Emma: 0:05
Well, hi there, I'm Emma Goswell and I'm your host for Coming Out Stories. We're a podcast from what Goes On Media and, yeah, we pretty much do. As the name suggests, we bring you real life stories from right across the LGBTQ plus spectrum, and we do it every fortnight. I've been lucky enough to sit down with people from all over the globe to hear about those really intimate moments when people have discovered who they really are and when they felt brave enough to share that information with a friend or family member. Now don't forget to follow us on all the socials we are at Come Out Stories on ex previously Twitter and we're coming out stories pod on Instagram. Oh, also, we are currently looking for sponsors, so if you think you can help, please do head to our website comingoutstoriespodcastcom and click on the work with us tab Right. Let's get down to business. Then it's time to meet our guest for this episode, 62 year old Gary, and if ever there was a story that proved that life begins at 40, this is it Now. Started by asking him when he first realised that he was a 6 million dollar man.
Gary: 1:20
I remember in the 70s watching that and thinking, wow, what a guy. And as time progresses, you come to terms with things and I knew then that I could easily have a relationship with a boy or a girl. It was just the way I felt. However, in the early 70s we had to be very guarded. We had to be very careful. I used to practice in front of the mirror my, my straightness, and I always try to join in with the, with the rugby and things like that, because I wanted to be accepted and it was frightening to be gay at that time.
Emma: 1:58
So you think you were definitely gay from the get-go, though, really.
Gary: 2:02
I knew that I could be with a boy or a girl at the time. Now that I'm older I say I'm 90% gay, but at the time I was I could have swayed anyway. But it was much easier to fall in love with a woman than it would be a man.
Emma: 2:20
So would you ever say you're bisexual?
Gary: 2:22
Yes, I think I probably am. I'm quite proud to be bisexual. You know, I know these certain areas in the gay community that would look at bisexuality and say, oh, it's not, you're either one or the other, you're gay or you're straight. I don't believe that. I really do think that we're on a scale and you can be very, very gay or very, very straight and we all kind of fall in. But along there and I do think you can change in life. I do think you can start off being very, very gay and later on in life maybe find that there's a female that you grow close to, or and vice versa and it was vice versa.
Emma: 3:04
For you and you know spoiler alert you've been married to a woman and a man.
Gary: 3:09
I've been married to three women oh, I didn't know that.
Emma: 3:13
Oh, you've been busy.
Gary: 3:15
I have been busy. I started to see a girl a girl when I was about 13, 14, and we stayed together until we were 20 and at 18 we thought it was so grown up that we we ran off and didn't tell anybody in the family and we got married. We had a special license I'd been working part-time then and I was at college and we had enough money for a deposit for a house. So at 18 I had a mortgage and a wife wow, you really wanted to grow up quick. I did. I always had an old head on my shoulders and, of course, looking back, we were very naive and I suppose at 20 we grew up hot. We didn't fall out. We just decided that it just wasn't working for us. I had by that time met another woman and she quickly became pregnant with my son. We were together 10 years, really, really happy. Everything was fine. Another child came along, but by the time I was 30 I found that she hadn't been exactly honest with me and she had had an affair. I found out years later. But it still hurt. We split up. I started going clubbing I'm in a good time, I thought that 30s, 30s getting out, and within a few weeks again I don't know what it is with me. I just found somebody else and we fell really deeply in love and within three years we were married and we were together then until I was 40 and then the bomb shell hit me and that was my life before 40.
Emma: 4:57
I think my life is in two halves well, come on to talk about the bomb shell in a bit, but let's just rewind a little bit to the 70s again because you know it's interesting. You said you clearly fell in love with these women, but was there an element of what? Again wanting to fit in and lead a straight life, because you talked about, you know, at school forcing yourself to be good at rugby, forcing yourself to appear more masculine what was it really? You were suppressing your gay side a lot or 100%, 100%.
Gary: 5:25
I know at school that anybody that showed the slightest bit of epheminacy was pounced on straight away. They were the ones that were bullied, they were the ones that spat on. They were the ones that were beaten up. I learned to be in with the in-crowd. I was very fortunate that I had a sense of humour, and I think that helped me immensely. I was the one that was always joking and laughing and I was lucky that I attracted females as well. So I had no problem in having a girlfriend or or anything. But I knew at the time that boys excited me. Showers, I mean, it's like his eyes lit up then yeah, I have to mention that. Yeah, seeing the lads you get in the shower and it was all communal showers then and just looking at the cocks really excited me and I decided, or I knew then that I wasn't what I the word is horrible, normal, because I don't use that now but at the time I wanted to be normal and I couldn't. I didn't want to upset my parents. My father worked on the docks. He had a vest and came home and had a wash in the sink.
Emma: 6:44
Wow, let's locate this in a time and a place. So this was the 60s. This was 72. You make me older than what I actually am.
Gary: 6:53
Sorry how old are you now? I am 60, coming up to 62 now.
Emma: 7:00
That's right. Yeah, so you're in your 60s now, but this was in the 70s.
Gary: 7:04
This was in 72, 73, 74.
Emma: 7:07
Where geographically are we?
Gary: 7:09
We are in a little town right in between Liverpool and Manchester called Runcorn it's north Cheshire. It was built on the chemical industry.
Emma: 7:22
Can you charge everyone £2 to go over your bridge?
Gary: 7:24
Yeah, cheeky buggers. Yeah, I just think it's important that people realise that it was a totally different time. Not making myself out to be a martyr, but to get through those years was pretty hard, not just physically but mentally. Making sure that you did well right by your family, not bringing any shame to the family. Like I said, my dad was a docker. He was a very hard, old fashioned man. My brother was a bouncer. He grew up and he worked on the doors and things like that. So he was a hard man and I was just the opposite. I listened to opera, I designed things, I was an artist and I think most people suspected because of my artistic bent, shall we say. However, I knew it wasn't an option at the time to come out.
Emma: 8:24
So they might have suspected. But then you were giving them the wrong idea by marrying women after women after women.
Gary: 8:30
Yeah, three women who would have thought. And I loved each one of them and when I married them I thought it was for good.
Emma: 8:38
But you were attracted to men, but you just never did anything about it.
Gary: 8:42
No, no, frightened. Frightened to death of even a glance or anything like that. As I got into my twenties I think I probably was a bit more open. I could look, and by the time I got to 30, I remember I bought my wife a year supply of Playgirl magazine. I thought it would be really funny for Christmas. And I remember spending a little bit more time than I should flicking through those pages. And that was in my thirties, so I knew I'm not saying that I was straight. And then suddenly a bolt of lightning and I was gay. It didn't happen that way with me.
Emma: 9:25
And was that difficult to essentially suppress one side of you being for 40 years?
Gary: 9:32
Horrific, horrific. I always say to people, straight people and straight friends, that I know I say it would be like putting you on the moon and saying, as a man, you can only look at men, even though you're straight, you can only look at men and everybody would hate you and spit at you and be terrible to you for being the way you are and expecting you to only marry a man even though you're straight and you only like women. It was difficult, it was very difficult. Looking back now and I talked to friends and they of my age, they say the same. They said, oh god, no, could never have done that. No, most of them, by the time they got to 30 they did come out, but by then I was married, I was a wife number three.
Emma: 10:25
So let's talk, gary, about what happened when you hit the big four. Now, it's a cliche, isn't it? Life begins at 40, but it really was for you Really strange.
Gary: 10:34
Yeah, you know, like in Christianity, you have the BC and then you have the AD. Well, it's the same with me, only with me, it's BG before gay. Yeah, I had a card. I had a 40th birthday party and it was amazing. I had a lovely time but I had a strange card that sent my stomach fluttering and the card was off. Somebody called James, who was my boss at work, and it said to me on the card life begins at 40. It definitely did for me, I hope it does for you. And it just made me think. Now, james was somebody that I'd met at work. He was my boss, and I've said it's a lovely way of meeting somebody, because I'd never met him, never actually seen his face. And I went into my office and he was there doing something and I just heard this voice saying that's the famous Mr Lam, I presume, and his little cheeky face jumped up from behind the filing cabinets and, yeah, my heart, my stomach turned, my heart missed a beat. It was hard. I knew that I just wanted to be with him. It wasn't in a sexual way, I didn't go for I want that up against the filing cabinets or anything. Oh, it would have been nice, but I mean, I know it was just, it was pure love. I fell for him and I don't need just met him seconds before.
Emma: 12:07
I don't even know if I believe in love at first sight, but that's exactly what that sounds like.
Gary: 12:12
Well, I wouldn't. It was a little bit like having a schoolboy crush. I thought of him constantly. If I saw him in a corridor that day and he smiled, I'd be all butterflies in my stomach. I just got this wonderful feeling every time he was around me and I used to have these little scenarios. I'd lie in bed at night and I think it was ridiculous. This, when you think of it, I'd think of we'd be skiing together and I'd have an accident and he'd come over and he'd look after it. It ain't ridiculous. It's like Barbie, isn't it? It's bloody stupid. Well, I'd say it's a schoolboy crush. It was a schoolboy crush. I had these scenarios of where we had to be on our own together and he grabbed me and it was like a mills and boon, like Barbara Cartland, where he grabbed me and he'd snog the face off me. Don't forget, I'd never kissed a man, never.
Emma: 13:10
And previously you might have looked at men and gone for, but you hadn't had emotional feelings or fallen for them no. Until that moment it sounds.
Gary: 13:19
I often wondered about what it would be like to have sex with a man. I used to go to bed at night sometimes and I'd say, please, god, let me know what it's like to have sex with a man once before I die, please, just once. And then I met this man called James who, to me, was the whole world straight away. But the problem was we were both married to women yes, to women. We both had children four children between us. We had mortgages, we had careers, we had everything all the trappings that you get as a straight hetero man. And I knew that I wanted to be with him, but I knew that we were going to have to go. It was going to be a long journey to get there where we wanted to be, and I could only see heartache. I could only see problems and worrying about other people. More than anything was the worst the guilt.
Emma: 14:16
We were aware at the beginning that he felt the same. How did it come about that you did end up together, yeah?
Gary: 14:21
I have my ways, a lovely old saying. It used to give me the glad eye and I used to love it. Yeah, I think that I had an inkling that he was interested because a normal, everyday, straight tutor would not stop to chat with me and smile at me and he was very tactile. It was always a little arm on the hand, on the shoulder or on the elbow or something like that. And they used to say and you remember in the olden days, or the gay gays, they used to say it let's be an gay, people know each other straight away because they have this special gay gaze and I used to laugh about it. But the truth is, I think maybe there was something in it because his gaze lasted a little bit longer than maybe they should. He was just giving you the eye, wasn't he? He was giving me the glad eye, the glad eye, the glad eye. And the more I had the inkling, the more flirtatious I became. Let's face it, I was. You know. He'd say hi, gary, hi James, how are you? I would be all flirty and I would maybe push it a little bit to try and find out his feelings on whether he felt the same about me, but obviously still very guarded with all the other members of staff at work and I wanted to spend much more time with him and we decided that what we would do is take our staff out on a Friday in the afternoon. And they used to go out and we're talking 20 odd years ago now and I think on a Friday after work it was quite a dumb thing to go and have a drink. You know, three o'clock everything starts to calm down and you'd go and have a pint on the way home and that's what we did and, one by one, all the other members of staff just stopped going until in the end, every Friday it was just James and I and I lived for Fridays and we'd sit and we'd chat and he'd tell me about things that he'd done and things that I'd done, and it was a lovely time. And then one day he'd had a bad, bad day and he came into the pub and he said you'll never guess what. It had a terrible, terrible day. But a bloke's just propositioned me in the toilets and he offered to, let's say, perform an act on him and I instinctively, straight away, said well, if it was your day's been that bad, you should have let him and we both laughed in a very manly so ho, ho, ho, ho, yeah, we're yeah. And then again, I don't know where I got the courage I just said have you ever done anything like that in your life? And he said yeah, quite a few times, in fact many times. And he asked me whether I had, and I said no way, and I hadn't never kissed anybody, never touched anybody. In my head. I had, you know, all young lads masturbate. As a young 12, 13 year old, I thought of men as much as I did women at the time, so, but I'd never acted on it at all. And then he said have you like? I said I said no, I haven't. But as the conversation went on, I admitted that I'd thought about it, but I'd not done anything. I asked him whether he thought that we would ever, ever experiment, shall we say, with each other. My heart was pounding, my stomach was turning. It was quite cocky about it, the whole situation. I think the ball was always in his court. His words were hell yeah. And I said what before Christmas sort of thing? And we were months and months and months off and he went Gary, within the next few weeks, it's on the cards. You know it's going to happen and I was confident. He was very confident. James was not like me. I'd never cheated on my wife, ever, In fact. I was 40 and I'd had three lovers no way.
Emma: 18:28
Three, and you married each one. I married each one. Oh my goodness me, you've never had extra marital sex, have you?
Gary: 18:34
Never.
Emma: 18:35
Wow Ever.
Gary: 18:36
It's almost unheard of Very vanilla. Let's say yeah, and James Warton like that James had experimented.
Emma: 18:43
Okay, so you're in a situation where you're clearly attracted to each other, but you're both married and you want to do something about it, but you feel terrible about it as well. The guilt.
Gary: 18:53
The guilt was really bad, but on that afternoon there was no guilt at all. I didn't think of anybody. I didn't think of the kids, the wife or anything. All I wanted was for James to. I just wanted him to admit that he had feelings too, which he did in the end. I got home. I couldn't wait to think of how I could, I could move things on so that we would get the opportunity to rip each other's clothes off, because by that time I was rampant. I was so close. It was like training all your life for the Olympics or training for something, and getting so close you can almost taste it. And I really really wanted, I really really needed to feel what it was like to have a man's arms around me and to kiss me and for me to do the same with him.
Emma: 19:47
So you came back from the pub, having done none of that.
Gary: 19:50
Yeah, I'm guilty, because I had to have my evening dinner with my wife and in my head I was totally somewhere else. I've never felt guilt like it. The guilt was terrible.
Emma: 20:03
Because, essentially to yourself and to her and to everyone around you, you were very happily married.
Gary: 20:09
Yes, everything was perfect. Everything was perfect. You know, I had what most people would like. I wasn't rich, but I wasn't poor. I had enough money to pay bills, we had a beautiful home, my wife was absolutely lovely person. Everything was great. So I arranged for James and I to meet and to have lunch together, and I knew what was in my mind. It was going to happen, and I chickened out and on the way out he grabbed me and he kissed me. It was like so strange because I thought men's lips were going to be rough and it was ridiculous how naive I thought he was going to have really rough lips and that I'd feel his stuble and that he'd be really like A bad kisser. Not a bad kisser, no, a hard kisser. Right, I thought he was going and it wasn't like that at all. It was really quite strange and I remember thinking as it was happening oh my God, this is just like kissing a woman, only different, the same but different. Was it amazing? It was fireworks around me and, yeah, it was all the things that, after 40 years of wanting something and getting to the stage in your life, especially in the last three or four years, where I craved it, I needed it, but I was so frightened of doing anything because I didn't want to hurt my wife and the people around me. And then it was like an explosion really strange, this explosion that went off and he left, I think. Do you know? It was just like a chick flick, you know. The door closed and I put my back against the wall and I had the biggest smile and I was like, yes, sort of thing, I've done it. I've kissed a bloke, a proper kiss tongues and everything, and I just get round the house and I was just smiling and that lasted probably for an hour or so and then the guilt came back because that was the first time I'd ever done anything cheating wise.
Emma: 22:29
And I guess then you know you want to be with James. You have to go through and tell your wife, you have to build up to that and be married.
Gary: 22:37
Because she, I think, because maybe my attitude had changed, the way I was changed, but I think she had. In England she knew that I had fallen for James, but we hadn't had sex. But you'd fallen for him emotionally, emotionally, and to me that's the more important. I always say sex is sex. Emotion is emotion, and if anybody was going to do anything behind my back I would much rather it be something sexual than something emotional. I've always felt like that. And then, of course, came the time when we did have sex for the first time, and obviously I won't go into details, but again, that was another build up and a crescendo and the funny thing was I we can laugh about it now we sunk the Titanic. We had a plaque on the wall of the Titanic in the library now and as I was getting to the very end my head went back and I knocked the Titanic and the Titanic went off the wall and slid down the back of the radiator, just like in the film. It was because I was so excited, I was hyperventilating and I was like and you say, gary, you've got to breathe, breathe. I was just so. Of course I'm quite theatrical.
Gary: 23:59
I made the most of it, Emma. I know it's hard to believe that, but I did make the most of it. Was it worth a 40 year wait? Yeah, 100%, because it was with who it was with. I'm sure I could have gone out and picked a man up. I'm sure I could have, but it wouldn't have been the same. The emotional connection is what I needed.
Emma: 24:22
Well, let's talk about your coming out then. So, at the age of 40, you've got your happy ending in one respect, in that you've met the man of your dreams. You finally had sex, but you've got your other life to sort out. It was a strange day.
Gary: 24:37
Yes, it was a strange state. James went on holiday with his wife and I went on holiday with my wife. This sounds so bad. We were on the beach. She'd already started an affair with another bloke. She was with another man by this time. This happened really quickly. It was the times of the very old phones. Remember those phones, the big Phillips ones with a little aerial on them. I was on the beach and I had a text off James and it said started my divorce, bought a new car and found us somewhere to live. It's starting. You need to tell her now.
Emma: 25:20
Oh God.
Gary: 25:21
And I was frightened to death. We did discuss it on the beach. She said that she knew that was things going on. I said I knew that was things going on with her. We decided then that we were going to divorce. We went home and James said that he was going to tell his parents and I was going to tell mine, but we were going to leave it a week or two because we were going back to work in September. We both worked in education. We went back to work, but there was rumours and talk and in the end we decided to come clean at work and so we told our staff that we were in a relationship. I would have loved to have been working there then. You know the gossip. I mean working there and not be me.
Emma: 26:04
Right, yes.
Gary: 26:06
Because imagine you're going to work on a Monday and your boss, who is straight and male, and you're having an affair with one of the big bosses who's also straight and male. It would have been so exciting but obviously it was happening to me and it wasn't exciting at all. The management there didn't take it very well. We had at the time a devout, born-again Christian principal. He just took a dislike towards. We say today that these things don't happen, but things do happen in a very underhanded way. There's more than one way to skin a cat. If somebody is working and their boss wants to get rid of them, they will find a way for them to go. It will be one thing or another and I spent a year having every horrible job that was going thrown at me. You know everybody that had to do a Saturday occasionally would do one. I was down for three Saturdays to work. If there was a class that needed teaching and nobody wanted that class, I would be the one that it was given to. They wanted me out. I know they did. James' background Aerie Ferry was always hairdressing and the arts that was my job. I was in charge of creating and performing arts, but he was taken away from that. He was given engineering and he had to go and work. We had the engineers. I was put down into the teaching pool and I just got on with it and I decided they weren't going to get rid. And then I had a phone call of a good friend who said Gary, you need to go up to your parents. Somebody has rang them and told them that you are gay and that you are having an affair with your boss at work.
Emma: 28:01
Wow, so you told work first and somebody outed you to your family.
Gary: 28:06
Yeah. So I went home, spoke to my mum and dad. My dad goes oh bloody hell, Another bloody gay in my family, he said, because my son had already come out before.
Emma: 28:17
That, which is another story Of course, and I'm guessing you were absolutely fine when your son came out.
Gary: 28:24
I was really proud of him. But I mean again I'll discuss this maybe another time but we went through a good few years where I was as jealous as hell of him because he was leading the life that I always wanted to lead and I had to do all the things that a dad, a husband, a son was expected to do at home and he was out clubbing every weekend and going to a beater. And that's what I wanted before I was too old. Yes, he was doing all the gay clubs that you wanted to be in, exactly, exactly, in fact, I think in Garland's he was podium dancing at 18. Really, he had that's a gay club in Liverpool, by the way oh yeah, garland's, so I was outed there.
Emma: 29:06
And what was your mum's reaction then? So your dad was okay was it?
Gary: 29:11
You know I would have thought the opposite, but dad was fine. Dad said, oh bloody hell, another gay in my family, who is it this time? And he did say, oh, you want to settle down, lad? It was very old-fashioned. Mum was really, why didn't you tell me I had no idea the fact that I've worked in fashion all my life and you know, always had, you know, a good dress sense, impeccable taste when it comes to music and things and liked to go the opera. And you know she had no idea. But mum's maybe think, do have an inkling, but they never like, they would never say it. So the only thing she said was because we were living in a little village just outside of Runkorn, co Weston. And she said please, you won't tell anybody in the village, will you? Because I have to go to the shop here and I don't want them gossiping about you. I said, mum, that is terrible. She said I can't help it. It's the way I feel. I'll be all right in a few months, I promise.
Emma: 30:11
And was she all right in a few months?
Gary: 30:13
The week after I went into the shop and there was somebody in the shop that said oh, I've heard that you've come out as gay, gary. Your mum's been in here and talking, telling everybody about she was shouting it from the bloody rooftop. She was so proud. Have you heard about our Gary? Yeah, he's a gay. Who's a gay? A gay, he wasn't gay, he was a gay. Our Gary's one of them. He's a gay, you know, and she was so proud of it and she loved James. So our children, our parents, you know, we were very lucky and fortunate that they were very welcoming of James and everything went fine, apart from my brother. My brother, I'd said a few things a few times and he said oh, gary, shut up, you're turning my stomach. He was. Yeah, it didn't work well with him.
Emma: 31:02
So he was the only one that disapproved, really.
Gary: 31:03
Yeah, and he fell out with mum and dad over it and he never spoke to me after that. I saw him once when dad died.
Emma: 31:12
That was really hurtful, wasn't it?
Gary: 31:14
It was very, very hurtful because there was only the two of us. I think I needed him for someone to talk to. I didn't have a best friend, I didn't have anything like that and you can't talk about certain things to your parents or to your children. So, yeah, it was sad and to this day we don't have a relationship, but that is life. I count myself as being extremely fortunate in as much as I know people where their parents have turned them away and they've had nobody in the family, and I'm really fortunate because I had really forward-thinking parents. They had big hearts and forward-thinking. James's parents were the same.
Emma: 31:58
And let's just go back to your wife briefly, because you know. She said she had an inkling that you may be having an affair and that your demeanour changed. Was she shocked that it was with a man? Was there any surprise for her?
Gary: 32:11
I think that was the worst thing for her because she said it would be bad you having an affair with a woman. But how can I hold my head up with people knowing that you left me for a man? That hurt me? The guilt was terrible because I knew that she really thought a lot about what people thought of her. It's really liberating when you come out because you get to the stage where you can give a toss about what people think. I hid everything away for 40 years and of course it's not easy. It's not like you can't click your fingers and suddenly be who you were meant to be. You're growing to it.
Emma: 32:52
And, of course, you've got your happy ending. You've been married 22 years. Well, you've been together 22 years.
Gary: 32:56
Together 22 years Civil partnership, then married right. Yes, my life now is. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's near as damn perfect. James and I are like peas in a pod. We are very like vicious in a way. On the television we bicker constantly. Oh, shut it, shut it. You old bugger. All that Botox has not worked on your bloody face. It's constantly bickering. However, we love each other so much, we have such fun. My life is full of fun. Saturday morning show tunes are on, we are singing our little asses often and if the kids are here or the grand kid, they have to join in and sing, and we try and do everything together.
Emma: 33:41
Well, you're making up for lost time, aren't you Miss a lost youth? So you go to gay clubs in your 50s and 60s now, don't you? Yeah?
Gary: 33:49
We started off going to gay clubs when we were still with our wives. We'd go out in our straight clothes, we'd open the boot of the car, we'd put our gay clothes on. This is how ridiculous. We were Little tight t-shirts and jeans that were ripped and were really low, slung, showing up, you know, absolutely stupid. And we'd have an amazing night. We'd be dancing and and whatever. And then we get our clothes back on, gay clothes, in a bag in the back of the car and then go home, back to your straight lives, back to our straight lives. And that happened, you know, quite a few times for a couple of months. And then, of course, when we'd split with our wives, we weren't living together straight away because we were worried about upsetting the children. We didn't want them to go from transition from one thing to another. It wasn't fair to them. So we both bought our own houses. I bought a house in, james did, and I stayed at his quite often and he stayed at mine and we would roll the sleeping bag out in James's room at the side of the bed. So the kids thought I slept in the sleeping bag on the floor at the side of the bed, and likewise when my kids came to visit me. You know, james and I oh, james is on the floor and I have the bed, sort of thing. Lots of pretending, yeah, lots of pretending. And the funny thing is all of the kids now every one of them said, oh you bloody stupid, we knew down. Well, you know, we could hear you at it, sort of thing. You know. Two in the morning we used to titter and say how long is it going to be before the sleeping bag gets put onto the bed? They're not daft, no, they're not stupid at all. And don't forget, they weren't young children. I think the youngest one James and I got together was 15, nearly 16. And the oldest was already in their 20s.
Emma: 35:42
And, of course. And then what was it like coming out to a son who'd already come out? How did that?
Gary: 35:47
conversation go. It was really strange. Again, james took his children to lunch on a Saturday and told them and I took my son first, I want my son to know first, I wanted to see how he felt. It was quite strange because he said Dad, I know, I've known for some time. I said I've got something to tell you. And he said if it's that you're gay, I know already, dad. I said why? And he said do you remember when you first got your computer and you weren't very good at your computer and I used to be able to use it while I could sign in and look at what you've been looking at on? And he said for the last year I've known, wow. And I thought you, yeah. And he knew we had a very long talk about it and he was really happy. And I asked him about my daughter, who would have been 16, 17. And he said Dad, I think she knows already, we've spoken about it. And when I saw her for the first time, we spoke and she said oh, she just came over to me, give me a big hug and she told me how much she loved me. She said I'm so lucky. I wish I was still at school and I could have told everybody that I had a gay dad sort of thing, which was, yeah, a bit of a status, a bit of a thing. But yeah, we were very fortunate, all the four and the four children get on together, because they were brought up together.
Emma: 37:25
And we should point out the reason I know you is because I've we bumped into each other in Sappville Gardens at Manchester Pride a couple of years ago Waiting for Lulule, and where were you?
Gary: 37:38
Well, lulule was on that year. What's she after God? Yeah, you probably had a future dream, like we all.
Emma: 37:43
I might have had a couple, yes, but what I thought was wonderful was you were there celebrating gay love in the centre of Manchester with your husband and your gay son and his boyfriend, and you were just the four of you were just so happy to be sharing that experience together. I thought it was beautiful.
Gary: 38:01
Again, we're very, very fortunate. It doesn't happen like that to everybody. But Phil and I my son we have the most amazing relationship. It wasn't always, like I said, I was very jealous until I'd actually come out, because he had the life I wanted and it was him. He's very, very adult and caring, one of the most caring people I know. I'm very proud of him because of that. And he said. He said to me Dad, I feel as if we've lost contact with each other, because I do this and you do that and you've kind of dropped me, you've forgotten about me and it's hurt me. He said you do your own thing and I do my own thing, and I think it's got to stop. We need to put time aside for us. How adult is that for a son to say that to a dad I want to spend more time with you, Dad.
Emma: 38:55
I want to spend more time with you. And go to gay pride events with you.
Gary: 38:58
So what we did? We started knocking around with each other and his friends became our friends and my friends became his friends. When we couldn't have a pride because of the virus of COVID, we were allowed to have 12 people in our garden, so we had a white party. So all Philip's friends and Philip came, they all dressed in white, and we had a pride here in the house. We had games where you had to run and relay games, where you run down the garden, you take a shot, you put a wig on, you run back, you put some heels on and take a shot. All those are and we had an amazing time. But as time passed, phil and I started going out quite often together, so we'll go clubbing together. We've been on holiday together. We just get on very, very well. But we are very alike. We're like peas in a pod. People say we look like each other. People say that talking to him is like talking to me. But I couldn't be more proud of his achievements, not money and things like that, just how he is as a person. You know I'm so proud of him, kind, loving. If everybody was like my son, there'd be no wars or anything in the world. You know he's. I don't want him to hear this, because you get big, big headed. He really would. But, yeah, very proud and I'm a very fortunate man. If I die tomorrow, I could never say, well, I haven't lived because I have. I have done things and seen places and had a very varied life. I don't want to drop dead tomorrow, but if I did I'm happy. Yeah, I'm a happy person. So, no regrets, not one. I only regret things that I didn't do. Yeah, my regret was maybe that I didn't come out sooner. My regret is I didn't have the guts. But you know, imagine me in the 80s. I would have gone down to London, I would have been one of the first HIV victims, I'm sure, because that's me. I would have been in every gay bar going, I would have been dancing my little ass off and before you know it, I do believe in faith. So maybe there's a reason why I didn't come out as early as I did. I knew one person from the village that left to go to London and within a year he was positive and he died. Because in those days you did do. It's not like now. You know, you can be on prep and there's all sorts of amazing things, but in those days I've said before, times were different. I've always said you know, if the government of the day had treated the AIDS virus like the government of today treated Covid, many, many more lives would have been saved, because the amount of money that they put into the heterosexual disease was nowhere near the amount of money and effort that they put into the AIDS virus. Because at the time, wrongly they said oh, it's the gay plague, it's the gay disease, and it wasn't at the time any celebrities that dared put their little head above the parapet and say this is wrong. We need to, you know, get money together for this. They were shut down immediately. Why don't you get a good charity to look after? Why don't you get a money? It wasn't thought it was different, wasn't it? It was a horrible time.
Emma: 42:35
Horrible time, yeah, frightening people, frightening with the ambulance Unnecessarily.
Gary: 42:40
I have a cousin. It's James's cousin. He lived in London. He became a buddy and we sat and had a few drinks one evening and he told me some stories about, at the time, having to go to the hospital. He went every day to visit patients and held the hand and waited for them to die. And he said at the time more parents didn't go than went to see their children. And he said you've no idea of what it's like to hold somebody's hand and for them to say I want my mum, I want my mum, and you know very well that the mother wants nothing to do with them because the shame, shame.
Emma: 43:22
It's a horrible shame, isn't it? Horrific, horrific.
Gary: 43:25
It's damaged generations, a whole generation's damaged and that's why I said you know fate. Maybe you ask me about regrets, Emma. I don't have regrets as far as James is concerned. Never, ever. I have regrets that I didn't meet him earlier, because I would have had another 20 years of us being young and doing things, and I know I'm not ancient now. But you know, within a few years I won't be able to go to a beater and I won't be able to go to Grand Canary.
Emma: 43:55
I like to end with a bit of advice, but maybe for you. The question is if you could advise 20 or 30 year old Gary when you were married to different women back in the day, what would your advice be?
Gary: 44:09
I think you've got this from RuPaul's Drag Race. They always do this at the end, don't they? What do you the other photograph, don't they? And they say what would you tell your five year old self? Oh, yes, they do. They do. That is the most difficult question that I've ever been asked and, as you know, listeners to this we'll see. You know I can talk for England, but you've really, really stumped me there. There would be so much that I would want to say to myself. One of them would be believe in your own abilities, believe in yourself and believe in your own judgement, because there's quite a few times when I thought it was one thing and it turned out to be something quite different. I'd like to say oh, come out and don't be worried and everything's going to be fine. But I couldn't, because if you can't, if I'd have come out at 20 I would have been beaten up some at Rotten. You know I live in Runecawn. You know it's the backwards. You know I could have gone into Liverpool and maybe got away with it in Manchester, but not a little old, lovely town. But I love Runecawn. I don't think I'd ever leave, but it's not the place to be gay. I know I've got it. I've got it. Now I would say to myself don't worry, be yourself as much as you can, but in the end, you're going to get the best prize. And the best prize is I've got amazing kids, I've got amazing grandchildren and a husband who I love and loves me dearly as well, and I think in life, what you've got to do is, when you die, is not look back and think of your successes and what the most important thing is sounds like cliche, it's like Moulin Rouge, but is. I know what it's like to have loved somebody, and I know what it's like to have been loved, and I think that's more important than anything else in life. It's a driving force, isn't it? Relationships, feeling comfortable because you're with somebody that you know is there for you, you feel safe, you feel warm, and I think that's all we want in life. We're humans. We need that. Yeah, I would say to myself don't worry, you're going to get the best prize. In the end, you'll get to a certain age and it'll change. You will be who you are meant to be. I am now exactly who I was born to be.
Emma: 46:36
Yes, gary, you are exactly who you are meant to be, and I really do hope that Phil Garrison did hear all those lovely things his dad said about him. Actually, I'll message him and make sure he hears it. They really are the most lovely father and son I think I've ever met. So glad that I met them at Manchester Pride a few years back. Next episode you'll hear from Trailblazer and Hollyoaks actress, annie Wallace. She not only advised Coronation Street on how to write their first ever trans character, but she went on to be the first transgender person to portray a regular trans character in British soap history. And it was 35 years ago when she went to her local GP in Aberdeen and told them she wanted to transition.
Annie: 47:23
I went in and I said look, I've been told this is the first step on a path. And it was like, okay, I don't know much about this at all. And I said no, I didn't expect you to, so I've come with some notes for you, brilliant, and I'd actually, on my computer, I'd printed out notes and said this is how you treat a trans person. So she went right, I'm going to take all this, I'm going to call a couple of people and I'm going to see what we can do for you. And she went this is absolutely fascinating. And I was like wonderful.