Bent, As Times Goes By

This time last month a local theatre put on a short run of the play “Bent” by Martin Sherman (with two local gay amateur actors in the leading roles). On the day after the run finished I did a guided tour for Nottingham University’s lgbt students group. Some of them had been to see the play, and were on my new tour put together specially for them (they’ve been on all the others). It just so happened that the tour went into the origins of “Bent”, so the timing could not have been better.

Part of “Bent”s origins begins in 1977 when the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) was looking for somewhere to hold its annual conference. The Vice President of the CHE was a journalist living in Nottingham called Ray Gosling. There were several other members of the CHE who had links with Nottingham as well, so they chose it as the host city for their conference.

Over the August Bank Holiday weekend in 1977 a handful of venues around Nottingham hosted meetings, workshops, guests speakers, lunches and social get-togethers. One of the host hotels was the venue for the opening night event (after registration of delegates). I can see that hotel from my window – I live in a block of flats next to it. It’s now called the Hilton Nottingham, but back in 1977 it was the Victoria Hotel (one of the remaining structures from the old Victoria Station on which the block of flats was built).

At 7.30 pm on Friday 26^th August 1977 the Gay Sweatshop premiered the play “As Time Goes By” at the Victoria Hotel to start the CHE conference. The Gay Sweatshop was a street theatre group formed in 1975 (one of its founders, Roger Baker, was also from Nottinghamshire) with the aim of bringing a more realistic portrayal of homosexuality to theatre. As we shall see, is did just that with “As Time Goes By”.

The play was divided into 3 sections, each dealing with key moments in lgbt history. The first part centred around the aftermath of the Oscar Wilde trials. The third part centred around a gay bar in New York in 1969. But what was new for theatre was the theme of the 2^nd section.

Part 2 was set in 1930s Berlin. When the gay Nazi officer Ernst Rohm is murdered on Hitler’s orders a group of gay men realise that Nazi persecution has put all gay men in a dangerous position. This was the first time that this aspect of the Holocaust was treated in detail on stage. Very little was known about gay victims in the Holocaust, and what happened after the CHE conference premiere was to be most significant.

“As Time Goes By” was a critical success. A national tour had been planned and in the following week Gay Sweatshop took the play to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Joining the Sweatshop was the American playwright Martin Sherman. As he would later write, “I travelled with the Sweatshop to Edinburgh for the run of ‘As Time Goes By’ and that play pumped adrenalin into my eager veins”. Sherman was inspired by the possibility of expanding an overlooked and misunderstood period in gay history, and his play “Bent” was the result. In acknowledgement he dedicated the first published version of the play in 1979 to a leading member of the production team of Gay Sweatshop’s “As Time Goes By”. Sherman later admitted that he wrote “Bent” for the Sweatshop.

I could go into more Nottingham connections to “Bent”, such as the film version starring a gay actor who was first talent-spotted at Nottingham Playhouse, or that the only national memorial to the Holocaust in the UK is in a village several miles away from the city. But I’ll leave both of those for other times.

Cosplay Comes Out

When I was doing the final editing and fact-checking for this article I read about the sad passing this month of Rich Thigpen, one of the co-founders of Prism Comics (see below) and a pioneer of lgbt comic conventions. This article is dedicated to his memory in appreciation for his contribution to lgbt visibility at comic conventions.

Like everyone else I was looking forward to so many events this year. One event I was particularly looking forward to was EM-Con in Nottingham.

EM-Con is one of several annual comic, gaming and fantasy genre conventions (called comic cons) in the East Midlands of England. Last year my youngest brother and I decided to cosplay. My brother has been doing it for several years but 2019 was my first time, not that I’m a stranger to dressing up. For most of the 1990s I was a medieval re-enactor, but that’s not quite the same as cosplay – the wearing of costume to portray a fictional character, usually at a convention.

There wasn’t a specific character I wanted to cosplay as. There are no role-models or superheroes that I can identify with but I’ve always loved the Time Lord costumes from “Doctor Who”, especially the big ceremonial collar, so I decided to make my own. You can see the finished full costume in all its purple fabulousness below. I was very pleased with the final result and the reception it received.

Over the past few decades lgbt appearance and inclusion in the comic, gaming and fantasy genres in general has been increasing. There have been many lgbt characters introduced since I wrote my article on lgbt superheroes in 2017.

Mainstream comic cons welcome lgbt attendees and cosplayers and many have non-discriminatory and anti-harassment regulations. There has also been an increase in openly lgbt cosplayers launching their own social media sites. Another trend in cosplay is crossplay, the portraying of a character of a different gender or ethnicity. Gender crossplay is particularly prevalent among lgbt cosplayers, with its long tradition of drag in the community and the blossoming of androgynous identities. At the present time, however, there is some debate among ethnic cosplayers over white crossplayers portraying a character of a different race, while ethnic crossplay of white characters appears to be acceptable. You’ll see examples of both types of crossplay in the video below.

One quite well-known cosplayer is Jonathan Stryker. He rose to fame some years ago by cosplaying various Disney princes. In 2006 he attended Florida Supercon where he caught the cosplay bug. Inspired by Supercon and the desire to see more open lgbt attendance at such events Jonathan founded OUT Con, Florida’s first lgbt comic con. As an openly gay man Jonathan Stryker realised “There are people who need to feel safe who might not feel comfortable going to other places”, as he told South Florida Gay News. “I wanted to create one.” As well as the multi-genre OUT Con Jonathan also created Okama Con, an lgbt convention specifically for anime, Jonathan’s main passion. I can only find record of one Okama Con being held, on 14th January 2017.

There were three OUT Cons, all held at the Miami Airport Convention Center. The first was on 14th May 2015 and attracted 500 attendees. The second was on 6th-7th May 2016, and the last was on 4th August 2017.

OUT Con was not the first lgbt comic con. Bent-Con was created in 2010 by gay comic artist Sean Holman and gay tattoo and comic artist Dave Davenport. Like Jonathan Stryker they had felt a need for a convention where lgbt comic and fantasy fans could feel welcome. Sean’s words were “Bent-Con started out of a desire of a bunch of queer geeks who were tired of going to cons and being the niche within the niche within the niche”.

The first Bent-Con was held on 5th December 2010 in a vacant store in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. Over the next few years it moved to the Marriott Convention Center in Burbank. The last was held on 6th-8th November 2015.

But do not despair. Even if OUT Con and Bent-Con have gone there’s still Flame Con.

Flame Con has become the biggest lgbt comic con. It was created by Geeks Out, a charity (non-profit) founded in 2010 that supports and promotes lgbt inclusion in the genres of comic, video games and science fiction-fantasy and horror fandom. They have attended many mainstream comic cons. In 2015 they created Flame Con, the first of which was held on 13th June at the Grand Prospect Hotel, Brooklyn. It has been held ever year since then until the pandemic forced the cancellation of its 2020 event.

Geeks Out is just one of many lgbt organisations to attend mainstream comic cons. Prism Comics is a charity that supports and promotes lgbt comic artist and writers and since its formation in 2003 has been present at the biggest comic con of them all, San Diego Comic Con.

Very early on Prism Comics realised that there was no list of lgbt comics and comic artists, so they published one and called it “The Gay Agenda”. The person who led the way in its production was Andy Mangels, one of my “80 Gays” from 2018. Prism now also host many lgbt guest panels and events within San Diego’s and other big comic cons.

Finally, back to cosplay. Below is a YouTube video of Flame Con 2019. Maybe it’ll inspire you to take up cosplay, you’re never too old – I started when I was almost 59! Here’s some advice – you don’t need to have the body of a superhero to cosplay as one, that’s not the point of cosplay, and don’t worry or be disillusioned about people not knowing who you’re dressed as because some people may not be familiar with the character (there were several people at EM-Con who didn’t know I was dressed as a Time Lord, only true Doctor Who fans recognised it). Look around YouTube for other cosplay videos for inspiration. Be imaginative. Be yourself. It’s fun.

War in Words

On 2^nd October the UK held its annual National Poetry Day. This made me think of the war poets of almost a century ago. The First World War wasn’t the first to be written about in poetry, but it produced the most well-known war poets.

In today’s article I look at some of these war poets, and have a little look on either side of the First World War to other conflicts that have inspired lgbt writers to express their feelings about war.

There are several categories into which war poetry and literature can fall. The first is the heroic poetry of Ancient Greece as seen in “The Iliad”. Queer poets have often written works that come under a second category, that of homoerotic encounters within the field of war. A third category, and one which may cross over into the second, is the war poetry of lgbt writers such as Siegfried Sassoon. This category includes elegies and memorial poetry. A fourth category which I’ll leave for another time is literature by lgbt writers who use war as a background to their work rather than as a result or commentary on it.

One of the less well-known collections of war poetry, called “Drum Taps”, is by Walt Whitman (1819-1892), whose experience working with the wounded of the American Civil War produced works expressing the loss of a loved one during conflict. This is a loss experienced by all, but Whitman’s “Drum Taps” places his own attraction to wounded soldiers into a sense of personal loss.

This sense of loss continues in the literature of the First World War, but it is also often accompanied by a sense of injustice and the feeling of the futility of war. This was brought into sharp focus in the life of Wilfred Owen (1893-1918).

Owen served as an officer in the British army. He suffered from shellshock, and in 1917 whilst recuperating in Edinburgh met Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967). Sassoon introduced Owen to the Greek elegies which were to influence his work. Owen’s elegies were not merely recounting heroism and valour but also includes, through his own personal experiences, the harsh reality of trench warfare.

It is Owen’s own death on the battle front, just a week before the Armistice was signed in 1918, that provided an added level of injustice to his poems.

Siegfried Sassoon is, perhaps, the most well-known of the war poets from the First World War. At first he was a willing fighter but later, after the death of his lover at Gallipoli and experiencing the horrors of war, he began to express views against the British government’s conduct of the war. It was at this time that he met Wilfred wen and, like Owen, returned to the war in France. Unlike Owen Sassoon survived the war and lived through World War II.

The traditional elegy and the platonic homoeroticism that marked the war poetry of the First World War was carried into the 1920s and 30s by Sassoon and other writers such as Stephen Spender (1909-1995). Spender worked as a journalist in Spain during the Spanish Civil War.

By the outbreak of World War II in 1939 there was a shift in society’s attitude to homoeroticism in war literature. “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, an account of the Arab conflict around the time of the end of the First World War by T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia) wasn’t published until 1935, the year of his untimely death. It’s more explicit portrayal of homosexuality was seen as “acceptable” because it was centred mainly on the actions of his captors. Lawrence’s own genuine homosexual desires were played down.

World War II produced very little in the way of the war poetry that equalled the power and legacy of the First World War. In contradiction to my intention not to include later works that use the war as a background one major work which was written in the late 1970s has played a major role in revealing a little-known aspect of World War II. It is a play called “Bent”. Unlike the writers already mentioned there was no personal experience upon which to base the play, only accounts from others. “Bent” revealed the persecution of gay men living in Nazi Germany.

While it cannot be classed as war literature in the true sense of the term “Bent” should not be overlooked in any literary overview of the war. Its influence has led to an increased knowledge of the horrors of war, and the creation of memorials to lgbt victims from the Holocaust.

The war poetry of the First World War was just one of the many influences in the way we see warfare today. Criticism of the injustices are not seen as cowardly, as they might have done before when going to war was seen as heroic and good. Since the First World War more visual images have become more prevalent than the written word through photographs, films and news reels. Today new war literature is a very small part of the public’s awareness of war, and the image has become more powerful than the word.

Around the World in 80 Gays - the First Catch-Up

Regular readers will may have been following this continuing series. We’re half way through it, now, so for those of you who have jumped into the middle of it and don’t know what it’s all about, or for regular readers who want to remind themselves of how far we've got, here’s a quick catch-up on the first 20 names that I connected together in my quest to go “Around the World in 80 Gays”.

1) Alan Turing (1912-1954), the “Father of the Computer”, without whose mathematical theories this and other blogs would not exist, was the subject of a 2014 film called “The Imitation Game”. It was based on a biography by the film’s consultant …

2) Andrew Hodges (b.1949), another mathematician who brought Turing to the attention of the wider public in his biography of Turing, which was instrumental in revealing his code-breaking work at Bletchley Park during World War II. Other gay code-breakers at Bletchley included …

3) Noel Currer-Briggs (1919-2004) who, after the war, turned to genealogy and the quest to find the origin of the Holy Grail. In his quest he also traced the ownership of the Shroud of Turin back to the 1200s. His Grail research was heavily influenced by that of a previous Grail historian called …

4) Otto Rahn (1909-1939) whose own Grail Quest was of particular interest to the Nazis and he got a huge boost to fund his research whey they employed him to find it. However, when they received intelligence that he was gay they sent Rahn to work as a guard at Dachau concentration camp. Rahn’s Grail research became the inspiration for a book called “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” which, in turn, was the inspiration for “The Da Vinci Code” novel, which claimed that …

5) Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) belonged to a secret organisation that protected the Holy Grail from discovery. The film version of “The Da Vinci Code” starred …

6) Sir Ian McKellen (b.1939), whose first major stage success was in a play called “Bent”. This was set in Dachau concentration camp, where 4) Otto Rahn had once been forced to work as a guard. “Bent” was about the persecution of gay men by the Nazis, many thousands of whom were imprisoned, including former national German heroes like …

7) Otto Peltzer (1900-1970), one of Germany’s top athletes. Like 4) Otto Rahn, Peltzer joined the SS hoping it would help further his career. When his homosexuality was discovered in 1936 Peltzer was sent to a concentration camp, denying him the opportunity to compete in the Berlin Olympics. He was already an Olympic hero, having first competed in Amsterdam in 1928, becoming the first known male lgbt Olympian. The honour of being the first lgbt medal winner and first known female lgbt Olympian, also at the 1928 Amsterdam games, was …

8) Renée Sintenis (1888-1965). However, Renée wasn’t an athlete but a sculptor. The Olympics had contests for various arts a century ago, and Renée’s sculpture in 1928 won her a bronze medal. She also sculpted the famous Berlin bear statue which was used as the basis for the “Oscar” of the International Berlin Film Festival. 6) Sir Ian McKellen won one of these Golden Bear statuettes for his lifetime achievement in film. Back on the Olympic track in 1928 was a South African who wasn’t gay but who was a great influence on his grandson who is, …

9) Jacques Snyman Wiechiech (b.1973). Jacques was encouraged by his Olympian grandfather to take up sport. He excelled at several sports in his childhood, particularly gymnastics. In 2006 Jacques won 3 gold medals at the Gay Games in Chicago, including one in decathlon, the sport in which the founder of the Gay Games competed at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, …

10) Tom Waddell (1937-1987). Tom founded the Gay Games in 1982 and it became the biggest international multi-sport event in the world. It has encouraged many thousands of amateurs and professionals to compete as openly gay athletes (also permitting athletes to compete anonymously if so desired). One is the above-mentioned 9) Jacques Snyman Wiechiech who, while he was living in the UK, was also a member of the King’s Cross Steelers, a gay rugby club whose Chair was also a Gay Games competitor called …

11) Tim Sullivan (b.1961). Tim’s own contribution to lgbt sport, as Chair of the King’s Cross Steelers, was recognised by the London 2012 Olympic Committee when he was selected as one of the Olympic torch relay runners. There have been a small group of other relay runners chosen specifically for their contributions to lgbt causes. An earlier relay runner, and yet another Gay Games competitor, was …

12) Shaun Mellors (b.1965) who was chosen to carry the Olympic torch through Cape Town, South Africa, because of his work with HIV+ gay men and AIDS education. Shaun was not alone that year, because also on the Cape Town leg of the Athens 2004 Olympic torch relay was …

13) Prudence Mabele (1971), the first woman to publicly reveal her HIV+ status in South Africa. In 1999 the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission awarded Prudence a prize which, like her place on the 2004 Olympic torch relay, was in recognition of her work in AIDS education. The award was named after …

14) Felipa de Souza (1556-c.1600), a Portuguese colonist living in Brazil. Felipa was reported to the Brazilian Inquisition of 1591 for lesbian behaviour. Even though she was found guilty Felipa escaped the death penalty and was exiled. Another member of the lgbt community arrested and convicted during the same Inquisition was …

15) Francisco “Xica” Manicongo. Xica is the earliest recorded transsexual in South America. She was an African slave who behaved and dressed as a woman though she was biologically male. In modern-day Brazil the trans community commemorate her with Xica Manicongo Day in May. Despite having a large trans community Brazil is the country which regularly comes at the top of the table for transgender murders, a fact brought to light every year on the Transgender Day of Remembrance. This day of remembrance was created following the 1998 murder of …

16) Rita Hester (1963-1998) in Boston, Massachusetts. Her murder galvanised Boston’s lgbt community into action which had been alerted to dangers of transphobia several years earlier with the murder of …

17) Channelle Pickett (1972-1995), whose death was commemorated with a candlelit vigil. This and the similar vigil following 16) Rita Hester’s murder were organised by transgender activist …

18) Nancy Nangeroni, whose actions inspired San Francisco activists to create the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Nancy helped to organise Boston’s first Pride march which commemorated the murder of 16) Rita Hester, as it did with the USA’s first same-sex marriage which took place in Boston’s city hall in 2004. Leading the fight for marriage recognition was a Boston couple called …

19) Hillary Goodridge (b.1956) and 20) Julie Goodridge (b.1958). The couple had attempted to get married in Boston in 2001 following the world’s first same-sex marriages which took place in the Netherlands earlier that year.

Tomorrow I’ll resume this run-down of the first 40 people in my journey “Around the World in 80 Gays”.

Shining a Light on Gravity

One of my most favourite tv programmes of ALL time is James Burke’s “Connection” series. One episode entitled “Drop The Apple” ended with Einstein’s theory that gravity can bend light waves. James Burke explained the experiment which proved it. Even though he mentioned no names, he was describing the work of Sir Arthur Eddington (1882-1944).

Between the two World Wars Arthur Eddington was as well-known to the British public as people like Patrick Moore and Carl Sagan have been in recent years. Eddington was an effective communicator and broadcast on radio often. If modern technology was around in his heyday I wouldn’t be surprised if had his own twitter account.

One thing Eddington never talked about was his sexuality. A BBC drama called “Einstein and Eddington”, made in 2008, included references to Eddington’s sexuality based on rumours which the writer of the programme deliberately enhanced for dramatic effect. While these rumours may never be proved they have persisted and don’t contradict what we do know about his personal life. As one reader of Professor Peter Coles’ blog commented last week, men in Eddington’s position at a university was required to be a bachelor. That doesn’t make him gay, of course, but there was no reason for not to him have a romantic relationship with a woman without marrying her either at university or afterwards. There’s no evidence that he did so. So, Sir Arthur Eddington is on my “probably asexual” list until we know for sure, which may never happen.

Back to Einstein and gravity. Einstein said that the Sun’s gravity could bend the light coming from the stars beyond it. There was one way to prove it – during a total eclipse. So Arthur was packed off to Principe, an island off the west African coast, with some camera equipment to record the total eclipse over the island on 29^th May 1919.

The very simplified illustrations below show how the proof was found. On the left is a representation of some representative stars at a time of year before the Sun moved into it. On the right is a representation of the same stars in May 1919 when the total eclipse took place.





Arthur took photos of the eclipse, and then compared them with photos of the same stars he took earlier in the year. Look at the arrows on my illustrations. They represent the position of one star. Arthur discovered that this star had “moved”. In the weird way that science works, the star apparently moves AWAY from the Sun because, remember, the light is bent around the Sun like a boomerang. I’ve exaggerated the effect to make it clearer, and I hope you can tell the star has moved in relation to it’s nearest neighbouring star. The other stars would also have been affected, though in different degrees. It proved that the light from that star had bent, proving Einstein’s theory. In the words of James Burke at the end of his episode: “… because of which it’s Einstein’s universe now, not Newton’s any more. So, you can ‘Drop the Apple’.”

Another of Einstein’s gravitational theories has yet to be proved. He suggested that exploding stars and colliding galaxies create gravity ripples through space. These gravitational waves, having travelled billions of miles, would be so small by the time they reach Earth that it would be virtually impossible to detect them. It’s like someone shouting in your ear – from 1,000 miles away! The sound waves would be so small as to be unnoticeable.

A physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been working on ways to detect gravitational waves since 1991. Pakistani-born Nergis Mavalvala was encouraged by her parents to study and be mechanically skilled. For a Muslim country this was forward thinking on their behalf, though her mother objected to Nergis getting grease stains on her clothes.

Nergis’s chemistry teacher at school in Pakistan encouraged her interest in experimentation and this started her on a career of developing scientific equipment. Nergis is not just an academic, she is a hands-on, practical scientist.

Working on the detection of gravitational waves Nergis used her thesis to suggest how a laser interferometer, using precisely positioned mirrors, could detect the smallest of wave. However, the mirrors would have to be so far apart that even thermal energy at the atomic level would swamp the wave signal from space.

It was at this time that Nergis found love. She hadn’t experienced any real romantic attachment until she met her present girlfriend. They are still together and have a 5-year-old child.

Undaunted by the technical challenges Nergis and the team developing interferometers are continuing to produce more stable and sensitive equipment to find those gravity waves from far-flung exploding stars first theorised by Einstein a century ago.

Around the World in 80 Gays : Part 2 - A Code

Last Time : (1) Alan Turing features in the 2014 film “The Imitation Game”, based on a biography written by (2) Andrew Hodges, which centres around his code-breaking work at Bletchley Park with (3) Noel Currer-Briggs, a leading authority on the Turin Shroud who followed the theories of Holy Grail historian (4) Otto Rahn.


(4) Otto Rahn (1909-1939) became interested in the Grail legends in his childhood in Germany. Living through the First World War and the economic depression in his country that followed Otto found the Grail a way of escaping from the harshness of inter-war Germany.

It was the medieval romance poem “Parzival” which was the specific spark that lit his interest in the Grail, and like that other German historian before him, Heinrich Schliemann, who went in search of the real Troy behind the myths, Otto went in search of the real Munsalvaesche, the legendary location of the Holy Grail. Otto believed he had found it in Montségur, the monastic retreat of the Cathar sect in the French Pyrenees.

It was Otto who suggested there was a close link between the Cathars and the Knights Templar, a link which had not received common acceptance amongst historians, but it has been fostered by Grail historians and followers of mystic legends ever since.

It wasn’t long before Otto Rahn’s books and research came to the attention of the Nazi party, in particular Heinrich Himmler who was determined to find all the mystic and scared objects known in history and bring them all under the control of the Nazis. These included not only the Holy Grail, but also the Spear of Destiny which pierced Christ’s side as he hanged on the cross, and even parts of the Holy Cross itself. This Nazi quest for mystic sacred objects has been immortalised in films like the Indiana Jones series.

Otto Rahn and (1) Alan Turing can be linked through their personal lives. Both led secret homosexual lives in countries which persecuted gay men. The rise of the Nazi party in Germany saw the enforcement of Paragraph 175, their anti-gay law, which led to many gay men being sent to concentration camps. After Otto’s homosexuality was suspected he was sent to Dachau concentration camp in 1937 as a guard. For a historian this would have been harsh punishment and Otto would have been an eye-witness to the treatment of gay prisoners. Alan Turing underwent physical torture after he admitted his homosexuality and reluctantly agreed to chemical castration. The treatment both men received as homosexuals eventually led to them taking their own lives – Turing by a poisoned apple, and Rahn by pills.

Otto’s theories on the Holy Grail not only helped to keep the magic of the legend alive but it also inspired a fictional account of a Grail quest in one of the most talked-about novels and films of our generation, “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown.

Using another work of fiction, the hoax about the Priory of Sion and a secret society to which many famous people belonged, Dan Brown developed the myth further by introducing (5) Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) into the Grail legend for the first time.

Leonardo was claimed to have been a member of the fictional Priory of Sion, whose sole purpose (according to Dan Brown) was to protect the identity of a fictional descendant of Christ, a descendant known as the Holy Grail. This human Holy Grail was supposed to have been deliberately suppressed by the Church who tried to elimitate her. The public like to believe in conspiracy theories, and so “The Da Vinci Code” became an international best-seller.

Dan Brown used the common belief that Leonardo put codes into his pictures as evidence of this divine bloodline which led him to invent the Da Vinci code – a series of clues and devices which revealed the location of the Holy Grail. However contrived the link between Leonardo and the Grail may be he does link us back to (4) Noel Currer-Briggs, or, more precisely, the Turin Shroud.

Many theories have been put forward to explain the existence of the Shroud. One of the most popular has been that it was created by Leonardo. The fact that Noel Currer-Briggs proved that the Shroud was already in the possession of the Duke of Turin in 1453, when Leonardo was less that 1 year old, hasn’t dampened this theory.

There is another person who links the Holy Grail, “The Da Vinci Code” and the Nazi concentration camps – (6) Sir Ian McKellen (b.1939).

Sir Ian played a Grail historian in the film version of “The Da Vinci Code”. It was his character who explained the theories behind the divine bloodline descendant from Christ. Sir Ian was a big-name star when the film was made. Way back in 1979 he won his first Olivier Award for his role in the world premiere of the play “Bent”. This play dealt with Nazi persecution of gay men and is partly set in Dachau concentration camp where (4) Otto Rahn was forced to do guard duty. As mentioned most recently in my “Twelve Noels of Christmas” series, “Bent” was instrumental in bringing this persecution to the public eye.

There was another gay German called Otto who was a Nazi victim, and he brings the world of sport into our journey around the world in a couple of weeks time. His name was (7) Otto Peltzer (1900-1970).

Marching Out

All around the UK today there’ll by military bands and soldiers parading through towns and cities for our annual Armed Forces Day. Each year one city hosts the main national celebration, and I remember well the parade in Nottingham when it was hosted here 2 years ago.

Today it seems impossible to have a military parade without a marching band. But that’s how they were until about 350 years ago when a courtier adapted an idea from the Turks and applied it to the French army.

There are two types of military music. First is the music played on the battlefield. This can be imagined in the bugle charges of the cavalry, or the solitary bagpipe. The Turks had a particular type of band who would gather around their military standard during battle and play loud music to reassure the soldiers that their standard was still flying. This military band was a small group of perhaps ten musicians.

The Turks had an elite fighting force called the Janissaries and they seem to have been the first to form these small military bands in the 1330s. As well as performing on the battlefield the Janissary bands also played at ceremonial events and parades, and it is this second type which influenced the creation of the modern military parade. The ceremonial use of military music has survived and flourished more than the music of the battlefield.

The first European power to use recognisably Turkish military music was Poland, in a fusion with European music which quickly spread westwards. What made these military bands sound Turkish was the introduction of instruments not used in European music – big bass drums and cymbals. Imagine a modern marching band without them! And there was one new instrument developed by the Europeans especially to make military bands sound more Turkish – the triangle. Yes, that small bit of bent metal rod in a shape that has its own resonance in lgbt heritage was invented to create a feel of the Ottoman Empire.

With these new instruments and the traditional European forefathers of the oboe and trombone the modern military band was formed. This combination was pioneered by that French courtier I mentioned back at the top of this article. But what is most significant about his contribution to military bands is that he decided to put the band among the ranks of the marching soldiers instead of have them stand to one side – he invented the marching band. His name was Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687).

An Italian by birth Lully was appointed Superintendent of the Royal Music by the French King Louis XIV. Several important changes were being made in the military during King Louis’s reign. First was the establishing of Europe’s first full-time standing army. Next was the introduction of the flintlock musket and bayonet. Then there was the close formation marching. It was only natural that Lully would be dragged in to write the first military marches.

Lully was already experienced in writing music for people to move by. He was an enthusiastic dancer (he first met the king at a dance) and working with the royal dance master Lully created the first modern ballets. King Louis’ enthusiasm for the ballet and opera faded in the 1680s, and he became tired of Lully’s open gay relationships. Louis apparently knew of several courtiers who had homosexual affairs, and one of Lully’s with a young “music page” called Brunet attracted too much notice.

Here’s one final connection between the modern military marching band and Lully. During Lully’s lifetime the method of conducting a band or orchestra was with the use of a large staff which the conductor tapped onto the floor to help keep time. Lully used one of these staffs to conduct the royal orchestra in a celebration of the king’s recovery from surgery.

During the performance Lully jabbed himself in the foot. Rather vainly he refused to have the foot amputated because it would mean he wouldn’t be able to dance. Gangrene set in, which spread to his brain and he died.

And the connection to modern marching bands? Who do you see marching at the front of the band? A man with a big staff, just like the one that killed Lully.

The Twelve Noels of Christmas : 4

It’s the last Sunday in Advent, and here are the final three Noels of Christmas.

The 10^th Noel – NOËL GREIG (1944-2009)

Way back in November 2012 I wrote about a ground-breaking play called “As Time Goes By” which was the inspiration for “Bent”, the story of gay love in a Nazi concentration camp. “As Time Goes By” is regarded as the first play to deal with the historical persecution and suppression of gay men, and it was co-written by Noël Greig.

 

It was Noël’s interest in history that marks out his plays as more than just a modern-day concern for gay rights. His knowledge of previous issues was vital in informing audiences of the development of contemporary concerns. This went even further, into a future vision as depicted in his 1983 play “Poppies”, which dealt with a future world on the brink of nuclear destruction and the possible consequences of equal rights.

 

From his working-class background he went to study history at King’s College, London. An academic career was not for him, however, and when he graduated he found work in theatre. He also founded an arts commune called the Brighton Combination which displayed his vision of theatre and radical politics working together.

 

Unlike other radical, left-wing campaigners in theatre Noel didn’t seem to be a theatrical snob. He was involved in other radical theatre groups as well as the established theatre. He received commissions from, and worked with, several leading UK theatres, including the Crucible in Sheffield and the Aldgate in London. He also worked as assistant director on a West End production of “Jesus Christ Superstar”. Noël’s driving passion was for the inclusion of all sections of society in theatre.

 

All though his career Noel worked with many community groups on theatre projects, ranging from homeless people’s groups in the UK to Islamic groups in Iran, from school groups in Derbyshire to elderly writers’ groups in Newark not far from me.

 

But it is work with the UK’s Gay Sweatshop for which he will be best remembered, most particularly for “As Time Goes By” which he wrote specially for them and was premiered in 1977 in the hotel I can see from my window right now. He worked with the Sweatshop for ten years, writing, producing, directing, and later administrating. Noel’s importance in the public realisation of the horrors of the Nazi persecution of gay men should not be ignored.

 

The 11^th Noel – NOEL CAVERNELIS (b.1973)

Noel Cavernelis appears to be a multi-talented man – a teacher, an artist, an athlete, and a singer. As a teacher he has worked at the International School at Vantaa in Finland for several years. He is an art teacher, and examples of his own artwork are displayed on his Facebook page, among other places.

 

Even though he now lives in Finland Noel is South African by birth and moved to Finland before 2002. He competed "for" Finland at the World Outgames in Copenhagen in 2009. He later competed at the Gay Games in 2010 in Cologne. He medalled in four events both times, ad won the same medals in the same events: gold in the long jump, and silver in the high jump, 100 metres and 200 metres. Noel also won a long jump gold medal at the 2012 EuroGames in Budapest, along with two silver medals in the high jump and triple jump.

 

As a singer Noel competes in karaoke competitions. Karaoke doesn’t have a very high reputation as a serious activity here in the UK, but there are people in Finland and other countries who enter international karaoke competitions, and Noel has managed to reach semi-finals.

 

The 12^th Noel – NOEL DAVIS (1927-2002)

The final Noel brings us full circle. When he began his acting career Edgar Davis decided to choose a more distinguished theatrical name, and so he named himself after the person who was my 1^st Noel of Christmas – Sir Noël Coward.

Liverpool-born Edgar was encouraged to take an interest in the theatre by his parents, and through his time serving in the Merchant Navy he determined on a career on the stage. And so Edgar became Noel (without the “ë”), and he earned a reputation as a good character actor, often playing rather camp characters.

Noel also found himself appearing in many popular UK television programmes, ranging from Shakespeare to science fiction. These included some of favourite childhood series – “Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)”, “The Dick Emery Show”, “UFO” and “The Avengers”.

In 1974 he worked at the Oxford Theatre Festival where he began casting parts for plays. It was a profession he spent the rest of his life pursuing. From theatre he moved to film, due to his life-long friendship with gay director John Schlesinger. The first film which credited Noel as casting director was Schlesinger’s “Yanks” (1979). Perhaps the most famous film he was casting director for is “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” (1991).

 

And that completes my 12 Noels of Christmas.

 

I’m having a well-earned break for a few days and won’t be back until New Year’s Eve. To everyone I wish a Very Merry Christmas, and many thanks for your interest in my blog.

The Seven Deadly Gay Sins : Going Blue with Lust

If there’s one sin which people admit to enjoying more than any other then surely it must be sex! But for sex to be included on a list of sins there has to be some concept of which kind of sex is considered acceptable and which kind isn’t. Every religion and secular philosophy have laws and regulations on sex, and quite often they contradict the others. In pre-Victorian times there was no problem in the UK with having sex with girls as young as 12 because that was the age of consent. Times, attitudes and morals have changed and today this would be classed as child abuse and paedophilia.

And then there’s pornography. Porn and sexual material has been referred to as being “blue” for many decades. Historians have often debated why. Some claim it originates in places like the Windmill Theatre where nude female models were bathed in blue light. Others claim it originates in the English censorship of theatre administered by the Lord Chamberlain’s Office where material deemed not suitable for performance was crossed out of the script with a blue pencil.

None of the historians bother looking further back. They know that red means anger and green means envy, not realising that blue for sex originates in the same Medieval cultural belief in western Europe. So, LUST, the excess of sex, is entered on my Seven Deadly Gay Sins flag.

So, what can we talk about today concerning the Deadly Sin of Lust in the lgbt community? Don’t get too excited because I’m not going into gay porn!

We should never assume that all lgbt heritage is about “good” people. One of the most constant downsides of the lgbt community is the presence of those who practice the form of lust currently considered the worst of them all – paedophilia.

There was a time when the general public thought all gay men were paedophiles (some still do). This opinion was brought into the open in my home city of Nottingham in August 1977.

The Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) held their annual conference in Nottingham. This was the same conference at which the inspiration for the play “Bent” was premiered.

One of the guest speakers at one of the workshops was a Dutch MP called Dr. Edward Brongersma (1911-1998). As a member of the Dutch Senate he was instrumental in bringing the homosexual age of consent down to 16 in line with heterosexual sex (he had been imprisoned in 1950 after being convicted of having sex with a 17-year-old). What he is best known for, however, is his research into gay paedophilia. He was considered a world authority on the subject. So when it was revealed he would be attending the CHE conference in Nottingham there was a public outcry.

Protests were held outside the hotel where the workshop he was scheduled to attend was to be held. The hotel, fearful of losing business and of threats to the property, cancelled the booking. The workshop was moved to another venue (just across the road from my flat) and went ahead with Dr. Brongersma as the main guest. At the end of the workshop he was given a standing ovation.

Attitudes in the UK towards paedophilia at the time were, more often than not, not discussed openly. Today there is more discussion about paedophilia and its moral place in society. Child abuse in particular is a highly visible and almost constant topic in the media.

The lgbt community must be able to distinguish between paedophilia/child abuse and acceptable sexual practices in modern society. There have been several articles in the lgbt media this year about one man who has been hailed as a hero against Christian homophobia, when in fact he was a serial child rapist and abuser. Is he the sort of “hero” we want?

The man was brought to the fore last year when plans were announced of Pope Francis’s visit to Uganda to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the canonisation of the Ugandan Martyrs. The visit never actually went ahead but the lgbt media voiced their opposition all the same. The reason was because the Ugandan Martyrs were all young Christian men and boys who were executed by their king, Mwanga II, after they rejected his sexual advances. The visit was distorted into the Pope appearing to honour Christians who rejected homosexuality. Which was the greater sin – rejection of rape, or murder?

I gave a brief history of their martyrdom several years ago. The whole point about the killings is not that the Christian boys were being homophobic but that they were killed purely because they rejected the forced sexual abuse of a paedophile and child rapist who thought he had the right to rape who he pleased.

There was nothing good about King Mwanga’s sexual activities. The Ugandan Martyrs weren’t even gay. He used his power to abuse anyone he wished – gay, straight, male, female. This was part of his culture and the Christian missionaries realised (even if modern lgbt journalists don’t) that the human rights of Ugandans were being violated. Forget the religion. Would an atheist organisation have supported this violation? The fact that the boys were converted Christians is irrelevant. For the first time in their lives someone had arrived and said they had the right to say “No” to abuse.

For too many decades gay men have been portrayed as predatory paedophiles like King Mwanga. It’s the reason who so many people still oppose the idea of two gay men having children. I weep when members of the lgbt community start using their own religious prejudices to condone the rape of innocent boys. If I was murdered by a serial rapist because I said “No” I hope I’d be remembered as a hero not the villain.

Around the World in 80 Gays : Part 3 - An Olympiade

Last time : (4) Otto Rahn’s search for the Holy Grail influenced the book “The Da Vinci Code”, featuring (5) Leonardo da Vinci’s alleged link to the Grail. The film version featured (6) Sir Ian McKellen, who also starred in the premiere of “Bent” a play which dealt with persecution of gay men in Nazi concentration camps, where Otto Rahn once served, and where (7) Otto Peltzer was imprisoned.

(7) Otto Peltzer (1900-1970) was a national hero between the two World Wars. I’ve featured Otto several times in previous articles, and I refer you to them here and here. Like (4) Otto Rahn he joined the SS, though this should not be seen as any indication that either of them supported the subsequent Nazi political ideals. Peltzer probably joined because he thought it would be beneficial to his athletic career, and Rahn because he wouldn’t have got funding for his Grail research. Both Ottos were seen with some suspicion by Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, and he himself questioned the Ottos. Whereas Himmler found no proof of Rahn’s homosexuality he chose to send him to Dachau camp as a guard to see first-hand what punishment gay men would receive. Peltzer, on the other hand, was suspended from the SS and in 1941 was imprisoned in Mathausen camp.

Otto Peltzer is the first identified lgbt athlete to compete in the Olympic Games in Amsterdam in 1928. He wasn’t the only lgbt Olympian there, however, as in the art competitions there was a fellow German taking part. Her name was (8) Renée Sintenis.

In a previous article I only wrote briefly about Renée. Here I write a bit more. Renée and Otto Peltzer competed in the same two Olympics – Amsterdam in 1928, and Los Angeles in 1932.

In 1926 Renée produced a bronze sculpture of the great Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi. Paavo was as big in middle-distance running back then as Usian Bolt is in short distance today. However, it just so happens that 1926 was also the year Otto Peltzer beat Paavo in a specially arranged 1500 meters race.

Renée was one of the most successful female sculptors of Weimar Germany and the inter-war period. It was her greatest period. As my previous article on her states, Renee won an Olympic bronze medal. She also became one of the very few women appointed to the Prussian Academy of Arts.

Renée fell out of favour when the Nazis rose to power. Her life as a lesbian had not been a problem during the inter-war period in Berlin. But now she found herself on the wrong side of social acceptance. She resigned from the Academy. Sadly, much of her work, and her home, was destroyed by Allied bombing. After the war Renée rose back to prominence. She was awarded membership of the Order “Pour le Mérite” For Science and The Arts, an order restricted to 30 living members who have made significant contributions in science and art. Membership is by election of existing members after the death of one of their number.

In 1957 Renée sculpted a life-size bronze statue of the bear that is the emblem of the city of Berlin. It became an iconic symbol of post-war Berlin and makes it even more appropriate to write about Renée today, because this week the Berlin International Film Festival takes place. The main prize, the German equivalent of an Oscar, is a small statuette copy of Renée’s bear. Its one of the most prized awards in the film industry, and in 2006 it was given as an Honorary Life Achievement award to (6) Sir Ian McKellen.

Back to the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. There was one particular athlete representing South Africa who links to our next individual. The athlete wasn’t gay, but his sporting influence was to have a great effect on his grandson, who is gay – (9) Jacques Snyman Wieciech (b.1973).

One look at Jacques and you can see he was built for sport. His grandfather showed him the basics of athletics while he was young and Jacques pursued as many sporting chances as he was able. He was a gymnastics champion for 6 years before he was even a teenager, then he turned to track and field, following in his grandfather’s footsteps. Again he was successful, especially in European competitions.

It was while Jacques was living in the UK that he joined the oldest gay rugby club in the world, the Kings Cross Steelers. He had played rugby since childhood, encouraged again by his grandfather who was once a member of South Africa’s national rugby squad. From then on Jacques became a typical big, butch rugger player. His physique has caught the attention of many gay men in recent years (not least his husband), and its no surprise that he modelled for Colt Studios and entered the 2009 Mr Gay South Africa contest. Which is all very incongruous when you hear that his other great talent is as an operatic countertenor.

Going back to his track and field achievements, Jacques is also a Gay Games champion. In Chicago in 2006 he won gold medals in long jump and javelin. But it his gold medal in the decathlon which provides an extra direct link to the founder of the Gay Games, (10) Tom Waddell (1937-1987). And that's who with start with next time.