Gay in the 1980s : That other Plague

Last night I watched Russell T Davies' new Channel 4 drama 'It's a Sin'. It tells the story of a group of young gay friends living in London in the nineteen-eighties. For those of us who are gay and for whom these were formative years, the series promises to evoke a nostalgia that is both powerful and disturbing as we experience the emotional roller coaster ride that is not only typical of Davies' writing, but which is also a scarily accurate reflection of the hedonism of those times and of the dark spectre of  AIDS by which it was permanently overshadowed. 

Most of my experience of nineteen-eighties gay life took place in the more provincial setting of the East Midlands. The local 'gay scene' consisted of a couple of gay bars and a seedy back street nightclub where the stench of acrid cigarette smoke competed fiercely with the stupifying aroma of 'Kouros'. 

I will always remember with great affection the colourful characters that peopled that scene. Many of them were comical and yet tragic, outwardly arrogant and yet inwardly vulnerable. Most gay men had nicknames - often female (a throwback to the old Polari days) - some based on occupation and others - rather more cruelly - on some physical or other characteristic. Among them I particularly remember 'Dora Doorbell' (thus named because of the legendary number of gentlemen callers that he received at home), Agatha Apothecary (a pharmacist) and 'Coffee Table' (the origins of whose name I will leave you to work out for yourself.) And to save you the trouble of asking, because I was known to be an Anglican Priest (although not actually working for the church for much of that time) my own name was 'Alice The Chalice'. (Please don't make me regret telling you that!) 

Some of the regulars were fantasists, who inhabited a world of make-believe that was clearly more comfortable for them than the harsh realities they were living. One such - a warehouse worker - would stand at the corner of the bar telling us all that he was a theatrical agent and that his greatest achievement was 'discovering' Lily Savage, whilst another told us how he had given up a career as a nuclear physicist to become a hairdresser.  

Although this was the age of the leather-clad, moustached 'clone', many characters dressed more flambouyantly, and at weekends in particular, the 'drag-queens' would come out. But there were also some quite reassuring more conventional figures - like the man and his quite elderly mother who would sit quietly at the bar, he with a half-pint, she with a sherry, both dressed up in their Sunday best, and who wouldn't have looked out of place in the Snug of The Rovers Return. 

The one essential of being part of all this was a barbed, vitriolic wit. The 'scene' could be incredibly cruel and bitchy and it certainly wasn't for the faint-hearted. But that in itself was a reflection of the times. The gay community received a great deal of abuse, and it was important that one was able to fight back - not least with that most deadly of weapons, the tongue. People either came onto the commercial gay scene having learnt that skill or to be taught it. 

Saturday nights were often called 'Spectator' or 'Tourist' nights. This was when crowds of straight people on a pub crawl would decide to call in to be entertained by the freak-show. Depending on the mood of the evening, sometimes the cast obliged, sometimes they would ridicule and tease the visitors (especially the men) and sometimes, when patience was running thin,  the voyeurism would be greeted with all-out hostility.   

I remember a conversation with the owner of one particular bar who said rather prophetically,  "I'm not stupid. I know - or at least hope - that in twenty or thirty years' time there'll be no need for places like this. We'll have greater equality then, and all venues will be gay-friendly and we'll be more integrated into the mainstream." He then paused for a moment and added, "But I guess there will always be gay people who want to run away from themselves. Where will they run to when this place isn't here?" It was - and is - a good question, not least because that place is no longer there.  

There is no denying that much (not all) of nineteen-eighties and nineties gay life was hedonistic and promiscuous. It would be easy to look back judgmentally. But there was very little in those days to support or encourage lasting, committed relationships. Society as a whole was generally censorious; this both fuelled, and was fuelled by, the homophobia of the Thatcher government, which, of course, introduced the notorious Section  28 banning the promotion (sic) of homosexuality.  Add to this the horrors of AIDS (originally known as GRID : Gay Related Immune Deficiency) and you hardly have a healthy, supportive culture in which one can dare to openly love a member of the same sex.  

Just as the apparent arrogance and waspishness of many gay people was a defence mechanism, so the hedonistic lifestyle was often either an act of defiance ("Shag, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die") or a manifestation of low self-esteem, even self-hate. I remember one man jumping to his death from a multi-story carpark. As we shared memories of him at the bar shortly afterwards, someone rightly said, "It could easily have been any of us", and he was right.  Though suicide per se was fairly rare, many others found more subtle ways of hitting the self-destruct button. 

Despite all this, I look back on those times with affection and even a sense of thanksgiving. I met some wonderful people back then. They were larger than life; they were entertaining; they could laugh at themselves; they could and would prick the balloon of self-importance in each other; they would stand together when they needed to; they would confront society's hypocrisy when necessary. Despite the fact they shouldn't have needed to, they would fight fearlessly for the right to be who they were. 

It was in this climate that I began to minister to the LGBT community. Initially, sadly, this was principally about taking funerals for those who had died as a result of AIDS. Parish clergy were not trusted as they were seen as belonging to one of the most homophobic institutions (and sadly that perception has had little cause to change). Sometimes, a loving partner was excluded from a funeral by a family who forbade him and other gay friends to attend because they (the family) didn't want to acknowledge who or what their son was, so I would be asked to arrange an alternative memorial service. 

Of course things improved a little over time, and by the time I was working full-time in ministering to those affected by HIV/AIDS in 2005,  better testing and new drug therapies were emerging and there was a growing recognition that this wasn't a gay disease, still less the 'Gay Plague' of which 'The Sun' wrote so ignorantly and brutally. Nevertheless a degree of stigma still remains to this day. 

It also remains true that in these generally more enlightened times, there are still families that reject a child on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity and that there is still much discrimination, albeit it often more subtle.  

'It's a Sin' looks promising. I suspect Russell T Davies is going to tell a powerful story with his customary mix of humour, pathos, tragedy and shock-tactics, and rightly so, for these are the things that characterised the times in question. As such, this won't merely be an emotional trip down memory lane for those of us who were there but, hopefully, a salutory lesson for the wider community of today.