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W11 in the 70s. Chapter 10: Bobby MacKenzie |
When I said goodbye to Bobby MacKenzie in 1976 I felt such a loss.
But like everyone else I carried on with my life: a divorce,
working, bringing up my child, second marriage, and I have known
happiness as well as sorrow but I have never forgotten Bobby
MacKenzie. On and off since then I have asked people I knew in W11 if
they had seen or heard anything of Bobby but got no response.
 Now
I’m sitting here with the coroner’s report in front of me. It says
that Bobby was diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease in 1978, two
years after I last saw her, and that her mother had died of it and
her brother also. So she knew that there was no cure and that the
end would have been unbearable. Bobby was resilient, independent and
self-reliant, but she could have no control over this disease except
to end it when her mind started to be affected, which took great
courage. The report also said that she had suffered depression over
the years, another symptom of the disease, but when she attended St.
Charles Hospital in November 1986 she is said to have been
relatively cheerful, was active in the ward group and in the
occupational facilities provided, and that she came and went freely
from the hospital. But on 19 March 1987 she decided to end her life.
When I knew Bobby she was beautiful, alive and vivacious. She certainly had her wits about her and her thinking was often way ahead of mine. When she said to me in Notting Hill Gate: Are you coming, how long do I have to wait? that shows exactly the difference between Bobby and myself. Intellectually I was always trying to catch up with Bobby. And I can see her now smiling mischievously as I stumbled along making lots of mistakes and false assumptions. Her life style itself was political and her language was symbolic, and if anyone pushed or cajoled her into any masculine definition she hit back strongly. She would fight tooth and nail for what she believed in. She encompassed the whole transgender spectrum and saw each part as equal to any other part: all were woman and all were feminine. Bobby MacKenzie and Rachel Pollack were the first transsexuals I knew who gave a political voice to the transgender community in W11 in the seventies. London W11 in the 70s. 11. W11 and politics in the seventies |
| Contents Bobby and I. 1 How I found out. 1 |
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