From the book
”I had little or no knowledge of same-sex attractions, apart from having read the rather depressing Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (published in 1928). There were no websites, no manuals on how to be a good gay person. No nursery rhymes or Beano comics had given the slightest hint on how two girls or two boys could be together.
"There was neither a gay role model nor a guideline in sight. It was all seat of the pants stuff, winging it as I went. It was like being in some splendidly exciting free-fall, tinged with the god-awful fear that I may very well not like what I found when I landed.
”Because ours has not been a happy history of feathers and sunshine, laughter and chocolates. Indeed gay people have been persecuted since early Roman times through the twelfth-century and, of course, during the Spanish Inquisition. From 1150 to 1250 thousands of 'sodomites' were burned at the stake, laying the basis for anti-gay laws that were to last for centuries.
”And to top it all, says Wikipedia, ‘most literature of the 1930s, 40s, and early 50s presented lesbian life as tragedy, ending with either the suicide of the lesbian character or her conversion to heterosexuality’."
”No, if I knew what had gone before, and if there had been any choice in the matter, I would NOT have chosen to be gay. But looking back now, I wish I could have known I was gay right from very start. I wish I had not wasted all those years trying to sleep myself ‘straight’ with blokes. I wish I had not been careless with so many boys’ hearts. And most of all I wish that my own family had been kinder to me.
"Ah but then if wishes were horses beggars would ride."