You are not logged in. Signup to contribute or login! Not recieved your activation email? Click here to send it again.

Paul & Pedro

Paul and Pedro


Summary

Paul and Pedro are a couple who opened the successful Glamourous Showbar in 2004 in Birmingham’s Gay Village. In this interview Paul discusses his marriage break-up and finding his way onto the gay scene. He later discusses meeting Pedro in Gran Canaria and their love story which included Pedro moving to England and them living in Newtown. Paul and Pedro then discuss opening Glamourous Showbar, named after Pedro’s stage name ‘Glamour’, and its impact on the gay scene.


Contents

Being gay and married - 10
First steps onto the gay scene – 20
Licencing Laws 20
Gay scene in the 90s - 30
Church’s attitude to homosexuality – 40
Meeting Pedro – 50 60
Finding each other 50
Drag artistes 70 80
Pedro moves to Birmingham – 70
Birmingham localities – 70, 80
Homophobia in Newtown – 80
Opening Glamourous - 90
Glamourous a hit - 100
Selling Glamourous - 110


10 Being married

Paul, was born in 1964 and trained as a pharmacist. He moved to Birmingham in 1984 aged 20, because his wife came here for a course. He thought he was gay when younger but came from a religious fundamentalist Christian family and knew his family wouldn’t accept him as gay. He even told his future wife he had feelings for men, they were both young, didn’t realise implications, thought it would go away. He got married, had a son (now 14) and progressively realised he would have to face up to it, so in 1994, after nine years he decided to leave his wife to live as a gay man, his son was still a baby so would be less traumatised than if he waited. Paul was Assistant Manager at Wolverhampton Boots Chemist at time. He still sees his son, and has a good relationship.

20 First steps onto the gay scene

Paul found a copy of Gay Times, which listed the Jester and Peacock (looked for but couldn’t find it) so he went to The Jester first. “When you go down the stairs everyone can see you going in, it’s very daunting, with fear, trepidation and excitement. I stayed about an hour.” He made a few friends and started going out on scene, e.g. Route 66. “Licencing laws then more restrictive so bars closed at 10.30/11 p.m. The gay crowd moved en masse to Nightingale then on Thorp Street on a Tuesday for the stripper, or Thursday to Subway City. With new laws, there is no longer any need to move on, there’s now more variety to choose from but lost that sense of moving on as a crowd.”

30 Gay scene in the ‘90s

There was the Jester, Village, Route 2, Partners (then Enigma, which they later bought to become Glamourous). There were half a dozen bars, 2 -3 clubs, (before the days of Missing and DV8). “On my first trip to Nightingale, someone grabbed my crotch and scared the living daylights out of me!”

40 Church’s attitude to homsexuality

“I was 31, to make such a major change in my life was traumatic. I basically lost everything, my home, family, church, friends. The fundamentalist church didn’t, still doesn’t, accept homosexuality. I had no option but to move away or start again. The pastor decided to make a public announcement to the whole congregation that I was no longer coming to church because I’d ‘chosen’ homosexuality. I wasn’t there, my contact with them had finished, my wife still goes.”


50 Meeting Pedro

Paul met his first boyfriend, and was with him 3 years. After another relationship broke up and a year of being messed around he went on holiday in 1998 with a good gay friend. “We initially booked Lanzarote but he wanted to go to Gran Canaria (where I had bad memories of a previous holiday). We went to Gran Canaria for a rest, not looking for love or sex. The first evening I met Pedro, who was managing a bar in the Jumbo Centre (Shopping by day, gay entertainment centre by night).”

“It was strong attraction at first sight. He was standing in a crop top vest with long flowing hair. I said ‘he’s a bit of alright’ and my friend grabbed me and said ‘let’s go in”. We chatted a bit the first night but his English was quite limited. We went to a bar and his friend Antonio translated. The second week I abandoned my friend and stayed with Pedro and it flourished.”


60 Coming back to Birmingham without Pedro

Paul said, “Coming back to Birmingham was dreadful, feeling heartbroken, the sense of loss, feeling so strongly for this person, I might never see him again… a couple of days later his friend Antonio rang so we kept in phone contact”. Paul sent Pedro a bouquet for his fortieth birthday and a love letter which his friend translated. Then Pedro called saying he wanted to come to England to be with Paul. Paul couldn’t move because of his son, and lack of earning ability in Spain. After a month passed Pedro came over. Pedro said that was an awful month. He said Paul was just his type, tall, grey hair, blue eyes, and he’d fallen in love.

Paul didn’t want Pedro to rush the decision so said he could come for a week to see what he thought, and met him at East Midlands airport in December. Pedro had expected cold but not darkness at 4 p.m.! He went round the Bull Ring and was surprised to find a couple of clubs open in the daytime. The first bars he went to were Angel then Missing, which had just opened.


70 Pedro moves to Birmingham

After that week, Paul went back to Gran Canaria in January, and Pedro moved to England on 14th February 1999. He enrolled at Bournville College to do an ESOL course, and workwise, he had been doing drag in Gran Canaria, so he entered a Miss Glam Drag competition at Route 2 and he won it! Someone from Studio One saw him and got him his first show at Missing, on a Wednesday. Paul gave him lyrics from one English song to learn to mime to, the rest were in Spanish. He was fine singing and dancing but nervous before the first song as he had to talk. Then he was booked for a season, every Wednesday. He got established and also played gay bars in Manchester, Blackpool, Cardiff. They travelled together at night when possible, Paul was still working in Boots by day. They lived in Paul’s flat in New Town, less than a mile from the city centre.

80 Homophobia in Newtown

Pedro says everything was new, that first week, before coming over he’d met a British couple Tony and Tony, who said ‘Oh My God’ when he said he’d be living in New Town. It was a slum when Paul moved in, but is now renovated. The neighbours’ reaction was awful, when Pedro was doing a show, he had to put make-up on and carry his costumes, and hope no-one was around, but run the gauntlet of name calling from the 8th floor, it was quite scary, covering his face from the CCTV cameras.

90 Opening Glamourous

They moved out of New Town in 2003 buying a house in Walsall, (Paul’s son was there, and he worked in Wolverhampton, so it was the mid-point). Then they heard Enigma bar and Missing were for sale because Chris and Carl were selling up. “We thought, ‘We could do that’ with my management experience and Pedro’s bar management and performance experience. We talked to Carl at Missing, but it was too much money and Carl steered us towards Enigma saying it would suit us better”. They looked at it and had a vision and ideas, and made an offer which was accepted. In April 2004 they got the keys and changed the name to Pedro’s stage name – Glamourous, and called it a show bar, changing the concept from heavy to camp.


100 Glamourous a hit

Pedro’s idea was to create it theatre style with stage, curtains and lighting. They got the keys on Monday, closed for three days and did a complete refit, ripped out seating booths, put in the DJ station, extended the stage, added new lights. They had a VIP pre-launch on Thursday and opened to the public on Friday. Their initial plan was a member of staff to meet and greet and give table service, which obviously didn’t happen – they ended up with a payroll of fifteen! Paul said Glamourous gained a reputation for putting on good shows of a high standard with go-go dancers. It took off very fast, they hadn’t envisaged how successful it would be. There would be queues to get in because of the shows. It attracts a more mixed crowd, especially at weekends, but is billed as a gay venue that welcomes everyone so long as everyone respects everyone else. It’s in between Oceania and the Hippodrome, so there are a lot of people passing. It’s an obviously gay bar.

110 Why we sold the bar

Paul and Pedro decided to sell Glamourous because of Pedro’s health. Paul explained that “He’s always dancing and smiling but he has a longstanding spinal injury and the pain has spread to his legs and neck. In August he had to pull out of a show and he couldn’t work August Bank Holiday, which is our busiest weekend and I had to do it alone. It’s been successful but after three and a half years of 18 hour days, we want a better quality of life, and some sleep! We’re very proud we’ve maximised the business, maybe we’ll look for a new challenge. We decided to accept an offer for the business. We’ll sleep and rest then decide what to do. We need quality time together.”