Narvel S Annable Author Latest News

NEWS

Narvel S Annable

Picture by David Hemm at Nottingham Pride

BRADFORD IDAHO 2009

The International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) will be marked in Bradford by a Civic Reception by the Lord Mayor on Monday 18 May, from 6pm to 8pm. The reception is free and all who support the fight against homophobia are invited.

The free event takes place at the City Training Centre, 41 Chapel Street, Bradford BD1 5BY in the "Little Germany" quarter of the City.

A variety of speakers will be supporting the Lord Mayor. These speakers include, Mr Gay International 2009 PC Mark Carter, West Yorkshire Police; Aldene Woodward from the West Yorkshire Fire Service, Joy Howard, June Hunt and celebrated author Narvel Annable, together with music from Bradford’s Lesbian and Gay Youth Group (BLAGY)

This is the first ever Civic Reception for the LGB communities in Bradford.

The Rainbow Flag will be flying over City Hall and there will be information stalls and a free buffet.

The venue has level access and a sign language interpreter has been reserved for the reception but if you have additional access needs or to confirm you need an interpreter, please contact me on 01274 431560 or the Equity Partnership on 01274 727779 or by text on 079414921610 or email by Friday 1st May 2009

Places to the IDAHO reception are limited and must be booked via the Equity Partnership on 01274 727779 or by text on 079414921610.

The event is organized by Bradford Council’s LGB Employee Focus Group, the Equity Partnership, Mesmac and Unison and is supported by the Big Lottery Fund.

I look forward to seeing you there!!

Paul Hunt

Chair LGB Employee Focus Group Bradford Council

Bradford Pride

Narvel Annable, ‘our adopted Bradfordian,’ has been invited to be a part of the Evening of Comedy & Culture which is to be held at Bradford’s Colour Museum on Thursday, May 28^th 2009 hosted by Paul Hunt, Chief Feature writer for SHOUT! Narvel will be reading extracts from his new book Secret Summer.

For more information on the full programme of Bradford Pride which starts on May 23^rd to June 5^th - visit www.equitypartnership.org.uk or contact rachel@equitypartnership.org.uk or phone 01 274 72 77 59 / 79

Author to be Key Speaker at City’s Gay Celebrations

Society must still fight prejudices, writer Narvel will tell his audience

This was the main heading and sub-heading of a sensitive and very well written feature by Chris Jones of the Derby Evening Telegraph printed on Friday, October 24^th 2008.

Narvel Annable wishes it to be known that he is grateful to Mr Jones and his editor Steve Hall for this splendid support for the LGBT community. Also to be commended is Telegraph photographer Mike Inman who skilfully composed and captured an eye-catching image of the author joyfully and proudly waving the Rainbow Flag which is now the international symbol of Gay Pride.

A DERBYSHIRE author has been invited to speak in front of hundreds of people at a major event organised by the gay community.

Narvel Annable will be making an address on the steps of Bradford Town Hall for the International Day Against Homophobia.

The event, on May 17^th next year, marks the anniversary of the day the World Health Organisation removed homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses in 1990.

Please note that the actual IDAHO date falls on a Sunday, therefore the Bradford City Hall Civic Reception event is planned for Monday, May 18^th 2009.

IDAHO Day has been running in the UK since 1993 and aims to improve attitudes towards homosexuality.

Mr Annable, 63, has written three novels dealing with his experiences growing up in Heanor and discovering his sexuality. It is the success of his books that led him to be invited to address the event. He said –

“It is a great honour for me to be able to talk about these issues to so many people. When I was growing up, I was badly bullied by children and older people who just didn’t understand the person I was. It got to the point where I nearly killed myself. When I give my speech in Bradford, I will be focusing on those experiences. I’ll try to make sure people in the gay community and people outside of it know how important it is to admit and understand the truth.

"Over the years, things have improved. Gay people are more accepted because the profile of the community is now much higher. But there is still a long way to go. I feel gay people in Britain are still as persecuted as African Americans were in the 1950s.”

Mr Annable of 44 Dovedale Crescent, Belper, Derby DE56 1HJ has also been asked to speak at Chesterfield’s Our Lady and All Saints’ Church for World AIDS Day on December 1^st.

He will talk about homophobia and the dangers of the disease still facing members of the gay community. Estimates show that more than 80,000 people are now living with HIV in the United Kingdom and nearly 800 people were diagnosed with the disease in 2007 alone. He said –

“Make no mistake; AIDS is still a killer and an awful terrible illness. In Africa it kills one in three people and is reaching the scale of an epidemic.

“Just because you hear less about it these days doesn’t mean it’s any less severe.

“Great steps have been made to control it but, as with all homosexual issues, the key is in education.”

Paul Hunt, Chairman of Bradford’s Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Focus Group, which organised the city’s IDAHO Day, said Mr Annable was chosen to speak in Bradford because of his age and experience. He said –

“All Narvel’s books are successful in Yorkshire. He has seen a lot of changes in attitude towards gay people as he has grown up.

“We felt he would give an excellent speech and connect really strongly to the hundreds of people who will be there on the day.”

In a formal invitation to Narvel Annable, Paul Hunt wrote –

“You will recall attending the Yorkshire Cross Council LGBT Meeting in September 2007 as our Guest Speaker. Your talk was felt to have been a resounding success and feedback from participants about your work was extremely positive.

“We have recently begun planning an event to commemorate The International Day against Homophobia 2009 and have selected a small number of people we believe would best represent the thoughts and feelings of the LGBT Community on this very special day. I am therefore pleased to extend a formal invitation to you to join us as one of our Principal Speakers.”

Secret Summer Update

As of January 2009, Secret Summer, currently at approximately 75,000 words is about 65% complete. At font 11 / A5, this ‘organic’ novel is now over 200 pages in extent and still evolving from all parts, not just from the end.

The working title of each chapter could still change. However, the following will give the reader a flavour of the content and tone of this autobiographic whodunit which is subtitled – ‘A Mystery set in Derbyshire 1966’.

Chapter 1 – Dreams of Derbyshire

Chapter 2 – The Windsor Bath House

Chapter 3 – Ugly Old Trolls

Chapter 4 – Butch as a Brick

Chapter 5 – Menace and Magic

Chapter 6 – The Sultan’s Palace

Chapter 7 – Hate, Anger and Burning Injustice

Chapter 8 – Love’s First Kiss

Chapter 9 – A Lad from Huddersfield

Chapter 10 – A Good Boy

Chapter 11 – A Party of Chickens

Chapter 12 – Chains of Enchantment

Chapter 13 – Plan of Escape

Chapter 14 – Naughty Boys up a Tree

Chapter 15 – Hung Up on Morals

Chapter 16 – Manhattan – An Isle of Joy

Chapter 17 – Monsters from the Id

Chapter 18 – Excitement of Adventure

Chapter 19 – The Movie Changes to Colour

Chapter 20 – Sneering Snobs

Chapter 21 – The Wolfenden Report

Chapter 22 – Martin Harcourt QC

Chapter 23 – Hades Under High Tor

Chapter 24 – A Horror of Great Darkness Came Upon Me

Chapter 25 – Lost in a Labyrinth

Chapter 26 – Secret Silence of Sodom

Chapter 27 – Wealthy Hedgehogs

Chapter 28 – Narrations of a Naughty Gnome

Chapter 29 – Old Nottingham

Chapter 30 – Thou Shalt Not Lie With Mankind

Here is the proposed blurb for the back cover of Secret Summer followed by the first chapter. As with the rest of the work, it is continually subject to change.

Secret Summer

A Mystery set in Derbyshire 1966

Why secret? Because when you are young, when you are in love and if you are gay in 1966 - it must be secret. You must love in secret, lust in secret, hunt in secret, meet in secret and play in secret. The alternative would be unthinkable. And, in 1966 - if things go wrong, horribly wrong, dangerously wrong, criminally wrong - you can't tell your heterosexual friends, you can't tell your parents and you certainly can't tell the police!

Homosexual friends must be kept apart from parents, family and regular friends. Nineteen hundred and sixty six was the summer of secret love for Simeon Hogg. See Simeon in love; a rollercoaster, a frantic mixture of agony and ecstasy spanning the Atlantic Ocean. He has no support save for that which was available from the secretive and frequently unreliable world of gay men who were riddled with all their own personal problems, repressions and hang-ups.

Here is a world which could be very miserable indeed, a world which existed long before the advent of the Rainbow Flag, Peter Tatchell and Stonewall. It was a world without annual Gay Pride events, Gay History Months and a world devoid of support services for homosexuals which would be available in every city and every large town in Britain 40 years later.

Meet the old quirky characters and a few new ones in this heartrending tale of young love in which, yet again, Narvel Annable reaches down into the joys and sorrows of his past and produces an autobiographic account of laughs, adventure, secret passion and pain. All the usual ingredients are here for another cracking whodunit; a missing person, suspected murder - all set against a backdrop of beautiful Derbyshire hills and the ugly unforgiving criminal underworld of Detroit.

Chapter 1

Dreams of Derbyshire

As usual, Simeon Hogg was homesick for England. As usual, to ease this chronic misery, he indulged himself by 'playing back' a pleasant memory of cycling along leafy Derbyshire lanes. He selected a recollection from his early teens, a ride from Belper to Wirksworth, a cool bright day in late September. The boy stood hard on pedals. Slowly, very slowly in low gear he pumped up a steep, pretty little lane, up, up to those windswept heights, up into the scent of fern and browning bracken.

This trip was memorable for its beauty, but also for its challenge. Simeon was often stopping to study his precious, cloth-bound, 'one inch' Ordnance Survey map in an effort to carefully navigate through a confusing myriad of many narrow, winding country lanes, all going everywhere. There were lots of cross-roads with intriguing signs pointing to odd sounding places - Gorseybank, Shottle, Alderwasley, Alport Height, Idridgehay - all so very strange - all so very Derbyshire.

Illuminated by dazzling autumnal sunshine, brilliant white clouds were chased by the wind across a heavenly vault of deep blue. This same wind roared through a battle-scared ash tree, danced the bracken, flattened the open meadow but appeared to have no power over a stubborn craggy old hawthorn at the edge of his pretty lane. Tirelessly, it speeded Simeon and moved a million different weeds, weeds mature after a long summer, weeds deep green and weeds beautifully brown flashing by as, alternatively, the lane sank into a ravine and then suddenly ascended to reveal magnificent views to the west.

The physical exertion, the physical pleasure, the rhythm of waving trees was consistent with Simeon's own body rhythms, breaths of sweet fresh air, panting, his increased heart-beat born of ecstatic exercise which could never be achieved in a vast ugly conurbation called Detroit.

Here, in his head, he was home. Here, over a swath of impenetrable prickly gorse he could see forever. Here, on his bicycle, he was on top of the world, could see a view of the whole world endlessly stretching out until it dissolved into a misty distant ... and, as the reverie weakened ... the scene dissolved and resolved back into the present reality ... a grim reality.

These were not the sunlit green hills of Derbyshire in late September 1959; these were the hideous, blighted, flat expanses of an endless, benighted conurbation in early January 1966 when a sadder Simeon, barely out of his teens, navigated his car off the I94 Edsel Ford Freeway to join the John Lodge Freeway which would speed him into Downtown Detroit.

Even though his destination was sex, he was still sad owing to a massive complexity of problems, of which, homesickness for England was just a part. At this moment, on the Lodge Freeway, this unhappy 20 year old, trapped in an alien land, was overwhelmed by a multitude of vague miseries. He was incapable of analysing, unable to untangle the convoluted complications of his present circumstances. No professional gay-friendly counsellors were available - would not be available - for another four decades. Simeon was repressed. Simeon was isolated from friends, family and colleagues by the brick wall of ignorance, bigotry and prejudice which today we refer to as homophobia. Emotionally, he was hiding inside of himself. Effectively, he was an outlaw. He was cut off from all the well established heterosexual social structures of family support.

Simeon knew that he was queer. He knew it every time he saw a comely face, every time he saw nice butch bulges held snug inside of tight fitting sexy jeans. He also knew that it was wrong to be queer. He accepted received opinion about a certain 'disgusting disorder' which was sometimes treated with electric shock aversion therapy. Still imprisoned inside the primitive peasant values of his working-class family, and, in the absence of educated, enlightened counsel, Simeon Hogg was falling victim to that most dreaded malaise which often infected homosexuals in the mid 20th century - self hate.

For as long as he could remember, the heterosexual majority had, at every opportunity, reinforced their hard line against queers, perverts, poufs. These ingrained homophobic attitudes, written in stone, written inside his very being, came down from the very top of society often referred to as 'the Establishment'.

When the World Health Organisation was established in 1948, homosexuality was officially regarded, classified as a 'severe mental sickness' and remained so until May 13th 1990. This was one of the most important events in Gay History, an event now celebrated annually on May 13th by Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual people as the International Day Against Homophobia [IDAHO]

But Rainbow Flags, Gay Pride Events and publicly funded support groups like Derbyshire Friend were still unthinkable, still decades away from the current reality of this sad young Englishman who was trying to survive, trying to make sense of, trying to engage with the illegal, seedy, secret homosexual underworld of North America on this bleak mid-winter evening, January 8th, 1966.

Gay History Month 2009

Narvel Annable will be this year’s Guest of Honour at the evening launch of ‘View from the Top’ Gay Exhibition. This event will take place on the top floor of Waterstone’s, Bridlesmith Gate in Nottingham on Tuesday, February 17^th from 7.00 to 9.00 pm with free food and free drink. David Edgley and his conscientious team are building on last year’s excellent work to stage what will be the biggest LGBT exhibition in the United Kingdom which will be open every day during shop hours until Sunday, February 22^nd.

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 people like David, Scruffy Chicken would have never seen the light of day. For more information visit Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage website - www.nottsrainbowheritage.org.uk

On Wednesday, March 25^th from 4 to 6.30 pm at the Spot Conference Centre, 73 Sacheveral Street in Derby, Derby City Council is holding a Tri-Network Event which will include refreshments.

Narvel Annable has been invited to address the gathering about his life and his work. The author will be available to talk about his books to visitors on an individual basis. Copies on display can be personally signed for any interested buyers.

If you would like to attend this event or need further information, please contact Susan Sanghera on 01 332 25 56 95 [minicom 2558247] - or – email LGBT.support@derby.gov.uk before March 15^th

International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) 2009

Paul Hunt of SHOUT! Magazine and Bradford Metropolitan City Council has invited Narvel Annable to be one of the key speakers and give an address on the subject of homophobia on IDAHO Day.

Under the Rainbow Flag with Paul, Narvel will appear at Bradford Town Hall on Monday, May 18^th 2009.

This LGBT event is held every year to commemorate the day in 1990 when homosexuality was removed from the World Health Organisation’s list of mental illnesses.

IDAHO is now marked internationally as a celebration of the human rights of lesbian, gay and bisexual people throughout the world, and to draw attention to the 77 countries which still punish gay people with imprisonment or execution.

World AIDS Day Reading in Saint Mary’s and All Saints Church [Crooked Spire] Chesterfield at 7.00pm on December 1^st 2008.

When Kevin Guthrie asked me to speak today, my mind went back 27 years to December 1981 when we first heard about an illness which appeared to destroy the body’s immune system. Some four years later, that illness had become known as ‘the gay plague’ and the World Health Organization said that AIDS had reached epidemic proportions. The stigma of HIV and the stigma of simply being gay had also reached epidemic proportions. In the public mind, one had been firmly equated with the other.

In 1985, AIDS claimed one of its most famous victims. Millions of his fans were shocked to discover that such an enduring image of heterosexual beauty and masculinity was, in fact, a homosexual.

I heard about the death of Rock Hudson with mixed feelings. If I’m honest, a tiny part of me was actually pleased - obviously not pleased about the poor man’s pain and suffering.

I can explain better by reading this short extract from Scruffy Chicken. The character called Simeon is actually myself as a teenager.

After being entrapped by the CID, a famous actor called Wilfrid Brambell was arrested in the November of 1962 on a charge of intending to commit a lewd act of gross indecency.

The teenage Simeon read about this. He was fascinated by the idea of one man wishing to have sex with another man, but, in the macho, coalmining coalfields of Derbyshire, he wisely kept that fascination closely to himself.

The Brambell incident was splashed over the front pages of the popular Press. It reinforced the generally held prejudice that a 'homosexual' looked and acted just like the shambling, dirty, decrepit, toothless, unshaven old man, who was better known to the nation as Albert Steptoe.

Shortly after the arrest, Simeon was watching the rag and bone man on the telly when his ‘ooncle ‘arry’ came in and said – “Ton that dotty bogga off!”

Simeon could not conceive of a beautiful young man who was queer. There was simply no precedent for such a thing in his experience. Images of the butch and the attractive, the well-known icons of male beauty such as Marty Wilde, Adam Faith, Billy Fury and the ultra masculine Rock Hudson; all these were very firmly heterosexual. Wilfrid Brambell might well be queer – but - never, ever in a thousand years could Rock Hudson be a homosexual!

Fast forward to October 1985. The terrible scourge of HIV had, at least, destroyed the myth that a homosexual was always effeminate, odd, twisted and unattractive. It confirmed that - many gay men - were - like Rock Hudson – very good actors.

I was a good actor. I had to be. During my 17 years as a history teacher at a tough comprehensive school in Worksop, where homophobia was virulent and endemic – I kept my head down. I was very careful about what I said to pupils and colleagues. Even so – they sussed me out – and I became a target, suffering several painful incidents during the grim HIV decades of the 1980s and the 1990s.

Of course, I’d had a good grounding for these trials and tribulations. I had been to ‘boot camp’.

Rewind to 1957 and see some savage pupils in Heanor at the Dickensian Mundy Street Boys School taunting, jeering, screaming and pushing around a 12 year old boy. They too had sussed me out. Why? Well, because I was different. I had no interest in football. I would not, could not assert myself with bare knuckles in the school playground – which, of course, made me a convenient target.

It had nothing to do with sex or HIV. It didn’t matter. The culture of cruelty was the same – a routine of physical and psychological torture. A typical day started with prayers and hymns and ended with a desire to be dead.

In the autumn of 1957, with the assistance of a sadistic schoolmaster, head bowed and eyes downcast, I had reached an advanced stage of humility and obedience to the bullies who had … broken me. It was the end. On Friday, October 4^th 1957, the day Russia launched the first ever man-made satellite – I had become Shaun Dykes.

Shaun Dykes. Perhaps some of you will recall Shaun. He was only 17 when it happened - just over a month ago.

Shaun and I have a few things in common. We are both gay, have both attended school in Heanor, have both been very unhappy to the brink of jumping from a high place. Tragically, Shaun fell. As you see - I did not. I went on to write three autobiographic books which explain the problems of being a homosexual in a society which is often very homophobic.

There is a line in a play called Death of a Salesman –

‘A man is worth nothing dead.’

Had this vulnerable young man lived, just think what wonderful creative and useful work he could have done. The books he didn’t write, the support he didn’t give to the gay community because he fell to his death on the day of Derby Pride when many of us were celebrating gay culture under a perfect, autumnal blue sky on the Bass Recreation Ground.

Like Shaun, I was looking down to a pavement below. Not Derby, this was a Heanor pavement. I was not on top of a car park; I was looking down at Red Lion Square from our top bedroom window just under where the bricks spell out 1888. It’s still there.

Unlike Shaun, there were no police officers were there to talk me out of it. Unlike Shaun, there was no baying crowd below taunting, humiliating, calling for blood. For me, that activity was usually in the school playground.

However, on this day in 1957, my pain felt like the wording of a medieval torture –

‘As much as you can bear, and greater’.

HIV was a convenient stick with which to hit gay men. I recall a devout Christian who appeared on television in the late 1980s saying –

“These degenerates - have to face the bitter truth. AIDS is the Lord’s way of cleaning house – and he aint finished yet. No sir!”

It was bigots like that who put fire in my belly. It was they who persuaded me to escape from the Valley Comprehensive School and to do what I was always told to do at Mundy Street Boys School. They told me to hit back.

And I will. Three books later – I have.

So … sleep well, Shaun. I don’t know much about you, or indeed anything about the circumstances which brought you to the point of suicide. You died on the day of the best ever Derby Pride. You can be sure that people like me will keep using their skills to attack homophobia. You can be sure that people like Kevin Guthrie, organisations like the Derbyshire Sexual Health Promotion Service; indeed, all gay support groups will continue to work, to help young gay people – boys and girls - people like you.

Narvel Annable.

Events of 2008

It has been a busy year for Narvel Annable. This explains why his new novel, Secret Summer, will now be published in 2009. Check out the March 08 edition of Shout! There is information about his new book in a feature under the headline – ‘The Best Kept Secret’ by Paul Hunt on page 17. www.shoutweb.co.uk

The Heanor Library event of February 27^th was organised by Derbyshire County Council’s LGBT Group as part of the annual Gay History Month. A feature in the April edition of Nottingham’s QB said –

“It was a full house. Most of the characters in the novels are based on real people who populated the pre-1967 Nottingham and Derby gay scenes and whose eccentricities are brought to amusing life by Narvel.”

If you navigate around the very interesting Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage website, you will be able to view a slide show which includes photographs taken during that Heanor Library evening.

Go to www.nottsrainbowheritage.org.uk

Most of the pictures concern the Waterstone’s exhibition of February 12^th ‘View at the Top’. David Edgley and his conscientious LGBT team did an excellent job which was justly rewarded by a very good turn out to see this 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 people like David, Scruffy Chicken would have never seen the light of day.

Return to the home page and click on ‘Resources’ to see a selection which includes ‘Slide Shows’. The ‘Civil Partnerships’ show includes a few photographs from July 14^th 2006 when Narvel and his partner Terry Durand tied the knot at Ripley Town Hall. They also appear in the Nottingham Pride slide show.

The Heanor Library readings also featured on page 19 in the April 08 edition of SHOUT! in a regular column under the headline – AND ANOTHER THING … which, with delight, noted the appearance of so many enthusiastic and supportive women in that Heanor audience.

October 30^th – Narvel will be the guest speaker at Derbyshire Friend’s Reach Out Group on Friary Street in Derby. This talk will focus on the local gay scene, as it was, in the 1960s. He has also been invited to give book readings as part of Derbyshire Friends 25^th Birthday Celebrations on a date which has yet to be arranged. www.gayderbyshire.co.uk

Following Narvel’s first successful talk to the Nottingham Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement on May 11^th 2007, they have invited him to speak to them again on the evening of November 14^th. The talk will focus on readings which relate to ethical issues from his new book Secret Summer.

World AIDS Day December 1^st 2008

The Derbyshire Sexual Health Promotion Service [CASH] has asked Narvel Annable to compose and give a reading at Saint Mary’s and All Saints Church [Crooked Spire] in Chesterfield at 7.00pm. Narvel’s contribution will be a part of a celebration of remembrance which will be followed by cheese and wine in the church coffee shop.

Picture by Paul Hunt at Pink Picnic

Next day, the same activity took place at Huddersfield's 21st Pink Picnic at Castle Hill Fields. The August edition of SHOUT! Magazine featured several photographs of Narvel with visitors and leading entertainers at the event. These pictures, taken by Paul Hunt, include the Fabulous Pride Sisters and PC Mark Carter of West Yorkshire Police, better known as Mr Gay UK. Please visit www.shoutweb.co.uk

The author will also play an active part in the 'Four Days of Fun and Frolic' which is the essence of Bradford Pride. Narvel and his partner Terry Durand will be staying at the Holiday Inn at the Bradford Leisure Exchange from Thursday, September 6th to Sunday, September 9th.

Narvel will be a guest speaker at the West Yorkshire Inaugural LGB Council Employee Group Meeting - Thursday, September 6th, 2.00 to 5.00pm at the Equity Centre, 1 Longlands Street, Bradford. On the same day he will join authors VG Lee and Linda Innes at the Pride Arts & Enterprise Launch to be introduced by Paul Hunt at 6.30 in the Conference Suite in Bradford's National Media Museum. Narvel will be reading extracts from Lost Lad and Scruffy Chicken, followed by questions from the audience at 7.30pm.

Fast forward to Saturday, September 8th, 8.00pm at Candy, Sackville Street, Bradford. Amongst other attractions and events, Paul Hunt will host a Mr & Mr / Mrs & Mrs Competition which will include Mr Annable and Mr Durand.

The Leeds Gay Community have invited Narvel to be their guest speaker on the Friday evening of September 21st at 60 Upper Basinghall Street, Leeds. HUGG - Huddersfield Gay Group have also asked him to talk about his work sometime in October at a date yet to be fixed.

Photograph courtesy of Derby Evening Telegraph

GAY AUTHOR TO ENJOY A VERY CIVIL WEDDING

Tom Cooper, of the Belper News, announced that on July 14th, 2006, Terry Durand and his 'long-term partner' Narvel Annable will be 'tying the knot'. In Ripley Town Hall, after nearly 30 years they were legally united in the Grand Council Chamber in a Civil Partnership Ceremony. They first met September 3rd, 1976 in Jasper Wormall's little cottage on Becksitch Lane in Belper - enjoying his hospitality happily munching on cracker biscuits and drinking tea.

At the present time Narvel is working on his seventh book Secret Summer - A Derbyshire Mystery set in 1966.

Gay life through the

XTRA! West

Vancouver’s Lesbian & Gay Biweekly

No 358 May 10, 2007 30,000 Audited Circulation

www.xtra.ca

Ugly Old Trolls

Trolls and Chickens / Old vs Young

Gay life through the

eyes of a scruffy chicken

A review by Brad Teeter - a Canadian journalist

GREAT BRITAIN: In a quaint old library deep in middle England, a coming of age story is unfolding casting light in some dark corners of the gay world. I’m leaning forward in my third row seat at a special presentation marking gay history month. And, once again, on this year-long overseas adventure, I’m reminded of home.

The lone Canadian in a small audience that includes a former mayor and the head of the local gay and lesbian organization, I am struck by the similarity between this English Midlands sexual adventure story and my own experiences in Vancouver.

The tale being told is sad, sometimes cruel and oftentimes laughing out loud funny. Local author Narvel Annable, a retired school teacher, is creatively portraying characters from his most recent novel - Scruffy Chicken - which is inspired by his own story. For the most part, we’re listening and watching the reenactment of Annable’s sexual awakening some 40 years earlier.

The big picture is about a wide-eyed teenager guided on an erotic adventure tour of Turkish baths and active toilets by a series of unlikely hosts, discovering along the way how discriminatory attitudes have driven some gays to despair and isolation. But Annable also chronicles discriminatory traits within the gay community itself, including gay-on-gay abuse in which elderly and unattractive gays are targeted.

It is a study of contrasts, old versus young, pristine countryside beauty versus smelly toilet-side fixations and beautiful bodies versus stooped, toothless, lopsided forms.

Annabel’s gift is that he shows pain through his writing and acting while cleverly retaining a comical edge, showering us with unforgettable characters such as the Toad of the Toilets and local drag queen Becksitch Betty.

The story begins days before the assassination of John F. Kennedy after the young Annable – the scruffy chicken called Simeon in the book - moves from Britain to join his sister in Detroit. However, the action begins when the young man returns to the green hills of Derbyshire on a lengthy vacation and develops relationships with sexually obsessed, often cranky, older gays.

Tonight the small crowd at the Derby library is mesmerized by Annable’s acting ability. By turns he is an adventurous chicken, ugly troll, vicious queen, and an arrogant, upper- class pretender.

He tells how elder gays are cruelly mocked by controlling players in the local gay social scene. An arrogant snob with a cut-glass English accent is the villain in Annable’s piece.

But the most interesting characters are the tormented, unattractive gays encountered during the young man’s travels. Keen to experience everything possible about the sexual side of gay life, lifelong friendships are forged with personalities locally known as toads, goblins, gnomes and bitchy queens. It’s not that the young traveler is particularly generous or well meaning. He simply sticks around long enough to get past physical appearance, along the way reaping personal benefits from the oral sexual expertise of his extraordinary new friends.

In the voice of one of the characters featured in Scruffy Chicken, Annable relates an experience of a feisty fellow known as the Toad of the Toilets in an account about cottaging or washroom sex. The character, Audrey Pod, misses his annual summer vacation at the beach after discovering an active cottage along the way.

“I can always tell if a cottage is ticking. The atmosphere is perfect – dirty, dingy and just two sit-downs – no problem with the competition. There was a hole between as big as a dinner plate! It was three o’clock and I sat there until nine when starvation forced me out.”

Explaining his failure to show up at his usual haunt at the beach, Pod notes, “Why should I suffer annual abuse from those nasty young queens in the dunes, when I can get real men in a toilet.”

Annable finds that the gay social set – though also sexually active in all the same venues- is harshly judgmental of the sexual behaviors of the physically unattractive, a prominent snob describing this elder cottager as “a piece of vile slime creeping across the ground”.

It’s tempting to dismiss the harsh attitudes and the internal and external community prejudices as hardships of the past, notions and attitudes that we have grown beyond in the modern gay experience. But have things really changed that much?

I’m reminded of the ongoing debate in Vancouver of the prominence given the beautiful and the young in gay publications and social events. Old and young, played off against each other, sometimes exploiting common needs and interests while the unattractive of all ages too often suffer scorn and/or neglect.

Annable’s story illustrates the painful consequences of our attempts to mirror the pigeon- hole mentality of the larger society. How we back ourselves into unholy holes when we give in to the temptation to hide who we are, hoist certain community members onto pedestals based on appearance and material possessions and judge others harshly for being themselves.

The graphic, sexual nature of Scruffy Chicken offends some in this region of England. Last year, the women’s auxiliary of a nearby town rescinded a speaking invitation to Annable after hearing of gay sexual content in his presentations. “No gay sex please, we’re the Belper Women’s Institute,” screamed the front page headline of the village paper later that week.

But there is no complaining this night of February 21^st 2007 at the Derby Central Library. Just enthusiastic applause and the very civilized serving of wine amidst introductions and handshakes.

Scruffy Chicken – A Mystery set in Derbyshire 1965 can be purchased at bookshops, or on author Narvel Annabel’s website: http://www.narvelannable.co.uk/

SHOUT

SHOUT!
Yorkshire's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered paper

Scruffy Chicken

in the arts
from April 2007

From Derbyshire to Detroit, author Narvel S Annable reveals to Paul Hunt a fascinating life journey culminating in Lost Lad, one of the best semi-autobiographical novels to hit the gay bookstands for years, and its follow-up, Scruffy Chicken

I have to ask about your name, Narvel - where did it come from?

Apparently, my mother saw it and liked it. I have never met another Narvel but I am sure they must exist. I will have to check it out on the Internet!

You had somewhat of an unconventional childhood, you moved to the USA, tell us about that?

My youngest sister married a GI and moved to the US, I then joined them in 1963. I actually arrived the day before President Kennedy was assassinated.

It was amazing to me, cars looking like they were about to take off, like rockets. I was just eighteen and struggling with my sexuality at the time. To a young man from Derbyshire, America was so different. One of the things I noticed was that the men were so macho, very much the Rock Hudson type, rather than some of the stereotypical effeminate characters in Derbyshire.

So, were your first sexual experiences, in the USA?

Well apart from childhood, school ‘fumbling’ the experiences were very different to the ones I would experience in later life back in the UK. I can remember clearly working in a camera store and thinking a colleague was gay. I was mistaken, but he told a fellow worker who told me how sad she was that I was not well, she perceived it as an illness! But yea, my ‘adult’ sexual experiences were initiated in America.

Did you long for home?

Apart from one year, during my time in the USA, I returned every year. I missed home and the rolling hills of Derbyshire I suppose. In America every house was the same and Detroit was so flat.

You eventually became a teacher...

I studied in America and spent some time working in a boy’s Catholic school, before returning to England and teaching history in a local Derbyshire school until I retired.

On your return to the UK you met your life partner, how difficult was it to have such a relationship in the early seventies?

Not always easy. My fellow teachers at the school knew I was unmarried and that I had a ‘friend’ called Terry - it was never really discussed. I am sure colleagues would have guessed, people are not stupid and there were a couple of instances of what would be termed today as homophobia from a handful of pupils.

Following your retirement you decided to pick up your pen and write. How did that come about?

Having taught history I wanted to write about the things I knew, my experiences, both socially and the area I love, Derbyshire. It was not until my third novel that I decided to ‘come out’ so to speak and become far more ‘autobiographical’. Of course I had already ‘come out’ to myself in acknowledging my sexuality, in some ways my first gay novel was a statement as to who I was and indeed to whom I have been.

Both Lost Lad, your first ‘gay’ novel and Scruffy Chicken, document gay history, something we have very little of. Was this a conscious attempt to ensure history was preserved?

Without a doubt, the events and the characters of the time are very real and the characters, although some names have been changed, are also very true to gay life in the 1960s. Both Lost Lad and my recent book Scruffy Chicken are about my life and those people who had an effect on me during my teenage and early twenties. Not all of it was positive I hasten to add, it would be a shame not to document history particularly as very little is written about gay life prior to the early Eighties.

Some of the response to your novels has not been as positive as you might have wished, has it?

Sadly no, the local Women’s Institute booked me for a talk about Scruffy Chicken. I received a call prior to the date to talk, saying some members would not find the subject appropriate. Whilst I was naturally very disappointed, the resulting publicity about the cancellation and the reasons behind it caused quite a stir - local newspapers and the local ITV news programme, covered the furore and the publicity did me no harm at all!!

So, what’s next?

Well, I am currently writing another book, due for publication next year. I hope to mix real life, as with Lost Lad and Scruffy Chicken, with a mystery. Things are still in the melting pot at the moment. That said, I am determined to continue to document my history and that of so many gay people who, without their courage and determination, I am convinced the changes we have seen in recent years would not have taken place.

Whilst we have many readers in North Derbyshire, do you plan to visit Yorkshire at all?

Indeed I do, I shall be at the Huddersfield Pink Picnic, later this year. Potential readers can sample my work and purchase a signed copy of any of my books.

To get hold of copies of Scruffy Chicken or Lost Lad, contact Narvel Annable (see below)

‘If you are a Shout! reader,’ he says, ‘I’ll happily sign any book purchased!’ Post: Send a cheque or postal order for £9.95, which includes Postage, to Narvel Annable, 44 Dovedale Crescent, Belper, Derbyshire , DE56 1HJ.
Phone: 01773 82 44 83
Web: narvel@narvelannable.co.uk

Stories from the magazine this month:

Related pages:

download April 2007 magazine

Homophobic Bullying 1957 - 2007

Narvel Annable has written two autobiographic books about bullying - Heanor Schooldays and Lost Lad. Librarians say they are popular in libraries around the country. A one-time victim, Narvel does not spare himself in either book. Lost Lad graphically reveals the total horror of his suffering at Mundy Street Boys School in Heanor, Derbyshire, exactly 50 years ago.

Today we have a special name for that particular cruelty and humiliation which was inflicted upon the author, as a 12 year old, back in 1957. It is called homophobic bullying. In that rough, coal mining town, with its unfeeling ultra-macho culture - a boy who would not, could not assert himself with bare knuckles in the Mundy Street playground - that boy was a constant target. He was seen as fair game by some pupils. In the case of Narvel Annable, one sadistic schoolmaster actually encouraged some of the more savage boys to smell blood. He presided over a culture of cruelty and urged them to go in for the kill. It did get physical, but most of the abuse was inflicted in a form of psychological torture which leaves its mark on the writer to this day. Even his parents took the view that these problems were just a part of growing up. They were not prepared to interfere with a 'natural process'. Accordingly, nobody was there to help Narvel. The abuse went on day after day, week after week, month after month. Eventually, he resolved to self destruct - but - as you see - he didn't. Eventually he became a writer.

Even after half a century, homophobic bullying is still commonplace and widespread. In 1957, most of those boys had never even heard of the word 'homosexual'. It didn't matter. Boys sense that some other boys are different. They discern a certain softness, a tendency to gentleness, a disinclination to join in competitive sports or engage in rough games. That is enough. It is rather like the chick in the nest who is seen as different - and is thrown out of the nest.

Lost Lad has been used by several gay support groups for young people such as Nottingham's Outburst, York's Castlegate and Wakefield's Fruitbowl.

Occasionally, Narvel Annable is called upon to talk about his work. Since February 2007, he has addressed Derby Central Library on February 21st, Derbyshire Friend on March 8th and Nottinghamshire Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Group on April 12th. He has been invited to address the Nottingham Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement on May 11th.

Narvel is also a regular guest on BBC Local Radio. In addition, he was interviewed by Dave Forrest on BCB's Equity Show on Sunday, March 18th 2007.

"On this month's show, win an exclusive signed copy of the new semi-autobiographical novel Scruffy Chicken by top selling gay author Narvel Annable who joins us for an interview."

Bradford Community Broadcasting - 96.7 FM - www.bcb.yorks.com - radio@equitypartnership.org.uk

Narvel S Annable

Gay History Month: February 2007

Narvel Annable has been invited to address an audience at Derby Central Library to talk about his work. It's on Wednesday, February 21st at 7.00pm. The usual format for this type of occasion is readings / reaction / questions / comments for about an hour, followed by a refreshment break and then a second hour. For further information call - 01 332 25 53 91.

He has also been invited by Nottingham City Council to host a similar event which will take place on Tuesday, February 6th at County Hall, West Bridgford, Nottingham - 12.00 to 2.00pm. For further information call - 0115 9 77 39 47.

The national magazine BENT has given Scruffy Chicken an excellent review in their December edition of 2006 on page 17.

Letters from Narvel Annable in 2008

This letter was printed in the Independent, the Daily Mail and the Derby Evening Telegraph – 15.07.08. It was also printed in the Pink Paper 24.07.08 - and in the August edition of Nottingham’s QB.

Dear Editor,

Lillian Ladele may be interested to know that two evangelising Christians came to my door [uninvited] to convert me to their way of thinking. Like Ms Ladele, they also held ‘deep and sincere orthodox Christian views’. It transpired that these views were racist, espousing negative judgements against people of African descent. When I asked them to explain how they justified their claim that black people were ‘naturally inferior’, they said –

“As a punishment, God turned Negroes black to remind us all of their sins.”

This appalling statement was uttered in Detroit in 1964. Although their perverted religious logic was at least challenged – alas - back in those dark homophobic days, I was not brave enough to argue comparisons between their bigotry and my own homosexuality.

Ms Ladele may claim to hold her ‘deep and sincere Christian views’, but, in reality, she is just as much a bigot as the two religious racists who (if the law permitted) would relegate Ms Ladele [who is clearly of African descent] to the status as a charwoman. They would never allow her to rise to anything as grand as a £31,000-a-year registrar. Helen Mendez-Child of Islington Council was quite right to point out that the registrar’s stance was blatant discrimination - akin to refusing to marry a black person. As Ben Summerskill of Stonewall said – ‘A public servant cannot pick and choose who they deliver those services to.’

Yours sincerely,

Narvel Annable.

This letter was printed in the Pink Paper 07.08.08 and in the Derby Evening Telegraph 29.07.08

Dear Editor,

Just hours before John Barrowman [The Making of Me, BBC 1 24.07.08] had consulted psychologists and geneticists to prove that nature, not nurture had determined his homosexuality - I was approached by two neat, squeaky clean, smiling young men who clearly desired a conference. It was, in fact, a rude interruption to a peaceful sunny morning in the Valley Gardens, Harrogate. My partner and I [of 32 years] were admiring a splendid display of radiant begonias.

Pleasantries were exchanged before we were lectured on the subject of sin. Typically, these Mormons trotted out their tired old mantra of ‘love the sinner but hate the sin’. No problem with that - until we revealed our sexuality. Like Barrowman, we argued that we were born homosexuals. We argued that our particular ‘sin’ and our homosexuality were one and the same - they could not be separated – being gay is not a lifestyle choice.

They parried by asserting that our conduct was ‘unnatural’. In short, we could be acceptable to orthodox Christianity if we remained celibate – and should do just that! At some point in this fruitless discussion with these nice people – that was the problem, they were so nice - they expressed sadness that our minds would not be changed. One offered me his hand as a gesture of friendship and courteous conclusion to this brief meeting which I found very disturbing. Refusing to accept his hand, without calling him a homophobic bigot, I tried to explain how his ridged philosophy was medieval, ignorant and cruel. It was insulting to expect a victim to dignify centuries of oppressive discrimination with a hand shake.

We got nowhere. It spoiled my day. It was so very sad, because … well … they were so very nice.

Narvel Annable

Printed in the October 16^th edition of the Pink Paper

Dear Editor,

It was a heartbreaking irony! At the same moment when hundreds of people were happily celebrating the culture of gay life, last Saturday on the Bass Recreation Ground in Derby, one vulnerable openly gay teenager, not far away, was suicidal. Far above a jeering crowd, baying for blood, he was standing on the roof of Westfield Centre car park, threatening to kill himself. Seventeen year old Shaun Dykes, did just that; he plunged to his death at 5.30pm. Two well trained police officers had tried to help Shaun, but they were outnumbered by despicable, taunting ghouls who had flocked to see death, after the style of a public execution.

Shaun and I have much in common. We are both gay, have both attended school in Heanor, have both been very unhappy to the brink of jumping from a high place. Tragically, Shaun jumped. I did not. I went on to write three autobiographic books which explain the problems of being homosexual in a society which is often very homophobic.

I did not know Shaun. I am not familiar with the circumstances which drove him to commit suicide. I hope the students at Heanor Gate treated him more kindly than some of the more savage pupils of Mundy Street Boys School who subjected me to a routine of physical and psychological torture. In 1957, my typical day started with prayers and hymns and ended with a desire to be dead. In the autumn of that year, with the assistance of a sadistic schoolmaster, head bowed and eyes downcast, I had reached an advanced stage of humility and obedience to the bullies who had broken me. It was the end. On one particular day, 51 years ago – I had become Shaun Dykes.

Like Shaun, I was looking down to a pavement below. Not Derby, this was a Heanor pavement, at Red Lion Square, beneath our top bedroom window. Unlike Shaun, nobody was there to help, neither was there anybody to taunt or humiliate. That was an everyday occurrence at my Church of England school. However, on this day, my pain felt like the wording of a medieval ordeal – ‘As much as you can bear, and greater’.

Sleep well, Shaun. You died on the day of the best ever Derby Pride. You can be sure that people like me will keep using their skills to attack homophobia. You can be sure that the Derbyshire Friend charity, indeed, all other homosexual organisations will continue to keep working, to support young gay people like you.

Narvel Annable.

Printed in the September 18^th edition of the Pink Paper

Dear Editor,

This is to address the Jehovah's Witnesses who came to my door this morning. Two inoffensive, elderly ladies who, alas, were received with hostility and about as much aggression as I could muster. You probably think this is an apology. Wrong. However, these gentle souls are entitled to an explanation for my [uncharacteristic] incandescent rage in the doorway complete with face half shaved / half covered in foam.

Jehovah's Witnesses are poison to gay men. Since 1879, untold numbers of homosexuals have had their lives warped, effectively destroyed by the active evangelism and rabid homophobia of this evil sect. I can cite three examples known to me personally. In 1964 I met Walter in Detroit. We enjoyed friendship, fun and were good for each other. However, he was uncomfortable with his sexuality and his bigoted Jehovah's Witness family had already described both of us as ‘degenerate’. After ten years of unceasing brainwashing he became celibate and cut himself off from most of his gay friends. Last year he became dangerously ill. His family, primitive, prejudiced and cruel to the last, refused all access to his few remaining homosexual contacts. Walter died in August, a lonely, sad, sick, broken man – an unnatural, wasted, mangled life.

Nearer to home in a remote, medieval North East Derbyshire mining village, we have Trevor and Stephen – both gay, both Bible bashed, both poisoned and both victims of the insidious indoctrination of Jehovah's Witnesses.

So, gentle ladies at my door; before you judge me as a rude nasty type, consider what you represent to a gay man when you announced yourselves to be Jehovah's Witnesses. Consider my own suffering and the suffering of numerous blighted lives of people like me.

This is the 21^st century. This is the age of the Rainbow Flag and Gay Pride. We will no longer tolerate Jehovah's Witnesses at our door. Go away and don’t come back.

Yours truly,

Narvel Annable

This letter was printed in the Nottingham Evening Post and in the Derby Evening Telegraph on May 27^th 2008.

Dear Editor,

After a lifetime of suffering snide innuendoes and sarcastic slurs on my masculinity due to indifference on the subject of football, the recent Nottingham Forest Players anti-homophobia / anti-bullying poster was an absolute joy to behold. It made my day - perhaps my decade! Coming from one of the last bastions of gay hate, the cultural significance of such a powerful message is immense and its potential good among our young people - immeasurable.

It is a fitting memorial to former Forest player Justin Fashanu. To the best of my knowledge, he is the only leading footballer who has publicly admitted his homosexuality - and paid the terrible price for that splendid act of bravery.

I take all this very personally. The unwelcome appearance of a homosexual into my macho, working class family was suspected when Dad proudly presented me with my first pair of football boots to be used for my very first match at Mundy Street Boys School in the hill-top colliery town of Heanor. For father and son this event was a painful disaster. It left a long shadow which darkened both of our lives: a damaging, humiliating experience affording no mercy. A sadistic schoolmaster encouraged aggressive taunts, brutal insults, screaming jeers reducing a miserable boy to a very low level of self esteem. Those boots used that one time in 1956, [never again] became symbols of a life long hatred of all macho sports.

All is forgiven. A big ‘thank you’ to the good players of Nottingham Forest who have put their names and faces to a public condemnation of homophobia.

Narvel Annable.

Printed in the Derby Evening Telegraph 03.10.08

Dear Editor,

Only a few years ago it would have been impossible to write this letter; inconceivable that I should sign it with my name and address! It would have been unthinkable for me to admit that I actually attended a large gathering of homosexuals. This was Derby Pride – the biggest and best to date – guys and gals celebrating gay life on the Bass Recreational Ground last Saturday [28.09.08] afternoon under a perfect, autumnal blue sky.

We are the lives whose achievements have been too long hidden, too often unrecognised in the teeth of decades of negative discrimination – hence our Derby Pride - a local, annual orgy of arts, skills, enterprise and sheer ingenuity on show, unashamed, for the world to see.

There were many interesting stalls, but special mention should be given to the conscientious team at Derbyshire Friend. This excellent voluntary agency, a charity located on Friary Street is giving sterling service, improving the lives of gay people all year round, as indeed they have been doing for a quarter of a century. I go back further - half a century! I date back to the dark homophobic days when we were barely tolerated in the passageway of the Corporation Hotel in the old Cattle Market. I can remember being frozen out by my own kind, the sneering, snobbish homosexuals who, in a climate of fear, once ruled supreme in the Friary Hotel. Derbyshire Friend has rescued me from all that. It has delivered untold numbers of LGBT people from all such abuses.

The heterosexual majority should remember that human unhappiness has effects far beyond the individual; it reaches out to touch the lives of everybody. Accordingly, I urge everybody to wish Derbyshire Friend a very happy 25^th birthday and many happy returns of the day.

Narvel Annable

Sent to the Derby Evening Telegraph 13.10.08

Dear Editor,

Church of England priest Peter Mullen describes the gay community as ‘militant’. You bet we are militant! When a man of the cloth incites rabid hatred against homosexuals we need to protest and protest loudly as we should have been doing for the last 100 years. When called to account, Mullen claimed he has some ‘dear gay friends’. Would any of his ‘dear gay friends’ care to come forward and defend the disgusting homophobic suggestions the rector now describes as ‘light hearted jokes’? If Mullen is in the mood for jokes, I could think of a few choice comments to tattoo across his bottom.

There is little good news in this appalling story. However, at least we can take comfort in the fact that, thanks to the alert, vigorous and vociferous LGBT movement, such despicable bigots as The Reverend Mullen are now quickly exposed to face the judgement of a more enlightened global population.

Narvel Annable.

Printed in the Derby Evening Telegraph 22.08.08

On BBC Breakfast [18.08.08] as usual, the presenters reviewed the daily papers. To my horror they selected a tabloid feature about a matador tormenting an innocent bull. Did they say that bull fighting was unacceptable in the 21^st century? No. Did at least one of them utter a comment to the effect that a long drawn out public exhibition of inflicted humiliation and torture on a dumb animal was cruel and wrong? No. There was no reference to suffering and death for the entertainment of unspeakable, blood-thirsty, cheering crowds.

Instead, they mentioned the two main points highlighted in the tabloid text. The matador was doing well to be still employed in his work at the age of 66 and, also, that he was the only British matador. Should we be proud?

This is the BBC! As a licence payer, I expect a higher standard of morality.

Narvel Annable.

Sent to The Observer 18.10.08

Dear Editor,

We are approaching the season when the Salvation Army will be coming to our neighbourhood collecting money. For the past 30 years, my partner, and I [believing that they do good work] have been pleased to make cash donations with a smile. However, they are entitled to know why their collector will receive a frosty reception at our door this Christmas.

In a Derbyshire colliery village, we know a vulnerable man. He is a former friend of many years who has been attending a Salvation Army bible reading group. By inclination he is suggestible, easily manoeuvred, easily influenced, often bullied and appears to have been influenced by a nest of evil homophobes who are bigoted, prejudiced, ignorant and plain poisonous.

This gay man has lost much of his sense of humour and seems to have suffered a change of personality. It is horrific - reminiscent of the old 1950's science fiction films where aliens subsume human bodies! He tells me that 'the Bible is anti-gay' and trots out several well known homophobic passages which are frequently aimed at the homosexual community.

I am shocked that a bible group under the auspices of the Salvation Army, the Salvation Army I have always respected, the Salvation Army of the 21st century, should (as it appears) harbour such homophobic intolerance! On the face of it, this is brain-washing of the type we more commonly associate with Jehovah's Witnesses. If this group have exploited self doubt, have induced self hate, they have committed an act of wickedness.

I wrote to Major Jonathan Roberts at Chilwell about my concerns. His reply was shocking!

“With regard to homosexuality, the Salvation Army takes the view that people can’t help what they are – but they are responsible for what they do.”

Effectively, he is saying that gay life is wrong and that the bible group is right! Terry and I have been together for 32 years. Roberts had a chance to amend / clarify his views, but held firm to his main point. He is telling us that we must be celibate if we are to receive full respect and dignity in the eyes of the Salvation Army.

This out of date homophobic attitude is unacceptable and insulting to all who identify with the LGBT community.

So, Salvation Army; do not come to this address this Christmas.

Narvel Annable.

_______________________________________________________

SHOUT! Yorkshire's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered paper

Scruffy Chicken

SHOUT!
Yorkshire's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered paper