I knew I was homosexual (I don’t remember the word ‘gay’ being used at the time) from about the age of twelve. I also knew – mainly from the jokes about ‘poofs’ and ‘queers’ which were commonplace on TV – that there was something shameful about it, so I kept it to myself and never mentioned it to my parents or friends. During my teens I watched as friends and other contemporaries began to form relationships with the opposite sex, listened as they discussed their exploits, and envied the freedom they had to be themselves.
Around the age of fifteen I attended a meeting of the Student Christian Movement at which the subject of homosexuality was discussed and was appalled at some of the comments made. I sat there thinking ‘they’re talking about me’; but I couldn’t bring myself to respond.
I finally came out at the age of seventeen to my closest friend. I was in love with him but was petrified that, if I told him, he wouldn’t want anything more to do with me and might even tell my parents. In the event he was amazing: he said he wasn’t homosexual himself but had no problem with my being gay and was happy to go on being friends. It’s difficult now (fifty-nine years on!) to find words to describe the sense of relief I felt.
Encouraged by my friend’s reaction, and with my course at Westminster soon to begin, I then told the (young) vicar of my parish church and asked him if he thought it was appropriate that I should go into teaching. His response was mixed: on the one hand, he said he could see no reason why I shouldn’t teach; on the other he gave me a series of jobs to do in the church which kept me busy all through the summer holiday and then declared that he had saved me from ‘going queer’.
The College
As a result, I arrived at Westminster in September 1963 still feeling some anxiety. I decided to ask for an appointment to see the Principal – H. Trevor Hughes – to tell him of my concerns about being a homosexual going into teaching. It seems extraordinary to me, now, that I should have done this. But life was different then: gay sex was still illegal, the papers were full of lurid stories about men being arrested in public toilets, and blackmail was rife. So I was extremely nervous about going to see him. For all I knew, he might say ‘how disgusting – we don’t want your sort here’ and send me down. Drastic change of career and some difficult explaining to do at home. In fact, he was very gentle. He said ‘but you like poetry, don’t you? And you have other interests? I’m not in favour of labelling people. If you have concerns, why not talk to the chaplain?’ And that was that. I came out feeling as though I’d been hit with a tired lettuce. I never did understand the reference to poetry.
I did go and talk to the chaplain, though. Dr Underwood was a young Methodist minister with whom I struck up a friendship. I was reassured by his acceptance of my sexuality and his support for my being a teacher.
All students wishing to do Main Level Divinity had to have an interview with the head of the department, ‘Dutch’ Holland. He was a strange character who seemed to talk in riddles. At one point in the interview he began asking me ‘do you have any perver…‘ I assumed he was going to say ‘perversions’ so I leapt in, saying ‘Oh No, Certainly Not!’ When I’d finished interrupting him, he patiently completed his sentence ‘… any perversities, like boxing for example?’ I blushed deeply and said I didn’t. I was very relieved when the interview was over, convinced that I had let the cat out of the bag – Mr Holland now knew I had something to hide. This conviction was somewhat undermined when I discovered that I had, after all, been accepted for the Main Level Divinity course.
A year later, as part of a course on Health Education, we had a visiting speaker, a woman doctor, who gave us three lectures on sex education. After the first lecture, the chaplain announced that if anyone had a problem which they would like to discuss with her in confidence, he would arrange it. I went to see him and told him I would like to discuss my homosexuality with her. I spent an hour with her in his house one evening after dinner. She was wonderful. She said that nowadays ‘treatment’ was only considered appropriate where the subject was maladjusted and consisted of helping the subject to become a better homosexual rather than trying to turn him into a heterosexual. ‘And’, she said, ‘you seem eminently well-adjusted to me.’ This was an important moment for me – she made me feel, for the first time in my life, good about myself.
At last, it was okay to be me.
Fellow students
I quickly became friends with three of the ten students in my house – another first year and two second years. I came out to one of the second year students – we’ll call him Alec – who was a really nice guy with an equally nice girlfriend. The three of us had lengthy discussions about sexuality. She even offered to come to my room one evening to see if she could seduce me (and thus show that I was really a latent heterosexual). She tried. I wasn’t. On another occasion, Alec asked me if I would accompany his girlfriend to the cinema to see The Sound of Music, as he couldn’t go. ‘I know she’ll be safe with you!’ he added, grinning.
In Conclusion
I hope I haven’t given the impression that I spent the whole of my three years at Westminster discussing my sexuality with staff and students. I didn’t. (And no doubt they wouldn’t have thanked me if I had!) Apart from the incidents mentioned above, I spent my time at the college, like other students, in learning to be a teacher and in making friends and socialising.
I enjoyed my three years at Westminster immensely for all sorts of reasons.
There was a friendly and relaxed atmosphere about the place. The tutors were, overwhelmingly, encouraging and helpful. The lectures were often fascinating and the course was a thorough and wide-ranging preparation for teaching.
Like most of the students, I’d never lived away from home before, so Westminster marked in a very real way my transition from child to adult. It was an exciting time.
It also enabled me to come to terms with myself. I have always been – and continue to be – profoundly grateful to Westminster – to Trevor Hughes, to Dr Underwood, to the woman doctor, and to my fellow students – for their acceptance and support.
It would be more than twenty years after I left Westminster before the Methodist Church adopted a positive attitude to its gay members (the Anglican Church still hasn’t). Yet I can honestly say that not once during my three years at the college did I ever encounter what today would be called homophobia.
Not a bad testimony for a Methodist college in the mid-1960s, I think.
Derek Gillard
Images courtesy of the author. For more on LGBTQ+ History Month at Oxford Brookes University visit https://www.brookes.ac.uk/staff/human-resources/equality-diversity-and-inclusion/lgbtq–history-month/
Westminster Oxford Research Network 