On the 10-year anniversary of equal marriage in Britain, I’m thinking of my dad, and the long road to acceptance

Fri 29 Mar 2024 11.27 CETMy late dad was the hardest nightclub bouncer in a tough working-class area in Medway, Kent. He was a bodybuilder and terrifyingly quiet; you never quite knew what was going through his head.

Everyone was a bit scared of him. Everyone except me. I had Dad wrapped around my little-princess finger. My sister and I lived with Dad after he and Mum divorced, and while my younger sister was his real “princess”, in his eyes I was a golden boy: a straight-A student, obedient and respectful. I could do no wrong. Until I discovered boys.

Those are powerful messages, filtered down to real lives and softening society’s views. They are views Dad never absorbed. The images he saw were of men who were shunned, ashamed or dying of Aids. Would he have become more comfortable with my homosexuality as society’s attitudes have become more accepting?

Aged 17, after discovering boys, I put Dad through hell. Closeted and dangerously in love, I mischievously snuck my first boyfriend home, stupidly convincing him that Dad, who left for work early, would never know. Dad’s sixth sense made him come into my room the next morning, seeing my boyfriend and I snuggled under a single Liverpool FC duvet That’s how Dad discovered I was gay.

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