Drew Payne - Words, Words, Words,

An Urban Winter

2011-12-30T13:24:00.000-08:00

(A Flash Fiction Story)

He lay in bed, almost in the foetal position, with the duvet wrapped tightly around him. Donal didn’t feel sleepy anymore but his body ached with tiredness. Any little thing left him drained and tired. Simply getting out of bed and going to the toilet left him exhausted and week. Yet, lying in bed was so boring, he wasn’t the type to read books endlessly and, though he had it on in the background, he’d lost interest in the radio station he had on.

Tim, his flatmate, had diagnosed flu and told Donal he needed to stay in bed, rest and drink plenty of fluids. That had been the night before and, because Tim was a nurse, Donal had listened to him. Now, the next morning, Tim was off at work and Donal was trapped at home. He’d never felt this ill before, he’d never had the flu or even a cold before.

Yesterday he’d been sent home from work. He’d felt rough on the tube train to work but dismissed it as only being tired. By mid-morning he had been drained of energy and could barely focus. Debbie, his manager, had sent him home sick, saying:

“For God’s sake don’t come back to until you’re well.”

Donal had been shocked to be ill. He’d never been ill, yet within six months of moving to London he was struck down with the flu.

He’d spent the first nineteen years of his life on his family’s farm, in rural Northumberland, with his parents and his older brother Angus. It was always expected that Angus would eventually take over the farm and that Donal would take second place. His parents made no attempt to hide their favouritism of Angus, but it had always been like that and Donal simply accepted it.

Things had changed as Donal had grown into his teens because he had come to realisation that he was gay. In rural Northumberland there weren’t any resources for someone gay. Eventually he found a gay group in Tynemouth. He had to wait until he was seventeen before he could to go to it, wait until he got his driving licence.

When he finally got to the gay group he was so disappointed. The group was small and insular; most of the men there were in couples and had very domestic lives. Though disappointed he carried on attending, every time he could borrow Angus’ car, it was his only contact with gay life. Through them he discovered the two gay bars in his area, the one bar who had a gay night and the other who unofficially let gay men met in the back bar. He also learnt all the local cruising grounds. All this wasn’t enough; it only felt as if he was playing at being gay.

A month before his nineteenth birthday he decided he had to move to a city, otherwise he’d never do anything about his sexuality. He decided on London because it had a large gay life, including the gay area around Soho. He approached an employment agency and to his surprise they quickly found him a job. It was working in the document archive of a big insurance company. The gay flat share agency found him several places to live, but after meeting Tim he choose that flat.

Shortly after his nineteenth birthday he moved to London. It was the perfect move for him to finally fully explore being gay; but it was also a vast disappointment. He didn’t realise how much he missed the wide open spaces of Northumberland until he moved to the city. London wasn’t s concrete jungle but it didn’t have the green hills and dramatic rock faces of his old home. People were more reserved in London, not unfriendly but not as ready to speak with strangers as he was used to. But most of all he missed the green countryside.

As winter overtook the city Donal had found the sight of it so depressing. In the countryside there would still be greens and life to be seen. In the city it seemed as if all the green and plant life just died away, leaving behind dull browns and greys. All the trees on the street he lived just died away. Part of him longed for the green of the countryside, but the rest of him knew he could never return to that half-life of only being able to be gay once or twice a week.

Though he hadn’t met a boyfriend he’d experience more of gay life then he’d ever imagined. Since moving to London he’d had real gay sex and he loved it. Not the quick and awkward tumbling’s he’d experienced in the back seats of cars or night time cruising grounds back home. All the people he knew in London knew he was gay, he didn’t have to pick carefully those he told. If he wanted he could go out to a different gay bar or venue each night of the week. He didn’t have to closet himself away in London, he couldn’t go back to his old life.

He’d never had a cold or flu before, all through his childhood and adolescent living on the farm, now living in London he’d been laid low with one. Tim had said that it was probably due to the air conditionings at work and being in such close proximity with all the people around him. He reassured Donal that he would develop a better residence the longer he stayed in the city. Eventually he’d look at that as a reassurance but at the moment, as his body ached with flu, all he felt was how miserable he was. He’d never been this ill before, but it would only be for a handful of days and then he could get back to exploring being a gay man.

Drew Payne

January 2009.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-21T13:42:00.000-08:00

Christmas is here and it’s time for our own E-Christmas Card, of sorts. This slide-show features pictures taken in our very own back garden, by my partner Martin, and set to the music Clair De Lune by Debussy. So turn your computer’s sound on, take a minute or two and enjoy the music and pictures here.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Drew.

(P.S. if you enjoyed this, why not have a look around my blog)

They’re Saying My Words

2011-12-13T14:03:00.000-08:00

The other weekend Martin and I spent it in Brighten. We went there for a little winter break, but we also went to see The Treason Show. This month’s show they included two of my sketches.

As the two actors came on stage, to perform the first of my sketches, I felt a tight lump in both my throat and stomach. They were speaking the words I’d written and I had no control of it. I had to just sit back and trust their performances. Then the audience starting laughing, laughing at the words I’d written and the way the actors were performing them. The best part, the only person in the audience who knew it was my sketch was Martin. I felt just the same as they performed my second sketch.

That’s my favourite part of writing, being able to communicate with people anonymously. Most people who read my writing have never met me and never will. I love that about writing. Those people will know me only by my writing, and often by only reading a few things I’d written. It’s the anonymity of writing that I do so like.

Writing satirical sketches is also such great fun, I can put all my anger and frustrations into them, especially when our Government screws up, again. Instead of shouting at the television, I can put all that anger and bile into a sketch.

What would I do without writing?

Drew.

The Devil to Blame

2011-12-02T03:58:00.000-08:00

(A Flash Fiction Story)

“The devil made me do it,” the words simply leapt out of Anthony’s mouth. He didn’t know where they came from, he just opened his mouth and the answer came out.

There he was, sat in Pastor George’s office, that Saturday lunchtime. Anthony thought his life was over, well he would certainly be up to his neck in hot trouble. He still had two more years before he could leave home, two more years before he turned eighteen, two more years of tip-toeing around his mother and her Christianity. Now his cover had been blown and here he sat in front of Pastor George, who was also his mother’s brother.

Two hours before he and Dan had been weeding Pastor George’s garden. His mother had arranged this. She felt it was her duty, as his sister, to make sure Pastor George was looked after, because he was a single, middle aged man. So, Anthony had been given the job of maintaining his garden. That Saturday he had brought Dan along with him, Dan from the music group at church.

They’d had no intention of doing any weeding. Pastor George’s garden had a summer house, at the end of it, which had a large and comfortable day-bed. Anthony and Dan, as soon as Pastor George had left for the church, retired to the summer house. There, on the day-bed, they had begun to make love, the way teenager boys with their first lover make love.

They had been resting, post-coital, covered only by a cotton sheet, Anthony on the verge of falling asleep, when the voice rang out:

“What on earth!”

Pastor George was stood on the summer house’s deck, staring straight at them.

Dan screamed and leapt up from the day-bed. In mere seconds, Dan had grabbed his clothes and fled past Pastor George, Dan’s naked body running across the garden.

Anthony had snatched the cotton sheet to cover himself.

“I think...” stammered Pastor George. “I think you had better get dressed.” Then Pastor George had turned his back while Anthony dressed.

Barely speaking, Pastor George had taken Anthony to his car, driven him back to church and once there Pastor George had hurried Anthony into his office. Once inside, Pastor George sat down, next to Anthony, on one of the two old armchairs in the room. Then Pastor George asked:

“Now, what was happening back there?”

That’s were when the answer just sprang to his lips.

“The devil made me do it.”

To Anthony’s surprise Pastor George had lent forward, his face wearing a pained and concerned expression.

“The devil tempts me in exactly the same way,” Pastor George said, to Anthony’s growing surprise. “The important thing is not to give into the devil’s temptation. It’s not easy but the rewards are great.” Pastor George then told him a long and winding story about his own “struggles” with “temptation”. Anthony quickly realised that Pastor George was queer too but Pastor George hated his queer side, unlike Anthony who couldn’t have enjoyed it more.

As he listened to Pastor George he realised how screwed-up his uncle was, but with that he could also see a way out of this mess. It was so simple. All he had to do was appeal to Pastor George’s guilt, to act as guilty of him (even if Anthony didn’t feel it) and to beg him not to tell anyone. To act the way Pastor George felt about himself.

“I’m so sorry, I just gave in to temptation,” Anthony gabbled. “Please forgive me.”

“Naturally,” Pastor George replied as he patted Anthony’s thigh in a parental manner. “The devil and his ways can be so seductive.”

“You won’t tell anyone about me or Dan? You won’t tell mum?” He asked, trying to keep the pleading tone in his voice just right.

“I won’t tell anyone about you two boys, I won’t want your whole lives stained by this one, youthful lapse. The same thing happened to me.”

“Thanks,” Anthony replied; God that had been so easy, nothing to it.

“You and I will need to meet for regular counselling sessions, at least several times a week. With my help, I’m sure we can overcome these evil temptations of the devil and you’ll be able to lead a normal life.”

“Yes, sure, I want that,” he told Pastor George, nodding sincerely.

Pastor George started to tell him about his “youthful temptation”, with someone called Charles, when he was eighteen. Anthony just wanted to zone out from this boring and self-loathing story, but he told himself to listen because in this story there was bound to be things he could use later. God, everything had turned around so quickly. Instead of disaster he was now looking at things actually being comfortable. All he had to do was say the things Pastor George wanted to hear, act all guilty and sorry and he could carry on as he wanted to. If Pastor George caught him at it, again, then all he had to do was blame the devil’s temptation. God, it would be so easy.

“Yes, I’ll do that,” he told Pastor George, in reply to his uncle’s description of his nightly prayers to be saved from his sexuality, but all he could really think about was going to find Dan and to carry on their love-making.

Drew Payne

January 2009.

“What Five Words Best Describe You?”

2011-11-29T08:35:00.000-08:00

I hate questions like this one, or “what animal would you be?”, “how would your friends describe you?” or worse “what colour would you be?” I’ve been asked all of these questions and I find them impossible to answer. How do I distill down my personality into such simplest terms? How does anyone? We’re complicated, social creatures, not the one-dimensional caricatures of people that pass for characters in soap operas.

I’m currently job hunting and I’ve been asked all those questions at interviews and even when recruiters call me up about a job. Often, though, when recruiters call me they have a tick-list of requirements for the latest job they have to fill and, no matter what my experience and what I can bring to a role, I get rejected because I don’t exactly match all those tick-boxes, even if I have transferable skills that could meet those requirements. Increasingly, I’m getting frustrated and want to scream back at these people, “I can do this bloody job, if only you’d listen to me!”

I was rung up a recruiter this morning about a job but, just because I don’t drive, she rejected me for it, before my CV or details could be sent to the employer. The job was a community nurse role in Central London, I job I am doing at the moment. My frustration goes beyond irony.

This also made me think as a writer. So often, characters in fiction fall into easy categories, “the hero”, “the cheating wife”, “the corrupt journalist”, “the shy virgin”, “”the camp gay man”, “the bitter old lesbian” etc... These characters can be summed up in five words or less. But how real are they?

At the moment, I’m writing a crime story revolving around the friendship of four people. The more I write this story the more complicated the characters get, the more they behaviour “out-of-character”, one of them is actually a murderer and another character is willingly covering up those murders, and the more I get involved with them. I don’t like any of these four people, I think they’re all corrupt and I’d feel very uncomfortable in their presence, but I’m fascinated by them.

I think that sums up my writing, I want to write about people who fascinate me, and those people will always have their complications and contradictions.

Drew.

Oh Lord Make Me Funny...

2011-11-18T09:37:00.000-08:00

Q: What’s white and falls out of trees?

A: A fridge.

Above is one of my favourite jokes. It’s logical and yet surreal both at the same time, and it doesn’t make many people laugh. Most people just stare oddly at me when I tell it.

That’s been my problem with humour. I have a sense of humour, I enjoy things that are funny, but I’m not that good at telling jokes, I’m not one of those who can have a room full of people falling about with laughter. My sense of humour is very sarcastic and left field. I never thought there would be any place for me to use my sense of humour in my writing.

This summer I came across a call for sketches for The Treason Show, a bi-monthly Brighten satirical review. I checked out their website, which had videos of some of their sketches, and wondered if my sense of humour would fit here. I wrote a few sketches and sent them off and, to my deep surprise, received a reply saying they found my sketches very funny and to send more. I’ve submitted work to the two most recent Treason Shows and had sketches included in both shows, I’m just balled over by this.

It seems I can be funny after all, but I need to find those who understand my humour. So, what next? I don’t think I’m going to be the next, great sitcom writer; but it has re-fired my interest in play writing. I started off, as a teenager, wanting and trying to be a play writer, but for years I thought it was something I’d put behind me, well maybe not.

Watch this space.

The next Treason Show is the beginning of December and Martin and I are going to Brighten to see it. Fingers crossed I get sketches into that show too, it would be wonder.

Drew.

Jonathan Roven is Lost

2011-11-18T07:07:00.000-08:00

(A Flash Fiction Story)

Jonathan was sat upright in his chair, staring hard at the television in front of him. On it was some daytime program about buying houses, the usual cheap and mindless rubbish they filled the morning schedule with. I sat next to him, in a matching chair, and watched it with him.

We were sat together in the home’s TV Lounge, a smaller lounge with the large television set up in it. We were the only people in it, occasionally another resident would wonder in there but just as quickly they’d wonder out.

Previously, Jonathan had hated television. He would mock me whenever I wanted to watch it and he’d snap at me if I had the television on the background. As his mind had deteriorated he’d become more interested in television. Now he’d watch it twenty-four hours a day, if we let him, but sometimes I’d use it as a distraction when I visit him, so we could just sit together quietly. If the television wasn’t on he’d chatter on endless about bloody Dom Richards.

It started by him forgetting numbers and words he used every day. He couldn’t remember what his keys were called, what our meal was called, what colour his shirt was. The day he forgot my name was heartbreaking, he’d stood in front of me in tears because he couldn’t remember my name. It was then he admitted there was a problem and finally agreed to see his doctor.

After an almost endless round of tests, and a referral to a Specialist, Jonathan was finally given his diagnosis; he had Alzheimer's Disease. It was so final and complete, no hope of treatment and cure. We had both withdrawn with that diagnosis, Jonathan into denial and me in hopelessness.

Jonathan’s ten years older than me and I had always expected that his health to fail before mine, I’d even silently prepared myself for it. I’d expected it would be something like cancer or heart disease, a slow disease that would gradually take away his physical abilities, and I would care for him throughout all of this. I never expected that it would be his mind that would fail, while his body remained as healthy as mine.

To begin with, as his mind forgot the names of more things, Jonathan had reacted with anger. He’d get frustrated at his inability to remember and lash out in anger, rarely at me but usually at the object in question – at that time he broke three different kettles. Then, almost overnight it seemed, he forgot that he couldn’t remember. His lack of memory seemed of no concern to him, and he settled down into a happy fog of his Alzheimer's. At first, I’d been relived the anger had stopped, it was an anger that I couldn’t do anything to prevent. Only much later did I realise he’d begun to forget about me.

Even when he would forget my name he’d still remember who I was, his lover, but in that happy fog he forget who I was. He’d been calling me Dom for nearly two weeks when I realised what was happening. He’s forgotten about me, now he called me by the name of his first lover because that was all he could remember. When I realised that, I locked myself away in our bathroom and wept.

He’d met Dom Richards back in the seventies. Jonathan had come to London to be gay, after years of trying not to be, and Dom was only the third man he’d slept with yet they fell into a relationship. Dom, though, was the cliché of the self-hating closet case. He was terrified that anyone would find out he was gay; he would only meet Jonathan at gay clubs or at Jonathan’s flat, nowhere else. Dom drank heavily which would lead to fights and often ended with Dom hitting Jonathan. They would breakup, only to be back together a week later, with drunken sex. As abusive as their relationship was Jonathan couldn’t break away from it, the pull of sex with Dom was too great.

His escape came when Dom was arrested and later jailed for attacking another man outside a club. Dom was gone from Jonathan’s life for six months and with that absence he was finally able to break away from their relationship.

It was many years after this that I meet Jonathan but part of him was still hurting from that relationship and it shocked me how much. I was such an innocent back then. But the longer we were together the less hold and hurt Dom Richards had over him. I was quietly proud of that.

When Jonathan called me Dom it broke my heart. I struggled on for nearly two months after that but as each day passed I coped less. Jonathan would chatter about things he’d obviously done with Dom Richards and inside I would scream with frustration. I should have been the one he remembered, not that bastard. In the end I told our social worker I couldn’t cope and she made the arrangements for Jonathan to move into this Care Home.

The staff here are so good with Jonathan and they treat me the same as any other spouse, but I still feel a failure. I’m his lover and I should be the one looking after him, allowing him to move in here has meant that I’ve failed in my promise to him. I visit him every day but still isn’t the same, I should be doing more even if he doesn’t love me anymore because he’s forgotten who I am.

“Dom, remember that day we went down to Brighton?” Jonathan suddenly announced.

I gripped the chair’s arms in frustration.

“No,” I said, “I’m Steve...”

Drew Payne

April 2011.

Boxing Day 1975

2011-11-11T08:54:00.000-08:00

(A Flash Fiction Story)

We were all gathered around the TV, that evening, as we always did on Boxing Day, to watch the holiday film. Mum sitting and knitting in her armchair, dad with his unread newspaper across his lap in his armchair, my older brother Gary slouched at one end of the sofa and me sat at the other end. That year the film was One Million Years B.C., the nineteen-sixties dinosaur fantasy with Raquel Welch in a fur bikini. Even to my seven year old eyes the film was rubbish, the story thinner then Raquel’s costume. Gary, at fifteen, was loving every minute of it, and dad was watching it intently too.

“Look at the knockers on that,” Gary said, his eyes on Raquel.

“Don’t be crude,” mum replied, not even looking up from her knitting.

“But that Raquel Welch has a great set of melons,” Gary protested.

“And that’s all this film has got, its complete rubbish,” mum said.

“They’ve got it quite realistic,” dad said, shifting in his chair.

“For God’s sake! Dinosaurs and people never lived at the same time. I’ve helped our sons with their homework enough times to know that,” mum said, putting her knitting down.

“It’s a harmless bit of fun,” dad said.

“No, it’s rubbish. There’s no story to it. You lot only want to watch it for that Raquel Welch,” mum snapped.

“Yeah, and she’s a bit of all right,” Gary said.

“You shouldn’t be thinking like that at fifteen,” mum said.

“I’m sixteen next month,” Gary protested.

“And don’t I know it,” mum said.

“The lad’s only showing a natural interest,” dad added.

“You three are all the same,” mum cast one of her “looks” over all of us.

But we weren’t the same; I didn’t see the point of Raquel Welch either. She may have been pretty but she didn’t interest me. John Richardson, the actor playing her caveman boyfriend, was of far more interest to me.

He was ruggedly handsome, even under the thick beard and animal skin costume, and his costume showed off only slightly less flesh then Raquel Welch’s bikini. He radiated a strong masculinity, strutting around the screen with his spear and fighting the dinosaurs. I couldn’t take eyes off him, rapidly losing interest in the film when he wasn’t on screen. When he did appear I wanted to be the one he had to rescue from those dinosaurs, the one that he held in his arms.

It was the first time I had noticed how attractive a man could be and how uninterested physically in women I was. At the same moment I also knew that this realisation wouldn’t be welcome by those around me. I couldn’t see Gary or dad or even mum being happy to hear this news. Boys were supposed to be interested in Raquel Welch and not John Richardson, it was there all around me. I knew to keep quiet.

“I should change the channel from this nonsense,” mum said to the whole room.

“No mum,” Gary protested. “It’s a really good film… Isn’t it?” He directed his last comment to me.

“It’s boring,” I replied. John Richardson hadn’t been on screen for nearly five minutes and my attention was rapidly slipping.

“What do you know, sissy!” Gary snapped and punched me on the arm.

“Hey,” I shouted back as I looked at mum for support, but she’d returned to her knitting.

Drew Payne

August 2009.

Once More with Feeling

2011-11-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

(A Flash Fiction Short Story)

I dropped the dirty clothes in front of our washing machine, and then crouched down to sort through them. Too often before important pieces of paper or even money had gone through the washing machine, hidden in pockets, and been ruined, therefore I now always checked all pockets before throwing clothes into the machine.

They were Dan’s favourite jeans, tatty and old and faded, he would preen when he wore them because of the flattering way they hugged his groin and buttocks. They were filthy, as if he’d been rolling around the garden in them. In the front pocket of them was a neatly folded piece of paper, its edges creased over. Against my better judgement, I quickly unfolded it and read the handwritten, sprawling words on it:

“Dan,

I can’t wait until next Tuesday. Last night was fucking amazing, my arse is still on fire from the banging you gave me. I’ll come around to your place at half-six, next Tuesday. We can’t meet at my place because my flatmate’s being an arsehole again.

I can’t wait.

Kris.”

Tuesday nights I always worked late, running the Men’s Health Clinic at the practice where I worked, spending the evening with a parade of middle-aged men worrying over their health. I wouldn’t get home until late each Tuesday; often so late that Dan had already gone to bed and fallen asleep.

Kris was a thin and very blonde party boy who worked in Dan’s office. He always seemed permanently hung-over or spaced-out, as if always coming down from the previous night’s clubbing and partying. He certainly didn’t like me, the few times I had met him he’d snarled distaste towards me and oozed indifference towards Dan.

I held the note in my hands, crouched there on our kitchen floor, and just stared at it. I had no desire to destroy it, only hold it and remain looking at it. It meant only thing one. After all the tears, arguments, emotional fallout and promises, Dan’s repeated promises to me, Dan was back to screwing around. After each time before he promised me it would be the last time, and his most recent promise had seemed to be his last one. It was nearly a year since he was last unfaithful, a fling at a work conference that carried on after he returned home, and since then he had seemed to keep his word. This note now made his last promise into another lie.

I didn’t feel angry or hurt, just a creeping curiosity. Kris was nearly twenty years my junior, could barely string together two sentences of speech together, so what was the attraction for Dan? Was it only sex? Was there more?

I brought the note up to my face and smelt the paper. There was the smell of Dan’s crotch, that distinct and sharp odour, mixed in with the vague odour of stale ink and dull paper. No smell of sex or aftershave or any erotic taint.

Tuesday was only two days away; could I get someone to cover my clinic? Could I slip home unnoticed? Could I spy on Dan and Kris? What would I see? Could I do it? Could I...?

Again I brought the note up to my face and inhaled deeply. I felt a warm and erotic thrill creeping over me, certainly not what I would have thought my reaction would be this time.

Drew Payne

December 2006.

A Quick Read

2011-10-27T14:20:00.000-07:00

Today I found out that a review of mine has been published in this week’s edition of Nursing Standard magazine.

It was a review of the book Dying To Be Men (Psychosocial, Environmental, and Biobehavioral Directions in Promoting the Health of Men and Boys). Now that might not sound like a much of a page-turner but it was a very interesting book and very informative. At looked at men’s attitudes to their health and how that affects their accessing healthcare. As a nurse and someone who writes about health this was fascinating. But this book had a real drawback; it was very American in tone and content. All its data and references were about American healthcare, a very different environment to our British system.

These reviews are short, often only two hundred words or so, but I do enjoy doing them. They force me to be concise and say simply what I feel, is this book worth buying/reading or not. Also, and not to be turned down, I get paid to write them.

Read more about this week’s Nursing Standard here.

Drew.

Closing Doors

2011-10-27T12:15:00.000-07:00

(A Flash Fiction Short Story)

Then

It was the last time I saw him, stood alone in the centre of an airport lift as the doors closed on him.

He was dressed casually, jeans and a white cotton shirt, his two suitcases at his feet. His dirty blonde hair was ruffled and unkempt, as if he had just tumbled out of bed, and equally blonde stumble covering his chin only added to that impression. He stared at me with those dark intensely green eyes, a small and sad smile on his face.

He raised his hand and waved me goodbye, as rueful and sad as the smile on his face, as the lift doors closed. Slowly but relentlessly those doors closed and separated us, cutting us apart with their polished stainless steel.

I’d wanted to run to him, to throw my arms around him and be taken away by him, not to be parted from him by those closing doors; but she held on tightly to my arm so I couldn’t.

He was gone from my life and I’d never see him again.

I was aged seven and, taken there by my mother, we were seeing my father off at the airport. He was going to work in America, a teaching job in San Francisco, and my mother bluntly told me we couldn’t go with him.

I’d stood, staring at the closed lift doors, willing them to open again and my father still to be there, but they didn’t and eventually my mother had to drag me away from them.

I didn’t speak to her, barely acknowledging her presence, on the journey back home.

Two weeks later my mother told me that my father had decided to stay in America and wouldn’t be returning home, but she refused to answer any other of my questions. I’d felt betrayed and abandoned, my father had gone from my life with barely a goodbye.

Six months later my mother met Derek and within another six months they were married, no mention being made of my own father.

After their marriage, my mother and Derek both wanted me to call him “dad” but I refused. Derek wasn’t my father, and would never be.

Now

Aged sixteen, I was sent to meet my Aunt Megan from the same airport.

She was returning from a six month “holiday” in America and my mother felt she needed bringing back into the family fold. Megan is my mother’s younger sister, by nearly ten years, and she didn’t stop disapproving of what Megan did, but family was family in my mother’s eyes. She’d never let Megan go, so I’d been sent to make sure she came home.

When she came through the arrivals gate again Megan looked different. Her red hair was cut short into a school boy style, her skin had been tanned a dark orange in colour and her clothes looked so worn and faded that I wondered if she had kept them on through her whole six month “holiday”.

“Hi little cousin,” she greeted me. “Does your mother, my beloved sister, want me back in the family bosom, again?”

“Something like that,” I muttered.

“Then push my trolley,” she said, indicating the luggage trolley she was holding.

Her luggage trolley was surprisingly heavy, she must have had everything packed in there from the last six months. When we reached the lifts I just pushed the button to call one of them.

Inside the lift, after the doors closed, Megan said to me:

“I’ve got something for you.”

“You didn’t have to,” I muttered.

“I did.” She handed me a small, black leather bound notebook.

“What’s this?” I turned the book around in my hands.

“I went to San Francisco, when I was over there. I’ve always wanted to see the city and I wanted to see Bill again.”

“Bill?” I asked.

“Your father and he wants to get back in touch with you. That book’s from him. It’s got all his details in it, even his email, and he’s written to you in it. Mainly about why he left, but other stuff too,” Megan said, the normal sarcasm gone from her voice.

“He left me,” I muttered, trying to keep the hard edge from my voice.

“Bollocks!” Megan snapped. “Your mother drove him away because he’s queer. He wanted a quiet divorce but she wasn’t having that. She demanded he have no contact with you or else. That’s why he moved to America, to get away from her not you.”

“He could have fought for me.”

“God, how long have you lived with your mother? That’s no option.”

We stayed quiet for a moment, as the lift took us down to the train station. Then, with a mechanical voice announcing our floor, the lift stopped and its doors slide open. I took hold of the trolley again and said:

“I’m queer, too.”

“Then you really need to get in touch with your dad,” she replied.

I just nodded as I pushed the trolley through the lift’s open doors.

Drew Payne

August 2010.

Silent Too Long

2011-10-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

I’ve been silent on this blog for too long now. My excuse isn’t original but I’ve been so busy and distracted. Back in April I was made redundant. The company I worked for went into financial crisis. They did a lot of work for the NHS and weren’t being paid, because of all the NHS cutbacks. All this lead to me taking redundancy. Since then I’ve been looking for a permanent job, and that hasn’t been easy but has taken up so much of my time. Must employers only seem to be taking casual staff. At the moment I’m working as a Bank Community Nurse, in Central London, but fortunately there’s plenty of this work to go around. I’m still looking for a more permanent/long-term job though.

Enough of my woes. I have still been writing and fortunately have been having quite a bit of success with it.

I’ve had several articles and reviews published in Nursing Standard magazine, I’m so fortunate to have such a good relationship with them. The most recent article of mine they published was a nurse’s guide to the Equality Act. To me, this is such an important piece of legalisation, not the “political correctness gone mad” as our media likes to call it. For nurses, too, it’s very important because nurses are called to respect equality, it’s in our code of practice. Equality is far more than just “treating everyone the same”, it’s about creating a level playing field for everyone, and unfortunately we need laws to ensure this.

I had a short story included in Gazebo (No 11 Summer 2011) magazine, it was called Appetite. It was about a gay man who’s suffer from anorexia, though he just feels he needs to lose weight to do attractive. It’s another of those subjects that I feel important about, mental health, and how it affects people’s lives. It was certainly one of my tragic themed stories.

My biggest writing success has been The Treason Show, a monthly Brighten satirical review. So far I’ve had sketches in the two most recent shows. I started writing, back as a teenager, writing sketches and now I’m back to it again. It has also re-fired my desire to write plays, so watch this space, as they say.

My short story, Love & Need, can be read here. It’s about a man whose boyfriend is needy and demanding, but this makes their relationship instead of breaking it. My twisted take on everything.

Also, watch this space because I’m going to be trying to post a short story on this blog each Friday. This is so I can enter the Mad Utopia’s Flash Friday writing. It all sounds complicated but it’s another showcase for my writing and I can’t turn my nose at that. You can read more about it here.

Drew.

Good and Bad Campaigning

2011-04-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

This week sees two very different forms of campaigning using the Royal Wedding to gain publicity.

The first (Good Campaigning), Pater Tatchell wants to use the Royal Wedding to high-light marriage inequality, Civil Partnerships do not have all the same benefits as heterosexual marriage (It’s not just the names that are different). This is campaigning in the best tradition, using a public event to high-light a cause or an equality. Not high jacking that event.

The second (Bad example) came to light today. The Muslims Against Crusades (The extremists who staged the poppy-burning stunt on Armistice Day) have applied to protest outside Westminster Abby, during the Royal Wedding. Not to be outdone, The English Defence League (So far Right there is no left) are demanding the right to counter-protest.

Either of these two groups are interested in open debate, they just want to beat us over the head with their views until we give in. In the case of the English Defence League they just seem to be out there to start a punch-up, so much echoing Oswald Mosley’s Black Shirts. Neither of them are campaigning, they’re just bullying.

Peter Tatchell is a real campaigner and has been doing so for decades, though only recently he has got the recognition he deserves, though his style of campaigning has been overshadowed by our medias’ reporting of the likes of The English Defence League and Muslims Against Crusades. If you read our newspapers you’d think they were both huge and influential, rather than the tiny nut-job, fringe groups they actually are.

Drew

And Now for Something Very Horrible

2011-04-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

This is almost too shocking to believe, yet it is very real.

The Government is thinking about scraping the Equality Act.

They have launched a website called “Red Tape Challenge”, were members of the public can leave suggestions on how to cut bureaucracy. One of the first things under consideration, on that website, is the Equality Act.

I applauded when the Equality Act came into law because, put briefly, it says that anyone providing a public service (Public or Private Sector) cannot refuse someone that service because of that person’s sexuality or perceived sexuality. It’s no longer lawful to say, “We don’t serve queers in here!”

It took away that shadow of prejudice that has hung over my shoulder all my adult life, being turned away because I’m gay. Turned from a hotel, a taxi, medical treatment, the list is almost endless.

Now, the Government wants to take that protection away, because they consider it’s “too much red tape”. My blood boils with anger.

This is a quote from GMFA about how serious this is:

“Last week the LGF in Manchester had the Speaker from the House visit. His speech touched upon how organised the religious right is in this country, when it comes to letter writing and letting MPs, Ministers and Civil Servants know about their concerns about equality legislation in favour of LGB&T people. He said that any time positive legislation was put before the House, politicians’ mailbags were full to bursting with constituents encouraged to speak against the gains by some religious organisations and, although politicians generally know that there is a lot of favorable support out there for our inclusion in equality advancement, we as LGB&T communities are often silent.”

The irony is that the Equality Act extended to sexual orientation the protections already enjoyed, in law, by those with religious beliefs.

This Link is where you can leave a message of support for the act and call on the government not to scrap it: http://www.redtapechallenge.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/equalities

This link will give you more details on the act.

Please help keep Britain a fair country.

Drew.

Now it’s War, with Bedpans.

2011-04-13T09:22:00.000-07:00

Today, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) voted almost unanimously to pass a vote of No Confidence in Andrew Lansley’s (The Minister for Health) handling of the NHS. 98% of the delegates, at the RCN’s conference, voted for the motion.

(I also jumped for joy when I heard this. The RCN is my union, nursing is my profession and the NHS is something I believe passionately in – the alternative is too horrible to consider.)

Lansley is forcing onto the NHS reforms that it doesn’t need and will destroy so much that is good about the NHS. Lansley seems to want to turn the NHS back into some fantasy of the 1950’s were “Doctor Knows Best”, yet ignoring its real needs, to move patient care out of hospitals and into the community. Do we need to go hospital for every medical treatment? Can’t a lot of it be done away from hospital? A lot of it could be, to the benefit of patients and make the NHS more “cost-effective” – healthcare is certainly not cheap.

The RCN is rightly to be concerned about Lansley’s behaviour, he’s been less than honest about it. He’s the first Minister of Health, in eight years, not to address the RCN Conference, instead he’s meeting with a group of 50 nurses to “listen”, he says. In reality, this is an appalling act of disrespect. He refuses to face the RCN to explain his “reforms” and if he wants to “listen” why can’t he listen to the RCN Conference, instead of meeting just a selected few. What’s he afraid of?

Lansley has been less than honest about these reforms:

• They were never mentioned in the Tory manifesto, at the last election, therefore there was no debate on them during the election.

• There seemed very little consultation on these reforms, certainly no nurses or other allied health professionals were consulted. Only now has the Government announced a review panel to look at this health bill, only three of the panel are nurses.

• He wants to introduce more “competition” into who provides NHS services, hospitals competing against community providers and the private section. We’ve had this before, Thatcher’s Internal Market, and it was a disaster and wasted billions of pounds.

• The worst conceit is that Lansley claims the reforms are based on his own experience of the NHS, but the reality is very uncomfortable.

In 1992, nineteen years ago, Lansley suffered a stroke. He received terrible treatment, he was dismissed as only has having an ear infection and it was only a CT Scan, at a private hospital, that confirmed he’d had a stroke. It was this experience, and his recovery from that stroke, that he says has caused his “desire” to “reform” the NHS. But there are discrepancies in his story that he isn’t being honest about.

When he suffered that stroke the Tories were in Government and in charge of the NHS. The NHS back then was an organisation that was very underfund, under-resourced and staff morale was very low – I worked in the NHS back then.

The NHS has had a lot of change since then, for good and bad, but it is not the same organisation as when Lansley had his stroke, yet he’s claiming the NHS is disparate for reform. How much does he know about the NHS today, from what he’s said I feel it is very little.

Lansley claims GPs know patient needs best so they should be the ones almost totally in charge of the NHS, but GPs, like all Healthcare Professionals, only know the patients’ needs they see. They’re not involved in sexual health, HIV & AIDS care/prevention, maternity care, elderly care, cancer care, they don’t perform operations, are not involved in Emergency Care, and so on and so on. So can they decide what is best in these areas? I’ve never worked in paediatric care; I couldn’t decide what is needed for a Child Health service.

(My partner, Martin, has only seen his GP once, the four years we have been living here. How can his GP know what Martin’s health needs are?)

Lastly, something else I don’t think Lansley will be listening to:

In 2007 Atos Healthcare (A private healthcare provider) won a ten year contract to run an East London GP Practice. Yesterday it was announced that Atos has pulled out of that contract because it couldn’t provide the services that GP Practice needs. This should be a warning to Lansley, if he opens up more of the NHS to private providers we are going to have more examples like this.

Andrew Lansley says he’s listening, well listen to this.

STOP THESE “REFORMS” NOW, before you totally destroy the NHS.

Drew.

Mothers This Day

2011-04-03T14:00:00.000-07:00

Today is Mothering Sunday, but more often than not I forget about it, because this year marks the tenth anniversary of my mother’s death.

Increasingly, but especially this year, I’ve noticed how mawkish and sentimental people have got over Mothering Sunday. It seemed that Facebook was awash with statuses and posting about wonderful everyone’s mother was. The worst I saw was posted recently by my own sister. She posted a message about how good her mother was and how her mother made her a good person too. It bared no resemblance to the woman I knew as mother.

I feel we do just as much a disservice to someone’s memory to whitewash them and paint them as “perfect”, as we do to paint someone as heartless and negative. I feel we should remember the whole person, their faults and their virtues, but my view doesn’t seem popular, the rose-tinted view seems to have won out.

Below is an essay I wrote about my mother. I wrote it shortly after her funeral. It was one of the things that helped me come to terms with her death, but most importantly it is one of the ways that I remember her.

Those Pictures Mothers Carry Around With Them.

The first time I saw it was when she was visiting me and took out her purse to pay for a purchase. There it was, inside her purse, a picture of me. An old and not very flattering picture of me. It was one of those passport photograph booth pictures, taken years ago. My hair was a different style, short and flat, one I had not had for many years. I was staring fixedly into the camera, no smile on my face. The harsh light making my skin look pale and unhealthy. I wondered why she had chosen that one but I said nothing. Not an easy question to ask.

I have many pictures of her. Ones from her youth, as a bright and happy young woman. Her hair short and dark. Dressed in pale or white summer dresses, ones with wide belts and full skirts. Pictures of her in motherhood, her clothes changing over the years, showing her own slow change in tastes. Pictures of her taken only in the last few years. Pictures of her as the rosy cheeked, white haired grandmother that she grow into. (I have no pictures of her at the end, a tired and ill old woman, nor do I want to remember her as this.)

I don't keep any pictures in my wallet. Even if I did they would surely become lost in the chaos of pieces of paper, some only scraps, cards of paper and the plastics ones I now require, loose coins, my different IDs I must have and all the other things tucked away in there. For me pictures are to be placed in frames and hung upon walls so that all can see them, enjoyed at a glance. Such are my favorite pictures of her. Not hidden away in the dark and clutter of my wallet. (I have heard others say that they carry pictures of their loved ones, their partners or children or parents, with them so they can glance at their likeness whenever they want. I carry around my memories of her, as bright as many photographs, with me in my mind, never to be forgotten).

It was always a wonder to me why she choose a picture of me to carry around with her. I am not her only child, I have both an older brother and sister, but I am her youngest. Maybe that was the reason she choose. I was her youngest child, the last one to leave the nest, after I had gone she was no longer required to be a mother - a role she been for forty years. Maybe there is a special bond between a mother and her youngest child, I do not know, not having any children myself, for if there ever was I am ashamed to admit I never noticed. Why did she choose that picture, of all the ones she had of me, such a harsh and unemotional one, to carry with her. (It is too late now to ask these questions.)

At the end, as she lay there in that bed being cared for by nurses who it had only taken her a few weeks to grow close to, I was unable to ask any but the simplest of questions. I had thought at the end I would be able to ask her all those questions I had been yearning to know the answers to, ones over which I had puzzled and wondered for years, not least about that picture. When the time came all I could ask were those basic questions, "Are you comfortable" and "Is there anything you want". The profound ones forgotten and replaced by the important questions.

As a child I had questioned and questioned her, why this and how that, my search for knowledge. As an adolescent I had distanced myself from her and her rules as I was fighting my own demons in my head. What did she know? Only as an adult, when I had become a professional in my own right, were we able to reach an understanding and peace with each other. I was still her son but now we could talk as equals.

After it was all ended, the funeral and cremation and final spreading of her ashes, did someone find that picture of me? As my father and my sister were clearing out her handbag, the final act of tidying a life away by disposing of their now unneeded things, did they find her purse? As they emptied the purse did they find that picture of me and what did they make of it. These questions are unimportant; I will forget them and never seek their answers. Instead I will hold those memories I have of her, memories that live outside of pictures.

For Joan Margaret Payne

12-1-30 to 2-5-01

Drew

Just A Quick One.

2011-03-25T08:38:00.000-07:00

Just a short blog to say that I’ve had something else published.

This week’s copy of Nursing Standard contains one of my reviews. This one is of a website, C3 Collaborating for Health. I’m afraid that I wasn’t very impressed by the website, it seemed set-up solely to promote some very elitist and expensive health conferences – the type of conference only very senior healthcare managers can afford to go one. But, they liked my review and published it.

I’ve had a full article accepted by Nursing Standard too, will blog when its published; plus yesterday Gazebo accepted one of my short stories, again more on that when I know the publication date.

Drew.

Ruby Wax – Losing It

2011-03-06T11:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, we went to see Ruby Wax’s two women show, Losing It. Again, it was another autobiographical show, but fortunately Ruby Wax has something very interesting to say.

The format of this show was simple, Ruby Wax told her story and Judith Owen supplied the accompanying songs and music; but this wasn’t Ruby Wax talking and then stopping for one of Judith Owen’s songs. Almost seamlessly, the two women slipped between Ruby Wax’s monologue and Judith Owen’s songs, both perfectly complimenting each other.

The theme is Ruby Wax’s experience of depression. Not just what happened to her when she had a mental breakdown but what lead up to this. It was an almost cautionary tale of the damage that fame can do to someone, especially when fame starts to slip away from someone who was once on the top of it all. Her view of fame is unflattering, especially the things she tried to do to keep that fame (She described it as addictive as Crack Cocaine), also her account of the little she had to do when she was famous was also unnerving.

Her description of her breakdown was all too real, the sudden stop in her hectic activity then fall into a deep and unmoving depression. Her depression was a real depression, not the kind so often portrayed in fiction, which is no more than feeling a little blue or down. Her depression robbed her of energy, her personality and her desire to do anything.

Fortunately this show portrayed depression in all its reality. This wasn’t a show were Ruby Wax turned her mental problems into a tragedy on the lines of “poor little me, how terrible it was”, or a “look how funny mad people can be”; neither was this a new-age-spiritual-journey whereby she becomes a “better” person because she fought depression. This is an uncomfortable but unsentimental look at one woman’s experience of depression.

Ruby Wax has a very engaging and animated stage presence, her energy levels during the show pushed it forward in a way that held your attention, yet when she was slowed down by depression it was almost heart-breaking. Judith Owen’s songs were a perfect addiction to Ruby Wax’s monologue, not drawing away from it, and delivered in a clear and soul voice.

The moment telling moments came in the Q&A session after the show. Ruby Wax was asked did coming through depression make her a better person, she flatly replied “No”. I wanted to cheer with relief. So often people will talk about how depression can make someone more caring, compassionate or whatever, ignoring the pain and suffering that mental illness leaves in its wake. I was so grateful for her honesty.

Hopefully people will come to see this show because of Ruby Wax’s fame but I hope they’ll leave with a better understanding of what depression actually means, Ruby Wax is certainly able to deliver that.

More details on Losing It can be found at these websites:

http://www.rubywaxlosingit.co.uk/

http://www.facebook.com/losingitshow?sk=wall

Drew.

Ordinary People’s Lives

2011-03-06T05:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was World Book Night, and part of that they’re giving away books free. They requested people to volunteer to give away the books. Both Martin and I applied to this but only Martin was accepted (“mutter... mutter... mutter”). He was given forty-eight copies of the book A Life Like Other People's by Alan Bennett.

This long memoir was originally as part of his book Untold Stories and is the story of his parents’ marriage, but told in the context of their time and their family relationships. It’s a fascinating tale, as Alan Bennett places his parents’ marriage into the social context of their times, from their marriage in austere 1930’s Britain, civilian life through the second World War, through the changing social times of the 1950’s and 1960’s, and their retirement in the very different 1970’s (his parents’ fantasy of what a cocktail party involved was truly priceless).

First reading this memoir I was struck by the similarities between this and my parents’ lives, their relationships with own their siblings. Alan Bennett obviously had parents and family who liked to tell their stories, recount their lives; and the writer in him listened and remembered.

I wasn’t as fortunate, my parents would tell stories about their childhoods, but they were often along the lines “it was so much better when we were young”, my parents were great fans of the rose-tinted nostalgia, but they rarely told stories about how they met, about their wedding, their move to Liverpool, the birth of their children, etc... My mother did tell me some details when I was an adult, actually after I qualified as a nurse (after this my mother seemed more open with me over many subjects), but often these were only passing comments.

My parents met because they both lived on the same street in Barrow-in-Furness, though my mother first went out with my father’s older brother, Arthur, before dating my father. I have always wondered about this. What didn’t my mother like about my Uncle Arthur, though him and my father were very alike, how did my father feel dating his older brother’s ex-girlfriend, was he jealous of his brother for dating the woman he wanted? What were the dynamics going on at the time?

Both my parents are gone now so even if I had the chance to ask all my questions I can’t; but that still doesn’t stop my mind wondering about all of this.

I believe that we are very much the product of our upbringing and our environments, but that often we ignore this or even down place it, but also our environments change as we do.

Drew

Not-so-Glad to Remember

2011-03-02T14:02:00.000-08:00

Previously, I have written in this blog about the watershed moment, as a teenager, when I first heard Tom Robinson singing “Glad To Be Gay” (http://drewpayne.blogspot.com/2007/08/one-of-those-moments.html).

Last week I was surfing the web, when I stumbled upon a website that had, for download, had almost all the different versions of “Glad To Be Gay” there has been (http://gladtobegay.net/). With a delight I started to listen to them, but I didn’t get far.

The very first version was an upbeat, celebration. Then, Tom Robinson re-wrote it as a protect song. The first version of that was the one I heard him singing on the television. Listening to it again took me right back to the early 1980’s, when I was still terrified of my sexuality. The song took me back to that time, a time when homophobia was almost at plague levels.

The song deals with the police persecution of lesbians and gay men, the rank homophobia and hypocrisy of the British press, queerbashing, and society’s homophobia that generates internal homophobia. The images in it were harsh and angry, yet all too real. Back then, I was terrified of all those, the world seemed a very homophobic and threatening place; listening to it I felt that stab of sadness because I remembered it all.

So much has changed and in such a short space of time, within my living memory, and for that I am very grateful. But listening to “Glad To Be Gay” reminded me of how bad things were, and they have been worse before that. As grateful as I am for all the equality gains we have now I also feel we shouldn’t forget from where we came.

Drew.

Company, at the Southwark Playhouse.

2011-02-20T15:15:00.000-08:00

It’s not so hard being married, it’s much the cleanest of crimes,

It’s not so hard being married, I’ve done it two or three times.

Lyric from The Little Things We Do Together, Company.

Company is musical that takes a sideways look at marriage. Most musicals follow the plot of boy meets girl, there is an obstacle in their path, they overcome that obstacle, boy and girl lives happily-ever-after. Not so with Company, it takes a look at marriage and relationships and finds them wanting.

The plot here isn’t a simple journey from A to B, the plot or lack of it revolves around one man and his friends and relationships. Bobby, the central character, is a man living in New Year and on the eve of his thirty-fifth birthday. He’s single and has a reluctance, even fear, about being in a relationship; he can’t commit to a relationship and is running three girlfriends at once. The musical takes the form of different scenes of Bobby with his friends or girlfriends, with the songs acting as commentary on the action or forming part of scene.

The different married couples all have different problems in their relationships. There’s the overly competitive couple, who even complete when they give things up. There’s the couple with the repressed and mousy wife and dominating husband, but theirs makes for a sort of wedded bless, not wife abuse. There’s the couple who are happier together once they are divorced, though they don’t separate. There’s a woman marrying the man she’s lived with for years, on the morning of her wedding day decides she doesn’t want to get married (this scene was both painfully funny and very touching). Then there’s Joanna (the character who gets two of the best songs in the show), a very bitter and angry woman whose has driven away two husbands but her third husband is deeply in love with her and won’t leave her. Threaded all of this is Bobby and the mess he’s making of his life.

Bobby is a character not often seen today, an adult male, who doesn’t act like an overgrown teenager, afraid of marriage and commitment. We’ve see many female characters like this and male characters who are no more than overgrown teenage boys, but rarely are they adult men like Bobby. The musical never examines why he’s like this (there’s no song about his awful childhood, etc...) but it looks at the effect it has on his life. He doesn’t want to be alone but he doesn’t know what or who he does want.

Also, for a musical, there is a large number of female characters here, the wives being more interesting than their husbands, but this is more about its characters than it is about the musical’s plot. Each character having their moment of revelation in their scene with Bobby – Joanne’s bitterness falls into place with her scene with Bobby, late in the second act.

The Southwark Playhouse’s production certainly puts the spotlight on the character’s. The bare stage, with its three level platform upstage, doesn’t just give the characters space to breathe but to shine. It is very much about the people on stage and not the scenery around them.

For a musical, especially one on at a fringe theatre, there wasn’t a bum note sang here. All the cast had fine and on key singing voices. Their acting too hit all the right notes, though some of husbands certainly having the weaker roles. Rupert Young, as Bobby, was both handsome and charming, he brought a sort-of boyish charm to his role, giving his female friends mothering of him a sexual edge. Of the supporting actors, Siobhan McCarthy (as Joanne) and Michelle Bishop (as Bobby’s very New York girlfriend Marta) stood out. It was a surprise and pleasure to see Mark Curry (The one time Blue Peter presenter) here in the role of Larry, Joanne’s long suffering husband.

I first saw this musical over fifteen years ago, when I was single and not being successful at relationships, and found it very disturbing. In Bobby I saw a character that I didn’t want to turn into and feared that I might. Now, I’m older and have been with my partner over ten years, I didn’t find Company that uncomfortable. Now, I was able to sit back and enjoy the portrayal of the characters here, the crazy and unhappy people, I was also able to watch Bobby twist himself into knots over relationships.

Company was first performed in 1970, it’s over forty years ago and yet it hasn’t aged a day. This production is set in the present day and feels completely appropriate. It certainly doesn’t feel like a period piece or a story very much of its time. How many other musicals from the early 70s are still relevant today?

Drew

Trinity Buoy Wharf, by The Thames

2011-02-18T16:20:00.000-08:00

Today, on the last day of our annual leave, we went to visit Trinity Buoy Wharf, another one of those hidden treasures scattered around London. Originally, it was the only Lighthouse on the Thames (Though it was used to test different types of lighting, not as a navigation aid) and the wharf used to harbour and maintain the lightships that served the Thames. Now, since the lighthouse and wharf closed, it is a "a centre for the arts and cultural activities"; which translates into an area filled with artists’ studios and workshops, and small media businesses.

Many times I’ve glimpsed Trinity Buoy Wharf as I’ve travelled to Woolwich on a DLR train, but until today I’ve never visited it. When we arrived there we were very pleasantly surprised at what we found. The place does have the feel of an artists’ community, there are pieces of sculpture all around the place, and everywhere you turned there seemed to be a different workshop or small business.

The buildings there also seemed to be wide mixture, but a mixture that actually sat well together. There are Victorian dockside buildings, including a squat lighthouse, sitting next to “Container City” offices and studios (buildings made from re-cycled shipping containers), with a 1950’s American style chrome and glass dinner sat in the middle of it all. Yet none of these buildings seemed out of place, they sat well next to each other, though the overall feel of an Artists’ Community certainly helped this.

Trinity Buoy Wharf is one of those places that making living in London so enjoyable, for me. Those strange, unusual or just unknown places tucked away in a corner of the city that you almost stumble upon, or hear about via word-of-mouth. There are so many of these places here, not widely known, like Trinity Buoy Wharf, and so I’m glad about that.

More details on Trinity Buoy Wharf can be found at: http://www.trinitybuoywharf.com/

Drew

P.S. The pictures in blog entry were taken today by Martin.

"My Trip Down The Pink Carpet"

2011-02-15T09:50:00.000-08:00

“I was sweating like a paedophile in a Barnie costume”

Leslie Jordan

Three days ago we went to see Leslie Jordan’s one-man-show “My Trip Down The Pink Carpet”, which is adapted from his biography of the same name. Leslie Jordan is famous from his roles of Beverley Leslie, on Will & Grace, Brother Boy in Sordid Lives, and numerous other supporting roles in TV programs like Ugly Betty and Boston Legal. But this wasn’t a show business story, where he spent the whole evening bragging about which stars he’d worked with the kind of performer who only values their worth through the stars they’ve worked with.

Leslie Jordan is short, effeminate and gay, all qualities that didn’t single him out as Leading Man material. His show, as does his autobiography, chronicles his experiences as a gay actor in Hollywood trying to find his big break, as his tries to deal with the shame and self-hatred about his sexuality, from his up-bringing as a Southern Baptist, and the drug and alcohol and male hustler addictions that came from all that self-hatred. Though he has a very natural gift for comedy (this man could make reading medical notes sound funny, and that’s a gift) so much of this show was heart-breaking in his honesty.

His breakout role on Will & Grace wasn’t even written for him (it was written for Joan Collins, but he tells that story better then I can) and he nearly missed the audition because he took a phone call from his mother, which was a strange tail about a woman in her church who got shot (!!).

His show did contain other bizarre and funny stories like this (The one about his first experience of phone sex had me nearly crying with laughter), but they often contained a darker edge – the story of his first experience on a Hollywood TV show soon turned into a nasty experience of homophobia because wasn’t “butch enough”. These stories, so neatly woven together by Leslie Jordan’s so natural stage presentence, told of the flip-side of Hollywood, those who work hard just for a career (Not fame).

But the overall theme of this show is survival, not just in Hollywood, but also from the homophobia that he was almost smothered with growing-up. Leslie Jordan lived through many years of drink and drugs addiction, which he’s not shy about, and then lived through an even harder recovery from that. His description of his own rehab and recovery was both painfully honest and painfully funny, this man can really tell a story. Of all he has achieved he is proudest of his sobriety, another telling moment.

This one-man-show is far more than just the tale of gay man in Hollywood, Leslie Jordan’s story is much more about the homophobia in American society and its effect upon him. He has a natural feel for comedy, which saved this show from being sentimental and melodramatic, but more than that he’s a natural storyteller. This is one of those shows that is more than worth the price of its tickets.

I’ve now started to read the book this show is based on.

Drew

P.S. The second picture on this blog Martin took of Leslie Jordan, at the book signing after the production we saw.

Small Victories

2011-02-09T13:33:00.000-08:00

So often human rights are won a small piece at a time, not with a loud and big victory beloved by Hollywood films. One of those small victories was won, here in England, last month.

In September 2008, Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy (a gay couple and civil partners) booked into a Guest House just outside Penzance. When they arrived the Guest House’s owners, Peter and Hazelmary Bull, refused to let them share a double bed because it went against the Bull’s Christian beliefs. The Bull’s said they didn’t allow unmarried couples to share a room but they plainly refused Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy a double room, even though they were civil partners (which for all intents and purposes gives them the same legal rights and protections as a married heterosexual couple), because they were a gay couple.

Last month, Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy won their case of discrimination against the Bulls, and rightly so. They used the Equality Bill to bring their court action for discrimination and the judge agreed with them. (http://tinyurl.com/4zxggoz)

The Equality Bill has come in for a lot of attacks almost since it came into law but to me it is one of those very just laws. Read simply, it says that anyone who provides a service for the public can’t refuse someone goods or service because of the person’s sexuality or their perceived sexuality. This includes refusing a gay couple a double room where you’d offer one to a heterosexual couple. For me, this law has taken away that shadow which would hover on my shoulder. The fear that if someone realised I am gay they would refuse to serve me, help me and even treat me. The fear that I would be turned away from the hotel or restaurant, the taxi would refuse my fair, the shop assistant wouldn’t serve me, the doctor or nurse or dentist or podiatrist would refuse to treat me, all because I’m gay.

The Equality Bill gives me protection against that fear and I am so grateful for that, unfortunately not everyone feels the same.

Evangelical Christians didn’t like The Equality Bill even before it came into law, when it was before Parliament they were trying to get an exemption from it. Now, it seems, the right wing pundits have also turned their bile onto the Equality Bill. Following this, Melanie Phillips (A nasty bigot at the best of time) has called gays the “new McCarthyites” in a Daily Mail article (http://tinyurl.com/66g76dq) and further accused gay activists of trying to “brainwash” children (http://tinyurl.com/6ho4lv9). When challenged, she said she’d defend gays from “true prejudice” – I wonder if she even knows the meaning of the word. Then we have a Daily Mail cartoon portraying a couple as skinhead thugs with Nazi tattoos (http://tinyurl.com/659h3bl). Now, we have the former Tory Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay of Clashfern saying Christians should be able to act on their “consciences” and ignore The Equality Bill (http://tinyurl.com/66wqflu) – that would quickly strip us of all the protection the bill gives us.

The greatest irony is that The Equality Bill extends to sexual orientation the protection already, in law, for religion and belief. Christians are fighting to deny Lesbians and Gay Men the protections they already enjoy in law, it sounds all too familiar to my very jaundiced ear.

Drew

It’s That Time of the Year, Again

2011-02-06T13:49:00.000-08:00

This week saw the publication of the Nursing Standards’ Lesbian and Gay History month special. I started this blog, four years ago now, with an entry about my first Guest Editorship of the Nursing Standard, for their first Lesbian and Gay History month special.

It had come about as a reply to a very homophobic letter they’d received from a Christian Nurse. There was an outcry against this letter, especially from the RCN’s Out Group, who I was involved with. The upshot of this was that they ran their first Lesbian and Gay special and by a series of lucky connections, and being in the right place at the right time, I was the guest editor. It’s still one of the proudest things I’ve done, as far.

This year, my contribution was only a review but I’m still very glad they’re running the special. We’re seeing an increasing backlash against Lesbian and Gay equal rights, especially from many Christians. It almost feels as if anyone who stands up against homophobia is being called a “fascist” – the irony is unbelievable.

Healthcare, in this country, is still not the safe and prejudiced-free place it should be. There is still a lot of underhand and overt homophobia, especially among Healthcare Professionals – I know because I’ve lost count of the times I’ve witnessed it, first and second hand. This Nursing Standard special is one good step against this.

Drew.

The Month of January

2011-01-12T15:19:00.000-08:00

This isn’t my favourite time of the year, the dull and dead time that is January. No plants are growing, the landscape is brown and lifeless, the winter is cold and dull, and everything feels on holding, waiting for the year to start. Work is lifeless, no one is making plans or decisions. I always feel I’m just treading water, waiting for something to happen, in January.

Also, few publishers seem interested in submissions to them in January. Fortunately, this year, my writing career hasn’t got off to a slow start. I’ve got three different commissions for articles, all of which are due the end of this month and the beginning of the next. So I’m busy writing them.

I’ve also submitted an essay for an anthology. The book’s theme is about defining moments, that moment in our lives when an event or an encounter leaves a lasting impression or even changes our lives.

My entry can be viewed at: http://www.smithmag.net/moment/story.php?did=178421

Please visit it and leave a comment, I’m sure that the pieces that get the most attention stand the best chance of being included in the anthology.

January is supposed to be the month were we look forward and back, I’ve being doing that. The three articles I’m writing are all advice articles, looking forward to improve someone’s life or situation. The essay I’ve submitted is looking back on something that happened to me as a teenager.

But I’m still looking forward to spring, at least our garden will have some life in it.

Drew.

A Conversation Overheard…

2010-12-30T14:42:00.000-08:00

It’s that great device used in so much fiction, the overheard conversation. It usually takes place in a public place, often on a train, were one character listens in to the conversation of two others, this conversation gives away details or facts that set the plot in motion.

The other literary story is that a writer overhears a conversation, usually in a public place, and that sets their mind off on a tangent to create an idea for a piece of writing. In the Agatha Christie novel Third Girl, Mrs Ariadne Oliver (A crime writer, who many believe was based on Christie herself) tells a story of overhearing another woman on the bus. This sets her imagination off and she creates a whole character and plot around this woman.

Today, Martin and I went shopping in the West End of London. On the tube there and back, and as we wondered around the shops, I overheard many conversations but none of them had fascinating tips of information or set my mind off on any creative tangents. There were parents with their pretentious children, lost tourists, complaining shoppers, elderly women more interested in the company of their friends than anything else, teenage boys showing off to their mates like strutting peacocks and a young woman who could have moved to Greece if she didn’t have so much “stuff”.

Today was not one of those days when my imagination runs wild, not a typical day then, but I have enough writing ideas and projects on the go already so I am not too worried.

Drew.

Another Thought for Today

2010-12-24T04:27:00.000-08:00

Today saw the first time a Pope gave a broadcast on BBC Radio. Pope Benedict's Christmas message for the UK was broadcast as the Thought For The Day on Radio 4's Today program, the God-slot on an otherwise very secular news and current affairs program.

After listening to his broadcast, all I can say was that it was very dull.

It was the kind of Christmas homily I heard as I child at church, over thirty years ago. It was dull, uninteresting and uninspiring. Rather than making me angry, as so many of his pronouncements before have done, it almost made me fall asleep, it was so flat and lifeless. There was no reference to the world today, the only modern reference was to his visit here in September, it was exactly like the Christmas addresses I heard thirty years ago.

I am now convinced that Pop Benedict is completely out of touch with the real world. If this is the best he can do, with such a prominent platform, then he’s of no relevance to us.

The most important question is why did the BBC give the Pope such an unopposed opportunity to preach at us (even if he failed at it)? Yet again, the BBC gives the Catholic Church biased coverage. There was no one on the Today program challenging the Pope’s right to be there.

The majority of the time the BBC covers Lesbian and Gay rights they seemed to find some awful religious bigot to pour out homophobia. Would the BBC ever let Peter Thatchell deliver a Thought For The Day?

Drew

In The Bleak Mid-Winter...

2010-12-22T14:47:00.000-08:00

Snow is here and the country is blanked in white cold. Being British, the country has almost ground to a halt, and parcels aren’t arriving anytime time too.

For me, though, the snow creates a whole different world. It muffles the general sounds of a city, blanketed in snow my home is made strangely quiet. Gone are the normal sounds of the city. It changed the quality of the light and darkness. During the day the sunlight was so much brighter, but it’s once the sun has set that the snow deeply changes the atmosphere.

At dusk the red sunlight is bounced off the snow creating a red/orange glow to everything, as if the whole area is bathed in failing red light, from a dying light source. At night, after the sun has rapidly set, the snow glows blue in the moonlight, giving the view a deeply strange and epithelial feel. At night, I look out at the views, from our house, and almost expect to witness some other-world creature. A hunched over, pale and thin daemon creature tip-toeing across the landscape or jumping from one blue/black shadow to another; or else a translucent ghost drifting across our blue light garden, leaving not a mark on the cold snow.

Yes, my mind is strange. Most people see snow and think, “What a lovely, Christmas Card landscape.” I see the snow, especially at night, and think “This has such a potential for a supernatural theme.”

Drew.

P.S. The picture, at the top of this blog, is of our back garden at dusk, taken by my partner Martin. To see more of his pictures go to: http://martins-day.blogspot.com/

Merry Christmas

2010-12-19T09:23:00.000-08:00

This is our own Christmas E Card. All the pictures in it were taken by Martin, mostly of our local area but with a few of the park by his office. Some were taken this weekend, of our garden in the snow, but the majority of them are from the snow fall in January.

The music accompanying it is Tori Amos' Snow Angel, another of her beautifully lyrical songs.

Turn your computer's sound on, take a minute to enjoy this animation and a Happy Christmas from Martin and I.

Drew.

Yesterday I Was Nervous

2010-11-05T17:33:00.000-07:00

Last month I entered a writing competition, run by The Guardian newspaper, looking for new writers from different minorities. They wanted a short opinion piece and three different articles pitches. I sent off my entry and then tried to forget about it.

Recently, I’ve been sending off a lot of my writing to different publishers and magazines and, most of the time, it has been that form rejection letter; so I have been trying not to get my hopes up because that way disappointment is.

Imagine my surprise and then excitement when, just over two weeks ago, I received an email from The Guardian telling me I was one of the winners of their competition, and was invited to their new writers’ workshop. I was shocked and excited together, part of the workshop involved pitching my article ideas to the different section editors at The Guardian.

Yesterday was the workshop. I got myself ready, got my different pitches and took myself off to The Guardian’s offices, which are now at Kings Cross. Of course, I was so nervous that I left my phone at home and managed to be half an hour early...

It was an amazing experience and I learnt so much from it. All the editors gave us feedback on our pitches. I made copious notes on my pitches; but I also listened closely to other people’s pitches, not to seal their ideas but to learn exactly what The Guardian was looking for in articles, and I did learn that.

Two of my pitches received very positive feedback, along the lines that if I was to send in my pitches they would be very seriously considered. This was the best part of the day, two of my ideas had struck the right note.

At the end of it I discovered that over three hundred people had entered the competition and I had been one of twenty who’d been invited to the workshop. This gave me the simplest and yet greatest boost.

So often I wonder if I’m being realist about writing, or am I just chasing a fantasy, especially when it feels like a constant round of rejections. Then days like yesterday come along and I realise I can do this.

So, watch this space...

Drew

A knock at the Door

2010-11-05T15:57:00.000-07:00

I consider myself a sophisticated and metropolitan person, not the type who’s taken in by an easy con-artist. I don’t reply to emails pretending to be a bank and wanting my bank details. But the other week I was nearly caught by a simple con-artist.

In the early afternoon, there was a loud knock on our front door. When I answered it I found two men, dressed as workmen, on the doorstep. They claimed to be from Dyno-Rod and wanted accessed into our garden. They claimed they were working on the drains on the house behind our and they needed access to our drains. When I said there was no manhole in our garden one of them became aggressive, snapping at me that I was lying (!!). Eventually, they seemed to believe me and left.

Five minutes later I received a phone call from a man claiming to be a director of Dyno-Rod. He gave me a long and, with hindsight, well prepared explanation about our drains. He said they had put a camera down our drains and found they were damaged. They needed to put a special machine down our drains to seal any cracks (even though I’d never contacted them or noticed anything wrong with our drains). Then came the sting, they wanted a £5,000 deposit for their machine to repair our drains, a repair I never asked for.

When I said didn’t have that amount of money he became very aggressive, almost shouting at me that I was lying (this should have set off warning bells in my mind but I was too shocked at his demand for the £5,000 to think straight). He kept demanding the money and pushing at me, wanting to know if I had a bank account. Eventually I got him off the line by saying I needed to speak to a friend to borrower the money (not true but he wasn’t being truthful).

Straight away I ran Dyno-Rod’s head office (getting their number off the internet) to find out if that phone call was illegitimate, which of course it wasn’t. They don’t charge deposits for machinery, they only charge the person who calls them in, not a third party, and they didn’t have anyone working in this area. It was a scam.

The woman at Trading Standards, I rang for further advise, said very much the same. She was very concerned that I might have handed over money to those men, fortunately I hadn’t.

When the scammer did ring me back, after the £5,000, I challenged him with everything I’d found out and said I wasn’t giving him a penny. He replied that he’d get the “company accountant” onto me. That was the last I heard from them.

Later, I reported it to the police and they said it was an attempt to con money out of me and they logged it as a crime. Also later, the real director of Dyno-Rod contacted me. He was very angry at what had happened, because those men were damaging the good reputation of his company.

It was after it had all happened that it occurred to me how nearly I was taken in. It was only when the man demanded a £5,000 deposit from me that I got a kick of reality, and that was because I couldn’t afford that type of money.

I didn’t think I would ever be taken in by scams but this caught me so unaware. They called out of the blue and claimed there was something wrong with our drains, I was too shocked to think at first.

It’s a sobering thought.

Drew.

Bye, Bye, The Pope Has Gone Home

2010-09-20T08:42:00.000-07:00

The Pope went home yesterday and I, for one, am glad that he has gone. His visit was themed “Heart Speaks Onto Heart”; though I found it more as an old man, who is frighteningly out of touch with the real world, preaching at us in a patronising tone.

Events before his visit showed little sign that we were going to see a “listening” Pope. Only days before his visit, the Pope said gay marriage laws “contribute to the weakening of the principles of natural law” (sic) (http://tinyurl.com/23tph3f). The day before his visit, one of his closest aides, Cardinal Walter Kasper, called Britain a “Third World State” (sic) (http://tinyurl.com/28yuapz).

While he was on our soil, The Pope again attacked Britain’s "aggressive secularism". Yet, this "aggressive secularism" has done far more good then the Catholic Church’s traditional prejudices. It has been "aggressive secularism" that has enshrined many legal protections for minorities in Britain, including protection from discrimination on grounds of religious belief; whereas Christians, at the same time, have been demanding the right to discriminate against whoever they choose. I know which side has given more to our society.

The Pope has expressed his “sorrow” over the abuse of children within the Catholic Church (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11354357), but that’s all. He has not apologised for the systematic cover-up of this abuse (of which he was part when he was a Cardinal), nor has the Catholic Church taken responsibility for this cover-up which lead to many more children being abused. Add to this that the Vatican holds secret records on their paedophile priests and refuses to release them to the authorities. Also, The Pope said the victims of this abuse should be given emotional and spiritual help, though he offered no resources from the church to do this. The Catholic Church is obscenely rich, they could easily spare the resources to do this but again they remain silent.

This visit was supposed to encourage us all to turn back to “traditional” Catholic believes, but a YouGov poll has found that British Catholics don’t even believe the Pope teachings. Only 11 per cent believed gay sex was morally wrong, while 41 per cent said that both straight and gay relationships should be celebrated, the poll found. Seventy-one per cent thought contraception should be used more to prevent pregnancy and STDs (http://tinyurl.com/38f9mc9). So what was the Pope hoping to achieve, or does he ever stop and ask real people what they think? I very much doubt it.

Well, The Pope is gone and we (The British public) are left to pay for this four day circus. This Papal visit did little to help us here in Britain, he certainly offered no help with all the problems facing us as a nation, yet the country will have to pay over twenty million pounds for having him on our soil for four days (!!). Next time he can pay in full if he wants to visit Britain, or else stay at home...

Drew.

Rain and Bad Religion

2010-09-18T14:46:00.000-07:00

It is no secret that I am not a fan of the Catholic Church, their treatment of human rights turns my stomach. I have blogged many times about the ways they treat people. Like many things I feel strongly about, my feelings have overflowed into my writing.

Penance on a Wet Thursday Morning is a short story of mine that deals with a woman’s grief over the cot death of her infant child, but her Catholic faith offers her no comfort. It is another one of my dark and downbeat stories, but telling a tale I feel very strongly about.

Hard-line religion screws up so many different people. As a gay man, I’ve seen the damage done to people by religion just because of their sexuality. But religion screws up people in many different ways. The Catholic Church’s treatment of women’s reproductive health is one of their great shames, their opposition to contraception and condom usage is both crazy and oppressive. The damage and poverty caused by this stance is one of the Catholic Church’s many sins against humanity.

Penance on a Wet Thursday Morning has been published as a featured story on the Author-Exchange website, it can be found here: http://www.author-exchange.com/blog/archives/360. If you read it please leave a comment here or on the Author-Exchange website. I always value any feedback.

Drew.

The Manchester of the North

2010-09-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

Last week we went on holiday to Manchester (The exchange rate being a victim of the Credit Crunch we decided not to go abroad this year). It’s a city we’ve visited before, it’s also a city that I grow up near to. Over the years, though, it’s a city that has meant different things to me.

As a child Manchester was a student town to me, because my brother went to university there. All I knew of the city was the route along the Mancunian Way (The elevated road that runs along the south of the city) to the university and the block of flats that was the student accommodation. The rest of the city was a mystery, we only went there is see my brother. Those visits were special to me because, as a six and seven year old, riding the Mancunian Way was so different, nowhere we went to had roads that were elevated, it was like the freeways I saw on American TV shows.

After my brother left university we rarely went back to Manchester, my mother didn’t like the shops there and that was the main reason to visit any place for my parents. My mother had a belief that the quality of something automatically went up if it was bought in an open air market. The few times, as a child, I did go to Manchester all I remember is the tall and dirty concrete buildings there.

Coming out as a teenager in Liverpool, the 1980’s, Manchester seemed like a gay paradise. It had a wide selection of gay bars and clubs, it had its own lesbian and gay centre, and there were even lesbian and gay shops. It made Liverpool’s tiny amount of gay resources seem even more pitiful. The only problem was that I had no transport, replying on public transport and trying to enjoy gay night life wasn’t always easy, the rush back to the station for the last train.

When I left home and moved to London I almost forgot about Manchester, London offered all I wanted. Then, in 1999, Channel 4 aired Queer as Folk, set around Manchester’s gay village on Canal Street. This opened my eyes to a lot of the changes Manchester has undergone over the years, and it reminded me what Manchester had once been to me. That was the year we had our first holiday in Manchester.

For us, it is the perfect place for a holiday. There’s culture, there’s shopping, there’s so many places to eat we were swamped for choice, easy public transport links, and more on top.

Over the years this city has changed so much for me, or is that I’ve changed? I think it’s something of both. Places do change but what we want from a place changes too.

Drew

P.S. The pictures illustrating this blog were taken by my partner Martin, while we were in Manchester. More of them can be found at his blog, http://martins-day.blogspot.com/

I Am Not Alone

2010-09-05T14:22:00.000-07:00

It’s no secret that I don’t want The Pope visiting Britain, later this month, but I especially don’t want taxpayers having to pay for it. The costs for it are estimated to be £12 million pounds and could be much more. Surprise, I’m not alone in feeling this.

A poll, published by the think tank Theos, found that 77% of Britons think taxpayers should not help pay for Pope Benedict’s visit. They also found 79% had "no personal interest" in his visit (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11180862). Add to this that there are people calling for The Pope to be arrested for his part in the cover-up of the child abuse by Catholic Priests and this could be the most unpopular visit by any religious leader.

What is the Catholic Church doing about this? What are they doing to relieve people’s genuine concerns? Answer, nothing.

Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, has said it is “right” that UK taxpayers should pay for the Pope's visit (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11191386). This is after one of his aides called Britain a "selfish, hedonistic wasteland". The Archbishop distanced himself from the remarks but I’m sure we won’t be hearing that the aide has resigned or been sacked, any time soon.

Why isn’t the Catholic Church trying to engage with people who don’t want The Pope here? Instead they are telling us off and saying they have a “right” for us to fund The Pope’s visit. They are so distant, talking down to us as if they are still feudal lords telling us want to think.

I am sure when The Pope is here he will lecture us, at least once, about how “Godless” and “heathen” we are. I am certain he will make negative and even homophobic references to British gay rights legalisation (especially The Equality Bill and Civil Partnerships); this is the man who said that homosexuality is a worse threat then Global Warming (Sic...). I don’t want my taxes going towards paying for this charmless hypocrite to do so.

I don’t want The Pope visiting Britain until he has proven he is worthy to be visiting us, and I don’t want to have to pay for it. But the Catholic Church isn’t listening to me, they don’t seem to be listening to anyone but themselves...

Drew

Into The Woods (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre)

2010-09-05T11:30:00.000-07:00

Fairy Tales aren’t easy.

Stephen Sondheim’s fairy tale musical, Into The Woods, has a simple premise. A childless baker and his wife must lift a curse that has left them barren. To do so they have to go into the mysteries woods and bring back, for the witch who cursed them, a cap as red as blood, a cow as white as milk, a slipper as pure as silver and hair as yellow as corn (Little red Riding Hood’s cap, Jack of Jack and The Bean Stick’s cow, Cinderella’s slipper and Rapunzel’s hair). So the baker and his wife go into the woods and mix up everyone’s stories.

By the end of the first act all their stories are neatly tidied up, they all have what they want (Cinderella and Rapunzel have their princes, Red Riding Hood has her wolf skin coat, Jack is rich, and the baker and his wife have their child) and they all live happily ever after. The second act deals with the consequences of the characters’ action. To get what they want each character has to do something dishonest or corrupt (not doing what they’re told, pretending to be something they’re not, deliberately lied or stole) and now their actions have come back to them. There’s a giant loose in the kingdom intent on revenge and characters are rapidly being killed, not all by the giant. Eventually, the survivors band together to defeat the giant, but even then things aren’t returned to normal. The survivors return to a shattered world.

The themes of this musical very much reflect the time it was written in, the 1980’s, a critique of the yuppie greed principal, the end justifies the means (Only recently, we saw this with the banking boom that lead to the credit crunch). Here that greed has its consequences. Many people have expressed their disappointment with the second act, they liked the interwoven plots and tidy ending of the first act; they don’t like the chaos and death (many of the musicals popular characters being killed off) plus the downbeat ending. To me, though, the musical would be incomplete without this ending. The first act has set-up the different acts of dishonesty practiced by the characters, the second act shows the very messy consequences of these acts – for every boom there always comes a bust. In the world of fairy tales, and drama as a whole, actions always lead to consequences, to leave this out would led to an ultimately unsatisfying story.

Into The Woods contains examples of some of Sondheim’s best song writing. Here are songs that full of irony (“Agony” and it’s reprise), songs that mine deep emotions (“Our Little World”) and even songs with tunes that refuse to leave your head (The title “Into The Woods”), yet all of them come very much out of the characters. These songs, if performed out of the context of the musical’s plot, loose so much. The song “Hello Little Girl”, song by the wolf as he stalks Little Red Riding Hood, has more menace, sexuality and plot then the whole of damn Twilight series (!!).

This year is Stephen Sondheim’s eightieth birthday and this production is a fine present for him. Both musically and technically this production lives up to the promise of the material. The acting, though larger-than-life as the writing demands, was the perfect pitch, mixing broad comedy with pathos that gripes at the emotions; also there wasn’t bum note song here (so often actors are shoe-horned into a musical for their fame or looks, then their singing voices are poor at best). Out of a company of strong performances those of Hannah Waddingham (as The Witch) and Jenna Russell (as The Baker’s Wife) stand out. Hannah Waddingham plays The Witch as two different characters, a waddling gargoyle before her transformation, and as a strutting vamp who speaks the unacceptable home-truths as the post transformation character. Jenna Russell makes The Baker’s Wife the emotional heart of the piece. In the first act she’s the one pushing her husband forward to get what they want, to make their moral compromises, to lift their curse. In the second act, she’s the first to realise the threat the giant poses.

The costumes have a very stylised 1950’s feel, tailored tweed jackets and pinched waist dresses, which gives the impression of a children’s story illustration from the time – ideal for the style of this musical. The set is simple, if not basic, consisting of different platforms and walkways; but it was the setting of the theatre that made the perfect setting for this musical. The Open Air Theatre is housed in Regent’s Park and surrounded by tall trees, these trees form the perfect back-drop to Into The Woods. The set merges with these trees, Rapunzel’s tower actually being placed in one of them.

As a child I always found the endings of fairy stories strange, the idea of “they all lived happily ever after”. I wanted to know anyone could manage that. I once got into trouble, in Junior School, for asking this. When I first Into The Woods, back in 1990, I found it met that childhood need in me... Since then, it has remained of my favourite musicals.

Drew.

“The devil made me do it.”

2010-09-02T07:54:00.000-07:00

My feelings for the Christian Church aren’t a secret or positive thing (Just check out some of my previous blog entries), so it won’t come as a surprise that I’ve had a short story published about the uneasy relationship between sexuality and Christianity.

The Devil To Blame (http://tinyurl.com/2bs5awu) is about a young gay man who’s caught, mid-love-making, with his boyfriend by the pastor of his church. That said don’t expect the usual “Nasty Christian” and “Poor, Helpless Gay Man” story. This is one of my short stories with my usual jaundiced view of life.

It is published on the Gay Flash Fiction website (http://www.gayflashfiction.com/), one of the several stories of mine to appear there, and I’m so happy about that. They “get” my writing and I’ve only had positive experiences working with their editors. So many other publications want you to have jumped through many hoops before they’ll even look at your work, that it’s such a pleasure working with a publication that actually wants to get the best out of your writing.

Do let me know what you feel about this story, I value any feedback.

Drew

It Was Twenty (Plus) Years Ago Today.

2010-09-01T03:51:00.000-07:00

It’s no secret that I don’t have a very high opinion of Christianity, I’ve seen so many sins and evils committed in the name of Christianity, so much prejudice excused as Christian belief; yet there are still many good people who are Christians, unfortunately their voices are often drowned out by the bigotry. On Monday, some of those good people made their voices heard.

Peter Tatchell, veteran gay rights campaigner, spoke at the Greenbelt Christian festival, held each year at Cheltenham Racecourse. He spoke about "queer freedom in Africa”, especially the homophobia of some church leaders there. At the end of his talk he received a standing ovation (http://tinyurl.com/333h9jx).

In my early twenties, over twenty years ago (!!), I went to the Greenbelt Festival, but I found it a very different place. Any mention of homosexuality, and most times there wasn’t any, was the “traditional” negative line. I attended one seminar called “Sad To Be Gay” (sic), which draw the conclusion that any expression of a gay sexuality was a sin.

Things have certainly changed since I was last at Greenbelt, there are Christians out there who aren’t toeing the “party-line” of the Church’s homophobia. Unfortunately, the homophobic ones are still shrilly vocal. Lisa Nolland, on the Anglican Mainstream website, back in April, called for Christians to boycott Greenbelt just because Peter Tatchell would be speaking there (http://tinyurl.com/39sco9y). She said it wouldn’t be a safe place for children, again linking homosexuality and pedophilia – that old and nasty lie.

Some Christians are moving away from the Church’s homophobia, and that should be applauded, but there’s still a very long way to go…

Drew.

The Sins of the Catholic Church, No 4,782

2010-08-24T14:33:00.000-07:00

In July 1972 an IRA bomb went off in Claudy, County Londonderry, killing nine people, three of them children. Today a report was published that the IRA leader responsible for this bombing was Fr James Chesney, a Catholic Priest, but he was never prosecuted (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11061296). After a secret meeting between then Northern Ireland Secretary William Whitelaw and the leader of Ireland's Catholics, Cardinal Conway, the Catholic Church and the British Government struck a deal whereby Fr Chesney was moved to a parish in the Republic of Ireland, were the North Ireland police couldn’t reach him. Fr Chesney died in 1980.

Yet again the Catholic Church has covered up the crimes of one of their priests, this time in collusion with the British Government. They have done this countless of times before, especially in the cases of child abusive, showing little or no regard for justice. This time the priest was a murderer and they still moved him out of reach of the police. How can the Catholic Church claim to be a Christian organisation when they act so immorally?

The head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, said the church was not involved in a cover-up over Fr Chesney. How can we believe this when they were the ones who moved Fr Chesney to the Republic of Ireland where he was out of the reach of the police and didn’t once hand him over to the police for questioning. The argument has been made that the police couldn’t have arrested a Catholic priest in Northern Ireland, in 1972, because it would have just fanned the flames of the sectarian violence; but the church could have excommunication Fr Chesney, the present Pope, in his previous role, excommunicated people for far less. The Catholic Church’s hands are red with this cover-up, just as much as William Whitelaw and the Tory government of 1972.

The Catholic Church isn’t just morally bankrupt but willingly corrupt. They have routinely covered up child abusive for decades upon decades, now we find out that they have also covered up a terrorist and murdering priest. What depths won’t they go to? Can anyone answer this?

Later this year the Pope will be visiting Britain and we’ll have to pay twenty million pounds plus for the privilege. I no longer want the Pope to pay ALL the expenses of his visit; I DON’T want him visiting here at all. If I had my way the whole organisation would be disbanded and their great wealth given to the poor and disadvantaged, given to all the people the Catholic Church has harmed or lied about.

I don’t know if there is anything the Catholic Church can begin to do to make amends for its sins, but they don’t seem at all interesting in doing so...

Drew

Look At All the People Looking All The Same

2010-08-18T02:53:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, Martin and I went to Three Mills Island, just up the road from us at Bromley-By-Bow. We went there so Martin could take some photographs (One of them illustrates this blog). It’s one of our interesting local places.

When we arrived there we found that it was already full of people and, without even hearing them speak, I knew they were from a coach party. Just by their appearance, they screamed that they were on a coach trip. They were “sensibility dressed”, laced up shoes, casual trousers and anoraks (the women as well); were sat together in couples and small groups; eating their packed lunches and drinking from thermos flasks.

As we wondered around, Martin taking his usual hundreds of photographs, I watched those people from the coach party (and they were a coach party because their coach turned up and in an orderly line they boarded it). They were so obviously alike, as if they had to look and behave this way to be accepted on the coach trip. Which made me think about how we want to belong to a group or crowd, and so often we do that by the way we look and dress. The first time I went to Lakeside Shopping Mall I was shocked by how alike almost everyone there looked. When we’re in any shopping mall I often watch the people around me and how alike those groups are, especially the teenagers. The groups of boys all wearing the same tops and trousers, with the same hair cut. The groups of girls with the same hairstyle and make-up, all of them in the same lengthen of skirt.

I know, as human beings, we want to belong, and often we do this through the way we look and act. When I was coming out and trying to build my own identity that was important to me, I wanted to belong with the gay men I saw in the clubs. It took me a few years to realise I didn’t belong with that group, the gay men out on the gay scene. The first thing I did when I realised this was to grow my hair out long. Strangely that did make me more attractive to other men, but gay men I meet away from the gay scene.

For me being my own person is the most important, and with that I’ve found acceptance in the most interesting and diverse groups.

So what made me have all these strange thoughts on a quiet Sunday afternoon trip out?

At the moment I’m finishing off a short story about identity. A man finds out that he’s actually a human clone, and that knowledge shatters his identity. He thought of himself as an individual, when in truth he is merely one of many copies of another.

With me, life doesn’t just influence my writing but my writing can bleed into my life... what fun...

Drew.

P.S. You can see more of Martin’s pictures from Three Mills Island at: http://martins-day.blogspot.com/2010/08/three-mills-island.html

“Do As I Write and Not As I Do”

2010-08-13T14:08:00.000-07:00

I am not a fan of self-help books. In my experience they are far more about the author’s prejudices and political views. They are often based just on the author’s experiences, plus maybe a few of their friends’ too, and are more about that person’s views then a book of practical information. Simply look at the shelves full of them at any bookshop; also take a look at their authors’ credentials, most of them have no more experience than the majority of the people in the bookshop.

Imagine my reaction when I was asked to review a self-help book by the Nursing Standard, but I have a policy to never turn down writing. I’ve a good relationship with them and I owe them a lot, so if they asked me to review a telephone book then I would.

Fortunately, the book (Living Confidently with HIV) is the exception and not the rule. It is a self-book written by healthcare professionals and is based on their professional experience. This book stands head-and-shoulders above the herd of the rest, so writing the review was fairly easy. The hardest reviews are those for the books that are poor or just plain bad, because those have to be written in a non-petty tone, even if I just want to through the book out of the window because it’s so bad.

The review was published in this week’s copy of Nursing Standard. If you want to read the review you can find it on my website (http://www.drew-payne.co.uk/index_files/Page1419.htm)

Drew.

All Things Remembered

2010-08-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

Recently I visited St Leonards’ Hospital, in Hackney, East London. I was there to run Infection Control Update sessions, but I had time to look around of the hospital – also called trying to find the restaurant to get some lunch. It was a wonderful old Victorian hospital, though completely impartial for modern healthcare, which is now used for old-patient care and houses a community trust’s administration.

In one of the hallways were two, very large plaques commemorating two of the hospital’s famous employees, Dr James Parkinson and Matron Edith Cavell. Both of them are famous for very specific things, yet the important things they should be remembered for have been almost forgotten.

James Parkinson gave his name to Parkinson’s disease. In 1817 he published the paper An essay on the shaking palsy, which described the first cases of Parkinson’s disease. Edith Cavell was a nurse in Brussels during the First World War, she helped British soldiers escape German occupied Belgian and back to Britain; the Germans caught her and executed her for treason. She became a cause-celeb and was turned into a “heroine” for British patriotism.

Yet, both of them introduced very important innovations and changes that have had a positive impact on modern healthcare, but that part of their lives has seemed to be completely forgotten about now.

James Parkinson was the first doctor to isolate infectious, or “fever”, patients on a separate ward at St Leonards’ Hospital. This was the forerunner of modern isolation procedures, it was the first time measures were taken to stop cross infection from infectious to non-infectious patients. This has saved the lives of millions of people over the years (regardless of the stories in our media).

Edith Cavell introduced and championed nurse education. Originally, Florence Nightingale was against educating nurses, she said that women’s natural “aptitudes” were all that was needed to be a nurse (sic). How wrong she was. Educated and professional nurses have saved millions of people’s lives over the years.

It’s strange what people are remembered for and what parts of their lives are forgotten about after their deaths. Sometimes history whitewashes people and other times all it focuses on are the scandals of someone’s life. Why did history ignore such important elements of James Parkinson and Edith Cavell’s lives?

This led me to wonder what I would be remembered for (Such happy and positive thoughts I have...). Would it be my writing? Would it be my friendships and my relationship with Martin? Would it be my professional career? Will I be remembered at all? I’ll never know and that’s a good thing. But it has got me thinking, how people are remembered and why.

Watch my writing; you may see more about this later.

Drew

That Once A Year Day

2010-07-07T14:53:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday was Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Pride March, that annual event went the queers take to the streets of Central London.

I’ve been going to the Pride March ever since I could (I moved to London two months after the 1987 March and so had to wait nearly a year to go one my first one). Back in 1988 it was a very different event. To start with it was a much smaller march (Saturday saw over a million people in London for Pride) but also it much more political tone, people chanting and a lot more banners with slogans on them. The route was lined with police, many of them looking decidedly nervous. But this was 1988 and it was a very different time, the Government was opening using homophobic rhetoric and the press was rabidly homophobic.

Saturday’s march was very different; it was much more celebratory then political, though it was far from apolitical. There were more police march at Pride then lining the route, there were also Soldiers, Sailors, Air Force Personal, Firemen, Paramedics and Healthcare Staff all on the march (many of them in uniform). There was also far more people dressed in costumes on Saturday. Back in 1988 the people who were dressed up were either drag queens or leather daddies, there weren’t any women in costumes. On Saturday there seemed to be just women dressed up in different and elaborate costumes as there were men.

Things have very much changed over the years, now the celebrities and politicians are lining up to take part in Pride rather than running away from it. Many people complain that Pride is the same as it was, often complaining that it isn’t political anymore. To me, things do change, they can’t stay the same, and the changes in Pride are a good thing. Britain isn’t the same country as it was back in 1988, we have won so many changes and rights and that’s something we should celebrate at Pride. Yes, we still have a way to go but we’re not living in cold climate of homophobia we once were.

Pride has always been something important in my life, something I couldn’t miss it each year, it was a place where I could be openly gay and be in the majority, where my sexuality wasn’t an issue, where I could be surrounded by other lesbians and Gay Men. But, for many years there was also a tinge of unhappiness for me at Pride. I was single and all around me were happy gay couples all holding hands together, it just a re-minded me of how much I wanted a lover. Now, and for over the last twelve years, I’ve shared Pride with Martin. I don’t want to be one of those people who ram their relationship down other people’s throats, but sharing Pride with Martin is should a wonderful thing.

Drew.

P.S. The pictures illustrating this blog entry are just some of the pictures Martin took at this year’s Pride. More of them can be seen on his blog, http://martins-day.blogspot.com/

Canary

2010-06-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

(The second play what we saw on our holiday)

'Women and gay people are the litmus test of whether a society is democratic and respecting human rights. We are the canaries in the mine.'

Peter Tatchell.

This quote, we’re told in the play’s notes, was part of the inspiration behind Jonathan Harvey’s latest play, Canary. The quote might seem a little naive but look closely at it and there’s a lot of true in it, it’s certainly a mark of a society in how it treats its minorities – any society can value the majority – and gay men, lesbians and woman have been politically and economically marginalised in British culture for centuries.

Previously, Jonathan Harvey’s plays have been very personal and domestic dramas, which focus on the lives of a small group of people over a certain period of time (His break through play Beautiful Things is a very good example of this). With Canary, Jonathan Harvey has moved onto much bigger subject matter, and he certainly rises to the occasion.

This is an epic play, its story spans from the police witch hunts of gay men in the early sixties, through aversion therapy of the mid-sixties, to the Gay Liberation front of the nineteen-seventies, through the AIDS crisis of the nineteen-eighties, and the moral backlash that went with it, right up to the present day, with an openly gay man presenting a primetime television program. The play, though, isn’t as neatly laid out as this description. The play jumps from different stories and different time periods, stories running at the same time, but it does all come together.

The play follows Tom, a policeman in the early sixties and a Chief Constable in the present day, and the relationships in his life. In present day Tom, his wife and daughter are besieged in their home by the press because someone has leaked a secret about him. In the nineteen-sixties young Tom and his lover Billy are caught by the police. Billy is sent to a mental hospital for aversion therapy to “cure” him. In the nineteen-seventies Mary Whitehouse plans her Festival of Light to reclaim the country from promiscuity. In the nineteen-eighties teenagers and best friends Russell and Mickey move to London but they get swept in the emerging AIDS crisis.

This isn’t an easy story to follow (As I saw after the performance by other people in the audience who obviously hadn’t followed the plot and were left confused), this isn’t a play just to sit back in and let it flow over yourself, you have to pay attention to the plot. The play goes from high comedy (the scene were the Gay Liberation Front disrupt the Festival of Light had me crying with laughter), to painful drama, through horror (the nightmare of aversion therapy) and tragedy (AIDS in the 1980’s), to magic realism (were Tom’s wife Ellie goes through her own journey into her past to make sense of her life). But ultimately this is a deeply rewarding play because here Jonathan Harvey explores the human stories and emotional cost of the events of our recent gay history. Unfortunately this history is being forgotten, our British society seems uninterested the experiences of lesbians and gay men, we may have acceptance but who’s interested in our journey here?

The acting here was universally good, the actors investing so much into their characters to make them come alive, even when the character was not likeable or only in one scene. Paula Wilcox and Sean Gallagher turn in their usual fine performances (I often wonder why these are two aren’t much bigger stars, they give such good performances) but the acting awards here must go to Philip Voss. His performance as older Tom was both cold and reserved but also warmly touching, his reconciliation with his former lover Billy after nearly forty years was almost heart breaking; but his impersonation of Mary Whitehouse made me week with laughter. He played her as a monster in a nylon dress with no understanding of how ridiculous she sounded.

This isn’t an easy, little drama but a bold and broad one, but it is well worth the effort of following its story. Jonathan Harvey here puts on stage stories that are rapidly being forgotten about in our society, stories that have shaped so much of what it means to be a gay man in 2010, stories we need to talk about. This play has been compared to Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, it is certainly in the same epic and political vein, and that’s no bad thing.

Please Jonathan Harvey, more plays like Canary.

Drew.

Holding the Man

2010-06-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

(We were on annual leave last week so we took advantage of that to go to the theatre, here’s the first play what we saw...)

Theatrical adaptations of books can be a very hit and miss thing, often more miss then hit. Holding the Man is adapted from the autobiography by Timothy Conigrave, it spanned the nineteen-seventies to the early nineteen-nineties and is a love letter to his partner John. This is story is so broad that it could easily have got lost on stage or else been a stilted and halting journey, with huge jumps between scenes. Instead, Tommy Murphy (the play’s adaptor) has chosen a highly theatrical style to tell this story and here it works.

The central characters of Tim and John are played by two actors while four other actors play the dozens of other supporting characters in this story. There are some lightening fast costume changes, sometimes an actor changes character by quickly changing wig onstage. This could be clichéd, just another fringe play produced with all the corners cut, but the style of those four actors overcomes this, they work hard to make each character separate, even the ones only seen in one scene.

In the mid-seventies, at an all-boys Catholic school in Melbourne, Australia, Tim meets John and fell head-over-heels in love with him; but John’s the captain of the football team. Then one evening they share a kiss, soon to fall into the heady nature of teenage relationships; but their relationship lasts, a strong cord always pulling them back to each other. They survive parental disapproval, university, trial separation, seeing others, and the explosion of gay life in the late seventies; but it is AIDS that finally pulls them apart. In the nineteen-eighties both Tim and John were diagnosed HIV positive, but it was to be John who died first from AIDS (Tim finished his memoir only weeks before he himself died).

This isn’t a fantasy of the ideal gay relationship, Tim and John’s relationship is all too real. They are both individuals, John wanting the quiet life with his lover and a home; while Tim explores self expression, first as an actor and then a writer, but also as a gay man. At university he discovered Gay Liberation, after that he took every opportunity to explore his sexuality, which leads him to cheat on Tim many times. On paper they would never have been lovers, but in real life their deep love for each other keeps drawing them back together and keeps them forgiving each other.

As Tim and John, respectively, Guy Edmonds and Matt Zeremes originated the roles in the original Australian production of Holding the Man, and their comfort and familiarity in the roles showed. They had a chemistry in their roles that made Tim and John’s deep love easily believable. Jane Turner (Of Kath and Kim fame) and Simon Burke provided outstanding support in more than a dozen roles each, ranging from both lovers’ parents through doctors to disco queens.

This play almost has the feel of a historical piece, of a history play; events have changed so much since the early nineties. Combined therapy has changed the scene of HIV/AIDS so much, AIDS no longer carries the mark of death it once did. This play is a reminder of the dark days of AIDS, the tragedy that tore apart and cut short so many lives.

The ending of the play could be seen as melodramatic and even sentimental, but it is appropriate for the story. John’s death was slow, painfully slow, and drawn out, the emotions of the characters being dulled by the sheer force of it all. This was how it was so often in life, not a simple and easy goodbye. At the end of the play we are given Tim left alone and broken, he has lost the love of his life and has nowhere to turn.

Recent history seems to get quickly forgotten. This play is a timely reminder of those dark days of the worst of the AIDS crisis, which we should never forget.

Holding the Man

Trafalgar Studios

http://www.holdingtheman.co.uk/index.php

Drew

I’m Back Online

2010-05-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

For several years I had my own website and then I lost it, because the company I paid to host it went bust but they didn’t tell me. I found out almost by accident, suddenly it was gone. There was nothing I could but start again.

Now, I have a new one, a slightly different domain name, but I have it back online. It can be found at: www.drew-payne.co.uk

My website was and still is a showcase of my writing. There can be found copies of my short stories, but there are also copies of my non-fiction writing (reviews, articles and memoir). I’ve also posted links there to a lot of my writing that has appeared on other websites.

As it says on the front page, why don’t you come and visit my website and waste sometime, life’s too short to rush by...

Drew

It’s All Just a Simple Choice...

2010-05-05T00:26:00.000-07:00

In 1981 Norman Tebbit (The former Conservative MP and then Employment Secretary) said that unemployed people should get on their bikes and go and find work. At the time my parents agreed with him, but my family hadn’t experienced unemployment. My brother and sister both had jobs and I was still at school. When I did leave school, three years later, unemployment was even worse and I had no chance of finding a job. I had no experience and only a handful of qualifications, employers weren’t interested in me and the tiny amount of benefit money I got meant I couldn’t travel to look for work.

Seeing, first hand, my experience of unemployment changed my parents’ attitudes – there was no more talk of “getting on your bike”. It especially opened my mother’s eye.

My own political views have always been shaped by my experiences, as a nurse, as a gay man, as a lapsed Christian, my childhood, the places I’ve lived in and the people I know and have known. I have a deep desire for social justice – I’ve always been a dreamer.

Then they called a general election. I’d lost interest in it even before all the campaigning had started. There was only one choice, did you want Gordon brown or David Cameron as Prime Minister, because their policies are almost identical and neither of them is a great leader (and I had such high hopes for Gordon Brown, well I was wrong there). Then we had the first election debate, on television. At the time I dismissed it as another example of British politics turning into the American version, I didn’t watch it. The day after it everything changed. Nick Clegg had shined in the debate and suddenly it was a three horse race, and my interest jumped up.

We may be looking at a hung Parliament, and the Labour/Conservative politicians and the Tory press are screaming blue murder about this (listening to them you’d think it would be the end of our country), and I think that would be a good idea. With a hung Parliament, whoever forms the government will have to discuss and make deals with the other parties, they wouldn’t be able just push through their policies by the force of their majority, we may finally get back to political debate in Parliament.

Tomorrow should be very interesting...

Drew.

Step Back and See the Full Picture

2010-05-04T08:05:00.000-07:00

This weekend saw Spencer Tunick, the New York-based photographer known for taking pictures of hundreds of nude people in different locations, at work in Manchester and Salford. He photographed of a thousand nude volunteers in six different locations to reflect the work of artist LS Lowry, for an exhibition at The Lowry gallery (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8655680.stm).

This might not sound too unusual, now, because Spencer Tunick is known for this type of photograph; but it should be remembered that all those naked volunteers were British people, not porn star or models but ordinary members of the British public. We British have a reputation for being reserved, “No sex please, we’re British” and “We don’t do that, we’re British”; but this photo-shoot certainly disproves that. Anyone who’s been in British city centre on a Friday or Saturday night will testify to that.

Yet too quickly we fall back into those racial and cultural stereotypes, the reserved Englishman, the loud and brash American, the sex mad French woman, the humourless and ordered German, etc...

As a writer, I’m very aware of the danger of falling into the trap of these stereotypes, they can be lazy and patronising to readers. But, like everyone else, I have my own personal prejudices and so easily they can come out in my writing. I’m always trying to keep an eye open for them. One very relevant trap for me is the nasty Christian character. I can often be tempted to pour all the failings and prejudices of the Christian Church into one character, I have to very careful.

This short story of mine, Praying in the Stock Cupboard, I hope doesn’t fall into that trap. The Christian character might not be the most lovable, she’s really quite a pathetic creature, but not the all consuming monster either. The story can be found at: http://www.gayflashfiction.com/Story_Archive/Praying.html

Happy reading.

Drew.

A Healthy Read

2010-04-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

Some things are worth writing about and some writing can actually make a difference. I’m very proud to say that I regularly write for a publication that does just that. FS Magazine is published by GMFA and is a gay men’s health magazine. It aims to be informative about gay men’s health needs, but not patronizing or talking down.

I’ve been writing articles for FS now for over four years and have loved every moment of it. It has helped my tone my style, I want my writing to be informative but never preachy, and I’ve been able to use a lot of the skills and knowledge I’ve acquired as a nurse. Gay men’s health isn’t just about HIV and AIDS, though that is an important part of it, but covers a wide range of issues, including access to health services and all the other issues that affect the health of men in general – but are rarely targeted at gay men.

Sexual health is a very important issue, from STIs, through gay relationships and sexual activity. So often, these issues are never discussed. Once we’ve come out as gay it seems we have to learn this almost by absorbing it from those around us, or else we didn’t learn them at all. The current gay press doesn’t seem interested in health matters, beyond how to get a six-pack and look like all the other muscle boys. FS is the only publication offering any form of good and reliable health advice.

The best thing is that FS is available free. It’s distributed to gay venues, bars and clubs, gay centres and Sexual Health Clinics around the country, not just in London. You can also download it from: http://www.gmfa.org.uk/national/fs-magazine/index

There’s also a Facebook page for FS, at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/FS-magazine/36574833972?v=wall

Please follow FS, it’s a wonderful publication that really does deserve our support. Also, if you’re so inclined, FS is always looking for models, details in the magazine itself.

Drew.

I Am Not Alone

2010-04-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I blogged about my feelings about the proposed visit to England by the Pope – “I Don’t Want the Pope” (http://drewpayne.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-dont-want-pope.html ). Well, it seems I’m not alone.

A memo from the Foreign Office has surface with some very imaginative ideas for the Pope’s visit (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8642404.stm). The document (unfortunately not a policy statement) suggested different themes for the Pope’s visit. These included: the launch of "Benedict" condoms, the Pope could be invited to open an abortion clinic, bless a gay marriage, he could sack “dodgy bishops" (Ones that covered up the abuse by pedophile priests), launch a helpline for abused children and record a charity song with the Queen (the last idea is frightening, can either of them sing?).

Now the document wasn’t serious, just the result of a brainstorming exercise, but what if its suggestions were actual requirements of the Pope visiting this country. They would go a long way towards the Pope showing a penance for the sins of his church. But I’m not holding my breath. The Pope hasn’t even expressed any regret for the decades of covering up of the abuse of child by priests.

Drew.

Join Our Group

2010-04-11T06:57:00.000-07:00

I’ve blogged before about the upcoming book Nurses on the Run, which includes one of my essays, ( http://drewpayne.blogspot.com/2010/03/something-to-add-to-your-shopping.html ), there is now a Facebook page dedicated to it.

There you can find out more details of the book and were you can buy it. There’s also regular posts about the book and events related to it.

Facebook pages have become a good way to promote a book and share information about a it, this one does that too.

The page can be found at: http://www.facebook.com/nursesontherun

If you’re a Facebook member you can follow the page via Facebook, if not why not join because it’s a good way to keep in touch with people and a fun way to waste time.

Drew.

I Don’t Want the Pope

2010-04-11T06:17:00.000-07:00

In September this year Pope Benedict XVI plans to visit England and we, the British public, have to pay for it. We have to pay the costs of the Pope’s visit, including all the high security costs, yet the Pope heads up one of the richest institutions in the world.

I certainly won’t be going to see the Pope when he is here. More and more I find myself repulsed by the Catholic Church, by its treatment of women and their rights, their ignorant and intransient opposition to contraception and the use of condoms to prevent HIV, their vitriolic homophobia and the decades of covering up the sexual abuse by their priests. The Pope has proved as vocal in his reactionary views as the church he heads up. According to him, I, as a gay man, am far more of a risk to the world then global warning (!!). Before he became Pope Benedict XVI he was head of Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Canon Court of the Catholic Church, and now more and more dirt from the sexual abuse cover-up is sticking to him.

What does anger me is that my taxes still have to pay for this man to come to my country and patronise and insult me from my own land. Why can’t Catholics and the Catholic Church pay for this visit, why do we as taxes payers have to foot the bill, especially when the huge majority of us are not practising Catholics.

There’s now a way to protest. There is a petition, on the 10 Downing Street website, to sign that calls for the government to distance themselves from the Pope’s repressive views and assures us that British tax payers will not be footing the bill for the Pope’s visit. Here’s the link:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ProtestthePope/

Drew.

P.S. I have Paul Burston’s blog to thank for the link to this petition.

The Doctor is Back

2010-04-10T16:23:00.000-07:00

Doctor Who is back on our screens, and this time it’s for a full series. We have a new Doctor, a new companion and a new Head Writer. Last week saw the introduction of the new companion, Amy Pond.

Previously, The Doctor had dropped into the new companion’s life and rushed them off their feet in a whirlwind adventure. Last week’s opening episode saw The Doctor land in Amy’s life when she was seven, he only stayed for short period but at the end of it promised to come back for her; but he never did that night, not until twelve years later. In the meantime Amy became fixated on The Doctor, “The Raggedy Doctor” as she called him.

This storyline struck a chord with me. As a child I was a dedicated fan of Doctor Who, it was a terrible day if I missed an episode, though my parents didn’t share my belief. I loved the adventure and other-worldliness of the stories, but most of all I loved the idea of The Doctor’s Tardis – the vessel he travelled time and space in.

As a child, I imaged the Tardis landing in my own back garden, me stepping inside and then taken away for a world of adventure. In a magical blue box being able to escape both my life and the place I lived, I hated them both. It was a cliché but I was a very unhappy child, I had few friends and hated the place I lived in, suburban Liverpool wasn’t kind on those it saw as “different”.

Watching Doctor Who certainly filled my childhood need for escape, but it was more than that. It was the quality of the stories that kept me watching, and keeps me enjoying it now with the new series. Then I watched the first episode of this series, The Eleventh Hour, and that childhood longing came back to me. In seven year old Amy’s desperation for escape and the sadness of when The Doctor never returned for her, for a moment, I remembered that feeling of longing for escape when I was a child.

But isn’t that what good drama does, allows us to see ourselves in the lives of its characters.

Drew.

Something to Add to Your Shopping Basket

2010-03-21T05:54:00.000-07:00

Life can inspire so much literature, and in my case so much of what I write comes directly from life; but it can also be an expression of frustration.

Back in 2007 I was taking a teaching session and in the front row was a woman who took exception to everything I said, she took exception to me just being there. As the session processed she kept up an almost constant stream of negative comments and questions. It was frustrating and made my job difficult, I just wanted to snap at her to shut up and let me finish, but I didn’t. You can’t behave like a dictatorial Sunday School teacher.

A month or so later I saw an item requesting submissions for a book of essays about why people come into nursing and why they stay in it, to be called Nurses on the Run. My submission was called “More Then Making Beds and Emptying Bedpans” and took the frustration I felt doing that teaching session as my springboard. I wrote about the change and revitalisation my career took when I left working in hospital and moved out into the community, and the completely different working environment I found there. Much to my surprise my essay was accepted and the book moved into production.

That was two years ago, book publication is a slow art and can move at what feels like a snail’s pace, but last week I received an email telling me the book was published and available to buy. When I saw that it I felt filled with the same rush of excitement I always get, that excitement that I’ll be able to communicate with so many different people, people I’d never met and who didn’t know me beyond what they are reading. It’s the same excitement I felt the first time I had something published and have done ever since.

Nurses on the Run has its own website were copies of it can be ordered, found at: http://www.nursesontherunbook.com/index.php

I know I might appear biased, but this book comes as a welcome change to all the negative press nursing has been receiving lately, because its aim is to celebrate nursing and why people chose to stay in the profession.

Drew.

P.S. I owe a big thank-you to Karen Buley, the editor of Nurses on the Run. Without her hard work this book won’t have got off the ground. I’m certainly grateful to her.

A Stately Visit

2010-03-13T14:57:00.000-08:00

The first week of March we had a week’s annual leave (having to use it up before the first of April). We didn’t go away anywhere, instead we decided to have days out. One of the places we went to was Leeds Castle (which isn’t in Leeds but Kent, very English). Martin had been there before and thought it was a good place to take pictures.

As a child I was regularly taken to different stately homes around the country. My parents felt this was educational and a way to appreciate history, but back in the seventies stately homes were very dull places. As a child, I also had a poor interest in history, it was coloured by poor teaching of it at my school – all dates of battles and nothing about the people who lived through those times. But those stately homes were dull, long rooms with most of them roped off, lots of portraits of people I’d never heard of, and everyone wondering around in hushed tones.

Now, Leeds Castle hasn’t turned itself into an all singing and dancing theme park, it is still a very traditional stately home but what has changed is me. I now have an interest in history, but much more I have a lively imagination and love of literature.

The Castle itself is laid out as also a tour through time periods. You enter through the medieval part of the castle and pass through room after room, going through Regency Period, then Victorian and finally ending in the section of the castle that was modernised in the 1950s, the last time the castle used as a dwelling.

It was like passing through different rooms from different literary genres. The medieval rooms, all stark decoration and stone floors (rugs on the walls and no indoor plumbing), were straight out of a drama of medieval lust and intrigue: A Man for All Seasons, The Other Boleyn Girl or even The Tudors. The Victorian rooms could have easily been the setting for a Victorian Gothic tale, the ones Sarah Walters writes so memorably. But it was the rooms from the 1950s that left the most lasting impression on me.

These rooms, with their bright furnishings and straight angular lines, seemed the perfect setting for an Agatha Christie novel. The elegance and opulence of these rooms could have been taken straight from the pages of one of her stories. The bedroom with swathes of crushed velvet, were the figure on the bed isn’t sleeping and can’t be woken up. The corridor, with its panelled walls, were a hysterical maid runs down. The drawing room, populated with square furniture and an overlarge grand piano, were all the suspects sit and nervously wait for the Chief Inspector from Scotland Yard to arrive, while the body in the bedroom grows old.

Yes, I have an over active imagination but so far it has not harmed me, much. It has helped me through many overcrowded tube rides, all those times when I’ve been kept waiting for an appointment and countless of my family’s events. Also, I can turn some of my imagination’s wondering into fiction.

Also, at Leeds Castle Martin took some wonderful pictures (one them illustrates this blog). They can be seen at http://martins-day.blogspot.com/

Drew.

Laughter and Lies

2010-02-28T10:39:00.000-08:00

“I would not advise any actor, if he was really thinking of his career, to come out... it doesn’t work if you’re gay.”

Rupert Everett.

It’s that great and lasting gossip, who’s gay in Hollywood. For many, it’s the endless speculation, which actor is really gay, which Hollywood marriage is really a sham? Hollywood itself doesn’t help matters, they award straight actors for playing gay but if an actor comes out as gay their career dries faster than a straight-to-DVD sequel.

Last night we went to see the Westend production of The Little Dog Laughed, by Douglas Carter Beane, which is about Hollywood Homophobia and how do you live within that if you’re a gay actor. This is not an original premise, other plays have looked at it before, but this time the enemy isn’t some big bad straight Hollywood mogul, the enemy here is the Hollywood system.

Diana is a Hollywood agent, a lesbian who has sacrificed her sexuality for her career. Mitchell is a Hollywood actor on the rise, and Diana’s client, but he’s also gay. Alex is a New York rent boy and Ellen is his party-girl girlfriend. On a trip to New Year, Mitchell meets Alex and the two men fall for each other; but Diana is busy negotiating producing a film that will star Mitchell and the last thing she needs is a gay leading man.

The plot might not be original but Carter Beane’s handling of it is. He shows a deep cynicism for Hollywood and the whole process of film making, painting a world where people will sell their very soul for a hit movie, but done so with such political manoeuvring and manipulation as to put the Borgias to shame. The cynicism here certainly stretches to the play’s ending, this isn’t happy-ever-after fantasy of so many other gay plays. The fast pace of the play, many of the characters talking directly to the audience, fitted well with its setting and subject matter. (I did wonder who the character of the agent was based on, she manipulates all around her with such a razor sharp edge that had to come from some insider knowledge)

The cast was certainly four beautiful people, but these were actors who were more than just good looks. Rupert Friend was insecure, needy and lonely as Mitchell. Harry Lloyd was cute but naive as Alex (his rent boy might know his way around a bedroom but was clueless about his own emotions). Gemma Atherton fleshed out the under-written role of Ellen, the character only coming into her own in the second act. But the star here was Tamsin Grieg as Diana. She was funny but frighteningly manipulative, hard in her drive for success. This was a woman you didn’t dare get on the wrong side of.

The Little Dog Laughed was certainly an enjoyable play, its sharp wit driving it forward; but its cynicism and unflattering view of Hollywood also made a dark and unlimitedly uncomfortable story. Hollywood homophobia is still a nasty and distasteful thing, propped up by so many lesbians and gay men.

As an aside: in 1988 when Ian McKellen came out as gay I was still struggling to come to terms with my own sexuality. His very public coming out meant so much to me. Here was an actor that I admired, who I’d seen on stage, and he was gay too. He was also happy to tell people so. He was the opposite of the stereotypes I had been raised with. It was one of those important, turning points in my life.

Drew.

Mr Bennett and the Gift of Art

2010-02-27T06:07:00.000-08:00

“About the play... there is always somebody left out...”

The Habit of Art, Alan Bennett.

Alan Bennett has the reputation of writing cosy and Northern dramas, populated by strong matriarchs, put upon husbands and single, sensitive sons; but the reality of his writing is far from this. His prose and memoir writing has charted his upbringing in Leeds and the lives of his parents, but none of this could be called cosy. His drama certainly isn’t

Last Saturday, we went to see his latest play, The Habit of Art, at the National Theatre. It was about a, fictional, meeting between W.H. Auden and Benjamin Britten in the 1970’s when Britten was writing his opera Death in Venice and Auden had virtually retired to Oxford. But this wasn’t a dry and academic plot. During the cause of the play Auden has a date with a local rent boy and an interviewer from BBC Radio (Humphrey Carpenter, who would later write biographies of both Auden & Britten), who Auden mistakes for his afternoon rent boy.

Bennett has chosen the structure of a play-within-a-play for this play and it’s a structure that works very well. The play is set during an afternoon rehearsal of the play-within-a-play. This gives the opportunity for the actors to come out of character and discuss the play they’re rehearsing, to discuss the details of Auden and Britten’s lives.

On the surface the play appears to be about biography and the creation of art, one character is the biographer of both Auden and Britten, and Britton comes to Auden for help in the creation of his opera; but this is a much more person play. There is an exchange between Auden and Britten were they talk about being gay men in the public eye were their sexuality has become public knowledge, through the fact that they have male partners, but they have never officially “come out.”

The writing here shows Bennett at his best. There is his sharp comedy, which comes out of the characters he’s created and the situation he’s put them in (there’s a scene involving talking furniture which is both embarrassing and very funny). I also wonder how much is the setting was taken from real life, the National Theatre has almost become the home for his recent plays and this one is set in a rehearsal room at the National Theatre.

The performances here are of the high standard I’ve come to expect at the National Theatre, with Richard Griffiths and Alex Jennings turning in commanding performances as the actors playing Auden and Britton, but the stand out performance was that of Frances de la Tour as the Stage Manager running the rehearsal. So much of her role is to anchor the rehearsal, constantly drawing the characters back to their performance, but at the end she reveals that she was once an actress but she gave up acting because it became no longer special for her.

A new Alan Bennett play, for me, is one of those things I don’t want to miss. His writing is interesting but also emotionally engaging with a riche humour running through it. He’s certainly one of our greatest living dramatists, though he always pushes against the label of “National Treasure”, and I can’t blame him. Who would want to be put in a glass cage in museum somewhere, like a crown or a piece of parchment?

Drew.

Rain, Rain and Rain

2010-02-22T10:01:00.000-08:00

I publish some of my short stories on ABC Tales website and, not to sound too immodest, I’ve had a lot of success doing so. My stories have been well received, and that only helps as a writer.

The latest I’ve published there is Penance on a Wet Thursday Morning (http://tinyurl.com/y8hqw6r). This story explores a theme that my writing repeatedly comes back to, the effects of religion on people’s lives. This time it is seen from the point-of-view of a woman who has lost her baby to cot death, and how she can’t come to terms with that tragedy.

If you do read this story please leave a comment afterwards, there’s a comments section on the webpage. I read all the comments and I really value them, whatever they are, because feedback helps my writing.

More of my stories and writing can be found at: http://www.abctales.com/user/drew4payne

Drew.

What Do I Think...

2010-02-19T07:55:00.000-08:00

A big part of my writing life is reviews, mainly for Nursing Standard magazine. This week sees the publication of my last one, in Nursing Standard, this one of the Shoutloud website (http://www.shoutloud.org.uk/).

This was an interesting website, it’s a campaigning one to encourage people to lobby their local Primary Care Trust on the sexual health services they provide. Now, Britain has a terrible record on sexual health, our rates of Sexually Transmitted Infections would make a Victoria brothel house keeper blush, so this website is needed.

Summing up the pros and cons of it and recommending whether to use it or not, all in 250 words, is certainly an art. I can’t claim to be an expert at, but it’s something I am certainly learning.

Ten years ago this wouldn’t be where I saw my writing career being, but jobbing writing like this has taught me so much about the mechanics of writing, how to get your message across without wasting too many words (a thing that I can easily slip into). It is so a great boost to my confidence to be asked to write these reviews.

Drew.

Some Things Can Never Be Best Forgotten

2010-02-11T12:57:00.000-08:00

I‘ve had difficulty in writing this blog, this week, because everything I try to write is too heavily coloured with anger, my anger. Two weeks ago I blogged about the Churches’ attempt to be exempted from the Equality Bill (http://drewpayne.blogspot.com/2010/01/true-meaning-of-christian-equality.html). Well they got their way, they can refuse to employ someone just because they’re gay, and the Government will not push them to comply. I am so angry, again the Christian Church is clinging to their homophobia and ignoring the reality of human rights.

Some may say I’m obsessed, I certainly write a lot about Christian Homophobia, and that I should just let it go. I am no longer the member of a church, anymore. Maybe they’re right, maybe I should? But my past haunts me too much.

When I was a teenager I tried very hard to be an Evangelical Christian but ultimately I failed because I could never succeed. I’m gay and for far too many Evangelical Christians there’s nothing I could to be a Christian unless I did the impossible, changed my sexuality. I tried to do that but couldn’t (http://drewpayne.blogspot.com/2007/12/based-on-true-story.html).

I suffered at the hands of the other members of the church I attended, people who said they were my friends and that everything they did was “in love.” The worst was, at nineteen, I had daemons cast of me just for being gay (not even for having a “gay lifestyle” because I was still a virgin then).

It happened at the meeting at the church’s Young People’s Fellowship, on a cold, winter Sunday evening. Suddenly the prayer session turned into an exorcism, with me at the centre of it. I was stood there while everyone else gathered around me, my head bowed forward, as they all pressed their hands down onto me and called on God to remove the “daemons” inside of me that were making me gay (!!). My most abiding memory of that evening was the pattern on the carpet, because that’s all I stared at as their prayers went on and on. It was after it had all finished that I was hit by a wall of depression and pain. I felt so deeply betrayed, those people had seemed to turn on me so completely. I wasn’t evil or corrupt, there was no screaming daemon clinging to my soul, nor was the devil on back with his talons in my neck. I was just different, no more.

Shortly after this I found myself being treated like a leper just for being gay. Everyone turned against me, I was pushed out of all my involvement at church, no longer was I wanted around, and I lost all my friends there, just because I was gay. I had not even taken the first steps to accepting my sexuality and suddenly I had a huge door slammed in my face, Christianity didn’t want me.

All this happened in a suburban, Liverpool, Anglican parish church. This didn’t happen at an extreme fringe church, or a Pentecostal church with a name that fills the side of the building. This happened in church that was part of the official church of my country, the same church that has disgracefully wormed out of the Equality Bill.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, only yesterday, called on the Church's general synod not to use "megaphone tones" when talking about sexuality, to give consideration to the views of other Christians (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8506617.stm). I am not holding my breath to see what happens, the church’s leadership seems obsessed with their own brand of homophobia.

know there are good and open people who are Christians, I know many of them, but it’s the Leadership of the church I have no faith in. It is them who seem desperate to hold onto their homophobia, just as our country finally moves away from it.

Drew

A Little Catching Up...

2010-01-31T07:29:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I have items accepted for publication and they only appear months later, other times they appear and I only find out about it weeks later. The latter happened to me this week, I found that my short story, Prince Charming, had been published in the Christmas Edition of ABCTales Mag (http://tinyurl.com/ye56jw4). It’s about a middle aged woman who discovers her masculine side when she cross-dresses to play Prince Charming in her local amateur dramatics’ production of Cinderella. It has one of my familiar themes, finding our real selves, though it has have a Christmas setting, so happy reading.

Here’s something different. Martin, my partner, has started his own blog (http://martins-day.blogspot.com/ ). He’s a keen photographer and his blog is a showcase for his photographs (his pictures have illustrated many previous entries on this blog). He has set himself the taste of taking at least one photograph a day and publishing it. As you can see, if you read back through his blog, that he certainly has a good for a picture.

Drew.

The True Meaning of Christian Equality?

2010-01-24T09:32:00.000-08:00

Today, Church leaders in Britain have called for an exemption from the Equality Bill, because they claim it will force them go against their beliefs (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8476862.stm). In reality, they already have an exemption, they can refuse to employ someone as a minister or priest if the person is gay or transgendered or a woman, but they are now demanding the right to refuse to employ anyone in any role for the same reasons. Put bluntly, Christians want the right to be prejudiced.

The Equality Bill is a piece of very just human rights legislation. It says that someone cannot refuse any one person goodies, services or employment because of their sexuality, or their perceived sexuality (“They looked gay”). This is for me, as a gay man, a wonderful relief. For so much of my life I’ve had that shadow hanging over my shoulder, that I will be turned away because I’m gay. The hotel owner will refuse me a room, a taxi driver will refuse to let me into their cab, a doctor will refuse me treatment all because I’m gay. It’s not some paranoid fantasy, for so many people it’s been a reality of life, I’ve been on the receiving end of it. The Equality Bill offered a chance to halt this, a welcomed protection to many of us.

Almost before the ink had dried on the Equality Bill Christians were up in arms about it, demanding first its repeal and then exemption from it. They have mounted legal attempts, the Christian Institute has bankrolled several legal challenges to people who were dismissed for refusing services to gay men and/or lesbians, without much success. There have been also constant Christian campaigns, in the media, on videos, etc… against the bill. It now feels as if Christians only have two subjects they’re vocal about, homosexuality and how they hate the Equality Bill.

Christians are now actively campaigning to limit human rights protection. For a religion that professes to be based on love their actions show very little of that, but I feel there seems very little care or compassion coming out of the Christian Church. All Christians seem concerned about is sexuality, especially homosexuality, and sex, though much more about gay sex. Christians seem silent on so many other subjects. On the Credit Crunch and the question of Bankers’ Bonuses the church has been very quiet, they could have given needed moral guidance. The same can be said on the subjects of binge drinking, the way young people are portrayed in the press, swine flu and the lies in the press about the vaccination, and how government resources should be spent in light of our county’s deficit. But no, all Christians seem interested in is homosexuality and pulling down the Equality Bill. Christians have completely lost their moral compass, turning into the stereotype of the homophobic bigots.

The final irony is that the Equality Bill was extension to LGBT people rights, under law, already enjoyed by Christians and other faiths. You don’t hear of lesbian and gay charities and companies refusing to employ someone because they were a Christian, if that happened the Christian Institute would be screaming blue murder. There are deep double standards at play here. Christians appear deeply reluctant to give up their traditional homophobia, but they have been forced to do so with their racism and Anti-Semitism.

What would Jesus do…

Drew

Florence, Mary and Me

2010-01-23T12:26:00.000-08:00

In 1883 Florence Nightingale initiated a nurse training school at Charles Hospital, Ladbroke Grove, London. It was housed in a building called Nightingale House. This was after she founded her famous nursing school at St. Thomas Hospital, but there were many other schools of nursing carrying her name. This week I was at Nightingale House, the one at St Charles Hospital, teaching an Infection Control Update. As I left the building I saw a plaque commemorating Florence Nightingale opening the nursing school.

The plaque played on my mind, as I returned home. Several years ago I worked at St Charles Hospital and at the time never knew the history of Nightingale House. Now I did and it fascinated me.

By profession, I’m a nurse and for all my nursing career I’ve disliked having Florence Nightingale held up as the figurehead of nursing. I can’t deny that she made nursing a respectable job, but she didn’t make it into a profession. To begin with she was against educating nurses. I also feel that her deference to powerful men lead to the role of nurses, for so long, as “doctors’ handmaidens”. I question how much relevant she is to modern nursing, she certainly wouldn’t have approved of someone like me as a nurse.

During my nurse training, I vocally resented the image of Florence Nightingale held up before us, much to the annoyance of the nice gals in my intake. Then, after qualifying, I came across Mary Seacole. She was a contemporary of Nightingale, but from a very different background. She was Jamaican, her mother ran a boarding house for disabled soldiers and Mary carried on in the same business, she also used her experience of herbal remedies and folk medicine to treat people. Though, Nightingale rejected Mary as one the nurses she took to the Crimean War, but Mary funded herself and got to the Crimea. There she set up a cantina, were she provided food and clothing to the soldiers. She tended to the ill and wounded ones in her own right, not waiting for the instructions of the doctors there.

In her lifetime, Mary Seacole was also lauded as a hero of the Crimean War; but after her death she was soon forgotten. Her reputation was soon eclipsed by Nightingale’s with Nightingale becoming the image of nursing in Britain. But how different would it have been if Mary Seacole had become our role model?

Mary Seacole was a practitioner in her own right, she treated people with her own knowledge and skills, not waiting for a doctor’s instructions. She also took a holistic approach, not just tending to the soldier’s injuries, she also proved food and rest to the uninjured soldiers. Her approach was certainly not that of the “doctors’ handmaidens”, she might have helped to push nursing into a profession in its own right far sooner then it took us, using our skills in our own right.

These are only pipe dreams, I can’t change the past or slip into an alternative reality, but it is a nice thought.

What I do get annoyed about is how, until only recently, Mary Seacole has been completely forgotten, and is only now is beginning to be slowly remembered, while Florence Nightingale is held-up as an almost saint. The International Nurses Day is celebrated on her birthday. Yet, it wasn’t Nightingale alone who created the profession of nursing and modern nursing has moved very far beyond her narrow vision of the role. I would like to celebrate more of the people who helped create and form my profession, not just one Victorian woman.

Drew.

Some More Examples of Me.

2010-01-18T02:56:00.000-08:00

Last week I had another review published in Nursing Standard magazine. This one was of The Coalition on Men and Boys website. There was an interesting premise behind it, looking that the unique problems faced by men in this society (whether that is health, emotional or physical), unfortunately there was little resources on the site. I had fun stretching that to 200 words.

Here’s some more of my writing that has been published in the last few months.

Boxing Day 1975

http://www.gayflashfiction.com/Story_Archive/Boxing_Day_1975.html

This story is a coming of age story about a seven year old boy. On the day in question, he realises he is far more attracted to handsome men then pretty women, thanks to a television showing of the film One Million Years B.C.

The Pizza Boy Cometh

http://www.gayflashfiction.com/Story_Archive/PizzaBoyCometh.html

A cautionary tale about a man who is faced with the reality of his sexual fantasies. He works delivering pizzas and has that porn story fantasy about a customer giving him that “extra large” tip, but the reality is far different...

Saying Goodbye To Mickey

http://newfleshmagazine.blogspot.com/2009/10/right-ill-get-our-after-dinner.html

This horror story uses that old cliché of the Ouija Board, but this time it isn’t about a group of teenagers. Four friends gather for a dinner party. One of them, George, has recently lost his partner, Mickey, to cancer. The Ouija Board is used to help George to say Goodge to Mickey, but some things should be left unsaid…

His Story

http://www.abctales.com/set/drew4payne/his-story

This story, of linked shorter stories, follows the experiences of one gay man as he tries to come to terms with his past. As a teenager he was involved in the Ex-Gay movement, Evangelical Christians who believe they can change gay people’s sexuality by questionable means, and the long damage that they have left within him.

The full story of how I came to write this story can be found in my earlier blog, Based on A True Story (http://drewpayne.blogspot.com/2007/12/based-on-true-story.html). It was originally published on the Rainbow Network website, but since they folded I was able to move this story to the above link.

Drew

Nostalgia on a Cold Tuesday

2010-01-16T07:48:00.000-08:00

Tuesday this week I was working in Camden and thanks to the scheduling of the session I had over two hours free in the middle of the day. I was at the south end of Camden High Street, so I took myself off for a walk along it. I walked right up to Camden Lock, passed Camden Market and the eclectic mixture of shops there.

In the 80s and early 90s I spent a lot of time in that area of Camden. I’d often buy clothes from Camden Market and the collection of shops around there. At Camden Lock I’d regularly search through the second-hand book stalls looking for an “interesting read”. When I first came to London, back in the 80’s, Camden was this wonderful and exciting place. The market was full of all the different clothes I’d longed the wear and at prices I could afford (very important because I was doing low paid care jobs). There was also a buzzing gay life there, long before the rise of gay Soho. There were gay clubs and pubs, and even gay shops. Especially the old Zipper Store at the top of Camden High Street, this was more than just a sex shop (though not everything it sold was squeaky clean) and I brought many different novels there.

Moving to London was a great liberation for me, not just being to explore what it was to be a gay man but I was also able to live my life without anyone looking over my shoulder. I was my parents’ youngest child and while I lived with them they always wanted to know where I was going and when I’d be back. They also cast their opinions over all I bought. They weren’t cruel but they were over-protective. Leaving that was such a liberation and finding Camden, and all that went with it, was part of that.

In the mid 90s I moved to West London and less and less I went to Camden, also this time saw the rise in Gay Soho, an alternative place to go, and my meeting Martin. Things change and Camden wasn’t a place I visited regularly.

What was most surprising about walking through Camden this week was how little had changed. The pavements were new, wide and even, and some of the shops had different names, but it seemed so familiar. The Zipper Store had gone but so many things on sale were the same as when I was shopping there. The Arabic scarves, the same pre faded and pre ripped jeans, the same bright tee-shirts emblazoned with slogans. My taste in clothes has changed but it was strange to be confronted by my old taste on sale, on mass. 80s fashions are making a big comeback, so of course they’d be on sale in there, but it still felt as if Camden Market hadn’t changed at all over the years. That gave it a slightly unreal feeling.

The 80s and 90s have been very much been in my mind recently. I’m writing a series of linked short stories, set between 1984 and 1994, about the events in a young gay man’s life as he leaves before the Evangelical Christianity he grow-up in. It’s a theme that does crop up in my writing. So there I was, walking up Camden High Street, confronted by all that 80s revival, as my mind is going over the stories I’m writing set in the 80s. Hey, my life’s like that.

Drew.

Home from the Holidays

2009-10-05T09:32:00.000-07:00

September is our month to go on holiday. Our reasoning is simple: we don’t have children, the school holidays are over by September, therefore it’s easier and cheaper for us to holiday then.

This year we went back to Amsterdam, a city we’ve enjoying visiting in the past.

The last time we were there was six years ago (the first time I went there on my own was back in 1994) and things have certainly changed since then. Amsterdam is no longer the sex party capital of Europe that trade (pun intended) has moved to the Eastern European cities; but it’s still a wonderful city. True, that was one of the reasons I first went there, in the 90’s, but I was young and single then (!!). Now we like visiting it for the cultural life, the welcoming and laid-back attitude of the people and wonderful range of places to eat. It is still a city that seems so geared towards welcoming visitors, rather than London that seems to just tolerate them.

Martin took thousands of photographs (I joke not) while we were there (Two of them illustrate this blog) and he captured so many different images of the city. He has an eye for the unusual, as well as the typical landmarks. I spent my time relaxing and writing, though there was a rush to answer emails half-way through our holiday. I have an essay coming out in book, in the States, and it was all the final preparation before it goes to the printers – there’s so many things for me to sign and agree (more about it later when its published).

We also took advantage of the excellent public transport there, it’s so easy to get around and they still have their network of trams. I especially enjoy travelling on trams, I guess it goes back to my childhood (though I’ve never lost) love of trains. We travelled there and back on the Eurostar, though we didn’t get there all the way on it. We got the Eurostar to Brussels and then the International Express from there to Amsterdam.

It may sound as if we did a lot of travelling, there was a bit involved in it, but it was such a relaxing holiday. Both of us were tired and stressed before we left, work and everything had taken its toll out of us; this holiday breathed new life into us. We relaxed, we explored a city we love, we eat in some good restaurants and just unwound.

The only problem, it’s a year to go until our next holiday.

Drew

Try One Thing New Every Day, Sometimes

2009-06-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, two days ago, I did something I’d never done before (pause for innuendo); I rode on the Woolwich Ferry (twice).

The Woolwich Ferry is one of the many of London’s hidden little treasures. It’s a ferry that crosses the Thames between Woolwich Arsenal and North Woolwich. That might not sound very interesting but it’s the only crossing of the Thames between the Blackwall Tunnel and the Dartford River Crossing (if that doesn’t sound impressive look it up on Google Map, it’s no small distance) and it’s free (very important).

We used it becausen we wanted to go to Woolwich Arsenal (the opposite side of the river from us) and both the tube and the DLR were both suspended for engineering works so we decided to use the ferry, a first for both of us. I was surprised at how quick and easy it. The ferry’s got two levels; cars and lorries perch rather alarmingly on the top deck, which in truth is the top of the ferry, while the pedestrian passengers sit downstairs, with some protection from the cold river wind. We were pedestrians, hence it was an easy journey for us while the vehicles had to queue to get on.

The handful of minutes it took us to cross the Thames took me back. I grow up in Liverpool and many times I crossed the Mersey using the ferry, especially as a teenager, and it was quite strange how similar those two journeys were, at least in my memory. When I was teenager I would ride that ferry, sitting on the wooden benches, on my own, and feel so isolated and alone. Back then I was so unhappy and desperate to fit in with the world around me. I would spend hours on my own because I didn’t belong anywhere.

Saturday wasn’t a re-living of those ferry trips, back in Liverpool. The ferries felt very similar inside but I didn’t. I was travelling with Martin, my partner, and I certainly wasn’t alone. I know where I belong and I’m very happy with that. So much has changed since I was a teenager and I’m so deeply grateful for that. Sometimes things remind me of the person I used to be but I’ve got no desire to go back. Not for me is the glorification and desperate longing for my teenage years, I’m far happier now.

Drew.

P.S. The picture accompanying this blog was taken by Martin, last Saturday.

Words on a Wednesday Morning

2009-05-20T04:32:00.000-07:00

Listening to audio is such a pleasure for me yet often I do it as something secondary. It’s on the background as I write or work on paperwork, or else I’m listening to it on my MP3 player as I travel. This morning I found myself just sitting and listening to a radio program, it was so fascinating that it alone held my attention.

The program was called Midweek, on BBC Radio 4, and is basically a round-the-table chat show. The host, Libby Purves, invites a group of people on and they chat for 45 minutes. What makes this program so interesting is Libby Purves’ skill at getting her guests to talk. This isn’t the usual format of question and answer, she actually manages to get an interesting conversation running.

Today her guests were the actress Penelope Wilton, Colm O'Gorman (founder of One in Four charity, http://www.oneinfour.org.uk/ ), Donald Reeves (Rector of St James's, Piccadilly and whom Margaret Thatcher call “a Very Dangerous Man”) and Bradley and Soren Stauffer Kruse, the Sugar Dandies.

Penelope Wilton is an amazing actor; her performance on Doctor Who, as Harriet Jones, stood out, amongst so many excellent performances. Her character went from hero to villain and back to hero again, finally sacrificing herself to save the Earth. So much of her character’s arc was down to her own performance. But, over the years, I’ve seen her deliver many standout performances on the stage.

The highlight of the program was Colm O'Gorman. As a child he was abused by a catholic priest in Ireland, which left such deep scares with him especially because no one would believe him. He was one of the first people to speak out publically about what had happened to him. He successfully sued Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ferns for allowing the abuse to occur (in light of the Catholic Church’s shameful practice of covering up an abuse by priests) and won. He later tried to sue the Pope, for the worldwide cover-up of abuse by priests. He failed but I deeply admire his courage in doing so. (In a previous blog I have written about what happened to me as teenager at the hands of Christians, http://drewpayne.blogspot.com/2007/12/based-on-true-story.html ). He spoke so passionately about the wall of silence around the abuse he suffered, something I recognised, that blind reluctance by Christians to admit that they can cause harm or that other Christians do. (Colm O'Gorman’s own website is http://colmogorman.com/ and the Irish branch of One in Four is http://www.oneinfour.org/ ).

Donald Reeves talked about the way he has been marginalised by the Anglican Church, especially the Evangelical branch, for his political stance. He also talked about the way religion wants to keep people in a very childish state, to be very reliant on their leaders for their intellectual answers and needs, how this perpetuates the power of religion. I have seen this a lot in religious leaders, people who are addicted to the power of their position.

Lastly came Bradley and Soren Stauffer Kruse. As the Sugar Dandies they are a gay male ballroom dance act. I have never been a fan of ballroom dancing. I find it soulless, their dances in no way reflecting the music they dance to, instead being far too concerned with performing the “perfect” step. After listening to Midweek I watched a clip of the Sugar Dandies dancing (http://www.homotopia.tv/blog/2008/11/sugar-dandies.html ) and was so impressed. They were opposite of all the things I hate about ballroom dancing. They were joyous, fun and intentionally camp; they could have only danced that dance to that piece of music.

BBC webpage about that episode of midweek: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kfdq7

Listen Again to that episode at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qrpf

Drew.