Memories by Robin McGarry
Developing feelings for boys
“In 1951 I started having feelings for members of the same sex, probably about ten, but certainly preferring men to women or boys to girls but very rarely sexual feelings.” “I don’t think (I worried about it). I had a couple of brothers who I w...
Homosexuality was not discussed in the 1950s
“Homosexuality was not discussed in the 1950s. It was ‘the love that dare not speak its name’ and, therefore, God knows how some of us used to meet but meet we did because in those days there were less bars but there were more what we would now...
Meeting men through the hotel trade
“In 1959 I left home to go into the hotel world at 18 and that’s when my life changed. I worked at the Saracens Head at Balsall Common on and off for five years. Being a good-looking lad I would be propositioned by the customers or diners at the hote...
I’m not sure we used ‘gay’
“I’m not sure we used ‘gay’ (in the 1950s) quite as much as we do these days. It’s one of those mean, spiteful words that I, again, wouldn’t allow anyone to use with me now, they’d get their face slapped.” ...
Liberace a fag !
“I think a lot of (the growing acceptance and awareness of homosexuality) was education. Indirect education, of course, it was never spoken of as being a positive thing but people on television had become to be a little more open. Not nec...
I don't see my family
“I don’t see my family. Once my mother took against John – this was in ’65, I really stopped seeing any of them because I needed to develop my life with him. There was one sister I used to see fairly regularly but that faded out and Raymo...
The police got their stripes
“Because of the authority’s attitude (to homosexuality), I mean, there were agents provocateurs and there were entrapments all the time right through the fifties and sixties. It was monstrous some of the things they got up to. I’m aware of whol...
Cottaging was rife
“I used cottages before John and during the end of my relationship with John but not in the middle, no. I didn’t, I was part of a couple so I didn’t cat around, no, for a long time, that was later on. I was 24 when I met him (1965), 25 when we ...
Meeting John
“I was working at the Royal George down in Digbeth, it was then a really superb restaurant and bar and I was in charge of the cocktail bar downstairs and John used to come in as a customer and stand there for an hour watching me and I was aware of hi...
Building up to Wolfenden
“We knew we had to fight, we did indeed. Lots of the men were politically aware, but I think only the slightly older ones, the ones who had been through the war and lived all that bloody nonsense and put up with all that because it was more or ...
Fabulous Grosvenor
Certainly we had some jolly good parties in private houses and there was a fabulous old mansion opened up on the Hagley Road called the Grosvenor House Hotel with parking for about twenty cars and a swimming pool, tennis courts (1971). It was strict...
John's prison sentence
“About three months after I met John he didn’t go to work one morning and I was in the hotel trade, I didn’t have to go in until ten, and he said, ‘I need to talk to you. Before I met you I met this boy and I had sex with him and because he was sixte...
The scene in the 50/60/70s
“At the time the bars were fabulous - in the fifties and sixties, all the bars were fabulous. There were still a lot of American bars, still a lot of people who drank cocktails in those days, gin and tonics I suppose. There was the Imperial up Temp...
A great piano bar
“Jimmy's bar had got to be one of the nicest bars. Jimmy’s was a subterranean bar with leather sofas and nice pictures on the walls and a fabulous bar, of course. In those days, of course, we called it a piano bar because invariably it had a grand ...
Suits in the 60s
“They were all very discreet and in those days even the mid sixties, we all used to dress to go out not like the rag bags you see about these days but we used to dress to go out and we’d have wonderfully polished shoes. I would polish my shoes ...
He was very gay and a great character
“I recall Laurie Williams, he was a great character, a great Brummie character, very flamboyant and very gay. Laurie was a bit like Quentin Crisp because he was flamboyant and I remember him coming into the Trocadero one night, in this fabulous...
Police got away with blue murder
“Gay men were treated vaguely with the same sort of idea that a prostitute would be treated, that they’re the lowest of the low and, therefore, they don’t warrant any extra attention or protection. They were queers and, therefore, they go to ja...
Married men easier to chat up
“I found the easiest guys to chat up are married guys. I think they get married because of convention a lot of them and then all the joys of marriage start tapering off and that’s when they start looking around, not necessarily to guys, I mean,...
Memories of early Hurst Street
“A lot of the first bars, the leather ones, the really discreet daddy ones which I wouldn’t have gone to anyway but there was a theatre bar right opposite the Hippodrome called the Stage Door or something like that. We used to go there and we’d...
Oxford CHE
“I think it doesn’t matter where activism takes place. When we were trying to improve our lot, when we were battling, not to be accepted, God forbid was it ever begged to be accepted, but when we were making our statements that this is the line we w...
Movign back to Birmingham
“Retirement brought me back (to Birmingham); I could sell my house at Oxford and buy this one outright and have a nice life. Because I want to be in America three months a year so I don’t have to worry too much about finance; it was coincidenta...
Village needs tidying up
“There’s the ‘Castro’ here (the gay village) now, isn’t there, for a start off. The gay quarter is quite vibrant, it needs a lot of tidying up, I think it’s a bit scruffy but perhaps the Loft Lounge is giving a bit of a nudge because that’s ver...
Then and now 50s and today
“I don’t think the youngsters (now) have as much fun as we did ‘in the good old days’ (1950s and 1960s), to be quite honest, because, maybe it’s an age thing, maybe it’s just the looking-glass and the polished mirrors and what have you but when we we...
Cottaging today
“I think gay men are more promiscuous now. I think the lesson of AIDS has been forgotten by a big clump of us. ‘Have you got any protection?’ ‘No.’ ‘Oh well, you’ll be alright’. Cottaging and cruising still goes on. I don’t think gay men do it ...
No more house parties
“What you don’t have these days is parties at home. I have parties here all the time and dancing, and I have people here to dinner at least once a week. But in the old days when it was chucking out time, about ten thirty, we’d all go off to Mos...
Yes I would
“Yes, we (John and I) probably would have done it (had a civil partnership). It would have been nice. But I haven’t lost out. He probably wouldn’t have gone into it, he was very appreciative of my suggestion of changing my name to his bec...