In the early Nineties, I made my first proper older gay friend: a gentlemanly, funny writer who had been stationed briefly in India during conscription for the Second World War.
He told me of a clandestine bar by the beach which soldiers interested in other men would attend while off-duty, the place he met his first love. The story sounded like the start of a particularly evocative Merchant Ivory film. I was entranced.
