Robert Salt: Full Interview

TRANSCRIPT

Robert Salt
Interviewed by Robin Kiteley
19th September 2018

RK: OK, so that should be recording.

RK: OK, so I’m Robin Kiteley, I’m here on the 19th September 2018 and I’m interviewing for the West Yorkshire Queer Stories Project. And so if you can just give your name, date of birth.

RS: Yeah, I’m Robert and I was born on the 17th of January 1950.

RK: And then if you can just say where you live, and how you identify if you’re OK…

RS: [overlap] Yeah, I identify as, as male, gay man. I used to uhm, originally live in Garforth then I moved to Pudsey and then now I’m in Bramley. All places in Leeds of course…yeah.

RK: Great, thank you. So I’m just going to start off with a very general question. So if you can just tell me a bit about your experience of, of the gay scene in, in West Yorkshire, and how that developed or happened?

RS: Well I, I probably was quite a quiet person and accid…I accidentally went into a toilet in…uhm…it would be Harehills, which is gone, a long time gone, near a big pub called, The Ford Green…and there was, I went down [unclear], down these steps and this chap was…uh…and it completely disgusted me, and I said to myself ‘I’m not gay, I’m not gay’ and, I tried to convince myself for many years that I wasn’t. And then I went…there used to be a notorious cottage in the…subway near the Merrion Centre, it’s quite notorious. And I went down there and, I used to know that things used to go on there, but there were always sort of dirty old men about sort of fifty, sixty, in dirty rain coats which [laughter] which had no, no interest for me whatsoever. I’d have been about in me early twenties but one day I wa…I was… I was just going by and this rather attractive [laughter] young man about twenty came out, so I thought…ooh…it isn’t always [laughter], like that. And without going in to too much detail I, I started to eventually keep visiting these places on and off for quite a long time.

And then, what happened? Oh, yes, I went out to..uhm…it was a, somebody was leaving I think, or…they’d passed their exams at work and we went out for an evening…and…drunk quite a lot, after a meal. And I decided, [unclear] I would venture into the notorious pub called The New Penny. Well it wasn’t The New Penny then it was the Hope and Anchor of course, when I went it would have been about 19…probably…early seventies I would think, ‘69, ‘70 time. Early seventies. And I went in there and it wasn’t particularly friendly, full of really unattractive people, I thought at the time. Really…sordid looking. I had, and I went into the toilets there and there were, sort of, two people masturbating at the urinal. All the…all the toilet trap doors were open and obviously they had never been cleaned for ages. There was all faeces in the toilets and running down the back, and it was the most unex [laughter]…unpleasant [perio]…experience I’ve ever had. And I immediately came out and I never went anywhere near again for a few years.

Until I met somebody…uhm…who said, in a, in a cottage, and we went and we had a little experience somewhere quiet, and he says, ‘if you want, there’s a club in Leeds called Charlies’ and he says ‘if you want to meet in the’…well, it was The New Penny by that stage cos it has changed its name. ‘We, we’ll meet there for a drink and we’ll go to Charlies’, you see, so, I met him and he was there with a friend, and we had a few drinks. Then we went up into Charlies which I’d never been to before. And I think it had…I think it had a couple, it wasn’t really very nice I didn’t find. And…the, the, the chap I’d originally met went down to the toilets with somebody to have sex, and this other chap said to me, ‘do you want to go down to the toilets for sex?’ And I says, ‘no, I didn’t’, and I thought well what’s the point? You might as well go cottaging, if that’s all it is to the gay scene. And of course that was another [laughter] bad experience, and I never went anywhere near again for quite some years. That was…been the early seventies.

And then what happened in the very late seventies I moved out of me parent’s house and I got me own home and it, I suppose I was a bit cut off then, and I noticed, I noticed a few years ago and I never did anything about it, in the personal column of the…uhm…Yorkshire Evening Post, it said ‘Campaign for Homosexual Equality meetings in Leeds. Ring this number’. And I never did anything about it. And then…but I thought, in about seven…must have been about 1978, I went to the phone box after work and I rung this number. They says ‘oh, we meet at the Swarthmore Centre in Leeds at 7.30 on Fridays. So I went, I don’t think I went the first week, I chickened out and I went the second week. It was al…people were reasonably friendly. And then somebody near, near, who lived near, not too far away, gave me a lift home and I, I went a few times there.

And then that led me into the, going in to The Peel cos there used to be a pub called The Peel, which is on Boar Lane, which is long gone, where the Trinity Shopping Centre is now. And we went, we used to go in there afterwards and I ventured once or twice, by meself afterwards. It wasn’t a particularly nice place but it was better than going in the Hope and Anchor/New Penny, cos, it was notorious for rent boys and was rather a scruffy place. The Peel was a little bit more friendly, and from that I learnt…somebody said…uhm…mentioned The Gemini there. And I think one night when we’d been to the CHE meeting [Campaign for Homosexual Equality] somebody said, a student knew this other chap who drove, and he just says ‘are you going to The Gemini?’ And he says, ‘oh, alright’. He says ‘will you take me and will you take Robert as well?’ Me! So we went there and it was rather nice, really enjoyed it.

And, the odd time we managed to get a lift, occasionally somebody would take you. But it was only occasionally cos…cos there was no public transport…it opened late and closed late so you couldn’t really go otherwise. So, we went a few times, and then…uhm…cos you gotta remember, the Leeds…was terrible. There was The Peel and there was the Hope and Anchor. Because in those days the pubs closed at half-past ten, you’d licensing laws. But a pub…a little club, did open on, it’ll be, it’ll be Kirkgate, that’s now called, there’s a shop called Superdrug. And upstairs, there was some steps where Superdrug is, you went up some steps and there was a club there called Drags Club. That would have been in about 19, I would think, ‘78, ‘79.

And the chap there…we went the first time, it was the first night, he said, ‘If you join it’s ten shillings’, which seems nothing, like 50 pence. He says, ‘an if you, once you’ve joined’, he says, ‘it’ll be free every night of the week’. So, I, I thought fair enough, I mean often that just charged on probably Saturday night which is fair enough, most places did, you had to pay an entry fee, but after I’d gone a few weeks he said, ‘Oh, we’re having a cabaret tonight it’s five shillings to come in’. And…so, I put up with it for a couple of weeks, but this cabaret was rubbish. And it used to start really late. I used to get, have to get a very late night bus, there used to have late night buses, but the last bus I get was something like one, five…but they said the cabaret would be on at one-thirty, so I used to miss it so, it was…, it was just a rip off, it was basically just ripping you off really, cos the cabaret was, very amateurish, it wasn’t worth anything. So I mean, so Drags Club, that really didn’t really take off for me. It wasn’t really very good.

And so, I used to then, went to the Leeds CHE group but somebodys…it then changed to…in the eighties…it changed to, CHE disappeared…it was called Leeds Gay Community. We still met at the Swarthmore Centre but then somebody one night came from Bradford and he said, ‘we, we have meetings at this little church hall on Manningham Lane. And that’s on…on…uhm… Thursdays. So me and uhm, I can’t remember what his name were now, he said, he drove, he said, ‘We can go together if you want, and we’ll see what it’s like?’ So we went there and, and I found that more friendly than Leeds. So, eventually I started to go there, once or twice. And then I moved from Garforth to Pudsey, and uhm, it was far easier to go to Bradford cos working in Leeds, you went down on the bus to Leeds. It was nice to come home on a night then get a bus to Brad[incomplete]…it was a complete change.

So, I started to go there and af…after the meetings there we used to go to a pub, the best gay pub I’ve ever known which is demolished now, at the bottom of Leeds Road. It was called The Junction. We used to go in there. And people there used to ‘ccasionally…used to again, used to get a lift from people. They say, ‘oh, we’re going to The Gemini. And occasionally again I’d get a lift, and it was, it was quite nice. And then one, one erm Fri, erm Thursday a chap called, it was only, Alan came for the first time. And the…most people there were quite old. I was a similar age to him, I think I were a bit older. I’d have been in me thirties, he was in his late twenties. And he says, ‘oh’, we went to The Junction like we do afterwards. We had some drinks. He says, ‘I’ll give you a lift to the interchange…I drive’. So I says ‘it’s not re… [unclear] ‘oh, he says no I’ll give you a lift to the interchange’. So he did do.

[RS is handling paper notes at this point and RK is concerned it might pick up sound on recording.]

RK: It might pick up you do…[laughter]. Sorry to interrupt. [unclear]

RS: So he says, ‘I’ll give you a lift to the Interchange. So I says, ‘oh, alright then’. Then we went, he says, ‘do you fancy going to The Gemini. I don’t, I don’t want to go by meself. Would you come with me? Cos, I’ll take you in the car and bring you back’, so I thought this is great, is this. So we went on the following…I think it was the following, probably the following week, we went on the Friday. And then we used to…he says, ‘ooh’, he like.., he liked it. So we used to go every Friday and every Saturday. I used to meet him at The Junction, we’d have a drink and we went on to The Gemini. So I went for quite a…it must have been six months to a year, every, every…every weekend with him.

And we used to dance. And it used to be really, really nice. And…uhm…cos it, cos there they used to, they played records there, they must have imported them from America. But, I, I heard The Village People YMCA there, years before, not years, months before it was on the radio and got to number one. They used to play things that…an obscure b-sides to twelve inch singles. There was Blondie and the b-side of one which they always used to play was Sunday Girl but she sung it in French. And it was, that was unusual. And they used to play, used to play artists like The Gibson Brothers and George Benson, and obscure tracks. But it, and then you’d find them appear on the radio, you’d think, ‘God, I’ve heard that [laughter] years ago!’ And it…cos they were up to date there.

The place itself was really scruffy but it, it was a magnet, a magnet for people from, we used to get people from, y’know, Hull and erm Manchester and all over. And so, we went quite regular. Then eventually…he met somebody…err…who he got quite attracted to, and he went with him a few times, but I always found it was a bit awkward going like that so eventually we sort of…lost contact, just saw each other occasionally. And then later on I got a motorbike and on, on Fridays I used to go over [laughter] all the way to Huddersfield. Park my bike in the little pull-in lay by, and go, in the, in The Gemini there. It was quite good so…And…but, because, of course like I say, there was, there was nowhere in Leeds. There was that Drags Club which wasn’t very good. There was a small club opened in Bradford just outside the centre. Err…there was the odd CHE…erm…disco occasionally.

But there was nothing much else but, but what, what they did, before, ‘fore I got my motorbike. What The Gemini did on Sundays, they used to run a free bus from Lower Briggate on Sunday nights. I think it was about eight o’clock. They used to take you to The Gemini and it only stayed open until midnight on Sundays. But, if you...I’th’y’had to pay 50 pence or somein to go in. But, they gave you a supper, cos they had to do that in order to get the licence. And we, I mean that lasted for about six or seven weeks…err…but eventually it stopped because one, one night we, all of a sudden a lot of these [pause] gay, really gay, really over the top people got on and they, they were trying to erm, proposition the driver. And eventually at…the bus…a…didn’t come one Sunday, and I rung The Gemini up and they says, ‘oh, the drivers won’t, refuse to take people because of erm being hassled by these people’. And I th…we always think I can’t never prove it, we think the, The New Penny had put these people to do that because it was taking their business away. That was my suspicion. And I st…[laughter] I can’t actually prove it, but I think that’s what they did. Uhm…because, like I say, it only lasted about six weeks.

But, but one night when I did go…we were normal, we got there, we were disco-ing, and everything was going on really, really well, and then there was this noise, ‘Everybody stop!’. The lights came on and there were…there must have been about 10 or 15 coppers appeared. Says, ‘Right, nobody’s leaving here ‘til we get your names and addresses’. Now, now that particular night as well, there were, used to be a group, S & M group, they used to dress in leather, it was called The Pennine Chain. And they used to meet there, I think it was one Sunday a month, and they were all there. They were all leather clad, biker types with Freddie Mercury moustaches and those leather caps with the peaks on. An…really butch looking with all the big, lumberjack shirts on. Really masculine. Of course they were the first to sort of dash over and given their names and addresses…and scurried down the steps. Before…I think one of the first person they asked was, was me, this policewoman came over to me, she says, ‘Right, can I have your name?’. So I said, ‘No…’ I thought to meself, well I’ve done nothing wrong. Why should I give my name and address? This is, this is my night to be, to be…this is gonna be a great night. We’re all gonna stand up to them, and it’s gonna be a great equality for gays. And I refused. She says, ‘Right, well you won’t be leaving!’ And she went to some…not everybody, everybody was signing, everybody was going. And, at the end of about, must have been about twenty minutes, there was just me, a student from Leeds…rather camp student, and the really puny [laughter] little st…, litt…really camp, I probably shouldn’t say it. And all these big man, manly types had all scurried off and given their names and addresses. I just thought this could have been a really great, gay night, and it was just a complete and utter disappointment. And we were just stood there, and I thought, oh God the bus has probably gone. We’re gonna be stranded here. And uhm, the police then just turned round and went down the steps. And as they were going down the steps the, they put the…they must have found this record from round the back somewhere but they played God Save our Gracious Queen [God Save the Queen][laughter]. And we all started laughing. Then, we…I said to the chap who had put the record on, ‘Have they kept the bus?’ ‘Oh yes, it’s still there’. And so we rushed down the stairs. Luckily the bus was ‘ere-everybody looking glum, who’d signed, at us and we got on the bus and the driver set off. And, so, it wasn’t a great, this gay, gay night for gay nights, but it’s a night I’ll always remember. And I think at least I stuck up and two other people. But the sort of people you’d expect to go in, disappear, and all the big macho type, leather biker-types were the first one to run off into the, into the night and the darkness. But, so, that, that’s my re…last biggest impression of The Gemini.

But, but I will, I’ll say about The Gemini they never ripped you off. The drinks were a fair price. They charged you, they told you up front. You paid so much for a membership for the year. You had to pay on Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays. The rest of the time it was free. Whereas all the other places in Leeds, they always ripped you off. Watered down drinks, expensive. Except for one chap called Nicky. Now, he used to…somebody’s told me recently he used to be the manager of, uhm, the club in Leeds. The first gay club, Charlies. And he also took over another club called Primo’s near the market. But in, in about the early eighties on…opposite The, uhm, New Penny they used to be… a club called Bananas. You went down a few steps and if you went…an above that was, was, was spare rooms, and they opened that. That was called Rockshots. Now this chap called Nicky used to…used to have, put discos in Rockshots. And he, he was a really decent chap, he always used to talk to you as you went in. Talked to everybody. And he, he never ripped you off. It was a fair price, something like five bob to go in and the drinks were always reasonable. And, I always remember him cos he never ripped anybody off, everybody liked him. Cos somebody’s told me recently he’s only just died, so…But he, he was, most of the other places, it was a complete rip off. Everything…like the Drags Club I told you about. And most other people round here, they were, just ripped you off but…, but he was always very, very good, I always remember him. But uhm, so that’s my story about The Gemini, really. But it, it was a hub, everybody used to go, everybody used to like to go. And it attracted people from all over the area. Uhm…

RK: Do you remember much about the layout and the décor, and (RS: Oh…), how you, how you, my understanding it’s on, was it on the first floor of a building?

RS: You went in, and uhm…they used to take you, you showed your little, there like a little counter you’ve to show your, your membership pass. And there were, you could hang your coats up and they’d give you a ticket. There was no charge. So, again that was quite good, there was no charge or anything. Then you went up these rather, really grotty steps. Cos it closed for a while. Refurbishment. And all, all the refurbishment was, was, was gloss, red paint on the steps. And I thought that was the only refurbishment…up some steps, and it was re…it was really tacky inside but the dance floor was quite, it was a fairly, reasonably big dance floor. They used to have that, what was it, like fog, it was, it’s…y’know what I mean, they used to put, play that up and play the records. It were quite loud. But, the great thing about it as well, if you made a sort of ‘Oooh-oooh’ sound all the people used to do it back to you [laughter]. And that was quite good. But when you went up the steps, that was on the first floor, then you went down the steps again. I think it was opposite where you left your coats. You used to go through and there was a toilet there, a gent’s, but originally you could go out into, there was a back yard. And in this back yard there were these two enormous industrial dustbins. And, things, people used to thi…, go up behind and it used to be quite popular. In fact, a lot of people just used to go just for that. They’d get there about 10 o’clock…perhaps have one drink or no drink, some people didn’t have any drinks at all. Then when it got to about, about eleven, very late on, they used to go downstairs and they’d be various people standing on the steps, licking their lips [unclear], they would go down into the, into the back. Something I never did cos I always thought it was silly. I used to say t’somebody, ‘Well, you might as well go cottaging if you’re going to do that’. I don’t mind cottaging but why…surely if you want to meet somebody and take, what’s the point? I never saw the point but they thought it were marvellous. But, I must admit I used to argue about that, but apparently, whether somebody saw or heard about this, it was in the Huddersfield Examiner, I think. And there was quite a police…came in once or twice. I think it did close, I’m not absolutely certain, but I think it closed for a certain amount of time. And when it re-opened, the back you couldn’t go in the back, I think they’d put a gate up or something. It, it all that stopped. I think it did bring the takings down a bit. But it recovered, but, that was always the attraction for a lot of people, doing that.

Err, but it was pretty grotty inside and one of the, the only downside about The Gemini was if you bought a drink and put it on the side when you went to have a dance, it was gone when you got back. But [laughter], so they the only thing was to drink up and have a l.., a long dance, but of course you could in those days cos some of the 12 inch singles. I know the Donna Summer lasted up to 80 minutes [18 minutes?], Enough is Enough, McArthur Park, I think if you get, there’s various versions. There’s the, the seven inch lasts about two minutes and fourteen seconds. But if you got the really long disco version, the intro lasts about four minutes, before you actually get into the main record. So, you could [laughter], put your drinks back [laughter], and dance to these long, long records, which were quite, cos it, that was the disco era when I’m talking about, when it all came in. Donna Summer, who was one of the top ones, and the, when she did that one with Barbara Streisand, Enough is Enough. They’ve had a version out it must have lasted about twenty minutes, y’know [laughter]. But, cos in those days it was absolutely marvellous, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, uhm…like I said, but, but like we used to, to that Rockshots which was quite popular. Cos that originally, that’s at the side now when you come down Lower Briggate. You used to go up some steps, and originally it was on two floors. There was the floor where you had all the, the dancing and there was the quiet bar up, floor above that, but you couldn’t actually make that pay so it was all onto the first floor, Rockshots. It was open every night. But there was a fairly big, it had a fairly big dance area and on the very far end all the really butch dykes used to be. And any gay man that went round that particular side would probably get a, a black eye or something from these really, really [laughter] aggressive lesbians. And there really wor, a lot of them came from Bradford cos they were, cos, in those days they’d, if it hadn’t been for the lesbian drivers there would have been no buses in Bradford, because it was all run by [laughter] these really big, dykey lesbians. But they were very, very vicious, very aggressive. But they always used to be on the corner of that disco, I always remember that. But that sort of took over from The Gemini cos that had got quite popular for quite a few years, Rockshots. People used to come from Huddersfield and York and all over, an’ I think that took a lot of business away from The Gemini, cos I know I, I did stop going. And I think it must have declined. That would have been probably in the later eighties. I don’t quite know when it finished. I don’t know that. But, erm, yeah. But of course…go on.

RK: And how…I was going to say, how would you describe the clientele that used to go to The Gemini Club? What, what was the crowd made up of, who used to go there?

RS: I think it, well it, this was the, this was the thing. In the, in the early eighties and the seventies, everybody was thrown together. It wasn’t like it is now. I mean now you, if you go in The Viaduct you get the really rough older ones, and they’re really, really tacky. You go to Queens Court or Fibre and they seem to think they go with their noses in the air. Slightly more upmarket, or they think they are. And mix, with a mixture of straights. In those days we used to go, you went to The Peel or when that closed there was The Red Lion, everybody was thrown together. You get a, you get a student, you get a, a rather respectable dentist, a rather rough looking old chap in a mucky raincoat, a couple of rent boys, err, a couple of lesbians. Everybody mixed together. And it were the same in The Gemini, you get people, erm, with ra… respectable jobs. You get working class, a couple of layabouts, might get the odd rent boy in, you get people coming in groups. But everybody…it was better in that way, cos everybody…This was just that one or two places to go. You’d absolutely no choice. But it’s more fragmented now, I think. But in those days everybody was thrown together and you had to just literally had to get on with it. And that’s how it used to be.

But, in those…the only trouble is with the early part of the seventies it, it wasn’t really very nice in a lot of ways, because there was…you either had to be camp, or you had to be a clone like Freddie Mercury, with the moustache, the checked shirt and the Levi jea…or Wrangler jeans. You either had to be like that or you were rather camp, there didn’t seem to be any, any sort of in-between, which is…it’s better now. But that’s what it was like in those days. But, like I said, they mix…it was a complete mixture, right mixture of people. You had to be. But, of course never…we were talking err…early, very…if you saw any coloured person or Chinese you didn’t see, very rare. You might have got the odd mixed-race, one or two coloured, but very, very, very few. Err…but, you got students, it was a complete mixture.

RK: Did you get women going to The Gemini as well, or was it mainly men?

RS: Very few [overlaps with end of RK’s question]. Very few, you got the odd one but no, it was very few. In most of these places. I mean lesbians had their own scene, didn’t they? They had their own scene. No, you used to…the only place we used to get a group was in the…that Rockshots, the, the tend to be about ten to fifteen in this little group. And, the only other place where you got quite a few lesbians was in The Junction. Cos, I used to get on my bus on Leeds Road, I lived on Bradford Road, in, in, Stanningley, Pudsey. Used to get on the 72 bus, and it used to go down into Bradford, cos Leeds Road changed into Bradford Road which is where The Junction was. An’ I used to get off the stop before the Interchange. And so literally I got on the bus outside my house, and it stopped outside [laughs] The Junction pub, so it was ideal. But in there, one part of the pub was straight, like in The Peel and the other half was, was gay. And…but they always had a corner w’the jukebox were, there was always quite a few lesbians in there. But, they were the only two places. I never knew…that many lesbians in, in The Peel, like I saw one, or in The Red Lion, but you did get them in, in, in The Junction. Which like I say, that was the most friendliest pub I’ve ever been into. If you went in The Junction people would talk to ya, just to be friendly. If you went in The Peel or The Red Lion unless somebody fancied ya, or wanted to pick you up for some reason, they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t speak to ya. They’ll probably just blank you, wouldn’t even look at ya, and it wasn’t really, really very nice. But I always found Bradford more friendly. Huddersfield was. I once went one evening to Huddersfield, went in The Greyhound. Sat at the bar and chatted to some people, had quite a few drinks [unclear], I thought the pub was still open, they were still selling beer, an’ I looked at my watch, cos of course in those days it was half-past ten closing. It was about midnight! I thought Good Lord! And then all of a sudden this copper came in, with his hel…took his helmet off, and I though Oh God! And he, they just gave him a pint of beer, this chap [laughter], and he just went out again, so obviously it was some arrangement they had with the Huddersfield Constabulary. That they could stay open as long as the chap on the beat got a pre-pint [laughter]. But it was always friendly in there, it was always friendly in there, yeah, but that’s what I sort of remember from that time.

RK: And, thinking about Huddersfield again do you remember, do you remember anything about The Empire Cinema Club, was that open…

RS: Oh it’s notorious, it’s still going now. I’ve never been. [Overlaps with something RK says] I’ve never been but it is notorious. It is notorious. I know a friend that used to go, yeah. Apparently they only show straight…porn, and the straight people go in, but if you sit on, I think it’s the back row, it means they’re willing for you people who sit next to them to play with them while they’re watching this straight porn. And apparently, erm, …pending who’s on duty, things go on in the toilets. But, if one chap’s on duty he doesn’t allow that, he’ll throw you out apparently. You get a really cheap cup of coffee for about 30 pence, but it’s supposed to be very, very seedy, and full of really old, I’ve been told really old chaps. But I know people like go, but it doesn’t really sound very [laughter]…I…once somebody showed me where it was. I could see the entrance. It didn’t really look very nice, but it’s still going to this day. I don’t know, I don’t know when it started, but, but I think there used to be a similar club. I don’t know what it was called. It was on The Calls in Leeds. It used to be a place like that, and people used to go in and watch, it was a straight thing, but apparently if, if certain people were amenable, and chaps were sitting next to them, and either sucking them or wanking them off while they were w…[laughter]…ing the film. And it was, I think it must have closed in the seventies sometime. I don’t know what it was called, that.

But, but they were bleak times those, cos I mean, if you wanted to buy Gay Times you had to go, I used to go to a little place down near The Calls, it’s now a sandwich shop, it used to be a newsagent. It used to have various magazines in the window. One was called Fifteen Inches so, I can imagine what it was [laughter]. But, he used to sell Gay…Gay Times. I had…was it Gay Times in those days? [Gay News ran from 1972 – 1983; Gay Times ran from 1984 onwards]. Yeh, but of course I always used to miss me bus cos I think, after work I had to go down on Friday nights when it came out and get it. I always used to miss my bus. And somebody at the…the gay community on one Friday night says, ‘Oh, their selling it now at the Corn Exchange. There’s a little kiosk at the Corn Exchange. And, I went on the Friday night and of course [unclear] shifted a big piles of these Gay News. And they used to buy there quite openly and take it home from there. Cos that was the only really, really open thing that happened in Leeds, cos I know it was always, you had to buy it cos WH Smith wouldn’t sell Gay Times cos it would offend their other customers, was their policy. Cos I was amazed in 197…must have been 1980. I went down to Bournemouth and all the, all the little news agents there, they’d have Woman’s Own and TV Times and then they’d be Gay Times, next to it. I found that absolutely unbelievable! But, up north it was a lot more…austere and, and not very nice. Cos, cos in all the pubs in those days, it was all sawdust, dirty, and not really very nice. But, that’s what you had to put up with.

An…other thing that used to happen when the punks came on, they used to be full of punks. I think they liked the idea they were sharing the pub with queers, and it was rebelling against society. Cos I know you couldn’t get in some, it was full of punks and people like that, with pink hair and Doc Marten boots. And, these huge haircuts they used to have. But I think it was their way of rebelling against society and their parents. ‘Oh, we’ll go in with the gays, we don’t really like ‘em but, it looks cool, doesn’t it?’ I think that’s what they used to do. And…

RK: So, was there much interaction then, or…did they keep to themselves?

RS: They sort of mostly kept to themselves, yeah, yeah. But, there used to be a lot of fun pubs, there was one called The Star and Garter at Kirkstall, a big pub there. And they had little corners. Fun pubs used to have cabarets and people use to dress up and things, and then a lot of these fun pubs had little corners where there was gay, gay people used to go. Err…but that seems to have gone now. Cos…and there was quite a few like that. Once, I once went to a club after we…we’d got tired of The Gemini a bit. There’s a little club like, I can’t remember the name, it was in Ashton-under-Lyne. And we used to go in there cos Bett Lynch from Coronation Street used to go in. But that was quite a nice little club as well, I don’t know what they call that, I couldn’t tell ya, but it was Ashton-under-Lyne and it was a fair way to go. It was a nice little club. Very friendly. Very tiny little club. It was just a change from going to The Gemini…yeh…

RK: Is that sun in your eyes? Should I…

RS: No, I’m alright

RK: Just pause – just check…yeah

RK: Erm, so you talked about getting Gay Times regularly

RS: Yeah

RK: Buying Gay Times, I just wondered what that meant to you, what it gave you in terms of, y’know, why that was important, for you to do that?

RS: One of the most important things was that the…I always found it difficult, erm, I never really…really worked, for…the scene never really worked for me. I used to like dancing at The Gemini but I found meeting people, I always found if y’not in a group of people you never made contact with anybody, to have sort of an affair and a bit of an…and if you went in by yourself you just stand in the corner which was rather boring. Now, what Gay Times had was a section, personal section. Used to pay it was so much per word. We’re spoilt now with the internet, how free it is because it was so much per word. An’ you had to send your postal order or cheque, an’ y’had to put in two first class stamps. And what they used to do, they put the advert in and people who replied, they would put their replies into a bigger envelope and use your first class stamp and send them all back to you. So, you probably put your advert in, say the Saturday morning, send it off. The following, say Tuesday or Wed…the following Friday they’d have this huge, hopefully, huge envelope with all these replies, when it used to come back. And I used to meet people occasionally through that. A lot of people, they were too far away to contact but, but it was just a way…that was one of the main reasons I bought it. But some of the articles were good and it gave you, it also had a section with societies and groups, and different places. It did help ya, it was the only, really, contact you had cos there was nothing.

And, also, eventually when the Gay Switchboards came on, it gave you all the Gay Switchboards in all the various places, and it gave you the telephone numbers. Cos I know, when I wanted to stay in…I think it was Brighton, I remember the Brighton Gay Switchboard, they gave you a list of places that were, you could stop, gay-only guest houses. And things like that, so it was useful for that. [unclear]. It also gave you other things. There once was, they used to be a service called Gay…Gay Ma…it’s called Gay Men’s Legal, if you had any problems. It was run by volunteers. I think it was from 7-while-10, you could ring this number. They gave you legal advice an’ anything, any gay matters with the police, or, anything like that. And tha…all those sorts of things were in Gay Times, which I don’t think is known about if you haven’t got it. It was a real life-line.

Of course eventually they had…there was the case, the, was it? The obscenity…no it wasn’t obscenity, somebody said something rude to Jesus in an article. I think it were, and it were…the court case bankrupted them. And it came out in a different format, didn’t it? But, it was a lifeline, it really was, that magazine. Yeh, yeh it was.

RK: Was there anything local, in terms of magazines?

RS: Not at that time. No, Spotlight was much later, that came on. No, there was nothing. That was the only thing. It might be the odd…pamphlet from the university, the CHE disco or something like that, but…there was nothing. Y’were completely isolated really. And…erm…there was nothing really, not that I knew of. Because later on in the eighties [sound of phone] there was thousands and thousands of magazines. You’d go to the pubs, there’d be free ones, y’know, cos when the sex lines came out, that would have been in the…that would have been about 19…’88, ‘89. All these sex lines came out. Ring 0722, or was it 07 or 08? Or whatever it was? It was something like two pound fifty a minute. You could ring up. And of course the first minute was wasted while they told you drivel, and then, you could put your…you put your advert on free but if you replied to their advert you had to pay this enormous charge. But that was really novel. And then the other lines, where you could ring for ‘spunky plumber’ you had to ring, and you got [laughter] five minutes of this. But uhm, and that was really popular in the eighties, but going back to the seventies there was nothing really. There was nothing. Nothing really.

The Gay Switchboards were a real lifeline when they came out. I remember ringing the Gay Leeds Switchboard up once, and the chap there was more lonely than me I thought [laughter], because I was asking about something and he…I couldn’t get away from him. I think he was on that just to sort of, somebody to talk to. I’d ring up with some query and he just wouldn’t go [laughter] away. So, it was quite nice really. To ‘ave somebody to talk to. But they were a lifeline. Were the Gay Switchboards.

RK: So you mentioned using the Brighton one, was it, or was it erm…

RS: Brighton, it was Brighton

RK: Yeah, to find out accommodation

RS: That’s right, yeah

RK: What else did you use the switchboards for in terms of…what were you particularly ringing for, y’know, without necessarily taking you into areas you don’t want to go into [laughter]

RS: It was just really enquiries and things like that. I might ask about if The Gemini had closed. I think I might have asked about The Gemini once, because…Oh, an’ I rung the Brighton one cos I’d stayed at this guest house and I’d rung to re-book and there was no reply, and the chap there says, ‘well I pass there on my way home, I’ll look and see…and see if it’s still there’. And I rung the following night and they said, ‘oh, it seems to be closed down for some reason’. But that was the main reasons why I rung, but, basically they were for that, just, it was information really. That’s what they were there for. I don’t think they were there as, sort of, Samaritans or anything like that, but…that’s why I rung, and they were useful. They were very useful. And you felt as though y’knew there was a contact, there was somebody there, somebody who sort of cared, who were giving you information. There was no charge or anything like that. Cos like I say, the commercial scene, it was all money, they’re not, weren’t very nice people. Just want to take your money off you, that’s all. There was nothing else. So, yeah.

RK: Erm…just going back to The Gemini Club for a moment, was there anything that identified it as a club from the outside, or was it a place that you just had to know about?

RS: Y’had to know it. It was just a seedy door, that they had a little thing they used to open, and look at you. And if they thought y’were alright they’d open the door. Oh no, it was very, very…very seedy [laughter], it’s the only word that can describe…it’s like one of those in the old gangster films, and the speakeasys. It was like that [laughter]. They’d open this little door and look at ya, then close it then a few minutes later the door would open, and there might be five or six people outside waiting sometimes, yeah, yeah. And sometimes you’d knock and they’d be no response for quite a while, and then they’d look at ya and they’d come to the door. No, it was very seedy.

Well all places were like th’in the seventies, that was the gay scene. Cos, of course, cos if I was to say te…, somebody was to come up to me in the pub and say…I was to go up to somebody, or somebody came up to me, I’d say, ‘oh, I don’t really fancy ya’. But then I used to say, ‘but that chap over there rather likes you’. I would be committing an offence, wouldn’t I? Just for saying that, cos I was…mora…for immoral purposes. Cos if you, if you looked at…if you went to the law library, and looked in…I think it was Moriarty’s Police Law…Mor…Mor…was is it? It said there quite clearly, for the purposes of the law any homosexual act was immoral. That was the police’s attitude. That was everybody’s attitude, they were austere times, y’don’t always realise. And they put these horrific offenses, y’know, importuning for an immoral purpose and gross indecency, which never existed till the, the criminal…when it was changed. They all make it appear as marvellous when it was made ill…, legal but it was only…it was made legal and made illegal for thousands of other people, there were these new offences, were brought out. It was pretty awful, cos if you got your name in the paper for doing anything, you’d be thrown out of your job. They’d just simply throw you out. Say, ‘You’re…you’re queer, get out!’ Nothing you could do about it.

RK: So, in that kind of…erm…environment, and that sort of context, how did it feel going cottaging at that time, knowing what the possible repercussions might be?

RS: I think it’s something…it was a…for a lot of people the danger, the most popular cottage were always the most dangerous [laughter]. I thought it rather silly but, to, the danger, for a lot of people, they rather liked it. I think, for a lot of people they probably wanted to be caught, perhaps, if they were married. And they probably thought if I’m caught, it’s gon…I haven’t the guts to sort o’say to everybody, I’m…I’m an homosexual man. But thought if I get caught, it’ll…that’s always been one of my…I always thought perhaps that were the reason, but, there were lots of married people, and people who never in a million years admit that they were gay. An’ if they see…if they see you at work or some other…I remem.., I know once, I used to go cottaging and I used to meet this chap regular, and I went into the hospital, to visit somebody, and he was there. He was um…I think he was a male nurse or an auxiliary, an’ his face went red, an’ he scurried out of the room. Really, really frightened. But I think a lot of people did it for that reason. But they…it was popular, the cottages, it was very popular.

Well, my attitude to it, the only way I could see somebody who was like a proper man, who was straight, cos most of the gay bars, it was really, y’had to be, y’had to be camp. The pressure was on ya. I know somebody who went into the gay bar, who was quite straight and rather nice. After going to a gay bar for three or four months, he just felt the pressure, ‘I have to be camp, I have to act camp’. Like, like straight blokes, they aren’t always very macho, but when there with all their mates, they go to the football match, they’ve got to behave as though they’re macho. On the gay scene, in those days, y’had to behave as though you were camp. Or you had to be a clone. And neither particularly appealed to me. But I found I could, by going cottaging, or whatever, you could always find somebody who you could relate to, who you sort of found attractive. That was one of the reasons I did it, as well.

RK: An’ I’m just curious, going back to the starting point, when we began to talk, an’ you mentioned about some toilets in the Merrion Centre…

RS: Oh yes…

RK: erm, and I’m just, I just wonder how you, you said they’d got a reputation…

RS: Yeah…

RK:…and I just wonder how you knew about that reputation. Was it…y’know, how do, how did gay men get to know about those places at that time?

RS: Well, well I just saw people hanging round and just standing there. Actually just standing there, and it became apparent that these things happened. And of course, when I chatted to somebody who said, ‘ooh, that’s a better cottage, that one. That’s a cottage [laughter] down ‘ere. Well, I ‘idn’t know they’re called cott…this chap says they’re called ‘cottages’. I said, ‘ooh’, and he told me about the various other places where there were, where cottaging used to go on. And he took me round, ‘this is a cottage, and that’s a cottage’ [laughter]. And of course new people used to come on the scene and old people would take them in cars and show them all the cottages. If it was someone young and attractive of course they’d go with them, round with them for a while, then perhaps introduce them to the pubs. And, led them into the pub scene. Lot of people…were brought into it by cottaging and then they went on into the pubs or the clubs. A lot of people did it that way. But, err, oh yeah, there was, they were notorious places. I suppose people, well everybody, certain places, every…most people knew. They probably wouldn’t go down, they’d ‘old on and go to another [laughter] toilet, which was more [unclear].

Cos, the police, it was notorious for the police, it was a great way to arrest, y’could make 20 or 30 arrests in a day, y’see. If the crime figures, probably, were down they’d bill Garforth police, send a couple of rather dishy looking coppers up. Cos it was tho…the days when they had the tight Levi jeans, and they used to sandpaper them. And they used to sandpaper them ‘til they were very frayed, and they used to sew patches on them. They were rather sexy. Really tight. But o’course they send these rather dishy young policemen in their twenties, who’d, who’d see you wa…stan…sitting on the bench near the cottage, or standing, they’d lick their lips and go down into the cottage, y’see. And that’s what they used to do. Agent provocateur it was called. Of course, when it got to court, they’d say, ‘Oh, it was just observing, and…his colleague, he of course would have exactly the same statement as’t’what had happened. And of course, they could arrest 20 or 30 people in the day. It was great for bringing their arrest figures up.

Yeah, I know where I used to live there was a cottage down the road at Stan…, I never went, it was too near my house. But in the local paper The Pudsey Times, they’d got, they must have had a purge on, cos they’d got loads of arrests, cos in those days they were the erm, Pudsey Magistrates Court. And of course these people who had been caught were actually from Bradford and in the centre of Leeds. And of course the Pudsey Magistrates – ‘we don’t want this thing going on in Pudsey’. And these poor devils, I think they were fined something like £250. Well, the same offence in Leeds would have been something like £25, £50, but these poor devils…Of course you’re talking about 19…probably…80s, so I mean £250…would be nearly a couple of thousand [laughter] pounds now. But, of course, their names were in the paper so the poor devils probably, might o’lost their jobs and everything, yeah. But, it was pretty, it was pretty grim in those days. But, the cottaging, but people…didn’t deter people from doing it. People did it and they…did it.

RK: Did you see much of that police activity first hand, or were you aware of it. I mean I know…

RS: Oh, I think yeah…some police’d…if they saw you passing an’ going in. A young cop once said to me, ‘if I…if I’, just flashed his card, he said, ‘if I see you going, see you going in there, see you going in there again I’ll, I’ll, I’ll nick ya!’ Yeah, yeah, yeah…they were pretty, they weren’t really very nice, no. Oh, well I knew a chap. I met him at the…through the Gay Times adverts. And…I met ‘im, we went to meet him in Huddersfield, and he went home to where he lived. And he told me, a really tall guy, he told me he used to work for Huddersfield Police. And he said, uhm, that what they used to do, they used to get people coming in from cottaging, they’d put them in the cell and if it was a quiet night all, all the coppers would come in, three or four of them, go down to the cell, and make the people who they’d arrested perform in front of them. As a spectacle, a bit of fun. So whether it’s true, it’s wa’he told me. I don’t wan’to disbelieve him. He looked a big, sort of heavy guy though, he could have been a copper. He was so disgusted, that’s why he left the force. [pause] That’s what he told me…yeah.

RK: So, is there anything else you want to add, Robert, erm, cos we’ve covered quite a lot of…subjects, haven’t we, but I just wondered if there’s anything else that…just as we finish up…there’s anything else you…

RS: Yeah, I just probably think that the gay scene…it’s better in a lot of ways now, err, but I don’t think erm, it’ll…it’ll continue as it is, because I think people, it’s all going to this cybersex, isn’t it, and things like that. And the Internet and everything. I think it’ll destroy the gay scene, I don’t think it will keep it together really. Yeah, because the…there always was, in those days, they used to be the…the Gay Times, uhm, the personal scene. There was that scene, where people just communicated that way. There was a hidden, rather upmarket scene, where people went to dinner parties, and met people that way. There was the, the bar scene, where people went, and there was the cottaging scene. And I think that…there was sort of four levels, four strands, an’ they didn’t always used to…some met, and some didn’t. But I think there were four strands in those days. Whereas I think now there’s [car horn] probably a couple of strands. There’s probably the Internet and all the apps and everything, and then there’s the gay scene, but I think it’ll all probably just go into the…Internet, I think, eventually. Cos, a lot of the pubs and places in Leeds now, there seem to be more straights going than [laughter] gays. All a mixture. Mixture…but, anyway, yeah, I think that’s about it really.

RK: OK, thank you. I’ll just stop the recording

[END]

Robert Salt (Part 2)
Interviewed by Robin Kiteley
15th February 2019

RK: So, I’m Robin Kiteley, erm, it’s the 15th February 2019, and I’m interviewing today for the West Yorkshire Queer Stories project.

RS: I’m Robert Salt. I was born on the 17th January 1950 and I live in Bramley. Originally I was from Garforth, then I moved to Pudsey but, like I say, now I’m from Bramley, and identify as being male…male, gay man.

Yeah, leading on then from before, I thought I’d do a subject of erm…of gay holidays, because in the, in the erm, late seventies – early eighties…I erm...decided to try a gay holiday. And I think my first one was, must have been about, it was the time…just before Saturday Night Fever came out. So it was something like ’78, I would think, or ‘79. And I went to erm…Brighton. Cos somebody had told me about this guest house there. And I, I managed to find it. I don’t know, there must have been an advert, it might have been in Gay Times. And I went to this guest house. I got the bus, the National Coach. It left Bradford at erm, I think it were about 9.30 on Friday evening, and he got to Brighton at something like 6 o’clock in the morning. It was pretty horrific. And er, got off the bus, really, really tired [laughs], and went up to this guest house. Luckily the chap was up at about, about, it must have been about 7, half-past 7. But a really, really nice gentleman, I’ll never forget him. He was really nice, he made you completely welcome. He included me in everything he did for the two weeks I was there. He, uhm, got me various free tickets. He got me one to go in the Brighton Pavilion, completely free. There was this huge queue of tourists, ‘ad to pay, and when they saw I had a pass I was rushed straight through. And he got me a ticket to see Pygmalion at the local theatre, and various other events free.

And he also, which was very nice, he took me to, it must have been about 5 private gay clubs, which normally you’d have to be a member and pay. And he introduced me to the management, and said, “This is Robert from Leeds. He’s staying for two weeks. On his stay would you kindly let him in every night”. Everybody agreed. And he said we would hope, y’know, if somebody came to Leeds or Bradford, they would do the same thing, which I don’t actually think they would do, but err, they…I thought that was really nice. So, I used to go in these little gay private clubs, besides the main scene, because the main scene there was a little bit disappointing, I found. And also what he did, he took me to various pubs in Brighton. Straight pubs. But most of them had little corners, which he said, “that’s the gay corner, if you sit there people will come and chat to you”. It used to work, did that. So it was quite a nice holiday, was that. And because of, I remember the first night I went out to the gay, the gay erm, bar there. I was jus’ sort’of usually sat by yourself, which I would in Leeds. But this rather nice chap kept looking at me with, with his friend, an’ he was from the CHE in erm,…Croydon. An’ they came down to London and he came over to me and started chatting to me. He says, “I know what it’s like if you’re sat by yourself and you don’t know anybody”. From there we went on to the club. And then we came out of the club, and his friend there, started kissing me in the street, which was completely unusual in 1978. There were some police there, an’ he says, “oh, to the hell with it!” And [laughs] and, but nobody bothered. No police didn’t bother, or anything like that. I went back with him, but, I always remember, erm, how nice that gentleman was.

So the following year I was going to go again but I rung the number but there was no answer so I rung the Brighton Gay Switchboard, I think I mentioned once, in my last interview [for cross-reference purposes date of previous interview was 19th September 2018]. And they didn’t know anything about it but one of the chaps on the switchboard said, uhm, “I, uhm, I know where it is. I’ll pass on me way home and see if there’s a sign up or anything, see if there’s anybody in”, and ring me back tomorrow. So, I rung him tomorrow he said he’d passed but the place was empty. I think there was a ‘For Sale’ sign up, so I’d no idea what happened. I know he liked to drink so perhaps he just moved on, or lost the business or whatever, I don’t know.
But it was a, it was a really nice holiday, was that. Horrible weather, but it was really nice. He told me where the gay, cos the gay nudist beach in Brighton is near the sewage works [laughter], which isn’t really very nice. So that, that wasn’t really, there was a horrible smell there, and it wasn’t very nice, that. That wasn’t very nice, but the rest of the holiday I enjoyed. Then I think the foll…oh, the same year, yes, I went to Bournemouth. Later on in the year. And I just took a chance in this other boarding house, again it was a really nice chap. He typed out a letter for me telling me….he actually typed it out, telling me where to go out, get off the bus and walk down and turn left and turn right. He gave me, again it was even more a horrific journey. I think that bus left at 8 o’clock or something like that on the Friday night, and got there at 6. It wa…that was horrendous. Er, but, I remember falling asleep there, when I got there.

But again they were really, really nice. He would say, I used to go to the gay beach which I’d heard about at Sandbanks. And he’d say to somebody who he knew, who were staying at the guest house, “will you take Robert – he hasn’t been before”. And they took me and show’d me where everything was, so again it was, they were really nice as well. Err, so I was lucky that particular year, and I went, funnily enough, to that guest house 2 or 3 years after that. And they were always very nice there. And we used to, cos they used to, mixed gay house, so they used to have breakfast. Everyone was very formal, but when all the straights went all the gay ones, we used to be left, we used to have an hour of quite camp conversation. Laughing at what had happened during the day, so it was quite good.

But of course, cos in those days you were sort of, uhm, you found out through these various magazines. They used to be a gay, there were quite a few just gay-only, uhm, travel agencies. And what they used to do, I never did it but I did think about doing it, you used to get, if you didn’t know anybody they’d, they would buddy you up – it was called Gay Buddy. You paid a little bit extra and they’d buddy you up with somebody with similar age or interests. You could go on a holiday abroad. I never did it but it was quite a good idea, but the prices were quite expensive compared to say, a normal straight holiday. But I suppose it you were by yourself and you were gay, only way really you could do it. So, that was my experience of the gay holidays there. Uhm, yeah.

RK: Just pause…erm…

RS: Yeah, the strange thing about Brighton was that, y’know, everyone thinks it’s really cool, and the top, sort of, place. But when I went we went to a disco, it was the Palace Pier Nightclub and it was a disco. But they only had one turntable! The Gemini, like most places, had two, so you’d go seamlessly from one twelve inch single to the next. But that, they had to literally stop. Take the record off and put it on. And that was Brighton! I thought, how uncool, how pathetic! [Laughs]. And the other strange thing was when I came back I went to The Junction in Bradford and a group of people in Bradford had gone to Brighton, and they’d gone to the same pub. I forget what it was called, in Brighton. But one of the chaps there, he’d gone to The Junction pub, which, in Bradford, which is pretty rough. Which again you think, compared to Brighton, we’d gone years without any trouble. His first night in Brighton, he goes in the gay pub and gets attacked on his way in, and his nose were broken. And again I thought how, how uncool was that?

And a really, erm…nasty story, which I thought was awful. In the, in the guest house I was staying in Brighton there was a really old chap, he was from Scotland. He must have been, I would say, about 70. And he’d gone in the local gay pub and the chaps behind the bar, he must have been chatting to them, and they said, “We’ve got a big pile of gay magazines, if you want to see us when we’ve finished we’ll give them to you”. So, he agreed, he says “We’ll get in a taxi, we’ll go to our house, and we’ll give you the magazines”. So, they get in the taxi and these two, two…they get to the end of the little road and they just said to him, “you wait in the taxi, we’ll go home and we’ll bring the magazines to you”. An’ so this chap obviously…y’know [laughter] what’s coming up, sat in the taxi, nobody ever came back. But I thought what a cheap, tacky, little trick to do to some nice old gay man [laughter], but that’s, I suppose, really what it was like.

That was it, it was like…yeah, yeah, so I mentioned the gay beaches. The one in Bournemouth is absolutely beautiful. You used to get the, erm, used to, you could either get the open top bus to Sandbanks, just before you went through Poole, or you could actually walk along the beach which we used to do. I used to, met somebody from London, we used to go together every day. We used to get on the ferry which used to cost about 20 pence. It just literally, just a short strip of water. And then we used to walk for about 20 or 30 minutes. And then you came to the gay nudist beach, which was various dunes, and it went to a back area but, when I went, I think the bank holiday, the first, I think it might have been the second time I went, the bank holiday, literally, there was [laughs], there was thousands of people there, or there appeared to be. From all over the world. And you’d see a dune, and then a head would pop up, and it would go back down again. But it was absolutely, absolutely wild! Absolutely wild. Cos of course it’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful, it’s a beautiful…erm, spot.

Cos, an old, an old chap. I was sat, I’d been sat there and this old chap was just coming, he was going, “Oh”, he says, “I’m going now. I’ve seen you on the beach before. Would you like a lift back in my yacht?” This little yacht. So, I says, “oh”. So we got in, it was only a small yacht, err, and er, we got in. It must have been powered actually as well. It must have had a mo…it did have a motor. So we got in and he says, “do you want to erm, do you want to have a go at driv[uh-le-le]”. I says, “well I don’t know”. He says, “no, it’s easy”. So, I had a go at this wheel and we started to set off, and then this huge, it was called Truckline, a huge ferry bringing all the trucks, y’know. Absolutely gigantic, was coming straight towards us, and the horn was going. He says, “oh” he says “don’t worry, they’ve got to give way for sail, that’s the rule”. And, and I just, I was just getting more and more nervous but, it did actually move out of the way. This gigantic [laughter] ferry. And then he, he dropped me at Poole and we got in his Daimler car and he dropped me outside where I was staying. But I thought that was really, really upmarket and nice.

But the, cos, at the night we used to go where they used to be gardens in the centre of Bournemouth. That was very good cruising as well, so it was a good cruising area. But, but the Brighton beach was really horrible. You could smell the sewage works, and it wasn’t really very nice at all. It was pebbly, whereas the Bournemouth beach – it was beautiful sand, you couldn’t have wished for a nicer…Well, cos of course Sandbanks near where that is, Swanage, that’s the most expensive property in Great Britain, so, ‘tis a nice area. But police never seemed to bother. The police never seemed to bother. Er, there was someone who was telling me one win…the police did have a cut down, once. And there was a place called, was it, it was called The Snake Pit [laughs] people used to gather in these bushes and probably some police had, had gone one day and this old chap was down there and he just shouted at the top of his voice, “Somebody come and fuck me!” [laughter]. And that was the evidence given in Poole Magistrates Court the following day [laughter]. So, it wasn’t, it was quite notorious, yes, yes, yes. But nice holidays.

But, when the AIDS, I went once when the AIDS break was all over the news and there was absolutely nobody there at all, about 2 or 3 people. So I don’t think, I don’t think it goes on very much now. I think it all went, but those days, probably up to about 1980, it was really, really…I think people from Spain, I met somebody from America. It must have been known from all over the world I think. Yeh, cos I notice in there [refers to old magazine that he has brought along to interview], there’s some Spartacus Guides in those magazines. They were £19.99 in 2000. So they probably would have been in there, that’s why people who came, probably gone to London and got the, got the, probably train, to Bournemouth, just to see what the beach was like, yeh, yeh, yeh, yeh.

So, yeh, so, err, now I mentioned last time about a place called Drag’s Club. Now, when, when I was at work in the uhm…late seventies, and I came out, there was a chap called Alan. And he came and stayed with me – he was really rugby-type player. And he, he completely accepted…he wasn’t, people would say, “you’re not gonna lodger with him for a few weeks, you, he might”, “oh”, he took no notice of them. He stayed with me, and he used to go out in the evenings, he went to see his girl…this girl he knew in Huddersfield. And he came back late, he was really annoyed. I said, “What’s happened?” He says the police have stopped him. Cos it was ‘The Ripper’, was about, and any single man driving, the police used to stop them, ask for identification, and he was really annoyed about that. That puts my next story into perspective. [The Yorkshire Ripper, serial killer Peter Sutclilffe]

So, I think it must have been, round about the same time, I went to that club called Drags Club which was on Blands Lane, above, I think it’s what, place called Superdrug. You used to go up some steps and it was on the top floor. I went there and there was a lad in their called Ziggy, who everybody thought was really cool, but for some reason he took to me, and, which was unusual. And we would dance, then we were chatting and he says, “Do you want to come home?” And he’d got a little house that was off Clarendon Road, so we went, I went to his house, and we went in. We were sort of set on the settee and had a cup of coffee. We were chatting away. Then he, he reaches under the settee and pulls out this, this manilla folder. I thought, I looked at him and he opened it up and it was literally full of cuttings about The Ripper. And I, I thought should I run? But literally I just froze, I thought to me’self – “is this The Ripper?” Cos nobody knew what he was like, they’d been no identification? - “is he turning on men…gay [laughs]?” And I just sat there, but when it all transpired, his sister had been Helen Rytka, he told me, who had lived on Chapeltown Road. And I think she was the first victim [she was the eighth victim according to public records]. And he’d kept all these cuttings. But for a…but I literally just froze. I just erm, I remember just freezing there, yeah. Yeah, it was awful. Yeah.

And going now, if we go back now to my cottage stories, I had one, there was a cottage near the Parish Church. It was called ‘The Palace Cottage’ it was near the Parish Church, near The Palace Pub. And I went in there, late one night, I went in, there used to be about, there was no traps, there was just about, must have been about 10 urinals. And I went in, and there was a chap at the very end, with long, very long permed hair, he looked really camp. No interest to me whatsoever. And then, I think this old gent…an older chap came in. Again, an old man in a dirty raincoat, of no interest to me. He stood about 3…traps, err, 3 urinals away from the other chap. With the, er, who appeared to be masturbating. And I didn’t take much interest. And the older chap just went to the one next to him, and then to next to him, and he must have looked over, put his hand over to grope this chap with the permed hair. And the chap with the permed hair pulled out of his pocket a CID, it must have been, and shouted, and another chap came in and he must have been outside. I hadn’t seen him. Big chap, he said “CID”, and then he pulled this chap by his coat, and he says, pointed to him, he says, “Don’t you ever do that, touch me like that, ever again”. And he got his fist and he hit this chap. And this chap hit the wall and fell on the floor. The other policeman came over to me with his fist, he stuck it in my back and he says to me, “if I were you I’d leave now”. Which of course I did! [laughs]. I thought if I stay they’ll only stitch me up if I try to cause any trouble. But, it’s, it’s an incident I’ll always remember. I’d never seen anything like that, not in Leeds. The violence, I’d never known, police coming, but I’d never known that before. No, no, no.

That’s why I find it difficult to get away from cottaging. I remember once going in The Peel pub. I mean if I like somebody in a pub I would go up to them. Sometimes you’d be rejected or whatever. But, I remember this chap were looking at me and he was quite nice. He wouldn’t come up to me. And I’d had a few drinks, I went down to the toilet, and he followed me down and I thought, ‘well, no, no, no, no’. Like I mentioned what used to go on at The Gemini [see Robert’s first interview]. I’ll cottage if I want to cottage but why do they have to bring it all into the normal gay scene. This is the problem I always had. They always had to bring the cottaging, or whatever, they couldn’t keep it separate. So, it was difficult, I thought well if I don’t cottage it’s brought to me wherever I seem to go [laughs], so, so, that was always a difficulty I had. It was the same in Brighton, there was a chap in the club there. Wouldn’t even look at me. Went in the cottage afterwards and he’s there. And comes on to me strong as anything, again I just waffled away. I might not do it now but in those days I had these sort of standards. I thought, ‘if I want to cottage I’ll cottage, if I want to meet somebody in a pub why can’t they meet you in a pub?’ I don’t know. That was always a problem. That was always a problem.

Yeah, err, but one thing about the cottaging scene though, there was a camaraderie. I remember that there was once [some people?] I didn’t like at all but if there were police were about they would warn you. I never found that camaraderie anywhere else. I’d go on the gay scene and people weren’t particularly always very nice. But the people, even people you didn’t like would actually warn you while the police. “The police are about, watch him with the grey hair [laughs], he’s a copper” [said in urgent whisper]. Plus, you could tell in those days, they used to wear really tight jeans, and look quite sexy. But the trouble is they always had short hair, the police, whereas the lads in them days had very long hair so…it was a giveaway. And in the, going, and in the late eighties they used to have radios, but they were about the size of two bricks. But they had to have two radios. One to receive, and one to transmit. So, you’d find in the pocket, they’d put them in their, like a bomber jacket, and it literally would balloon out on them. So you could see somebody coming like that you thought, ‘oh, he’s a copper!’ [laughs] So, that’s how you used to sort of know, but they, they used to go to that Parish Church cottage that I told you about. They used to sit on the benches outside in a little park, by the Jewish Cemetery. And the police would walk by and these little ones who used to be on, they’d walk by, they’d go in the park and walk by you and lick their lips, and go into the toilet and it was a little bit predictable, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, so going on from that, oh yeah, the, one night I always remember I went to the…erm…GaySoc at the university. There used to be a society there, and I went from there on to the pub called The Fenton, where they used to go afterwards. And I was invited to this student party, in this little terraced house. And we, we were so busy, they were drinking in the cellar, I went down to the cellar and there was a group. It must have been about 1976, ‘77, there was a group called Tom Robinson Band, a punk group. An’ the song they always used to sing which they played there was Glad to be Gay. And I was, we were all dancing, me and these…I think we were all holding hands, or arms around each other, about 6 or 7 lads. But, and at the end of it I realised that not one of them was gay! [laughs] I was the only gay one there, and I thought that was really nice. It’s like that scene in Quentin Crisp with the sailors, where he says it was a night he always remembers, where he’s completely harmless fun. It was like that, it was really nice, was that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And about the same time, must have been about that, might have been, no, it was earlier. There was erm, Edward Heath, he had trouble with the miner’s strike, and we used to have a 3 day working week. And to save power there were no street lights or anything, for 3 nights a week. The street lights would be off and they would come on about 10 or 11 at night. And of course it was all let loose in the local cottages, and everything. It was like, it was like, probably, the blackout. Like Quentin Crisp says when the blackout came it was absolute heaven, cos all the police, of course, were on point duty, cos none of the traffic lights worked. So, everything was just left, so, the cottages, if you could find your way around [laughs], they were absolutely, really, really busy. Yeah, [unclear].

Yep, an, oh, so I remember, I think I haven’t mentioned…when I left school and I went to work at Burton Tailoring there was, I didn’t, I…at that particular stage I didn’t know…about gay people. I was about the only uhm, I thought I was the only gay person, I remember. I remember going to Blackpool, and I went into Woolworths, and I got a uhm, a dictionary called The Home and Office Dictionary. And I’d heard the term ‘homosexual’ on the television but I didn’t know what it meant so I sc…got to this…got to ‘h’. It says homosexual – it said uhm, homosexuality, yeah. It said erm, ‘somebody who, who likes the same sex’. And ‘a homosexual is a person perverted thus’, or something like that. So, that put me in my place. But, but, when I went to work at Burton’s this lad was there, but I was very uptight. He really liked me, I was 15, he was 17. And he kept saying, “Ooh, would you like to go look round record shops at the weekend”, cos we liked the same sort of music. But I just daren’t. I used to say, make an excuse up cos I thought if I go out with him, I was too dumb to realise, I think he probably was gay. I thought he might say let’s pick up some girls or something like. I always, but I always regret that, it’s always something I’ll regret but, when you’re young you can be a bit stupid, I suppose. Erm, yeah.

Yeah, when uhm, yeah, when I went to the uhm, used to go to the Swarthmore Centre, to the uhm, it was the CHE group [Campaign for Homosexual Equality], which became the gay, Leeds Gay Community. And there was a chap there called Tim. He worked at the university, he was a lecturer. And he used to, every month, he used to do a little group it was Gay Christian Group. And we used to go to his house, cos he lived there, it was like a little, little path of a terraced house. Then we used to go there and he used to give you coffee and wine, and snack and, really nice chap. And we used to have speakers, I remember. He had somebody from the university once on about the Kingsley [Kinsey?] Scale, and about psychology of sexuality but, he was really, really nice. And we used to go once a month, and we went one night and he, the house, place was in darkness. And I never saw him again. But, he was really nice. It was a nice little meeting. People used to go, it was really nice was that. Err, and uhm…

RK: How many used to go to that?

RS: I think we used to have about half a dozen, not a right lot, it was only at his house, but it was really nice, it was really nice. Cos he got some quite interesting speakers, and we used to do…but what happened to him, I don’t know.

But it’s like a lot of these things. I remember reading once this serial killer used to, used to murder young men and a lot of them were gay, but the police said a lot of these young men had never even been reported as being missing. That’s the sad thing about it. Cos Leeds was always like that. You’d go in The Peel and you’d see somebody for 6 or 7 weeks, then they’d just disappear. Err, and all, it’s a transient community, the gay community, people tend to move around. But, I mean they literally could be murdered, I don’t know if anybody’d miss you, it’s sad really. It’s sad. Because, you hear a lot of the people that say they come out and their families threw them out, and I suppose they’ve just, just move around. Move around, so, it’s sad really. Yeah, yeah. But I’m, yeah, cos of, because yeah.

I remember going to, af…, from that group, I went to the uhm, the CHE group, they had the CHE dance. Student dance [unclear] I always remember, and it was one of the few kind things that I remember. I was chatting to this chap and students, and we were all just talking and I mentioned the record, this particular record I liked, and we were all, there were people dancing. But we were just sort of sat there. But everybody was a little bit uptight, because they weren’t out or anything. And uhm, then this tune, this record came on, it’s something that I said I liked and uhm, this, he looked at me this lad. I don’t think he particularly fancied me. He looked at me again and he said, “Do you want to dance?” Cos he knew that I liked this particular tune. And I just thought that were a really nice little gesture to do, cos people hadn’t always been very, very nice. Yeah, so that’s something I’ll always remember.

And going back to, just going back to Bournemouth briefly, which was a nice thing in Bournemouth – we were in the cruising area there. And the police always left you alone, I never knew any trouble. But one particular night there was a light shone through, and there was a megaphone came on. “POLICE – everybody out of the bushes”, so we all came out and thought, ‘oh god, on holiday and I’m going to have to be hauled down to the police station’. And then we all came out and the police just looked at us all, got back in the car and just drove [laughs] away. I thought in Leeds they would have actually, actually banged you up for, probably, for ages. That was a nice little erm, a little thing…because when we used to do it in Leeds we used to, used to go in the Merrion Street cottage. They used to go up to the, these, these, these, err, multi-storey car parks were ideal for, for taking people. Cos if you go up the steps to the very top floor there was, like a little, it would have been like a little, not a hut but like an entrance, which was covered. Which went up to the top floor, and nobody wanted to drive up to the top floor so you used to go up all the steps to there, and people used to do whatever they had to do there. But you used to be left, really left to your own devices. People used to do that, police knew about it but I don’t think cos not enough people were going up there, they never used to bother. Yeah.

Cos of course when the cottages were, always quite busy, but of course they closed in the, it must have been in the, starting in the early to mid-nineties. One by one. I didn’t realise at the time, you’d say I heard so and so, you’d go, “yeah, that cottage up on so and so has gone”, “oh, oh how awful”. Then another week later another one would go and eventually, of course, by going to the mid to late nineties, with all the cut-backs with Thatcher, all the cottages literally went. Nearly every one. But, except for Calderdale, for some particular reason…I think Calderdale might have had the most expensive re-, I think they do, yeah, I think it’s Kirklees or Calderdale, have the most expensive rates in West Yorkshire. They go down, I think it’s-it might be, Calderdale, Kirklees, then it’s err, Bradford, then its Leeds, and then the cheapest are Wakefield. That’s, could be, it’s probably why they were all kept open but it was a little oasis. There was uhm, there was the centre of Halifax, and there was uhm, a place called King Cross, just on the outskirts, and you went down to Sowerby Bridge, all those cottages were kept open. It must have been open a good year to eighteen months, and it attracted everybody from West Yorkshire. People I hadn’t seen for years. They only used to go there because it was literally, it was like an island [laughs], in a desert. A little oasis of cottages for gay men. And that lasted about eighteen months, then they, one by one, disappeared. But, that’s always a time I remember, that would have been the mid-to-late nineties.

And then from there it went from cottaging on to, people used to start, cruising areas suddenly took off more, because the cottage, all the cottages went. So, the cruising areas took off, and we used to go to various ones. There was one at Swillington, and there was one at Methley, for car people, and there’s, there used to be, Wakefield Park used to be notorious. But there were quite a lot of very good places where you could cruise, so that took over until the Internet came along. Well they had the cruising areas in, like I mentioned, these magazines. You got these, these, these uhm…call numbers, where you could call, you could meet people. They were pre-recorded numbers for just people listening to somebody talking dirty, but you could actually meet people, make contact with people. You used to dial the number, the person that dialled the number, they were charged something like, remember this is about 199…mid-nineties. You’d be charged something like £2.85 a minute, and the first minute, literally, you were just kept…them telling you a lot of rubbish. So, they wasted a minute. Then you’d listen to the message. And then you could leave your telephone number and they could ring you back, but the person who had put the message on, it was free. I think they used to do that in these free newspapers. You could put your message on for free, dial 0800, but it attracted other people and they made their money from the people who actually rung up. But that, that’s what they used to do.

I remember once, but I know I had a friend who, Ian, he used to go on the cruising area in uhm, in Armley. And I’d seen this…this really nice chap, he had a beard and in his twenties, really nice. I had a bit of fun with him. In his twenties, he was really, really nice. I think his name was Richard. And we chatted on one of the picnic tables afterwards, and uh, very interesting person to talk to. But, he had a little…sack, haversack with him, and I suggested we meet the following week, and he could come home, cos he works certain days so he agreed. But for some reason, I don’t know wha’ happened, I never went, I never saw him again. But my friend, this friend, called Ian, he uhm, he actually was murdered on the hill. It was in the papers. He was murdered and apparently this Richard, who I mentioned earlier, he was, he was the chap that, I didn’t realise until it got to court, he was the chap that murdered Ian. When I got to, when I went to court I had to see [unclear] the trial, he, he was the sat in the prosecution, in the dock, and I thought, ‘oh my god, I could have asked him, I could have asked him home, so easily’. But apparently, he’d…the frightening thing about it was he’d had sex with me 2 or 3 times before he murdered him, and it had been perfectly alright. But, I think it was the day of the World Cup final, or some, one of the semi-finals, and Ian’d gone up and this chap, they went off somewhere very quiet. And then this chap pulled a knife on Ian, tied, tied his hands up, he tortured him, and then he strangled him. Threw his body down into the river, near the river, and uhm, took his clothes and buried them somewhere in this nature reserve. And uhm, and uhm, but in this little bag, he must have had the bag when he saw me, in this bag he had a roll of gaffer tape, err, a knife, an hatchet, and uhm, and some rope to tie the hands up with. But, he tortured him before because there were all burn marks on his neck. He denied he’d tortured him but his, his, Ian’s uhm, aunty had seen Ian in the market earlier that day, and she said he’d no marks on him then. So, that was sort of conclusive. But, it was just frightening, how careful, really, you have to be. But, uhm, but he was very trusting, very soft person. It was a shame really. But, that could have easily been me, quite easily, quite easily.
But, about coming out as well. I uhm, I worked in a Jewish, a little Jewish accountant’s firm, and when I came out there, most people, ‘oh, we already knew anyway’. They were very accepting there, they were very nice. Just one or two people who used to mutter but the thing is, which I realised, there was a, the, the, the top man there, Mr Cope, he was totally accepting and completely genuine so nobody dare speak above him, so that really put, made it a lot easier for me. It made it a lot easier for me. But erm, there was just one chap there I had trouble with, and strangely enough, I know he was gay, called Stanley. I had a, he used to talk behind my back but I mean he, it’s, it’s the gay people who are homophobic. And later on in me career I went to a place called Chalmers Impey Accountants at Tong Hall. And a chap, the chap interviewed me there, Mr Finn, and apparently, he says “oh” he says, “get a taxi, I’ll pay you”. So I got a taxi, did the interview, very nice, but when I got to work there I found there was a really funny atmosphere. And I said eventually, when I left, I wont there long, only been there about six months, I said to one of the girls there, I says, “well there all pretty prejudiced”. She says, “yes, you’re right”. Apparently when Mr Finn had interviewed me, this is what annoyed me, he gave me the job and he went in to the staff and he said to them, “Do you mind working with somebody like that?” So I thought, if he’d have asked them and then came back to me, and that’s what caused all the trouble there, I mean, they could have actually done a court case with the rights we have now, cos really, they were really prejudiced. It was really unpleasant. It wasn’t very nice, nothing open but I never found it open, but then again there was a chap there who had it in for me. And he, he was always, he was always by himself, I remember some of the younger lads saying, “oh, have you a girlfriend?” He went as red as a beetroot. And I think he, I think he was a gay, another gay homophobic…gay man, and I’ve had trouble with again. So, it does, it does seem to follow me around. But he, I remember I saw him out in the street, he was always by himself, so I assume…

RK: In the first workplace where you came out, can you remember how that happened? And how old you were when…?

RS: Yes, I can remember, I can remember it distinctly, summat I’ll always remember. I would have been about…26, I would think. And I, they were talking and this lad who I told you about uhm, who was the big rugby type, Alan, who came and stayed with me, he was always there, there were 3 of ‘em talking he was on about his girlfriends, was always boasting and all this. And he just pointed to me, “Oh you!” he says, “he doesn’t know, you know nothing about it, you haven’t a clue have you?” So I says, “ah, I’ve had…” I started to tell him how all this sexual, how many, but he was telling me he’d had so many women and I said I’d doubled or tripled it. He says, “Are these with men or women?” I said, “with men, of course”. He said, “we always thought you were gay, we always knew…”. He says, “Mind you, I respect you for coming out and saying that”, he said, “I really respect you”. His attitude towards me then completely changed.

The only thing that spoilt it, coming out, was before that they used to, what they used to do, they used to make fun of me. They used to get me on the floor and try to take me clothes off me. These really, really attractive straight men [laughs]. And I used to love it, but the trouble is they stopped doing it when they knew I was gay. They stopped altogether. Before that they’d, you had a hint about me cos they used to say, “oh, he’s, stop doing it, he’s enjoying it too much” [laughs]. Cos they thought I’d be really offended and be really annoyed because…I really, I actually enjoyed it [laughs]. These three nice, straight, attractive men, doing that to me, but, that’s something that spoiled it, coming out, but otherwise, but like I found everyone was totally accepting on the surface, but on it, I would say most people perhaps fall for it. If ten people are accepting there was probably only ever three or four who were really genuine, the other ones will have their remarks to pass behind your back. But that’s how it happened, he thought I was an absolute ‘div’, sort of err, what would you call it now, anorak-type, who never did anything. But of course, I says, “oh”, he probably said he had 20 girlfriends but, and I said, “well I’ve had 50 blokes in the last…” [laughs], which probably isn’t a nice thing to say but, his face just dropped, but he did respect me for that. And his attitude did, did change, yeah, yeah.

But erm, I’ve never been lucky, really, at meeting people, but, but once I went to Ottley, one day, and we were chatting to this lad. Rather nice, he was a cyclist, in lycra. He had these lovely tight lycra shorts. And, we got on the subject, he said, I asked him if he was married, he said he’d left, he wasn’t married. He said, “Are you?” “No”, he says, “why not?” I said, “oh, I prefer men”. I just, I don’t remember me saying, “oh”, he went a bit red and he looked. And he says, “ooh…ooh , err”, I said, “do you want to go for a walk?” So we went for a walk, over the bridge somewhere quiet and we had a nice bit of fun. But I [laughs], I thought that was really nice, chance in a million sort of encounter was that. But he was rather nice and he told me he was from Dewsbury. But that was a nice chance little encounter.

And, but then another unusual thing that happened, as well once. I always used to get on the bus, the faster way bus from Leeds, on a night to go home to Garforth when I used to live there. And I used to fancy this lad mad, he used to, always used to be stood at the bus, he always got on the bus at the, probably, the later stop. He always had to stand up and I used to drool over him. And he came in the cottage, The Palace Cottage I mentioned earlier, one night. So, that, that was another nice chance, just a chance in a million that that should happen. So, I’ve had, I have had my lucky moments you see. But I know when I first used to go cottaging, which used to bring, it’s changed now with the different law system, but a lot of the people used to get some quite youngish chaps used to come in, but the, a lot of them were ex-Borstal boys. So it proves, think places like that can breed people to get in the habit of having sex with other men. But that, that was quite good.

Just going back to my very early days, when I first started work you used to get off the bus in City Square, and on quite a few occasions you used to see this man, and he was dressed just like Quentin Crisp. Very flamboyant, he’d got a huge hat on and he was dressed very flowery. And if you looked at him you used to get a torrent of abuse. “Don’t you fucking look at me!” And he used to be, he was notorious, em, but I often wonder, I don’t know what happened, he disappeared eventually. But if you actually looked at him he got really, really abusive. But he must have been a really tough nut to go round in, I’m talking about 1965, like that. But he really was flamboyant. Cos I know even before that, must have been about 14, I was at the bus stop on Vicar Lane waiting for a bus, and there was a lad there, he was dressed like a cowboy, with a cowboy hat on and cowboy boots. And he was as camp as anything, with these, about 5 or 6, old women, who thought he was hysterical, and absolutely adored him. But I thought, I’d never seen anybody like him, my mouth was just open, I thought how can you go round, he must be tough. He must be tough. Cos he, there used to be an old Leeds City Transport conductor who was really, really camp, and of course when he used to get to the terminus, our bus used to get to the terminus, the driver always used to get out of his cab, and they used to have a cig and lean with the conductor against the bus. But, when he was on duty the driver always stayed in the cab with the door firmly closed. And he was left to his own devices. Again, he must have been a really tough nut in 1965, to do something like that. He really must have been.

And just to go briefly back to the erm, what gay people like, poppers, and I know people have given me them in cottages, and when we’d gone cruising. But I know I once went to a, I’d never been before, somebody says the cottage on Ilkley Moor, there used to be one when you got up onto the moors there. I went to this cottage, and there was an old chap there, and he says, “do you want to try some poppers?” And I think it was the first, I think I’d had them before, but, so I had this huge sniff of these poppers, but, and not to my knowledge, there must have been ultra, ultra strong because the next minute I knew I was laid on me back [laughs], and my face was just red as anything. I don’t know what was in them, but I’ve always been very careful since then, what sort of poppers I’d had, cos, cos some just make you just feel a little bit, it’s like smelling sort of Domestos to me but, these things must have been ultra, ultra strong. Yeah.

And, just one last story then, about the cottaging, and the things you see. But the two really weird stories about cottaging, oh 3 actually, there’s 3 I can remember. When The Palace Cottage, occasionally I used to go in at lunchtime, very occasionally, and I went in one lunchtime and a chap came in and above the urinals, the pipes used to be boxed in so there used to be like a ledge above them. And this chap came in, and I’m not making this up, [plucked?] his sandwich box [laughs] on the top of the thing, and started eating his sandwiches while he was standing there [laughs]. I thought, ‘well this is taking cottaging to a new level!’ That’s the first weird story. And then another weird, a chap used to bring, used to bring his toddler in this pushchair and leave him in the cottage while he was doing what he had to do which I thought was a little bit…that was a little bit…And the third really odd story was, a chap came with his wife, and his wife stood outside while he went inside, and he must have been, I was sat watching from the, from over the distance, he must have been inside about 5 or 6, 7 minutes. And she didn’t think there was anything wrong, so whether they had some arrangement, or it was something weird, but I just thought it was really odd, odd stories about cottaging.

RK: [unclear]

RS: Yeah, when I was mentioning earlier about the going in gay bars and people wanting to go down to the toilet to have sex, which I always thought was a bit annoying. The new phenomenon now, which is different to that, is that, y’know with all these, now we’ve got all the gay web sites and apps and things. I know a friend, he’s gone in a couple of times into Queens Court, and been sat there and there’s been somebody literally feet or yards away from him, and a persons come over to him, they’ve contacted him through Grindr, come on and say, “I’m sat not far away from you”, and communicated that way. So, I suppose in a way that’s similar to what I used to do, where people’d gone down to the toilets, they don’t seem to want to be able to communicate with you. But [unclear] whatever or, it’s just they don’t like rejection. But that’s probably a similar sort of thing, err, to what I mentioned earlier on, yeah. So, it still goes on in its own little way, I know the toilet thing probably still goes on, cos if you go in the uhm The Viaduct, a lot of straights go in and you go down to the toilet, there’s not only gays having sex in the toilets, but the straights do as well probably more than the gays ones though, it still goes on, that sort of thing, so it’s nothing unusual, I thought it was at the time. But really it’s not unusual at all. No, no.

[END]