Chapter Five:
COMING OUT IN CROYDON.

It might sound like I'm skipping a lump of the story, but with Malc working away and two kids springing up like weeds and me back at work full time, although our correspondence and holiday breaks continued to be full of surprises our real serious development into fully fledged sexual perverts didn't happen for another six years. When Melanie was 12 and Todd 11 it seemed like time for Malc to settle down closer to home. Always in his mind he'd wanted a machine shop or specialist garage of his own. The opportunity presented itself and the cash had been saved. It was the time of the North Sea boom but he eased his way out of the field work but had managed to make himself useful enough to have some good contacts when it came to special marine engineering requirements. So by 79/80 we were in business. My job had elevated to Company travel organizer for the multi-national which shall remain nameless, and was too good to give up. The perks had already got the family to Spain , Crete , Greece and California plus romantic weekends for Malc and me in Rome , Venice , to say nothing of Hamburg , Paris and Amsterdam ... and I'll say nothing of our visits to Hamburg , Paris and Amsterdam !

Oh, what the hell! Those trips contributed to our coming to terms with our sexual preferences. After seeing the magazines from Aberdeen , visiting these so-called fleshpots of Europe made us realize how normal we were and how screwed up so many so-called normal people are ... but it certainly confirmed our isolation in South Croydon . Contact ads of the less lurid kind were there to be found if you knew where to look even in Britain in the late Seventies. Useful magazines like SKIN TWO, SHINY and BOUND TO PLEASE hadn't started to appear yet but FORUM, PUSSYCAT, ATOMAGE and Pamela Young were all good low key contact points for the needy and the lonely. Malc and I discussed the possible advantages of making social if not physical contact with like-minded people. Choosing our own route towards further personal development was proving difficult. Access to information allows you to make informed choices. 'Ignorance is not bliss' as the opponents of Sex Education would have us believe. But with our kids increasingly alert, inquisitive and demanding, our games at home needed to be very very circumspect. I was determined the kids would not grow up ignorant of the broader concepts of sexuality ... but no way would we complicate their lives by opening their minds too far too soon. A brilliant solution to our space needs was for Malc's new workshop to have a separate 15 x 15 foot 'Work-out Room' for his weight training complete with shower, etc. ... etc. Naturally this was something he used mainly in the evenings ... and at weekends when Daddy was working overtime and Mummy was helping him with the Books. The kids were happy to have the house to themselves from time to time and entertain their friends. They were good kids and we treated them like young adults.

But somehow our sense of isolation seemed to be increasing and several times we discussed running some sort of ad to make a few social contacts or at least to exchange letters with other closeted suburbanites. We'd both become very good letter-writers during our months apart, but first we needed to take stock and consider what we had to gain or lose by risking exposing our interests to strangers. Malc had met several men on the rigs who in that free-wheeling atmosphere had let down a few barriers about their less-conventional sexual preferences, but with most of them there was still an element of snigger-and-wink coyness about such admission ... and apology. Malc said these men often pretended to be contemptuous or disapproving when in fact they were dying to try things they'd only heard about second hand. 'Civilized Society' (aided and abetted by the muck-raking media) was still helping to keep the locks firmly on the closet doors even then. I had never had a serious discussion with anybody but Malc or my mother about so-called deviant or kinky sex. It was time to put a toe outside the door.

But before we'd decided what to put in some sort of ad, FORUM magazine Personal Column provided us with what looked like the perfect opportunity. “South West London couple with interest in all forms of unconventional sexuality and erotic stimulation wish to meet others with view to forming discussion group. Confidentiality guaranteed. Send phone number only in first instance”, and a Box number to write to. Well, that was the start of the next phase in our personal development.

END CHAPTER 5

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