Memories by John McGarry
Pseudo girlfriend in the 1960s
John had a ‘pseudo girlfriend’ in the early 1960s; “She definitely liked me, the most she even got from me was a peck on the cheek”. He talked of the pressure to get married. He said that many of the fellow pupils with whom he had had homosexual expe...
1960s terms for homosexual
John says the words “queer” and “bluebell” were common terms for gay people in c1960....
Cottaging was like a 1960s gay guide
“Everybody cottaged, through cottaging I found out where the bars were! Every bus station and every railway station had a cottage frequented by gays in the 1960’s. ‘The train and bus stations were always a bit more dangerous, there were always other ...
Notorious 60s cottages
“There were some notorious cottages, such as the Silver Slipper on Station Street. There was an underground one on New Street Station before it was rebuilt and probably many more in the centre of town that I did not know about. I would also go out to...
Bogard projected sensitivity
‘Victim’, starring Dirk Bogard, was released in 1961 and shown widely across Britain. “He played the part of a barrister and was blackmailed; he was a covert gay man. Bogard projected a great deal of sensitivity, he was a top barrister with an opulen...
A Trust House Hotel
The main gay bar in the 1960s was the Imperial Hotel, which John used when he discovered gay bars. “The Imperial Hotel was a Trust House Hotel; oddly enough by then I was travelling and the main gay bar in Nottingham was also in a Trust House Hotel. ...
Newspaper reporters in the Temple Bar
After the demise of the Imperial Hotel most people went across the road to the Trocadero, but the Temple Bar at the bottom of Temple Street was also gay in the mid sixties. John said there were a lot of newspaper reporters there for some reason....
God it's like a cottage
“In the mid 1960s before they rebuilt New Street Station, on the front was the station Hotel; roughly in the middle where the line of the Pallasades is now was the Exchange Bar. You went down stairs and it was a long white tiled bar, the first time I...
Sombrero Trade
“The Sombrero was a coffee bar on Horsefair, roughly on the corner where Holloway Circus is now. In those days one side of the pavement onto Bristol Road was too high, so there was a double step to reach the roadway. At ten o’clock when the bars shut...
Smoky Trocadero
“In the mid sixties when I first started going into the Trocadero, I remember one Sunday night in November vividly. Laurie Williams came in dressed spectacularly in a pure white raincoat, he said his ‘hellos’, everyone called him ‘La Williams’. He co...