Unusually for me, I'd kept in touch with Pamela, in Holland, who came with Mike to stay for a few days. Then a few months later, Mike’s mother arrived from California and I escorted her around Paris and sorted her hotel problems. Prue brought over a class from Scotland for a week, and Jeffrey and his boyfriend visited.

Paris remained perfect, but I was becoming a little morbid so accepted a month-long job in Scotland teaching drama, going via Amsterdam where I spent three nights with Pamela and her parents. Their somewhat unrestrained welcome suggested I was considered a better suitor than Mike, who had been drafted to Viet Nam.

On the second night, a lean and fit young man with lank blond hair and grey-green eyes peering critically through black-rimmed glasses, popped in to return a book he’d borrowed. I liked his intensity, so after a few rubbers of bridge we chatted in a corner and discovered we liked the same music; enjoyed science and nature; the same sort of art; and walking. He too disliked parties, smoking, alcohol, crowds....

“Have you a girlfriend?” he asked.

My heart stopped beating. I managed a casual, “No.”

“Boyfriend?” there was an edge to the voice. Was it a sneer? My heart sank. This sharp, smart biology student had sorted me out. I quailed, terrified of exposure and changed the subject.

As he left he turned at the door and said he’d organise three tickets for Coppelia at the Opera House the following afternoon.

He managed to convince Pamela she’d see better in the outside seat, so he could sit between us high in ‘the gods’. When the lights dimmed he slid his fingers into my shirt and caressed my belly. I returned the compliment, revelling in the feel of firm muscles and smooth skin. Afterwards he invited me to his room while Pamela went shopping. Within seconds our clothes were off, and I discovered he was the sexiest, most interesting, most handsome, most perfect young man on the planet.

As we lay chatting after an hour of gentle, non-invasive, sensual gratification that to my amazement was his preference as well as mine, I realised that this was the first time in my life I had unreservedly enjoyed sex – and I am being very careful not to exaggerate. Until then it had always been a compromise – a way of getting my rocks off that, if I'm honest, was usually little better than wanking. To celebrate, we took a tourist boat ride on the canals and kissed in public! This was Amsterdam, the gay capital of the world.

The following day I flew to Scotland. We wrote every day for the entire month. It’s true: love’s a disease. One lives in constant fear that something dreadful will happen to the loved one. A week after returning to Paris I took the train to Amsterdam for the weekend. We wrote daily when apart. I sent him a train ticket so he could visit me in Paris and we walked everywhere. On subsequent visits we went to concerts with Narcisso Yepes, Joan Sutherland, Victoria de Los Angeles, Nureyev… talked, made gentle love and walked everywhere. We shared a delight in walking! All day from one side of Paris to the other. A whole Sunday walking from one side of the forest of St. Germain en Laye to the other, getting lost, photographing each other dancing naked in the snow. After an exhausting day hiking in the forests of Fontainebleau where we made watercolours that still grace our walls, we decided to stay the night in the forest, so made a hut of ferns. Thin clothing was no protection against the coldest September night ever recorded. We nearly froze despite wrapping our arms around each other. Our small stash of biscuits was stolen by squirrels overnight, but a breakfast of wild blackberries restored tempers and love of life.

Was it possible for two people to be so in tune with each other? Surely it couldn’t last?

After more than a year of daily letters and shuttling back and forth between Paris and Amsterdam every time we could afford a weekend away, Jürgen passed his Doctoral Exams and decided he now had to use the qualification to start earning money. My small savings wouldn’t last forever!

It was time to sit down and seriously consider our future.

Chapter 37 – Epilogue

Living apart was not an option!

But Europe wasn’t united. I wasn’t allowed to live permanently in Holland. Jürgen couldn’t get permission to live in France. Heterosexuals could get married to solve that problem. We had to live together! But where? The only options were countries that accepted both Dutch immigrants and British colonials. That meant Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. It also meant I would have to quit my favourite country, and Jürgen his homeland and family.

We tossed a coin.

At the New Zealand Embassy in Rotterdam, Jürgen filed an application for immigration. It would take about six months to process.

We had six months to say ‘goodbye’ to Europe.

I handed in my resignation to Berlitz. It felt like cutting off an arm.

Thanks to my refusal to spend money on anything not conducive to health and genuine happiness, I’d managed to save a little. But how long would it last? A simple calculation indicated that, converted to U.S.A. dollars, we had enough to last for six months if we spent no more than four dollars a day – for the two of us.

The popular travel guide - Europe on $5.00 a Day, convinced us we’d be okay because their estimate included staying in pensions and youth hostels.

We bought small rucksacks, cheap sleeping bags, a billy, a petrol cooker, and a water bottle to share. After packing them, there was just enough space for one pair of long trousers, shorts, two shirts, socks, underpants, pullover, my battery Philips electric razor, a raincoat and sandals.

Then one sunny morning we stood by the roadside, held out our thumbs and set off hitchhiking through every country in Western Europe, then on to Turkey and Iran… buying flour and sugar, cheese and eggs, cooking most meals in the billy in quiet spots away from prying eyes, drinking only water, sleeping under bushes, in culverts, in forest and parks… always leaving the place cleaner than we’d found it with no trace of our stay. Cheap pensions or hotels were a last resort in crowded cities. Never taking public transport, walking for miles and miles to all the places of interest we simply had to see, washing in rivers, public fountains, and at roadside taps, never leaving soap residues or other evidence of our passing, always looking neat, fresh, clean, and shaved, unlike most other hitch-hikers who apparently thought being tough meant not washing body, clothes, or hair. They gave themselves away, however, by eating in restaurants and always sleeping in youth hostels or cheap hotels, never under bushes like us. Despite being two men, we enjoyed the most astonishing generosity and hospitality from locals in villages and towns, and always got rides within a few minutes, whereas other hitchhikers’ scruffiness meant they frequently ended up taking a bus.

Jürgen was the first educated, civilized person I’d met who enjoyed living like that, and whose likes and interests coincided with mine. If we could survive for a year constantly in each other’s company, we could obviously put up with each other for the ninety-nine years we promised one glorious afternoon in the colourful medieval apse of Saint Germain des Prés in Paris.

After seven months we received notification while in Tehran that his application for immigration had been successful, so we hitched back to Holland and booked the cheapest possible berths on the Flavia, a smallish Italian liner sailing via the Panama Canal.

Four weeks sharing a cabin on the lowest deck with ten other single men was not as bad as expected. We spent the days on deck swimming, sunbathing, playing bridge, warding off females, and, having no money to spare, went to bed early with time for a cuddle; Jürgen in the top bunk, me standing beside my lower berth, a bag in front of the closed door as a warning, ready to pretend we were simply chatting.

The voyage was fun, especially the Panama Canal and Tahiti, and we arrived in Auckland relaxed but increasingly nervous. The Dominion of New Zealand had adopted the confrontational British political and legal systems without question, including laws stating it was a serious criminal offence for any male to touch another male’s sexual organ.

Fortunately, it wasn’t considered strange for a young man to return from his Overseas Experience with a friend, and as there were numerous Dutch immigrants, even his nationality wasn’t odd.

I've never believed in lucky stars or any other supernatural ephemera, but our good luck has never ceased to astonish me. It could have something to do with the fact that we have no unrealistic expectations and accept whatever is on offer, making the best of it.

We landed in Auckland. It seemed very small and provincial to my now worldly eyes. Stayed with a University friend for two days to collect our trunks from the hold of the ship, then used almost the last of my savings on train tickets to Wellington, and ferry fares to Lyttleton – the port of Christchurch.

In Wellington, Jürgen wandered into the Head Office of the Department of Agriculture – the largest employer of scientists - and asked if they needed one.

They did! In a country town a hundred kilometres up the coast, so while he went there by bus for an interview, I went to the Education Department and to my astonishment they offered me a teaching job in the same town!

It was the start of the six-week summer school holidays, so we took the overnight ferry and my parents were waiting in Lyttleton. They welcomed Jürgen warmly, insisting he call them Mum and Dad. [My father developed a particular affection for him that lasted until his death.]

After Christmas we moved north to our jobs, which we both enjoyed immensely. A tiny, fourth-hand fiat 500, was all the wheels we could afford, but it was reliable for trips to the beach and surrounding forest ranges. A year later Jürgen was transferred to Auckland, so I broke my contract and applied for work in that city – vast in area, if not in population. Incredibly, I ended up in the best job I've ever had in an establishment whose boundaries touched those of Jürgen’s research institute! Our elegant rented flat was a five minute walk away.

We love each other unconditionally, but that doesn't mean we never argue. I’m a pushy bastard, Jürgen isn't, but he can dig his heels in deeper than I can push, so as we’re both enthusiastically independent our arguments can be loud and explosive. Fortunately, the tenants in the upstairs flat were even noisier and more argumentative than us, but the single lady in the adjoining flat was not impressed.

Not so long ago, a young Internet correspondent was shocked to learn that after more than half a century together, Jürgen and I still argue. I explained that only people who don’t love each other don’t argue. They don’t care what their partner feels, and if they get annoyed they clear out. We bicker and argue for fun sometimes, ending with a laugh at our idiocy. Most arguments occur because people are overtired. It’s fun making up, even if it occasionally takes a long time. We’ve never been silly enough to go to bed with an argument unsorted. It’d be a grave mistake to let one’s partner brood over an injustice all night.

Because ‘only married couples argue’, we decided to avoid unwanted assumptions about our relationship by seeking somewhere more secluded. With a small loan we bought a ten-acre block of land in the Waitakere Ranges thirty minutes away, where we designed and built our first simple little house. On weekends we’d drive past a commercial building site, make drawings of what we had to do next, then continue on and follow our sketchy instructions, using only hand tools as there was no electricity and we couldn’t afford power tools anyway.

It worked. The building inspector had no complaints so we moved in and Jürgen had a vast area to fill with plants, and I had a house to finish, fences to build, and three cows, six sheep and a dozen hens to house and water.

Utter bliss! No neighbours near enough to notice us. We could shout as loud as we liked.

To paraphrase the old song, two can live as cheap as one, and it surely is a lot more fun. We were both earning good money and are both naturally frugal, only wanting what is possible, and not wanting anything that isn't conducive to a happy life, so we saved money. Needless to say, our definition of happiness is not that espoused by everyone we meet.

Home grown, unsprayed fruit and vegetables and our own home-killed and butchered meat, together with lots of exercise kept us happy, healthy and out of trouble.

Looking back, I’m astonished at our energy – full time jobs, keeping the property fenced and productive, going to every performance of live theatre, film Festivals, the beach, skiing at Ruapehu, dinner with friends, mainly heterosexuals because gays didn’t approve of us setting a bad example to young gays. We weren’t hedonists and didn’t party. Worse, we were monogamous, and have been since the day we met. Free love was the mantra in the late sixties and seventies and every homosexual man or woman had a duty to spread their love, to have sex with as many people as possible. Not be selfish. Not emulate the heterosexual enemy!

We didn’t take their advice, have never contracted a dread disease, and are now considered to be the norm… ho-hum queers living in boring domesticity.

‘And who does the cooking?’ Female visitors ask sweetly, because hets can’t help assuming that one plays the woman while the other the man. They seem incapable of understanding that if I wanted a woman I’d have married one. I want a man, full stop. Certainly not a man who acts like a woman! We’re just ourselves - like everyone else.

To be fair, it is a reasonable question. Heterosexuals today also have a problem deciding on their roles. With us, whoever got hungry first, cooked. Whoever got sick of the mess first, tidied it up. We gravitated to the things we preferred. I like machines and will follow instructions. Jürgen has an indomitable spirit that accepts no harness - definitely no instructions from maintenance manuals and recipe books, so he digs gardens, gathers seeds, propagates, and harvests. He also doesn’t mind shopping. That’s a type of harvesting. I’d rather starve than go to a supermarket. I’ll dig gardens but can’t be bothered to pick the fruits. We just fit together. Whether by instinct or necessity I’ve no idea.

As for sex - human sexual activity varies from total celibacy to mass orgies; from exclusive homosexuality to exclusive heterosexuality, with every possible permutation in between. After the initial few years of almost insatiable sexual appetite, sex assumes it’s rightful place – a pleasant activity that cements a relationship. It becomes less important than eating and sleeping, because you can’t do without either of those two things. It is character and compatibility that counts, not the gender of the person you love or the way you achieve satisfaction or how often. As I never tire of repeating… Loving companionship, that's what it’s all about in the end.

After twenty years, the bare hill we bought had become a tree and shrub-filled pleasure garden. We had taken regular holidays abroad, mainly to Europe, visiting the U.S.A. and the East on the way. At first by ship, and then by plane, recharging our ‘cultural batteries’ as my Headmaster used to say.

Eventually, the endless wind, wet and cold of New Zealand got to us. We had saved enough to retire and looked around for somewhere warm. Giving up my teaching position was a severe wrench, as I’d developed good relationships with students over the years – a few of whom occasionally still communicate thirty years later. Jürgen did not like leaving the research side of his work, but was pleased to be leaving the backbiting competitiveness of other scientists.

As we were only forty-eight, we considered spending five years in each of a series of different countries, but after researching population, security, financial and political stability etc, we took an extended drive along the East Coast of Australia and decided we’d done enough travelling. The world had changed too much. It wasn’t fun any more.

After an interesting year in Brisbane, we settled further north in a beach suburb in the sub tropics – pleasantly warm but no cyclones, crocodiles, dengue, malaria or stingers that make the tropics unpleasant.

We bought and renovated several houses, I acted in a few plays, we swam a great deal, Jürgen made gardens in every property, while I brought everything up to scratch and maintained it. Predictably, the charming beachside town grew exponentially with hordes of retirees streaming up from the south for sunshine, so we sold everything and moved to our present forested acreage in the hinterland, where over the last twenty years Jürgen has turned a stony hillside with a scattering of scrawny eucalypts into a luxurious forest with fruit trees, shrubs and vegetables, alive with a hundred varieties of birds, large monitor lizards, kangaroos, bandicoots, echidnas, insects…

Everything is wild and natural – no lawns and paths, just walkways like tunnels under trees, like living in a real forest – and all created by a couple of ageing men, usually without the aid of power tools. It’s become a geriatric playground. Occupational therapy because getting old’s no joke. When you’re young you stay more or less fit no matter what you do and eat. But by the time you’ve been going for more than seventy years, keeping fit and healthy is a delicate balancing act.

Having ‘done’ the working, travelling, parties, concerts, socialising thing, we’re now contented with our own company. We know what we’re missing and don’t imagine we are missing out.

A while ago on TV a patronising interviewer asked a sprightly ninety-nine year old, “How did you manage to get so old?’ “I didn’t die,” she responded tartly. And that’s more or less how people’s relationships become life-long; they don’t give up. It has nothing to do with being queer or straight. Couples are couples. And despite the entire world-order being weighted in favour of heterosexual marriage, in some ways it’s as hard for hets to stay together as for us. Their friends are always ready to gossip, seduce, and create problems. In-laws start stress fractures and half of all marriages break down. A good relationship has nothing to do with sexual orientation, but everything to do with wanting one and working hard to keep it.

Like all living things, we are constantly changing/growing, so there’s no possibility of getting bored with each other. With time, a relationship between equals becomes deeper, more complex, more and more interesting. Other people cease to be stimulating except through their creations, because one so easily plumbs the superficial façade they present.

We’ve never thought of separating because I remember too clearly the lonely searching for a mate at twenty-four. I’m one of those unfortunates who feel incomplete without someone to love. We’ve got used to each other. The snappy remarks that used to wound mean nothing. Horrendous arguments blow over. An occasional lack of interest isn’t a deliberate insult - certainly not worth risking the loss of having someone else in the other chair every evening, listening to music, watching television, reading, talking, or just sitting. It’s useful having someone to tell you honestly what you look like or how dumb you’ve been, and it’s fun to keep your body trim when someone’s there to praise the result. Perhaps the best thing is that the same lines, sags and pouches appear on your mate as on yourself.

Loneliness and hard work poisons the soul. With no one to show things to, my heart would break, in the same way as visiting Venice alone invites a terminal case of sadness. Everyone has to feel needed, challenged, excited, useful, angry, fearful, loving and loved from time to time. Anonymous sex and drugs are what people turn to if those needs aren’t filled. But a permanent, loving relationship provides all that and more. There’s no need for drugs.

A lifelong, loving relationship is not an impossible dream if you have realistic desires and a determination to see them through. Instant and continual happiness is never going to happen to anyone, but friendship and love will bring contentment - a much more valuable state than impermanent happiness.’

Carpe Diem. Grab the day. We exist in a constant series of present moments, so enjoy the moment, because we only exist in the present and if we don’t enjoy each present moment, then we will never enjoy anything. We do not exist in the future, and living in the past with memories is a poor substitute for reality.

I have no regrets about anything I've done, but my heart still thumps if I think about what my life would have been had our paths not crossed that evening, and if we’d hesitated instead of grabbing hold of the most valuable thing any human can experience – love.

RT. July 2018.

Oh Who Is That Young Sinner?

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

'Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair as his;
In the good old time 'twas hanging for the colour that it is;
Though hanging isn't bad enough and flaying would be fair
For the nameless and abominable colour of his hair.
Oh a deal of pains he's taken and a pretty price he's paid
To hide his poll or dye it of a mentionable shade;
But they've pulled the beggar's hat off for the world to see and stare,
And they're hauling him to justice for the colour of his hair.

A E Houseman.

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Author’s Note:

Thanks for reading "Dancing Bare". If you enjoy my books, please recommend them to others, and if you’ve nothing better to do, make my day by emailing me. I always reply.

Email: prethj@activ8.net.au

Cheers,

Rigby.

Synopsis of my other books: [links below]

I write the sort of stories I like to read—a clear plot that is about something more than simply action, with characters that are believable, yet slightly larger than life. There’s sex when required, but nothing graphic, I do not write erotica. I can’t see the point in writing about life as it is for most people, with all the compromises, petty disagreements, hopes, disappointments and few small pleasures. We all know what that’s like. My heroes face their predicaments stoutly, inspiring us lesser mortals to follow their example and strive with a little more perseverance to attain our goals. But what goals? I despair at otherwise excellent books in which everyone accepts the grossly wasteful consumerism of everyday life as not only normal but desirable. I like to read about alternative lifestyles in which more than enough is too much. I’m not averse to a little tub thumping, because without strong convictions a writer has little to offer apart from easy amusement.

I like stories that are reasonably fast-paced, with sufficient but minimal description that doesn’t interrupt the unfolding plot. I want to be unaware I’m reading as I’m transported to a slightly different, more interesting reality where there are other people like me.

My Books in the order they were written.

Rough Justice is about the consequences of religious bigotry and homophobia; how a good parent deals with their child’s sexual orientation; de-stigmatising exhibitionism,; suggestions for maintaining loving relationships.

Dome of Death is a thriller revolving around the consequences of climate change and rising seas on unsustainable coastal ‘development’.

Dancing Bare is an amusing yet mildly critical look at some of the changes that have occurred since the 1960s, seen through the eyes of an aspiring actor, teacher, traveller, harmless exhibitionist and reluctant rent boy.

Sebastian is an unashamed defence of the joys of innocent nudity and sex in a country that’s becoming increasingly prudish, and nude equates to rude, although participation in wars and their murder, torture, terrorism, is seen as not only essential but heroic.

Jarek takes a tongue in cheek swipe at the extreme elements of women’s liberation, while offering a serious alternative to the way we currently teach our children.

Mortaumal is a light-hearted tale about death and dying, affection and callous indifference, independence and love, somewhere in tropical Queensland. Mortaumal gets himself into and out of very hot water while learning to defend himself both physically and mentally in a fast paced romp in which there’s sentiment but not sentimentality, social criticism, excitement, fun, and a bit of everything else.

NumbaCruncha After a chilling peek at the near future, NumbaCruncha takes a thousand year leap into the future, where the activities of humans have reached their logical culmination in a flesh-crawlingly evil dystopia ruled by the most unpleasant gang of conmen and women you're ever likely to encounter. Meanwhile, back in the forest, Sebastian and Jarek’s genetically evolved Men are waiting.

Fidel weaves his brave but dangerous path through the morass of a fundamentalist religious takeover of government.

Frankie Fey questions everything while living an exciting, sometimes dangerous existence as he searches for meaning and purpose in Australia and India.

Each of the stories in Time to Think takes a gentle look at an oddity in human relationships and behaviour.

Links

Rough Justice

Dome of Death

Sebastian

Jarek

Mortaumal

Fidel

NumbaCruncha

Frankie Fey

Time to Think (Short Stories)