The words famously not sung by Natalie Wood in West Side Story – and there was plenty of pretty, volumes of witty and oodles of gay at yesterday’s Norwich Pride. With colourful coppers leading the way, frisky fireman bringing up the rear and the whole world in between, the pride march reflected all the colours of our rainbow. The legions of young people out and proud brought a lump to my throat. Well done Norwich and well done to those who made it happen.

Imagine the absurdity of two openly gay, married, middle aged, middle class men escaping the liberal sanctuary of anonymous London to relocate to a Muslim country. I chronicled our exploits with the mad, the bad, the sad and the glad in a blog for the whole world to ignore. Then came the book which became a critically acclaimed best seller. Its success opened out a whole new career for me, firstly as an author, and now as a publisher. Who'd have thought it? Certainly not me. In June 2012, we ended our Anatolian affair and paddled back to Britain on the evening tide, washing up in Norwich, a surprising city in eastern England, then to the wilds of Norfolk as the only gays in the village. I’m sometimes nostalgic for our encounters with the hopeless, the hapless and, yes, the happy go lucky. They gave me an unexpected tale to tell and for this I thank them.

7 thoughts on “Pretty and Witty and Gay”

  4. Pingback: Gay Britannia – Perking the Pansies

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