Google for "what a gay day" and, if you are entertained by such stories, read all about Larry Grayson, the prime time game show host in my childhood and the mos

Google for "what a gay day" and, if you are entertained by such stories, read all about Larry Grayson, the prime time game show host in my childhood and the most incredibly awesome man who slogged his way into showbiz through two decades of gruelling nearly empty houses in Yorkshire miners / working men's clubs where he, among other acts, put on full drag. I don't believe that the present time is actually more open and safe for different folk. When I grew up nobody but nobody would dare to speak of anyone's sexuality let alone make a point of it and assaulting up a homosexual man would land you on hospital when the neighbours reacted in horror at the effective attack on the man's mother (I confess to typing on gay men living with their mothers but I didn't know one exception until moving to London in the late 80s. Mining towns in Yorkshire were probably the safest place to be gay ever. You wouldn't be "out" only because nobody's private lives were on display. The untold horror of the Thatcher breaking of the National Union of Miners is the fractures through communities unravelled the most intricate social support web and exposed the most vulnerable people to possibly the most heightened emotional communal period in post war England. The miner's union was also a huge contributor to the widows most likely to have their gay sons looking after them and the collapse in union finances forced many ill prepared and not still young gay men to seek better economic possibility. Sending ca 40 yr old highly protected parochial gay men who would do anything for their mums or the mere idea of their mothers, into late 80s cities in search of suitable work, was just the most terrible consequence.