by Ned Williams
Although I seem to have been given a reasonable brain, all the time I was at school I remained an extremely average student. Apart from an obsession with most of the arts, I became classified as an ‘underachiever’. Again, at that time, the signs of child abuse were not something for which the teachers bothered to look. Indeed, it is unlikely they would believe such things could happen in the home of any child who attended their school. The only thing in which I excelled was drawing. From my earliest days, I had doodled, squiggled, sketched and scribbled on scraps of paper. I looked as if I had been blessed with a reasonable hand to eye coordination and was able to recreate, with comparative ease, what I saw onto my improvised pad. Understandably, my mother didn’t appreciate it when I added little extras to her book covers and magazines. And, being her, she neither picked up on nor encouraged this one talent at which I shone. This talent was the one thing which my teachers put to use. Throughout the whole of my school life, I was the one who was persistently being commanded to make advertising posters and to decorate the sets for the school plays and productions and to make banners and artistic announcements for choir concerts, sport days plus notices for compulsory and extracurricular activities and the like.
At this time, I made few friends – but I was very loyal to the one or two who I allowed into my little world. There were times when my father tried to encourage me to ‘play games’ with my friends in front of him. He told me it would be all right provided he was watching to make sure it didn’t go too far. (Oh, what a tangled web we weave…) He was playing a very dangerous game. How could he be sure my small crowd didn’t have a better relationship with their parents than I had with mine? They could, so easily, mention what he was up to? Although I asked, not many ever agreed. My friends found it easier to say “No”.
Prior to my first form of escape – a second–hand Christmas bicycle – I used to go for long, solo walks in the countryside. This was my idea of heaven. I loved being alone, immersing myself in nature. I would spend hours, watching beetles and ants, birds and small animals. Luckily, I only had to walk a couple of hundred yards to find myself in unspoiled and unvisited countryside, so my love of nature could be fully satiated. When I was finally given my bike, I was ecstatic. I was no longer tied to the monotonous estate that I knew so well and hated so much. My beloved rural environs could be expanded. I could huff, puff and peddle for miles along deserted roads and steep myself in new landscapes full of equally new experiences. My solitary sojourns into the surrounding sylvan byways became a drug, which numbed the hatred I felt for my family life.
All this was fine, if I had the time to get out and about. When I was imprisoned in the house through bad weather or ‘you can’t go out now, it’ll soon be your bedtime,’ I had to find an alternative to keep me entertained.
At the time, a regular feature on certain radio request programmes was the inclusion of light classical music. Immediately, I fell in love with the sounds made by a full orchestra, going at full tilt. Thus began my love affair with serious music.
During the many periods when I was commanded to, “Keep quiet, I want a little nap!” I enjoyed looking at books. For some strange reason we had a couple of tomes on art. I devoured them and quickly acquired a rudimentary knowledge of the various art styles and movements. I began to dabble with paper and pencil at trying to re–create the paintings I loved. This was met with a distinct lack of interest on the part of my parents.
Of my two last means of escape, one was the cinema. Because of the regular trips I made to these mysterious dark, fantastic palaces, I became, in a very modest way, quite an expert. My last shelter was literature. As I had a vivid imagination, books gave me the chance to inhabit other worlds which stimulated my desires and dreams.
Each of these loves has stayed with me all my life and when everyday existence becomes too tough, I find them to be an invaluable safety valve.
From time to time many children dream of discovering they were adopted. They honestly believed their parents would, one day, tell them they were not their natural nest makers. It’s probably a form of escape from a bad patch the family may be experiencing. I had this same fantasy, except; I indulged in it for most of my childhood. Once, my mother ordered me to befriend a fellow youngster who was, indeed, in this very position. The boy was visiting his adopted parents’ family for a short holiday. I was told he was a bit withdrawn and needed someone to bring him out a bit. ‘Why ask me?’ I thought. The moment I set eyes on him, I knew we wouldn't get on. My hostility was caused by jealousy. The lad had mystery. He had the potential of being lifted from his world by some guilt ridden real parent, and be whisked off to a new, rich life. I remember being rather nasty and petty towards him. I simply couldn’t help myself. He was living my childhood Nirvana. I knew it could never happen to me. I was my parents’ child. There wasn’t even a faint hope that this shy boy’s life would find an echo in my own. I remained tied to my own particular wheel of life and I had to put up with it.
I suspect you are thinking that the fantasy world into which I had escaped was an archetypal reaction for an abused child – and you’d be right. I have no illusions, now, about how I have grown and matured. The seed was to become a ripe fruit – sweet and tender to some but poison to others.
You Dirty, Old Town
Iwas conceived, born and reared on the very edge of a large provincial city. Even as I was propelled, screaming, into the world, this once thriving and proud seaport could no longer boast its once exalted and salty status. No longer a maritime force, it still tried valiantly to maintain a delight and ambience for ships, sailors and danger. Unfortunately, the lack of sea–faring business made the delight a tradition rather than a reality. Though old, the city, especially its central area, has been heavily modernised. It now looks like any other piece of urban landscape from Basildon to Milton Keynes. In my youth, the ministrations of the blitz still scarred its topography but, today, all this damage has been swept aside in an enthusiastic desire to ape that Great American Dream; the user–friendly city. It failed!
Today, most of the city’s designer social events are concentrated around the almost extinct docks. These social events involve cinemas (or Movie Houses) showing either classic films or eclectic, obscure art–house movies. Trendy shops for even trendier clients are flanked by pedestrianised precincts where continental style coffee–houses spill out to impede the less socially aware’s perambulations. The whole area is a Shangri–La for the university intellectuals who appear to spend most of their time wondering what the hell they’re going to do once they have graduated. Around this island of banal habitation, newly reconsidered, reconstituted, reconstructed and reconverted warehouses play host to either galleries for ultra–modern art, or performing spaces for politically correct presentations of obscure theatrical events. The ‘yoof’ proprietors, with enthusiastic zeal, happily attempt to provide the populace at large with everything they think they deserve to enrich their dull, miserable lives and proving, yet again, how wrong they are.
All in all, it has become a rather bland, tawdry city. It is now as mediocre and unsurprising as any other city you care to name. Even its historic attractions have become an embarrassment; best screened off by a variety of brooding, concrete, steel and glass buildings. For pity’s sake, even my favourite childhood walks and jaunts into the countryside now fester under an array of Barrett Homes, Sainsbury’s, designer, over manicured parks and boundless industrial estates. And all this thrown together devastation has been carried out in the name of progress.
So much for now.
Then?
The city centre covered a small area which was open and friendly, but a short walk down any of the numerous side streets took the unwary, unsuspecting rambler into a sudden and startling maze of streets. And what streets! Even in the daylight they were dark, claustrophobic, narrow and faintly sinister. At night it could easily have been taken for a landscape created by a modern Bosch or one of the regions through which Virgil guided Dant
e. The poor lighting made it even more grotesque and disturbing. Crumbling public houses struggled to make ends meet from their limited catchment of locals. Shops were converted into dubious coffee bars. Illegal clubs furtively catered for speciality amusements and existed in the back rooms of private houses. Cellar bars with little or no ventilation, peeling walls and tiny, intimate dance floors. There were bombed churches where only weeds, desperate lovers and the occasional stray cat formed the congregation. These, and other places too numerous to mention, were the markets where anything could be bought by the punter who had the craving and the cash – and sold from a supplier who had the time and inclination to close their sordid little transaction.
If this wasn’t bad (or good) enough, further depths could be plumbed, if that was your desire, about half a mile away to the north–west, in the dock area. This torrid little square mile was still half frozen in a time warp. That is to say, whole blocks were much the same as they had been for a hundred years or more. The rest struggled to remain standing as silent witness to Mr. Hitler’s attempts at disabling the port. Walking around this area, the silence was almost palpable. A century earlier it would have been a frenzied, noisy place – now, not even the faintest echo of this previous hive of industry could be detected. It was a place that only showed a glimmer of life during the day. Its population consisted of cars taking short cuts and a few determined people who battled to man the pitifully few businesses that were unable to afford workshops in more salubrious areas. Only after sunset did it begin to stir in its bloated slumber so that it could achieve a near full resuscitation in the early hours of the morning. Everywhere one explored, unexpected niches and dead–end tracks honeycombed this small, desolate, self–contained world. The only people to be found were those misfits in society who felt the desire for adventure, danger and solitude. Many tried to find some meaning and outlet for their doleful lives through the bottom of a meths bottle or squirted from the point of a syringe. To parody the old maps – here be meat racks for every form of pleasure, for whatever fantasy a mind could devise – no matter how debauched. It was a depressing stigma on the surface of the city that frequently and unpredictably exploded into crazed violence. But, lest you think there was some sort of inverted romance about the place, I regret to inform you that, in the main, it was merely an irksome wasteland of abandoned buildings which attracted few sightseers and even less attention from ‘Lily Law’, the police. The many ill tended, unlit public toilets erected as monuments to Victorian aspiration had become, instead, nocturnal orgy rooms for the more public spirited and night prowlers with a taste for the more fearfully exotic.
The only respite from this disheartening district was a large municipal park that straddled a nearby hill. A huge, glowering statue surmounted this totally unexpectedly verdant oasis, rising as it did, out of the desert of humanity. The identity of this particular antique, local worthy, and the exact reason for his celebrity, had and still has, been long forgotten. This unkempt park, much overgrown with shrubs and brambles, offered many discreet opportunities for privacy and, as such, it had become a favourite pick–up place for the more discerning seekers of illicit comfort.
Around the perimeter of this vice–hole were many great, historic buildings. When, during the day, I walked amongst them, I never ceased to be amused at the sight of children being shown their local heritage by enthusiastic, middle–class parents. I often wished they could be shown the alternative view – a brief snapshot of how that same area looked the previous night. This more acceptable zone tended to be used as an overspill from the ghetto. The safer, brighter streets brought the pleasure seekers who had hunted down a willing quarry from out of the dock’s sinister corner. They could then be allowed to perform their desires in the city’s cathedral grounds, the back of the library, the university campus, or in the warren of service roads of the council offices. I often pondered how many of these middle–class fathers knew about this doppelgänger existence. In my experience – there were quite a few.
I had a love/hate relationship with the place; as the old joke goes – I loved to hate it. It was a place where you could lose your identity and feel free to pursue and indulge in your real or imagined persona. It made people schizophrenic. They were totally altered from their daytime humdrum lives. Almost without exception, people went either slightly off their rockers or completely bonkers. School teachers became drag queens; men of the cloth became leather submissives; off–duty policemen became happy members of the community which, whilst on duty, they persecuted so vigorously. For me, it proved a good location to let my hair down. Yes, I loved it because it gave me a chance to be myself and play at being grown up. Yet, I hated it because I had to go away from my family into this grim place to find some sort of peace. It was romantic – but it was the romance of a consenting pair of sado–masochists.
Searching for Revenge
The unrequested initiation and practical sex education I received from my father continued until I was about eleven years of age. Then, for some unknown reason, I finally found the words and courage to put a stop to the whole thing. Something must have jangled alarm bells inside my boyish head. It was almost as if, for the first time, I fully understood what was happening to me. Was there a glimmer of maturity and understanding beginning to grow? It wasn’t guilt but repulsion for someone who was, to me, an old man. My ability to get an erection was becoming easier and it was exciting my father in a way that frightened me. He attempted to push our sessions further. I wasn’t having anything to do with it. If I hadn’t put my foot down, I think my father would have continued with his illegal activities into my adulthood, always pushing out the sexual boundaries.
How I put a firm and sudden halt to the proceedings was simplicity itself. I backed away and left the room every time I saw that salacious gleam in his eyes, the lop sided grin and the ill fated words, “Let’s have a bit of fun” begin to form on his lips.
Now, I can only imagine his surprise and fear at my unspoken decision. It must have totally freaked him out as I was in a position to blow the whistle on the whole sordid business. Obviously, this is precisely the action I should have taken long ago but, as I have said, I was a well–conditioned and obedient child so I still kept my silence.
Our trips to the ‘News Theatre’ stopped because I announced that I didn’t want to go any more. My mother was curious as to why I wanted to put a halt to these regular visits. I told her that it was simply a case of boredom with the place. For different reasons, both my parents were irritated by my decision. My father, because it underlined the unspoken wish I had made to distance myself from him; and my mother who was incensed because it put paid to the family gatherings that she enjoyed. To make a further point, she stopped taking me to our local cinema – I assume she thought that, as she had won the battle with my father for my affection, there was no longer any need to squander her money on such a frivolous activity. From that moment on, my only contact with the silver screen was in the form of ‘Saturday Morning Pictures’.
Strangely, it gave me a small thrill when I realised that I had a hold over him. For me, even that thrill wasn’t enough. He received my cold shoulder for many years. In my small way, I had won a minor victory in the parental power struggle. As time went by, he must have assumed I had forgotten all about our evening sessions. How wrong he was. An idea was beginning to form inside my head. At first it was a vague, ethereal thought but it didn’t take too long to become a concrete proposal.
During a fairly sexually safe, uneventful couple of years, I made a deliberate decision to take revenge – not only on my father directly, but on the whole male population as well.
This sincere pact that I made with myself was extremely vague. I had no conception of how to transform this idea of revenge into my concrete proposal. In a way, it became even more frustrating. I knew I wanted to make all men pay, but I had no idea where, how or when to start. All I knew was – someone, anyone, was going to have to pay.
This unrequ
ited anger stayed with me for many years. I was happy to contemplate having sex with another boy or young man – but sex with my father? I now found the thought utterly repulsive. It was all very confusing. Did I want to go with someone else and let my father see but not be able to be involved? No, he would probably relish the sight. Did I want to threaten him with exposure (no pun intended) and watch him beg? No, I was still worried that I would get the blame. I honestly didn’t know what to do. Because I couldn’t take it out on my father directly, I knew that it would have to be with someone else. It would be some poor, unsuspecting sucker who would have to shoulder the responsibility of my father’s licentiousness. This whole dilemma became my obsession. So, at the age of about eleven, or it could have been twelve, I made my first tentative step on a journey, which would bring me pain, laughter, sadness and anguish. I discovered how valuable friendship is, and what monsters some people could be.
It was, by now, the mid–fifties – a time when sex still remained a hefty taboo in a highly puritanical society. Whole areas of people’s personal and private activities were being forcibly halted by the criminal law. Now we are told a blind eye was turned on ‘things like that’, but believe me, it wasn’t. Agent provocateurs abounded and no cost was too great to clobber anyone who was indulging in his own victimless desires. I sometimes think times haven’t changed very much. Okay, it’s no longer illegal, but many people are still forced to live double lives. The homophobic public and the stigma they place upon gay people only acts to keep many in the closet. However, in the fifties, because of the draconian laws, there was always the threat of blackmail, prosecution and shame. It must also be remembered that this was a period before the greatest disaster known to the latter part of the twentieth century, that evil which escaped from the bacteriological laboratories to haunt and murder us all – HIV and Aids. Back then, love–making didn’t involve playing ‘Russian Roulette’ with a microscopic killer virus. Even so, life was still subject to Victorian attitudes. At that time, even an unmarried mother was considered immoral and the lowest of the low. The poor wretch automatically earned the label ‘prostitute’. People in particular and society in general were stiflingly ‘Holier than Thou’, and although most sexually transmitted diseases were easily curable and utterly non–life threatening, life itself, certainly for gay men, was very far from rosy and worry free.
