Gay London in the sixtees !

GROPED ALL THE WAY TO THE BAR!

THE place to go on a Saturday night was the Standard. It was almost opposite Eros almost next door to Lilywhites. I don’t know what’s replaced it at the moment or what’s there now but it was a fantastic pub and I shall never ever forget the first time I ever went to it and it was really my introduction to the West End gay scene. I was taken by a very gay friend from Harlow and he insisted that he wouldn’t take me to London unless I dressed the part, and I said, well what’s that? And he said, well, you let me choose the clothes. Give me your measurements and let me choose the clothes for you.

Anyway, I gave him some money etc for the clothes and when he brought them there were these skin tight trousers that I couldn’t bend the knees in, brothel creepers we called them which were black suede shoes, red and black striped socks and a scarlet shirt with black stripes to match the socks and he said, Now you’ve got to have that open to the waist, and don’t wear anything underneath and if you’ve got a big medallion to wear round your neck so much the better! This is early 60’s when this sort of thing was unheard of. Even coloured shirts in those days, they were khaki navy or white.

I tell you how scared I was. But once we got on the train I relaxed a bit and the nearer we got to London the more comfortable I began to feel. By the time we got to London I remember we were walking down Shaftesbury Avenue towards Piccadilly Circus and even in London which is so used to seeing unusual sights, heads were turning, dressed as we were by this time. I was beginning to enjoy it. It was absolutely blatant. We got to the pub the Standard and the main bar was the street level bar which was a bit unusual and it was all service. Most of the people were in uniform! There were sailors up from Plymouth and Portsmouth, some soldiers, a lot of foreign soldiers, American people … over half the people were service men.

I said to Ray when we were in the bar, "Why are there so many servicemen here?"

And he said, "What do you think!?"

He said they haven’t got a lot of money and people like us come in for a good time he said we get a good time because these sailors are looking for a bed for the night. They’ve come up from Plymouth and Portsmouth they are willing to spend their money on us if we’ll take them home and give them a bed for the night. So of course the gays were quite willing to take home the sailors and the soldiers back home. What better?

The thing was it was SO crowded we were getting groped all the way to the bar! But you didn’t know who was doing it, cos we were all packed so close. "Who did that", I thought? Mind you I’d never been into a gay London pub before, this was my first experience of it so you can imagine, I was horrified! I was getting touched up the arse, my cock was getting groped, and he was just laughing. By the time I got to the bar I thought that it was great fun.


We hadn’t been there five minutes and he said, "Ron, I need to leave you for a minute there’s somebody over there by the door I want a word with".

I said, "Oh don’t leave me."

"Oh you’ll be alright on your own", he said, "I’ll only be gone about five minutes."

I was standing there for nearly half an hour till Ray comes back. "Where the bloody hell have you been? You said you’d only be five minutes."

He said, "well my friend has got a flat just round the corner and he took me back for a quickie."

I said, "Oh Ray! I wish you’d have warned me just exactly what sort of place this was. You know I expected a bit of fun but I didn’t think it was going to be quite like this. I said I’ve been propositioned half a dozen times while I’ve been waiting for you."

"You lucky bugger! What are you grumbling about? Do you want to go back in there again?"

I said that I would like to find somewhere where I can relax just a little bit more.
"Ok, I’ll take you to the Captain’s Cabin it’s just round the corner." ...
Ron