Feeling My Age

On first moving to London in mid 1973 I ended up living in digs in Clapham – ie a rented room in my landlady’s house. Work was a clerical job in St Martin’s Lane that invloved a daily commute by tube to Leicester Square from Clapham Common station – where in due course I made the happy discovery that you could buy Gay News from a newsstand outside the entrance.

It took a bit of courage to buy my first copy, but the world didn’t cave in: nobody pointed, insulted me or sneered.  Gay News was a pioneering publication of its day, quite unlike today’s gay glossies with their graphic ads for chatlines, escorts and porn. It was printed and presented as a serious community newspaper, and its driving philosophy was openness and visibility. A whole book will no doubt written one day on the subject of GN and its importance to the LGBT community in seventies Britain.

I took to buying it every fortnight and reading it ostentatiously on crowded tube trains on my way in to work.  On one occasion I became aware of the presence behind me of a classic City Gent, as we used to call them – pinstripe, moustache, umbrella, briefcase, the works. He was obviously building up to speaking, with little harrumphing throat-clearing noises as he shifted into position to address me directly. Finally, he coughed and said, “Ahem, the fortnights just seem to fly by, don’t they?” [More]