Hi, Azizi

When I was at Grammar School (1956 - 1961) - a school for boys only - the words "queer" ; "poof" "nancy-boy" "bum-boy" "arse bandit"

"turd shunter" were pejorative insults hurled in the playground at any boy, or young man, who was seen to be apart from the "common throng" in any way.

A stutter, a limp, being useless at Rugby, Cricket, Lacrosse or Boxing, left one wide open to such an appellation, and being shunned.

There were those among the muscular, hairy-arsed heroes of sport who claimed to be able to tell whether a boy (young man) masturbated.

It would be a good few years before same-sex sexual activity, between consenting adults, was decriminalised in the UK, following the Wolfenden Report to Parliament, which resulted in the

eventual enactment of (note the title of the Act !!) the Sexual Offences Act 1965.

For me, I am interested only in what goes on in one bedroom only : that of my wife and I. We have friends, close ones, of both genders, who are openly homosexual, and it bothers us not in the slightest.

At school, we were convinced that the gym master was queer, as the label went in those days. I left the cadet force when, my having left school, the same gym master applied to become an

Officer of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. Such Officers, generally speaking, were directly involved with the Air Training Corps, the UK Air Cadets.


Air Cadets were then (and for all I know, still are) aged between 14 and 19.

"Naff", in this context, I am assured by a close male friend who is homosexual, is from the Palare, and is an acronym - "not available for fucking".

It is still rumoured in the UK that the reason why same-sex activity between women, was not criminalised as was what was then referred to as Sodomy, because Queen Victoria did not understand the

perceived "mechanics" of female homosexuality ; and no one felt to explain these to Her Maj.