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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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This time last year I sent an article to the editor of my school alumni magazine. He said he'd read it and get back to me quickly with any thoughts or edits.
In June he wrote to apologise for not getting back to me, and that he would within the week. This morning the magazine landed on my doormat. The article, which I have reproduced at http://tinyurl.com/5nzpr5 was not present. The editor has never got back to me about it, something I feel is a shame. I do see why they did not publish it, of course I do.
So I have published it myself.
I keep asking myself why this makes me nervous, but, oddly, I feel less conspicuous than I did with the AIDS red ribbon yesterday. I am a weird and complicated child  )
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I think it's a pity that they didn't publish the article, though I'm pretty sure that my old school wouldn't publish anything similar, either.
Well, unless it was by someone famous. It's a standing joke among the Old Waynfletes (our old boys association) that the school kicked out David Ivor Davies (according to rumour, for assorted flamboyant faggotry), only to reclaim him as a "success" under his alias of "Ivor Novello" as soon as he was safely dead and couldn't object!
Also, if your school was anything like mine, sex between boys is no longer a massive problem. Love, however, is a far more subversive thing ...
As regards "coming out", I'm sure you know it's an unending process, a becoming not a being. But as personal milestones go, it's clearly a biggie. I hope and expect that those of your contemporaries who read it will be supportive - as, indeed, all the thirty-odd schoolmates I'm in touch with have been as they have come to realise that I'm gay.
hugs.
NW
[Updated on: Wed, 03 December 2008 02:37]
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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Those who accept will be a pleasant surprise, because I am treated with the politeness due to a leper by most of them anyway. Somehow I suspect I flamed at school despite being sure I was camouflaged. Ah well!
The school accepted "Declared Love" but absolutely not if you meant it. A senior partner in a major firm of solicitors went through much of his school life declaring his love for a particular young man. He, it seems, did not "mean it" in his peers' eyes, and would probably carefully not recall this today. His adoration, real or for fashion accessory purposes, was considered acceptable. It was assumed that he was playing!
Everyone I've come out to personally has been a pleasant non event. But I have, so far, chosen most carefully whom I tell. I'm of the mind now that it is their problem, but I am not about to flaunt my homosexuality in the same manner that I do not expect them to flaunt their (apparent) heterosexuality. It will still be hard to say "Wow, he is GORGEOUS!" about some rather attractive chap. Odd, is it not, how gay men can appreciate feminine beauty, but str8 men can't appear to appreciate masculine beauty.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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A very good article, Timmy, and if they had published it you would have 'come out' with a bang. But as it is you probably are not out and if you want your old boys to know, you will have to tell them at an old boys' dinner or something. And, by the way, I was intending to ask you if I could read it so thank you very much for making it public.
I think NW is lucky to be in touch with so many of his school colleagues. About ten years ago I had a fit of nostalgia and tried to get in touch with people I had known in the history forms (5th, 6th and upper 6th). Perhaps trying harder would raise a few, but they aren't on the school's old boy web pages.
So far I've not met with anything but the sort of acceptance that says "So what?" when I tell people. I get far more stick and raised eyebrows through wearing tights instead of trousers. According to my friends in Patterdale the croquet club that meets in the Inn on the Lake are still talking about me! [And *they* don't even know that I'm gay!]
But I don't cover my tracks and so anyone that searches for me on the internet is quite likely to be able to find out what my orientation is and I don't care any more, because nothing significant depends on it. [I've just had a look and, to my surprise, I don't see anything obvious.]
Of course, what would count as acceptance would be if someone young could be as open and not feel there was any danger that his career would be harmed in the least bit. And I still feel guilty that when I was a school governor I didn't do anything to make life easier for gay pupils at the school. I guess it was because I didn't want to come out. I'm ashamed.
I do admire what the Mailcrew and their allies do (and Jordan from APOS does) and I would like to help.
Judging from the advertisements in the newspapers straight men do appreciate masculine beauty - at least the models they use to advertise boys toys and scent and slap those models are not ugly!
Love,
Anthony
[Updated on: Wed, 03 December 2008 21:33] |
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Of course they didnt publish it. Your article was about all the things they want to pretend does not exist. silly boy
If you stand for Freedom, but you wont stand for war, then you dont stand for anything worth fighting for.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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I have got to an age when I no longer feel it to be important to cover my tracks. But I am still cautious, which is no bad thing.
Interestingly the editor of the rag is calling me this evening to "see how we can move this forward", an interesting concept since the rag comes out once in a twelvemonth.
I am endeavouring to publicise it on the Old Epsomian website, though, so we shall have to see what happens.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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So true. And yet, now, in 2008, it is no threat to them. And now, as soon as Google picks it up, it is there for anyone who does a relevant search.
It's rather good fun right now. And I've just revamped that entire site and updated a few things.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Regarding "I do know that at Winchester and Repton one may be 'out and proud' today and for the last many years": one may, if one is strong-willed and self-confident. This suits some people, but by no means all. I know more people who waited to leave school before coming out than who were out while still at school. If there's one thing that was lacking 6-11 years ago it was role models: the role models had more to lose, so they didn't come out until after they had left.
I have no idea if this has changed in the last 6 years or so.
David
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timmy wrote:
> I have got to an age when I no longer feel it to be important to cover my tracks.
I think it's probably a position, rather than an age, But it's a very real and significant place to be at, and it's great to see you say it!
I'm not, in any sense whatsoever, knocking those who to whom (for a host of very good individual reasons) it *is* important to cover their tracks. But if one does become able to stop doing so, one realises just how much energy it has been taking!
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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Each of us is different. Those who need to remain "in" should by no means accept anyone;s urging to come "out".
I also just had a conversation with the magazine editor where we will conspire together to have me write a letter advertising the article online and he will publish it. The wording we will agree together.
He apologises that, solely his doing, we were unable to do that this year.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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I never thought for a moment that it would not require a strong nerve. Announcing anything at a school where it may be perceived as a weakness requires an iron resolve. Yet the point is that it is now and was then possible.
As time passes it will become easier, but will always require strength to be different openly.
People like you have assisted with oty becoming easier. You wear homosexuality gently.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy wrote:
> Each of us is different. Those who need to remain "in" should by no means accept anyone;s urging to come "out".
Of course - I hope my post made it very clear that's what I feel. Both staying "in" and coming "out" have advantages and disadvantages, which vary for each of us.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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heavens no. I was just adding to the fact that it is a wholly personal thing.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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acam wrote:
> I think NW is lucky to be in touch with so many of his school colleagues.
Well, it wasn't continuous ... I kept in touch with a few throughout Uni., but lost track of them all when we all moved on into our careers (or, in my case, drug-induced breakdown - though popular rumour had it that I'd committed suicide!).
Twenty-five years after we'd all left, the school decided that we ought to have a re-union (so they could pick our pockets for scholarship and buildings appeals). The school didn't succeed in getting hold of me - despite having a working address for me at my mothers house. However, one of the guys I'd been a close friend of tracked me down on the then-very-primitive (1996/7) internet.
I did not, to be honest, have the balls to attend the school function. But I did agree to meet a group in the pub beforehand ... my then boyfriend having agreed to drive me over the 30 miles from his place, and hang around Oxford doing nothing so that he was available to rescue me at short notice if needed! Fortunately, the first person I saw when I went in to the pub was the other guy from our year that I knew was likely to have ended up as an out gay man ...
Things have built from there. There are around thirty of us who keep in touch through an e-mail group, and various of us meet a couple of times a year. In summer we field a cricket team against a random selection of current boys (Oh, the humiliation of 50+ year-olds being soundly thrashed by a team composed largely of 9-year-old Choristers!).
A couple of the guys who were my closest mates at school are now again among my closest friends, despite us being based in places as disparate as London, Barbados, Paris and the Dordogne. Perhaps it's a reflection of the particular time (end of 60s / early 70s) and place (Oxford) that threw us together originally in an atmosphere of intellectual ferment, but there's a degree of shared experiences, references, and cultural understandings that is very different from what I share with any of the friends I've made subsequently.
Lucky? Definitely. Even though my schooldays were the worst and most achingly miserable period of my life (at least, until the sixth form).
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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Yes, NW,
I am realising how liberating it is if one does become able to stop covering one's tracks.
You suggested it is only then that one realises just how much energy it has been taking!
I think I'd say 'not only then' and not only energy. What it takes is sponteneity. If you are in the closet you spend your whole life with a guard on your tongue. You daren't even laugh spontaneously but must first check that laughing wouldn't give you away.
In my case it was getting old enough so how other people think of me isn't going to affect my livelihood that gave me the feeling I could be open outside the family.
I think if I hadn't been able to be open inside the family I'd have burst - or broken down or something.
And I *really* want other people not to have to go through a life time of that, so I contribute to the Stonewall group. And I think that probably I could have come out safely thirty years ago. I'm just a coward!
Love,
Anthony
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I'm sorry you had a hard time before the sixth form. Worst and most achingly miserable sounds terrible. What happened that made the sixth form better?
I think I was happy throughout my school life and didn't, at the time, recognise I had any sexual feelings for other people. I was woken up to that within a few days of my nineteenth birthday when I was in the navy.
Some people would rather like to be beaten by nine-year-old choristers! 
And I assume you were right about the people who might have become 'out' gay men.
I'm just in touch with the guy who was my best friend at school and am planning to go and see him in January. I've come out to him (although I think I'd told him when I first had someone join me in bed).
Love,
Anthony
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Dear Timmy, I just got around to reading your article. I am so sorry for what happened to you. It seems to me that what you describe was nothing less than an institutionalized and approved rape of little boys. How could a civilized society countenance such a thing? How can a civilized society fail to acknowledge this horror? I am outraged. Good article, but nothing has made me feel so sick,since I saw "Midnight Express" movie. Its a testament to the strength of the human spirit that you made it through it. I salute you. Love. Macky
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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You need to understand that no little boys were touched, thus the rape was intellectual, possibly emotional. That doesn't make it pleasant to have been good looking and at school in those times, but it makes it non physical.
To exemplify that, looking at my picture from those days, I am pretty sure I will have been "adored as a trophy" by one or more older boys, just from the cute factor. The thing is, I was never aware of it. Queer or not, I was not into older boys and would have been revolted by it.
The pretty younger boys were like charms on a charm bracelet. Some knew and were upset. Most were unaware. One knew and liked the amorous side but was, I am sure, not into anything erotic. It was a bizarre world and oddly moral.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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"Choosing lorries to fall in front of". Intellectual or physical, it simply does not get more serious than that. Please forgive if I read too much between the lines, but the whole thing sounds repulsive to an uninitiated American like myself.
Love
Macky
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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I'm a little confused, because I don't think the piece I wrote translates to the piece you read. That's Ok, but I think a pace back is needed.
First and foremost rent "If..." and see the environment. Until about half way the movie is a documentary. After that it becomes surreal.
No small boys were touched in the school I went to. No sexual acts took place. It was simply a fashion to declare adoration for a younger boy. The younger oft times never even knew.
I was not looking for a lorry to fall under because I had either been abused or had abused someone. I was going to kill myself to avoid the shame that was happening because I had been outed. I cared about avoiding shame, disgrace and electric shock therapy. I cared about losing what little I had, and my life being totally out of my control.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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I apologize for my failure to get the proper "just" of the piece. Perhaps my own personel baggage leads me down the unintended path or perhaps at the deep cultural level here, your English truly is a different language from my English. But if not, then could it be that the editor of your alumni publication was similarly confused as to the meaning of the article and perhaps this stymied its publication?
Loved your biography on the main site here, by the way.
Love
Macky
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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This leaves me with an interesting dilemma. The editor understood it as written, as have pretty much all other readers. So, I need your help. Pretty obviously you are not uneducated nor are you ignorant, yet we differ in expression vs understanding. Is English your native tongue? And if it is, where lies the misunderstanding?
With precision, what do you understand the piece to say to you?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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A different thought is that, just maybe, if you could share with perhaps all, perhaps one or some of us here, the personal baggage, you may see things differently.
This entire site was designed and intended for personal baggage to be shared and processed
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Timmy,
Forgive me for feeling that your first paragraph here is somewhat condescending and just a little insulting. How would you feel had I written this about you? But maybe I misinterpret again. I posted a reply to your post trying to be supportive and now I feel indicted.
Your piece said that someone wrote "TT Loves_". I filled in _ with the "flirt". I mixed up the flirt with your true love. I went on to take the meaning that an older boy had indeed seduced you and was bragging to the world about it on the bin wall. I saw this sort of thing institutionalized in the 'younger boy' thing. That whole thing is so beyond my culture that I can not envision it as anything but sexual. I feel you are duped if you believe othrewise. I found your distinction between this tradition and sexuality confusing.
I tried to be very delicate when I suggested it had not been published,.because the editor may have been confused. Although written accurately, the piece has the tendency to confuse at least this reader.
Forgive me for taking offense. Chalk it up to lack of long association and cultural subtile stuff.
Really tryin to love,
Macky
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Grrrr,
Learning to love you will be my greatest achievement. The implication here is that I am damaged goods. Thereby you absolve yourself of the possibility that anything you have written could confuse anyone. I learned to handle my baggage years ago. For me this site is unique in that there are so many married gays. I've had more than my share of psychological shit in my life. I'm here to enjoy camarady with these wonderful people.
Love
Macky
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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That was the dilemma. There was no way of writing the opening paragraph without causing some sort of reaction. So let me apologise for the offence caused and move on.
No. That "TT loves..." graffiti was about my doe eyed adoration of a boy four years my junior, as was the weird custom!
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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Hackles down, rover. You mentioned "baggage". If you have none that you need to dispose of then good. If not then that's Ok too. Pretty much everyone who comes here is damaged in some way, small or large.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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... glimpse into the world of your youth.
Regrettable, that the editor of your alumni magazine should choose to ignore this especially personal anecdote in its' school's history.
Regrettable too, that despite our 'new' enlightened age, some learned habits do, indeed, seem to die hard.
It pains me to even consider how many times, throughout the intervening years, this very scene must have been played over, time and time again, amongst brethren editors at alumni magazines the world over.
Warren C. E. Austin
Toronto, Canada
"... comme recherché qu'un délice callipygian"
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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Well, this time we will get there, albeit obliquely.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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I have amended the article slightly to remove any scope, I hope, for misreading, and also added a major footnote.
Younger folk here ought to check the footnote out and follow the links to the film "Changing Our Minds" to see why my generation was, if aware, terrified.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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This is going well, or at least not badly. I've quasi-linked the page form the OE website (they have to copy and paste the link), and I've had no bricks through the window yet.
I've shown it specifically to a really nice guy who was head of my house when I joined. He thinks it is brave and well written.
I showed the site to an old teacher, who taught me briefly when I was 12, and he mentioned the page to me, said it was sensitively handles, and asked sensible questions about why I am gay, not bi. He took the precaution of declaring himself to be wholly str8, of course. I always wonder why they do that!
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Thank you, Warren.
And people are surprised when I say that Toronto is the most civilised of all the cities I've ever visited!
Love,
Anthony
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