![]() But the tortuous journey started with the anticipated disgust of our neighbours. ![]() ![]() Three decades of acrimony and unhappiness later, Mum and Dad finally got on board with the idea of a gay son, so the story has a happy ending. Instead, she and Dad would have to drive to the next town for the groceries, and this was an awful prospect because people in our town looked down on the next town and thought their shops inferior. ![]() Her second was to declare that, since this devastating revelation, shopping locally would no longer be possible. When I came out in the mid 70s, my mother’s appalled reaction was to ask me how I expected her “ever to face the neighbours again?”. They certainly weren’t up for anything interesting, only in doing what they’d always done getting their children into good schools, spending a fortune relandscaping their quaint gardens, patronising the golf club and supporting the Queen. If they wouldn’t do something, we couldn’t either. Such questions made it clear to me that, on every topic, their neighbourly judgement should be considered trustworthier than our own. “What would the neighbours think?” was a question often posed by one or other of my parents. Growing up in an intensely wooded London suburb, I had a strong suspicion that our neighbours played a big part in the plan for grand conformity. ![]()
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