Breaking the Code

Cherry

By Silver Spun Sand

Fri, 14 Aug 2015
  • 2783 reads
10 comments
 
It was the summer of 1963.  The Stones were in the all-important charts with Little Red Rooster.  It was banned, by my dad, in our house.  ‘Sexual undertones’, he reckoned.  I reckoned he just had a dirty mind.  I was almost sixteen.  
 
One Sunday afternoon, this chap I knew, drove us from Croydon to Brighton in his bottle-green, MGB GT V8 – hired a speedboat off the pier.  He was at least five years older than me; believe it or not, my very first date.  Painfully shy – that was me.  We got on like the proverbial house on fire.  A friend of my sister’s husband; worked in Burtons – bespoke suit department.  He was a ‘queer’ or a ‘fag’, as they called them then.  I’d have called him gentle, considerate, caring – nice.  We had an ice-cream by the dodgems; his was pink, mine was white.
 
On the way back we dropped in on his folk; couldn’t do enough to make us welcome. Him with me; an actual girl.  They couldn’t believe their luck; maybe he was ‘normal’ after all. There was cake, Arctic Roll and tinned salmon for tea, then he drove me home. Stopped off for a break – shared a smoke on Gibbet Hill; watched a mist that slowly rose to fill The Devil’s Punchbowl. His name escapes me, but it’s not important. It was how we were, then, that was.  
 
He didn’t expect nor want anything from me, and vice versa, and the knowing wherever it was we were going, we’d get there, and even if it if rained we wouldn’t get wet.  Rain wasn’t wet.  Not way back then, when breaking the moral code... loving the wrong person could make you a criminal...when smiling at someone in the park could lead to arrest, and being in the wrong address book, a prison sentence. 
 
For at least one, though, it meant paying the ultimate price...a bite of the forbidden fruit, as deadly as the hangman's noose.
 
Certificate 15
Story
Silver Spun Sand Stories
Biography

Comments

Submitted by jeand on

HI Tina

I don't think I have read any of your prose before. I was fascinated with this story, and knowing it is true makes it all that much more interesting to me. Did you stay in contact with him?

I too had some dates with a gay man at about that time - but I didn't reralise he was gay, and was both upset and embarrassed when others told me. But he was a very good friend to me.

Jean

Jean Day

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

Thanks, so much, for reading, Jean.  No, I didn't stay in contact with him personally, but through my brother-in-law I understood he went into the undertaking business, although that was years ago now.  Whenever I think about him I can only feel gladdened that the world has changed, and cannot imagine what life for him, then, must have been like, nor indeed so many others.

Remembering Alan Turing, of course, the pioneering computer scientist, mathematician and renowned code-breaker of World War II, based at Bletchley Park , who died in 1954, only weeks before his 42nd birthday,  from cyanide poisoning. reputedly from a 'laced' apple.   In 1952 he was prosecuted for homosexual acts, and voluntarily agreed to oestrogen injections (chemical castration) as an alternative to a prison sentence.

Tina

 

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

Hi Tina,

what memories this stirs, like going back in a black and white photo, to a time when the simple things in life were important. Oh! To be young again back then!

Thank you for sharing those recollections, they stirred some for me.

Jenny. wink

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

My appreciation to you, Jenny, for sharing your thoughts, and you put things very nicely when you say, 'like going back in a black and white photo'.  And indeed, oh, to be young againsmiley

Tina

 

Submitted by hudsonmoon on

Differnet side of you, Tina. Liking it. More, please.

Rich x

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

Ta muchly, Rich...I shall trysmiley

Tina x

 

Submitted by Starfish Girl on

As with much of your work Tina a seemingly simple tale but so, so much behind it.

I too would like to read more of your prose.

Lindy

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

Hello there, Lindy...so sorry I'm late getting back to you to say thank you...so very much. I don't find prose easy, and so comments like yours mean a great deal.

Tina

 

Submitted by Stephen Thom on

lovely to read more of your prose :-) little flourishes like 'watched a mist that slowly rose to fill The Devil’s Punchbowl.' add so much, it is a v evocative, thoughtful piece and interesting to hear of social dynamics at the time. the chemical castration story above ^ is more harrowing, i had no idea.

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

Thank you, so much, Stephen, for your more than valued words. Yes, totally shocking, and I had no idea, either, until I researched this piece.

Tina