Purple willies, homo-friendly youths, a haunted foster-child and stiletto heels on cobbles

We braved the elements last night to get to our beloved Polari ("London's peerless literary salon") for the last outing before its summer break (there isn't one in August), and were treated to a fine and varied evening again!

Paul Burston, master of the quick-change ("the Grace Jones of literary events" indeed!), started as he meant to go on - in "50 Shades of Grey" (not the book, the outfits) to suit the weather - before introducing the first of our guests, Vicky Ryder.



One of no fewer than three nominees for the Polari First Book Prize 2012 [more later], to read for us, Ms Ryder's tale of a strange childhood in sunny Nuneaton Ey up and Away provided a much-needed slice of jollity to open the evening. Including this piece:

The shopping bags landed with a thump on the kitchen floor and she raced past me to the toilet.
"I've done a bit in my pants", she shouted, as I timed her wee with the red second hand of my new Timex watch.
Fifty four seconds. Disgusting.
I hoped it would never happen to me.

"Tea up, Mother" shouted my mother towards the back toilet, and my nan emerged blowing her relief into the air like cigar smoke.

She looked down at me disapprovingly.
"Jack Moss showed himself off on the bus and Madam here sat staring at him, as bold as you like".
"It was purple, Mother", I ventured.
"You should have seen it".

My mother shook her head, looking at me as though there might have been a mix up at the hospital.
"Dirty beggar", said my nan. "He wants locking up".

I yearned to be dangerous and to this end had forced the boys in my street to have a look at my own private parts, even to touch them.
But they had not been frightened.
Merely bored and obedient.

"You've got to feel sorry for the family, though, haven't you?" said Nan. "She's a lovely girl. She works in the hairdresser's on the corner of Pool Bank and Abbey Green."

"It's awful".
I tried desperately to feel sorry for the family but could only see them surrounded in glory.

The glory of their tragedy.
They were like the Kennedys.
They would salute and lose both legs to cancer.
Their eyes would shine with a shared sadness and they would be beautiful.
All because of one small, purple piece of flesh that should have stayed nestled inside a pair of Co-op pants.

"Why didn't you tell the bus driver?" my mother asked.

"What, and have to change hairdressers?" said my nan.
"Don't be daft"

Hilarious.

"How do you follow that?" was the question our next speaker Mark McCormack asked. "With some dull, dry statistics, of course!" However, the research that he has painstakingly put together is very much more than that.



Mr McCormack's study of adolescent boys in three senior schools in the UK provides a positive message to counter all the media-grabbing horror stories about anti-gay bullying in our schools. In the interviews he conducted for his book The Declining Significance of Homophobia he finds evidence of how heterosexual male students are inclusive of their gay peers and proud of their pro-gay attitudes. He finds that being gay does not negatively affect a boy’s popularity, but being homophobic does. Not dry. Not dull - very uplifting, actually!



Closing the triple-bill for the first half was a last-minute substitution. Michael Wynne was due to read from his Confessions of a Sex Addict, but could not attend [one wonders what had distracted him...] so former Literary Editor at The Independent on Sunday and stalwart "friend of Polari" Suzi Feay stepped into the breach. Paul had apparently asked her to "be filthy", and some of the pieces were mildly near the knuckle - but in the main they were very accomplished, sometimes almost Gothic in their impact! An interesting turnaround ("poacher turned game-keeper"?) for a journalist to enter the world of fiction, and we wish her every success with it.



After the break it was the turn of the rather sexy Mr Stuart Wakefield. His novel Body of Water appears to be unsettling stuff, even from the early passage he read to us. The story - of a very odd, disturbed boy fostered by well-meaning middle-class parents - gave only the merest hint that there is something deeper, darker to come, but was gripping and absorbing nonetheless.

Three months into my placement with them and they still hadn't cracked. I knew I should ease up but my compulsion to misbehave, to find out how much they were prepared to live with, was too strong.

I spat in my dinner if I didn't like it, then I spat in theirs. I lashed out at them when they reprimanded me. Most nights I sneaked out of my room to hang out with the rough kids on Primrose Hill.

But Ruth seemed impervious to my wrongdoing. She regularly picked me up from the local police station, oozing charm and issuing apologies to all concerned. A quiet word with the sergeant and everyone would be smiling. We were usually on our way within a few minutes.

"What did you say to them?" I said the last time, my feet up on the dashboard of the car.
"I tell them what you're really doing".
"What's that?"
"You know what; now put your feet down"
How could she know me so well? We drove in silence but she caught me looking at her a few times. She smiled at me and patted me on the leg. We didn't need to speak...

...I, by the time I started secondary school, became Leven, a nickname representing the eleventh child they had fostered."

Of course, one of Leven's secrets emerges as he comes to the realisation that he is gay. His infatuation with the rugby-boy son of the equally fractured family next door is obviously just the beginning of his adventures...

Fab stuff, indeed! John-John bought a copy of the book, which Mr Wakefield duly signed.



And so it was time for our "star turn" - the fabulous and fascinating Alex Drummond! We had a reading from the immaculately coiffured transgender role model Alex at a previous Polari, and once again we were treated to an intimate revelation about the experience of stepping out - for the first time - in female garb; an extract from his/her new book Grrl Alex (parts of which were previously collected together under the title Queering the Tranny).

And here is Alex reading that very piece - wonderful!

Alex Drummond - Grrl Alex

As the hairspray and stilettos faded off stage, it was time for Paul to announce the long-list for this year's Polari First Book Prize. He was joined by two of the judges - Suzi Feay (again) and Joe Storey-Scott, of Prowler Soho, who read the rules of the prize:

The Polari Prize is for a first book which explores the LGBT experience and is open to any work of poetry, prose, fiction or non-fiction published in the UK in English within the twelve months of the deadline for submissions (this year 1st February, 2012). Self-published works in both print and digital formats are eligible for submission.

The ten long listed books are:

• Rory's Boys by Alan Clark (Bliss/Arcadia Books)
• Pennance by Claire Ashton (self published on Kindle)
• The Frost Fairs by John McCullogh (Salt)
• Becoming Nancy by Terry Ronald (Transworld)
• Exit Through The Wound by North Morgan (Limehouse Books)
• Body of Water by Stuart Wakefield (self published)
• Modern Love by Max Wallis (Flap)
• Ey Up and Away by Vicky Ryder (Wandering Star Press)
• Grrl Alex by Alex Drummond, (self published)
• Perking The Pansies by Jack Scott (Summertime Publishing)

All good! [Although I must admit to being absolutely entranced by Becoming Nancy] Anyway, the short list will be announced in September. The winner will be announced at the Polari 5th Birthday on Monday 26th November - and for the first time this year, there is a prize of £1000 (courtesy of Square Peg Media, publishers of G3 and Out In The City).



What a fab evening!

Our next Polari is not until 24th September (how will we cope?) - but it's back with a bang, with none other than the genius Jonathan Harvey, the man behind house favourites here at Dolores Delargo Towers: the play and movie Beautiful Thing, the wonderful TV series Beautiful People and the Pet Shop Boys musical Closer to Heaven (as well as Kathy Burke's Gimme Gimme Gimme, Dawn French's Murder Most Horrid and episodes of Coronation Street)!

Also on the bill are the Warhol-ite performance artiste Penny Arcade, plus authors Adam Lowe and Adrian Dalton.

We love Polari!