I was looking around a friend’s website recently and found this photo. He’s given me permission to post it here.
It was taken at London Gay Pride parade in 1992 and I’m the only straight one in this photo. You can probably tell because my outfit is nowhere near the same as the others here or any others at the festival. I still have this dress. Look at those lapels. The sunglasses were
given to me by a friend and I also still have those but they need some
repair work.
The guy with his arm around me looks very Pet Shop Boys. I actually thought it was my friend to start off with, all the while wondering why he looked a bit different to what I remembered until he told me he was the one taking the photo.
I don’t remember too much about the event because it was so long ago. I do remember marching down the street, seeing lots of rainbow colours and colourful sights and ending up in a part at the end where there was music and drinking.
Making any friends in London isn’t really easy – a bit the same in every big city I imagine – so I went out with my new gay friends to gay clubs. As a rule they didn’t come to straight pubs or clubs with me, but the good thing about gay clubs is that good dance music is played so I didn’t mind too much and gay clubs weren’t the only places I managed to get to. A regular haunt, however, was the Black Cap in Camden Town which according to a couple of websites is still around. We lived closeby so it was a very handy place to go out to with gay and straight friends alike plus it was open longer than the pubs which shut at 11pm.
Seeing this photo took me back to those times with these friends in London.
