On with the show! . Anything to Declare? . Jackie Foster . Camp outside the gates . Gluck-mania!

Camp outside the gates

Further to our piece about Brighton during the war in our first newsletter, Jack has recorded for us this memoir of growing up in the town during the war years:

"I was young one time. My father used to refer to me as being 'one of those nice boys'. I realised I was different to anybody else and by the age of fourteen I knew that I was queer, a word which I hated because it felt as if I was mentally unbalanced or something. As far as I'm concerned I'm a homosexual. I don't mind being called gay but I object to queer. It's a horrible expression; as a teenager it really used to worry me.

The war was a wonderful time for me. Brighton was so gay during the war, it really was. Having the blackout, you could virtually do anything. It sounds a bit sordid but I went to the cottage at the Level and I was introduced to men by an old man in a raincoat. And from there, all I had to do was walk down the street and somebody tapped me on the shoulder. Mind you, I had to mince a bit. It just went from there.

Jitterbug and jiving

I used to go to the Regent Dance Hall on a Monday night with my mother. It was Old-fashioned Night. The manageress of Woolworths's was a wonderful dancer and she had this good-looking sailor that used to dance around with her. But who walked the sailor home? Guess who. I used to go the dance at the Regent on Sunday afternoons and that's when the jitterbug and jiving became popular because the Canadians were here and the Yanks used to come down. The Canadians would sit in one corner with all the young girls who were in my class in school. They all finished up pregnant. I couldn't understand why I didn't. I could never quite work that out.

From being on the streets and doing the cottages I met Denis, Lola and Polly. They were pretty rough queens of that time - plucked eyebrows and all that. I was quite intrigued by it all. I got fascinated with plucking my eyebrows. That's probably why I've got none now. I used to work for a firm in the Western Road called Johnson Brothers and I can remember one day the girl in the office said, 'What's wrong with your eyebrows?' Obviously one was bigger than the other.

Painted queens

Lola was a waiter and the nicest of the three. Tall, bleached hair and quite camp. Eventually got married and had about three children. Dennis worked as a barman. He was quite a rough character and he'd mix with all the barrow boys but he used to spend about half an hour in front of the mirror painting his face. He wore an awful lot of eye make-up and he used to bang away with a powder puff. Then off we'd go into town. The three of them really looked like painted queens, they went out with so much war paint on. But this was during the war, it was dark in the streets, nobody would notice until you got in a bar.

Dennis and Lola were streetwise. They wouldn't go to the gay bars for a start - they didn't like piss elegant queens. We used to go to all the straight bars and, of course, during the war, if you went to a straight bar there were so many sailors. They were stationed at Roedean girls school and a lot of the gays used to almost camp outside the gates. Because there were so many forces, there was always somebody in a straight bar that you could probably take home if you had the nerve to do it.

In the war years the Australians were in the Metropole and the New Zealanders were in the Grand. I knew this New Zealand guy and he took me up to his room. He wanted to show me inside, and there was guys everywhere! The Australians had really smart dark blue uniforms, and they were all tall and slim, they were very handsome looking men. And we had the Polish navy. Their uniforms were wonderful, it was like a smooth serge, and their hats!

I used to be very friendly with a Canadian soldier. We were sisters. We used to stand outside the cottage on Queens Road and chat. There was always something going on there, it was fantastic, you couldn't go wrong. There used to be a bag lady living on the streets with clothes right down to her ankles and rosy cheeks and lots of lipstick. She used to sit around that toilet and pick up sailors. Take them down the street and suck them off. They used to line up. She always had a smile on her face.

Feeling your way

In those days I must have walked my feet off because you used to go from one cottage to the other. You could stand there for quite some time, nobody would know. During the war you weren't bothered with the police, they never had time. It was marvellous. All the guys in uniform. It was brilliant.

Because it was blackout you more or less had to feel your way. Which was very interesting. I was in the cottage at the Level one night and this guy rushed in... pulled out his dick... and peed up my back! He couldn't see anybody there and he knew where the trough was. All this hot piss down my back."