Robin,

What makes you think your workmates were illerate?. just because they left school at 16 ?.

The education in Ireland and in most parts of England, Scotland and Wales at that time was very high. I left school 6 months before my 16th birthday and I guarantee I am better educated than a lot of high school and even university students.

Sean South may have been deemed to be gay, I doubt it, but so what.
He was bespeckled and had the studious nerdy look about him but that does not make him gay or even a sissy. For right or for wrong he did his part and unfortunately lost his life because iof it, like so many others, both gay and straight.