10. INGELOW ROAD

 

After Hogmanay, we headed back to London by coach, and in February George started his Phones Course with Overseas Telegrams. The weekend after Valentine’s Day was the ‘Aquarius Love Ball’ at Porchester Hall. We had bought six tickets for ourselves and friends, and George, Lena and Fifi went in drag as usual. This may have been the time all three of them posed for a photo outside a West End sex cinema on the way to or from the drag ball. They looked like three prostitutes with the film poster behind them reading: ‘Good Little Girls’ and ‘Sex Explosion’. A print of this photo is now in George’s collage.

 

Later that week we went to the National Film Theatre to see Mae West in ‘Belle of the Nineties’. This was a film star George introduced me to whom I learned to love as much as he did. I think we saw all her films together (except her last, ‘Sextette’, which was not released in the UK during George’s lifetime), and we had some of her records, which we both loved. She had done cover versions of rock’n’roll standards like ‘Great Balls of Fire’, ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On’ and ‘Happy Birthday Sweet 16' which were quite brilliant and hilarious, full of double entendres, as were some of her much older recordings, such as ‘Sister Honky Tonk’.

 

The day before my birthday, having completed his Phones Course, George started work at the International Telex Office in Fleet Building. This was very frustrating for him, since it was really nothing whatever to do with Overseas Telegrams, and all his Phones and other training was wasted. A certain number of people were sent to Fleet Building and the work there was very boring apparently, with no real keyboard skills required. It was, of course, a taste of the future when telex took over from telegrams, then fax from telex, and e-mail from fax. Telecommunications was a field which changed faster than most due to new technology. George hated the International Telex Office, and eventually left the G.P.O. (General Post Office) because they refused to transfer him back to Overseas Telegrams at Electra House (where I worked) for the career he had been trained for, Overseas Telegraph Officer. Instead he was expected to sit in front of a console pushing a button every now and again, a job which a robot could easily do.

 

The days of all three of us living together in Bradfield Court, Camden Town were coming to a close. George and I were soon to move into our first real home of our own together.

 

In April 1973 we moved out of my mother’s council flat in Camden, to a ground floor flat in a Victorian terrace in Battersea. It was the only place we could find, and it belonged to an acquaintance of George’s friend, Roy.

 

Eric, the landlord, was Jamaican, and he had no interest in letting the flat out. He let us stay there more as a favor to Roy than anything. Eric lived in a couple of rooms on the first floor, and the attic he let to a mysterious Irish character known as ‘The Gunslinger’ who did not live there, but called occasionally. George was very suspicious of this character, and thought there may well be IRA connexions. Eric and Roy were both leftwing politically.

 

I have fond attachments to our first home together, although it was hardly a palace. The electric wiring was so bad that when we moved out Eric could not let the flat again - a law had since been passed requiring a certificate that the wiring was up to standard before a flat could be let. We actually had a fire whilst we were there, caused by the faulty wiring.

 

Rose from Hastings was up for the weekend, and we were sitting in the front room with the light on when there were some sparks and the paper shade caught fire. Whilst Rose and I panicked and shouted hysterically inane things like ‘Get a bucket of water’ (to throw over a live electric light?), George remained cool and calmly but quickly stood on a chair and snipped away the string suspending the shade, and as it fell to the floor we quickly stamped out the fire. There remained a black patch on the ceiling which we did our best to scrub clean, but had it not been for George’s cool head it might well have been far worse. The ceiling could have caught fire, or Rose and I could have been electrocuted trying to throw water over a live electric wire.

 

We had no bathroom in our flat, or inside toilet. The loo in the yard had no light, so Roy fixed one up for us with a wire leading through the kitchen window to a power point. He did it so badly you got an electric shock every time you turned the loo light on. We had a rubber mat on the floor to absorb some of the shock when you performed this dangerous operation.

 

We bought a portable shower unit, which included a plastic container which you filled with hot water and pumped by hand. This stood in the narrow passage outside the kitchen. If we wanted a proper bath we had to go to my mother’s place in Camden.

 

Our two cats came with us to Battersea, and loved being able to go out into the yard at the back. We fixed up a cat-flap for them. Dixie, the greedy one, sometimes came in the kitchen window with little snacks he had nicked from someone’s breakfast table. One day he came in with a nice freshly cooked rasher of bacon. When we eventually moved, we could not find Dixie, and then I spotted him in a garden backing on to ours. I went round to the street behind and knocked on the door. It transpired they had been feeding Dixie for years, thinking he was a hungry stray. So he had been getting about 4-6 meals a day, taking into account that he ate most of Dinky’s meals as well.

 

One day Rose was visiting, and she loves her food to put it mildly. I had a Chinese take-away, which George did not like, but Rose had one with me. Then George got some fish and chips, so Rose had to get a portion too. Still hungry, he got chicken and chips, put it down on our coffee table to go and get some tomato ketchup, and Dixie seized his opportunity and grabbed the chicken leg off Rose’s plate. When she saw what was happening, Rose screamed and chased the cat all the way up the passage to the kitchen, grabbed the chicken leg from Dixie’s mouth, rinsed it under the tap and ate it.

 

This was one of Dixie’s unlucky days, meeting someone greedier than he was. Another time he went missing for several days, and we had tearfully given him up for lost, or run over. Then he suddenly turned up in a dreadful state. He literally looked like the proverbial drowned rat, being soaking wet and covered in black mud and filth. We gave

him a good warm bath and shampoo, and he survived to live to a ripe old age of 15. We never found out where he had been, but could only guess he had been trapped in a drain or somewhere similar for several days, then somehow managed to escape.

 

The woman next door, who we nicknamed Battersea Beattie, was always hanging out of her upstairs window watching what was going on. As we were going to the Porchester Hall drag balls quite regularly, and often dragging up at home, she must have seen some strange sights to gossip about. As we came in our front door she often waylaid us from her window to tell us she was off to try and win the ‘Battersea Banger’ (a jackpot prize at the local Bingo hall), or some piece of scandal. One day she informed us ‘old Atto’, the landlord, wanted to put her rent up.

 

She had lived there for years and was paying a very low rent for her upstairs flat, about £2 a week I believe. The only way the landlord could put the rent up, apparently, was if he made improvements to the flat, but Beattie was having none of it. Although Eric upstairs in our house had a bathroom, apparently Beattie did not, and Mr Atto wanted to install one for her, and then put her rent up.

 

‘‘E wants to put a barf in so ‘e can put me rent up, but I ain’t ‘aving none of it’, she informed us through the window. ‘I’m paying two quid a week for this flat and I ain’t paying no more’.

 

 

At that time I believe we were paying over ,10 for our flat, and that was cheap because Eric was a friend of a friend doing us a favor. The implication of Beattie’s remark was that she had not had the luxury of a bath all her life, and did not intend to start now if it meant her rent going up.

 

Our flat was furnished by Eric, but we also gathered our own bits and pieces. My mother gave us some crockery, linen and curtains. Roy was a semi-professional at scrounging in skips and dustbins for items which he could sell. In the early hours around Notting Hill and Bayswater he could often be found with his head buried deep in a dustbin searching among the rubbish for anything useful. Once or twice he was nearly caught by the police in this position. He did find some amazing things, particularly on skips in the more well-to-do parts of West London. He gave us a lot of little things, and we used to joke that our flat was furnished out of skips.

 

Of course, we had to make do as best we could. Married couples setting up home just draw up a list of everything they need and it is provided by relations and wedding guests. Gay couples have to fend for themselves as best they can, and setting up home for the first time is not easy, even in a furnished flat. There are hundreds of little items you take for granted which you have to acquire all at once.

 

After we moved out, my mother stayed on at Bradfield Court for a while, then moved to a smaller flat near Mornington Crescent Tube station. She is something of a gipsy and can never settle in one place more than a few years. She later exchanged the

Mornington Crescent flat for one in Kilburn, with a small front and back garden. About a year or two before George died she moved from there back to Welwyn Garden City, ironically to a flat with no garden.

 

The weekend before we moved, in April 1973, George and I took the first of many trips abroad together, a long weekend in George’s favorite city, Paris. We also included a visit to Versailles. I had not liked Paris on my first trip in 1969, but I saw it through different eyes with George. They say Paris is for lovers, and I certainly saw the romantic side of it as George proudly showed me the city where he used to live, including his favorite Montmartre area. We were to return many times to Paris together, and had booked for Christmas 1991, which of course was not to be.

 

In early May we had a day trip to Brighton with two friends, Ray and Roy. After we moved, we still visited my mother regularly and she us. On May 26th, which had been my grandmother’s birthday and was the day before George’s, we took my mum on a Merrymaker excursion to Aberystwyth. The thing I remember most about this was a little steam train ride we took from the town up into the mountains to Devil’s Bridge. When we got out at the end of the line, there was a marvelous view each side of the road overlooking a stream and a waterfall in a canyon. It is the only place in the world where we had to actually pay (twice) to look at the view. First we had to pay to go through a turnstile one side of the road, then pay again to go through a turnstile the other side just to see the view. We then boarded the train again for the journey back to Aberystwyth.

 

Also in May, George left Post Office Overseas Telegrams and started as a telex operator at an Australian company. He stayed there ten years, and got me a job there eventually. After I left he went back there again, till made redundant when the firm went into virtual liquidation.

 

In July we went on our first long holiday abroad together, with George’s friend Roy, to Austria. We flew into Munich airport where a coach met us to take us to, as we thought, Salzburg. However, as the coach reached the German-Austrian border and stopped at passport control, I pointed out to George and Roy our hotel a few yards away up a hill. There was no mistaking the name of the Hotel Votterl which we had been allocated, and sure enough we were staying outside Salzburg in a picturesque little village split in two by the border. The Austrian side was Grossgmain, and the German side Bayerischgmain (Great Gmain and Bavarian Gmain). Every time you left the hotel you had to take your passports to show at the border post a few yards outside the door. Germans from Bayerischgmain regularly came across the border to watch TV in the hotel lounge, though I could never quite work out why.

 

We arrived in the evening, and were starving, having only had an airline meal. We were a bit disappointed to be served cold meat and salad, but would have made the best of it had it not been for Roy. He was furious because we were not staying in the city of Salzburg as the brochure had led us to believe, and this meal was the last straw. He kicked up a hell of a fuss, and to our delight, but also acute embarrassment, whilst everyone else in our group made do with cold meat and salad we three tucked into prime steak and vegetables at no extra cost.

 

Actually we enjoyed staying in Grossgmain. The view from our hotel bedroom window of the mountains was out of this world, the village itself was very pleasant with its chalets and colorful window-boxes, and there were lovely walks to be taken in the clean air of these mountains. We did see Salzburg as the coach took us in several times, including a sightseeing tour. What was not so good was when they dumped us in a boring small town called Ybbs on the Danube in the flat central area of Austria. All it seemed to have of interest was a mental hospital. To relieve the boredom the three of us used to skip through the town singing a line I’d made up in my very limited German: ‘Wir kommen von das krankenhaus’ (we come from the hospital) and generally acting like loonies just to see the reaction of the locals, who never batted an eyelid.

 

Ybbs was a dull, gray sort of place, with absolutely nothing to see or do. There was a folk festival one day, and there was the Danube, which was not blue and not particularly romantic as it flowed through the town. Of course the tour company’s idea was to strand us in a place so boring you would pay to go on the ‘optional’ tours to get away from it. We refused to do this, so just kicked our heels around town till it was time to move on to Vienna.

 

 

We were staying on the outskirts of the Austrian capital, and Roy began to get on George’s nerves with his perpetual moaning. We were walking around the city center one day and got a bit lost, and Roy moaned:

 

‘Oh no, we’re not back here again!.

 

George curtly told him to stop grumbling. After all, half the fun of exploring a new city is getting lost and finding your way around. One of Roy’s favorite sayings was ‘Your mother’s not stupid’, the maternal figure being a reference to himself. Actually ‘mother’ was extremely stupid on this holiday, going into a supermarket and paying through the nose for a banana and a couple of other items. George warned Roy as we went round the shop that the prices were sky high, and he would be better off buying fruit in a proper market, but he would not listen, nor could he be bothered to convert Austrian schillings to sterling to see how much he was paying. It was only when we got back to the hotel he finally realized he had paid about ,1 for a banana, and so he moaned about that for days.

 

We also had to contend with a full-sized head which Roy carried around in his luggage. He had not committed a dastardly murder, nor did it belong to some dear departed relative with whom he could not bear to be parted. It was an artificial head for him to put his wig on at night. He insisted on wearing a long, red wig even though he was far too old, and a short gray one would have been much more suitable. It always looked a mess, and he was forever holding it on with his hands whenever it was a bit windy.

 

In Vienna we saw all the sights, including the Prater where we had a ride on the enormous Big Wheel made famous in the film ‘The Third Man’ with Orson Welles. We also went in a beer hall in the Prater, where they had waltzing waters and German-type beer songs. We had several such evenings throughout the tour which we enjoyed. One, in a village just outside Vienna, was a bit too touristy, with everyone being encouraged to link arms and act as if they were all drunk as soon as we arrived, but for the most part we remembered affectionately the Austrian and German songs we learnt, including one where everybody in turn had to get up and stand on their chair. Roy was about the only one who refused to join in the fun, and remained glued to his seat.

 

So one of our first holidays abroad was to Vienna, and we visited the city again on our last proper trip abroad (excluding Jersey) in March 1991. By then the Prater seemed but a shadow of its former self. It all looked very sadly run down, and we never found our old beer hall.

 

Whilst in the Salzburg area we had some trips into Germany, including one to Berchtesgaden where Hitler had his retreat. George was a bit annoyed because Roy seemed to have something of an obsession about Hitler and Eva Braun, and was so excited to be there. In actual fact there was nothing much left to see of the old buildings, except what is known as the Eagle’s nest high on a peak in the distance. However the countryside around is beautiful. I remember sitting at an open air cafe overlooking a valley, and enjoying an orange juice. Poor George did not get to drink much of his as a wasp flew straight into the bottle, and put him right off it. Whilst in the Berchtesgaden area we visited the salt mines, and had our photo taken on a little train which runs through them. We also visited the beautiful Lake Koenigsee in Bavaria.

 

Back in the Salzburg area we had a trip by cable car to the top of the Untersberg, high above the clouds. The locals laugh when they see the sequence in ‘The Sound of Music’ where Julie Andrews runs down supposedly from the top of the mountain into Salzburg, because it is so steep, craggy and high you might just as well try to run down Everest. Our courier told us about a group of Americans he had taken on a ‘Sound of Music’ tour. He was telling them something about Mozart who had lived in the area, when one tourist complained:

 

‘We don’t want to hear about this Mozart guy. This is the ASound of Music@ tour, and he wasn’t in the movie.’

 

Before we left we had a farewell party, and our male courier, whom we nicknamed ‘Tinkerbell’ because he was always ringing a little bell to attract our attention, and his boyfriend (they were very obviously gay) waved us off, as did the hotel guests staying on. It was a very memorable holiday, though probably would have been even better without Roy, even if it meant going without our steak the first night.

 

We returned in early August, and later that month went on a day trip to Margate. George’s sister Betty came down in September and we took her round the usual sights including London Zoo and the Science Museum, for she had dragged along the inevitable ‘wean’ which had to be amused. For Betty, George had planned the shops of High Street Kensington and the Kings Road (window shopping in the latter).

 

At the end of September I paid my first visit to a prison, when we visited Lena in Pentonville (for some gay offense I believe). George planned a party for him when he came out. He was released on Friday October 5th, and we had the party next day.

 

It was probably the first of our parties, which we could now hold since we lived in a flat of our own. After going to the Porchester Hall drag balls we often had a party, and invited a few people back. We went to the Halloween and New Year’s Eve drag balls, but I think we did not have any more parties that year. In December George came with me to my firm’s Christmas party, which included a slap-up meal with Beef Wellington. I had by this time left Overseas Telegrams and was working as a telex operator in a private firm in the City. We got this one Christmas party out of them, then I left because I could not stand the people I was working with. They had all been in the army and could talk about nothing else. I got fed up with daily quips like ‘Colonel’s lady approaching’ when the boss’s wife walked by, or ‘other ranks’ bar now open’ when the boss went out to lunch and they sneaked into his office to steal some nips of his whisky.

 

 On the subject of our parties, these grew quite popular, though they were also quite a lot of hassle. George had to keep sober in order to make sure everything was under control. I am afraid in the early days I was not any help, as I used to mix my drinks and pass out. One drag queen we met at Porchester Hall once was of ample proportions and drove like a maniac all the way to our flat, so we called her ‘Gas-pedal Annie’. She took a shine to a young guy in a suit who had also been at the drag ball, but who was a bit naive. Making no headway with him, Gas-pedal Annie got him into our backyard and shoved a popper up his nose. Poppers are canisters of amyl nitrate, popular with gays. You sniff them and they give you a brief buzz, and they are something of an aphrodisiac. Of course the young man felt ill, and an argument ensued, which ended in Gas-pedal Annie throwing a drink over someone. George had to take the situation in hand as I was too far gone.

 

We met a much nicer character at the drag balls, Freddy or ‘Freda’ (also known sometimes as ‘Fifi of the Folles Bergere’). He was probably in his late 60s or early 70s when we first met him, but he made all his own drag, which was very theatrical and was covered in sequins, with headdresses of huge colored ostrich plumes and rhinestones. He appeared once in a charity show in Stockwell, on the same bill as Marc Fleming. Backstage, Marc was admiring Freda’s drag.

 

‘Who sewed all those sequins on your dress, love?’ asked Marc.

 

‘I sewed them all on myself,’ replied Freda proudly.

 

‘You must be fucking mental’, came back the Fleminesque retort.

 

Freda won nearly all the drag competitions at Porchester Hall. He used to come to our parties regularly and do a little cabaret. He also did the occasional cabaret for the old age pensioners’ club on the Waterloo council estate where he lived. He used to tell us how amazed they were that ‘The Fabulous Freda’ was none other than the scruffy little man in the flat cap who used to walk his dog around the estate.

 

Freddy had been in the Merchant Navy, and used to do some cabaret for the boys on board ship. He had also been in the theater, mainly as a dresser I believe. He had picked up and remembered odd lines from various plays he had either acted in or been associated with. He used to suddenly recite one or two of them, completely out of context and therefore they made little sense. Phrases like: ‘Your mother, she’s not in here’, ‘Have a piece of sponge cake’ and ‘She was a soldier’s wife, my dear, and the second thing he asked for was his breakfast.’ He also used old sayings remembered from his childhood, the meaning of which had been lost in the mists of time, such as ‘silly girl lemon’, ‘cheese or jam?’ and two of my favorites, which I like to pair together, ‘oily kippers - slap it on the wall’.

 

Freda remembered the people and events of 40 or 50 years ago as if it were yesterday, and was always asking us if we knew bitches like Bottle-Nosed Mary, Doodlebug Daisy, Carrier Bag Carrie (also known for some reason as Cannibal Kate), The Painted Lady, Chrissie Crow, Miss Minge (‘she used to say ‘I’m a Princess’ ‘), Kangaroo Kate and Pissy Morris (‘she used to pay old tramps to piss over her under Admiralty Arch, dear - init camp?’ Freda would say.)

 

‘Oh you must know Blow-Job Annie,’ Freda would insist, ‘She’s always around the West End, dear.’ Then she would think for a moment, and admit: ‘Of course, not now, I’m talking about them days,’ which probably meant in the 1920s or 1930s. Then Freda would continue with her saucy little anecdote of gay life in London back in those between-the-Wars years ‘Well, dear, she plated a black man on the top deck of a number 9 bus.’ What with camp queens being pissed over under Admiralty Arch and giving blow-jobs upstairs on London buses, the capital seems to have been quite an eye-opening place in those far off days.

 

‘Some bitches today don’t believe you when you talk about them days,’ complained Freda, ‘but it’s all true, my dear.’

 

Freddy/Freda also used to tell us stories of the places and things he had seen whilst in the Merchant Navy, though he sometimes got the places a little muddled. ‘I saw the Carnival in Trinidad, dear, with Table-Top mountain in the background’. To Freddy, everything was ‘camp’, even the most tragic circumstances. One story he told about some Third World country he visited in the Merchant Navy concerned a woman begging, holding a bundle wrapped up in some rags: ‘She said to me ‘‘Could you give me some money to bury my dead baby?’‘ Init camp?’, Freda would say.

 

 

As well as winning the competitions in the drag balls and doing cabaret for OAP’s, Freda used to do occasional cabaret in gay pubs. We once saw him perform his dance and mime act in ‘The Cricketers’ in Battersea, just below the flats where we then lived. He had little cards printed reading: ‘The Fabulous Freda, lovely to look at, delightful to know. Taps and Tempo.’ He got some cards printed for my disco, which I was trying to get going at the time.

 

We got to know Freddy, and his lovely dog Sandy, quite well. Apart from our parties, he visited our flat quite a bit, and we once went on a day out to Margate together. We visited his flats in Waterloo - while we knew him he moved out of one flat into another on the same pre-war council estate just opposite the Old Vic. His flat was cluttered with drag and theatrical paraphernalia. You could hardly get into the bathroom for all the drag, including dresses with layers and layers of starched net, hanging over lines stretched above the bath.

 

Right to the day he died he used to tell us raunchy stories of what had happened to him either years ago, or on his way to see us in a ‘cottage’ (toilet) en route. He once told us he had ‘trade’ (sex) with a construction worker at the top of the Millbank Tower when they were still building it. If ever we were with Freddy and he happened to see someone he had once had trade with, even if it had only been a one-off like the Millbank episode, Freddy would point him out to us and say: ‘That’s one of my husbands, dear’.

 

I will always remember Freda with affection. Strapping on his false plastic boobs and putting on his enormous headdress which made Carmen Miranda’s look quite tame by comparison. His cabarets at our parties were something we always looked forward to. He died, of a heart attack I believe, in his little flat and was not found for days. He was always worried about this, and whether his beloved dog Sandy would then die of starvation trapped in the flat. Freddy used to tell us if he felt unwell, he would open the front door so if he died Sandy could get out. Obviously he did not have the chance to do this when he actually died, but luckily his relations found him in time and the dog was OK.

 

George and I went to the funeral, at the same crematorium where George’s funeral was later held. I remember there were two fantastic looking blond youths there, who were apparently Freddy’s nephews. Even in death he was surrounded by beautiful young men.

 

I once wrote a poem about Freda and the stories he told us. I repeat it below, as it gives a flavor of his character. George took Freddy to the theater once, and he said Freddy talked almost non-stop, to the annoyance of the audience around them. Imagine what must have gone through their heads as they heard Freda in full flow along these lines:

 

THEM DAYS

I’ve been all over the world, my dear

I saw the Carnival in Trinidad

I remember it all so very clear

What a bona camp time we had.

 

Our ship had just arrived in Capetown

We stood there, me and Chrissie Crow

And watched the procession march up and down

‘Course, that was them days you know.

 

Then Cannibal Kate, Blow-Job Annie and your muvver

A-cottaging in Melbourne did go

We didn’t get none of the other

But there were kangaroos all over the show.

 

So I goes up to this bona Aussie sharpie

And says: ‘Your muvver, she’s not in ‘ere,

‘Ave a piece of sponge cake, my lovely’

And ‘e said: ‘Go home you pommy queer.’

 

Did I tell you what happened the other day

In a cottage on Blackheath, my dear?

On two bona homies cartes your muvver was plating away

That was when the fair was there last year

 

So I says to Bottle-Nosed Mary

Why did you go with that old tramp

She said: ‘Well when you’re a middle-aged fairy

Take whatever comes your way’, init camp?

 

Do you know a bitch called Miss Minge, dear?

Do you know The Painted Lady and Doodlebug Daise?

You must know them - they hustle all round here,

Not now, I’m talkin’ ‘bout them days.

 

Anyway, to the Embankment we trolled, dears

Hoping some nice rich steamers to meet

When Pug-Nosed Pat hollered: ‘You bleeding queers

Can piss off out of my beat’

 

So Miss Minge hit Pat wiv ‘er ‘andbag,

Doodlebug Daisy used her high-heeled shoe,

The Painted Lady said: ‘I’m a lady and can’t spoil my drag’

But your muvver lent a hand too.

 

Then a sharpie came to ol’ Pat’s rescue

I tell you, lovely, she looked a right old mess

So he says to us: ‘I’m going to arrest you’

Miss Minge yelled: ‘But I’m a Princess’.

 

They were bundled into the sharpie car waiting

But your muvver weren’t born yesterday you know

I said: ‘Nip up this alley ‘n’ I’ll give you a plating’

Blow-job done, the sharpie let me go.

 

Now when you’re talking about them days

Some bitches, they don’t believe you

But your muvver has done all that she says

It’s true, my dear, it’s true.

 

Was I ever in Majorca?

No dear - oh yes, I was for just one night

Or am I thinking of Jamaica

Or maybe the Isle of Wight?

 

Anyway, this woman on some island, lovely

Showed me a dead kid wrapped in a shawl

She wanted money to bury her baby,

Init camp, dear? Freda’s seen it all.

 

I saw Carrier-Bag Carrie the other day

Trying to sell a carrier bag

I said to her: ‘You bitches today

Just don’t know the meaning of drag’.

 

 

 

 

Now this dress that I won a prize in

Is real drag, don’t you see

It was given to me by Vera Lynn

Back in 1943.

 

The first five bob your muvver made

Was on an open-top bus doing a plating

And in the shelters for your muvver in an air-raid

Soldier and sailor boys’ cartes were a-waiting.

 

Under Admiralty Arch, Pissy Morris for years

Was paying old tramps doing skippers

To stand there and piss all over her, dears,

Yes it’s true, init camp? Oily kippers.

 

She’s lovely to look at, delightful to know

And really heavenly to see,

Fabulous Freda: they still love her so,

But best were the days as an H.P. at sea.

 

 

 

 

 

I knew Kangeroo Kate in the last War,

She was a soldier’s wife, my dear

His breakfast was the second thing he asked for

And your muvver, she’s not in here.

 

Cheese or Jam?

 

Glossary of Gay Polari and slang words used in poem:

Bona = lovely, good-looking, Cottaging = looking for sex in toilets, Sharpie = policeman, Homies =men, Cartes =the male organ, Plating = oral sex, Trolled = walked, Steamers = clients, Doing skippers = sleeping rough, H.P. (Homy Polone) = effeminate homosexual or bitch.

 

 

George at first thought this poem was disrespectful of Freddy Williams and could be taken as making fun of him. But it wasn’t written in this spirit – it was meant to capture as many of his sayings and stories as I could to preserve them in our memories and for posterity.

 

Our parties were never the same after Freda died, and eventually they petered out. As we got older we found ourselves getting less tolerant of people who wanted to stay all night, even those who lived in London and could get night buses or taxis home. It got so people were sleeping on the couch, in our spare beds, in armchairs, and staying most of the next day too, but leaving us to clear up all the mess. A friend and nearby neighbor also used to have parties for New Year every January, but after there was a cat fight between two women over a man, they moved their parties to a barn in the middle of Sussex so there was no danger of anything getting broken.

 

Another character who came to at least one of our parties was a youngish, camp-looking Indian we called ‘Marcia the Mouse’. At this particular party I had passed out on the bed, the bedroom being screened from the living room by a curtain.

 

Marlene, an old friend of George’s, had brought her young boyfriend, Rory, to the party. Also at the party was a prostitute George knew called Maria. Suddenly, Rory and Maria had climbed into the bed beside me. I was pretty far gone as Rory and Maria started performing, but since Rory was in the middle it was stimulating me somewhat, and Rory gave me a hand job. Marcia was getting so excited peeping round the door and reporting back to the kitchen what was going on. Later Rory had the cheek to ask George for a fiver ‘for doing Tony a favor.’ George gave both him, myself and Maria short shrift for our behavior at the party, though I never asked them to climb in bed with me. Still, I should not have drunk so much that I had to retire to bed and leave everything to George.

 

Marcia, who lived in Guildford, sometimes made trips up to London to cruise Hampstead Heath at night. This is where we first met him. He used to take a flask of tea and sandwiches, and hide them away in a bush. We never had trade with Marcia, he was not our type, but we sometimes gave him a lift in my van afterwards, and as we talked about what had been happening on the Heath that night, Marcia would get very excited, and wanted to know every little detail. He kept interrupting with questions like:

 

‘Yes, Yes, but tell me darling, where was all this happening? Was it Grotto number 6 or Grotto number 7?’

 

Marcia had all the main bushes on the West Heath numbered in his head, starting with Grotto Number 1 on the slope behind Jack Straw’s Castle. Men tended to gather in these big bushes for sex. They are now all gone, cut down in a vain effort to stop gays having sex in one of the few traditional places in London left for them. The West Heath has been changed beyond recognition by this official vandalism which has stripped it bare of much of its shrubbery and small trees.

 

 

‘When I first came to England, my dears,’ Marcia would tell us, ‘I had no idea of all the fun that was going on in the loos.’

 

We visited him once in his neat little house in Guildford, and he had baked us a cake. He showed us Guildford Cathedral, but as we sat in the pews Marcia’s sex-obsessed conversation seemed inappropriate, and so George suggested we all leave.

 

In actual fact, our parties were far from orgies, and one of our gay friends stopped coming to them because nothing sexual ever happened. The episode of three in a bed above was an exception. Lena (in drag) sometimes hit it off with a man he had met at the drag ball, but that is about all. At one party he was sitting on a man’s lap, and admitted to us long afterwards he had a hole in his skirt and knickers and the man had been discreetly fucking him. This too was an exception.

 

Our parties were a mixture of straight and gay people, men and women. Some of the men were in drag and some were not. The music, prepared by George on tapes, consisted of a good mixture of dance music and slower numbers, from both his and my record collections, including some 1950s rock’n’roll. Two rock’n’rollers, Angie and Charlie, who lived in Battersea used to come along quite regularly. Roy used to provide the lighting effects with a projector-like contraption which made colored shapes seem to float about the walls and ceiling. We had some memorable parties in Ingelow Road, and our later flat at Jay Court.

 

In March 1974 we flew from Luton airport to Rome for a few days’ holiday. From Rome a coach drove us down to Sorrento, where we spent the night. It was already late when we arrived so we saw little of it. Our hotel had orange trees laden with fruit by the swimming pool, and a view across the Bay of Naples to Vesuvius, the volcano which destroyed Pompeii.

 

Very early next morning we had to be up to catch the boat to Capri. It was my 29th birthday, and it was spent on this wonderful little island where Gracie Fields once lived. Jackie, our tour guide, described it as her ‘island of dreams’. We enjoyed the coach tour round the island, and exploring the little alleyways, where we got our first taste of real Italian ice cream, made from fresh fruit. We later found a place in Rome, on one of the big squares, where they also made this delicious kind of ice cream, and also milkshakes where generous helpings of strawberries, bananas, etc. were blended into the milk while you waited. It was a great birthday treat to discover real banana ice cream on Capri, though George did make his own banana ice cream at home from evaporated milk and fresh bananas which was also delicious, though not so creamy as the Italian variety.

 

The next day we sailed back to the mainland where our coach took us to Pompeii, the Roman city engulfed by the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius and wonderfully preserved to the present day. We had seen plenty of ruins before. (George often joked: ‘I don’t want to see any more old ruins; I’ve lived with one for years’.) Nothing, however, could prepare us for Pompeii, which actually felt like a real city. Not only were the streets and pavements perfectly preserved, also many of the shop frontages, but there were some buildings complete with their roofs, decorated inside with paintings (one in particular deemed unfit for ladies to see). It was like stepping back in time, and quite incredible that they were still standing in such a good condition. The guides pointed out the deep chariot ruts worn into one street and said they were deeper here because it was the red light district of the Roman city, and therefore busier than most streets.

 

After an all too short stop in Pompeii it was off to Rome for our last two nights. We visited all the sights, including the Trevi fountain. I cannot remember if we threw a coin in and made a wish, but certainly we were to return to Rome many times. Around the ruins of the Roman Forum we discovered many stray cats, which we petted and took photos of. Then all too soon, after just one full day in the Eternal City, it was back to Luton airport and home. We had packed a lot into our short 5 day trip.

 

On Easter Saturday, which fell in April that year, we went to see the Lindsay Kemp Company in their production of Jean Genet’s ‘Flowers’ at the Regent Theatre. It was my introduction to Jean Genet’s work, and also our introduction to The Great Orlando, the blind actor who we later got to know as Jack. He turned out to be a friend of Sheila, a woman I had worked with at CND years before.

 

Jack lived in Battersea, and one day we picked him and his guide dog up in a taxi and took them over to Sheila’s flat in Hampstead, where we were all going on a picnic on Hampstead Heath. The cab driver was very nervous when we asked him to turn into Jack’s cul-de-sac near the River, where he shared a place with Lindsay Kemp. It looked as if no-one lived at the end of such an uninviting backwater, with warehouses each side, and the cab driver was obviously suspicious.

 

Our idea of a picnic was a few sandwiches, some fruit and a flask of tea, but we soon discovered Sheila and her friends had far more ambitious ideas. A friend who used to be in the student section of CND when I knew her, but was now a full-grown woman, ran around like a little kid saying: ‘I want to fly a kite, I feel like flying my kite on Hampstead Heath’. George and I, who had been lumbered with carrying the picnic basket up to the top of Parliament Hill, watched in horror as heavy crockery, cutlery, glasses, bottles of wine and containers of different kinds of salads, plus various cheeses and loaves of bread were crammed into it. We struggled over to the Heath and up the Hill, and later had to struggle down again with all the dirty eating and drinking utensils, instead of just throwing the empty paper bags away which is the joy of most picnics.

 

We saw ‘Flowers’ again at the end of April, possibly we took a friend, I cannot remember now. Then, in early May, we went up to Edinburgh on a British Rail Merrymaker trip, which we thought would be a treat for my mother. However, unknown to us it coincided with Cup Final day, and we were made to feel guilty as my mother moaned about missing the match on TV, and kept asking people what the score was.

 

With intentions of doing a rock’n’roll disco, I had learnt to drive and bought an old van from our landlord, Eric. At the end of May we drove my Mum down to visit her friend Cath in the beautiful village of Porlock, in Somerset. We stayed the weekend, and on the Sunday visited the Doone Valley. We returned on George’s birthday, which was a Bank Holiday.

 

In July George took me to see Dorothy Squires for the first time, at the London Palladium. Then in early August we were off again, to the Isle of Wight for what I believe was just a one-day trip. This was the occasion where we met up again with the parents of Michael, the school friend who had died on my 15th birthday from injuries received in a car accident. They seemed pleased to see us, and on this or another occasion gave me a color photo of Michael taken shortly before he died, and also a beautiful sculptured lamp. Later that month we went to see Tennessee Williams’  ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ at the Piccadilly Theatre, George was introducing me to all his favorite writers, playwrights and other artists, for which I will always be grateful, as they have enriched my life so much.

 

In late August we went to Margate. I believe this was the occasion I stayed a week with my mother at Jean’s, the landlady where we spent all our childhood holidays. Of course she had moved now to the more select Cliftonville area. George stayed a couple of nights over the weekend, then returned to London as he had to go to work.

In September we were off yet again, for a one day trip to Blackpool (again by the British Rail Merrymaker bargain excursion.) Our friend Stanley came along this time. I rarely wear hats, but under some impulse I bought one on the promenade, then promptly lost it again when it blew away on the Big Dipper.

 

Sunday September 29th (a very poignant date for me now, since it was the day and date George died 17 years later) we went on a one day trip to Brighton, always one of George’s favorite resorts. We were to make many trips there during our years together. In October we visited Rose and Neil in Hastings, and according to George’s diary it seems we may have also paid a visit to nearby Eastbourne.

 

In the middle of October we were off on our travels again for five days in Paris with Roy, who had accompanied us to Austria, and another friend called Ray. We did all the usual tourist sights, including the top of the Eiffel Tower.

 

In late November was the annual C.H.E. (Campaign for Homosexual Equality) fair and disco (later superseded by the Winter Pride event). We went along, and I believe it was that year when I suddenly came over ill at the disco. I had been drinking some beer, which must have triggered it off. I just felt a terrible nausea, and we had to come home. I went to my GP a day or so later, who diagnosed a stomach upset and told me to stay off work a couple of days.

 

By the Wednesday, however, George noticed my eyes were yellowish, and told me to go back to the doctor as I had jaundice. The doctor still thought it was a stomach upset, so I drew her attention to my eyes. She then examined me closely for the very first time, and admitted they did look ‘a bit yellow’, so sent me to hospital for a blood test. I had this done, and had been home a few hours when the phone rang. It was my GP to tell me she had received the results of the blood test, and I had hepatitis (which causes jaundice) and had to be isolated in hospital at once. An ambulance was on its way.

 

George was at work, so I had to ring and tell him, then rush around trying to find clean pajamas, etc.. Of course by this time I had been infectious for weeks, and was now actually feeling a bit better.

 

I was admitted to a hospital near Clapham South Tube station, and that first night I was so lonely and unhappy I seriously thought about climbing out of the ground floor window and going home to George. However, I stayed in my full term. There was no treatment, though I was supposed to stick to a non-fat diet and of course avoid alcohol for a long period after I left hospital. Everyone in the ward had either hepatitis A or B, yet somehow the hospital still managed to forget and serve me up a fried breakfast, which I refused to eat on medical grounds. I have since been told people with diabetes are regularly offered sugary desserts by incompetent hospital staff. One patient accepted these, got worse, had to have her legs amputated, and subsequently died. Another patient (our friend Rose) had the sense to refuse the dessert, but hospitals really should make sure patients are not offered food forbidden by their medical conditions.

 

The hospital I was in took regular blood tests, and George had to go for one but was OK. I could not understand why so many people visited me in hospital, including people I used to work with ages before. Only years later did I learn George had organized all this, to make sure I had visitors every day. Of course George was the most regular visitor, and whilst in hospital I finished writing a novel. George suggested I dedicate it, not to a person, but to: ‘Hepatitis, without which this book would never have been completed.’ I did include this dedication as it was perfectly true. The book was never published, and was really just a variation on the old ‘Dracula’ theme, though I thought at the time it had some original twists. I came out of hospital fully recovered, but was warned it would have to be a ‘dry Christmas’ (i.e. no alcohol) if I was not to suffer a relapse.

 

In mid December we went to see a film called ‘Earthquake’ which boasted the new technology ‘Sensurround’. This gave the impression the whole cinema was shaking as you watched scenes of earthquakes destroying buildings. It was a novelty which never caught on. Apart from earthquake films, its potential was strictly limited.

 

That Christmas George spent in Hastings with Rose and Neil, and I spent with my mother. This may well have been the year poor George did not get his Christmas dinner till the day after Boxing Day. Whilst we filled ourselves with turkey and other goodies, when George phoned Christmas Day we heard he had just had some slices of pork luncheon meat as Rose was too busy watching TV, and Neil was not prepared to do the dinner all by himself. When George rang Boxing Day he had still only had some slices of corned beef or something similar, but no turkey or Christmas pudding.

 

My brother was spending Christmas with me and my mother, and he came with me in the van to Hastings the day after Boxing Day to visit Rose and Neil and bring George back. Although Rose is outrageously camp, Philip got on all right with everybody. He was especially pleased that we arrived just in time for Christmas lunch, delayed two days.

 

Neil always insists on serving big meals, which is why Rose put on weight as soon as he moved to Hastings. We had huge portions of turkey and piles of vegetables, followed by enormous slabs of Neil’s home-made Christmas pudding and about half a carton of cream each to pour over it. Philip was in his element.

 

I will never forget the nightmare drive home. We had probably all had a drink, but Philip offered to drive the van back to London. It was the worst thing we could have agreed too. He was determined to show off and drove like a maniac all the way, with me and George too terrified to say anything in case he drove even faster. The roads between Hastings and London were narrow, winding country lanes, and Philip was tearing along them on the wrong side of the road. It only needed a car to come in the opposite direction round a bend for us to have a head-on collision, but somehow we got home safely. It was my second and last experience of being driven by my brother Philip. The previous occasion was on the Yorkshire Moors with Philip and his fellow pot-holers. I was sitting in the back of a truck on some boxes as we bumped along over the moors with huge pot-holes dropping hundreds of feet each side. I only found out what the boxes contained when we went over a huge bump and Philip turned round and said to me:

 

‘Are you OK sitting on that jelly?’ He was referring to the gelignite with which they later had to blast some of the rock away to get one of the pot-holers out of a narrow crack he had crawled into.

 

On New Year’s Eve we had one of our big parties. George wrote some notes in his diary in preparation for the invitations. I repeat some of them here:

 

‘Midnight: Big Ben chimes in 1975, Auld Lang Syne. Handshakes for a Happy Hogmanay. Do the Scottish Highland Fling to see the old year out and new year in at Tony and George’s flat. Old type songs to pop, dancing, music, snacks, sing-song, cabaret. Dress casual or drag. Do your thing. No noise restrictions. If can’t bring bottle or don’t drink, still welcome. No age barriers. Young and old welcome, only anti-gay people barred. Freak-out to ‘Delta Lady’. Join AGina@ in The Charleston and knees-up. Do The Conga. Watch or participate in ‘The Stripper’. Meet Fanlight Fanny. Leave valuables at home or in car, or give to George/Tony for safe keeping. Welcome to stay all night. Sleep on the floor.’

 

Whether the invitations did include all this I cannot remember, but I know I did a map with instructions how to get there by public transport. Drawing maps was always my special contribution for our party invitations. The cabaret mentioned above would have been Freda’s drag act, and possibly one by George and myself if we felt in the mood for dragging up. ‘Gina’ was of course George’s camp name used when he was in drag, and short for ‘Georgina’

 

In his notes about who to invite to the party, which includes many of our friends, George has also written: ‘ AOld Rosie@ at Porchester Hall. Marc Fleming. Look out for any omies/camp bitches/old queens at ball to invite them.’ Sad to say Marc Fleming was not able to come. I cannot even remember who ‘Old Rosie’ was I am afraid, but obviously a drag queen, Porchester Hall being where the drag balls were held.

 

So, with this happy New Year party, we moved into 1975, which was to be another year of traveling, but which ended with another crisis in our relationship.

 

In January George took me to the National Theatre to see their production of George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Major Barbara’. It seems such evenings out together may have diminished during the year, leading to the turning point in our relationship in December.

 

We had yet another party in February, after the Aquarius Valentine Fun Ball at Porchester Hall. This must have been the occasion, already described, when I passed out and went to bed, since all the characters involved in this incident were at this party according to George’s diary notes.

 

At the end of February we flew off to Majorca, with my mother and George’s friend Andre, who was not French but Irish. He hustled regularly in drag, and this other guise was known as ‘Angela’. On at least one occasion he came to our party in full drag. However, he left his wigs and frocks at home when he went on holiday with us.

 

We stayed in Magalluf, then a very new resort with building works everywhere. Being so early in the year, it was not beach weather, but we had a pleasant holiday and traveled all over the island.

 

We used to travel into Palma de Mallorca by bus, and on one occasion Andre, George and myself went into Woolworth’s in Palma and saw my mother stuffing herself with a big cream cake. We were very surprised as we had asked if she wanted to come with us into town, and she had said she was too tired and wanted to rest. We crept up behind her and said:

 

‘Greedy pig’.

 

She ignored us at first, then looked round guiltily realizing the words really were directed at her. She explained she kept thinking about these cakes and just had to jump on the bus and come and get one. On the one occasion we did lie on the beach, George had just closed his eyes when a gipsy woman came up to him rattling beads in his face. When he continued to ignore her she shook him till he opened his eyes, and George gave her a mouthful of abuse. It is a bit much if you cannot doze on a beach without someone waking you up to sell you a load of old tat.

 

There were some times of tension on the holiday. Andre liked window shopping, which my mother absolutely hated. There was one occasion where George was upset by something my mum had said or done and sat sulking on the beach, but on the whole it was a happy holiday. There was a dance we went to where George, Andre and I danced with some elderly French ladies. George and Andre later laughed happily as they exchanged comments on the rigid steel-like corsets you became aware they were wearing when you danced with them.

 

We took the train ride to the north of the island, where we transferred to a tram. Here we were embarrassed as my mother went up to an old tramp outside the cathedral and offered him a cigarette. Typical of my mother, although this kind of action got her into some awkward situations. On a holiday to Russian in 1970, just before I met George, Mum had started talking in English to a man next to her on a tram, and the man, who only spoke Russian and evidently thought he was being chatted up, grabbed hold of her knee. My mother could not understand why he had done this when she was just explaining to him how nice it was to visit Russia and have a nostalgic ride on a tram.

 

One week after arriving in Majorca we were back home again.  It was now into March, with Easter coming up. On Good Friday we went to the Ideal Home Exhibition at Olympia. Not that we were interested in ‘ideal homes’, we just liked the free samples of food they used to give away. I remember we discovered frozen crabmeat in a plastic shell at this exhibition, which remained a favorite treat of ours for years.

 

In April we went to a party at Andre’s basement flat near Hammersmith. Someone gave George a ‘Black Bomber’ pill, and I was horrified, and pleaded with George not to take it. Little did I know then he had been taking amphetamines for years, but he never tried the really hard drugs such as cocaine or heroin. Of course he swallowed the Black Bomber - apparently everyone on the scene took such things in the 1960s, certainly all George’s friends, male and female. I seemed to be very much the odd one out. George knew what he was doing, and never mixed drugs, took anything he was not absolutely sure of, or took drugs when he was drinking heavily. He also at one time did charity work helping drug addicts, so he was no novice. Practically everyone in the entertainment world was also on amphetamines to see them through their heavy work schedule. George’s doctor actually supplied his on prescription for many years.

 

At the time of Andre’s party I knew none of this, and thought one puff of hash or one pill and you were a heroin junkie for life. I now know cannabis is less harmful than tobacco or alcohol, and that amphetamines are used by people who lead a very active, hectic life and are often prescribed by doctors for this reason, or simply as slimming pills. Indeed they could be bought over the counter at the chemist without a prescription at one time, and were easy to obtain in the USA I believe. At least George and Andre used to always buy up supplies of American slimming pills whenever they were in the States, and claimed they had similar effects to amphetamines. However, I would not recommend anyone to start on ‘uppers’ as it is very easy to become dependent on them, as George did. Also, fits of depression can result when you are not actually taking them. Both George and Roy used to sleep a lot and were very down and reluctant to see people when the effects of the ‘sweeties’, as George called them, were wearing off. Taking a long-term view, amphetamines messed up George’s life, and made our relationship very difficult at times.

 

After Andre’s party, George and I had a weekend in Hastings, visiting Rose and Neil. We continued to go to the cinema fairly regularly, as several films are noted in George’s diary. We had visits with Freda, the elderly drag queen we had met at one of the Porchester Hall balls, and there was yet another one of these in early May that year.

 

In late May we went for a long weekend in Amsterdam. It was our first visit to this city, and we went on a special gay trip by coach. Most of the coach party had been before, and knew all the clubs. Many were older than us, and as we arrived early Saturday morning, having traveled all night, many rushed off to the day sauna. We checked into our hotel and had a rest before exploring this delightful little city.

 

On that first occasion we were not all that impressed with the gay scene there. Perhaps we did not know the right places to go. Certainly the DOK and similar big discos we visited were little different from the ones in London. We discovered Vondel Park, a sort of open-air cruising ground after dark, similar to London’s Hampstead Heath. It is a very long, narrow park, and after walking for what seemed miles we spotted a policeman in uniform. On Hampstead Heath this would have caused gays to run for their lives, but in Amsterdam the police see that you are gay and direct you to the cruising area where gays gather to have sex. It was all so very civilized compared to nanny-state Britain, which was still 50 years behind the times. On later trips we discovered the excellent Amsterdam gay backroom clubs and bars, which avoid the need to frequent public parks and toilets. Moreover, the Amsterdam venues tend to be very inexpensive. Most have free entry, and drinks are normal prices. Where there is an entry fee (for the gay cinemas and saunas for instance) these are reasonable, and you are given a ticket allowing you to come and go as you please for the rest of the evening.

 

In London, by contrast, you pay exorbitant prices for drinks in most gay bars and clubs, and often have to pay a heavy entry fee as well. You cannot then leave and come back again.

 

One poor bitch in the Amsterdam coach party seemed to spend most of the weekend in one of those iron urinals by a canal near our hotel, offering cigarettes to attractive men who came in. This may be the way she was forced to get trade in Britain, but everywhere else you go to a gay backroom club or a gay brothel, which is less of a nuisance for everyone concerned.

 

During the coach trip we got chatting to several camp queens, and it seemed one of them worked for a London borough council as a carpenter. He was by no means young and so was perhaps old enough to know better, but he claimed to be personally responsible for drilling ‘glory holes’ in several cottages in the borough. Of course, this would be regarded by the authorities as vandalization, but it was the direct result of Britain’s ridiculous laws which made proper backrooms illegal. Later police in big cities like London tend to turn a ‘blind eye’ to discreet 'illegal' backroom type activity, but such backroom clubs must be openly advertised in the gay press for what they are, or they are virtually useless. It is no use having such places if many gay and bisexual people not familiar with ‘the scene’, including visitors from abroad, do not know where they are. There are virtually none in the West End of London due to the restrictive policies of Westminster City Council, so gay tourists could go home with the outdated impression that backrooms do not exist on the gay scene in Britain. However, at least the new police attitudes are considerable progress and have reduced the dangers to gays from being queer bashed or murdered when forced to cruise open spaces and cottages or take the huge risk of going home with someone they’ve just met in a bar or club. Backrooms offer safe space for gays, and with free condoms on offer, also encourage safer sex practices. (In 2005 backrooms are at last legal in this country, so can be openly advertised in the gay press.)

 

On the 1975 trip to Amsterdam, we traveled back on the late May Bank holiday. The next day was George’s birthday, and we spent the evening with Freda, who continued telling us the fantastic stories of her life and the colorful characters she knew.

 

In June we had a one day trip with our friends Stan and Roy to Bournemouth. I remember driving down there in my old van. It made a change from Brighton, Hastings or Margate, where we usually went.

 

From George’s diary it seems we had yet another party in July, and we also went to see Jean Genet’s ‘Flowers’ for the third time, now transferred to a different theater. It was this month we visited Marcia in Guildford for the one and only time. We gave him a lift to London on the way back as he wanted to cruise the Heath, and he complained about the non-stop Jerry Lee Lewis country music tapes I was playing, claiming they all sounded the same. George defended me, although they were not all exactly his cup of tea either.

 

That August, George’s eldest nephew, also named George, came down to stay with us. It was his first visit to London. Almost as soon as he arrived he went round to the nearest pub, but came back a few minutes later disappointed. They could not understand a word he said. In broad Glaswegian he had gone in and demanded:

 

‘Gi’s a pinta heavy and 20 Regal’.

 

Apart from the accent, the barman was not to know that ‘heavy’ in Glasgow is a kind of draft beer, and ‘Regal’ was a kind of cigarette not then available south of the border.

 

He had similar problems when we took him up Speakers’ Corner on the Sunday afternoon. He was particularly fascinated by an Irish woman named Mary and her friend from Leeds, who used to praise the Irish Republican cause and spout a lot of anti-Jewish propaganda. They were so over the top, it was amusing to watch and listen to them, but young George got all upset and started trying to argue with them.

Mary, who had always loudly and proudly proclaimed that she considered herself not British but Irish, complained she could not understand a word he said, and called him a ‘bloody foreigner’. We pointed out she was a foreigner too, whereupon she insisted she was British. Of course, young George was British too, but it was pointless pursuing the argument with such irrational people who changed their nationality to suit the circumstances. Her favorite phrase was: ‘If you’re Jewish they put you in the House of Lords, if you’re Irish they put you in Long Kesh’. (The latter was later more commonly known as The Maze.)

 

August Bank holiday weekend we had a day trip to Brighton on the Sunday, followed by a Bank Holiday Monday visit to the fair on Hampstead Heath.

 

In September we celebrated our fifth anniversary by going to see ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’. This remained one of our favorite camp musicals, and we loved all the songs from it. We saw both movie and stage versions several times, as well as having the soundtrack album.

 

A few days later we embarked on a trip to Italy which was virtually a ‘Tour of Europe’. Starting off in Belgium, we went through West Germany and Switzerland to Italy, going also through Luxemburg on the return journey (unfortunately we were both asleep when we passed through the Grand Duchy so missed it on this occasion).

 

On arrival at Ostend there was a delay, and it seemed our courier had not arrived. At the last minute Maria had to stand in, and she was not at all happy about it. Soon after we started she told us it was better we gave our money to her for meals en route, to save changing it into so many different currencies. At our first stop, a self-service restaurant, Maria ordered the cheapest dish on the menu for everybody, and when anyone tried to select a little extra such as a cake Maria came and snatched it away from them saying they were not allowed it, even if they paid for it separately. If there was no money in it for Maria, we could not have it. It was obvious she had told the staff to give us the cheapest food on the menu.

 

A little Welsh widow was traveling on her own. The endless coach journey was a bit too much for her, as she often nodded off to sleep and so missed much of Italy. Her husband had recently died and left her a bit of money. She had planned a world cruise, but in the meantime took this Italian trip.

 

When Maria came to her on the coach to collect money for the optional excursions, this poor woman handed her Spanish pesetas. Instead of helping her, Maria went berserk:

 

‘Why you bring pesetas on this holiday? We go to Italy, not Spain. Gives me lira or sterling please.’

 

The poor woman was confused, as Maria snatched her precious sterling and moved on down the coach. We tried to explain to the woman, but she could not understand why this foreign money was not acceptable in foreign parts. Apparently the last time she went abroad it was with her husband, and he had arranged the currency. They had obviously gone to Spain or one of the Spanish islands, because for the current trip she had gone to the bank and simply asked for some of ‘that foreign money we had last time’, presumably showing the bank the receipt for the pesetas.

 

Stuck all through the holiday with Spanish pesetas nobody wanted, the poor woman was even seen outside the hotel in Venice, her open handbag stuffed with useless peseta notes, begging a postcard seller to take as much as he liked, she just wanted to be rid of this foreign money. Instead, everyone, including the postcard seller, grabbed her sterling. Fortunately, she seemed to have enough of this to see her through the holiday.

 

Although we enjoyed the trip, it was something of a disaster from start to finish. The sun roof blew off crossing a mountain pass near Innsbruck on the way to Italy, and our courier abandoned the trip and ran off with the money half way through.

 

Maria already had a bad reputation with the hotels en route, as some of them would not allow her on their premises. Our hotel in the Rome area was located in a village outside the city, which was disappointing as we expected to be in Rome itself. To make matters worse, Maria treated us like a herd of cattle. Instead of allocating rooms properly, she tried to split friends, husbands and wives by holding up keys and shouting:

 

‘I want three mens or three womens to share this room’.

 

George told her to allocate the rooms properly, and eventually she did, though obviously it was really too much trouble for her that late in the day, for we had arrived sometime near midnight.

 

Next morning we had to insist she gave us a lift into Rome on the tour bus. Maria was extremely reluctant to do this because we had not booked on any of the ‘optional’ excursions. At first she refused point blank, but when we insisted we were booked to see Rome and we had every right to travel in on the tour bus she eventually relented. However there was still a problem over lunch. We had booked full board, but the lunch was to be taken at a restaurant. Maria tried to suggest if we did not come on the ‘optional’ tours we would have to miss lunch, but we made her agree to pick us up for lunch where she dropped us off. We were there well before the appointed time, but Maria tried to make the coach drive right past us till the other passengers made her stop and pick us up.

 

We were never very popular with couriers because we preferred to make our own way around cities rather than go on expensive optional tours. On one Rome visit the courier had been furious when George interrupted her as she was just about to persuade two elderly ladies behind us on the coach to go on the expensive evening Rome sightseeing tour the day we arrived. They were dithering because of the high cost, so George turned round and said:

 

‘Excuse me, you can get into the center of Rome by bus for about the equivalent of four pence. You don’t need to pay pounds for the coach to take you in.’

 

They were very grateful and decided not to go on the evening tour, but of course the courier was furious, telling George to mind his own business. On one occasion we got a bus from outside our hotel, paid the equivalent of a few pence in lira and arrived at the Coliseum before the tour party. They were amazed when they arrived and found us already there, and dismayed when they learned it had cost us pence instead of pounds.

 

It soon became apparent to everyone what a trickster Maria was because she disappeared in Italy with all the money she had collected for optional tours, etc.. We had to come all the way back to England without a courier. The passengers elected someone from their midst to do the essential courier duties, and we all wrote a joint letter of protest to the tour company. Eventually we got a refund.