Gay Bar Days

All right, I have to admit it - I'm straight! But I'm also trying to
divest myself of layers of homophobia which have been encrusted by both
church and society for as long as I can remember. For instance, I'm
loving a certain serial about a gay darts team which has aroused
attention (no pun intended, definitely none!), and I'm working my way
through Armistead Maupin's "Tales Of The City" series which deals with
the diverse communities to be found in San Francisco. But I'm still
straight, despite that Steely Dan LP hidden amongst my vinyls!
Whilst I'm in confession mode, I also have to admit that I have
actually been in gay bars. Twice, to my knowledge, once by accident and
once by design. You want to read the sordid details? Of course you
do!

The accident was in Huddersfield when I was at the Poly and out for a
few jars with my friend Dick (oh,dear!). The Commercial was, and
probably still is, a smallish pub on an intersection in the town
centre, and was one of only a very few Sam Smith's pubs in the town;
Huddersfield was a big Bass empire, and that brewery had gutted large
numbers of local houses and turned them into identikit pubs with a
large central bar area and no small, private sitting rooms. The
Commercial, however, had a small back bar which was not normally open
but on this occasion it was, so we ambled in to test the ambience. Dick
was the first to notice the dodginess of the ambience, about midway
through the admittedly excellent pint;
"Drink up and let's GO!" he ordered, for The Commercial was certainly
into trade that evening.

Outside of termtime I lived in Leeds, and, together with my mates Dave
and Steve, was endeavouring to have a drink in every single pub in
Leeds; like a bird-watcher or train spotter, I kept a log book of every
pub visited and the beer it sold. Every night out was in effect a pub
crawl; if we went to the outer suburbs it would be quite a healthy
evening as we would have to walk two or three miles to amass a decent
total. But inner city areas like Hunslet were the best, with lots of
ancient, ratty old pubs standing in dignified isolation whilst the
bulldozers tore into the derelict terrace housing surrounding them;
they nearly always had hand-pumps and the clientele were amiable old
codgers; some pubs even had pianos! City centre pubs, in contrast, were
often gimmicky, full of idiots and over-priced, and there was the
dilemma of whether or not to include bars as opposed to pubs - the
answer, of course, was no, but breweries would remarket the same
properties under new trendy auspices which added to the complications.
So I didn't like city centre pub crawls, but at least those pubs could
be picked off one at a time when we were in town for other things.
Which left the "Hope And Anchor", Leeds' notorious gay pub, just down
from the Corn Exchange under the railway bridge. One evening we were in
the area and debating whether or not to go in; Dave and Steve were
adamantly opposed, but I was the one with a log book!
"I'll only be two minutes", I promised.
It was a long two minutes; the half of bitter came slowly out of the
tap as though it was a Guinness advert; I grabbed the drink - glug,
glug, glug, slam, dash and I was safely out on the street, uncorrupted
and unmolested, though I'd been very careful not to make eye
contact!
The "Hope And Anchor" soon featured in an expose by the "Sunday
People"; it was local hot news at the time though I fervently hope that
nowadays people of all persuasions would consider it despicable to
harass homosexuals who just wanted to drink beer in what was, to them,
an unthreatening environment. But this was thirty years ago, and the
brewery responded by closing the pub for "refurbishments", and after a
while it reopened as the "New Penny". Alas, Yorkshire humour soon
rechristened it the "Bent Penny" and intimated that the pennies in
question were glued to the floor&;#8230;

So that's it (apart from the Pattaya ladyboys, but that's another
story; I was with my family at the time and they came to our hotel not
the other way round). Things have changed for the better since then;
there's now a directory of gay pubs and clubs, in which Manchester
features strongly; you can determine whether an establishment caters
for gay/lesbian/bisexuals, whether straight people are welcomed and a
host of other details. None of my children are gay, for which (sorry!)
I'm quite thankful, but they can also relate to gay fellow students and
workmates without fear and hatred, for which I'm equally thankful. So
if you spot me lurking in some pub around Chorlton Street coach
station, I'm either exorcising my remaining demons or waiting for
National Express to turn up. Or maybe I've decided to start a log book
of Manchester pubs, or I'm just doing background research for a story.
But I'm definitely not gay! Honestly!