My first job was as a cashier in a South Manchester car park, a Saturday post I held between the ages of 14 and 19, the exact ages I was working out how being gay might pan out for me. I worked alongside the Corps of Commissionaires, a rum, witty bunch of pensioner ex-servicemen who’d shine their shoes to perfection in order to chase down local scallies trying to hotwire a tasty, second-hand Volkswagen Polo. They were great, dependable men, many widowers, committed smokers with a plentiful reserve of dirty jokes.
The boss’s best friend was local snooker-playing legend Alex “Hurricane” Higgins, whose arrival was mostly augured by swerving his bronze Jag into a specially-reserved spot as if at Brands Hatch, usually half-cut by midday. It was categorically not a gay job.
