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  Gay Life, Straight Work

  Gay Life, Straight Work

  Donald West

  Paradise Press

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.1

  ISBN 978-1-904585-35-0

  First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Paradise Press

  BM Box 5700, London WC1N 3XX

  Copyright © Donald West 2012

  The right of Donald West to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act l988.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-904585-23-7 Paperback

  ISBN 978-1-904585-36-7 Kindle eBook

  ISBN 978-1-904585-35-0 ePub eBook

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Cover Artwork by Gill Cooper

  CONTENTS

  PREAMBLE

  CHILDHOOD

  Early Years

  Life without Mother

  Scholastic Progress

  Sexual Awakening

  STUDENT EXPERIENCES

  Life Opens Up

  Looking for Another World

  More aboutSex

  A PROFESSIONAL PARAPSYCHOLOGIST

  The Society for Psychial Research (SPR)

  Losing My Job

  A Partial Conversion

  Further Experiences in Parapsychology

  LOOKING FOR LOVE

  Sex and the City

  A NEW PROFESSION

  The Maudsley Hospital

  A Step Backwards

  A Change of Scene

  MISFORTUNE PROMOTES RESEARCH

  Illness

  Eleven Lourdes Miracles

  An Infamous Project

  Back to Maudsley

  An Interesting Story

  LOVE VERSUS SEX

  Starting a Partnership

  Moroccan Interludes

  Tragedies of Love

  Dangerous Liaisons

  Infidelity Justified

  Demise of the Antiques shop

  ENTERING ACADEMIA

  Initial Culture Shock

  Becoming a Teacher

  Sex in Cambridge

  Research Begins on Prisoners

  MORE RESEARCH PROJECTS

  Murder Followed by Suicide

  A Visit to New York

  A Failed Project in Lebanon

  A Major Project: The Cambridge Study

  SEXOLOGICAl ADVENTURES

  Ventures into Courts and Prisons

  Thoughts on Children and Sex

  Repetitive Homicidal Rapists

  Gay Prostitution

  QUANGOS

  Parole

  The Mental Health Act Commission

  FINAL CHAPTERS

  Death of a Partnership

  A Light Interlude

  Gay Life and Old Age

  Reflections on the Paranormal

  Closure

  NOTES

  PREAMBLE

  These are the memoirs of an aged and disillusioned professor who made no shattering discoveries, earned no titles and lacked the benefits of middle class origin, the comforts of heterosexuality, or the solace of a clubbable temperament. Why should anyone be interested? Perhaps because an unusual train of circumstances led to my becoming an odd combination of parapychologist, psychiatrist, sexologist and criminologist, all of them subjects of general public interest, media attention, and emotive controversies. Being a sexual outlaw during my formative years attracted me to studies of the socially unacceptable and a questioning of conventional wisdom.

  Sitting uneasily on a lonely fence between resolute dismissal and uncritical acceptance of the paranormal, my views on that topic pleased few people. On sex matters, I have been accused of supporting child molesters and other perverts. In criminology and psychiatry, sympathy with the psychological stresses and social alienation that generates crime, scepticism of the extensive resort to imprisonment, and support for more preventative and therapeutic endeavours, clashed with prevalent political opinion.

  Upbringing, emotional development and family circumstances help shape adult attitudes, so a personal life story, including explicit sexual history, is relevant to the evaluation of controversial opinions. This book attempts to provide an example of the intertwining of sexual orientation with professional and intellectual life at a time when homosexuals were socially condemned and in danger of prosecution and public vilification. Whether this intertwining has helped or distorted judgment is for others to decide.

  This is not an academic exercise. Reference to technical books and papers is generally avoided. I try to explain myself through personal experiences and reflections.

  CHILDHOOD

  Early Years

  I was born in 1924, I think at home – that is in a traditional workers’ red brick Victorian terraced house, close to Liverpool’s dockland. I was told I was born very weak and survived only through extreme care. The birth was said to have nearly killed my mother – who suffered cardiac insufficiency from stenosis of the mitral valve, a condition irremediable at the time, a complication of rheumatic fever infection contracted in childhood. I remember her often appearing to be dangerously unwell. At any rate she suffered dramatic ‘attacks’ during rows with my father. She died in 1936 at the age of forty-four, when I was not quite twelve. An unhappy marriage and presumed inability to endure another childbirth may account for her intense and restrictive devotion that made me a lonely, cosseted, only child, forbidden to play with neighbourhood children in the street outside, and warned that I was too delicate for school sports. The slightest ailment caused domestic upheaval. At around six or seven years of age, a feverish illness with swollen cervical glands kept me unwell for some weeks. Mother thought to prepare me for the worst by explaining that I might be called by Jesus to a wonderfully beautiful heaven. Strangely enough, I think I was more comforted than frightened at the time; fear of illness came later. The practice of calling in the family doctor for the minor sore throats, in case it was the start of the dreaded diphtheria, was not reassuring. In point of fact, I have enjoyed good health for most of a long life, although even now the slightest sign of something wrong sets up a secret panic.

  Mother was the daughter of a Scottish engine driver who had emigrated to Argentina, where he was killed in a rail crash when she and her twin sister were two years old. My grandmother returned with the children to England, where she struggled to support them by taking in washing, an occupation thought shameful. (No Laundromats in those days!) Before her marriage mother worked for a local family with a cake shop, becoming at the same time an unofficial ‘nanny’ to their children and remaining in touch with these ‘higher class’ people till her death. Their daughter sang a Handel aria at her funeral. Grandmother lived with us unti
l mother died; a sombre figure always in black. She never left the house, ostensibly because she walked with a pronounced forward stoop that was blamed on her years of drudgery bent over a wash tub. Mother was religious and a churchgoer, brought up as a Wesleyan Methodist, a sect renowned for its puritanical stance. She and Grandmother disapproved of alcohol and gambling and each year prayed for the victims of the Grand National horse race, when many poor people would lose money on bets.

  Father was the son of a bricklayer who had framed certificates to prove his skills and who was also a religious martinet. Accordingly, father was brought up strictly; all pleasurable activity on Sundays was forbidden, including reading Sunday newspapers. In 1909, at the age of fourteen, father was required to leave school to work as a labourer in the Cunard shipping company’s warehouses. He attended night school, becoming sufficiently numerate and literate to obtain office work in the company. His career was interrupted by service as a private in the trenches in the First World War, an experience he rarely talked about. Thereafter, seemingly by sheer hard work, he gradually climbed the promotion ladder until he was a superintendent, in charge of recruiting the catering staff and ordering all the provisions for the company’s trans-Atlantic liners. His job meant everything to him, and he fell into a depression when he had to retire. Although liked and respected, he never passed the barrier into senior management, in those days reserved for educated public school types. Nevertheless, his industry and continuing financial generosity gave me both a university education and subsequent financial help.

  I can only guess at the reasons for my parents’ marital problems. Certainly Mother and Grandmother disapproved of father socialising in bars, although I never saw him drunk or remember him bringing friends home. The outstanding problem was that he had taken a mistress. I remember a screaming row because she had found a ‘French letter’ in his pocket. It was only years after that I understood this was current slang for a condom. Father was a quiet, unassuming and well-meaning person, unstinting in his material support for the home. That he also had a mistress was out of character. She was a Welsh publican’s daughter, a handsome woman, but totally uncultured, which rendered her airs of boastful grandeur particularly absurd. Perhaps there was an attraction of opposites.

  Though bathed in love and attention while mother was alive, I was missing out on some essentials. Mother and grandmother dominated the scene. Visitors to the house were a rarity, except for mother’s twin sister who called occasionally. She was living in poorer circumstances, and was reportedly beaten by her drunken husband, but was surprisingly cheerful and outgoing. I heard her remark once that my mother did not know when she was well off. One time she surprised me sitting alone outside amusing myself watching the movements of some ants. I was terribly embarrassed, but she smiled encouragingly and gave me to understand that playing with ants was OK. My earliest recollections are all to do with the immediate family of adults.

  Father was little to be seen during the working week, but he was caring enough, teaching me ‘Meccano’ construction and taking Mother and me on week-end bus trips to the nearby seaside town of Southport. There I was treated to only the gentlest of funfair rides, most often the Fairy Caves. Much of the time was spent sitting in the spectator area of the outdoor swimming pool, but with no thought of having me taught to swim. I have never overcome the fear of immersion. Watching the bathers, for what seemed hours on end, bored me. The only mild excitement I recall was Mother spotting the family doctor accompanied by a lady not his wife. Opportunity for socialising with other children, except during school hours, was non-existent. Outings included walks in the nearby park and, a bit later on, trips to the local cinema, accompanied by mother, or lone visits on Saturday mornings to children’s film shows. Walking alone to school or the cinema was not then conceived as dangerous. Protective advice was limited to orders not to speak to or accept sweets from strangers, the reason for which was never explained. The most exciting events of early childhood were occasions when an Irish family took pity on the lonely infant next door and took me with their own children, heaped onto their crowded motorcycle and side-car, to picnic in bluebell-wooded countryside. There were hours of anxious and often disappointed waiting at weekends hoping they might ring the doorbell to take me out.

  Domestic routine was monotonous; parties and holidays away from home were unknown. Radio was available, but television was not yet heard of and computer games were in the far distant future. Comforts were basic, with an unheated toilet in the yard outside and a metal bath for washing inside. Lighting was by gas, with incandescent mantles ignited with matches. Cooking was on a coal-fuelled iron ‘range’. Grandmother would get up very early to clean out the ashes, start the fire and put on the very slow-cooking scouse stew (potato and neck of lamb) which was our regular fare. We lived entirely in the kitchen; I hardly remember the ‘front room’. Poor diet and lack of exercise may have helped me to become a clumsy fat boy, hopeless at any form of sport or games. Later on, I developed a real phobia about the balancing and somersaulting that were included in compulsory physical training at school. Strict economy was enforced at home, not only because the looming economic depression and fear of the awful consequences of unemployment was weighing heavily on the working class, but because my mother, anticipating an early death, did not trust my father to provide for me properly. When she died, it emerged that she had for some time secretly squirreled away a portion of her housekeeping money in order to make a will leaving me a few hundred pounds.

  For one unused to interacting with other children, life at infant and primary schools was not as terrifying as might have been expected. The kindergarten, close to the house where I was born, was tiny and undemanding, run virtually single-handed by a religious woman. I remember bible stories and parlour games, but little free interactive play. Leaving infant school at age seven coincided with improved family fortunes and a move a few miles north to a smarter area in Crosby. The first choice had been a rambling old house towards the nearby sea front, but mother had vetoed that, fearing I might be at risk when she heard that a death from diphtheria had occurred there.

  The house in Crosby was very different from what I had been used to; semi-detached with a bathroom, electricity, telephone and a garden. On a preliminary visit there, I recall being taken round the garden by the previous owner telling me the names of the flowers. It was a suburban street, not much used by children at play. The regime of over-attentive care continued, and I became a self-centred child prone to sulks, for instance when Mother did not want to take me to the local cinema.

  Entering a nearby preparatory school was a revelation, because it included playground fun and games and the chance to make on-the-spot friends. I was sent for piano lessons to a sympathetic teacher who had to suffer my prattling away about what went on at school. As with many shy individuals, once the barrier of diffidence is broken, there is danger of flooding. Wisely, the teacher advised that my heart was not in the lessons, but at least I learned to read piano music.

  Worried about every aspect of my welfare, mother had taken pains to teach me to read at a very early age, so when first admitted to the private preparatory school in Crosby, I was considered ‘advanced’, and remained so on entering Merchant Taylors boys’ secondary school, a short walk from home, where day boys greatly outnumbered boarders. This venerable establishment was struggling to preserve the traditions of its more famous and grander offshoot in the South. The uniform included those high, stiff, starched collars, seen today in period films and plays. They chafed the neck and had to be taken to a Chinese laundry. Discipline was aided by senior boys, styled prefects, and there was an emphasis on school teams, school ties, school songs, and an Officers’ Training Corps. The establishment is still going strong, though without its public school status.

  At secondary school my obesity and physical ineptitude soon attracted teasing and bullying. Years before, when walking by the school playing field, where boys were running around in gym shorts, mother
had told me I was not strong enough for that sort of thing. Participation in team games was compulsory and my hopelessness at everything was an embarrassment to whatever group I had to join. Strangely, I do not recall being desperately unhappy about a persecution that consisted of persistent ridicule more than serious physical cruelty. In a perverse way it was better than being left out, and I did make one or two friends. Teachers must also have perceived me as an oddity. I was upset when one of them told me – perhaps as a friendly warning – that there were some teachers who “would not touch you with a barge-pole”.

  Not long after my entry into secondary school, Mother was admitted to hospital. Taken to visit her, she tried to reassure me when I was frightened at seeing her hand wrinkled and immersed in a bowl of liquid – perhaps to help some restricted circulation. Within a week or so she died suddenly from an embolism. The news was brought to me one morning while I was still in bed, by Father, accompanied by a tall, dignified old lady in black, Mother’s former employer. I was more shocked than anything, but felt I should cry, which I soon did. Though I was genuinely grieving, at the same time I was hoping for greater freedom. Grandmother moved out and soon after Father brought his mistress home and married her.

  Life without Mother

  I was glad to meet my stepmother and looked forward to a new life. She was past child-bearing age, so I remained an only child. Troubles started quite soon. She was continually disapproving, although I never quite understood what I was doing wrong. I suppose I was sulky and difficult on finding I was not enjoying the hoped-for new freedoms. She imposed strict controls, but more for her own satisfaction than concern for my welfare. Doubtless she resented having to be in charge of a budding adolescent and was jealous of my father’s concern for me. For a long time I felt guilty about the situation, until with the passing years I learned more about how other people viewed her behaviour. She introduced a boy of my own age, consistently referred to as her brother. It eventually emerged that he was in fact her son, who had been left to be reared by his grandmother in a family situation that was clearly dysfunctional.