In September 1982 I’d decided to go back to school.
I’d been out of work for quite a while, doing volunteering jobs at that local Hackney housing co-op committee – the one which went by the enticing name of SLUG, (short life user groups). As I’ve mentioned, cash strapped Hackney council rented out unloved council properties to needy groups for a fiver a week. There was a test for getting in to our co-op April but I can’t remember it now, I think as I mentioned you needed to attend a certain number of meetings to show commitment. Unofficially, maybe someone made a pass at you and monitored how you reacted. That was where I saw Jeff the first time. I lived in five houses over a seven year period, the second I’ve mentioned already in Bethune Rd, Stamford Hill but the third one in Carysfoot Rd, closer to Stoke Newington and on the 73 bus route was a favourite.
By the summer of 1982 I was living there with Gus, Nick and two lesbians, Pauline and Sue. It was a somewhat more obviously communal house in some ways, than Bethune Rd, we usually ate together, there were rotas for shopping and cleaning and other tasks and we would have regular house meetings to discuss any ‘issues’. On the whole we all got along very well together and arguments were few and far between. I had a larger bedroom finally too after my single room affairs at Fordwych and Bethune Rd, & more importantly a big bed (my first futon I think?). Both Pauline & Sue were heavily into the womens’ movement and in particular became very involved with the Greenham Common CND anti Cruise missile protests, both eventually living on the womens’ camp there, over various periods.
Nick in particular, of all of us, was very involved in counselling and keen to bring all that he knew, to the men of April Co-op. All of us valued the role of counselling, in one form or another, and this was very much something that felt entirely natural to participate in. I still have a flier that Nick produced when he ran a day called ‘Men in April’. There were two men with arms wrapped around each other standing up holding a large umbrella with ‘April’ on it. Mens symbols (the circle with the arrow) were falling onto the umbrella, some singly , some in pairs. Dear Dave, it reads,
Please come to a day for men in April Co–op 10.30– 5.00 on Saturday November 20th. It will be a chance to get to know each other better, and learn to be more caring towards each other and will be led by Nick N.
Bring enough food for yourself to be shared at lunchtime. Let me know beforehand if you are coming for certain. but you are welcome to come at the last minute too. This will be an introductory day for a regular April Men’s group. Hope you can come. Nick X.
This was something that was completely commensurate with the ethos of April and living together in community houses at that time and it felt an entirely natural, holistic thing to be doing. I can’t remember much about the session at all now but can imagine the kind of things we would have done: warm up exercises, some trust games, sharing experiences of both negative and positive things we had each been through as gay men.
Nick was particularly involved in a form of therapy called co-counselling (couple counselling) which was quite popular then and he introduced me to it. It was a relatively simple process where two people sit and face each other and listen to what the other has to say without any judgement or intervention but simply ask questions that probe how the other person really feels about these things. One of the key questions being ‘how does that make you feel’? Often you discovered there was a particular phrase, just a few words, that unlocked a roomful of pent up emotion. Often too, you built up a deep level of trust by having many sessions with a particular partner. As a process, for many of us, this was quite a radical notion. It could produce some unexpected results though. I recall doing it with a lovely guy, who was heterosexual but as we spent sessions together, we found ourselves bonding more and more; in the end we developed something akin to a love for each other: a very caring deep bond, which wasn’t sexual but did involve being very close and intimate with each other. This intimacy was not really meant to be ‘part of the process’, and we had to work our way through these feelings for each other. I think this kind of counselling process is less popular today.
´Never let Me Down Again´, Depeche Mode 1987; bands were exploring the body politic too, such as this song from Depeche Mode, that I´ve always loved, that asks more questions than it answers..
I think that whilst I was more aware of the possibilities of such feelings with other men, it took my heterosexual partner completely by surprise, as it was never something he had felt before and he did not quite know how to ‘process’ such feelings. There is an element of personal liberation to such a bond, and there were tears from both of us, as years of oppression came out. In later years, I went to a number of mixed (gay/heterosexual) men’s groups, where we became very close to each other. For many men, such intimacy with other men is full of worry, concern and unease. It questions many of the patriarchal assumptions they have grown up with, about their role as the breadwinner, the dominant force of strength in a relationship.
This process however, very much fitted the way I was leading my life at that time and it felt very good. It gave me a confidence in myself, inside myself, that I had not really had before. I think it showed on the outside too, as I held myself, carried myself differently. It made me feel I could do things that I would have been too timid to try before. It is nevertheless something that I have to an extent lost, as least to some extent, over the decades and now miss.
One of the things it helped me do, was not to be too afraid of trying new things. I realised that I had an ingrained fear of failure, which I had carried about, a weight on my shoulders for years and years, I felt I had not lived up to what my family, and more widely society itself expected me to be, and to act like, ‘as a man’.
One of the things that I tried and became quite involved with, during the summer of 1982, was to become part of a lesbian and gay group, making a video funded by Channel Four. It ended up being called Framed Youth: Revenge of the Teenage Perverts. The start of quite a few lesbian and gay careers in fact- Jimmy Somerville, Rose Collis, (for a time the Right Reverend) Richard Coles, Isaac Julian. They were all involved. I’m not sure I did an awful lot to be honest, except hang out around a studio they had rented in Brixton, above some gay film archives.
Eventually released in April 1983, darn me though, if it didn’t go on to win the BAFTA for ‘best UK independent documentary’ the following year. I went to the presentation, which was an inherently unglamorous event then, unlike the current yearly glamathons hosted by Steven Fry or some other notable english treasure.
Anyway, for me it re-sparked my interest in art and film and based on this idea of trying to develop new things in my life and be less afraid of ‘failing’, I enrolled at a Hackney College in Jubilee St, Bethnal Green, in September 1982 to do a year’s ‘Art A level’ with the idea of going on to do a foundation course in film. It ended up being one of the best years of my life in fact. I fell in with an arty, bohemian crowd. I can still see them clearly in my mind’s eye: the lovely soft spoken, curly haired Danny from Israel, proper east end grrl Dawn, a tall Goth in black, well spoken Millie, always with her briefcase: the sensible one, Mac, the tall thin sexy Scot and girlfriend Nic (the lovely Nicola, whom I think technically Mac just about outquiffed, though she would say I am lying).
I was the oldest one by a few years. and I was ‘out’ as soon as I arrived, due to my ‘Framed Youth’ story and I felt about as free as I’ve ever felt in my life. I still have a picture somewhere of me lying down after a student cuts protest rally with Dawn & Danny, in my little black military top with a red star, a bleach blond quiff a la (depeche) mode’s Martin Gore, smoking a joint. It is perhaps, the coolest picture anyone has ever taken of me. Of course at the time I had no idea it was particularly cool- which is of course -you come to realise rather later in life- the very definition of cool. Turned out, as the year unravelled that I was not the only homo in the group by a long piece of artistic chalk but that’s another story.
Rallies were what we did best then. There were no end of rallies you could go on if you wanted. Cuts rallies, protest rallies, Anti Thatcher rallies, Pride rallies, CND rallies. And to go on a rally you needed a really good banner. A big banner, the bigger the better. So there was a definite need for a very good banner when the arts class decided we must go on a student funding anti cuts rally. Millie, Dawn and Nicola quickly got on the case and fashioned from 2 large bedsheets dyed pink and a lot of lace, ‘City and East London College against the Cuts’ cut out letters in black sewn onto it. I think it’s fair to say we came up with one of the campest banners I have ever seen in my life. And trust me, I have seen an awful lot of banners.
Around half way through my year there, in February 1983, the National Union of Students (NUS) called for ‘an occupation of your college to protest the cuts’ (there were always cuts..), which they called the ‘Grants and Cuts Campaign’. I think I was my classes NUS rep, I’m not too sure now, but it’s possible, as I was the oldest by some years then. I still have the leaflet we produced, as a handout to all students.
We determined that we would have a vote on whether or not to occupy the college for a day. In the event students voted by a massive majority to occupy it on the 23rd February for 24 hours.
‘The NUS are asking the Government that no more cuts in education are carried out and that every student is entitled to a £25 a week minimum grant. So far the government have IGNORED this demand and that is what this campaign is fighting for’ it told them. ‘The occupation will start at 10am and go on for 24 hours’. Many activities are being organised to keep everyone amused. These will include: Films, Music and Jamming, Theatre group from the Half Moon, Sponsored cake bake/knitting/face painting, FREE food, mural painting, meetings and speakers.
It duly went ahead and we kept ourselves entertained for most of the 24 hours. It got very quiet about 4am, as everyone battled sleepiness (and too many joints, I would rather think) but perked up by dawn again, courtesy of some strong instant coffee. I recall there being about thirty of us, who stuck it out through the whole 24 hours, whilst the ones who had given up and gone home to bed, were much derided by those of us who had stuck it out, which I think included all those I knew. It’s all something of a blur now, but I remember we had the banner and were standing chanting outside for some time, to the passing cars and that posters were put up on the windows ‘THIS COLLEGE IS OCCUPPIED. NUS SAY NO TO CUTS’ . The teachers were all quite radical and left wing then (it was Hackney remember) and I think fully supported us. Both at the time and retrospectively it was all great fun and brought us all together even more, as a group. I’ve had busier years, and more interesting years but that year was pretty much perfect in many ways, and perhaps when I was most conspicuously happy.
I went straight to Farnham from September 1983 to do a degree in fact after that, as I by- passed the foundation course & got in on the basis of my age (26.. mature student) and to some extent Framed Youth’s credibility by then. Another three years spent having a ball really, at first living there in Surrey but commuting by year two from Hackney most days; which was a trek and a half. I resisted London’s pull for a year but it had me gripped. I had a boyfriend, the lovely Mark there, was still living in an April housing co-op group house in leafy Stamford Hill & more to the point was heavily involved by then, with London’s Gay Switchboard.
On to Sex , love and life (The Rituals) 2.21 1984- The best of the best – all about ‘The Bell’
