Category: Gay Bars

Spuds, Spies and Something for the Weekend

The renaissance of the iconic Battersea Power Station and its surroundings isn’t the only radical regeneration along the old Thameside rust belt. Virtually the entire south bank from Grosvenor to Vauxhall Bridges has been transformed by new fancy offices and posh flats along Nine Elms Lane. At the Vauxhall end once stood Market Towers, a typically seventies block with the Market Tavern on the first floor. It was added for the traders who fancied a pint or two after a hard day’s graft shifting spuds and sunflowers at the nearby New Covent Garden Market*.

Come the weekend, though, an altogether different trade was transacted. The pub doubled up as a gay bar, particularly popular on a Sunday afternoon because the boys just loved to booze and cruise after Sunday prayers. I should know, I was one of them. I misspent many an afternoon there during the nineties and noughties. As did Jean Paul Gaultier during his Eurotrash years. But I was never tempted to try my hand in the very ugly and very derelict Nine Elms Cold Store next door. Many a randy lad came a cropper cruising its dark and dank corridors. Plunging down an unlit crane shaft was not good for anyone’s health. Ironically, it was built on part of the 17th-century Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, which had pleasured Londoners for over 200 years. Both Market Towers and the Cold Store are now gone, swept away by redevelopment. Ah, the memories.

Alongside the ribbon of luxury riverside high rises sits the HQ of MI6, the UK’s spymasters, as featured in a number of James Bond films. And not far away is the new, fortress-like US Embassy, which looks like it sits on a lazy Susan. No doubt, both buildings are bristling with various top-secret ways to detect and deter, disrupt and destabilise. Is their proximity to one another just a coincidence? I wonder. Let’s hope they’re keeping us safe from Tsar Pukin and his deadly cronies.

MI6
US Embassy

*The old Covent Garden in Central London is now an uber-busy tourist hotspot, so you won’t find Eliza Doolittle flogging flowers and warbling ‘Wouldn’t it be Loverly’ on the steps of the Royal Opera House.

Okay, You, One Sentence Should Do It

Our double anniversary has sneaked up on us again – 19 years since our eyes met across a busy West End gay bar fit to bursting with a gossipy after-work crowd, and 17 years since we got hitched. This year, we’ve decided to push the boat out and paddle down the Seine. Yes, we’re off to gay Paree for a gay old time. For these gay old timers, this means a gentle stroll along the handsome boulevards and a big slice of café culture rather than painting the town pink in our disco pants. Our tush shaking days are long gone.

In the meantime, I stumbled across this old Faceache post written by him indoors to mark our seventh anniversary. Liam was challenged to say it all in a single sentence and he did it in style. He wrote…

Seven years ago we met in that bar in Trafalgar Square, shared that Sloppy Giuseppe and over-priced Pinot Grigio, argued about the bill, eventually went Dutch, courted for months like a pair of 1950s Catholics (for heaven’s sake), collapsed out of exhaustion into the world of jiggy-jiggy (terribly messy but strangely exciting), fell madly in love, got married (nice suits), moved in together (delicious scandal), watched the curtains twitch (mostly nets), gave up everything sensible and moved to Turkey (what was wrong with Spain?), fell in-and-out-and-in-and-out of love with an extraordinary (no, challenging, misogynistic, homophobic, primitive and God was it cold – okay I loved it) place, you writing ‘that’ book, ‘that’ book getting critical acclaim and big sales (cha-ching) but ‘that’ book largely ignored by those close to us (discuss?), coming back to look after our own (good call), becoming poor, well poor-ish (bad call), discovering the great city of Naaaarwich (nuff said), having more jiggy-jiggy (apparently unnatural, but terribly good with central heating and an injection of Radio 4 LW), re-discovering UK culture like a long lost friend but afraid to tell the expats how wonderful it was in case it came across as boastful (fine line), you becoming ‘properly’ recognised as a ‘proper’ writer (hurrah!) not to mention radio star (OMG), me re-learning Bach fugues (they are SO hard to play, even harder than Mozart, you really have no idea how my fingers ache), both of us weeping like candles at the latest Cinema City flick (okay, mostly Dame Maggie and thank God for the discounted tickets and blood-warm Merlot at the bar), getting over-excited about that converted railway carriage in miles-from-nowhere (yes, I could wash my bits in a sink with a view like that), improvising those make-shift nappies during the messy norovirus days (thank you Blue Peter and Morrison’s super-padded 2-for-1 kitchen towels, we owe you), people-watching at the Playhouse and longing to be young (clearly, we need to avoid Death In Venice comparisons here), gasping at Bonnie Langford’s amazingly flexible crack (and boy, can that Dolly can write a tooone) but most of all, keeping our focus, always, on making sure our glass is resolutely full. I’d say it’s been an extraordinary seven years, husband.

Fight Club

Our nephew Tom entered an amateur boxing competition for charity in honour of his grandmother – my mother – who died of cancer last year. And, of course, we had to be there for moral support and to eye up the sweaty men in silky shorts. The venue was the famous Troxy, a gorgeous art deco former cinema in London’s East End. First opened in 1933, it dodged the bombs during the Blitz when much around it was flattened by the Luftwaffe. Down the decades, the venue has been reincarnated several times and now provides a multipurpose home for an eclectic mix of weird and wonderful events.

It’s also pretty rainbow-friendly. As they say on their website…

In 2019 Troxy cemented its reputation as one of the flagship venues for LGBTQ+ led events. With a superb track record welcoming clients such as Sink The Pink, Ru Paul’s Drag Race and London Gay Men’s Chorus to name a few, Troxy worked hard to create a respectful and welcoming environment for everyone, ensuring that no one is subject to discrimination or harassment of any kind. All staff at the venue are highly trained to create a fully inclusive customer experience, from sensitive security searches to the use of gender neutral pronouns.

We met up with the family in a little hostelry called The Old Ship, a traditional East End boozer which also happens to be a local gay bar serving up drag with the real ales. The pub was full of pre-bout punters mingling with the afternoon regulars. Liam and I hadn’t supped there for twenty years or more, and it was wonderful to see it still thriving while so many others have fallen by the wayside.

Fight club was a suited and booted affair – no tie, no entry – and we were dressed up to the nines to match the rowdy crowd in their best wedding weaves. Chewing gum was banned. “Because it sticks to the carpet – worse than guns,” said the burly bouncer. Enough said.

The scene was set. It was a very butch do; you could almost taste the testosterone. Some bloke in a cheap suit was running a book from the men’s loo and we fully expected local gangster types to muscle in on the action. In fact, it was all good-humoured, despite the full-flowing booze and high spirits. Mind you, the debauchery going down in the orchestra pit looked like the last days of Rome.

The moment came for Tom to step into the ring. His opponent was huge. His mother looked worried. We all did.

Once the big fella threw a few punches, the ref stopped the fight. We were relieved but really proud of Tom. He gave it a go and raised a few farthings into the bargain. All’s well that ends quickly and with pretty-boy face still in one piece.

Fifteen-Year Itch

For our fifteenth wedding anniversary we were itching for a big city scratch with a difference. Despite my heathen leanings, I do like an impressive church, and few are more impressive than London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, Christopher Wren’s tour de force topped with its heavenly dome. The earlier Gothic pile was torched along with much of the old medieval city in the Great Fire of 1666. It’s reckoned the blaze started in a bakery in the appropriately named Pudding Lane, bringing a whole new meaning to the hallowed phrase ‘give us our daily bread’.

Meandering around the flashy Baroque splendour brought back happy memories of my first pilgrimage – back in my spotty teens when I accompanied my grandmother, who was over from Ireland.

According to the annals, there’s been a church on the same spot since 604 AD, and possibly as far back as the late Roman period, as suggested by a plaque listing the pre-Norman bishops with their glorious tongue-twister names.

In stark contrast to the lavish decor above, the crypt is simply appointed and stuffed with the tombs of kill and cure notables from days long past, from Florence Nightingale and Alexander Fleming – who discovered penicillin quite by chance – to the victors of Trafalgar and Waterloo, Nelson and Wellington. Napoleon must be spinning in his monumental Parisian grave. Wren is there too, of course.

After piety came avarice, with indulgent afternoon tea and bubbles in The Swan at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre followed by mother’s ruin at Halfway to Heaven, the homo watering hole near Nelson’s massive column, where Liam and I first met. They knew we were coming judging by the ultimate gay megamix playing on the jukebox – Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Marc Almond, The Communards, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Dead or Alive, Gloria Gaynor and Hazel Dean – with Liza Minnelli’s ‘Love Pains’ bringing up the rear. Liam’s shoulders shimmied to the beat. Perfect.

Send in the Clones

When, in the late seventies, I took my first tentative steps onto London’s knock-and-enter gay scene, facial hair was all the rage. Walk into any smoky dive bar and you’d be confronted with an ocean of moustaches – the bigger, the bushier the better. It was like a Tom Selleck convention minus the Hawaiian shirts. We called ’em clones – the Frisco Crisco look. Even the limp-wristed tried to butch it up during the clone wars. The entire lookalikee-ness was gloriously sent up by the Village People in their camp 1978 disco classic ‘Macho Man’. I had the 12-inch.

And clones were only attracted to other clones – that was the Clone Law – dancing round each other in some strange narcissistic mating ritual. I couldn’t really grow convincing face furniture, and pretty boys like me didn’t get a look in. Still, it didn’t hold me back.

By the nineties, hirsute was out, supplanted by the clean-shaven and the fully-waxed. Roll on the noughties, and Desperate Dan* wannabees reclaimed the streets with overgrown hipster beards. But now the lumberjack look is old hat and tashes are back among the trendy young things. And so the world turns.

Being older and furrier, I saw this as my last chance to release my inner clone. For about a month, I nurtured my new whiskers with pride; a bit more salt than pepper perhaps, but full-bodied all the same.

Freddie Mercury’s clone phase

But then a young chap accidentally brushed passed me in a crowded Norwich pub. “Really sorry, old man,” he said.

That was the end of my seventies pornstar tash.

*Desperate Dan was a big butch cartoon character from the Dandy comic with a beard so tough he shaved with a blowtorch.

Paul O’Grady, RIP

We awoke this morning to the sad news that Paul O’Grady, AKA Lily Savage drag queen extraordinaire, has died. Even though I didn’t know Paul personally, somehow it still feels like a big loss. Lily Savage was such an important part of my formative years as a pretty young gay about town. Before Paul hit the big time on the telly box, firstly as his alter ego and then as himself, I misspent many a boozy night of slapstick and sequins watching Lily click her high heels on the velvet-draped stage of the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, South London’s premier drag pub. Quick-witted, caustic, filthy and utterly original, Lily always brought the house down. I laughed so much it hurt. Nobody dared heckle Lily when Lily was on a roll. She was more than just drag. There have been countless drag queens down the ages, some great and some dire, but Lily stood wig and shoulders above them all. Lily was comedy royalty.

There are loads of videos of Paul and Lily on YouTube. I’ve picked one – outtakes from the Lily Savage TV Show back in the day on the Beeb. If you’re easily offended, best change channels now.

Sixty is the New Fifty

I reached the grand old age of sixty last year. This year was Liam’s turn and I’d planned a succession of treats – for me as well as for him – in old London Town. First up was a dinner date and gossipy catch up with an old pal in a fancy French restaurant in Chelsea, the trendy part of town where I gladly misspent much of my youth – ‘Days on the tills and nights on the tiles,’ I call it. The King’s Road is my memory lane and Liam joined me on my trip down it.

Next day I whisked Liam off to Covent Garden for a full English followed by a stroll. Once London’s main fruit and veg market with an opera house attached – think Audrey Hepburn as the cockney sparrow flower girl lip-syncing to ‘Wouldn’t it be Loverly?’ in My Fair Lady – Covent Garden has long since evolved into a major magnet for tourists. And there were tourists aplenty, finally returning from home and abroad after lockdown.

Here’s the queue for Burberry. All that fuss just for a posh handbag.

We decided to take in some street opera and pavement art instead.

Our Covent Garden jolly continued with a ride around the London Transport Museum. In many ways, the story of London Transport is the story of London itself. The city couldn’t have spread like it has without the constant innovation needed to enable Londoners to go about their business. If trains, tubes, trams and trolley buses are your thing, it’s an Aladdin’s cave. We loved it.

After a brief power nap back at the hotel, we jumped on the Tube for a real indulgence – a performance of Hamilton at the Victoria Palace Theatre. The musical tells of the story of Alexander Hamilton, one of the (to me) lesser known American ‘Founding Fathers’, delivered in song and rap. The deliberately delicious twist is that most of the cast – including Alexander himself – is black or mixed heritage. Adorned with every gong going, the show is slick, brilliantly staged and tuneful. The rap is used as dialogue and is lyrical and clever. It’s a masterpiece, a work of genius.

The evening concluded with more posh nosh and a final snifter in our favourite dive bar in busy, buzzy Soho. The long weekend was a whirlwind with the perfect ending. We finally got to meet Fred, our newest great-nephew.

London Calling

London Calling

The tail end of August saw us in old London Town to commemorate what would have been the 59th birthday of an old friend who died unexpectedly in January this year. It was our first trip to the Smoke since lockdown and we were understandably anxious. It’s only about 100 miles from here to there but it might as well be another country.

The shiny new train wasn’t busy. We almost had the carriage to ourselves and most passengers complied with the ‘new normal’ – face mask-wise. Booking into a hotel for a couple of nights gave us the chance to test the waters. We rode the Tube and drank in familiar Soho haunts. It was fine.

The early August heatwave gave us hope that we might have a picnic in St James’s Park – a fun and fabulous tradition developed over many years – but, alas, the weather turned blustery so we made do with a restaurant as ‘Storm Clive’ passed overhead. We came together under the shadow of Eros on Piccadilly Circus – except of course, it’s actually a statue of Eros’ less well-known sibling, Anteros, but everyone calls it Eros anyway.

I can’t share any images of the actual birthday bash. Some of the assembled are social media shy and don’t want their images online. And who can blame them? Suffice it to say it was a joyous occasion – old friends talking old times through a jolly, drunken haze. And Clive was there in spirit.

Clive Smith 1961-2020

The Seven Sisters

Who knows what life will be like once we’re released from house arrest? What will the so-called new normal look like? What’s certain is we’re all Zooming, streaming and buying online like never before. This was already the direction of travel and it just got turbo-charged. How many bricks and mortar businesses will survive is anyone’s guess.

And then there are the most ancient of games – cruising, coupling and canoodling – and the arenas where these rituals are played out. From an LGBT perspective, swiping right had already forced many a gay boozer to call time for good. Why bother with the faff and expense of propping up a bar hoping for a chance liaison when you can order in with free delivery? But these places aren’t just about a Saturday night takeaway, they also provide a community hub and a safe haven from a sometimes hostile world.

An old friend sent me – via WhatsApp, ironically – these amazing images of some of London’s most iconic gay pubs, venues with long and infamous pedigrees. I don’t know who took the pictures so they can’t be credited but they brought back a flood of memories of my gloriously misspent past.

Ladies and gents and all those in between, I give you the seven sisters. As the old saying goes, use them or lose them.

  • King's Arms
    The Kings Arms: famous for bears, their admirers and Jivin’ Julie’s sunday night karoake
  • The Eagle
    The Eagle: the youngest of the seven sisters
  • Admiral Duncan
    The Admiral Duncan: made famous by a nail bomb which, in 1999, killed three and maimed many others
  • Halfway to Heaven
    Halfway to Heaven: where Liam first caught my roving eye 14 years ago
  • Duke of Wellington
    The Duke of Wellie: always my favourite Soho boozer right next door to my least favourite, Rupert Street
  • Comptons
    Comptons: Soho’s boozy, cruisy bar frequented by likely lads from all over the world
  • Royal Vauxhall Tavern
    The Royal Vauxhall Tavern cabaret bar and the eldest sister by far. Listed status may not protect it from demolition.
    My mother watched drag shows there in the sixties

Cheers from Gran Canaria

It was the calm before the storm. We flew out just before Storm Ciara barrelled across the flatlands on the Jet2 poofs and pensioners express to Gran Canaria with an all-male crew who minced up and down the aisles dishing up relentless jollity with the booze. We fitted right in and celebrated with fizz.

For our fix of winter sun this year we’d gone a bit more upmarket, staying at the Canary Garden Club, a well-appointed collection of whitewashed bungalows set in lush, beautifully-tended gardens. The sparkling pool was gorgeous though somewhat marred by the assortment of old fossils drying out in the sun. Still, it made us feel young again.

This was intended to be R&R gig and so we only ventured out once to the Yumbo Center – the epicentre of gay nightlife in Playa Del Inglés – with its trashy bars with their trashy boys flaunting their trashy bits. A likely lad emerged from the shadows and offered us Charlie, and I don’t mean my mother’s favourite fragrance from the seventies.

The gay scene has evolved down the years from the small intimate bars of my youth, partially hidden from view so as not to offend the easily offended, to cocktail cafés spilling out everywhere, in-yer-face drag shows banging out the show tunes and brash cruising establishments that do exactly what they say on the signs, and more – Sodom and Gomorrah in sequins and leather. We left it to the wide-eyed and lustful, and were in bed by midnight.

Most days we dined early and watched the sun go down over the Atlantic – just what the doctored ordered after an over-eventful year.

We arrived back at Stansted late – too late to travel back all the way to the middle of nowhere – so we’d pre-booked a budget hotel, or so I’d thought. To my surprise and total delight, Liam had upgraded us for Valentine’s. And on the train back to Norwich the next day, the guard hole-punched our tickets with a heart. Who said romance is dead?