IT'S ALL ANGST, ACNE & HORMONES – Memories of a Gay teenager

May 1944.

I stood there, a lone figure in my black trousers and school blazer. The starkness of my white shirt showing in the soft May sunshine. All the others were adults. There were my brothers and sister and their wives and husband and several others whom I didn't really know. All stood about waiting. As usual I was being ignored. A teenager of apparently no significant consequence. I suppose they all thought that I was too young to understand so nothing was explained. In a way I suppose that they were right because I was more worried about the strange new husky baritone voice that I had developed, as if overnight, complete with the occasional high squeaks. Plus my hormones were running riot and causing my bits and pieces to do strange things at the most inappropriate times. Don't let anyone tell you that being a teenager is fun.

It was the same when we visited Mam at the hospital two weeks ago and she kept asking for them to stop the pain. I was shushed when I asked why didn't someone do something to help her. They forgot later, when we were at home and I was up in my room and they were downstairs talking, that I could hear everything that they said. They once again used the word cancer. That there was no hope and that she hadn't long to go.

I was old enough to know about cancer and anyway I had looked it up in my dictionary when it was first mentioned that was what was wrong with her months ago.

Adults are strange. They teach you to look up in dictionaries and encyclopaedias anything that you don't understand and then seem shocked and surprised when you do just that and find out for yourself whatever it is that they are going round whispering about. It was just the same about a year ago. I had overheard a conversation dealing with the fact that I was adopted. As taught, I had looked the term up, and, once I knew what the word meant and how it affected me I tackled them about it. I wanted to know more. Once again I had been greeted with the shock-horror tactic and how it would be all explained at the right time. Whenever that might be.

Suddenly there was some activity. The hearse and cars arrived and the undertakers' men loaded the coffin and wreaths up. Next the undertaker started to read from his list the names of the mourners and which car they were to travel in. "In the first car were to be Walter and Emily, my eldest brother and his wife. Helen and Joseph, my sister and her husband. Herbert and Elsie, my other brother and his wife." He turned to the next page and started "In the second car will be" and was about to read out further names - well he would have if I hadn't barged my way though to his side and demanded in my new deep voice "Why aren't I going with my brothers and sister?" He looked down at me puzzled like, glanced back at his list and said, "There are only three children. Who are you?" "I'm Alan," I said, "And she was my Mam too." With that I marched out of the front door of the house to where the first car was waiting. There were six seats in each car and the first car already had three couples in it so where was I to go? Fortunately the driver had overheard much of what had transpired and had his wits about him. He opened the front passenger door and told me to sit in the front alongside him. So embarrassment and indignity were avoided. Just. As I was settling in the front seat I heard my sister asking, "Where's our Alan?" and my brother-in-law telling her it was all right I was up front with the driver.

All these years have gone by and I have never forgiven, nor will I ever, that funeral director for his cock-up. It's hard enough for a teenage boy, with all the attendant problems of growing up, to deal with trauma of the death of his Mam without him having to also have to stand up for himself, in an alien adult world, in order that he is not completely ignored, overlooked and forgotten at such a time of personal tragedy.

by Alan Edwards

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