Welsh gay men

Mike left and his partner Peredur right acting as witnesses to Reg and George's civil partnership in It was a bleak, damp day in Powys in Februarythe ceremony small and simple - with only him and his partner, Peredur Tomos, as witnesses. The female registrar was checking her lines and making inappropriate remarks; no doubt she was nervous conducting her first same-sex service, it only having been legal a few months.

George, then 89, and Reg, a decade younger, were initially reluctant to go through with the ceremony - damaged by the prevalent homophobia they had experienced as young adults in the s and 50s. But, after the event, everyone was elated. And when Mike went to buy champagne from the local store, the young cashier - looking like she might cry - said: "Those two old men who come in on market day?

They're always so tidy and polite. How beautiful that they can get married now. Give them my love, and say congratulations. George and Reg had by then been together for five and a half decades. Reg and George - the first 18 years of their union was considered illegal. Mike and Peredur had met them while living nearby in rural Machynlleth and, despite the age gap, the two couples would frequently meet to swap stories welsh gay men a cuppa - with "Pred" often helping the older pair out with the gardening or shopping.

As George and Reg aged and fell into ill health, so the friendship deepened. Yet still Mike was dumfounded when in - a few months before George and Reg died within weeks of each other - they told him they were leaving him and Peredur their house. In fact, it was more than a house; it was an old whitewashed home out of a "children's tale" called Rhiw Goch the red hill and nestled deep within the countryside.

More than this, however, they had also been left a lifetime's collection of the couple's diaries, photographs, letters and books, all revealing an extraordinary history. It was these letters and diaries that sparked Mike to write his book, On The Red Hill - not only a documentation of the two couple's lives within the house, but also the social history of being gay in Wales throughout much of the 20th Century.

Mike has lived in Wales for the past 20 years and has attempted to reclaim the queerness of the countryside. Mike said: "When I realised what had actually been left to us, I knew it was an amazing story that needed to welsh gay men told. For Mike himself, growing up in Worcestershire five decades after Reg and George, life was significantly easier for gay men.

Yet still he faced challenges. Same-sex marriage: why we can't wait to wed. Homophobic attack drove Gareth Thomas to seek law change. LGBT attitudes in Wales: how far have we come? When that didn't work, Mike moved to London to go to university - though this was as much about "coming out" as welsh gay men the education.

Back then, he felt the "move to the city" was essential for him to "fully explore and embrace" his queer side. But after leaving university, becoming a travel writer and exploring Wales, he fell in love with the Welsh landscape and culture, and decided to move there.

Soaking up the rays on Bournemouth beach in the s: George took this photo of his friends enjoying the sun. Despite his own positive experience, however, Mike knows from researching his book that not all stories have ended happily for gay people from Wales. In the s, for instance, poet Edward Prosser Rhys scandalised the chapels when he gave a nod to same-sex affection in one of his works.

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While artist Sir Cedric Morris, originally from Sketty, Swansea, felt he had to leave Wales behind in the early s in order to live his true life. Inin Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, two dozen gay men were put on trial for homosexual behaviour. Mike said: "Many of the men were sent to prison and at least one committed suicide.