He was very gay and a great character
1965
“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 white mac, the sort that Harold Wilson used to wear, with a belt and epaulettes, brilliant white, and him standing there talking about his lovely white mac and a blodge of sweated tobacco juice coming off the beams in this pub and falling right down the front of his white coat. Of course, we all went into hysterics, he was not amused at all. But he was a great character. I think he died about three, maybe four years ago. I know there was a big funeral here, a gay funeral for him. I didn’t attend because I hadn’t come back to Birmingham then, I’ve only been back to Birmingham for nine months, I’d been away in California for two and a half years but there was a fairly big funeral for him. I think it was marched with a gay flag in front of it in the town centre so maybe – if they honoured all the bars he went in, of course, it would still be taking place now because he went into every bar, more or less the way we did in the old days. And then there was Brian Wigley, one of the founder members of the Nightingale. I think Brian is still connected with the Nightingale and he was a great pal of ours as well.
Contributed by: Robin McGarry, 66