W11 in the 70s.  Chapter 6: My birthday party
 
Whenever you went out walking in the streets in W11 you saw buskers playing guitars or a street theatre performing political plays. On Saturday nights in the Elgin pub on Ladbroke Grove there were either live bands performing or some kind of political satire acted out on stage. I had a bisexual friend in Colville Terrace who was a white witch and had a ginger cat, her familiar, called Gabriel. Whenever anyone wanted help they went to Lindsay to cast one of her spells to put things right for them. Lindsay was a good friend of Lindsey Kemp the mime artist. She was also a good poet and had had some poems published in an anthology of Liverpudlian poets with Brian Patten and Roger McGough. I remember my friend Lindsay bringing Lindsey Kemp and his partner Jack (or Orlando by stage name) to tea, which turned out to be a very nice occasion.

Another time I was walking down Powis Square with my husband and I saw David Hockney outside his house. I introduced myself and my husband and said I was sorry about Nicki Ray and the fact that Nicki’s body was covered in dye for his film, and I hoped it didn’t prevent him from taking part, I said.  He seemed to know Nicki but seemed to have no clue as to what I was talking about. Then I told him about the Gay Liberation Front dance that night in Hammersmith Town Hall. He didn’t seem interested, I think he was more preoccupied with my husband standing by my side. So you can see how surprised I was to see him there that night. In those GLF dances everyone danced together: men with men, women with women, women with men, or groups of people dancing all together. It was full of exuberance. Hello, I said, you decided to come after all, and since I had told him about the dance I felt a bit responsible for him, and I thought he seemed a bit shy: Come on David, I said, come and dance, and I dragged him onto the dance floor. He still looked rather embarrassed while dancing and I couldn’t think why that was so. So off I went to dance with my friends.

Then there was my birthday party. Some gay men friends wanted a party on my birthday, but I couldn’t be bothered because I was going on a demonstration that day. Don’t worry, they said, we’ll do everything. Some of the women in the demonstration bought me a few drinks, so when I arrived back home I was a little merry and was very surprised to find my party in full swing. My gay men friends had decorated the flat beautifully and there were great food jellies coloured like the rainbow and blancmanges in fantastic shapes. They had really gone to town. Happy birthday, they said. I was quite overawed by it all. I saw Brian Patten there, I remembered that I had asked him. He was with his girl-friend Mary and we chatted for a while and then they left. It was now getting quite late and most of the people went home except about ten or twelve people, and we all sat quietly and talked. I was dead on my feet. Keep talking, I said, you don’t have to leave but I just want to lie down in bed. If I fall asleep just let yourselves out. Suddenly the door opened and a tall woman with long hair stood there. Happy birthday Mair, she said, holding a bunch of flowers in her hand. It was too late to buy flowers, she said, so I had to take them from the next door garden. I had never set eyes on this woman before. Before I knew it she had taken off all her clothes and had got into bed with me. The other people in the room thought I had been expecting her, so they were making excuses to leave. Who are you? I said. My name is Jenny, she said, I saw you in the demonstration. The people who were leaving now decided to stay because it seemed as if it was going to be interesting and they didn’t want to miss anything. Then there was banging at the front door. Someone said: there’s a woman saying her girl friend is here and she won’t leave without her. Don’t answer the door, said the woman by my side, she must be mad. But the banging continued and suddenly a woman with flaming red hair stood in front of the bed accusing me of seducing her girl-friend. I was speechless. This Jenny now started to defend me as if I were her lover, and the shouting went on. Everyone stood around watching. Someone occasionally tried to intervene to defend me, but they were no match for these two women. It’s amazing when you are pushed to the edge what you find out about yourself. Exhausted though I was I discovered some inside energy force which I hadn’t experienced since childhood. I got out of bed dressed and threw both of them out. Later I was told that the red-haired woman had broken a bottle over Jenny’s head while she was asleep and that she had to be taken to hospital for stitches. Then later when I got to know Jenny better she told me she had another girl friend now who she was madly in love with. Please come around, she said, I want her to see I have nice friends. So I did. The door to her flat was shattered. Huge chunks of wood lay on the floor, and the door was hanging off its hinges. What’s happened here? I asked, and she explained that her girlfriend’s lover who lived in Shepherd’s Bush had come around the night before with an axe and had broken down the door in a fit of jealous rage. We have been awake all night, she said. Poor Lindsay, she said, is too tired to go into rehearsals and I can’t go into college because I have to look after her. And also we’re waiting for someone to come round to repair the door. Let me tell you that door would have been impossible to repair, it would have had to be replaced.   London W11 in the 70s. 7. Adventures with Bob Mellors
Pictures: old photos: Colville Terrace (Lindsay lived in a house on the right). David Hockney's flat and studio (on the first floor) in Powis Terrace. Colville Terrace again (that's where my birthday party was). New photo: Westbourne Grove Terrace, where Jenny lived.
Contents               Bobby and I. 1              How I found out. 1
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