My earliest memory is of feeling different. I’m gay, and grew up in the 1980s, in a tough, working-class town in the north of England at the height of the Aids crisis. My gayness was obvious in the way I walked and talked. I was bullied at school, called a “poof”, “pansy” and “fairy”; other children did impressions of me with their wrists limp. I experienced physical violence, too. I was shoved, kicked, my head was slammed against the wall. I was punched in the face more than once.
But it wasn’t just my sexuality that set me apart. I was “weird”. I had a rigid attachment to routine and was terribly shy, sometimes freezing in social situations. I needed to be on my own for long periods; not easy when you’re in a family of five and share a bedroom with your brother. I was obsessive, channelling this at first into the Star Wars films, then the Narnia novels and, as I got older, Madonna. Lots of kids have short-lived interests but mine were intense: I’d collect facts and statistics about Madonna, memorise the chart positions of her singles, then reel them off to anyone who would listen. If anyone criticised her, I took it as a personal attack and would be distraught.
