About Narvel Annable  

My life has been a series of re-inventions.  In September 2010, a sudden promotion catapulted me from local to global author.  The Nazca Plains Corporation in Las Vegas published my fourth novel Secret Summer which is now available all over the world.  This boosted the sales of previous efforts including Lost Lad set in Heanor, Derbyshire; a rugged, macho, homophobic, hill top colliery town.  Lost Lad follows the transformation of a miserable prepubescent into the confident and happy adolescent who was re-invented and rechristened Dobba by his mates.  This move from a grim, gas lit, Dickensian Church of England all boys junior school in 1958 to Howitt Secondary School, a culture of kindness, was a dramatic improvement. 

The first part of Lost Lad documents growing suspicion brewing in Heanor at Mundy Street Boys School, 1955 to 1957, where I was subjected to a daily routine of physical and psychological torture.  My day started with prayers and hymns and ended with a desire to be dead.  Every day, one damaged boy endured humiliating experiences affording no mercy.  A sadistic schoolmaster encouraged aggressive taunts, brutal insults, screaming jeers reducing an already wretched boy to a very low level of self esteem.  And all that was dismissed as ‘part of growing up’.  

It’s cultural.  The Annable’s had been lumbered with a lad who was ‘not a proper lad’.  A son who showed no interest in football and could not defend himself with bare knuckles in the playground brought dishonour upon his working class family.

A further re-invention is described in my second autobiographic novel Scruffy Chicken.  It took place in 1963 when I immigrated into the United States and arrived in Detroit on the day before the assassination of President Kennedy.  It was a steep learning curve.  The repressed Derbyshire teenager of thick accent, deeply locked inside his shameful homosexual closet, had to fit in as a clean cut American, to be comfortable with his all-white racist buddies and appear hot to trot for the chicks.

The following years in Motown involved several jobs before graduating from Eastern Michigan University (magna cum laude) in 1975 followed by a year teaching African-American history at St Bridget High School.  Adapting to this strict Catholic environment, behind respectable spectacles, Narvel imitated his former teachers and transformed himself into a strict schoolmaster with traditional views.  This was a far cry from his parallel existence, the promiscuous, secretive chicken who consorted with Negroes and haunted the notorious bath houses of Detroit, Chicago and New York from 1964 to 1976.

People have asked me – ‘Why did you describe yourself as a scruffy chicken during your 1965 six month vacation in Britain?’  Scruffy in the title of Scruffy Chicken is not so much a comment on me; it is more a criticism of the Derby and Nottingham snobs who made me feel scruffy – scruffy accent, scruffy clothes, scruffy manners, scruffy education etc.

Narvel Annable, Peter Tatchell & Terry Durand

 

The secretive world of same-sex attraction in the East Midlands of the mid 1960s was very different from the gay scene in America where, for the most part, men behaved like men.  By British standards Detroit was classless – a doctor sounded the same as a dustman.  Immaculately dressed effeminate English homosexuals used their refined affected accents to demean and exclude roughly spoken homosexuals classed as ‘the lower orders’.  These were the invisible people who inhabited an underworld of seedy public houses and back street lavatories.  Scruffy Chicken uncovers this twilight world of curious characters - queens, crones, gnomes, toads, goblins, feral boys - who were warped by vicious homophobic cruelty and bigotry of mid 20^th century Britain.

The following year, a rollercoaster of passion and pain, magic and menace, is celebrated in my latest novel Secret Summer.  In 1966 I fell in love with a mysterious tough guy who held me in the grip of agony and ecstasy.  The title - a comment on the necessity for gay teenage boys to lust in secret, hunt in secret and love in secret – is, sadly, still true here in the 21^st century.

After several annual holidays in the UK in the late 1960s and early 1970s, chronic homesickness fuelled my departure from Detroit, in 1976, to resettle in Derbyshire.  In the September of that year, I met my future long term partner Terry Durand who was married with children.  The trauma and shock of coming to terms with his life-long repressed same sex attraction triggered a breakdown and several weeks in a psychiatric hospital.  Electric shock aversion therapy was suggested as a ‘cure’ for his homosexuality.  This low point was followed by a painful and slow journey to eventual contentment and happiness.  On September 3^rd 2011, we celebrated our 35 years together.

From 1978 to 1995, I was a history master at the Valley Comprehensive School in Worksop, North Nottinghamshire, quietly doing my job, keeping my head down, keeping my private life very private and contributing nothing to the gay cause.  Like many other homosexual teachers, I was isolated, terrified of being exposed as ‘a queer’.  I was frightened of being humiliated by ignorant pupils and colleagues in a deeply conservative homophobic colliery community. 

During this same period, ‘out and proud’ brave people were giving an enormous boost to the fledgling Campaign for Homosexual Equality.  A good example was Richard McCance who was elected to Nottingham City Council in 1983.  He went on to publish a gay and lesbian free sheet which eventually expanded to 16 pages with a circulation of 5000 which must have given succour and hope to untold numbers in the LGBT community.  Well done!  He did all this.  I did nothing.

Gay sex was decriminalised in 1967.  However, people like me, hiding in my small bungalow in the pit village of Clowne, in the 1980’s, effectively existed as outlaws dodging disapproval, violent thugs and the dreaded plain-clothes police who haunted gay venues as agents provocateurs. 

To support this assessment of a bleak decade, a disturbing incident seared into my memory.  I was sussed out and approached by a distressed teenage boy – a grim picture of self-hate - tormented by a strong sexual attraction for other boys.  He needed to know that there were others like himself.  He needed a sympathetic ear and practical advice.  In fear of losing my job and the good opinion of my colleagues, I gave him neither.  I played safe.  To my eternal shame, I turned my back on this cry for help.

The second incident, a few months later, was horrific.  He turned up at my door!  He was a shadow of his former self, appearing pale, drained and defeated, accompanied by a woman and a child.  This unfortunate young man, like two former friends in Detroit, had been brain-washed, bible-bashed into a heterosexual zombie.  He spoke a few well rehearsed words about sin and redemption before, for the second time, out of fear, I made polite apologies and closed my door on this victim of active evangelism and rabid homophobia.

Cue a further re-invention: in 1995 I seized an opportunity to escape from the restricting bonds of being a bogus heterosexual schoolmaster to become a writer.  I wrote as I taught – with caution, hiding my true face from those who would condemn me as immoral, wicked and sinful at worst – sick, abnormal and disordered at best.

 

Several local newspapers and gay magazines have supported me in printing letters which challenge medieval religious attitudes.  See LETTERS in this website and read about my confrontations with Catholics, Pentecostals, Mormons, the Salvation Army and Jehovah's Witnesses.  I am grateful to The Independent for allowing my voice to travel far and wide on the subject of Christian and Muslim fundamentalism.  Especially pleasing was the letter printed in The Independent on August 23^rd 2011 in which I criticise the damaging ‘deep and sincere views’ held by Lillian Ladele and also the homophobic foster parents in Derby, Eunice and Owen Johns.    

After two efforts dealing with my early schooldays, Death on the Derwent, published in 1999, was received with polite encouraging comments in the local press.  This first novel, like the author, was peopled by frustrated and inhibited gay characters.  It was followed by the biography of a former teacher, A Judge Too Far in 2001.  However, His Honour Keith Matthewman QC is not the judge I best remember.  That honour goes to a High Court Judge of the Old Bailey – Sir Brian Smedley 1934-2007 who was partly the inspiration for Martin Harcourt QC in Scruffy Chicken and Secret Summer.

In mid 1960s gay circles, it was common knowledge that Brian was a Barrister.  I met him frequently in several venues and drooled over his beautiful white Jaguar.  He was a regular at our ‘gentleman’s club’ the Derby Turkish Bath and was a prestigious dinner guest in the homes of senior members of the Derby and Nottingham LGBT community.

In researching A Judge Too Far, it was a coincidence to discover that Keith and Brian shared a close friendship which went back to their early barrister days in Chambers at The Ropewalk in Nottingham.  In a formal letter, a blast from the past, I politely asked Sir Brian if he would care to contribute to the biography by sharing any interesting or entertaining anecdotes about his one time colleague Keith Matthewman.  It seemed foolish to pretend that we were strangers, so, in the last paragraph, I touched on the fact that we had met and mentioned memorable dinner parties and the names of a few old friends from our past.

His reply was hurtful.  It included a few useful references to his teaching days in Long Eaton and recollections of his association with Keith and Jane Matthewman.  Notwithstanding, at the end, his tone became stern and rather grand.  Sir Brian Smedley, the High Court Judge of the Old Bailey informed me that I was mistaken.  He had no memory of a teenager called Annable, no memory of dinner parties or any of the people cited.

For some minutes I stared into that letter from a man who once, after dinner, counselled good advice to an anxious boy trying to navigate through a frequently unreliable world of secretive gay men riddled with all their own personal problems, repressions and hang-ups.  It felt like a slap in the face.  And yet - this lordly figure on high - resplendent in his judicial robes had set off a process which released me from my own repressions and hang-ups.

Another re-invention?  I think so.  The writer of mediocre and safe subjects would transform into a writer of important issues, essentially, he would battle with the bigotry and ignorance which had blighted his life – homophobia.  After an escape from teaching, the fire in my belly became a positive force for good.  It burnt bright and hot, fuelled by a deeper understanding of gay history and the injustice which spanned centuries of human existence.  The discovery of writing and fighting for the LGBT cause gave my life a new shape and real purpose.

 

 

On June 1^st 2010, The Independent printed my letter responding to a personal and political tragedy which had come as a great blow to the new coalition government.  It could have been about Brian Smedley.  It was, in fact, about the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Laws, who had just resigned after the exposure of his secret lover, James Lundie, a relationship unknown even to family and friends.

Drawing on personal experience, I argued that continuing to be defensive and closeted about his sexuality, David Laws allowed homophobic elements in the heterosexual majority to portray being gay as a personality flaw, or worse.  Over the previous ten years, his conduct has contributed to undermine and undervalue the lives of millions of people like me, making it more difficult to fight bigotry, discrimination and ignorance.

To support this position, I referred to Alan Bates and his secret lover Peter Wyngarde who complained –

          ‘I’m told to walk two paces behind Alan.  If we go to a party, we can never arrive together.  I have to arrive earlier, or later.’

Alan and Peter make a brief appearance in Secret Summer.

 

When Lost Lad was published in 2003, sales slumped when local readers uncovered a gay theme.  A local councillor told me – ‘After page 45, I didn’t want to read any more.’  A few others had misunderstood the homoerotic adolescent incident, graphically described in the Belper Baths locker room, which actually happened in the summer of 1959.  It was as much about boasting and boyhood power as experimental sex.

This dip in sales was dramatically reversed after strong support from an unexpected quarter in September 2005.  On the strength of previous titles, the Belper Women’s Institute asked me to talk to them about my work.  I accepted and sent them a selection of press cuttings and comments about Lost Lad to assist the members in framing questions.  Within a few days, a curt letter arrived withdrawing the invitation stating that ‘It would not be suitable for our ladies.’  As I pondered this missive through doleful eyes, the phone rang.  The caller, from Torquay, described herself as a 66 year old grandmother who attends church regularly.

‘I’ve just finished your novel.  I’m deeply moved by the sorrow and hurt suffered because of your sexual orientation.  Thank you so much for that window into an interesting life and the guided tour of hills and dales of Derbyshire: so picturesque’

Appreciation for these comments was expressed.  However, she heard the melancholy in my voice and asked why her enthusiasm was received in such gloomy tones.  I explained.

          ‘What are you going to do about it?’

          ‘People like me are used to this sort of attitude.  There’s not much I can do.’

          ‘Well!  I know what I can do about it – and will do!’

She wrote a lengthy letter of outrage to the Derby Telegraph and Belper News.  The latter sported a front page headline screaming – NO GAY SEX PLEASE, WE’RE THE BELPER WI – followed by text sympathetic to the rejected guest speaker.

The Derby Telegraph COMMENT of September 21^st 2005, under the headline – A stance rooted in the past - fully supported my position.  That, in turn, was buttressed by a full page under a banner headline – Gay author’s talk is scrapped by WI – and sub headline – Blatant discrimination shocks retired teacher.  Both papers displayed a large photograph of the author holding up the front cover of his latest effort – Lost Lad.  The result: hundreds of copies were sold! 

Sales were further buttressed by coverage on Central News, the local East Midlands TV.

Narvel Annable would like extend a big ‘thank you’ to the Belper WI and the kind reader from Torquay.

This event boosted my name and fame [or infamy] from local to national level.  Many UK libraries stocked Lost Lad and Scruffy Chicken which followed in 2006.  I can even credit these good ladies for ensuring that The Nazca Plains Corporation in Las Vegas had become aware of me when they received the Secret Summer manuscript in the August of 2010.

Terry Duand and Ian Campbell

An invitation from Local Authorities and libraries to talk about my work has been especially helpful in educating and challenging homophobic ignorance.  Support from the Nottingham Evening Post, Derby Telegraph and the Belper News to publicise these events, has been both generous and essential to achieve a healthy turn-out, and quite often a full house.

In February 2007, via the Derby Telegraph, Derby City Council invited the public to hear readings from Scruffy Chicken at the Central Library and engage the author in conversation.  In the audience, I was delighted to see the former Mayor of the City of Derby – Robin Wood – whose contribution in questions and comment was much appreciated. 

Also in that gathering was an unknown Canadian who took a special interest in the proceedings which would give Scruffy Chicken international promotion.  On May 10^th 2007, Vancouver’s Lesbian and Gay Biweekly newspaper XTRA! West www.xtra.ca ran a generous half page feature under the headline – Ugly Old Trolls and sub headline – Gay life through the eyes of a scruffy chicken – OLD VS YOUNG – by Brad Teeter.  Thank you, Brad.

All these events are well documented with press cuttings which appear on my regular A4 hard copy News Sheets which started with Sheet 1 in 2003.  The XTRA! West feature dominated Sheet 77 and, at the time of writing, the most recent Sheet 130, dated June 2011, is typical.  Three letters about a courageous gay prison inmate called Richard appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post and Derby Telegraph.  To give depth, my original letter is placed next to a letter of support and a critical letter.  Next to a photograph of the Nottingham Council House, there is an item from Nottinghamshire’s Queer Bulletin about the Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage www.nottsrainbowheritage.org.uk Celebration Evening in the Council House Ballroom in February 2011.  Two further pictures show a display board highlighting my campaigning and letters over the last three years.  A caption gives thanks to Roger Hollier for his skill, time and trouble in producing this effective exhibit.

If readers are interested in seeing any of these 130 sheets, free of charge, I can post via ‘large letter’ up to 12 sheets at a time.  Please send a postal address to narvel@narvelannable.co.uk or write to me at 44 Dovedale Crescent, Belper, Derby DE56 1HJ – or phone 01 773 82 44 83. 

On Sheet 83 - the Heanor Library event of February 2008 was also memorable.  The two back rows where full of women - so enthusiastic, so supportive in body language, so helpful in eye contact - they deserve special mention.  Throughout my gay life, I have seen a continuing social apartheid between gay men and lesbians.  How very sad – one half of homosexual humanity ignoring the other half.  If we take that attitude, we are all diminished and socially impoverished.

The success of Lost Lad gave me the opportunity to be interviewed on Central Television, BBC Radio Derby and BBC Radio Nottingham.  Scruffy Chicken took me further afield.  BBC Radio Manchester [GMR] invited me to discuss the novel twice during March 2006.  In ‘Gay Talk’, Nigel Soni said –

“Scruffy Chicken was a great read.  I know it’s the old cliché but … really; I just couldn’t put it down!”

In the following edition of ‘Gay Talk’, I was in conversation with its producer, Ashley Byrne who took a special interest in my next project Secret Summer.

On April 3^rd 2006, I was the guest of Rony Robinson of BBC Radio Sheffield.  Several phone calls from interested listeners extended the interview up to one hour.  It was good to be invited back in March 2010 to discuss issues raised in Secret Summer.  I had the opportunity to be a part of the BBC Radio Sheffield discussion on homophobia ahead of Sheffield Pride on July 16^th 2011.  Giving air time to these important matters was appreciated.  It was kind of Toby Foster to invite my comments on the gay marriage controversy on August 20^th 2011.

I’d like to thank the Sheffield Star.  Over the years, it has printed my letters, articles and one full page feature [Sheet 52] on Scruffy Chicken by Martin Dawes - 18.04.06.  It highlighted trials suffered during a lifetime trying to hide from the ignorance, prejudice, discrimination and bigotry from some of the heterosexual majority.

On April 24^th 2006, Julie Mayer of BBC Radio Leicester asked questions about Scruffy Chicken.  She focused on my life and encounters with homophobia.

As part of Gay History Month, February 2009, Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage invited me as Guest of Honour to the launch of ‘View from the Top’ the biggest LGBT exhibition in the UK at Waterston’s in Nottingham.  It is a valuable collection of photographs, books, pictures, diagrams, newspaper cuttings and a wide range of LGBT memorabilia going back many years.  Had it not been for the brave efforts of Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage, Scruffy Chicken would never have seen the light of day.

In March 2009, Derby City Council held a Tri-Network Event in which I was invited to address the gathering about my life and work.

In January 2010, the Derbys Rainbow Fringe Festival www.derbysrainbowfringefestival.org.uk asked me to speak at Derby Central Library and also at a number of other venues for Gay History Month, February 2010.  After putting sparkle and hope into a usually drab month, they organised, managed, promoted and hosted several LGBT events in the autumn of that year and the following Gay History Month of February 2011.  I am grateful to have been associated with the Derbys Rainbow Fringe Festival.  They gave me the opportunity to speak at Chesterfield Library, Derby University and to have the honour of introducing Peter Tatchell on his first visit to Derby.

Other invitations as a guest speaker came from Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage.  In February 2010; I gave readings from Secret Summer to a full house at the Voluntary Action Centre.  I’m indebted to the Editor of Queer Bulletin for providing necessary publicity for my books, several Nottinghamshire engagements and some campaigning letters – not least the sudden disappearance of Jack Carrier in QB January 2011.

It happened in our colliery village of Stanley Common in 1959 when I was a frustrated, deeply repressed 14 year old scruffy chicken.  We had a shy and gentle postmaster called Jack Carrier.  One day he was there - the next day he was gone!

‘What’s happened to him?’  I asked mother.

          ‘That one!  Huh!  Good riddance,’ she snapped.  ‘E were one of them funny sorts.  No good to any woman,’ she growled.

The effect on me?  Well, it was the same as the effect on hundreds of thousands like me.  I hid inside of myself.  I became withdrawn and tried to pretend to desire girls.  I drifted into a secret world of fear and insecurity.

Clearly Jack had been discovered in some way, denounced and driven out of Stanley Common by ignorant homophobic outrage.  In those dark days of rabid gay hate, it was considered quite natural for a heterosexual to ‘chat up’ a woman.  However, if a homosexual engaged another man in conversation, that was seen as ‘soliciting for an immoral purpose’.  Many victims were entrapped by the CID in plainclothes and humiliated in the local press.  Did this happen to Jack?

The above formed the main theme of my visit to North Nottinghamshire College in Worksop, when I addressed students and staff on the subject of homophobic ignorance in March 2009.  On the strength of that occasion, in the following July, I delivered a similar talk to an audience of Nottinghamshire teachers in Mansfield at the West Nottinghamshire College.  Following an imaginative presentation about homophobic bullying by Councillor Ian Campbell - (future Mayor of Retford) – to make my point, I revisited the pain and suffering of a famous actor called Wilfrid Brambell who was entrapped by agents provocateurs in 1962. 

Cruel and humiliating tabloid headlines screamed out ‘Old Man Steptoe caught importuning to commit a lewd act’, ‘Albert Steptoe arrested by police’ and ‘TV Junk Man charged with gross indecency’.

Splashed over the pages of the popular press, this reinforced the generally held prejudice that a homosexual looked and acted just like the shambling, dirty decrepit, toothless, unshaven old man better known to the nation as Albert Steptoe.  I’m grateful to Gay Times [Sheet 102] for printing my letter about this event in October 2009.

In May 2010 [Sheet 111] in recognition of valuable contributions to the LGBT Community of Derby, along with several others, Derby Pride nominated me for the Jeffery Tillett Award.  Quite an honour.  However, many of us concurred with the choice of the eventual winner who has done so much to improve the quality of life for local gay people.  His insistence that the award be presented to the whole Derbyshire Friend team of conscientious workers / volunteers will add even more respect and prestige to the good name of Toni Montinaro MBE.

Derbyshire Friend – 01 332 20 77 04 – info@gayderbyshire.org.uk www.gayderbyshire.org.uk

In February 2010, I was also nominated for an Equity Partnership Award for Best Individual Contribution to LGB Communities in Bradford at a prestigious ceremony in the French Ballroom of the Midland Hotel.  Once again, a better man won.  Mark Michalowski, for many years the editor of Shout! Magazine has made an invaluable contribution to the West Yorkshire gay community.  www.gayers.co.uk

It is always heartening to have a campaigning voice travel far and wide.  I would like to thank the Bradford Telegraph & Argus for printing a number of my letters on gay issues – not least the generous full page ‘Book of the Week’ feature by Emma Clayton praising Secret Summer on April 15^th 2011.  The last nine chapters are set in Yorkshire.  See Sheet 124.

Whilst not hailing from Bradford, I had been invited as guest speaker at several Bradford Pride events and also at the first ever Civic Reception for the LGB communities in the city to mark the International Day Against Homophobia in May 2009.

Paul Hunt, leading light of West Yorkshire, Chief Features Writer of SHOUT! Magazine and chairman of Bradford’s LGB focus group told the Derby Telegraph –

          ‘All Narvel’s books are successful in Yorkshire.  We felt he would give an excellent speech and connect strongly with the hundreds of people who will be there on this IDAHO Day.’

Dating from his review of Scruffy Chicken in 2007, Paul Hunt has been a stalwart source of encouragement and support for my activism and writing.  Thank you, Paul.

In some of my letters to the press, in an assessment of gay progress, you will see the occasional use of the cliché – ‘We have come a long way, but there is still a long way to go’.  How true.  There is plenty of evidence to support both cases.  For example, 21 year old gay man, Oliver Hemsley might well take a pessimistic view of LGBT progress.  During a homophobic attack in October 2008, he was battered over the head with a glass bottle and stabbed seven times, leaving him permanently paralysed and disabled.  This, one of many ‘queer bashings’, was near the George and Dragon, Oliver’s local gay pub. 

There had been warnings, and those warnings continue!  In early 2011, stickers were plastered around East London declaring it to be a ‘Gay Free Zone, threatening that Allah’s punishment for homosexuality was severe.

Graeme Taylor who attends high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA might well take an optimistic view of LGBT progress.  At the age of 14, he is an excellent, confident speaker.  In August 2011, he was a guest on an American national TV programme – the Ellen De Generes Show – courageously explaining how and why he came out of his closet, telling his friends he was gay.

‘Martin Luther King told us that people shouldn’t be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.  I want to be treated in the same way.  I should not be judged by who I love.’

NEW
Secret Summer



Scruffy Chicken