Wee Sonny MacGregor

You could be thinking of Home Secretary Henry Brooke. But it would be entirely in keeping with the mores of the time - it wasn't just homosexuality that was pursued by the police. Just think of how many films were censored, books banned etc; even Donald McGill got prosecuted for his postcards.

I'm told, and I stress that this is not from personal experience, that the police used to peer through the narrow gap at the bottom of the cubicle to check on the number of pairs of feet. This was countered by one party standing in a carrier bag.

Joenoir

A very good point. It wasn't only gay men who were victims in the 1950s. Young girls who became pregnant outside marriage didn't have an easy time. Some were even locked away in mental institutions because of their 'unstable behaviour'.

Start every day with a smile and get it over with.

Windthrop

And forcibly parted from their children who were only allowed to see their adoption records after 1976

Thats the joke that killed the Music Hall !

GRAEME

Well, hmmm. It isn't the "masters" who still beat gay men half to death in most of our town centres on a fairly regular basis. Hatred of homosexuals is very real and still very much alive.

You may be right about the majority - but there is a very nasty minority out there...

Steve Crook

Which "masters" are those then? I don't think that anyone involved in such practices would be described as a "master" by anyone

Steve

penfold

I wouldn't dispute that for a moment. It was ever thus...

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

penfold

For 'masters' read The Authorities, back in the pre-Wolfenden days. It was my phrase that Graeme was questioning/reusing.

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Steve Crook

That's what I thought. But I don't recall any authorities actually going out and doing a spot of gay-bashing

Steve

penfold

Behind a veneer of upholding criminal law, I'd suggest that indeed, that was precisely what they were doing; how else would you describe their treatment of, amongst others, Oscar Wilde??

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Steve Crook

Still not quite matching the description Graeme used that they "still beat gay men half to death in most of our town centres on a fairly regular basis"

Steve

Windthrop

In the case of Gielgud the authorities tried to prevent into getting in the press. His case was heard early in the day so the press wouldnt be around to report it. Unfortunately one court reporter did just that and heard JG's unmistakeable tones and went into the court room.

Thats the joke that killed the Music Hall !

Moor Larkin

Did the shops give them away as long ago as the Fifties?



Ban 'em. That's the answer!

GRAEME

Sorry if not clear.

I was responding to Penfold's assertion that the powers that be ("masters") were considerably more anti-homosexual than the British public at large.

My point was that there is still unfortunately a good deal of anti-gay feeling around among the general population - including at its most extreme an unfotunately high incidence of serious assaults.

stevie boy

I do object to the word Gay having a totally different meaning to years gone by.

GRAEME

Gay has quite a few meanings, Stevie, the one you are presumably referring to is only another.



Look at the word "mobile" - it used to mean portable or moves easily; or one of those dangling things in kiddies' nurseries, etc. Now it also - and predominantly - means a cell phone.

That's how language works.

"Gay" as in homosexual has been around at least since the early 20th Century and it reached public conciousness in the 60s. But it was used before - Cary Grant says he just went "gay all of a sudden" when he's caught in a frock in Bringing Up Baby!

Words acrue new meanings and , occassionally, lose old ones. I still use the word to describe a pleasing colour or a light mood. Context should make clear what you mean.

BTW isn't it peculiar that nobody ever seemed to complain about the word "queer" gaining the "new" meaning? Perhaps because as a perjorative that was resented less.

Perhaps ( I say "perhaps") those of us who are uncomfortable about the use of the word gay had better check that it is the word we feel uncomfortable about - and that it isn't an indication of an underlying prejudice against, dare I say it, gay people?