Dress to the left

I know that it’s bad form to blog about other people’s blogs but I couldn’t resist on this occasion.
GawBlimeyGuv, this is your fault.

Who- ho, fags in uniform, my second favourite topic!!!!
I have to hold my hand on my heart and say that my one massive, black cloud on my past horizon is that I never joined up.
I’ve always known that I was queer and, from the few people that I’ve asked, they always knew too, so I think it must be the same for all breeders too, as it seems to be for benders. Sexuality must be “hard-wired” from birth.
Wiz-wiz-wiz… back in time to fifteen years of age and the love of my life and my best mate, and still a very good friend, John White. But first, as ever, the long, and, for you, doubtless very dull, background.
John was my second fuck and my first love.
We were at school together and had been since age 11. It was one of those things where I suppose we were drawn together, none of that romantic, soft tone, sepia coloured shot sort of drawn together, we just got on from the word go [there wasn’t just the two of “us” the whole bunch of us Pete Cashion, was our un-elected leader, Mick Gains his 2IC. The rest of us seemed to just gel into some sort of non-competitive mass.
I had the most massive crush on Pete Cashion.
This wasn’t public knowledge until one day [and I know it was a Monday [because the timetable was screwed and we had PE twice on the one day. Double art, double PE, double history, double PE]].
St. Thomas Aquinas was not renown as a great educational institution but it was shit hot on discipline. Uniform was de-rigueur and this extended to PE kit. Blue; shorts, shirt and socks.
Well for the second stint of the day Pete, claiming that his other kit was wet, turned out in the, then, brand new Leeds Utd strip of all white [previous seasons had been piss yellow].
Instant erection.
Our delightful games master, Mr O’Kane [Ian Paisleys bastard offspring] nearly turned protestant.
“Cashion, get that kit off!” [in the strongest Belfast accent].
My very own un-voiced sentiment exactly but, even better than dreams, actually was brought to life on the football pitch!
O’Kanie wouldn’t let him go back to the changing room and put on his blue kit but made him play in his undies [not in that way!].
Now I blame this for several things, one being my fetish for guys in undies and the other, a fetish for sports kit [thanks Gerry O’Kane, I owe you for a lifetime of furtive wanks!].
“‘Ere, I’ve got a jack on as well!” [Then, the current terminology for a hard-on] confided John White to me.
Well that set the seal on it and things between us just progressed from there.
Wiz forwards a few years and that time of awful dilemmas, what to do for money after leaving school.
I really wanted to go into the Army but couldn’t do it because I knew I was queer. I knew that I would never be able to do the Cleopatra, Queen if Denial thing [must be the only time in my life I’ve had the cowardice of my convictions].
John was determined to go into the Navy.
I said that I thought he was mad and that he would get found out and end up in nick.
Well, into the Navy he went and never once made a secret of being queer.
I never had that sort of courage. For many years I worked for the military as a civvy so it never made any difference as to whether I was queer or not. I was and always will be jealous of John.
Many years after, while working in Northern Ireland, one of my friends back in London had sent me a “Brief Encounter” tee shirt. When on leave I virtually lived in the place. It was the staff uniform and I had wanted one. Day-glow yellow and with a pink triangle on the front, it was the best advert for bringing the closet [and non-closet] fags into the armoury on the slightest of pretexts.
Things usually started with “where the fuck did you get that [tee shirt] from, do you know what it is!”
Well if they knew, they must be “in the know” so to speak.
That was how I met my ex, Boyd.
If his regiment was / is representative of the number of queers in the forces well, I’m surprised that Pride parades aren’t full of squaddies, not just a token hand full.
You honestly think all of those copper are there to police the march?
I never kept my sexuality a secret; it never tainted those with whom I associated. I’m the same now and I’ve still never had and abuse / prejudice etc for what I do in bed [and occasionally elsewhere].
I don’t hold with the theory that those who shout loudest have the most to hide, something, maybe, but I do know how to pick them out of a crowd. They are the ones who ask the questions that most people wouldn’t ask. The deeper questions that make you think, “Hmm, why would you want to know that? Must be one of us”.
But then they go away and condemn us.