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.

Cup Hands, Here Comes Cadbury’s

Our immediate neighbours at the Duke of York’s Theatre in old London Town were a trio of antique thesps with silver hair, floaty chiffon and silk scarves – very Sunset Boulevard – who were getting so over-excited by Backstairs Billy I thought we might have to ask if there was a doctor in the house. Liam got chatting to the classy lady in the pew next to him. She was an actress – retired, not resting, she told him.

“Theatre? TV? Films?” he asked.

“Ads, darling,” she said.

It turns out she was the face of Cadbury’s drinking chocolate back in the day.

And yes, I think this is her…

Backstairs Billy – Mistress and Servant

As we dropped into our seats on the top deck of the early morning workers’ express to Norwich, Liam said, “Okay Jack, roll up for a magical mystery tour.” I had no clue what was to come but went along for the ride anyway. Three hours later we were meandering through London’s theatreland, eventually joining the queue outside the Duke of York’s Theatre in St. Martin’s Lane.

Sneaky Liam had secretly booked tickets for a West End play I’d mentioned in a throwaway comment months earlier. The show, Backstairs Billy, is a comedy about the close relationship between Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and her faithful retainer of 50 years, William ‘Billy’ Tallon.

Set long after the dowager queen had been put out to pasture, the razer-sharp script cascades from belly-laugh slapstick farce to moments of real tenderness. The sparkling Penelope Wilton (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Downton Abbey) and hunky Luke Evans (Beauty and the Beast) play mistress and servant. And they do it with great aplomb.

Billy cut a controversial figure in royal circles. The Queen Mother wasn’t the only queen he serviced. An infamous chaser of young men, Billy often sailed close to the wind at a time when it wasn’t quite cricket. The play waltzes around one such indiscretion when he was caught in flagrante delicto with a casual pickup in the garden room of Clarence House and almost got the boot. But the Queen Mother’s loyalty knew no bounds – apparently she loved her gays, as evidenced by the famous quote,

“Perhaps, when you two queens are quite finished, you could get this old queen her drink.”

Whether or not she actually said this we shall never know, but the line got the biggest laugh in the show.

Billy died in 2007 and, despite his notoriety, his funeral was held in the Queen’s Chapel at St. James’s Palace, and it was attended by more than 200 mourners, including lords, ladies and luvvies of stage and screen. Not too shabby for a boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

Amsterdam, the Big Tulip

Before we got hitched, Liam and I had both enjoyed the many meaty treats of old Amsterdam. Needless to say, it didn’t include a cultural cruise around the august galleries of the world-famous Rijks Museum. These days, life is mercifully more sedate. Randy times with likely lads on the pull are but a distant memory, and nights on the tiles have given way to days on the trail.

First up on our cultural pilgrimage was the Homomonument, a memorial to those poor souls persecuted for their sexuality during the Second World War. Opened in 1987, the monument takes the form of a giant pale pink triangle jutting out into the Keizersgracht. The pink triangle was the badge gay men were forced to wear in the Nazi death camps. And we all know what happened in those places.

This is the one site I’d seen before. Here’s me in the naughty nineties. The second picture is me now. Obviously, I haven’t changed a bit!

To my shame, I’d never visited Anne Frank’s Huis, so I was determined to right this particular wrong. It was a sobering lesson in everyday evil. Lest we forget.

And, yes, we made it to the Rijks Museum – huge and impressive but way too busy, I thought. There’s little time to take in the art without being bothered by jostling, happy snappers. Well, if you can’t beat ’em…

The following day we took an audio tour around the well-sculptured Royal Palace on Dam Square with its lofty ceilings and twinkling crystal chandeliers. It was great fun, apart from the couple of young pushy queens who didn’t understand the simple concept of the queue.

As our long weekend coincided with Storm Babet tearing across Northwest Europe, we were expecting lively weather. And we got it. We coped by drinking through it; like we needed an excuse.

Despite the inclement weather (and contrary to the images below), the city was rammed. Weaving through the obstacle course of talkers, walkers, cars, trams and manic cyclists coming at us from every which way was quite the challenge. It’s a miracle we didn’t come a cropper. But we survived unscathed.

The Big Tulip really is cool. We will return.

Dutch Courage

In the autumn of 1978, a pretty-faced eighteen-year-old pulled into old Amsterdam’s grim and gloomy Centraal Station. It was cold and wet, with scary types milling about the windswept forecourt. The new beau in town had no place to stay. He’d heard that Kerkstraat was the place to hang out but had no clue where that was or how to get there. While standing in the rain wondering what next, he was approached by some sleazy bloke with a nasty comb-over – the kind of man your mother warned you against – who offered him a lift. He wisely refused, jumped into a cab and stumbled into the first hotel he came across. He asked if there was any room at the inn. There was – just the one.

That new beau in town was me, and that was my inauspicious start to an eye-popping, life-liberating experience. I lapped it up – and Amsterdam lapped me up – looked after by the proprietor of the West End Hotel, a grey-haired Dutch chap with a handlebar moustache and kindly eyes.

Forty-five years later, Liam and I pulled into old Amsterdam’s now bright and flashy Centraal Station. It was cold and wet but buzzy, with travellers and locals milling about the windswept forecourt. We jumped on a packed tram to Kerkstraat and stumbled into our hotel.

“Hold on, I know this place.”

Yes, you guessed it. It was the same hotel – renamed, remodelled and reborn, phoenix-like, but the same gaff, nonetheless. What are the chances?

If you look closely at the image below, you can spot the old name ‘West End Hotel’ etched into the glass above the entrance.

I wonder what became of the grey-haired Dutch chap with a handlebar moustache and kindly eyes who looked after a pretty-faced eighteen-year-old all those years ago?

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

We see a lot of am-dram these days – across town and county, in huts and halls, theatres big and small, all delivered by companies of dedicated luvvies giving it their all. We love the old razzle dazzle. It keeps us out of the pub, though not necessarily sober as there’s always a bar attached. Unsurprisingly, the gigs are a mixed bag – some good, some not so good. And sometimes they’re really, really good. We never know what to expect. It’s all part of the drama.

Right up there on the really, really good scale was the recent production of The Wizard of Oz at the Beccles Public Hall and Theatre, a charming little venue just across the county line in Suffolk. From the first scene to the last, the show was pure magic, slick and professional, with some cracking acts.

A special mention must go to Alice Peck, the daughter of our local tavern keeper, in her debut lead role as Dorothy. Well done, young Alice. It was a tornado of a performance. You’ll go far.

And who could forget Alice’s mother, Karen, reprising her role as the Wicked Witch of the West from her 2022 performance? She swapped her usual soft Dundonian tones for full-on, in-yer-face Glaswegian. Full of menace and mayhem, we were half-expecting a Glasgow kiss from a seriously pissed-off cackling witch. We definitely weren’t in Kansas.

All images courtesy of Facebook.

The Molly Boys

I’ve been watching Suffolk and Norfolk: Country and Coast on the box. It’s a gentle pilgrimage through the timeless counties that make up ancient East Anglia. By episode five, we reached the picture-postcard Norfolk village of Great Hockham – AKA Hockham Magna – and its Hornfair. The annual bash dates back to 1272 when King Henry III granted the villagers permission to hold a fair and weekly market. These days it’s an excuse to get a bit silly with daft games like the Woodchop Challenge and the World Stick Balancing Championship. And then there’s molly dancing. Molly who? You may well ask.

Molly dancing is a form of English Morris dance which was traditionally done by out-of-work ploughboys during midwinter in the 19th century. It was a way to fill the fallow season between Christmas and spring ploughing. The farmhands would visit the more well-to-do parishioners and offer to dance for money – because a boy’s gotta eat. Those who refused might see their mixed borders turned over.

Molly was an old term for an ‘effeminate man’, and dancers always included at least one fella dressed in women’s clothes. Who knew 19th-century country life could be so fluid? I wonder what else the molly boys did for a few farthings when times were hard? Well, it’s better than slipping a ring on Daisy the cow.

Molly dancing has enjoyed a recent revival, and the Hockham troupe are called the Clobhoppers – clumsy bumkins – and here they are in action doing a rather aggressive stick dance. These molly men don’t muck about, even in a frock. And don’t be put off by their black faces. It’s not intended to be racist. The ploughboys of old painted their faces with soot so they wouldn’t be recognised as they ploughed up your prize pansies.

Seaside Specials

After an unseasonably warm few weeks fired by a hot Saharan blast, autumn is finally upon us and thoughts meander back to summer frolics and the bucket-and-spade family entertainment that took me right back to more innocent times in short trousers. Some people may remember Seaside Special on the box during the seventies and eighties. I know I do. It was a Saturday night fixture in our house.

Our first 2023 seaside special was the award-winning Cromer Pier Show at the Pavilion Theatre. For my sins, I was expecting something fun but just a little bit naff. How wrong was I? What we got was a spectacular and lavish vaudeville-on-sea variety show with crackin’ tunes, crackin’ vocals, belly laughs and juggling genius, all wrapped up in sequins and feathers.

If that wasn’t enough to set the pulse racing, nothing could prepare us for the Hippodrome in Great Yarmouth, Britain’s last remaining circus building. Seemingly untouched by the modern world, the theatre reeks of old-style, time-worn charm – the toilets alone are a riot of Victorian bling. But there was nothing faded about the show. Featuring top-notch acts from around the world, it was full-on, edge-of-the-seat stuff. And it doesn’t get any more full-throttle than four leather-clad bikers playing ‘catch me’ around a metal cage. For the grand finale, the stage fell away to reveal a swimming pool and the show was brought to a splashing close by a shoal of fancy ladies doing a Busby Berkeley number surrounded by fit blokes in tight wet shirts. It felt like I was on drugs.

For more exciting images, check out the Hippodrome’s own website. Many thanks to our fellow village people who invited us along for the rides. You know who you are.

In Sickness and In Health

It’s been a year since my old girl died. She was 93, but even though she was frail and a bit mutton – well, a lot mutton – in many ways she was blessed. She lived a long, eventful life and she kept her marbles right up to the end. Others are not so lucky. There can’t be many people, directly or indirectly, untouched by the cruelty of dementia. Even though science and wealth have kept the Grim Reaper at bay, our minds often can’t keep up, and it’s miserable. The Big D must be particularly tough for the wives, husbands and partners of the sufferers. There are no happy endings, just ’til death do us part.

But all is not lost. Dementia is gradually revealing its dark secrets, and with light comes reward – earlier diagnosis, better treatment and maybe a cure one day. The trouble is, it’s a hard slog and it all takes cash. The Alzheimer’s Society here in the UK are currently running a TV ad campaign called The Ultimate Vow to raise awareness. It shines a light on the everyday struggles of couples living with dementia. It’s brilliant and it made me cry.

We give not just for others but also for ourselves.

Meat and Two Veg

Continuing with the gym junkie theme from last week. Given my aversion to unnecessary movement and a low boredom threshold, I keep myself amused at the gym by reading a newspaper. My daily rag of choice is the I (I for Independent). I know buying an actual printed newspaper is rather old-fashioned these days but I like thumbing through the I. It’s an easy read – a digest of the news with minimal preaching. I’m way too set in my ways to be told what to think. The paper regularly features surveys of various everyday activities, and one that stuck in my mind recently was about washing – pertinent when getting all hot and bothered on an exercise bike. Apparently, 34% of Britons don’t wash their meat and two veg when showering. Listen up, lads. No one likes cheesy wotsits in the bedroom.

Images courtesy of Loddon Community Gym.