How Campania came about
1980
Alan discusses The Royal Court of Campania "Peter Scott-Fleeman and Laurie Williams met one New Years Eve in the 1960’s and they were talking in a camp way about the honours list, they joked that the gay scene, although it was called the homosexual scene then, should have its own honours list. They were making jokes about what the country should be called and they named the country ‘Campania’. The country was ruled by an elderly Queen, called Sophie, she was mentally ill and had been carted off to a nunnery or a mental home run by nuns. So they needed to appoint a Prince Regent, he was gay and everyone in the country of Campania was gay. They could not rely on an hereditary system so they devised an appointed one. Where people making contributions to the gay community would be given titles from Baron to Duke and if they made Royal Prince they could become Prince Regent."
"If I remember correctly the first Prince regent was Laurie Williams and it all came about as Peter Scott Freeman, who was a commercial artist went home the same New Years Eve night and drew up a coat of arms modelled on the peerage system, when the coat of arms they liked it and gradually those within the group became Princes of the Country."
Once the Nightingale had gotten underway they took it very seriously and viewed it as a secret society. They would offer peerages, to anyone doing services to the community, without anyone knowing. They were invited to join the group. It was just a bit of camp really.
The coat of arms of individual members were usually based on where they had come from and the motto was based around what Peter Scott-Fleeman saw as things that were a credit to them or sometimes against them.’
Alan describes his own coat of arms "My Motto, which was in Latin read ‘Honey to the favoured and stings the opposition’ as whilst working on the Nightingale committee I was viewed as a very busy bee. My coat of arms was based on Worcestershire, as Peter mistakenly thought West Bromwich was in that county at the time, it should have been based on Staffordshire. I went straight to a Duke, along with Derek Whittam and Mark Curtis, but I don’t think many of them are alive anymore."
Contributed by: Alan 2, 60