Back in the (Gay) Day

February is LGBT History Month. I wrote about this event and published it as the top story on the tedious Council-day-job website. Needless to say, a few hours later I was asked to move it to a less prominent position. The wimp who runs the press office, who is also gay, got scared in case “the leader” didn’t like it. Apparently he (the leader) can’t even say the words “gay” or “lesbian”. Isn’t that nice? The man in charge of an environment that preaches integration, diversity and tolerance is a raving homophobe. Such a shame there’s a queer pub right opposite the Town Hall, it must make the poor dear weep. I hope he can see it from his office.

My own LGBT history began, as I may have mentioned before, at Jodys in Liverpool. It was a club near Moorfields station that was gay upstairs and goth downstairs. I met lots of new friends there and also met up with a few of the other freaks I'd gone to school with but never spoken a word to before. Annoying how you sometimes discover kindred spirits after the situation where you needed them.

There would always be a cluster of Gary Numan fans downstairs in the goth room. They dressed in suits with the blue and red striped tie that Gary used to wear. They also had their nails painted white with a black stripe that was a look he must have had at some point. They would mostly just sit and stare moodily around the room until the moment every week when Cars came on. Then they would suddenly move to the dance floor and do the sway from side to side and swing your arm across your body dance that Gary did. Then they’d all go and sit back down again.

Upstairs they played hi-energy and Divine, Holly Johnson would be dancing around. I don’t remember it being too druggy, but maybe I just didn’t notice. I do remember there were always lots of poppers. Somebody gave me some once and it made me feel about 20 feet tall, then 10 minutes later I just felt tired. I think that’s actually what put me off the drug scene, I was much happier with a bottle of lager.

Another thing I remember is a small number of girls who would arrive in long raincoats and then strip down to a bikini and high heels and just sort of … stand there. I never really understood what they got out of it. One of them was very slim and shapely with long blond hair, she said that posing in bikini made her feel good. Another was a short girl with a massive upright hairdo. Her name was Sonia and she ended up appearing in one of the Dead or Alive videos, I think she was in Frankie’s Relax one too, in a cage.

Of course, the Goths all had huge, huge hair. My first sort-of girlfriend, Laura, who I met at Jody’s, had a mass of black hair and looked a bit like Patricia Morrison. We had a fumbly teenage relationship for a few months until she got a job someplace where were her aunty lived and left without saying goodbye. To be honest, I got over it quite quickly.

Along with Jody’s we would go to Planet X – a basement goth club run by a face-on-the-scene called Doreen Inevitable. She had previously worked at Erics and was a friend of Geoff and Annie who ran Probe Records, my Saturday afternoon hang-out where Pete and Lynne Burns used to work. I remember the opening night they had really gone to town, putting cobwebs and fake blood on the walls and rubber skulls and dismembered hands on the tables and ledges. The decorations gradually diminished, as the thankless punters would take them home. Including me who kept my rubber hand with pride for years to come.

On Sundays we’d go to Macs on Bold Street. It was a full-on old-school gay club, mostly men and nearly all of them wore check shirts, jeans or leather chaps and the most enormous handlebar moustaches. There was also the handkerchief in the back pocket code going on. I can’t remember what many of them meant now, but can you believe there’s a fabulous little website that tells you all about it?!

Macs was a really friendly place, there’s something about Sunday night that always pulls the nicest crowd – Marvellous was the same. It takes a bit more effort to go out on a Sunday, and those that make it are focused on having a good time. I would see Frankie’s Paul Rutherford there, and assorted members of Dead or Alive. Paul and I were friends for a while but then he blanked me after he got famous. Oh well.

I remember this time as being really exciting, lots of people to meet and things to discover. It was definitely a formative period and I don’t know what I would have done without these places. It’s why I believe so passionately that gay space should continue, not just for me but for the next generations that need to find their way and develop a sense of belonging. For the sake of our history and our future, we need to maintain an identity.