Gay, visually-impaired guy writing professionally (and freelance) about disabilities, being gay, articles, opinion pieces, poems and short stories for over 15 years, mainly for small, local magazines. Obtained my Graduate Certificate in Writing from the University of Technology, Sydney in 2004.
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“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“…I have become a work of art. Welcome to the pleasuredome” Frankie Goes To Hollywood “Welcome to the Pleasuredome”
I hate Canberra. Always have! I still have nightmares of visits there with my family when I was a youngster – the endless hours it took to get there (always with a thermos of instant coffee and cut sandwiches – no roadside cafes with bain-marie stodge and International Roast coffee for my parents), then being dragged through every door and corridor of the War Memorial, old Parliament House and every other building that the ubiquitous ‘Tourists Guide to the ACT’ booklet told us to visit. We stayed in “budget” motels, all decorated with the same teak laminex, the same matching curtains and bedspreads in orange floral fabrics, bathrooms with folded-edge toilet paper, bag-wrapped glass and a “Sanitised” paper banner across the toilet seat. All served an almost cold breakfast to your room in the morning, served on a teak plastic tray that was left outside your door. Where would we be without cold toast, rock hard pats of butter, little plastic sachets of Vegemite, peanut butter, honey and various jams;Kellogg’s ‘Variety’, and Lipton’s tea bags draping out of a stainless steel teapot? Add in the small impish squeals from my mother as she tucked sample soaps, complimentary shower caps, miniature shampoo and conditioners, and sachets of tea and coffee into the suitcase, and you have, evidently, the ideal holiday scenario. Mmm!
Then there was the weather!
The last time I was in Canberra was in 1982, to audit the stocktake in a retail store owned by Pellegrini and Co. I have to point out I wasn’t there voluntarily. Canberra was covered in fog when I arrived, and was still covered in fog when I left. I didn’t see a single minute of sunlight in all the time I was there. I determined to never return. Never let it be said that I am not softening in my old age. I decided to give it one final chance at redeeming itself.
We stayed at my partner David’s family home at Mount Annan on the Friday night – a trial on its own – then headed off for Canberra at 7.00am on Saturday morning. It no longer takes endless hours to get there, though that isn’t necessarily advantageous. Before the M5 was built, you could visit a multitude of small towns en route to the national capital. Now, you can drive there from Sydney in three hours, provided the monotony of the drive doesn’t induce a microsleep. No longer is there an obligatory stopover at Goulburn, to climb and admire the view from the eye of the Giant Merino (1). No, we had to do a detour to see this grand example of Australian kitsch. After climbing the ghastly concrete interior up into its head, I took a photograph from the eye, just to prove that I had been up there as I was sure mo one would believe me, but all it managed to capture was fingerprints, and perspex-blurred clouds. Even the souvenir store failed to intrigue us with myriad counters of boxes-that-bleat-when-shaken – what is the purpose of these? – and tiny fleece covered model sheep. Probably made in Taiwan anyway!
The other port of call to break the journey was at a tiny township called Marulan. Neither of us had ever heard of it, and the tiny castle on the signposts pointing to it captured our imagination. I was disappointed at not finding a castle in the town! Instead we find a tiny two-street town going back to the 1820’s. It’s hard to imagine that until the M5 was built, trucks would roar up and down its main street. It is one of those church/ police station/ post office/ school/ historic Victorian railway station/ pub/ general store/ and several historic homesteads-type towns. Two of these beautiful homes had been converted into a factory by the addition of a very ugly 1970’s redbrick facade. The roof peaks of the original historic buildings could be seen poking up above the added frontage. I wept at the ruination! Just to the south of Marulan are the remains of the ‘famous’ Moccador Pavlova Factory (2), which was built in the shape of a large pink and white pavlova. And I thought the giant merino was pretty hard to beat! The more modern (operating) general store and pub were the only two buildings open. Everything else was boarded up. Poor Marulan has been bypassed three times in its history, and is now totally cut off from the world. A new housing sub-division is going up, but somehow, I don’t think it’s going to relive its boomtown era again.
A quick stopover to view the currently dry Lake George, and we were in Canberra.
I’d like to say its changed, but I’d be lying. However, I have to admire its wide avenue-styled, tree lined streets. There is a lot to be said for planning a city, though I don’t really think – to be political – that I want to live or work in an area named after a predecessor of fishnet-stockinged Alexander Downer. We only got lost once – which is better going than when I went there with my father in the late 60’s. We managed to go around the circuit road so many times that I started to think Canberra only consisted of one street! David and I orienteered our way around the circuit road and finally found ourselves, though somewhat dizzy, at King’s Park.
Entry to Floriade was free – a pleasant change after paying to get into the Bowral Tulip display last year. Before venturing into the gardens, we decided to have a look at the markets set up at the entrance to the display. Now if we were expecting plants, and all things horticultural, we were to be bitterly disappointed. You could purchase Chilli Chutney – so hot that David’s mouth was out of action for the next hour – and one of the few times in my life I exercised discretion in the presence of food. I thankfully threw the hand up and avoided it, leaving the assault on my palate until lunch. On top of that is fudge in every imaginable flavour; puzzles; clothes; jewellery; sunglasses – just about everything but flowers and plants. And here was me thinking it was a horticultural show! Passing by a prominent display of willow branches spray painted in realistic fluro colours with matching watering cans – the connection between the two items is lost on me as the branches were obviously dead – we overheard another store holder commentto the owner of the matching willows and cans that he was “Glad to see you in shorts, Now we really know that summer has started”. David and I exchange a look! It may have been 28°C in Sydney that day, but it was only 20°C in Canberra, for God’s sake! A garish display of artificial flowers distracts us. Decisions, decisions. We decide to avoid the wrath of the mother-in-law by indulging David’s grandmother with a bunch – she has a great love for them, despite being a fanatical gardener. I’ve never quite understood that.
From here we traipse to the displays. There were 1,188, 011 plants. I counted them, so trust me on that. Most were in full bloom, though due to the cold weather several beds were fallow, barren grounds and hadn’t achieved blooming status. One bed that was supposed to be a mass of white lilies was just a sea of pointed green leaves. I admired them anyway, as we had come a long way to see this. Mother Nature decides what will be, and obviously this year she was being a bitch. The garden theme this year was “Poetry in Flowers”. Areas are divided into themes’, such as “Kubla Khan – Xanadu”, inspired by oriental carpets; “Ode to the Plum Blossom”, a floral interpretation of Lu Yu’s poem in camellias, viburnums and rhododendrons; “Song, From Pippa Passes” – I got the giggles thinking about what Pippa may have passed – by Robert Browning, planted with 58,000 hyacinths, muscari, narcissus and tulips; “Noise by Pooh” – the giggles are now hilarious laughter – the centrepiece of the children’s area, depicting A.A. Milne’s famous bear created with 53,000 blooms. One major problem with setting the gardens out in these phantasmagorical designs is that you can’t see them! From ground level, the designs are totally lost. “Kodak” have kindly placed some Photo-Moments stands along the way, which raise you about 2 feet off the ground, but that still isn’t enough height to give you a vista showing the designs off to there fullest. There should have been stands set about 6-8 feet off the ground to show off the displays – but then, this is our political capital, and either nobody thought of it, or the idea is still in some public servants in-box. I wasn’t even aware that the designs were in place until I thumbed through a magazine the next day at home.
Anyway, it didn’t seem to phase the thousands of beige-outfitted elderly men – Panama or tweed hats are the official headwear of the gardener male – and their partners, in three-quarter-length white or bone pants (visible panty line optional), over-blouse of blue and white floral (blowsy enough to propel them along in the breeze) and over-sized straw hats with floral hatbands, tied with a chiffon scarf tied under the chin in a giant bow – the official headwear of the gardener female. They pointed, oohed and ahed, tittered and tutted, and cupped blooms in their hands as they wandered from bed to bed. The serious gardeners stood in groups, dissecting, analysing and correcting every nuance of every flowerbed. I often wonder if these people can ever just enjoy a beautiful display as a beautiful display, or if it must always be never quite good enough.
The arrival of a very large troupe of Japanese tourists provided a momentary distraction to all the beauty around us. David and I were sitting in a tent set up as a café, eating and trying to enjoy a very limp – and obviously not fresh – Waldorf salad when they arrived. In typical Japanese tourist fashion, they were herded into two groups, segregated by large signs on green and yellow cardboard, mounted on sticks and waved in the air. The writing on them was Japanese, but considering where they were, I imagined the groups were possible named plum blossom, and cherry blossom, or something equally Japanese. Anyway, they didn’t manage to see all that much. They were shuffled into one spot, did a 360-degree rotation accompanied by the very audible click if twenty cameras going off at the same time, then they were off amongst a lot of pointing and chittering. Probably off to the market. One almost felt sorry for them.
A quick trip to the Theatre of Film and Sound to view some of the archived material from the Canberra based film preservation group ended our tour of the garden. It had taken us about two hours to cover the whole area – and yes, we did find some plants for sale. Real plants, that is! We picked up a tub of flowering Daffodils, to drop off at David’s mothers on the way back.
I can’t in all honesty say that Canberra has endeared itself to me, but they put on one hell of of a flower show!
Tim Alderman
Copyright 2004
The Big Merino, Goulburn
(1) The Big Merino:
Built in 1985 is a monument to Goulburn and the surrounding district’s fine wool industry. Standing 15.2 meters high, 18 meters long and weighing 97 tones he is an impressive life-like model of Rambo, a stud Ram from a local property, “Bullamallita”.
The complex was opened on September 20 1985 by John Brown who was the federal minister for sport, recreation and tourism. The idea was originally conceived by brothers Attila and Louis Mokany.The Big Merino was constructed by Adelaide builder Glenn Senner and took six months to build. The frame is steel, covered and shaped with wire mesh, sprayed and detailed in reinforced concrete. The architect was Gary Dutallis.
As the Goulburn bypass took effect on the city, Goulburn changed. The city expanded and a new development at the southern end meant that the Big Merino previously the first stop off the southern exit from the expressway was now stranded in no mans land. On the 26th May 2007 this grand structure moved 800 metres towards the southern exit to greener pastures.
The move has given Rambo a new lease on life with the construction of a new gift shop and a permanent exhibition from Australian Wool Innovation depicting the 200 year history of wool in Australia which is housed in the Big Merino structure. The second floor will eventually show all the stages of wool processing. Marshall Judd was commissioned to construct the under belly and three new legs representing a more complete, free standing model than previously shown.
The Big Merino gift shop displays an eclectic range of quality gift wear, cosmetics, souvenirs and accessories. We aim to supply our overseas and local visitors with the best quality products made from fine Australian merino wool. Our range includes Australian made ugg boots, locally hand-dyed gossamer-fine wool scarves, merino possum blend scarves, hats, jumpers and jackets, Mohair throw rugs and scarves, pet doonas, medical and baby’s sheepskins as well as plush sheepskins.
Mocador Pavlova Factory, Marulan
(2) The Old Pavlova Factory:
Just to the south of Marulan are the remains of the ‘famous’ Moccador Pavlova Factory which was built in the shape of a large pink and white pavlova. The factory used to manufacture pavlovas, handmade chocolates and cheesecakes and offer devonshire teas to travellers but it was a casualty of the town’s by-pass. It closed in 1991.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-factsheet/marulan–places-to-see-20081124-6fx9.html#ixzz2VbstoFXr
There is an A4-sized photo amongst my collection, notable only because there are very few photos I have blown up to that size. The photo is almost surreal. In it, two people stand on the porch of a Classical building. A sign in the background gives the location away – the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The person in the foreground is dressed as something out of a fantasy novel, quilled headdress sweeping several feet into the air, the rest of the outfit equally futuristic, or perhaps something from the past, a couture of leather and giant jewels. In his hand is a whip with a silver skull adorning its handle. The figure in the background could be a God, or a sprite about to cause mischief, a glittering figure with gold face and shining blue hair. The photographer has caught the two figures just as a breeze has blown, and has caught the movement of an arm and hand behind the fantasy figure, and the sweep of the voluminous robe being worn by the God/sprite. The movement, captured on film, gives the impression of bodies just arriving from somewhere? Nowhere? Anywhere? The photo is suffused with a golden light. The subject matter is illusive. It is Mardi Gras 1988, and the figures are waiting expectantly, nervously, for the parade to start.
What can’t be seen in the photograph is a gold lurex bag with a drawstring, clutched in the hidden hand of the God/sprite. They descend the stairs and join the line heading towards College Street. As the parade starts to snake its way down College Street, then into Oxford Street, colourful floats, flashing lights and booming music, surround them. Drag queens cross their paths, as do other costumed visages. Religious fanatics, huddled almost in fear on the sidewalk, hold placards promising Christ’s mercy and forgiveness. These two fantasy figures start to walk alone. The forgiveness of Christ means nothing to them.
As they arrive at Oxford Street, the roar of the crowd increases. The figure in flowing gold glances across at his leather-clad partner, and a brief nod of heads indicates to the God/sprite that he is to reach into the bag. As they round the corner into Oxford Street, the God/sprite pulls his hand out of the bag, and flings something into the air. The clamour from the crowd is deafening. A soft cloud of glitter and dust floats down towards the ground, some floating off amongst the crowd, some a soft coating landing on the feet of the fantasy one. A close-up shot of the pair would have shown tears streaming down their cheeks.
The God/sprites hand returns to the bag.
Don had died on the 2nd February 1988. It had taxed our faith in human nature when his flatmate stole all the furnishings out of the apartment before most of us had even been notified of his passing, but had amazed us with his almost surreal, funeral. Unlike just about every other funeral at that time, Don had not died from AIDS. Instead, we all had to watch his slow, painful demise from stomach cancer, caught too late to be cured, and a secret that Don kept until it was no longer possible to hide it.
Some expressed the view that it was nice to know that people died of things other than HIV, and though most of us would not have voiced it, we agreed! We knew of no family. Darby and I had no money, and relied on the generosity of friends on the evening after his death to get the several thousand dollars together to cremate him. He had been well loved, and we had to call an end to their generosity. We had far more cash than we needed. The funeral home managed to come up with two sisters, who had not had contact with their brother for many years.
They did not even know he was gay, let alone ill. They attended the funeral, but left us to our own devices. ‘You obviously knew him better than we did,’ one sister confided to me as we sat outside the MCC church at Paddington. ‘I had no idea he would ever have so many friends.’
At the Northern Suburbs crematorium, Darby is the MC. I have made up the tape for the service, and tell him where the numbers start. He miscalculates, and Shirley Bassey singing “Don’t Cry Out Loud” fills the chapel. There is a shriek from the front of the chapel, and the sister who had been speaking to me earlier is on her feet and heading towards the coffin, yelling ‘This is one of my favourite tracks too!’. It is only later that Darby tells me that it was not the track he intended to put on. We exchange a look!
I left the Mardi Gras party about 9 am the next morning. As I walked down Oxford Street, the street cleaners were working there way up the parade route.
“My God, poor Don’s ended up in a street sweeper”, I thought to myself as they trundled past me. Well, he had always claimed that he trashed himself! Perhaps it had all been more appropriate than we ever realised. I smiled to myself as I continued down the street, and the sweepers headed up Flinders Street, towards the show ground.
Bug Chaser: A person who seeks to become infected with HIV.
Bug Chasing: Actively engaging in sexual activity with the goal of acquiring HIV.
Gift: HIV.
Gift Giver: A person who gives the gift of HIV to an HIV negative person.
In February 2003, Gregory A Freeman wrote an article on bug chasing for “Rolling Stone” magazine. It was a highly controversial article, and any Googling of the term “bug chasing” will bring up endless results from the piece. So I will not rehash old ground, especially 3-year-old ground. “Carlos”, the gay guy he uses as his interview subject is a self-obsessed, hedonistic guy who truly needs to get a life, as distinct from trying to destroy it, which he seems hell-bent on doing. The article appears, at least to me, to be a bit dodgy, both in its emphasis on the opinions of one extremist, and its ability to distort the statistics of experts. However, it does raise some interesting issues.
For starters, are we to make the assumption that “bug chasing” is going on? I dare say that if it was happening in 2003, it is happening now. If we admit that barebacking is a reality, then we have to admit also for “bug chasing”. In Andrew Barkers article “Bug Chasing” (1), he states that “Not surprisingly, the stigma and fringe quality of bug chasing is something that very few people would admit to doing. Of course, people were saying the same thing about bareback sex a few years ago, and now the term – and the activity itself to a lesser extent – has become a normalised, if not accepted, part of gay culture”.
So, if we accept that it is happening, we have to ask why! Not for one single moment, as a HIV+ man, could I ever condone the practice of bug chasing. However, having said that, when I read these articles I can sort of understand where these people were coming from. I was amongst the first people officially diagnosed with HIV in Sydney back in the early 80s. At that time, I had a HIV- partner, and though our relationship broke up shortly after this, we remained as flat mates further down the track for 10 years. These were the bad years in HIV, when just about everyone in our group of friends was infected, and many died. My flat mate remained negative through all this time, and still is. However, he stated to me on one occasion that he wished he was HIV+, as it would be easier for him to deal with the situation, and he would not always feel so “left-out”. Needless to say, he never turned into a bug chaser, but you can see the thinking behind it. Other underlying causes for people to take up this fetish – and I use the word loosely – are various forms of abuse like drug and alcohol use, poverty, lack of social supports, homophobia, low self-esteem, poor mental health, perceived invincibility and survivor guilt. In his article “Bug Chasing:
Why Some Men Want to Become HIV Positive” (2), Ashley Shaffier says “Those who seek HIV are called “bug chasers” and like most people they want to be involved in something that separates them from the rest of humanity. A few find something special by becoming infected with HIV – Not everyone has the virus, which makes those who are positive different. They are also not alone. “They see those living with HIV as a cohesive group that welcomes its new members and receives vast support” (Freeman). Freeman goes on to say that “The sense of being my brother’s keeper is never discussed in the gay community because we’ve gone to the extreme of saying gay men with HIV can do no wrong. They’re poor victims, and we can’t ever criticise them.” Another reasoning behind bug chasing is that some do it for the thrill of it, getting their kicks from the danger element, the “will I get it this time, or do I get to try again” attitude. “Many people engage in socially acceptable extreme sports for the rush, knowing that they’re risking their lives jumping from planes or free-climbing a rock face. And many do lose their lives. They are heralded by some as adventurous. One could argue that bug chasers are seeking a similar risky thrill” (Barker).
Another reasoning behind bug chasing is safe-sex fatigue some 24 years after AIDS first emerged in American cities. Many who have practiced safe sex for this long a period of time crave to have sex “the old fashioned way”, without the use of condoms, good old skin-to-skin sex. Normal sex is seen as being almost unattainable, something from the past that will never be revisited.
Whatever the reasoning behind it, it remains a very scary phenomenon. Some of the statements made by “Carlos” in the “Rolling Stone” article send a chill down your spine: “I know what the risks are, and I know that putting myself in this situation is like putting a gun to my head”; “When I have sex, I always like to make it special, a really good time, something nice and memorable in case that is the one that gives it to me”. Carlos feels that living with HIV will be a minor annoyance, that HIV is not such a big deal anymore. “It’s like living with diabetes. You take a few pills and get on with your life”. I think quite a few of us may have something to say about that. I also feel that there is a general lack of empathy for many HIV+ people, and a lack of acknowledgement that many of us were infected in the very early days of the epidemic when very little was known about it. I don’t like to use terminology like “innocently infected”, but for some of us, that is the fact. Given a greater scope of information, and an acknowledgement of just how deadly HIV was going to be would have been a wake-up call to many of us. The playing-down of information in the early days was a bad move, a disservice really, though that cannot be used as an excuse today. Given the amount of available information, and given the anecdotal stories of those who survived to now, one has to wonder how they come to the conclusion that bug chasing is a good thing.
Even the language itself is scary, the use of words like “gift”, “gift giver”, “bug chaser”, “conversion (from negative to positive)”,and “bug juice”. Doug Hitzel, a former bug chaser who is now HIV+ says, in Freeman’s article “Bug chasing sounds like a group of kindergartners running around chasing grasshoppers and butterflies…a beautiful thing. And gift giving? What the hell is that? I just wish the terms would put some real context into what’s going on. Why did I want to say that I was deliberately infecting myself? Because saying the word infect sounds bad and gross and germy. I wanted it to be sexualised”.
The internet itself has helped in the spread of bug chasing, with sites dedicated to it and its followers. I have to admit to not being able to find any to aid in my research, though I’m sure they are there, possibly linked into barebacking sites.
Freeman interviewed Dr Bob Cabaj, a public official working in San Francisco in psychiatry. Cabaj admitted that statistics were hard to come by, and he estimated that at least twenty-five percent of all newly infected gay men fall into the bug chasing category. Naturally, “Rolling Stone” took this figure literally, and on-board, and calculated that of the then 40,000 new infections in the United States every year, around 10,000 were attributable to the more liberal definition of bug chasing. This figure caused such a huge furore that Cabaj denied giving Freeman any specific percentages, and he wrote a letter to “Rolling Stone” asking for a clarification to be printed, which then stated that only a “certain percentage” of new HIV infections may be deliberate – but that this figure was “probably more than people wanted to think”. I think common sense would say that the figure wasn’t accurate, despite a lack of actual data on the subject.
Naturally, the religious right then had to get into the picture – no show without Punch – and have their two cents worth. Of course, they didn’t come up with anything original. The Rev. Louis B Sheldon, Chairman of the “Traditional Values Coalition” stated on traditionalvalues.org that “With bug chasing, barebacking and Russian Roulette parties (3) was part of the homosexual lifestyle (sic), it is not surprising that HIV infections are on the rise. And with sexually depraved individuals like Keith Folger and Vince Gaither (4) overseeing how Centre of Disease Control AIDS dollars are being spent, it is unlikely that this epidemic will decline any time soon…”. On altermedia.info David Mullenax informs us that “My wife and I discussed the issue of “bug chasing” at length over freshly brewed coffee and Italian biscotti. Each of us had difficulty in describing exactly how we felt about such insanity and madness…Homosexuality would not be a trendy alternative if it weren’t for a Jewish-controlled media that glamorises and insists that gays are the same as everybody else. To be gay is to be exotic, and thus revered. The many stories of death, some by infection and others by suicide, are never told on MTV…As the media promotes homosexuality as a hip and fashionable lifestyle, the anger is reserved for them….This is why gays should be pitied, and the anger reserved for the alien minority who run the majority of our news and entertainment outlets…Recruitment and outreach programs prey on the weaknesses of many of our young ones…Without (that) mental preparation, the gay lifestyle would be rejected by many vibrant and innocent White (sic) children who have become victims to this scheming…” etc etc, I’m sure you get the message.
A video was made of the phenomenon, called “The Gift”, and has been shown over here at one of the Queer film fests. In it, a young redheaded San Franciscan man tells the tale of how, at 19 he set out to become infected with HIV. “I thought being positive was a positive thing”, he says. “I thought I was just going to have a lot of promiscuous, unsafe sex. I didn’t know I was going to change (to HIV+) so fast. No one told me”.
In January this year, British editor Mary Wakefield, writing in the Sunday telegraph (5) describes her shock at discovering the underworld of bug chasing among homosexual males. Her investigation was fuelled by the funeral of a young man who recently died after deliberately becoming infected with HIV. The young man had invited his HIV+ boyfriend to live with him, and though being aware of the dangers of HIV, soon developed the disease and brain cancer. His HIV+ friend had also infected a previous partner and that man had died not long ago. After reading the article in “Rolling Stone”, Wakefield stated that “I remember being skeptical at the time – it seemed too creepy. After tens of millions have died of AIDS worldwide, after billions spent on medications, how could anyone seek it out?” This in turn led her to seek out the bug chasing underground on the internet. She observed “…there was a darker side, the romanticising of AIDS itself. Google led me underground, to gay clubbers with ‘HIV Neg’ tattooed on their biceps as an invitation to others to infect them, to online chats about HIV-spreading sex parties, talk of ‘conceiving’ the virus like a pregnancy and the intense intimacy of infecting a partner. “It offers a kind of permanent partnership, a connection outside time” stated the editor of a gay newspaper.”
So, it would seem that we cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend that bug chasing doesn’t happen. I would like to think it was not widely practiced in Australia, but if time has proved anything, if it is happening on the gay/HIV scene in America, it is happening here. This article was prompted by an article I received last week from queerplanet.com.au, by Charlie Parker. He states in his article “Bug Parties” that “The Russian Roulette bug party. This is where a group of gay men have ‘no condoms allowed’, unprotected sex and no one’s HIV status is revealed. This type of party is treated like a game by the participants. The guy who becomes infected is the winner.”
I felt that if he thought it still relevant, then perhaps we needed to revisit the subject, rather than pretending it doesn’t exist, then in twelve months time or so, it will suddenly raise it’s ugly head again, possibly due to someone being infected this way, or someone dying, then with people saying “Oh, I always knew that was going on”.
Perhaps I should leave the last word to Carlos. As sad and pathetic as he appears, you can’t help but hope he wakes up to himself. When asked what would he do if he found out he was HIV+, he says he would move on to become a gift giver. “If I know that he’s negative and I’m fucking him, it sort of gets me off. I’m murdering him in a sense, killing him slowly, and that’s sort of, as sick as it sounds, exciting to me.”
I have goose bumps crawling up my arms.
Tim Alderman
Copyright 2007
References
1 Living + Magazine, November/December 2002
2 AssociatedContent.com
3 AUTHOR’S NOTE parties specifically intended to assist people get infected with HIV
4 AUTHOR’S NOTE San Francisco AIDS activists
5 15/1/2006
Article in Sydney Morning Herald April 21, 2007 ‘HIV chasing’ a trend in gay communityApril 21, 2007 – 6:09AMA Melbourne man who fantasised about contracting HIV before actually being infected by the virus has spoken of a gay subculture in which infection is seen as “desirable”.The 20-year-old man, who does not want to be named, told Fairfax newspapers both complacency about the virus and the wish to have unprotected sex with an HIV-positive man he was in love with led him to become infected.”I wasn’t actively seeking it, but maybe there were parts of me, dark corners, that wanted it, that were thinking, ‘Let’s just do it and get it over and done with and then it won’t be an issue’,” he said.The young professional is the first to speak out about “bug chasing”, a behaviour in the gay community in which men seek to become infected with HIV.The phenomenon was highlighted at the recent committal hearing for Melbourne man Michael Neal. Mr Neal was accused of deliberately spreading the virus.A HIV-positive man said in court that “bug chasing” was “a big thing out there” and that he had been pursued on the internet by a man wanting the bug.”I just kept reminding him that it was not glamorous,” a witness told the court.Dawn Wilcock, of Positive Women Victoria, a support group for HIV-positive women, said the reaction showed a need for Melbourne’s gay community leaders to stop dismissing claims of the subculture as an urban myth.”There’s a lot of defensive and protective behaviour going on that is not addressing the potential repercussions of this,” Ms Wilcock said.”It’s a real problem. We know that 75 per cent of Victorian women infected with HIV are contracting the virus from long-term male partners, so the health campaigns targeting gay men need to target others in the community who would never publicly identify themselves as being gay, too.”The HIV-positive man said some men going to group-sex parties with HIV-positive men might want to “join the club” and have unprotected sex more freely.”I have had an extremely intoxicated person claim that he wanted it once,” he said. “I fobbed him off and he never came asking for it again.”
April 21, 2007
Dance with death
A MELBOURNE man who fantasised about catching HIV before he contracted the virus has spoken out about a gay subculture in which infection is seen as desirable.The young professional, who does not want to be named, told The Age a combination of complacency about the virus and the wish to have unprotected sex with an HIV-positive man he loved led him to become infected.”I wasn’t actively seeking it, but maybe there were parts of me, dark corners, that wanted it, that were thinking, ‘Let’s just do it and get it over and done with and then it won’t be an issue’,” said the man, who is his 20s.He is the first to speak publicly about taking part in behaviour that is known in the gay community as “bug chasing” — seeking to become infected with HIV. The phenomenon was described by witnesses at the recent committal hearing for Melbourne man Michael Neal, who was accused of deliberately spreading the virus.One HIV-positive man told the hearing “bug chasing” was “a big thing out there” and that he had been pursued on the internet by a man who wanted to catch the virus from him.”I just kept reminding him that it was not glamorous,” the witness told the court.Dawn Wilcock, the director of Positive Women Victoria, a support and lobby group for HIV-positive women, said yesterday that such accounts confirmed the need for leaders of Melbourne’s gay community to stop dismissing claims of the subculture as an urban myth.”There’s a lot of defensive and protective behaviour going on that is not addressing the potential repercussions of this,” Ms Wilcock said.Her organisation was extremely concerned about other kinds of HIV recklessness, including the behaviour of heterosexual men who have sex with other men and do not tell the women in their lives. Such men do not think of themselves as gay or even as bisexual.”It’s a real problem. We know that 75 per cent of Victorian women infected with HIV are contracting the virus from long-term male partners, so the health campaigns targeting gay men need to target others in the community who would never publicly identify themselves as being gay, too,” she said.The HIV-positive man said that some negative men who attended group-sex parties with positive men might want to “join the club” so they could have unprotected sex more freely. His own intermittent desire to catch the virus was more about wanting intimacy with his partner than a “tribal membership or a rites of passage sort of thing”.life for HIV-positive people was now reasonably good, and that contracting the virus “wouldn’t be as catastrophic as it might have been 10 years ago”.While it was difficult to tell how many men who fantasised about the virus actually tried to get it, he said, some men certainly advertised for it on the internet and asked for it during sexual encounters.”I have had an extremely intoxicated person claim that he wanted it once,” he said. “I fobbed him off and he never came asking for it again.”Many gay community leaders and spokespeople for HIV and AIDS lobby groups last month dismissed claims of “bug chasing” and “conversion parties” — group-sex parties where positive men have unprotected sex with negative men to give them the virus — after the concepts were aired during Neal’s court case.Mike Kennedy, the executive director of the Victorian AIDS Council — the peak body representing gay men living with HIV and AIDS — this week again told The Age it was an urban myth.”You will find one of everything you look for,” Mr Kennedy said. “But the notion that this is a big scene, absolutely not. The language of ‘gift givers’, ‘bug chasers’ and ‘conversion parties’ — it’s something that’s come off the internet.”An HIV worker who did not want to be named said there was a party line offered to the outside world on the issue of reckless HIV behaviour in Melbourne’s gay community.”The party line is that it’s not happening — ‘What? Us?’ ” the worker said.The worker agreed with Ms Wilcock that heterosexual men who had illicit sex with gays were the conduit for the virus into the wider community. The worker said that when such men were diagnosed with the virus, they rarely started using condoms with their long-term female partners, “because she’s going to say, ‘What’s this?’ “Ms Wilcock said that gay male organisations were not doing enough to confront this and the “bug-chasing” issue
The challenge of writing about 33 years of living with HIV/AIDS isn’t so much to write tomes about what actually was witnessed over that period. That is easy to do, and I could ramble on forever about it. The challenge lies in being objective and succinct, to tone down the schmaltz and sentimentality and cut to the chase. Not as easy as one may think, as these were the most challenging, relentlessly ruthless and heartbreaking period of my life. But if survival is the gauge of ones strength and tenacity, then I have come out at this end of it with flying colours. Indeed, the cup is half full!
So what was it really like in 1982 to be reading snippets in our local gay press about this mysterious illness in The States that seemed to be targeting gay men who frequented the saunas, and quickly killing them? Well, cynicism and disbelief to start with, and the surety that within a short period of time they would find an antibiotic to clear up yet another STD. Soon the snippets were to become columns, then pages as the mysterious and deadly illness leapt from the shores of America and found its way here.
Our response was mixed. The first recorded case of HIV at home was 1982, and the first death in 1983. We had our usual ratbags who yelled and screamed about God’s vengeance on the evil, sick and perverted gay lifestyle (obviously a different God to the compassionate, all-forgiving one that I had heard about), the advocates of hate who demanded quarantine for all infected persons, and those who either quietly or vocally wished that we would all die or just go away. Not that easy folks! Thankfully, common sense prevailed and both the government and the grassroots gay community combined to put both AIDS Councils and NGO programs in place. Our quick response was instrumental in Australia always being at the forefront of HIV/AIDS care. Within 2 years every state had an AIDS Council under the national umbrella of NAPWA (National Association of People with AIDS), and the formation of support organisations such as The Bobby Goldsmith Foundation, Community Support Network (CSN) and Ankali. Without these organisations life would have been grim for those infected. In 1985 testing was introduced. It was a bit of a strange affair in the early days. Due to hysteria and discrimination no one wanted their personal details on a database, so you chose a name, and Albion Street Centre issued you with a number that then became your ID. You had a blood test, and waited for two weeks – talk about high anxiety – to get your result. I had a mystery illness in 1982, a flu-type illness that wasn’t the flu, and already suspected that I had sero-converted and was going to come up HIV+. I was right. Counseling? Oh yeah, we had a lot of that back then. “You’ve got about 2 years to live”. Shrug shoulders “Okay”. And off we went knowing the inevitable was rapidly approaching, and it was time to PARTY!!! What else could you do? However there were horror stories. The disgusting treatment of young Eve Van Grafhorst is something for all Australians to be ashamed of. Born in 1982, she was infected with HIV via a blood transfusion. When she attempted to enrol in her Kincumber pre-school in 1985, parents threatened to withdraw their children due to the (supposed) risk of infection. The family was literally hunted out of town, and forced to leave the country and go to NZ. I will never forget the sight of this poor, frail girl on her way to the airport. I, like many others, was horrified that this could happen in Australia. Thankfully, her NZ experience was quite the opposite, and she lived a relatively normal life until her death in 1993 at 11 years of age. Her parents received a letter from Lady Di praising her courage.
Meanwhile, the Australian nightmare was well and truly hitting home. My first close friend, Andrew Todd, died in 1986. At that time there was no dedicated AIDS ward, and Andrew was shifted between wards as beds were needed for other cases. He died on Boxing Day in A&E at St, Vincent’s. I had the sad duty of ringing all my friends at a party to tell them the sad news. Party pooper recognition acknowledged! Ward 17 at St Vincent’s eventually became the dedicated AIDS ward, and for the next 10 years was never empty. Palliative care was through The Sacred Heart Hospice. Hospitals such as Westmead hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons; full contamination clothing for those working with HIV people, rooms not being cleaned, meals left outside doors. Even the poor old mosquito copped a hiding as a means of contamination, along with toothbrushes, glasses, cutlery and crockery. An advertising campaign featuring the Grim Reaper bowling down poor people created an apocalyptic vision of HIV that scared the life out of everyone. It was quickly withdrawn. In the interim, my 2 years became 4, which became 6 followed by 8. My life became a haze of alcohol and cigarettes, not shared alone.
In the 80’s I held a lot of parties with anywhere from 40- 60 friends attending. By 1996, if I had tried to hold a party I would have been lucky to have dug up 10 friends to attend. In the blink of an eye my social circle was effectively wiped off the face of the earth. Hospitals, hospices, funerals and wakes became the dreaded regular events. It was death on a relentless and unforgiving scale. The Quilt Project became the focus of our sorrow, and it’s regular unfoldings and name readings were tear-filled times of remembrance and reminiscence, along with the yearly Candlelight Rally. I attended until I became so empty that I could no longer bear it. I submitted my names but no longer attended. In the early 90’s four friends died close together – two from AIDS, one a heart attack and one cancer. This was a particularly heavy blow as two of these friends had been regular “gutter drag” partners, and that part of my life effectively ended. In a perverse way, it seemed strange that the Big A wasn’t the only thing stalking our lives.
Despite its reputation for being human Ratsac (the Concorde Study in France named it such, after conducting an unethical trial; turns out they were correct!) I started taking AZT when my CD4 count started to take a dive. Hard work, long hours, heavy drinking, chain smoking, a shit diet and emotional turmoil didn’t help. Pub culture became lifestyle. Did several drug trials – D4T, which was sort of successful, though the same class of drug as AZT. Also p24 VLP (Very Light Protein) which proposed that stimulating the p24 antigen may help control HIV. Total waste of my time. It did nothing. We started alternating drugs – 6 months on AZT, 6 on D4T, 6 on DDI, 6 on DDC. Perversely it seemed to keep the wolf from the door. Dosage was huge. Everyone on it ended up with kidney problems and peripheral neuropathy. Prophylactics added to the drug burden. In the meantime there was no HIV dental service and our teeth rotted or fell out due to bouts of candida. I left work in 1993 after being seriously knocked around by viral pneumonia which should have killed me…but didn’t. I was shuffled onto the pension, and given rent subsidised housing by DOH. The subsidy seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, weren’t we all eventually going to be killed by the Big H, so no one would be on it for that long? Famous last words! My alcohol consumption and chain smoking increased, if that was possible! Was losing weight at an alarming rate, and naturally no one noticed because I took to wearing baggy clothes to disguise it. Nothing quite like being delusional. Moved from Darlinghurst to Bondi. Nothing like moving away from the scene to help your health…not! Collapsed in the street, and admitted to St Vincent’s not with PCP as suspected but a collapsed lung. Two weeks later and a change of female GP’s saw me back in the doctor’s rooms while she read my hospital discharge report. Had they tested me for CMV retinitis? No! Was I having trouble with my vision? Yes, but I do wear glasses. Guess what? We’re sending you for a little holiday at Prince Henry Hospital (now closed). I was a little bit sick. Chronic CMV retinitis, chronic candida, chronic anemia, had 10 CD4 cells and weighed 48 kgs. Mmm, prognosis was not good. Well, it had been a good life. I was certainly joining a band of party people. But no! Life hadn’t finished with me yet. Protease Inhibitors had come along at an auspicious time, and within a fortnight I had been stolen from the arms of death. Mind you, that fortnight had been no picnic. Ganciclovir injections into the eye, Deca-Durabolin injections to help put weight back on, blood transfusions, and enough finger prick blood readings to last me the rest of my life. And the problems had just started for this return-to-lifer. Not dying when you are supposed to really fucks up your head space.
So started the next round of therapies. Peer Support groups; counselors; Caleo (a treatment management group who help you maintain the impetus to take the billion pills a day we were taking); clinics; dental care (now up and running); volunteer work (to keep one sane). What started out as volunteer work at the then PLWHA (NSW) Inc (now Positive Life) turned into paid employment as a research assistant. I started writing for “Talkabout” magazine, joined the Positive Speakers. Bureau, and learnt to use a computer. A couple of stints back in full-time employment made me realise that big changes needed to be made with my life. By this time my health was pretty well back together. A couple of nights out pushed home just how few people I knew, however did lead to meeting my current (now ex) partner. A brief encounter with Indinivir sludge in my kidneys (which involved having a stent inserted then removed) also made me aware that for HIV+ people the unexpected can happen at any time. Yet another change of doctor. Self-empowerment had become an important issue, and I wanted a say in my health management, as distinct from being dictated to. Big changes were about to happen.
In 2000 David and I did a big (and expensive) holiday to the Red Centre. It was an amazing experience. Before leaving Sydney I had applied to the University of Technology in Sydney to do my degree in writing. Shortly after arriving back home I was informed that I had been accepted. Ah, the advantages of mature age AND disability. So spent three years doing my Graduate Certificate in Writing, was office- bearer for the Special Needs Collective…in fact I WAS the Special Needs Collective, and discovered I hated having to deal with the moronic “radicals” who called themselves the Student Association and did nothing except rant and rave, and waste student money. I was glad to leave uni. Towards the end of 2004 I decided to get my chef’s credentials from East Sydney TAFE, and crammed a 12-month course into 6 months. As much as I hated uni, I really loved TAFE and found it more grassroots and honest. David and I started Alderman Catering, a top-end catering business though it only lasted about 2 years as I found it very exhausting. I then sort of returned to my retail roots by opening a web site called Alderman Providore to sell Australian made gourmet grocery items. The site proved successful, and within 4 years I was opening my second site, this time specialising in tea, coffee and chocolate products. I got involved in a trial using Goat’s Serum to treat HIV, but again another waste of time. I did manage to get a skin rash from it, and managed to score a $1,000 for participating. In late 2009 the GFC hit, and online shopping took a major hit. After a disastrous Christmas that left me severely out if pocket, I decided to sell the business and put it behind me.
More eye problems followed, this time involving my blind eye. Back to the regular rounds at the Sydney Eye Hospital, and an injection of Avastin into the blind eye to stop it creating new blood supplies to an eye that couldn’t see. By this time, the interior of the bad eye was collapsing, and it took on an unnatural colour. Before this I hadn’t looked blind. Now I did!
The next step, which sort of brings us up to date, was a major move. Plans to move north had been on the agenda for 10 years – in 2011 it finally happened, though we did jump the border which wasn’t in the original plan. Recently my retina detached in my one seeing eye…or rather was pushed off by all the scar tissue present from my original CMV infection. An emergency operation to scrape down the scar tissue, and replace the retina and fluid (called a vitrectomy) has seen my sight degenerate even further and I am now the proud owner of a white cane curtesy of Guide Dogs Queensland. It has become obvious that our two Jack Russell’s are not, despite their best of intentions, good seeing-eye dogs. I can see, though very poorly. A lot of life is a blur these days.
However, I am not going to complain. I have always enjoyed a challenge, and this presents yet another one. I gave up smoking 15 years ago, and drink only lightly and socially these days. My partner and I both adopted a healthy diet and exercise program 8 years ago when we both started getting unattractively over-weight and inactive. We have both turned our lives around by adopting this course of action. In 2013, I obtained my Certificate III in Fitness from Southbank TAFE. It proved both a challenge for me, and for the TAFE, as they had never had a student with severe visual impairment do the course before. And finally, at the beginning if this year, I had my troublesome blind eye removed. I now have a very life-like prosthetic that I dan do drunken party tricks with.
33 years eh! OMG where have those years gone? Despite all the discrimination, stress, anxiety, illness, deaths, survivor guilt and despair, there have been moments of great introspection, illumination, strength and enlightenment. That over-used word “empowerment” springs to mind and that is perhaps the one word that sums all those years up. Victim? No way! Survivor? Not in my words! And I have never been one to wallow in self pity. You just need to grab life by the balls, and get on with it. I trust that is what I have done.
Tim Alderman
Copyright 2012, 2015
AIDS Quilt unfolding in Government Pavilion, Sydney Showground circa 1988. L-R Peter McCarthy, Peter Gilmore, Bevan, Steve Thompson, Tim Alderman
I have an idealised image of growing old with my partner and drifting out of this life in my sleep. In this ideal world of ageing, there is no pain, nor any unpleasantness. Occasionally, though, reality creeps into my thoughts, causing me to wonder just what will happen as the years speed by. The fact that I’m the older partner in the relationship doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll be first to die. Nor does it mean that any of life’s unpleasantries are not going to overtake one or the other of us in the guise of cancer, dementia or other illnesses.
The most frightening scenario is one where I’m left suddenly on my own and have to find new ways to cope. It’s difficult enough to adapt to new life situations when you’re young, let alone when you’re set in your ways. The prospect of ending up in a nursing home is something most of us don’t want to contemplate. A quick bit of research indicates that a lot of HIV+ guys perceive that they are ageing at a faster rate than most people the same age and fear the early onset of cancer, dementia and diabetes. But what about those of us who are hale and hearty and making lifestyle choices to try to ease the way into a healthy old age? I guess we’ll find out all about it when we get there.
At 58, and having now lived with HIV for 30 years, I’m trying my best to take a positive approach to ageing. To my way of thinking, my brush with AIDS in the mid-’90s was about as scary as it could get. Having survived and retained my sense of self (and humour), I fail to see how anything could scare me again.
Dirty old man
I decided a long time ago that I was going to become a Dirty Old Man (DOM) in my old age and to that end I’m already working. As a DOM I can wink, make innuendos, pinch bums, eye up and down and generally make a fool of myself in the presence of any handsome guys and get away with it because, well, I’m a DOM and it’s expected. I’m going to derive a great deal of pleasure out of this and brag about every creepy thing I do to other DOM friends, who will be numerous. This behaviour will, of course, come with me into the nursing home.
Now, let’s talk about my concept of the nursing home I will be in. It will have all modcons, from Foxtel and the latest in computer, phone and tablet connectivity. No jelly and ice cream in our gourmet dining room and the 24/7 gym will be staffed by the hunkiest of personal trainers, who will put up with our erratic behaviour. Likewise the male nurses will be tanned and hunky and dressed in the skimpiest clothes available. The nightclub and bar will be staffed by the best DJs and the dancefloor will be zimmerframe and wheelchair accessible. All our pets will be catered for in equal luxury.
Now, with many of the patients in this imaginary nursing home having read my fitness and healthy eating columns, muscle-bound, slim and over-active elders will be the order of the day and day trips to the latest hip cafes will be a weekly experience. Life will be a dream and we will all depart this life with smiles from ear to ear.
The reality
I fear the reality may be quite different. According to NAPWA (National Association of People with AIDS), there are about 19,000 people in Australia living with HIV and of those, about 30 percent are over 49. At this rate there is going to be a rush for the retirement home doors. If you happen to be gay and HIV+, you don’t, at this time, have a lot of options. Considering that a lot of available aged care is run by religious organisations, identifying appropriate aged care is a bit scary. Unless the gay community start to invest in their old age by putting money into gay nursing homes, I fear you and I will end up in a home that will be inadequate to our needs and certainly won’t allow us to be ourselves in the company of like-minded individuals. If we have HIV, I dare say there will be little in the way of experienced medical care and nursing.
In Australia things seem to be moving a lot slower than in the US, where gay and lesbian retirement homes are already up and running. In our own backyard, GRAI (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Trans & Intersex Retirement Association, Incorporated) at GRAI.org.au is a WA-based volunteer group whose mission is to ‘create a responsive and inclusive mature-age environment that promotes and supports a quality of life for older and ageing people of diverse sexualities and gender identities’. In July 2010 they launched a report in conjunction with Curtin University entitled We Don’t Have Any of Those People Here. Though the research is WA-oriented, it would hold for any state in Australia. They point out that baby-boomer retirees are likely to be the first generation to be openly out as they age (which will also apply to HIV people, especially long-termers), which means that service providers, agencies and Government will need to approach glbt/HIV people very differently to any other group of retirees in years to come.
In 2008, the gay press mooted the building of the first glbt retirement village in Victoria, called Linton Estate. A check of the website doesn’t show any info past that date, though a 2011 report in the Star Observer indicates that retirement apartments are for sale from the plan. According to one report [in outdownunder.com] there are to be 120 units, with a heated spa, bar, cafe, library, croquet lawn (just how old do they think these people are?), tennis courts and much more. Construction is now expected to start in 2012. Things about this that make me nervous: buying off the plan for something that doesn’t as yet exist and is it going to be affordable (or elitist), considering that many of us will be surviving on the pension. I have always laughed at the notion of the pink dollar, whereby we are assumed to have limitless amounts of money to live lives of luxury, when the reality is that most of us struggle to get by. I certainly won’t be getting any inheritance and most other baby boomers are rushing to spend their money before they get too old to enjoy it. Let’s hear it for reality checks!
Just a dream
Fantasising about a gay retirement village is all very nice, but I fear most of us are going to find the dream of a gay retirement in diverse and HIV-knowledgeable environments just that … a dream. We also have to look at our unhealthy lifestyles, as we continue to get obese, drink too much and continue smoking (still a big problem in the HIV community), added to problems of social isolation, lack of interests, a drop in exercise due to laziness (let’s not bullshit here) and as you can see, there is a plethora of problems facing us as an ageing community. These things need to be addressed – and fast!
For some, one of the potential outcomes of limited choice is a return to the closet as a way of ensuring security, in conjunction with a move to the outer suburbs and away from the glbt/HIV community due to the lack of affordable accommodation in the inner city and suburbs.
As a 58-year-old gay HIV+ man in a long-term relationship, I need to start assessing the future realities of life, as pleasant or unpleasant as they may be. I don’t want to be left on my own to deal with my old age, nor do I want my partner to be. In all likelihood we will be together as we run into this stage of our lives (unless one or the other of us runs into a particularly hot 70-year-old – with lots of money, naturally), so sooner or later one of us is going to die and the other will have to continue life on their own. It would be cathartic to think that either of us could get accommodation that was both supportive, suitable and met all the social and medical needs of both gay and HIV people. Somebody will decide to do something about this eventually, though in all likelihood 50 reports will have been written on the subject and many dozens of older HIV+ people will have passed out of this life in undignified circumstances before action will be taken. The suicide rate amongst older glbt and HIV+ people would be interesting to know, especially considering that our coping mechanisms added to problems of discrimination and isolation decline as we enter extreme old age.
This is food for thought for all of us, young and old. Anyone who thinks they will never be old lives in Never Never land and anyone who thinks it’s someone else’s problem needs to get a life. Let’s give our elderly the respect and acknowledgement that is due to them.
Tim Alderman
Copyright 2011
P.S: In an article in QNews dated 27th April 2012, the Gillard government announced changes to aged care that ensured GLBTI aged that service providers would be required to support their special needs. The reforms are part of a package to keep seniors at home for as long as possible. GLBTI seniors have been added to the “special needs” category. Aged care operators are required to allocate places in this group. This means that for the first time, places are required to be set aside for these seniors. It is also the first legislation to include Intersex people in the special needs category.
To read the full article go to http://qnews.com.au/article/glbti-seniors-aged-care-bedded-down-0#
“What an irrational, ecstatic, erotic, silly, FUN thing dancing is.”1
In 1977, I wandered into a record store in Granville, and discovered, hidden to one side of the female vocalist long-plays, a small selection of the, until then, unheard of 12” singles. I walked out of the store with a copy of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” – at the exorbitant price of $2.99 – under my arm, and thus started what has been for me, a continuing love of dance music.
Around the same time, I started to frequent the city’s discos, usually starting my night out at “Downunder” in the Hyatt Kingsgate in King’s Cross. Then, if I was feeling adventurous, I would wander down to “The Zoo” in William Street or over to “Jools” in Crown Street. On odd occasions I wandered down Darlinghurst Road in the Cross and passed by a gay disco called “Zig Zag”. How I longed to enter that glitzy, glittery doorway, complete with camp spruiker, but fear always stopped me just short of a grand entrance. A lesbian friend of mine, who my father thought was my girlfriend – and he hoped that I would marry – had taken me to Oxford Street on a number of ‘dates’. Even though we never went into any of the discos situated there (a gay friend of hers owned a coffee bar in Bourke Street called “Nana’s”, and she went there primarily to socialise with Nana, and his friend, Cupcake). I can still remember all the exotic names. There was “Patchs”, “Flo’s Palace”, “Tropicana”, “The Barrel Inn”, “Tina’s Bar” and “Capriccio’s”, not to mention a street teeming with male sexuality – at least, as sexual as the 70’s were able to get.! I would wander back home on my own at 6.00 in the morning, depressed and with the dread that I was, eventually, going to die a virgin. Fortunately, my luck was about to change.
In late 1978, my father killed himself. This act on its own would not have been enough to prompt my ‘coming out’, despite him being the main cause of all my sexual repression, but it did imbue me with an immense feeling of freedom. A national retail company that I worked for at the time asked me, in late 1979, if I would like to spend some time in Melbourne to troubleshoot their two retail stores there. Two days after they asked, I found myself on a plane to Melbourne. I also found myself, blessedly, far from friends and family. No observers, no critics. I was answerable to nobody but myself. I ‘came out’ – definitely with a bang, not with a whimper! As a means to an end – in that it would give me contacts on the gay scene – I joined a collective of gay Catholics, becoming a member of a group called “Acceptance” and after that there was no holding me back. I was 25 and damned horny, and any male that was half decent looking and capable of walking was my prey. I was free at last!
The first gay disco I attended which taught me the meaning of ‘cruising’ – and that you had on occasions to say no to someone’ – was also the place I picked up my first man. Or more correctly, he picked me up – and I discovered that I liked older men of a certain type – he wasn’t the type. No worries, there were plenty more nights, and plenty more men, to come. I also discovered around the early 80’s a huge discrepancy in the way 70’s music was being historically treated. All of the music documentaries I saw that covered that period stated that disco music had died in 1978, with the temporary closure of ‘Studio 54’ – it rather unsuccessfully continued its existence until 1986 – and with the advent of ‘New Wave’ music. How misinformed they were! Disco music never died. It did, however, undergo a huge shift in sound to Hi-Energy, and style (the advancement of drum machines guaranteed a continuous, accurate beat, and provided a heavy drum/percussion background to modern dance music), then moved itself underground to the care of the sector of the community who could love and cherish it the way it deserved. It became a gay icon!
So started my life as a gay male. Like Sydney, Melbourne had its own underground gay press, and its underground gay scene. It wasn’t hard to get the local gay rags, you just had to know where to go. It was often a bit more difficult, however, finding the gay venues. The people may have been ‘out’, but the venues weren’t. Through the press, I started reading about a disco in St. Kilda called “Mandate”. Deciding that I liked the sound of any disco with the word ‘man’ in it, I decided on a night out there. Friends had already introduced me to places like “The University Club” in Collins Street in the city, where after 3am all the gay cabbies were on the prowl, and only too willing to give you a free ride home in return for a ‘favour’. There was also the young trendy “Smarties” in North Melbourne, the very butch “The Laird” hotel in Collingwood, “Ryders” in Fitzroy, and the drag queen haven of “Pokies” in St. Kilda. But they were nothing compared to “Mandate”! The gay scene was spread over a wide area in Melbourne, unlike the gay ghetto that eventuated in Sydney – and I now think it may be the one reason why the gay scene remained ‘gay’ in Melbourne, long after it started turning straight in Sydney. I was often less afraid to go to gay venues in the southern city, because if the straight boys wanted to go ‘poofter baiting’, it would have cost them a fortune in petrol, and it was too much of a hassle to drive from suburb to suburb, so one usually went unmolested, no matter which venue you went to.
The first time I went to Mandate, I walked past the entry door about six times. It’s not that a door wasn’t there, it’s just that it wasn’t wide open and there was no sign telling me to knock. I suddenly realised, after watching others enter, that I had to announce to the ‘door bitch’ that I wished to enter after being ‘checked out’ through a small covered window in the door. If I passed muster, which wasn’t a problem, being young and pretty, I got straight in. And I walked into another world! There was a small ticket office at the bottom of a flight of stairs. After paying the couple of dollars it cost to get in, I climbed the stairs, ignoring the sexual exploits going on under my feet. I then entered male paradise! The bar was set up directly to the left of the entrance door. If I turned to the right, I headed toward a huge cruising area, with a dance floor at the far end. There was a narrow, ‘L’ shaped area running around the dance floor filled in with metal bars, and it was in the cruise area behind these bars that I had my first experience with public sex. And enjoyed it! But that really wasn’t why I was there. It was the copper dance floor spread with a layer of talcum powder – to give it slip; the incredible light show; the constant, primitive driving beat of dance music that kept me riveted there; boys stripped down to the waist, covered in sweat; the ever-circling amyl bottle, and the blast of whistles to tracks like “Rock Your Body” by 202 Machine, “Hills of Katmandu” by Tantra, “Don’t Stop the Train” by Phyllis Nelson, “You Can” by Madleen Kane and “Hit ‘n Run Lover” by Carol Jiani. I would take a huge whack of amyl up my nose, spinning out on the floor for a few seconds. I would inevitably end the night in somebody’s bed, usually not my own. If I was lucky, they might speak to me again and if I was really lucky, I might fall in love for two weeks. That’s all it was about! The lights; the dancing; the naked flesh; the sweat and the sex. It was intoxicating! I became a clone and revelled in the tribal symbolism of ‘belonging’.
The Aussie gay clone could not have happened anywhere else except in the sub-cultures of the gay community. No.1 or no.2 haircuts, handlebar moustaches, ‘Bonds’ tee shirts or singlets, flannelette shirts, Levi ‘501’ Red Tab jeans and boots, “King Gee” shorts. It was a uniform, and it was gay. After years of stereotyping gay men as effete, arty, and poncey, we fought back with a macho extreme. By day, I was a mild, well-mannered retail manager, with a somewhat extreme haircut, and a pierced ear – its extremism reaching even the upper echelons of power in Sydney and almost costing me my job. But by night, I came into my own as a nightclub clone – the term nightclub was preferred to disco by this time. Many adopted the ‘Village People’ look of hardhats or ‘Akubra’s’, and as far as most of us were concerned in the nightclubs, all this type of regalia was totally acceptable and part of the clone persona. The gay elite – read: old and conservative – were aghast at this new, unabashed sexuality, writing tomes into the gay rags about how we were adopting straight stereotypes to exhibit our own lack of masculinity. I wrote a letter into “Campaign” newspaper – it had not achieved magazine status at this time – accusing them of being ‘cloneophobes’, sadly locked in their tired, conservative, in-the-closet- sexuality, listening to their Shirley Bassey and Barbra Streisand records, unable to express themselves as gay men, as the new, younger generation were doing. This new generation of gay was no longer content to have circuit dinner parties, or arrange nights at the theatre or the opera. They had a new freedom, which was being expressed, with revelry, through our nightclubs. Nobody wrote back to argue with me. The battle for the rights of clones was won!
In early 1982, news from overseas was filtering through via the gay press that rare forms of pneumonia – called PCP – and a cancer called Karposi’s Sarcoma, were killing gay men – seemingly very selective diseases, only picking on a minority group who were sexually ‘different’ – who frequented the baths and backrooms in San Francisco. Like everyone else at this time, I thought “Oh yeah, another STD to worry about. Can’t be any worse than the crabs, or a dose of the clap. They’ll find a pill for it”. It didn’t turn out quite that way. At the same time, I decided I had had enough of Melbourne. I couldn’t have coped with another winter down there. I was homesick for the beautiful harbour. News from the Sydney gay community was of boom times, a scene very much tied into what was happening in Melbourne. ‘Capriccio’s’ caught fire, ‘Patchs’ caught fire, and ‘Tropicana’ caught fire. Sydney was literally burning. It didn’t sound like a thriving scene if one relied on reports in the ‘Sydney Star’ newspaper, but visitors from Sydney raved about the new venues replacing those that had been incinerated, especially the ‘Midnight Shift’, which had risen like a phoenix out of the ashes of ‘Tropicana’.
I yearned for my birth city. I fell in love with a ‘bear’ from Waverton who was visiting Melbourne, and decided to move back north. The bear turned out to be a psychotic, but that’s another story. I fucked him off, moved into a unit – with harbour views – in Neutral Bay, flatting with a radio announcer from 2SM a a plutonic relationship, I can assure you – and proceeded to get on with life. I joined the soon to be defunct Gay Rights Lobby – defunct because we obtained gay rights. We gained the right to have sex with another man without being arrested, and anti-discrimination laws were set in place. I decided to be apolitical from then on – until HIV came along anyway. The gay ghetto of Oxford St – ‘The Golden Mile”, or “Vaseline Alley”, depending on who you were talking to – was a seething mass of depravity, deviancy and sexuality. I automatically felt at home, joining in with gusto. It was also wall-to-wall clones. I felt doubly at home. Like most people in Sydney, I had my regular haunts. Not for me were wasted hours of hot, steamy sex in the baths, or the cravings for anonymous sex in the gloryholed back-rooms and sex clubs like Club 80, that many frequented. I had only visited the baths once, and that was to get off with a friend of the ‘bear’s’, who I met while I was still living with him. Don’t get me wrong, I never wanted for sex! But more on that later.
Until The Oxford hotel opened in 1982, my Saturday night out always started at The Albury. In some respects, The Albury has never changed. Clientele would be spilling out onto the footpath by 10 PM, and drag shows are synonymous with the place. If you were into the leather scene, your haunt would be The Beresford, but a fire in that hotel around ’84 changed its character forever, and the leather brigade moved on. I met my third long-term lover at The Albury, really a substitute for the guy I was actually after – his flatmate John. I hoped that by having a ‘thing’ with Frank, perhaps, by some perverse stroke of luck, I might eventually be screwed by John. It never happened, though John and I ended up good friends. However, Frank’s reign as my partner was only to last until I realised that there was a world of men out there for the taking. I was missing out on too many opportunities and his bleached hair and tinted eyelashes became too artificial for my liking. I dumped him!
So, as I said, The Oxford opened in late 1982. It became a clone haven overnight, and was my regular watering hole for the next fifteen years. I survived two of its reincarnations, but the third was just too much, a little too trendy for its old clientele. But in 1982, it was heaven, a paradise of the latest dance music, and the hottest, sweatiest men. One thing I will always say about gay men – it doesn’t take much encouragement to get them to start removing their gear. It was also home to several Oxford Street institutions – well, institutions at the time, anyway. Dexter was an idea stolen by one of the pub managers after visiting the States. It was an electronically controlled penis that sat on a trapeze hung from the ceiling toward the back of the pub. Underneath the ‘head’ was a mouth, the entire apparatus being controlled from the dj’s box, tucked away against the west wall of the main bar. At designated times during the night, some popular dance track like “Maybe This Time” by Norma Lewis would start playing, the trapeze would start swinging, and Dexter would go into a full mime routine. Very camp. Dexter’s demise came about after some Yank visitors to our fair city went back to the States and dobbed us into the copyright owners. They threatened to sue if Dexter didn’t hang up his balls, so the next thing we knew, he was gone. As far as I know, he is still packed away with a heap of other props in the roof of The Oxford.
Regular Saturday night visitors to The Oxford were ‘The Planet Sluts’. These guys were really over the top as far as gutter drag goes, being the models that I eventually used to put Cleo, my own gutter persona, together. They would appear from nowhere, often accompanied by the blessed Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. There would be frocks for days, wigs backcombed to within an inch of their life, make-up and moustaches that were totally over the top. They would barge their way through the front door, climb up onto the bar, and mime to whatever dance number happened to be going at that time. I always wanted to be a member of that troupe, but as with all these groups, it was all very cliquey. I did have the privilege of fucking with Carl, out of ‘Carla and the Cosmetics’; a drag trio who used to perform at ‘The Honest Irishman’ at Camperdown. It is a claim to fame that probably only I and Carl remain alive to remember. So that would be how most nights started out.
However, this wasn’t just how things started out on a Saturday night, or Saturday and Sunday night for that matter! In those bad, bad old days, I went out every night of the week. I didn’t work to live, and I certainly didn’t live to work. I worked to earn enough money to dance, party, and play the game hard. I went out seven nights a week, often not getting home until 3-4am, getting up at 7am to get to work, then going back out again at 10pm to repeat the cycle. There were many mornings that I turned up at work straight from some piece of trades home. But every night, the pub was just a prelude to what was to follow at The Midnight Shift. If I had enough sense, I’d leave The Oxford at 11pm to go to The Midnight Shift. I would always walk down the left-hand side of Oxford Street, as walking down the right-hand side meant I had to pass “Frenchs”, which was a skinhead hangout. They had a reputation for harassing gays passing by on their own, so I avoided it as much as possible. Being an observer to a number of punch-ups right outside its doors, I had no desire to have my night ruined by any such carry-on. The Shift, as it was affectionately known, had been a pinball parlour in the early 70s, became Club 85 (its street address) in the mid 70s, then Tropicana from the mid 70s up till the fire in ’82, soon after becoming what it still is – The Midnight Shift. It was the nightclub of the clone/macho set.
If I arrived at 11pm, I’d be able to walk straight in. If I left it any longer, which I often did if the alcohol was kicking in early, or the DJ was playing a string of favourites, I queued. Not that queuing was a problem. It gave me a chance to start the night’s cruising, the street being a good place to get in the mood to party. Standing in line with the others, usually with friends, we’d stare blankly into the display window of the manchester store, situated at the left of The Shift’s staircase. The queue more often than not would go back as far as Crown Street. To the right of the staircase was a supermarket, and from 11pm onwards, you could hear its glass doors rattling from the bass of the music upstairs. Like everybody else, I would eventually find myself climbing the long, steep staircase, my senses being assaulted by the music pounding through the walls. Then I would be at the top, ready to pay the entry fee, and enter the inner sanctum. The Shift had a very strict dress code – you either looked macho, or like a clone, or you were banned from entry. We had fought so hard for acceptance of this image, even from our own peer group, that we basically encouraged this sort of stereotyping of The Shifts clientele to maintain the image. This was no world for the well-dressed businessman or the city trendy in Hawaiian shirt and pleated pants. People only got in wearing denim jeans – preferably 501’s – “Bonds” singlets or tee shirts, or flannelette shirts. This and leather! Nothing else was appropriate. We all had the obligatory no.1 (street hardened boys who worked and lived in the ghetto), or no. 2 (guys who had to work, and couldn’t risk being too out) haircuts, nearly everyone having a moustache of one description or another. Back pockets of jeans usually carried a bunch of keys; in the left pocket if you liked to fuck guys (active) or; in the right pocket if you liked to be fucked (passive). Preference was often for a coloured handkerchief or bandana in the respective pocket, the colour giving others a coded invitation as to what you were into – Navy blue-straight sex; red-fist fucking; yellow-water sports; black-S&M; grey-B&D; khaki-uniforms; and white-masturbation (though this later came to signify safe sex). As for me, well, I wore navy blue, and my keys were always in my right pocket. Some guys also liked to carry small teddy bears in either pocket, signifying that for that night at least, they were into either cuddling or being cuddled. There was a strength in that clone sameness, that stripping away of ‘straight’ stereotypes, a feeling that everyone in the nightclub was equal, and male. The Shift only allowed men to enter its hallowed walls…
Seeing as I have managed to get you to the door- you must have had the regulation uniform on, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered getting you this far – feel I should give you a quick guided tour before leaving you to your own devices. To the left of the doorway is the main bar, named ‘Charlie’s Bar’, at least up until Charlie died, early in the AIDS epidemic. It is ‘L’ shaped, and dominated by the dimly lit bar, which is packed. There are four barmen behind the bar, all going flat-strap serving drinks. In an alcove to the left of the bar a guy is smoking a joint, and another sniffing a line of speed from the bar’s corner. As we wonder through the bar (cruising) we come to another doorway on our left. Music is roaring out of it, and as we push our way through the crush of sweat-soaked men (cruising), we find ourselves on a large platform, which overlooks the dance floor. There are rails around it, with several sets of stairs leading down to the extravagantly lit dance space. I pull you to the left, then we wonder along a narrow corridor to one side of the dance floor. This is called the ‘Meat Rack’, being where guys stand if they are not dancing, and are definitely available to be picked up. Unfortunately, it has gained something of a reputation for only having desperadoes as its clientele, those who have little chance of being picked up in the better lit areas, feeling they might be luckier in the dimmer zones. I take you past the dj’s box (cruising), glancing in through the huge glass window. Steven Cribb is playing. No wonder the floor is packed and raging. He is the current supremo amongst our disc jockeys, having earned himself a reputation as a dance floor God. His beat (continuous) mixing is flawless. He can mix a 118BPM record into a 128BPM record, and you would never know a mix was happening until the track change. His music has made The Shift THE place to be on the weekends. However, I am going to keep you off the floor for a while until we finish our tour. We go down several steps, and we find ourselves in a barn-like area, set up with long tables, and benches. There is a bar at the back, but not a lot of people use it. The area is very dimly lit, and it doesn’t take much straining of the ears to deduce that the place is humming with sexual energy. If you glance into that corner, you can see a guy giving another a blowjob, with a similar activity going on only several feet away from them. Instead of taking you up the back for a more intimate look, I will drag you through this door to the left. There is a toilet to the right of us. This toilet is actually used as a loo, or you want to share some drugs around. A corridor is to our left, leading us past the DJs box, then back to the main bar area. As we exit the corridor, you will notice another corridor to the right. This corridor leads past the cloakroom, then the manager’s office – do you want a bottle of “Rush”? I know the owners, so it won’t be a problem – then around a corner to the ‘other’ set of toilets. These are the ones that are used for sex. Don’t confuse the two! Nothing will piss a queen of quicker than having to have a piss, and finding someone getting off in the wrong loo. Now that you know where everything is – you’re going to THOSE toilets, eh – well I guess we’re here for different things – I’m going to love you and leave you. The dance floor calls (cruising). Steven has just put on Yvonne Elliman’s “Love Pains”. Have beat, must dance!..
On most Saturday nights, you could stand in the bar and listen to Steven taking us into a different world with his often impossible mixes. He would mix from “Love Pains” to Eastbound Expressways “Primitive Desire” as people headed onto the dance floor. With its growly under-chant of ‘You Tarzan, me Jane’, it was a dance floor favourite; a definite floor filler. I was often entranced by the lighting technicians, as they started the strobes flashing, and filled the floor with fog. Overhead, eight various sized mirror balls would be clustered together, reflecting multi-coloured flashes of light from the sate-lites and vari-lites situated nearby. A techie would start the sate-lite whirling and flashing through the fog. Suddenly, I would find myself in another world. Stephen would mix “Primitive Desire” into Miquel Brown’s “So Many Men, So Little Time” (This morning, I open my eyes, and everything is still the same. I turn to the guy who stayed last night, and ask him “what’s your name?”). There would be whelps and yahoos from all corners of the room. Suddenly, I would find that I cannot move on the floor. Somebody might hand me a bottle of amyl, and I would take a huge snort of it, placing my thumb over the top to stop the liquid from spilling as we dance around. For a few seconds, my head may spin, the dance beat would become all pervasive, driving everyones feet into a frenzy of sleazy dance. I would find that some guy next to me had stripped off his sweaty tee shirt, and is sharing an ethyl soaked handkerchief with another dancer, also stripped to the waist. More fog would be pumped onto the floor as Miquel is mixed into Hazell Dean’s anthemic “Searchin’ (I Got to Find A Man)”. More hoots and hollers – this is something everyone related to – (Searchin’, looking for love, every place I can, searchin’, looking for love, I got to find me a man). On the speakers at two corners of the dance floor, guys in Speedo’s are dancing with 3’ gold fans, rotating, spinning, and intertwining the fans to the beat of the music. Hours of rehearsal in front of the mirror at home are paying off! Guys standing within range either duck to avoid the spinning fans, or move completely out the way. Steven has the floor ultra hot! God only knows how long it will be before he puts on something to give everyone a break. He has had me on the floor for two to three hours at a time without a break before tonight. This is the magic that a good DJ can spin. He will then mix in the huge anthem of Norma Lewis’s “Maybe This Time” (Maybe this time I’ll be lucky, maybe this time he’ll stay), and the whole dance floor will turn handbag, at last a short break from the endless, relentless beat of Hi-NRG. Often you would find a couple of guys have stripped down to jock straps, and are weaving their way around the floor, their butts glistening with sweat. The pervasive odours are of sweat, testosterone and amyl. This is a domain only male animals can love, and we do! Steven will go for the pull of an oldie with Shirley Lites “Heat You Up, Melt You Down” (I’ll heat you up, I’ll melt you down, let’s do it, do it, do it, come on baby, I’ll heat you up, I’ll melt you down), and I may yell at the memories the track invokes. Oh Romeos “These Memories” (These memories, these memories haunting me) follows, then Earlene Bentley’s “Boy’s Come to Town” (When the boy’s come to town around midnight, I’m gonna find one, take him home. When the boy’s come to town around midnight, I won’t spend the night alone), following this with Divine’s gay anthem “You Think You’re A man” (You think you’re a man, but you’re only a boy. You think you’re a man, you are only a toy. You think you’re a man, but you just couldn’t see. You’re not man enough to satisfy me) then brings the beat down to Princess’s “Say I’m Your Number 1”, which gives some of us an escape route to get to the bar to replenish our drinks before he builds the beats up again.
I would often cruise a guy on the dance floor. He would, hopefully, stand next to me at the bar, and glance at me out of the corner of his eye. My taste ran to navy blue ‘Bonds” singlet, thus anybody who had one on, a greater stimulation if they are so old and well worn that they are more indigo than navy, and worn with a pair of 501’s. If nobody else comes along, you both have already created a frisson. I watch him as he picks up his drink. He smiles at me as he turns from the bar. I check out his butt as he walks back towards the dance area. Nice! Denim-clad. Right up my alley. I have this thing about mid-thirties to early forties guys (I’ll never be that old!). Being young and pretty, I have no problems getting picked up by anyone I fancy.
If I want a break from dancing, I will pull up a stool to the doorway between the main bar and dance area. Just sit, looking like a real sleazy, cruising slut. It works every time. I find older men much sexier than guys my own age, they are more confident than my own peer group. They also don’t throw you out on the street five minutes after you cum, preferring someone to cuddle up to during the night, and usually cooking you breakfast the next morning. Gay life can be a very lonely life sometimes, especially as you get older. They have a network of guys in the same age group, and if you have been good sex – and who my age isn’t! -, the word is passed along, which makes picking up an easy job for a while.
I get my drink, then move to the corner to speak to some mates. They offer me a line of speed, but tell me I will have to go to the toilets to take it. The manager has warned them that the cops are doing one of their token raids on the place, but the right amounts of money have been placed in the right hands, so provided nothing obvious is going on, things will be fine. I disappear into the toilet with one of the guys, and we sniff speed off the top of the cisterns through a rolled fifty-dollar note. This should keep me going for a few hours. He says he will have some MDA next week, maybe with a bit of luck some crystal meth. I tell him to keep me some MDA. The fucking stuff makes me so horny I could fuck my way through a football team.
Just after I returned to Sydney, I went out with some friends one night. I was a bit of a drug ‘virgin’ at the time, always having a slight fear of them. One of the guys gave me a ‘moggie’ (Mogodon), and said if I had plenty of alcohol to drink, and forced myself past the sleepy stage, I would have the best time. Yeah, sure! I sat down just for a little minute and got woken up by the doorman several hours later, telling me the place was closing. I have never done that again I can assure you. If money gets a bit tight, I will wonder up to “Rely’s” pharmacy in Oxford Street, and they will sell me a bottle of pseudo-ephedrine tablets – under-the-counter, of course – for a few dollars. I can get a cheap thrill very much like speed from these. It is better than nothing for a night out, despite playing hell with the water-works.
I return to the dance area, and my eyes are like stoplights. I sort of hope for a quick pick-up, like I had last week. A guy just walks up to me and says, “Do you want to go home and fuck?” This is the entire intro I get until we get back to his place in William Street. I find out I have seen him in an ad on TV. I wish pick-ups could always that easy. Beats sitting around playing games for hours. Suddenly, there is a break in the music. There is the soft ‘hiss’ of smoke being pumped onto the dancefloor, the soft hum of sate-lights and vari-lights being manipulated into position. The strobes start a soft pulse. There is a quiet squeak from the mirror-balls as they start to revolve. The air is electric. Something major is about to happen! From the 20,000 watts of speakers spread over the four corners of the dance floor issues the voice of Gloria Gaynor, an almost whispered “I am what I am, I am my own special creation, so come take a look, give me the hook, or the ovation. It’s my world that I want to have a little pride in, my world that’s not a place I have to hide in. Life’s not worth a damn, ‘til you can say – I am what I am”. Chaos reigns. People run from everywhere in a mad frenzy. We are all on the floor for the biggest gay anthem of all time. Poppers are going from hand to hand, and everyone prepares for the explosion of sound, indicating that the track is about to rage. The lights all go up at once, rainbows of brilliant colour reflect through the smoke. Guys with tambourines circuit the borders of the floor beating them on the palms of their hands to the beat – the first time I took a tambourine onto the floor, I came home with a bruise from the top of my arse, down to my knee. God, it hurt! – the fan dancers take up their positions on the speakers, and everyone starts to blow whistles. It is a wonderful insanity. It is a song about our own lives, the pride and freedom we are still fighting for, the exhilaration of being what we are! We are all as one for the duration of this one track. Gloria Gaynor is Goddess! Steven mixes the heavy drum beat intro of Dee Martin’s “Lover Why?” into “I Am What I Am”. A frenetic pace is being set for the next hour. This will be a long tiring night.
But then the guy I have been cruising joins me on the dance floor, and I think that maybe I’m not so tired after all. At 3 AM, there is another sudden stop with the music, but only for a change of beat. Wind-down is about to start. Everyone is tired and sweaty, though those on speed and MDA sweat for reasons other than dancing. The beautiful low-beat guitar strums of Chaka Khan’s anthem “Ain’t Nobody” throbs through the silence (Ain’t nobody does it better, makes me happy, makes me feel this way. Ain’t nobody does it better than you), then mixes into the fabulous choir styled “Life In a Northern Town” by Dream Academy. The opening notes of Brenda Starr’s “Tonight I’m Gonna Make You a Star” gets the two-hour wind down off to a slow, sleazy start.. Those who were here for just the Hi-NRG leave to go home, or perhaps to traipse up to the Taxi Club for some gambling and drag acts. The die-hards like myself, and my potential evening’s trade start to sleaze dance to the slower beats of the music. It gets a bit more commercial with The Thompson Twins “Hold me Now” being followed by Spandau Ballet’s “Gold”; Patti Labelle’s “Oh, People” – all too soon to become almost a funeral anthem- and “On My Own”; Gazebo’s beautiful Italo sleaze track “Masterpiece” are concessions to gay romanticism. My friend grips me on the butt, and pulls me in close. Most people have left The Shift by 4am, though my trade and myself don’t leave till 5am.
I find it is a bit of culture shock finding yourself on an almost empty Oxford Street in the early hours of the morning. Before I get him home, the sun will be rising, but it is Sunday morning, and I only need a couple of hour’s sleep before I start to get ready for tonight. Sometimes, especially at this hour, I wonder if this is not an addiction, like my cigarettes. But like my smoking, I’m not yet willing to give it up. I am young, and I just want to party, and party! If I have my way, this will never stop, and neither will I.
FOOTNOTE: Just after I returned to Sydney in 1982, I contracted a mysterious illness, very flu-like, but much more severe than any flu’s that were around at that time. Doctors were mystified, and the symptoms disappeared as quickly as they had begun. I never gave it another thought, and it wasn’t until 1985 that it was recognised as sero-conversion illness for HIV.
Timothy Alderman C 2003 @ C2013
The world of the clone – West Brunswick, Melbourne circa 1980
Warning – if you are offended by gay male sexuality, DO NOT read any further.
Anybody who has access to the Internet these days, and hasn’t encountered pornography is either in denial, has their rating preferences set way too high, or just isn’t trying.
It’s prolific. You only have to do a tiny slip-up with your spelling in a search engine to link up with some sites you possibly never even imagined could exist. However, it hasn’t always been this easy, as anyone growing up in the 50’s or 60s can attest.
Sex education? What’s that, I ask! My parent’s concept of sex education was to get some small, discreet booklets – complete with very rough line drawings of naughty bits – from our local protestant minister, and subtly leave them next to the bed, trusting – in providence, of course – that I would read them, and – hopefully – not ask any questions. Well, unfortunately I did read them, and was left clutching my head in sheer horror at the prospect of what lay before me in the world of sex. Is it any wonder my generation still harbours hang-ups. All those vulvas, urethras, vaginas, penises and testicles were just too much for a young lad, let alone deciphering the mechanics of how it all happened. So I spent most of my youth thinking that kissing any girl would cause pregnancy – watch any 50’s movie, and you will quickly deduce how this idea came into being – and when one of my 6th form classmates tried – this would have been around 1965 – to set me straight on the matter of intercourse, I screamed, threw my hands into the air, and fled. Such horrors were the stuff of nightmares. How could anybody possibly want to do that!
However, at around 10 years-of-age, things started to change. Mind you, I was none the wiser about the ‘doing’ part of sex, but I was definitely starting to get interested. I’d started growing pubic hair – much to my consternation, as no one else appeared to be – and the erections and wet dreams were well and truly at full steam. My mother must have been horrified at the state of the bed linen! There was, however, one major difference in how I perceived the erotic, and how other kids of my age perceived it. You see, I collected – yes, cut out of newspapers – ads of men in underwear. Now, considering these were usually only advertising sketches, decidedly lacking in any bulge appeal or the remotest suggestions of cotton-moulded genitalia – we are talking the 60’s here – you may imagine that it wasn’t hellishly sexy. And you’d be right! But shit, it was any port in a storm, and I had an imagination – and a hand. What else was a young lad to do! I’d tried talking a neighbours son into giving me a quick look at the naughty bits but…well… everyone appeared to be hung-up about it.
And I was well aware that I couldn’t be discovered harbouring an attraction to this sort of…erotica. There wasn’t a name for this sort of thing, as far as I knew. I had heard my father and his mates yelling ‘poofter’ to guys out of the car window, but just what these ‘poofter’ things were, I could never make out. All I could see was some guy walking along the footpath. The one thing I was pretty certain about was that I was the only guy in the whole world who got off on the suggestion of a bulging crotch, in a sketched ad, in a newspaper! You can only imagine the alienation, the feeling of being apart from everyone else. It could have been worse, I guess. I could have been a Catholic! However, in a while all these misnomers were to be blown away.
The 50’s and 60’s were not good decades for a blossoming gay male, I can tell you. It was even worse if you were growing up in ‘The Shire’ – the southern suburbs of Sydney. The only other things resembling porn I could get at that time were photos of guys in Speedo’s, from the sports pages of the same papers I cut the undie ads from. I did manage to get in some good perving at Speedo-clad guys at the local Carrs Park beach, for if the 60’s had nothing else, it had plenty of guys in Speedos. For this I was eternally grateful, and put the imagery to good use. It did, I should point out, lead to future fetishes.
These were to be my entire concepts of pornography till the early 70’s. Okay, it wasn’t great stuff, but like most potential gay men, I have a pretty fertile imagination, and it didn’t take much to get a fantasy together from the bare minimum of material. Next in the search for gay erotica were muscle mags. Now, you can’t tell me that guys assuming very suggestive poses, in tiny little briefs, aren’t aiming a certain amount of their appeal to gay guys! I used to hunt around my local newsagent, watching for that rare break when there were no customers at the counter. I would be waiting in the wings with a newspaper and muscle mags of choice, safely – and discreetly, or so I thought – tucked under it. I would, with bated breath, slink to the cash register to pay for my treasures, already the slight hint of a hard-on throbbing in the jeans at the prospect of the session that lay ahead of me at home. That there was this scrawny little 15-year-old, with not a muscle to be seen, buying the entire current collection of muscle mags – which weren’t cheap, I should point out – was an anomaly that never crossed my mind. I think the newsagent was probably more interested in the cash, though I’m also sure this customer scenario must have been a common one. My beach perving continued, and my hidden stash of ‘pornography’ grew at an ever-alarming rate.
Praise God, the 70’s also saw the advent of “Cleo” and “Cosmopolitan” magazines. Now, I should point out that I only bought the magazines for ‘the articles’, just as straight men only ever bought “Playboy” and “Penthouse” for the articles. Articles on make-up, the ‘G-Spot’, and photo spreads of women’s fashion were terribly relevant to growing boys – not! My interest in make-up and frocks didn’t actually eventuate till my 80’s drag years. But I digress! The centrefolds were, at least, a legitimate reason to buy a magazine for perve value. Okay, you had to put up with the occasional non-sexual type person like Jack Thompson in the raw, but on the whole, they were pretty hot. The ones in briefs always managed to fill the briefs, and the ones in Speedos did likewise, so I had no complaints. Tidying up some drawers a few years ago, I discovered some tucked away in scrapbooks from the era. How dated it all looked.
I think I bought my first real porn in about 1978 or so. I couldn’t even tell you now where I obtained it from, though it must have taken a lot of guts, because you just did not live in the western suburbs of Sydney in those days, especially Granville, and buy gay porn. I worked in the city, and I imagine I must have picked it up from one of the city newsagents. It wasn’t great stuff on recollection, but hell – a cock was a cock was a cock when you wanted a wank. It was hidden away in my underwear drawer in Granville, and actually became the cause for my being unintentionally ‘outed’. My old man kicked the bucket in 1978 – NOTE: if he used the sexual techniques, suggested in the same books he gave me as sex instruction manuals when I was a kid, I can’t work out, for the life of me, how I came to be conceived! – and I stayed for a brief period at my step-families home in Campbelltown while the funeral etc was arranged. I rang my flatmates in Granville – one of them a mate of mine since I started work – and asked them to pack a bag for me and bring it out to Campbelltown. By the time I remembered what was in the underwear drawer, it was too late. Despite a frantic phone call asking them – can you believe this, because I can’t – to ignore what else was in the drawer – like the men with erect penises, and doing things, I have to say that if shocked, they managed to be very discreet and said nothing. Like they would! I moved temporarily to Melbourne just after this, and they wrote to tell me that they had only suspected I may have been gay prior to that revelation, and they regretted to inform me that I really should write to my mother, as they thought she already knew, and had accidentally outed me to her. Thank you, pornography! Who would have thought that the simple desire for some quiet masturbation could lead to all this drama?
Well, the 80’ improved the pornography situation greatly – as did coming out. I discovered some gay bookstores in Melbourne, and purchasing porn – and other accoutrement – became much easier. I can’t say the quality really got much better, just the quantity. Everything was always wrapped in plastic, and you really couldn’t have a look at it before you bought it, as the shoppies thought – rightly – you were just after a cheap thrill. Often, what was on the cover wasn’t what was inside the mag. You would buy something with this hunky bit of flesh in a jockstrap on the cover – in full colour – and get it home to find it was full of black-and-white photos of some scrawny 18-year-old. Very disillusioning.
I returned to Sydney around 1982, and managed Numbers Bookshop in Darlinghurst for the next 7 years. Can we talk one extreme to another here! From a drawer full of second-class porn mags to a shop full of top quality. Now, let me tell you something. It may have been on tap, but if ever there was a job to kill your desire for porn, it’s working in a sex shop! By the time I left there in 1990, I didn’t want to know about cocks in any state – flaccid, erect, cockringed, jockstrapped, Y-fronted, or shoved up an arse. I stared at it all day, every day, and everyone wondered why I no longer bothered with trade! Ha!
Anyway, everything goes full circle, and my sense of all things perverse returned very quickly after getting out of the sex business. I do have to say that in that period, my magazine and video collection had improved by leaps and bounds, and some of the videos I bought back then are hotter than a lot of the stuff coming out now. This obsession with trying to create a screenplay around a porn scenario has to stop. It just doesn’t work.
Now, I have the Internet. On last count, I had something like 10,000 images downloaded – and that’s only the freebies. Like all decent perverts, I refuse to pay to stare at cock. Hell, they will even email it to you. As I noted in the first paragraph, just don’t have your spam preferences set too high. Not only have I got all these images, they are categorised. If I just want to see stiff cock, I can go to that folder. If I want to see jockstraps or Speedos, hey – they’re separated into folders. I can even be choosy – too skinny, delete it! Not large enough – delete it! Not showing the right amount of enthusiasm when getting fucked – delete it! So now I just have what I want, and in prolific amounts. I still wander down to Ithaca Pool – only 20 minutes from home – for my Speedo perve, but alas, times have changed, and it is the era of the baggy boardshorts. The only thing to gawk at is some sad guy with a saggy arse, in a hot pink G-string. Even the DILF dads don’t flaunt it. I ponder the cruelty of life, and wander back home.
But there has to be a drawback in the search for the ultimate wank, which this profusion of stimulus is helping to define. It is also becoming boring. No longer the furtive search through a newspaper for the right photo; the embarrassment at the newsagents counter as you bought a mag you shouldn’t have; or the surprise of taking off the plastic wrap and finding that the guy on the cover IS inside the magazine. Now, it’s served to you on a tray – all shapes, sizes, fetishes and positions. We have group sex, we have fucking and oral, we have underwear, jockstraps and Speedos, we have leather and latex and drag, we have labourers, cowboys, military and cops. You name it, it’s there somewhere. And somehow along the line, we have lost the mystique of pornography. Our tolerance to the stimulus of pornography is now so high that we almost need the perfect photo to garner a reaction – read ‘hard-on’. In truth, we have spoilt the whole thing. It is no longer perceived as ‘dirty’, so it is no longer fun. It is weird that out of all the images and sets you have, there are possibly only a small number that really captivate you.
This article was first published in the Queer issue of “Vertigo”, the student newspaper at the University of Technology Sydney in 2002. It was published “as is”, though I have edited and cleaned it up since.
I’ve spent most of my life sitting on the sidelines of a radical’s playing field
It’s not that I’ve never had opinions; it’s always been more a matter of having different opinions, and a strong urge not to end up affiliated with the unpopular (read losing) team. So, I’ve shut up and put up where I shouldn’t have; sat back and listened to endless tirades of bullshit sprouted by individuals who have no idea what they are talking about; held a glass to the wall while the downfall of sanity was planned in another room; and watched people selling off or ignoring the weight of sane idealism. White-collar elitists undermining the structures of a blue-collar world!
Perhaps I could carry on like this; perhaps I could continue to use my soapbox as a storage devise for my now unused vinyl collection; arse-end my megaphone and convert it into a vase; or start a petition to sue the growers of marijuana for being inept at keeping me (us) permanently stoned. Nothing can change the fact that these days, I am getting fucked off by just about everything going on around me, and fucked off by having allowed myself to keep quiet for far too long.
When I crashed out of the closet in the early 80’s – at the grand old age of 25 – it was into the perfect environment for a potential dissident – the gay liberation movement. Yeah, let’s hear it for gay rights! Sure, if you can find the time between checking out the latest bar, and keeping your cock in your pants long enough to fight the good fight. Naturally, I sympathised with all the boys out there trying to make life easier for us, and sure, I had an opinion. I just didn’t want the opinion to stand in the way of a good time. Oh, I did write a letter to ‘Campaign’ (newspaper, not magazine back then) defending the rights of guys to look like clones if they wanted to – and accused those who didn’t like it as being ‘cloneophobes’. Nothing like inventing a word! Did I ever feel guilty about this lack of radical action? Sure I did, as someone yelled ‘faggot’ at me as they drove past in a car, or I read in the latest gay rag about the increase in gay bashings in the local ghetto. I even determined that I was going to the next rally, or the next kiss-in, or signing the petition that was sitting in my local pub. The problem was that I had to manage to get past the pub door, or get up before midday, or say no to a bit of trade to accomplish any of these things. So I left it for those guys to do. You know who those guys are! They are the ones who wander from club to pub with the petition that you should sign, but never seem to remember. The guys who always had their photos in the gay papers, as they tried to rally a community to action. The guys who always had letters published in the same gay rags, defending us all against the rantings and ravings of the vocal minority, who saw fit to hold everyone ransom to every other standards of morality than those we accepted as right. Yep, those guys! I admired them, I supported them, fucked if I wasn’t even just a teensy bit envious of them for being so out there, but I mean…I was just a 25-year-old male bimbo with a life to burn. I’m sure they understood!
So, the 80’s passed me by. I never did get to any of the gay rights marches, or the kiss-in arranged by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence on the steps of government house, or the first march, that political pivot point, that was to become Mardi Gras. I did, however, manage to work my way through three relationships, got the clap no less than four times, and found myself trapped in a frantic lifestyle that generally left anyone caught in its vortex an alcoholic, a drug addict, or dead! Even I, from my ivory tower of intellectual snobbery, sprouted from a bar-room stool, should have foreseen the next chance at radicalism – a bigger stage that I could have acted from, another soapbox to yell rousing, unrhymed verses from, finding uses for milk crates other than what we annually used them for – viewing a parade!
No, not even I foresaw HIV. No one knew the devastation, the heart wrenching desolation, the sheer bloody mindlessness of this pandemic like those of us in the middle of the fray. Behold, another opportunity was handed to me, and still I sat back, still took the easy road, still tried to pretend that tomorrow I would do something, tomorrow…
Sure, like many others I put up the pretence of radicalism. I joined the fringes of the AIDS groups, at least long enough to say that I had done my bit, I shouted members of ACT-UP a drink if they happened to be in the same bar as me after a demonstration; I unfolded quilt panels; attended auctions to raise money; visited the sick and dying in hospital; ranted, again, that everybody was doing something except those who should; then took myself off to the local and again, got my priorities right from my bar stool in the corner. Let it never be said I didn’t have an opinion – it was just aimed at the wrong ears. When I realised it was no longer good enough to fight this battle this way, it was almost too late, and the white-collar elitists had almost kidnapped the whole epidemic to their own benefit.
There is nothing quite like a degree, nothing quite like a network of those in the know to give people a sense of wisdom beyond that of everyone else. It was time to act! Enough of pub politics, opinions whispered into the crotch of the latest bit of trade, the mind numbing importance of yet another drink – like I really needed it – or another joint, or another tab of acid. Life leeching away at the speed of the next line of coke. I had a frightening experience – I got ill. I had another, more life altering experience – I survived the illness. I had the most frightening experience of all – I got older! When I think of all the frightening things that have happened in my life, perhaps the latter was the most frightening of all. Years flying past at the speed of light.
So, like Lazarus, I arose from the dead, marched from the hospital ward and back onto the streets. It’s too late, I kept thinking to myself. It’s too bloody late and you’ve missed the fucking boat. But no, it’s not too late. In an age of complacency and burn-out, there is time still for a yet-to-be-a-has-been radical. I find myself at a rally in support of equal age of consent for gay and straight men, not quite comprehending what makes one sector of the community more irresponsible than the other in terms of sex. All I really find is that the era of great radicals has passed, and no one seems to be moving up the ranks to fill their Doc Martens. The rally leaves me feeling flat, wondering where all the great bullhorn vocalists have gone! Even the turnout is small compared to those of the 80’s. There was no value in rallies and parades anymore. As far as these forms of radicalism go, perhaps I have missed the boat.
I join the underground world of working groups, sub-committees and networkers, and at last started to find the missing flame of righteous indignation. The written word is something I am more than proficient at, and my letter writing on anything from ugly McDonalds advertising to condom use – and misuse – becomes prolific. I discover the hidden world of ‘the article’, and start to churn them out by the zillions. I discuss, initially, disease and its impact on life, but soon find myself drawn to the palliative issues of illness, and how best to survive in a world that barely recognises your existence. Public speaking is my next step up in this alien world, and I suddenly start to realise that it is not too late to be a dissident. You just need the right soap-box at the right place and the right time. Being there when something is happening doesn’t mean that you have to act on it. Sometimes, coming in through the backdoor can be much more beneficial.
Now, as I enter the noughties, I am finding the dissident gene that I thought was missing for so long. I joined groups, both community and university orientated, and feel that in some small ways, I am making a difference. Perhaps more importantly, I am no longer just focused on the smaller issue of HIV, but see potential for being a voice in all areas of disability. What achievements and benefits I obtain for myself I also obtain for others, and vice versa. Make a difference? You bet your balls you can. Shout, yell, scream, demand. Send emails and annoy people until they are sick to death of the sight of you. By the time they reach this stage, they are willing to listen to what you say. Be patient, be diligent, be aggravating. Trust me on this. I do it regularly, and yes, things are happening – perhaps not as quickly as I would like, but they are happening. In many respects, it has given me an alternative view. I used to wonder what the attraction was – name in the paper, photographs at rallies, police record – and like most others, I thought they really just craved attention. Now, when I see a set of stairs being marked so vision impaired people can see them clearly, when I see adverts for note-takers in lectures for the same people, when lighting is fixed in badly lit areas, or just an advert in a lecture about a disability meeting in a faculty, I know what it was that they obtained from all their vocalising and protests. It is that feeling of having done something for the greater good, and that is something you can do whether you are 16 or 60, gay or straight.
Feeling peeved? Pick up your soapbox. Find a patch of grass or asphalt big enough for a captive audience. Raise your megaphone high…and SCREAM!
(This article was originally published for World AIDS Day 2005. It is, with no modesty, the most powerful piece I have ever written. Written with love, it took me the longest time – about 2 months – to write. It is also the piece I have shed the most tears over. I received a huge amount of positive feedback from it, and nearly everyone who has read it has cried. I don’t know that the tears were over my stories so much, but rather that they had similar stories invoked by the writing. I have always hated the introduction to the snippets, and have taken this opportunity to totally rewrite it.)
Anyone who has been observing or participating in the Lost Gay (Insert your state) groups on Facebook would realise the immense value of collective memory. Writers, historians and archivists can churn out volume after volume on gay history, but nothing can match the real stories that come from individuals who lived within the community through its various phases. I personally submitted a tome of comments, stories, reflections and recollections – not to mention a plethora of photos – on other peoples submissions to the Sydney group. It was an energising, amusing, often happy, sometimes sad experience reliving what was, for me, a formative part of my life, and a period of gay history that was positive and empowering as a community.
No recollections of the 80s and 90s can skirt around or avoid the impact of HIV/AIDS on our lives. Indeed, reading through the groups posting on lost friends drove home the nightmare, the immense loss, the sorrow and the stories flowing from those of us left behind. It was a beautiful experience, and more than a few tears were shed. It also informed some of losses they had not been aware of. A friend of mine actually died during this period and his memorium was in real-time instead of being enclosed in the pages of a local paper.
HIV/AIDS was relentless and soul-destroying. There is nothing more helpless than being in the midst of all this obliteration and knowing there is absolutely nothing you can do. Many of us stood, stunned, and watched our entire social circle written off the face of the earth. It didn’t discriminate, it offered no mercy or compassion. Death and dying became an event that, even for those who left for nether regions, could not escape from. To write this piece, I have had to dig into photo albums not opened for years (with photos of groups of friends where not a single person is still alive), delve back into long buried memories. It was like a dam breaking. I cried, and cried and cried. Perhaps long overdue, it proved cathartic.
But the same question was being asked as I wrote – what of those who survived the carnage and live with its aftermath? However we have managed to come to terms with it, we are all scarred. Triggers are never far away – a photo, a memory, a casual conversation can produce a flood of emotion. So we learnt to tuck it away, to cope, to avoid. But how do we really feel about our survival? How do we place ourselves? What role have we adopted as a coping mechanism? Are we “long term survivors” (Like or lump the terminology)? Do we have “survivor guilt”? Are we in denial? “Victims of circumstance”? Or was it just “the luck of the draw”! Or have we found other ways to redefine ourselves! How ever we see ourselves there is one thing we can’t deny – we are the holders of all our departed friends memories,; the secrets that endeared them to us; their little irks and quirks. I have come to define myself as a Storyteller, and as a writer I could write tomes on all my departed friends lives, I could bash your ears for hours, and bore you to the point of sleep. But I won’t.
I have chosen the lives of three close friends to write about “in a nutshell”. This is not a biography about them. It is a random thought, that one thing that springs to mind when their name is invoked, that short story or snippet of their lives.
These are three people I love, three people I deeply miss. Their memories are jewels in my mind, are stars at night. I hope they glow and twinkle for you!
Andrew Keith Todd
4 February 1962 – 26 December 1986
“I am white lightening and protecting you all.”
Andrew was, to give a modern comparison, a Hobbit. He would laugh uproariously if he knew I had drawn that comparison.
I met Andrew when I was the manager of ‘Numbers’ Bookshop, which was one of ‘those’ sex shops on Oxford St. He didn’t actually work for me, but for the ‘Hellfire Club’ – later to become ‘The Den Club’ – a Club 80-style sex venue next door to ‘Numbers’, both owned by the same guy. I can never recollect seeing Andrew when he wasn’t smiling, or laughing, or doing someone a favour. He was one of those easy-going guys who was liked by everyone. He was also one of the first people I knew to become seriously ill from AIDS. We knew so little about it back then that I don’t think anyone, including Andrew, was particularly perturbed.
Over a period of about 6 months, we could see his health slowly deteriorating, weight loss being the most frightening symptom on someone his size. Shortly after that, his hospital stays started – or in his words, “just going in for a bit of a rest”. He was in and out quite regularly for the 6 months leading up to his death, with each outstay getting shorter and shorter. Several months before his death, the stay became permanent. There was no dedicated AIDS ward back in those dark days, so he would be placed in a ward for a while, then if the bed was required by someone else, he was moved down to A&E (St Christopher’s ward) until another bed became available. He had the dubious distinction of being one of our first HIV guinea pigs, suffering the discomfort of loads of antibiotics to try to help the PCP, and dozens of lumbar punctures as medical staff tried to work out how best to treat him. His back looked like a pincushion.
A couple of months before he died, he had been invited to Gareth Paull’s 1986 theme party “Green With Envy”. It was a blokes only party at Darling Point, and you had to wear drag. My reputation for doing “gutter” drag was well established, so Andrew asked me to accompany him, and help with his outfit. As you can see from the photo, he was very thin. I was so glad that I went with him, and that he enjoyed himself so much. It was the last party he attended.
By December 1986, we all knew he didn’t have all that long to go. Despite his constant good humour, his downhill slide was becoming more and more obvious. He looked dreadful! A Christmas lunch had been arranged by friends living at Glebe on Christmas Day that year. We called into St Vincent’s on our way there to deliver Christmas gifts to him. ‘I won’t die today,’ he said to me as we were about to leave. ‘I don’t want to ruin your Christmas’. Christmas lunch was a quiet, tense affair with everyone jumping every time the phone rang. But he kept his word.
I had to work on Boxing Day – sex doesn’t recognise public holidays. The rest of our friends were at a party in Darlinghurst. I received a phone call in the early afternoon to say Andrew had died, and then had to put a dampener on the party with a phone call. There was a huge wake that night at “The Oxford’, the first of many to come.
His funeral was held at Eastern Suburbs Crematorium, and at the exact moment that the curtains were closing in front of the coffin, every door in the crematorium chapel suddenly slammed shut.
He still managed the last laugh. In his will, he bequeathed me the books I had lent him to read in hospital.
Andrew was 24-years-old. He has no lasting memorial.
Stuart “Stella” Law
Died 1992
“Riding in my pink Cadillac”
My dear friend, how I still miss you! The mental image I have of you dressed in miles of pink tulle frou-frou, trying to not slide off the bonnet of that pink Cadillac as you were driven up Sims St in Darlo, to the sound of Stephanie Mills belting out “Pink Cadillac”, will stay with me forever. How we laughed! You were always such a ‘laydee’!
I had originally tried to pick Stuart up in ‘The Oxford’ one afternoon, but we had spent ages chatting, and the next thing I knew…we were friends. We proceeded to spend the next couple of years doing gutter drag together. How we turned this town on its ear! For those not familiar with the term ‘gutter drag’, imagine huge wigs, over-the-top make-up, miles of lurex and tulle, and body hair for days.
Never one to shun the spotlight, he could be seen doing mime shows at ‘The Oxfords” Egyptian-themed birthday party in 1987, and doing an impromptu performance at my ‘Nuns, Priests and Prostitutes’ party in 1988. My dining table centrepiece was never quite the same after that performance. We did our last drag gig together in 1990. I have a photo of him sitting in my apartment taking his false nails off, and there is a look of true sadness on his face. There was something wrong, and Stella wasn’t letting on!
When he had to quit work, he finally told me he was HIV+. He became a regular at the ‘Maitraya’ Centre – a forerunner to the Positive Living Centre – and he was not one to say no to a free service! This was a bad period for all of us.
In 1992, far too many died. Stuart was placed in the Sacred Heart Hospice. He looked as though he was just wasting away. I went to visit him one night, and lay on the bed with him, just holding him. There wasn’t a lot else we could do, even then. The hospice cat paid a fleeting visit. It came time to go, and I started walking towards the elevators. I remember this overwhelming compulsion to turn around. Stuart was watching me through the door, and suddenly I just knew that I would never see him again. I never did. He died that night.
“Like a soul without a mind In a body without a heart I’m missing every part”
Stuart’s life is celebrated on AIDS Quilt panel 057006.along with others from Maitraya
Geoffrey Gordon Smith
7 June 1943 – 9 June 1991
“The Sentimental Bloke”
Famous for their ‘Port and Cheese’ parties, Geoff and his partner Steve were the Hosts Supreme, and entertained many of us in style from their converted shop in Glebe. Geoff was without doubt the last of the true blue gentlemen. With never a bad word to say about anybody, he always had a joke to hand out, a smile that never stopped, and was generous to a fault. Need to move house? Geoff would be there in a flash with his van. Need a lift? Just give him a call.
At one function at their home, a stray cat suddenly appeared on the roof overlooking the yard. We managed to coax it down using Cabanosi and cheese, and noted that it was undoubtedly a stray, as it was very thin, and had some sort of skin ailment. Geoff spent all afternoon trying to shoo it away – if only he’d known that we kept coaxing it back with little tidbits. Later that night, Geoff rang me at home and said the cat was still hanging around the yard. A week later, the cat had been taken to the vet to get its skin cleared up, and had taken over one of the chairs in the lounge room. That was Geoff through and through.
He and Steve as The Minister and Mrs Smith made several appearances at parties over the years. The minister was always well behaved, but Mrs Smith had some problems with the sherry. In early 1991, in an attempt to control the rapidly on-setting symptoms of AIDS, Geoff went to a quack – used in its literal sense – dietician, and was presented with a diet that was principally meat with little else. I didn’t really approve, as I couldn’t see the benefits of it, but Geoff insisted that theoretically it could work, so it was left at that. His health deteriorated quite rapidly from that point.
He died in June 1991.
I stayed over at Glebe after his funeral, and late that night Steve climbed into bed with me and cuddled up. ‘I just don’t know what I’m going to do,’ he said. ‘I just miss him so much’.
All these years along and he is still missed. I am privileged to have had a hand in helping to make his quilt panel.
This is dedicated to my brother, whose life was far too short, and whose sudden death was the result of ignorance, intolerance and hate. I hope I give you a voice. I miss you! Your loving brother Robert. 13/8/1958 – 8/12/1965 R.I.P.
In 2001 I attended the University of Technology in Sydney to obtain my degree In writing. One of my tutorials involved doing a journalism piece on someone you knew. I chose to do my piece, against all reasoned advise, on Kevin’s death. It was the first time in 36 years that Kevin’sname had been uttered in public. It was an emotional and empowering moment.
Kevin (left) and Robert
Every family has skeletons, though not all are hidden away in closets. Some skeletons are the products of a particular age, a time when the proprieties of life seem to be more important than the actions going on around it. The 60’s was such a time. People, scarred from the effects of World War II, stuck in the time warp of 40’s and 50’s formality and etiquette, often made choices that today would be seen as unhealthy and strange, yet within that time frame were seen as normal. Looking back on those days, I can only see injustice and despair, a claustrophobic covering up of events that have, for me, never been reconciled. Kevin’s death should never have happened…but it did! The only story most people who remember these events know is the account from the newspapers of the day. As much as they tell a story of the events that occurred at Sylvania and The Gap on the 8th December 1965 – and the weeks after – there is another more personal story told through the eyes of an 11-about-to-turn-twelve year old – my story. So this is the background account of Kevin’s death, the warts and all story of what actually happened, and nobody but me knows.
BACKGROUND
Kevin was born on the 13th August 1958, the second and youngest son of Frederick Lindsay Pickhills (nicknamed Joe to avoid confusion with his father and grandfather, also named Frederick) and Betty Merle née Barron. At the time of his birth the family lived at 69 Melrose Ave, Sylvania. Initially, there was nothing exceptional about his birth, other than him having blond hair and blue eyes – a throwback to his maternal grandfathers line. Being only 5 myself at the time of his birth, I have no recollection of what I felt about having a younger brother, though as time moved on we developed a very strong sibling relationship. I know that we can often tend to sugar-coat our upbringings, but life in Sylvania at that particular time was idyllic. We had a comfortable home on a huge block of land, which was cheap in this newly developing suburb in the Sutherland Shire. Our father built the house himself, and at the time of my birth in January 1954 the family was living in the garage while the house went up.
Like many growing suburbs at that time the community spirit was strong, and our neighbors were all friendly and supportive. Though not a religious family – Joe was Catholic and Betty was Methodist – we were involved with the Sylvaia Heights Congregational Church, at least as attendees at the Sunday service and Sunday school, though it was never forced down our throats. Bert and Eadie Samways, who lived directly opposite us, were stalwarts of the church,and acted as Godparents to both Kevin and myself. We both attended Sylvania Heights Infants school, and I then moved onto the Primary school. If you add our faithful and much loved dog Trixie into the mix, on the surface we had a normal, happy family life.
The much loved and still missed Trixie
Frederick Lindsay Pickhills
Frederick Lindsay was born at Chatswood, New South Wales, on the 10th July 1922 to Frederick George Rickinson Pickhills and Ethel Osmond, both from Bourke. He was the second-eldest child of four siblings, and the only male. His sisters are Dorothy Ellen, Dulcie Margaret and Eileen Lucy. I know little about his younger years other than that he was trained as a motor mechanic and a carpenter, two trades he was proficient in till the day he died. Photographs of the young (and the older) Frederick are few and far between, though what I do have show a man who was perhaps happier pre-war than post-war. There are photographs of him in overalls outside a garage where he worked during the 30’s; in Army uniform, and with his slightly cocked hat shows quite a handsome man; a casual photo in shorts; a small photo with his three sisters as youngsters: on a motor bike with a friend, a personal passion until a serious accident in the late 50’s; a lovely photograph with my mother that looks very 40’s; and a wedding photograph outside the church they were married in. He never, ever spoke about his military service and I have no idea of how his war experiences affected him other than that, apart from taking me to several ANZAC day marches, he never really approved of this wartime celebration and had nothing to do with his war comrades.
However, I do have his war record and know that he enlisted at the Martin Place Recruiting Depot in Sydney on the 3rd of November 1941. His army number is NX50073. He had obviously lied about his age (he was 19 at the time of enlistment) as it is listed as 21 and three months which is then struck through and his true age inserted. He is listed as being single and a motor mechanic. A surprising find on the Attestation Form is his next of kin, noted as a Norman Emmanuel, who lived in Hillside Flats in Elizabeth St, Artarmon., and is an uncle. It is odd that he didn’t have a parent with him, and I have absolutely no idea who this supposed relative is. He took his oath of allegiance on the same day. There are small front and side photo’s at the bottom of the form. I also have his Army driving license no. 246312 which shows his rank as CFN (Craftsman), and lists the vehicle types he could drive. I also have his Record of Service Book which tells us he was 5’91/2″, weighed 131 lbs, had a 331/2″ chest, fair complexion, light brown hair, hazel eyes and a small scar right frontal region. He had qualified on the firing range, had done a motor mechanics course, he appears to have been appointed as a mechanic in 1941, and was a tester of motor vehicles in 1943. I’m of the thinking that he was a driving instructor. There is a listing of his leave, including in New Guinea and Borneo up till his discharge. We know he passed a chest x-ray in 1941. As for medals he received the 1939/45 Star, and the Pacific Star. His next of kin is listed here as Ethel Pickhills (mother) at 14 Saywell St, Chatswood. We also have all his Proceedings for Discharge, Determination of Demobilisation Priority, his Service and Casualty Forms and a copy of his Certificate of Discharge No. 401253 which informs us that No. NX50073 Craftsman Frederick Lindsay Pickhills of the 2/53 Aust Light Aid Detachment served on continuous full-time war service in the Australian Imperial Force from 3/11/1941 to 14/2/1946 for a total effective period of 1,565 days which included Active Service in Australia for 819 days and outside Australia for 584 days. He received the War Badge R.A.S. No. A.234189 and that he was discharged from the AIF on 14/2/1946.
I believe that the Australia he returned to was not the Australia he left, and I don’t think he ever came to terms with that. He maintained his 1940’s attitudes throughout the rest of his life, which made him a difficult father, as he could never reconcile himself to a more contemporary age. No wonder I rebelled. He never claimed his military service medals. I have recently applied to get them.
Joe was a motor mechanic by trade. During my childhood he worked for H.C, Sleigh (Golden Fleece) at Matraville, and did a lot of shift work. Betty was a housewife, and in the restricted community of Sylvania, large retail stores and cinemas were some distance away, in Miranda, Caringbah or Hurstville. She must often have felt that the life was being choked out of her. Mind you, raising two boys in this environment would not have been all that difficult. It was considered a safe area, somewhere that you could turn the kids out in the morning, leave them to play and run wild, only seeing them at lunch and when you finally called them in for dinner. With everyone knowing everyone there was nowhere you could go in the course of the day where there wasn’t someone to see you. Though Joe was the principal disciplinarian, Betty was not afraid to wield the feather duster or the wooden spoon. Joe’s temper could be flashpoint and this resulted in several instances of punishment where things went a little past what would have been considered reasonable. Two occasions stand out, one involving Kevin and one me. Kevin had been caught shoplifting some sweets from the local shop – what kid didn’t at least try this? Both Joe and Betty decided he needed to be taught a serious lesson, so they took him into the kitchen and held his hands over the element on the stove and threatened to turn it on. I was horrified, and ran screaming into the neighbors place, shouting hysterically that they were going to burn Kevin’s hands. They weren’t serious, but I have never forgotten it. On the occasion with me I had gone to buy some light globes from another local store and had spent three pence from the change on some sweets…without permission. My father cornered me in the hallway, and hoed into me with a belt until I was cowered and screaming. Again, neighbors came running to find out what was going on. This flashpoint temper was to pay a heavy price on my brother.
A classic and beautiful photo of Betty
By the time Kevin was at an age where he should have been talking it became increasingly obvious that something wasn’t quite right with him. His language was garbled, and unlike me he had difficulty picking up the basics of reading, writing and drawing. He was easily distracted, and could fly into serious temper tantrums. I seemed to be the one who could communicate easilywith him, and could quite clearly understand his garbled talk, to the point where our parents used me as a translator. It was through my pstience that he was taught nursery rhymes. It never occurred to me that he had a learning disability, and I often heard him being described as a slow learner. Truth be told, if he had been born a bit later, when learning problems in young children were better understood, he would have been diagnosed with ADHD. Because ADHD (ADD) was unknown at that time, children suffering such an illness were thought to be slow, retarded or dim-witted. I knew my brother was none of these. You just needed to spend time and patience with him. I remember sitting on the kitchen floor with him reciting bits of nursery rhymes to him over and over until he got the whole rhyme down pat.
In early 1965 Betty left home. There seemed to be no warning, no reason for her going. Kevin and I went to school one morning, and when we arrived home it was to an empty house. She left a note for my father but he never disclosed its contents. None of the neighbors appear to have seen her going, and she cleaned out both our money boxes, and our Commonwealth Bank savings accounts. I recollect my father quizzing us on who, if anyone, had visited and had anything strange been happening. We had no answers for him. I reconnected with Betty fourteen years later after Joe’s death and she assured me that she had not left for another man. My fathers inattention to her, his obsession with work, his inability to socialise, and the increasing isolation were primary motivators, though she also inferred that Joe had made some rather kinky sexual suggestion to her (kinky to her way of thinking at any rate) and at that point she decided to go. Initially she wanted to take us kids with her, but with having no job, and with no secure roof over her head she decided we would be better off with Joe. She would soon regret that decision.
So life at 69 Melrose Ave carried on minus our mother. Neighbors helped out with washing and ironing and meals. Joe acted as though nothing had happened – he was good at that – and proceeded to cut her out of every family photograph, and telling us kids that she was never to be spoken about in the house – another thing he was good at. Sooner or later something had to give.
Where Nancy Thompson and her son, Stephen, came from I do not know, and never will. She blew into our lives like a foul wind from hell, and everything we had ever known was about to change as a result of her paranoia and hate. Like everything that went on in our family, neither her arriving just after Betty left in 1965, nor her leaving around 1970, was ever spoken about. Did she get hired from a newspaper ad for a housekeeper? Was she a friend of someone Joe knew? Was Joe having some sort of affair with her? All questions which, this far down the line, will never be answered. Considering that Joe never seemed to have any spare cash for Betty to even occasionally indulge herself, I don’t know where he got the money from to pay a housekeeper, even with food and board being taken out of the equation.
But arrive she did, turning up with Joe one night. She took one look at Kevin and myself, I took one look at her (Kevin would not have understood what was going on) and the battle lines were drawn. To me, she was an unwelcome interloper, who should have been no more than a maid. To her, we were the two brats that she had to contend with and she was not going to make life easy for. And she certainly didn’t! The next few months were to be a real eye-opener for Kevin and I, and because of his shift work, Joe was to be totally oblivious too. Our idyllic life in Sylvania was at an end.
The first inkling to me that something odd was going on occurred within the first week of her arrival. Being a two bedroom home, Nancy was given the divan in the sunroom to sleep on. She progressed from the divan to the master bedroom within that first week. Now, I was pretty ignorant of the whole mechanics of sex, and it’s intricacies, but I was not comfortable with this. It seemed that mum had suddenly been replaced by this interloper. It felt…bad! The transition happened so naturally and smoothly that, later down the line, I was left wondering just what sort of relationship she and Joe had prior to her arrival in Sylvania. It was certainly more than plutonic, and certainly did not seem to be something casual in nature. The second strange thing was the sudden ban on Kevin and myself visiting the neighbours, including the Samways, whom we had always been close to. Within a couple of months she had effectively turned 69 Melrose Ave into a fort, and surprisingly Joe didn’t seem to object. We were no longer allowed to play with the neighbours kids, and had to go directly to school, and return directly home. Even relatives were told they were not welcome. And then she showed her true colours.
What Nancy’s agenda was, what she hoped to gain, or why she acted as she did I do not know. Whether she had a grudge against the world, some sort of hatred of children, an inability to deal with disabilities, or whether she was just a dictatorial bitch, who liked to exercise power and control over people who could not stand up for themselves, are again all questions that cannot now be answered. I was relatively safe from her vindictiveness, as I could sort of see through her, and would stand up for myself if I needed to. However, Kevin wasn’t so lucky, and I wasn’t able to defend him in the face of her onslaught. Every single thing that Kevin did wrong in the course of the day, was added to the nightly litany of complaints that she proudly (not an exaggeration) rattled off to Joe when he arrived home in the afternoon. Kevin was constantly being disciplined for things that, in the general day-to-day lives of most kids, would have been considered trivial or inconsequential, just kids being kids. I knew it was no use going up against her and telling Joe that she was a spiteful bitch, exaggerating these incidents. This was the mid-60s and the edicts of “children should be seen and not heard” were still strongly entrenched. In fact, if you were a child your opinion mattered not at all, and this was never truer than when the court case regarding my custody came up a short time later. So she nagged, and she nagged and she nagged, so I guess that in the passage of time, sooner or later something was bound to happen. With Joe’s unstable control,on his temper, it wouldn’t take much to trigger a response!
The 8th December 1965. Christmas was only 17 days away!
On the day of Kevin’s death I can recall absolutely nothing that was out of the ordinary. We both had library books that needed to be returned to Sylvania Library, and I remember that Joe came home from work sometime around 3.30 or 4.00 in the afternoon. We had already had baths, and were both in pyjamas and dressing gowns. We must have had dinner, and Joe drove us to the library. I can even recollect him chatting to the librarian while we picked out books to borrow. He then drove us back home and here was where things got very strange.
Pulling up outside the house, he reached across me and opened my door. “You go on inside,” he said. “if Nancy wants to know where your brother is, tell her I’m taking him to see a man”. With that, I got out of the car…puzzled, I have to say…and went into the house as they drove off. Now that wasn’t the exact message I passed onto Nancy. With relatives not welcome – I dare say they wouldn’t have wanted to visit anyway – Dulcie had told Joe that if he wanted to see them (her and Jack, that is), he would have to visit them. Not being able to think of any other man Joe would have taken Kevin to see, other than Jack, that is where I told her they went. After Kevin’s death, she accused me of being the cause of his death. She claimed that if I had told her exactly what Joe had said, she would have known exactly what he was going to do. I later realised that this was just not true, and even if she had known that something was going to happen, she would have had no knowledge of where or when. However, I carried the guilt of this accusation for many years after.
I would have gone to bed and read as usual, then off to sleep, though I do remember wondering when Kevin would get back home. The next thing I knew was being awakened by someone knocking on the front door. I knew it was late, and looking across at Kevin’s bed I noticed it was still empty. Stephen, Nancy’s son, had stayed over and was sleeping on the divan in the sunroom. I Gould hear him and Nancy talking to someone at the door for quite sometime. After the visitor (the police, as it turned out) left I heard them come down the hall and paused outside the room. I feigned sleep. They came in, woke me, and told me that the police had just visited and Kevin was dead. I couldn’t comprehend what that was about, didn’t understand what had happened. When I asked how, I was told that Joe had jumped over The Gap with him, that my father was okay but they hadn’t been able to find Kevin. It was left at that until the next morning. By the time I got up it was big news. All the radio news programs had it as a lead item, and evidently the papers had it as well. I listened to the radio news over and over. I think I was hoping that it would suddenly change. Nancy told me that I was being a ghoul listening to it every time it came on, and she then banned the radio news. Very sympathetic of her! Then the lines of neighbours and friends started. Nancy ensured that no one stepped into the house nor got beyond the side passage gate. I remember being in the yard and Mrs Rodgerson (our neighbour) called me to the fence. She was in tears and needed to know that what she heard was true. Then the reporters started knocking and it was at that stage we stopped answering the door. Nancy eventually gave the reporters her version of things, and I also got side-lined at one stage and told what little I had to tell. For the next two weeks there was always a reporter hanging around somewhere outside, and it was a little like being ambushed. I used the back fence to get to the local shop, which fortunately joined our property at the rear of the yard.
From here, I’ll let the newspaper reports – in chronological order – tell the story.
Betty and Joe in happier days
A Media Timeline of Events
I originally intended to abridge the media accounts of Kevin’s death, but on reading through them, changed my mind. The style of the reportage, the descriptive nature of it regarding things like names and clothing, the discrepancies regarding things like cliff height and injuries to my father, and the general changes to the story over several days makes for both fascinating reading, and raises more questions than it answers. It also demonstrates how often one paper had a news item at the time of printing, and others didn’t. I have added the actual newspaper cuttings at the end of this story. They give “atmosphere”, being in the style and format of the day. I was staggered at the sheer volume of reportage on the event. I knew nothing of this at the time.
DAILY MIRROR; Thursday December 9, 1965, Front Page HEADLINE: Boy Push Over Cliff BYLINE: Police probe man’s story REPORTER: William Jenkings, police reporter
PHOTOGRAPHS: Head shot of Kevin
Police today resumed their search for the body of a seven-year-old boy who they believe was pushed over The Gap last night.
The search began after the boy’s father, his clothing soaking wet, staggered into Vaucluse police station and told of the most amazing Gap tragedy police have ever investigated.
Police allege the man said he pushed his son Kevin over The Gap because he loved him and wanted to spare him further unhappiness.
Seconds later, according to police, the man said he jumped himself.
He said he felt himself hit the water and realised he had not been injured
He climbed up onto the rocks and then climbed a rope ladder used by fishermen to the top of the cliff. “Picked on”
Police at first did not believe his amazing story.
Dets. M. Hume and M. Vecera questioned him for about three hours.
He had become very unhappy and took in a housekeeper to look after them
He decided yesterday to kill himself and the seven-year-old boy because the lad was being “picked on”.
He drove to The Gap, climbed inside the safety fence and told his boy to follow him.
The boy at first was hesitant, the man’s story continued, then accepted his father’s assurance that everything was alright.
The man said he went to a spot near the top and said “Come and have a look at this”.
The father said, according to police, that while the boy was looking over he got behind him and pushed him.
He said the lad fell to his death without making a sound.
The father, according to police, said he then jumped himself.
Police said that the man said at first that he had jumped with his seven-year-old in his arms. However, he later changed this report.
The man was taken over his story time and again by the detectives.
He was quite sober and held his composure most of the time.
He broke down and cried when his sister came to the police station. She wept too.
After a check showed that the man had suffered no serious injury he was then taken to Paddington police station and lodged in a cell.
Checking the man’s story detectives went to his house and found the seven-year-old boy was missing.
THE SUN: Thursday December 9th, 1965, Page 2 HEADLINE: Search For Boy’s Body BYLINE: Father’s Story of Gap Fall; “Just Went Over” PHOTOGRAPHS: Rear window shot of police car with detective on left, and Frederick on the right, wrapped in a blanket with his hand over his head. Caption reads ‘ A detective and a man who claims he fell over The Gap with his son arrive at St. Vincent’s hospital in a police car.
A wide police search is under way for a seven-year-old boy whose father claims to have fallen with him 200 feet over a cliff at The Gap last night.
Detectives questioned the father, a 43-year-old mechanic, for eight hours and, at 4.15 a.m. today,, charged him with vagrancy.
Police hold grave fears for the boy’s safety and have circulated his description throughout N.S.W.
He is 3ft 8in tall, of solid build, with fair hair and complexion.
When he drove off with his father from a suburban home yesterday evening, the boy was wearing shortie pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers.
At 8.15 p.m yesterday the father, who has a crippled leg, limped into Vaucluse police station.
His white shirt and grey trousers were wringing wet and he had cuts on his hands and arms.
He appeared deeply distressed.
He told Constable Fred Kelhear, “Injust went over The Gap with my son…he’s seven.”
The father said he had come from his home with the boy and climbed over the cliff safety fence with the youngster in his arms.
Together they had fallen over the 200ft cliff, he told Constable Kelhear.
In the fall, he had lost his grip on the boy, the father said.
According to Constable Kelhear, the man said he had expected to fall on rocks and be killed.
Instead, he landed in a wave and survived.
He said he got back to the rocks and climbed up the fisherman’s rope ladder in the darkness.
Constable Kelhear called in Detectives M. Vecera and M. Hume, Rose Bay, who closely questioned the man.
At The Gap, the father pointed out the spot where he had fallen.
At St. Vincent’s Hospital doctors found that he was not seriously hurt.
Doctors expressed the opinion to the police that a 200ft fall would have expected to cause more serious injuries.
Check at the boy’s home revealed that the youngster disappeared with his father at 6.50 p.m. yesterday.
The Police Rescue Squad, under Sgt. R. Tyson, searched the rocks below The Gap.
Police from Vaucluse, Bondi, Rose Bay and Paddington explored the cliff top area using torches.
The Army supplied a powerful arc lamp.
Police launch Delaney patrolled the sea area throughout the night. “BROTHER”
The boy’s 10-year-old brother today said;
“We got home from school just after 3.30 p.m.
“Dad came home from work about 3.45 p.m.
“At 5.45, Dad took us in his car to the local library.
“My brother was in his pyjamas…they are pale blue…but he had his blue and grey dressing gown on, too.
“We got four books at the library and came back home.
“When we got to the front of our place, Dad said to me ‘You get out and go inside…I’m going to take your brother to see a man.’
“Dad just drove off. I didn’t see them again.
The housekeeper, who cares for the boys at the home, said the boy’s father had a crippled leg and would find it difficult to climb.
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD; Friday December 10th, 1965, Page 4 HEADLINE: Gap Plunge Report BYLINE: No Trace of Boy
Police yesterday found no trace if a seven-year-old boy they believe may have plunged to his death over The Gap on Wednesday night.
The boy’s father had told police an extraordinary story.
He said he survived when both he and the boy both fell 180 feet from the cliff top.
The man, 43, is separated from his wife and has a second son in a housekeeper’s care.
Dripping wet, and with some minor scratches, he staggered into Vaucluse police station on Wednesday night and gasped that his son, Kevin, was at the bottom of The Gap.
He said that he himself had been saved when he landed in the water and was washed over the rocks.
He said he had scrambled to the cliff top up a rope used by fishermen.
As the Police Rescue Squad searched at the base of the cliff yesterday and Water Police vessels searched close to the rocks, the missing boys description was issued to all police stations.
But no trace of the boy has been found.
The Rescue Sqyad led by Sergeant Ray Tyson called off the search at midday and will make another search today.
The police believe that if the boy did die in a fall over The Gap, his body might not be found for several days if it was washed to sea or wedged under rocks.
They said it might never be found. Body found but not boys
During yesterday’s search the Rescue Squad did discover a body – one the police had not suspected was there.
It was that of Bernard Kenny, 35, of Bondi.
It is believed Kenny fell from the cliff top on Wednesday night when their search for the missing boy was being organised.
His body was found only 100 feet from where the missing boy is said to have fallen.
HEADLINE: (Same Page) Man On Vagrancy Charge
A 43-year-old mechanic appeared in Paddington Court of Petty Sessions yesterday on a charge of vagrancy.
He is Frederick Lindsay Pickhill ( N.B. lack if ‘s’) of Melrose Ave, Sylvania.
Pickhill was charged with having insufficient lawful means of support, at Vaucluse on Wednesday.
Mr. F. Hale, S.M remanded him until December 16.
Pickhill appeared before the Court barefooted and wore only a pair of trousers.
With a grey blanket wrapped around him, he shivered violently while in the court.
Pickhill did not apply for bail.
DAILY MIRROR: Friday December 10th, 1965, Page 3 HEADLINE: Mother Prays Son Alive BYLINE: Gap Death Story REPORTER: Oliver Hogue
The anguished mother of Kevin, the seven-year-old boy police believe was pushed over The Gap on Wednesday night, said today she was praying he was still alive.
“As long as they don’t find his body I can hope,” she sobbed.
“Perhaps he wasn’t pushed over The Gap and is wandering around somewhere.”
Kevin’s mother, a slight brunette in her 30’s, wept again as she said “I tried to see my other boy today but they said he wasn’t there.” Father’s Story
She said she and her husband had parted last February when she left their Sylvania home to live in another suburb.
Kevin’s father told police an amazing story on Wednesday night.
He said he had pushed his son over the 250ft cliff at The Gap and then jumped over himself.
He arrived at Vaucluse police station with his clothes soaking wet and with minor bruises.
He said he had expected to fall on rocks but had landed on a wave.
Police said he told them he had got back to the rocks and had climbed up a fisherman’s ladder in the darkness. Idolized Him
At first the man told police ge had jumped over the edge with the son in his arms.
The man said his wife left him and his two son, even (sic) and 11, about nine months ago.
He took in a housekeeper but became unhappier and decided to kill himself and the younger son.
The boy’s mother told the Mirror today:
“Kevin was a lovely, affectionate and trusting little boy. He would be friendly with anyone. He idolized his father.
“Why, why can these things happen?”
Meanwhile Water Police and the Police Rescue Squad are continuing their search of The Gap area for the boy’s body.
Detective’s probing the man’s story are considering the following points.
. No one saw the man and boy inside the safety fence, although a number of people were about
. Although an intensive search was begun immediately, no trace has been found of the boy
. The absence of any serious injury on the man despite his report that he had fallen from such a great height.
Detective M. Hume and M. Vecera of Rose Bay with Senior Cont. R. Kelhear of Vaucluse are in charge in inquiries.
THE SUN: Friday December 10th, 1965, Page 5. HEADLINE: Gap Story Puzzle
Police said today they are puzzled by statements made by a man who claims to have pushed a seven-year-old boy over The Gap on Wednesday night.
Today they were examining their search for the boy.
Police from Vaucluse and Bondi made a check of rocks at the base of the cliff. Changed Story
The boy was last seen alive at his house at Sylvania at 6.50 p.m on Wednesday.
At 8.15 p.m., a man in wet clothes walked into Vaucluse police station.
He told police he had jumped off The Gap with the boy in his arms.
As they fell the boy broke free and disappeared, he said.
Yesterday the man, changed his account of the boy’s disappearance.
He said he had pushed the boy over the cliff and jumped himself later.
Later he said he “yanked the boy by the arm” over the cliff.
He followed by jumping himself he said.
Today the police said the man’s shoes were in good condition and would have shown signs of wear and tear had the wearer climbed a steep cliff.
He had only a light facial scratch.
The man is in police custody. He was again questioned today on the boy’s disappearance.
Police have circulated a description if the boy throughout the state, and to inter-State police.
DAILY TELEGRAPH: Friday December 10, 1965 HEADLINE: Gap Story Puzzle
Detectives investigating a father’s story that he pushed his seven-year-old son over The Gap on Wednesday night are still puzzled by some of his statements.
The man told Vaucluse police on Wednesday night that he pushed his son over the 250ft cliff at The Gap and jumped after him.
With his clothes dripping and suffering minor bruises, he told police he expected to land on rocks but had landed on a wave.
The police launch Delaney and members of the Cliff Rescue Squad spent all Thursday and yesterday searching fir the boy’s body in The Gap area.
They discontinued the search at dusk yesterday.
DAILY TELEGRAPH: Saturday December 11, 1965, Back Page HEADLINE: Search For Boy, 7, at Gap Fails. BYLINE: “Pushed Off Cliff”
Police failed yesterday in a search at The Gap to find the body of a seven-year-old boy. Father Tells of Jump
The boy’s father told police on Wednesday night he had pushed his son over the 250ft cliff at The Gap and jumped over himself.
The man arrived at Vaucluse police station with his clothes dripping and suffering minor bruises.
He said he had expected to fall on rocks but had landed on a wave.
The man, a 43-year-old mechanic said he had got back to the rocks and climbed up a fisherman’s ladder in the darkness. Changed Story
The first story the man told police was that he had jumped over the edge with his son in his arms, and the boy slipped from his arms during the fall.
He later changed this and told police that he had pushed the boy over because he loved him and wanted to spare him future unhappiness.
The man said his wife left him and his two sons, aged seven and 11, nine months ago.
He took in a housekeeper but became unhappier and in the end decided to kill himself and the younger son.
Yesterday the police launch Delaney and members of the Cliff Rescue Squad searched for the boy’s body.
During the search police found the body of a man, about 37, wedged between rocks 250ft. beneath Jacobs Ladder near The Gap.
Residents told them the man had been wandering about the cliff top late Wednesday night.
Police last night had not released the man’s name.
In Paddington court yesterday, a man was remanded in custody until next Thursday on a charge of vagrancy.
At the request of the Police Prosecutor (Sgt N. D. Whalen), Mr F. Hale SM, refused bail.
DAILY MIRROR: Saturday, December 11, 1965, Page 1 HEADLINE: Gap Boy – Body Found BYLINE: Floating Near Hawkesbury PHOTOGRAPH: Head shot of Kevin with caption ‘The dead boy’: map showing the route of the body.
The body of a 7-year-old boy, alleged to have been pushed over The Gap on Wednesday night, was found today floating near the mouth of Broken Bay.
A post-mortem later today revealed that death had been caused by drowning.
The CIB announced that the body was found in an area known as Maitland Bay.
Maitland Bay is two miles north of the north-head of Broken Bay and about 25 sea miles from Sydney.
A fisherman saw the body floating in shallow water and told Gosford police.
Sgt. Irvin, of Brooklyn, took a launch out and recovered the body.
It was dressed in shortie pyjamas, which the boy was wearing when he was reported missing.
Police said they were satisfied the body was that of the missing boy and called off the search which was being made by the police launch Delaney at The Gap.
Det.-Insp. H. Kennedy and Det.-Sgt. F. G. Baldwin, officer in charge of Paddington division detectives, went urgently to Maitland Bay.
Det. A. G. Follington, a CIB Scientific expert, was also called.
On Wednesday, a man staggered into the Vaucluse Police Station and reported that he had pushed the boy over The Gap.
He said that he had jumped shortly after the boy disappeared.
The man was not injured. He had only a few cuts and scratches.
He said that he had been washed onto the rocks and had managed to climb up a rope ladder used by fishermen.
This man aged 43 has been charged with vagrancy and remanded until next week in custody.
Skin divers and water police have searched the area st The Gap since then.
The boy’s body was officially identified by a relative in the Hornsby District Hospital morgue.
Until Government medical officers perform an autopsy police are unable to say what caused the boy’s death.
THE SUN: Saturday December 11, 1965, Front Page. HEADLINE: Boy’s Body Found BYLINE: Gap Search Ends PHOTOGRAPH: Head shot of Kevin with caption ‘The Dead Boy’
The Gap search for a seven-year-old boy was called off today when his body was found floating near the entrance to Broken Bay.
The search had been going on since Wednesday night when a man told police he and his son fell over The Gap.
A fisherman found the boy, Kevin Pickhills, floating face down hear the beach, 30 miles north of The Gap. Floating
The body was dressed in pyjamas and a green dressing gown.
An aunt and an uncle identified Kevin’s body at Hornsby morgue.
Police are arranging a post-mortem to establish the cause of death.
They believe the body has been in the water about 2 days.
The fisherman who found the boy’s body is Patrick Britton, builder, of Avoca Beach.
He was in his launch, 60 yards off Maitland Beach, when he saw the body near his boat.
Britton hailed two other fishermen nearby and asked them to watch the body while he informed police.
The other fishermen, on a camping holiday, are Mr George Hurley, of Stanley Street, Campsie and Mr Edwin Pasco, of George Street, Parramatta.
Sgt. P. Irwin, Brooklyn, went out in a launch to recover the body. Man’s Story
He was accompanied by Const. Craig Thomas and Mr Bede Merrick, real estate salesman.
Sgt. Irwin said, “The body was floating rapidly towards open sea.”
Det.-Insp. H. Kennedy and Det.-Sgt. G. Baldwin, of Paddington – the police leading the search for Kevin – were rushed from The Gap area to Brooklyn.
They had been investigating a man’s story that he and his son fell over a cliff at The Gap on Wednesday night.
The man is in custody at Long Bay.
DAILY MIRROR: Saturday December 11, 1965, Page 3. HEADLINE: Quiz in Gap Boy Mystery
Detectives investigating the death of a seven-year-old boy today will question a man in Long Bay gaol.
The boy’s body was recovered from the sea near Broken Bay on Saturday.
A post-mitten has revealed that Kevin drowned.
There were also injuries including bruises indicating that he had fallen from a great height.
Police began searching for him after a man who was soaking wet staggered into Vaucluse police station on Wednesdays night and reported that Kevin had been pushed over The Gap. Ladder Story
The man also told police that he had jumped over The Gap himself.
He said he had not been injured in the fall but had been washed onto the ticks and had managed to climb to the cliff top using a fisherman’s ladder.
On Thursday this man appeared before Paddington Court and was remanded until Thursday on a vagrancy charge.
He is being held without bail in Long Bay gaol.
The spot where Kevin’s body was found was about 25 sea miles from The Gap. Exhaustive
This is a puzzling angle which police today are carefully investigating.
They are making an exhaustive check of tides and currents.
Generally the bodies of people who have gone over The Gap have been found much closer than 25 miles away.
Detectives are trying to discover how a body could have travelled so far in a little over two days.
When found Kevin was still wearing shortie pyjamas in which he had been dressed when taken from his Sylvania home in Wednesday afternoon.
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Sunday December 12, 1965, Front Page. HEADLINE “Gap Boy” Found in Bay. BYLINE: Body in Pyjamas, Dressing Gown PHOTOGRAPHS: Diagram of the route the body took from The Gap to Broken Bay.
The body of a seven-year-old boy reported missing at The Gap last Wednesday was found today in Broken Bay.
The body was sighted about 6 a.m. In Maitland Bay about four miles north of Barrenjoey, and about 25 miles north from The Gap.
A post-mortem examination at the City Morgue revealed the boy had died from drowning.
Fisherman Patrick Britton of Avoca sighted the body floating face down in the water about 80 yards from the shore.
He left two other fishermen George Hurley of Campsie, and Edwin Pascoe of Psrramatta, to watch the body while he walked about 3 miles to a telephone.
Britton notified Gosford police who alerted the police launch at Brooklyn.
Sergeant G. H. Irwin and Constable C. Thomas of Brooklyn and local boatshed owner mr Bede Merrick went to Maitland Bay in the police launch. Kept Watch
Meanwhile police from Gosford led by Sergeant N.J. Barth kept watch on the body from the shore.
Brooklyn police recovered the body about 60 yards from shore hear the reef in Maitland Bay.
The body was clothed in a white singlet, blue shortie pyjamas and a green dressing gown.
Police took the body back to Brooklyn. Later it was taken to Hornsby Hospital morgue.
An uncle of the dead boy identified the body at the hospital.
The CIB Area Officer Detective Inspector H. Kennedy and a Detective Sergeant G. Baldwin of Paddington went to Hornsby Hospital. Changed Story
The search for the boy started after a man walked into Vaucluse Police Station last Wednesdsy night and told police he had jumped over The Gap with his seven-year-old son in his arms.
He later changed his story and told police he had pushed the boy over the 250ft cliff and then jumped over himself.
The man arrived st the police station with his clothes dripping wet and suffering from minor bruises.
He said ge had fallen on a wave and had been washed on to the rocks.
The man was remanded in custody last Thursday when he appeared in Paddington Court on a charge of vagrancy.
THE SUN HERALD: Sunday December 12, 1965, Front Page cont. Page 4 HEADLINE: Boy’s Body Found BYLINE: Gap Fall Report
A seven-year-old boy who was said to have crashed over the (sic) Gap last Wednesday night with his father, was found dead yesterday, floating off Broken Bay.
A fisherman saw the body, face down, two and a half miles off Maitland Bay on the ocean front of Broken Bay, about 32 miles north of Sydney.
Later, the body was identified as that of Kevin Pickhill (sic), of Melrose Avenue, Sylvania. Dressing Gown
The body was dressed in flannel pyjamas and a green dressing gown tied with a cord.
A preliminary examination showed that the body had apparently been in the water about three days.
A post-mortem conducted by the Director of Forensic Medicine Dr. J. Laine revealed that the boy suffered injuries consistent with having fallen from a height.
The cause of death was drowning.
The body was sighted by Mr. F. Britton, a builder, of Avoca Beach, who was fishing with two other men in a launch 60 yards from the beach.
His companions were Mr. G. Hurley, of Stanley Street, Sans Souci, and Mr. F. Paso, of George Street, Parramatta, both holidaying in the area.
Mr. Britton asked two men on shore to watch the body while he called the police.
By the time police arrived in the launch Vigilant, the body had drifted about two miles out to sea.
Sergeant Irwin, Constable G. Thomas and Mr. B. Mer
continued page 5 Fishermen Find Body
rick, a salesman, recovered the body at 8.15 am.
The body was found about 20 miles by sea from The Gap.
Navigation authorities said yesterday that all currents near the Heads and the Gap run in a southerly direction.
Authorities said that strong southerly winds over the last three days could have blown the body north.
The police search at the Gap, which began last Wednesday night, was immediately called off.
The search began when a 43-year-old man staggered into Vaucluse police station and told Sergeant F. Kierlow that he and the boy had fallen over the Gap.
The man was dripping wet and had minor scratches on his arms. He told police ge had climbed 150 feet to the top of the Gap.
Police said the man told them he was holding the boy and they became separated when they hit the water. Taken To Morgue
Police found the man’s car with a note in it.
On Thursday a man was charged in Paddington Court of Petty Sessions with vagrancy and remanded until December 16.
Leading the enquiries are Detective-Inspector H. Kennedy, in charge of Number 3 Sub-District, Detective-Sergeant G. Baldwin and R. Williams, of Paddington, and D. Still, C.I.B. Scientific Bureau, and Detective-Constable A. Follington of the C.I.B.
Detective-Sergeant Ray Williams brought the boy’s uncle and aunt to identify the body.
The uncle put his hands over his head and nodded when he was shown the body.
The body was later taken to the City Morgue.
Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 – 1995), Monday 13 December 1965, page 3
Headline: Boys Body Is Found At Sea
Sydney, Sunday. – The body of a seven year-old boy who was reported missing at The Gap lasypt Wednesday was found yesterday in Broken Bay.
A fisherman saw the body about two and a half miles off Maitland Bay, about 32 miles north of Sydney. It was identified as Kevin Pickhill, of Sylvania.
Mr. P. Britton, of Avoca Beach, who was fishing with two other men in a launch, saw the body floating about 60 yards from the beach.
The search for the boy began after a man, claiming to ge his father, staggered into Vaucluse police station last Wednesday night and said he had pushed the boy over The Gap.
The man said he then jumped over himself.
He was remanded in custody last Thursday when he appeared in Paddington court on a charge of Vagrancy.
THE SUN: Thursday December 16, 1965, Front Page cont. Page 2. HEADLINE: Son’s Gap Death BYLINE: Father Charged
Police alleged in Paddington Court today that Frederick Pickhills, 43, pushed his son, Kevin, 7, over the Gap on December 8.
Pickhills, a mechanic of Melrose Avenue, Sylvania, appeared before Mr. A. Locke S. M. charged with the murder of his son.
Police alleged Pickhills told them he jumped over the Gap himself after pushing the boy.
He climbed up a rope ladder and went to the police.
He was remanded in custody to George Street North Court on January 18, 1966.
FULL STORY, P. 2 BYLINES; Court Told “Boy Pushed Over Gap”; Father Charged.
A man pushed his seven-year-old son over The Gap, police alleged in Paddington Court today.
Frederick Lindsay Pickhills, 43, Mechanic, of Melrose Avenue, Sylvania, appeared in court charged with the murder of his son, Kevin, at Watson’s Bay on December 8.
Police Prosecutor Sgt. N. G. Whalan, said the allegation was that at 6.43p.m on December 8, Pivkhills picked up his two sons, aged 11 and seven, from the Sylvania Library.
Sgt. Whalan said the seven-year-old boy, Kevin, was the child involved in the alleged offense.
“He took them to his home, where he left his 11-year-old son, and took Kevin with him in his car to the Gap at Watson’s Bay” Sgt. Whalan said.
“It is alleged he pushed his son over the Gap
“He claimed he then walked a few yards further and jumped over himself
“He claims he climbed up a rope ladder and walked to Vsucluse police station where he informed police of the occurrence.
“The boy’s pyjama clad body was Fiund 23 miles away in Maitland Bay on December 11” Sgt. Whalen said. Inquiries
Mr. G. A. Locke S.M. asked if there was any substance to the claim that Pickhills jumped over the Gap.
Sgt.. Whalen “We are making further enquiries into the whole matter and I am not in a position to comment myself at this stage.
Solicitor Mr. C. Woodward (for Pickhills) then handed Mr. Locke a document issued by Dr. O. V. Brissie, Consultant Psychiatrist to the state penitentiary.
Mr. Woodward said there was some history of mental disorder in the defendant about the time of the alleged occurrence.
“The facts as stated by the police prosecutor were ‘pretty well true'”
Pickhills appeared in court wearing a sports coat with grey trousers and a white shirt buttoned to the neck but no tie.
Mr. Locke remanded Pickhills to George Street North Court on January 18, 1966. (NB My birthday)
While Mr. Locke was reading the document from the psychiatrist Mr. Woodward withdrew an application for bail he had made earlier.
A vagrancy charge against Pickhills was remanded to Paddington Court on March 18, 1966.
Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 – 1995), Tuesday 14 December 1965, page 8
Headline: Drowning Studied
Sydney, Monday. – Police are stillminvestigating the drowning of a young boy whose body was found floating in Broken Bay on Saturday.
The body was identified as that of Kevin Pickhills, 7, of Sylvania, alleged to have been thrown over The Gap at Watson’s Bay last week.
The boy’s body was found about 25 miles from The Gap, and police are studying tides and currents to determine how the body travelled so far in two days.
Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 – 1995), Friday 17 December 1965, page 4
Headline: Gap Murder Charge
SYDNEY, Thursday. – A man alleged to have murdered his seven year old son by throwing him over the cliff at The Gap, Watson’s Bay had no answer to the charge, Paddington Court was told today.
Before the court was Frederick Lindsay Pickhills, a mechanic if Melrose Avenue, Sylvania who was remanded until March 18 on a charge of murdering his son, Kevin.
Mr C Woodward, for Pickhills, told Mr GA Locke SM, the allergations were “substantially correct”.
The prosecutor Sargeant N D Whalen told the court that it would be alleged that Pickhills had picked up his two children, Kevin, and another aged 11, from the Sylvania Library on December 8.
Pickhills had driven the eldest boy home, then taken Kevin. In his car, to The Gap. Sargeant Whalen said evidence would be given that Pickhills had pushed the boy over The Gap and then thrown himself over a few yards further on.
Pickhills told detectives he climbed up a rope ladder then went to Vaucluse police station and surrendered.
The boy’s body, still clad in pygamas, had been recovered from Maitland Bay last Saturday, about 23 miles from The Gap.
Sargeant Whalen handed Mr Locke a document signed by Doctor O.V. Briscoe, consultant psychiatrist at Long Bay gaol when asked about mental disorder.
He said there would be a defence claim of mental disorder in Pickhills at the time of the alleged offence.
Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 – 1995), Wednesday 19 January 1966, page 12
Headline: Man Committed For Trial Over Son’s Death
Sydney, Tuesday. – A man who alledgedly told police he had thrown his seven year-old son over The Gap at Watson’s Bay, then jumped over himself, was committed for trial on a charge of murder in the George Street North Court today.
Frederick Lindsay Pickhills, 43, mechanic, of Sylvania, who is charged with the murder of his son at Watson’s Bay on December 8 was refused bail.
Pickhills broke down, yelling and crying, after a librarian gave evidence today about two children’s books the boy had borrowed on the eve of his death.
Earlier today, Mr Loomes, SM, as Coroner adjourned to a date to be fixed, the inquest on Kevin Pickhills death.
Found 22 miles away
The coroner was told the boy’s body was recovered from the water at Maitland Bay, near Gosford, 22 miles from The Gap on December 11.
Detective Constable M Hume told the court he went to The Gap on December 8 Pickhills was there.
Pickhills told him he had jumped over The Gap with his son earlier that night.
Later, at the Vaucluse police station, Pickhills allegedly told Constable F Kelhear “It is better this way. My wife cleared out nine months ago. She is no good”.
”The Child Welfare Board could have taken the boy. I have one seven, and one twelve”.
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: Thursday May 5, 1966. HEADLINE: Man Given Bond on Son’s Gap Death
A man who pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his seven-year-old son at the Gap was released on a $100 five-year good behavior bond yesterday.
Mr Justice Le Gay Brereton said in the Central Criminal Court he was satisfied that the man’s mind had been “tormented to a point where his personality was inadequate to sustain him in his difficulties”.
The man, Frederick Lindsay Pickhills, 43, mechanic of Melrose Avenue, Sylvania had pleaded not guilty to a charge of having murdered his son, Kevin, at Watson’s Bay on December 8 last.
Later, at the request of his councell, Mr M. J. N. Atwill, the judge directed the jury to accept Pickhills amended plea of manslaughter. “I had hold of his hand”
The Court was told that Pickhills had walked to Vaucluse Police Station at 8.15 pm on December 8.
Senior Constable F. T. Kelhear said Pickhills clothing had been “dripping water.”
He had said “I have been over the Gap with my son. I had hold if his hand.”
Senior Constable Kelhesr said he had gone with Pickhills to the Gap and Pickhills had indicated a spot on the cliff-top where he said he had gone over.
Pickhills had said he had not seen Kevin since they “hit the water.”
To Mr Justice Le Gay Brereton, Senior Constable Kelhear said it was possible to land in the water from the spot Pickhills claimed to have jumped from.
Kevin’s body was found in the sea 23 miles away three days later.
Constable W. C. Fahey of the Cliff Rescue Squad said he had searched the cliff- top on December 8 and 9 but had found no trace of Kevin.
He said he had told Pickhills on December 9 he did not think a person could have survived the fall from the position Pickhills indicated.
Mrs Nancy Thompson, a former housekeeper for Pickhills, told the Court that his life had “revolved around Kevin and his other son” and he had been a devoted father.
She said Pickhills’ wife left him and his son’s in March last year.
Life in the house had been one of continual stress in the months before Kevin’s death.
After directing the jury to accept the plea of guilty to manslaughter, His Honour said:
“Although I have heard no psychiatric evidence I am satisfied that the accused’s mind was tormented to the point at which his personality was inadequate to sustain him in his difficulties and he became, for the time being, a creature blindly and irrationally seeking a way to escape.
“Although planned, his actions could thus – in a sense – be said to be involuntary.
“To send him to gaol would do nothing but harm to him, and would do no good to anyone else.
“This is not a case in which the community demands vengeance.”
Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 – 1995), Thursday 5 May 1966, page 10
Headline: Father In Gap Jump Given Bond
Sydney, Wednesday. – A man who was said to have caused his seven year-old son to fall over The Gap, and was charged with his murder was released on a bond in the Central Criminal Court today.
The man had said he jumped hand-in-hand over The Gap with his son.
Frederick Lindsay Pickhills, 43, mechanic, of Melrose Street, Sylvania, was charged with the myrder of Kevin Pickhills.
Mr Justice Brereton released Pickhills on a $1000 bond to be of good behaviour for five years, after Pickhills changed his plea to not guilty of murder to guilty of manslaughter.
The court was told that Pickhills had told police he jumped over The Gap with his son on the night of December 8 last,
The boy’s body was recovered from the sea 62 hours later at Maitland Bay, at the mouth of the Hawkesbury River, 23 miles away.
Pickhills said he climbed up the rugged cliff-face on a rope, and gave himself up the same night to Vaucluse police.
After the trial had been underway for three hours, Pickhills changed his plea, which was accepted by the Crown Prosecutor, Mr. W.J.Knight, QC.
Earlier, Pickhills wept in the dock when a witness described him as a “devoted father” whose life revolved around his two sons, Kevin, 7, and Robert, 12.
Mrs Nancy Thompson, who told the court she was Pickhills housekeeper for about nine months last year, said he was devoted to the children. He was upset when she told him she thought Robert was effeminate, and Kevin was mentally-retarded.
The following article appeared in the “Weekly World New” (June 28, 1988, Page 3). I do not know where the information came from, but certainly not the court record. Was it made up, or did Nancy speak off-the-cuff? We will never know.
HEADLINE: Fibbing Kid Pays With His Life
Frederick Pickhills tried to cure his son of lying – and ended up killing the seven-year-old by mistake.
The angry dad held his struggling son Kevin over the edge of a 200-foot cliff near their home in Sydney, Australia, lost his balance and plunged with the little boy towards the rocks below.
Pickhills landed in deep water, but his son crashed into the rocks. The boy’s body washed ashore three days later.
“I wanted to give Kevin one terrible scare, hoping it would cure him forever of lying,” Pickhills said. “It was a stupid, silly thing to do.”
Police arrested Pickhills for murder.
Kevin’s death at The Gap has been mentioned in another magazine article over the years, and I know a book has been written about the tragedies at The Gap, though do not know if Kevin is mentioned in it. I would assume so, due to the huge amount of coverage his death received.
“Mind The Gap”, Sunday Life supplement, Sunday Herald, June 2000, Page 8. Written by Glen Williams, Photographs by Steve Baccon. Bylined “Generation Gap”, a timeline of events, it says “1965: Frederick Pickhills of Sylvania tells Vaucluse police “I have been over The Gap with my son. I had hold of his hand.”
Pickhills was charged with the murder of Kevin Pickhills, 7. Pleading guilty in court to an amended plea of manslaughter, Pickhills was released on a 5-year good behavior bond.”
“Suicide Watchman”, Reader’s Digest, (month and year not referenced), Pages 76 – 81. Authored by Kristen Gelineau is an interesting article on The Gap.
INQUEST: I have the following papers from Glebe Coroner’s Court pertaining to Kevin’s death. Being entered using a typewriter, the documents are now getting difficult to read.
“Information and Deposition of Witness (Inquest)” filled in by the coroner who received the body and the police officer who transferred it to the City Morgue.
Leslie James Barron’s statement identifying the body as Kevin’s.
The “Record of Exhibits” for the case, listing a note from Hornsby Hospital; the medical report of Dr Laing (Coroner); and Analysis Report.
FINALE:
I was not allowed closure on Kevin’s death by attending his funeral. I was sent to relatives for the day. I cried for the first time when Nanna and Pop turned up. I think I upset pop by hanging onto his legs while letting go. Kevin was buried in Rookwood Cemetery, Methodist section. Plot: Section 3B Row 16, plot no. 768. He is buried with our great grandparents, James Barron & Emily Rule.
In 1966 I started at Gymea High School. The kid’s I knew from Sylvania Heights Primary had been told not to discuss Kevin’s death. On the one occasion I mentioned it, I was shushed up.
Joe spent a total of 5 months in gaol for Kevin’s murder. Despite amending his plea to manslaughter, and what the courts found, I could not, and never will, see it as anything but murder. I visited him on one occasion in Long Bay Penitentiary, with Nancy. It was a surreal experience. When released after his court case in May, 1966, Nancy decided a show needed to be put on for the neighbours. I was instructed that as he walked down Melrose Ave, I was to run up the road into his arms. Even today the thought of this scenario makes me cringe. It was the last thing I wanted to do. Needless to say, Joe and I had no semblance of a relationship from the day Kevin died to the day Joe died.
There was one attempt to see me by my mother just after Kevin’s death. Nancy made sure that didn’t happen. There was also one attempt to get me away from her clutches but they went about it the wrong way. Mum turned up at the house with her sister Gwen, Uncle Les (Gwen’s husband), baby Donna and possibly Les and Jean. They knocked on the front door, and mum barged into the house. It all happened so quickly it frightened the life out of me! I ran out the back door, climbed through a gap in the fence into the Gill’s yard, up their side passage, bolted over their front gate and ran across the road to the Johnson’s house via their back door. Mr Johnson organised a meeting in their home where he informed them that they were just scaring me, to leave and let the law sort it out. When asked if I wanted to go, I replied no. I poked my tongue out at my baby cousin…what else could I do under the circumstances. They left without me. Given time to consider things, I may have acted differently.
There was the inevitable custody battle. I was coached by Dulcie (dad’s sister) prior to the hearing that the judge would ask me who I wanted to live with. I WAS to say I wanted to stay with my father. Oh for my own voice in all this!
In 1966 Joe changed the family name to Phillips in an attempt to ensure privacy after the event, and he also changed his middle name from Lindsay to Lionel…no better, in my opinion. The house was put on the market and sold shortly after, whereby he bought a flat at 12/1 Ocean Street, Kogarah. We moved there at the end of ’66, including Nancy. Her employment as housekeeper was about to come to an end. While berating me one day about helping myself to the biscuit tin, Joe came home. For the one and only time in my life, he stood up for me and told Nancy that he paid for the biscuits, and if his son wanted one, he could have one. He then packed a bag and took me to Jack and Dulcie’s at Arncliffe (his sister and brither-in-law) where I then lived until shortly after leaving school. Plans for me to go to James Cook High at Kogarah were scrapped, and I eventually ended up going to Marist Brother’s St. Gregory’s Agricultural College in Campbelltown as a boarder. Joe also moved into Arncliffe, and Nancy continued to live in the unit at Kogarah for the next couple of years. Considering all she had caused, Joe was way too generous with her.
On 1971, Joe bought a house at 81 Melvin Street, Beverly Hills. We lived there for several years until I moved out to my first apartment in Allawah. Joe then sold the house in 1975 after getting a ground curator’s job at the college, which was a live-in position. He purchased a property in Vincentia. He married the head cook, Gwen Quinn, who he met at the college, in 1977.
Joe committed suicide in 1978 in bushland near their home in Vincentia. I think it all just got to him in the end. I cried a few crocodile tears and inwardly rejoiced. Callous? Walk a mile in my shoes. A childhood destroyed, a sibling murdered, left in the clutches of a neurotic, bullying housekeeper, moved away from all the people, both relatives and friends and neighbours that I cared about, no voice in my own custody, then forced to live with a man I no longer trusted.! Well, my life has moved on.
After his death, dad’s sisters Dulcie and Eileen (who both also lived in Vincentia) started up the most horrendous campaign of vilification and harassment against my step-mother, Gwen, that you can imagine. They blamed her for my father’s death, though I have no reason why. I was totally disgusted by what they did, that they could stoop so low. Naturally, finding out that I was not a beneficiary in my father’s will added to the spite and vitriol. On one occasion when I was driven, by George, my step-brother, over to Dulcie’s home, she appeared downstairs and told George in no uncertain terms that though I was welcome, he certainly was not. Due to the harassment, they were not included in the funeral arrangements. On the day of the funeral, they avoided any contact with the step-family.
At the Coroners Court hearing into his death, I asked the police, prior to the hearing if the post-mortem had revealed any brain damage, as Joe suffered from migraine headaches for all his life, and I wanted to ensure that there was nothing medical to explain what had happened. I also asked if his sister’s had informed the police of Kevin’s death in 1965. The police were a bit stunned at this revelation as nothing had been said. It was added to the proceedings. When I was in the witness stand I was asked about Kevin’s death. I heard Dulcie gasp and say to her sister “That has nothing to do with this”. As if! Outside the court they tried to ambush me, however we drove off in my step-brother’s car before they got to me. This was the last time I saw any of them.
No longer the shunned family member after all this has been written, I feel that Kevin’s short life can now be celebrated. No longer is his life hidden away like some irrelevant fact, like some dirty family laundry. I hope this revelation has freed his spirit. It has been cathartic for me, and I can now hold him as a precious memory, and not just a secretive, tragic event in our lives.
I am so sorry your memory, until now, has been treated so shoddily. Rest In Peace, brother.
The Family Home at 69 Melrose Ave, Sylvania (sold 1966)
Kevin is interred with our Great Grandparents, James Barron & Emily Rule, in Rookwood Cemetery.
timalderman 
