Previous Prides
There's notices all over the Tube at the moment that Clapham Common Tube entrance will be closed this Saturday because of the large numbers of people expected to be attending the Pride Festival. It's our time of the year again. But, I have to confess, Pride is a funny time of the year for me.
I have memories of Prides that go back over 20 years now. I've talked with people who were present at the first, which seems to have amounted to a few men and a dog gathered under a tree in (I think) Hyde Park. In the mid-70s, my University friend, Ronnie, was among those who zapped the British Home Stores shop on Oxford Street during the march because the company had recently sacked a lesbian worker. There's a photograph of him and me in amongst the many of me in the gallery of self-portraits.
The following year, the police would not license the march to process through the centre of town, so it was routed in part through the back streets of Paddington. There was a cloudburst. Never in the field of human conflict has so much mascara run down the faces of so many men. Well, it was the 70s and glam rock was queen. It was like marching with a pack of Kodiac bears.
My first Prides as an out gay man were in the early 80s. They were much smaller affairs than nowadays but somehow, even in amongst the carnival atmosphere, people were far more fervent in their belief that they were marching to make a difference. Less so these days. I remember a couple of years ago, Kylie Minogue giving an interview in August during which she mentioned that she'd recently played at a really great gig called Pride.
Well, in the early 80s it wasn't a gig. In 1982, Pride took place outside London for, I think, the only time. The venue was Huddersfield. Huddersfield?! Yes, because the Gemini Club in that city and its patrons had been the subject of homophobic attacks and the march took place there as an act of solidarity. Fewer people than usual turned up, the national media ignored the event and the view in the capital was that the event had been spoiled by taking it away from London.
They hadn't been there. 15,000 people in the centre of Huddersfield had made a difference. I remember a bizarre scene in a pub in the centre of town with the locals at one end of the bar and the faggots at the other. Into the No Man's Land in between burst a troupe of Morris Men in full drag dripping with jingling bells. I remember that, as the march turned into the Civic Park, it passed a chapel at which a wedding had just finished. Celebratory photographs were being taken. The chant went up 2-4-6-8 Is you husband really straight? The look on the faces of the two mothers-in-law was murderous. I remember the two young American women, presumably doing Europe on 5 dollars a day, who had hit Huddersfield on this of all days and must have left with the impression that it was the San Francisco of the United Kingdom.
The 80s brought many trips down from London with various groups. I helped shepherd the Youth Group on one occasion which again was wet. We got them all back safe though two had stories to tell. I went with friends, with partners. I had one good Pride with Richard and a couple of bad ones. One year, I went with Robert but spent the afternoon worrying in case someone made a pass as this rather alert 11-year old - I mean talk about misdirected prejudice. Keith and I never got it together to attend Pride together.
By the time I got to London, Keith and I had split up. When Pride came round in 1994, we had a dreadful scene. All of our plans got messed up. We didn't speak for months. I ended up sitting with Roland and Julie and Colin on the hillside at Brockwell Park and just felt as though I wasn't a part of it at all so I went home.
Last year, I was still in grief at David's death. The last thing I wanted to do was to be among so many people enjoying themselves.
This year's going to be strange too. In the original scheme of things, the weekend was to have marked then end of the relationship with Fred before he returned to Singapore forever. Well, that's all changed. He's passed his Bar exams, he's got a job, he's back in September and there's no relationship in the intimate or romantic sense.
We had a somewhat poignant lunch today, Thursday, where we both acknowledged some of the hurts we've been causing each other. And we made some general plans for his departure and return. And we made some general plans for Pride.
But it's nowhere like what it was going to be. So many people have asked me recently why, if Fred isn't going back to Singapore for good, aren't we going to get back together again? Well, guys, you're right. At the level of the blindingly simple, that's exactly what should happen. If you wanted closure and a happy ending à la Beautiful Thing, then the scales would fall from our eyes and we would choose the path of true happiness. But it ain't going to happen.
And, Phil, after all the stuff with Rob, I do understand where the half-joking offer of physical violence comes from but No, thank you.
So, I've been reflecting a lot on Prides past and present for the past few days and then something very weird happened this morning. There was an very moving article in this morning's Guardian written by a gay man whose partner has AIDS and how (and more pertinently why) they won't be attending Pride this year.
And I began thinking a lot about David and his illnesses which I haven't done in a long time now. The article struck a chord and made me reflect again on the horrors of what I'd been through. It was like some of the things Trevor had said about his feelings about his dad's death when I visited him in Victoria - the memories go dormant for a long while and then suddenly they all just rush up again to meet you.
As I was walking from my house to the Tube, I got to thinking about my present situation and I started to feel very forlorn and lonely and left out of things. And I did something I haven't done for a while. I started talking in my head to David about things and was just telling him what was going on and how I felt. And in my mind's eye I suddenly saw him very clearly and in my mind's ear I heard him very clearly say to me Just go and have a good time.
And I know it's really flakey but that contact with his memory really helped. Over the past 15 months, I've had very little sense of his presence.
And he's right. I should just go and have a good time. I was just in the process of typing the last couple of paragraphs an hour ago when Fred rang. We talked about a lot of things but most importantly he's invited me to spend some time with him and some other folk tomorrow night.
So, if I'm sensible and don't listen to the tape loops in the back of my head trying to spoil things, there's probably a very good time just waiting to happen if I just go out and allow it to occur.