gay mates

some things do get better. more civilised really, when you think about it. so tell me if you've seen this, if you've become aware of this. this is what I'm talking about. So you're on a train or a bus, or you're just out somewhere. not somewhere posh or trendy. I'm not talking about being in some fashionable part of london. say you're just on you're way into town on the train and you're going through somewhere pretty ordinary. so I saw these kids get on the train in borehamwood. borehamwood is not smart. pretty tough, even, parts of it, some of the people you see on that high street there. not the easiest place on the eye. anyway, these kids get on and it's nearly all girls. ordinary girls. noisy, but they're ok. it's not a disturbance. and there's one boy with them, about the same age. they could be fifteen, sixteen, I don't know. so there's this one boy with them and he's an ordinary sort of kid too. I mean not well-spoken. I mean working class, alright. these are working class kids. they're all fine. nice kids, I suppose. and from the way he talks and the way the girls are with him, you'd say this boy was pretty camp. if you had to guess you'd say he's gay, right? the girls like his company, they find him pretty hilarious. he's sort of got that arch, camp, witty sort of thing going on. he's as loud as they are. not exactly making a big deal of standing out. he's not imposing himself on the carriage, on the other people in the train. you're just very aware of him. it's not annoying, you just notice it. and no one really pays attention. and there are other kids a bit older, a bit younger on this train, as well as families and just people like me, like people on their own just going into town. it's unremarkable that there's this quite camp kid with his girl friends. and I was thinking, you didn't use to see this. this is something new. I don't know when this would have stopped being a big deal, but it's not a big deal, is it? I mean, if this was years ago, like when I was at school, a kid like that would get the shit kicked out of him. but nobody's even taking the piss. and there's this stuff you read in the papers. the columnists or whatever. this stuff about white working class culture being very intolerant, about there being an ignorance. and I don't know who they're writing about, but it's not about these girls. they've got a mate who's gay and it's pretty open. well unless I'm completely misreading the whole thing. and it's no big thing to them, or to him, or to anyone who sees it, and I think that seems like progress to me somehow. a lot of shit is written about kids, about people in this country, about a coarsening of the culture, and I'm thinking well maybe in some ways, but this looks good to me. people can really be alright. this isn't a bad country.