Quotations from the play

Cyril

“Well I didn’t know I was Gay because I didn’t know what the word was then but I do remember during the war in about 1942, so I would be about thirteen and my parents had a pub in Lancashire, in St Helens and there were outhouses in this place and we’d only been there a few weeks and I was pottering through rubbish in these various outhouses and I came across a book of photographs and they were of a German wrestler or boxer called Hackenschmidt. And it was mainly in costume but in one of the photographs he was nude and I was absolutely mesmerised. Just looking at it and closing it. And then having another look. And being quite turned on. And I knew it was wrong to be looking at it but I didn’t know why and I put it away. And a few days later I had to go back and have another look and finally my conscious got so bad I actually threw it away in the dustbin. I was so frightened.”

Carol

“I remember the first time I went to Gateways. God it was awful. It was very cliquey and the music was naff. You had a juke box and you had to put money in to play the bloody music!! And I was so nervous, meeting other gay women. I went down the stairs and on the left were all the butch women in drag and on the right were all the women in dresses. It was really scary. And all these butch women were asking me to dance and you couldn’t say no.”

Stanley

“When I was living in South London two or three lorry drivers used to stay, bringing their lorries outside at the place where I was living, spend the night and go home to their wives. Quite extraordinary….”

Frances

“I sometimes wonder if these young girls who openly walk about holding hands feeling very free, whether they realise what women like Jackie Forster did, how she paved the way. It was very difficult back then in the fifties…”

Ron

“We always had this thing. We said we’re not going to be second class citizens. Freedom isn’t something that’s given you forever, you have to fight for it every day, and we had to bloody well fight.”