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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13802
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Let me start by revealing to you that I have never, ever, not once, received a traditional anonymous "guess who sent this card" Valentine's Card. I've sent quite a number over the years, though.
From the age of 13 I sent cards to the obsession of my life, John. I sent them to his home, and once even to school. When I was 17 I also "met" Paul. I sent him cards, too.
I was very careful, maybe too careful. I typed the cards and the envelopes, and postmarked them form the same town that the school is in. You see I wanted them to find out by knowing, not by detective work.
Silly me. Why would they ever have wanted me.
I used to send them birthday cards, too. John on 25th November, Paul on 14th June. And Christmas cards. Though I always signed John's. We were friends, after all.
I stopped sending cards in maybe 1971. That didn't meant I wanted to stop, it just means it was pragmatic to stop.
I was so tempted this year. So badly tempted.
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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Hey Timmy.
It's okay to send Valentines gift cards to people. It means you care, and there's nothing wrong with that. Happy Valentines Day.
~Josh~
21.
Love who you want to.
~Josh~
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13802
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I tend to think that sending an anonymous card to a married man with kids might be not appreciated. It might cause ructions.
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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When I was looking through the card racks for the Valentines I was going to give, there were some that were more like friendship ones than lovey-dovey ones. If you were going to send anyone a secret Valentine it would be better to send one of those friendly ones and not like you have this secret crush on a person. The person who you give it to is going to be going around asking "Did you send me this" and it could really cause drama.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13802
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I never saw the point of sending an "I'm just a friend" card, though.
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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Dear Timmy,
Nor have I (to the best of my knowledge) ever had a valentine. It's a funny thing how some of us are the chasers and some the chased (NOT necessarily chaste).
But I always thought of myself as a chaser; and though I know now of two or three people who wanted to chase me they were too shy or too nice but anyway I failed them. But I don't seem to have stimulated anyone to a hopeless crush on me - at least not one that I recognised at the time nor one that was strong enough to bring me unsigned Valentine cards.
Radio 4 has been asking for a six word autobiography and I'm not submitting mine to them:
once I was a pretty boy
I surprise myself sometimes: this is quite inconsistent with being a chaser. Such a biography is for a chased person!
Love,
Anthony
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I think it's sad that people don't get valentines. I got one from each set of grandparents, my parents, my two sisters, Debbie, and Donny. I sent all of them valentines too. Debbie and my Mom even got flowers. I got huggin' and smoochin' from the girls in our gang of friends and gave as good as I got. I wonder if the liberal sending of valentines is a Southern thing? I'll have to ask some girls I know up in Pittsburgh.
So Anthony, here's a massive over the Internet hug for ya! Happy Valentine's Day dude.
[Updated on: Wed, 20 February 2008 17:13] |
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I disagree. I think sending a friendly valentine is very nice, and I send them to my grandparents, and my parents and my sisters. I say "I love you" to these people all the time, and show that I love them in different ways too, but if you look carefully you can find cards that have totally wonderful sentiments in them that I could never think up on my own to say. The flower shop in our town has these little bears with little tee shirts. The ladies in the shop will write things on the tee shirts for you in colors that match the neck and arm rings on the shirts and I used these for my sister's valentines this year. Girls LOVE getting these little bears. I learned it's the smallest things that can mean the most to people. They say never sweat the details, but it's the details that make life totally fun.
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lol... are you okay there, Anthony? Do you need one of us to apply cpr? ;-D
Youth crisis hot-line 866-488-7386, 24 hr (U.S.A.)
There are people who want to help you cope with being you.
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Oh! Thank you Jon,
Thank you.
Anthony
I've attached a picture of me at 16!!
-
Attachment: Ajc055b.jpg
(Size: 13.54KB, Downloaded 316 times)
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Jon is right. I dont know if its a southern american thing or not. I know I have always given my mom and grandma and grandpa and uncle valentiens. I tell them I love them cause i dont want nothing to happen ane them not know how I feel. I either send all my friends a valentien or tell them I love them and to have a happy valentines day. Jeff got me a valentines and I got him one, but we wont go into that in a public place. My mom got me the bestest valenine ever but I got to pay for it , lol.
So Happy belated Valentines day everybody.
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you......
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13802
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I was cute, too. But I never recall being beloved or chased. Ah well.
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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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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Anthony- were you especially small for your age, or is it true what they say- that the age of puberty has been getting earlier?
You look more like 14 in that photo to me. Compared to 16 year olds I know. But people have said that people are starting and finishing puberty earlier now than 50 or 100 years ago.
I just find it interesting.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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If I look at pictures of my Great-grandfather, my Grandfather, my Father and myself at this age, the differences are very noticable. Puberty is very definately arriving earlier for most boys and girls. We have guys in our high school, like my friend Daniel, who are so hairy you would think they are in their mid-twenties at least. This wasn't so when my Dad went to this school.
I think other guys my age would tell you the same thing.
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Dear Saben, [revised: in the first version I proved conclusively that I can't do arithmetic!]
The picture was taken in the front garden of the house we moved to in November 1946 and I guess it was taken in spring or summer of 1949 or 1950 (but it might even have been 1951. As I was born in December 1934 I was 15 in December 1949 and sixteen in December 1950. I could have been 14, 15 or 16 when the picture was taken.
So you may be right. I could have been 14 and it was my arithmetic that may have misled me. But I still think I was 15 and nearly sixteen.
Yes, I was small for my age. Yes puberty came late to me but I don't have photographic evidence or any other good records to check my memory and I know that is imperfect. I *think* I hit it when I was already fifteen In my school report from autumn 1950 the headmaster wrote:
“He has grown up a great deal in size and in being concerned about him (my form master thought I was 'under the weather') we are inclined to forget his age. I think it is likely that he is beginning to do some thinking of his own, and all this is a sign of his waking up.”
So I think that may have been when I hit puberty. But nearly sixteen is very late nowadays.
Remember that everyone in the UK was undernourished then. Food rationing didn't end completely until 1953 and it is hard to believe the ration was so small. For example two ounces of butter a week!. Below I have copied the weekly ration chart off a web site.
It's interesting to note that the effect of rationing was a great increase in the fairness of society. Far fewer people were near starvation at the end of the war than at the beginning - but it was unusual then to see a really fat person. Photos of the time show that most people were fairly thin.
Me too! Somewhere I have a picture of me rowing in the schools head of the river race in 1949. My bit of the image may be too smal to be recognisable though. I'll see if I can find it.
Love,
Anthony
Bacon and ham: 4oz (100g)
Meat: To the value of 1s.2d (6p today).Sausages were not
rationed but difficult to get; offal (liver,
kidneys, tripes) was originally unrationed but
sometimes formed part of the meat ration.
Cheese: 2oz(50g) sometimes it went up to 4oz (100g) and even
up to 8oz (225g).
Margarine: 4oz (100g)
Butter: 2oz (50g)
Milk: 3 pints(1800ml) occasionally dropping to 2 pints
(1200ml). Household milk (skimmed or dried) was
available : 1 packet per four weeks.
Sugar: 8oz (225g).
Jam: 1lb (450g) every two months.
Tea: 2oz (50g).
Eggs: 1 fresh egg a week if available but often only one
every two weeks. Dried eggs 1 packet every four
weeks.
Sweets: 12oz (350g) every four weeks
[Updated on: Mon, 18 February 2008 10:58] |
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Dear Jon,
Who is he please?
Love,
Anthony
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Edited out.
[Updated on: Wed, 20 February 2008 17:14] |
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Thank you Jon.
I had forgotten Lionel trains. After the war - it was probably in 1945 - when such things as toy trains were impossible to get, my parents bought a "Lionel Lines" gauge 0 electric train set for me and my brother. It was a VERY special Christmas present and we loved it.
Were you 'out' to him? (I don't know anything about your blog but I guess you are not 'out' on that!) I think you should mention the forum to him if you are - maybe he knows of someone who needs it; maybe he'd like to contribute.
Love,
Anthony
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I eat this much for one day's lunch on the farm when I'm working.
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Jon's "out" on his blog but it's an anonymous blog. I keep telling him that one day somebody from school is going to stumble on it and put two and two together and the shit is duly and truly going to be in the fan. He won't listen.
I have trains too but they ar HO gauge and we only put them up at Christmas time. Jon's grandfather has a huge Lionel railroad with all kinds of trains and accessories. Jon's trains are mostly his father's from when his dad was a boy. Jon restored them and rewired them.
Bob told us he is gay but totally in the closet.
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You guys keep telling us that you were scared of the legal and social concequences of being gay back then, when all of you were our age. So if you were scared, isn't it reasonable to assume that the other guys like you were scared too? how do you know you weren't desired and lusted after? If you went to my school and looked like that I'd be lusting after you. Hell, Jon would get you out for "sailing lessons" and you'd be dead meat! He has this weakness for blond dudes.
So don't put yourself down about "back then." Everybody was worried and scared, and it's amazing that any guys got together at all. I bet more dudes than you could imagine jacked off to thoughts of you. What do you dudes call it? Wankery? Wanking? Wonking?
Willie Wanker Wonks his Wiener?
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Dear Donny,
It's wanking - but "wanker" is almost as common a term of abuse as "gay".
It's strange, since I think almost everyone does it. I learned a new technique on Jackinworld yeasterday!
You are right, of course, about people still lusting after people when it was illegal but there were far fewer opportunities. The strange thing is that at university it was almost open. I'm sure many of my friends knew I was gay. I certainly told those I wanted to get to know better how I felt and most of them were straight.
I think I've mentioned on here before that in my third year Rex Nettleford came up to me and said "Would you like to sleep with a black man? I've got a friend visiting who could use a little company." and it was certainly the longest conversation I'd ever had with him. So I must have been fairly obvious. No-one said a thing about it at the official level.
I was scared, not so much of getting caught, but of the police getting interested enough to investigate as I didn't bother to try to cover my tracks. If they looked I'd have been caught. Of course, in those days they sent pretty policemen to hang about in public lavatories (in plain clothes) and arrest people who came on to them.
Love,
Anthony
[Updated on: Tue, 19 February 2008 11:31] |
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timmy wrote:
I was cute, too. But I never recall being beloved or chased.
How would you know? You were always too busy looking the other way, so you would never have even noticed whether someone felt for you what you felt for John.
J F R
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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dunfyn
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Getting started |
Registered: November 2005
Messages: 16
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I wonder whether this picture should be posted on the Internet forum with so many personal details following. ??
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You know, when I saw that picture something in the back of my mind kept telling me that I had seen that face before - back in the good old days when I used to download pictures galore from the Internet of the kind that we shall not make explicit here. I haven't looked at my collection in ages, but I am reasonably sure that if I spent a few hours rummaging through them I would find the owner of this face - and he would be revealing a lot more of himself than just his face.
This means that there are the following possibilities:
1. My memory plays me false - a sure sign of encroaching senility.
2. My memory is correct.
If the second option is correct there are the following possibilities:
1. Bobby Carter really does exist but (very wisely) he did not send Jon his own photograph, but a pic from the Internet.
2. Bobby Carter is really a dirty old man sending young men false pictures.
In any case, I really do wish that Jon would heed Eldon's advice and not expose himself (pardon the expression) so much on the Internet. It's not wise. It could prove to be very foolish.
If Jon or anyone else thinks that I have gone too far, please forgive me and put it down to a genuine concern.
J F R
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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I don't think you went too far at all. I took the picture out and edited out the details from another post. For the record somebody with that name lives at the address he gave me, and we have exchanged a few railroad things like old timetables and I sent him one of my schools baseball caps.
If anybody knows the dude who was in the picture, email me a few pictures!
I always did think he was too cute for color television.
Back to lunch.
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I wrote to him and he confessed to not being the dude in the picture. Bobby told me that he is a little heavy, and has some problems with his complexion and that he was afraid if he sent a real picture on himself nobody would write to him. I'm like, dude, we're interested in the same stuff, we're going through the same things with rents and the shitfactory, so lighten up on yourself. I'm writing to a person here, not just a face.
So he sent a real picture, and he's not all that heavy and he doesn't have any more zits than anybody else. He's got cooler hair than the pretty boy in the picture too. So read this Bobby! I'd do you in a second.
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Should I get jealous??? 
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you......
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13802
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Sighs. And we, none of us, come out of the woodwork.
I took "my" John out in boats. I even had my head on his lap once. He objected, naturally. Face UP in case you ask.
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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