INTRODUCTION

 

When my partner unexpectedly got ill and died after 21 years together I was in a state of deep shock, and I resolved to write down his life story. George had done so much in his 48 years, met so many interesting characters, been to so many places and found himself in such unusual situations. He should have written his autobiography, and I have used as much of his writings as I can in compiling this book, along with recollections of himself and his friends.

 

I wanted to also write of our great love and how it changed us both from the people we were, so this had to be a biography of two people. It turned out to be much more than that as you will discover.

 

This is the story of a boy from a poor part of Glasgow who at a very early age became enmeshed in a world of gay prostitution and drugs, whose parents died when he was young, and who, although deprived of a university education through circumstances, possessed a questioning, analytical intellect which drove him to an appreciation of literature and the arts, and to become a wit, cynic and a philosopher by his 20s. He moved to London, where he slept rough and mixed with other prostitutes of both sexes. He even lived for a while as a rent boy in Paris, his favorite city. He got involved with a secretive revolutionary political group which used drugs and hypnosis to gain a hold over its followers, and he became paranoid about anything even vaguely leftwing. He believed in God and reincarnation.

 

This is also the story of another boy, of Anglo-Greek-Cypriot parentage, who grew up in London and led a very sheltered, puritanical life, not discovering sex or the gay scene until well into his 20s. No sex, no drugs, but he did indulge in Rock’n’Roll of the 1950s variety, becoming a second-generation Teddy-boy. His adolescent sexual frustration was dealt with by throwing himself wholeheartedly into the peace movement of the early 1960s, and then becoming part of the revolutionary leftist backlash to the Wilson government/Vietnam War in the late 1960s. He became a hardline member of the Communist Party, and an atheist.

 

We two met in our mid 20s, and somehow, despite our totally different backgrounds and political beliefs, we fell in love and stayed together 21 years till death parted us. During those years we traveled the world together, met all sorts of people, taught each other important lessons and made each other laugh with our imaginary characterizations and sketches performed at parties and on video. George taught me an appreciation of the theater, good films and literature, and our religious and political beliefs became almost identical. Only our tastes in music never really converged.

 

George’s sudden death from an AIDS-related illness was most unusual because of the time-lapse of only two weeks from first becoming really ill to his death. He never had an HIV test, so his HIV status remained unknown, depriving him of the support and financial benefits he was entitled to. He died just four days after first being diagnosed, and we both believed the hospital had got it wrong. I was left to struggle with the diagnosis alone, for family and friends were not told. Knowing little about AIDS, and with no-one but George’s community nurse to turn to for advice and support, it took me months before I could accept it.

 

Remarkably, the story did not end with George’s death, for our love lives on beyond the grave, as witnessed by the many ways George continues to contact me and our friends, even giving me a present.