Attitudes to gays at secondary school in Four Oaks
"
We had a few pop stars that were camp and flamboyant. John Inman was on
the telly in the 70s and 80s in Are You Being Served? and Larry
Grayson. They weren't any kind of positive role models. All I saw was
gay as being effeminate or camp. At the age of 14,15 I remember being
conscious of some kids that were quite camp. In earlier times in junior
school I was quite cruel to kids myself, taking the piss out of them by
saying that they were gay and things like that. I was probably
deferring my feelings. By the time I was 14,15 I was not like that and
I tried to talk to people who I thought were gay and it turned out that
I was right in some ways. They weren't easy to approach, they were
terrible, they were so mixed-up. I remember my mate asking me about
Clause 28 (which came in in 1988). I said 'What's that?' He said 'It’s
about the promotion of homosexuality; I don't agree with it.' I wasn't
that clued up about it. We had a discussion at school about what should
happen to people with AIDS. All the lads said 'They should be put on a
line and left to die'; the women were a bit more empathic. The House
Tutor wasn't enforcing any of his views. We had the BNP outside our
school.”
Contributed by: Derek, 35