Gettting conditioned to the gay scene
1988
Because being gay in the police force wasn’t really acceptable, Bernard initially met the Friend group in a pub in Holloway Head (probably the Greyhound). “It was run by these older gay guys, the idea was to introduce you to the gay scene, almost to get you conditioned, and then slowly I plucked up the courage to walk into a gay pub in Birmingham, but I still didn’t feel comfortable. So what I did was go away for weekends in other cities - Blackpool, Brighton and Manchester. I felt more and more comfortable doing this so I was then able to start going onto the Birmingham gay scene – a sort of conditioning process. But I was still afraid of being seen going in or out of gay bars by police members from patrol cars. I knew that would be a problem.”
Contributed by: Bernard McEldowney, 49