Pride posts - Share your LGBTQIA+ pride 🌈

I came out a little bit before my 14th birthday and it would have been around 1970. I told my family if you are an example of being straight then I am glad I am queer! They didn't like it but they changed their attitude towards me and it turned into a positive thing for me, not for them - they remained in denial over my sexuality. Somehow the police got involved and I was separated from my boyfriend who was 15 and in those dark times we were both underage. I did some modelling work that perhaps I shouldn't have done. In fact in retrospect I definitely shouldn't have done it. I was required to take my kit off, but no-one else was involved. I was an hairdressers and catalog model anyway so getting my kit off for a few extra spondoolies seemed ok. Now that I am an adult I know it wasn't ok. Anyway the police got involved and the proverbial hit the fan. I wasn't taken to court. I think everyone was in denial about everything. Or it could have been that the guy who photographed me was socially highly positioned.

Then I got involved with the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and I was politically active. I went on the 2nd ever Pride March (which is why Pride is meaningless to me. I and people like me put down all the ground work to make gay life better for everyone). On the march - it started on Clapham Common but I can't remember where it ended - there were more police people than gay people! I was surrounded by police all the time. I was 16 and not approved of. The police would raid gay pubs. All the lights would suddenly be switched off and you would be plunged into darkness for a minute or two. This tactic was to make you confused and the tactic worked.Then the lights would come back on and the police were all around you. But they never took action over me. I don't know if it was legal for me to drink alcohol but I always had a Southern Comfort to hand and Cannabis and Tobacco all the material things that young boys rely on to have a happy life. But I was very outspoken and in your face and politically very active and had they taken me to court I would have upset the apple cart and thus I was left alone. You may have gathered from this that maybe I wasn't the best lad around, and your gathering would be spot on except I cared for people. I was asked to voluntarily work on Gay Switchboard so I could speak to other youngsters, male and female, and gay (and straight) women have always been very important in my life. Females always understand me, but then again so do some straight males. But I like it best of all when I am in female company.

Anyway, bad lad or not, I met my life partner Ian. He was 23 years older than me but the age difference didn't worry me. He died of an incurable form of cancer in 2019. I had been with him for 47 years or thereabouts. When I met him he was on stage singing a jazz number. He jumped off the stage to come and get me but the bewildered band kept on playing! During the night I was violently sick. I had too many drugs and alcohol in me and during our "enactment" I spewed up and passed out! The next day Ian made breakfast and then he took me out and bought clothes for me. No-one had ever treated me like this. I was the arch-typical trophy boy. Ian took me from every cocktail bar from Mayfair to Manhatten, All I had to do was smile and look pretty. But in the background I always worked with people and helped them. This all goes back to my work on Gay Switchboard and when I did modelling. In my head-space I have to make people happy. I am 67 now so obviously no-one is going to photograph me. But people still talk to me and I like that. I am sort of quite good with people. I met a guy today, Norman, and he told me about his wife's passing and I understood and listened to him. That is what I am good at. When I was 50 I became a Clinical Hypnotherapist and it was easy work for me because basically I only had to listen to people and see beyond the problem they were telling me about. It is really important to listen to what your client isn't telling you,

Anyway, somehow, Ian got me on the straight and narrow. I don't know how he did it because I was a bit difficult to manage. Anyone else would have given up on me. On top of Ian's influence I had a wonderful female probation officer. Women always know how to deal with me. But I wasn't on probation for gay related charges. I was a messed up boy. Several years ago on C4 there was a program "The Nowhere Boy" and I cried until it felt like my eyes were bleeding because I once felt just like "The Nowhere Boy"; mixed up, screwed up and everything else you can think of.

Anyway, you always have to give people a chance, even to someone like me. I responded to Ian and my probation officer because I knew they had my best interest at heart and together they tamed me and turned me into an ok type of person instead of the feral person that I was. I sort of got on ok because I looked sort of ok. I knew how to smile and pretend everything was ok, even though inside of myself I was dying. My partner Ian never knew how I felt. I put on a really good show for my probation officers children's charity that she supported. I raised quite a lot of money and everyone enjoyed the show. It was easy for me because I was the sort of boy who could pull it off. I didn't have to work hard. She released me from my probation order and we remained friends.

The thing is I have been out and gay since around 1970. I have never encountered gay hostility. People just seem to accept me for myself and I get on ok with people. I am sorry this post is so long, but there are a few things i wanted to say.

Hello @VisiblyInvisible I think your handle is great. I wish I could give myself a name like that. Also your response to me was kind of sensitive, so thank you.

Sorry, I expressed myself quite incorrectly when I said Pride was meaningless to me. What I meant was in the early days it was a struggle but soon so many more people were involved and I didn't think I could anything anymore so I never went on another Pride March.