A Young Man's Passage Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Mallorca

  Lamont

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Mallorca

  Lamont

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  About the Book

  A Young Man’s Passage is Julian’s telling of his own rise and fall as Britain’s most famous, uncompromising queen. After a happy suburban upbringing, only briefly ruffled by the brutality of the monks at his school, Julian packed his bags for the bright lights of London. He soon developed a taste for shameless performance—and men. It wasn’t long before he, along with his co-star Fanny the Wonder Dog, had become The Joan Collins Fan Club and the big time was just a mince away. Fame became a mixed bag for Julian: while revelling in the rollercoaster highs, he increasingly suffered the compromises of celebrity. After the pain of losing his lover Julian’s life began to spiral out of control—and the rest, as they say, is fistory.

  A Young Man’s Passage

  Julian Clary

  Lyrics from Some Day I’ll Find You (Private Lives): Copyright © The Estate of Noël Coward, reproduced by kind permission of Methuen Publishing Ltd.

  Extract from Human Affection by Stevie Smith: Copyright © The Estate of James MacGibbon, reproduced by kind permission.

  Extract from Chase Me Up Farndale Avenue, S’il Vous Plaît! by David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin Jnr: Copyright © David McGillivray and the Estate of Walter Zerlin Jnr, reproduced by kind permission.

  Extract from Paris Was Yesterday by Janet Flanner: Copyright © Virago Press, an imprint of Time Warner Book Group UK, reproduced by kind permission.

  For Nicholas Reader

  With thanks to:

  Peter and Brenda Clary, Tess Greenwood, Doreen Howarth, Nicholas Reader, Linda Savage, Michael Hurll, Geoff Posner, Addison Cresswell, Nina Retallick, Merryl Futerman, Paul Merton, Kirsty Lloyd-Jones, Mandy Ward, Erin Boag, Paul O’Grady, Philip Herbert, Hector Ktorides, Andrew Goodfellow, Jane Janovic, Penelope Taylor, Barb Jungr, J. Friend, Sue Holsten, David McGillivray, Richard Nelson, Chris Stagg, Michael Ferri, Rupert Hine, Jeannette Obstoj, Janet Sate, Erika Poole, Mikos, Peter Mountain, Steve McNicholas.

  Some names in the book have been changed.

  MALLORCA

  NO ONE TOLD me I had become an old queen. I came to the dreary realisation all by myself. I’d been hanging around the Club Barracuda, raising my eyebrows at desirable Spaniards, and was finally about to make my way home in the certain knowledge that I was of no interest and there were no athletic off-duty waiters drunk enough to emulate lust for me, when I came across my 22-year-old nephew. He was at once happy to see me and curious as to what I’m doing out at this hour at my age. It is after all 5.25 a.m. and I’m the oldest swinger in town. If only I could clear the air by having a nervous breakdown, then look back fondly at my youth, embrace middle-age spread and attempt something along the lines of living in the moment. I’m sure that’s the healthy way forward.

  Forty-five. It sounds grave. It sounds like a punchline. A doctor might say it to you at the end of a sobering prognosis. ‘You see, you’re 45 . . .’ Or a psychiatrist, while demystifying your current crisis, a publicist explaining your unseemly behaviour, a personal trainer excusing the aching muscles. Eventually I say it to myself in the mirror. Forty-five. It feels important. Good bones, careful diet and discreet Botox injections do what they can but facts are facts. I’d better start wearing dark colours and stop bleaching my hair. There need to be some other changes made in the pursuit of dignity, too. I’ve scratched a living for 20-odd years as a camp comic and renowned homosexual, bespoke Nancy boy and taker-of-cock-up-arse. That will all have to go. Soon. As did the rubber and the Lycra some years ago, replaced with corsetry and glamorous suits.

  I’m pleased to note that I have evolved in some ways, even if I am still a single gay man living alone in a particular square mile of north London with his small mongrel dog. (The local services I require, incidentally, are minimal: a corner shop, an off-licence, a gay pub, a first-rate sushi bar and somewhere to walk the dog.) I’m happy now, primarily.

  I knew instinctively, when I arrived here almost 25 years ago, that this was my destiny. It’s as well to know. Ah, I thought then, I’ve come home. It’s a different home now, and a different mongrel too, but this is where I belong in the great scheme of things. But why?

  I feel honour-bound in the writing of this book to discover what the point of myself is. The universe is not as chaotic as it may first appear to be. Nature has a reason for everything. Why am I here? Did the world at that time really need an effeminate homosexual prone to making lewd and lascivious remarks? Does everything happen for a reason or did I just get lucky?

  One theory, extracted from an essay I read during my formative years, goes along the lines that Nature produces a certain number of homosexuals in each generation. Their function is to stand aside from the rest of society (busy procreating, eating food covered in breadcrumbs and living the family thing) and comment upon it. We are the outside eye, the constructive critic, diffusing with our insightful observations the inevitably tense and difficult moods that result from domestic heterosexual drudgery. This has always appealed to me. I prefer to think that gay men, lesbians and transgender folk are part of the great scheme of things. Everything has its place. I am a Catholic, after all, and it’s a comfort to me to know that God moves in mysterious ways. (He’s not the only one.)

  It may be that Nature’s reasons change with time, and the current crop of freaks serves a different purpose. But I hope that I can discover the wisdom of my own creation in the course of this book. Surely, if we take a slow, selective troll through the chapters of my life, the least we can hope for is an understanding of the finished product? I’m rather hopeful. Prospective husbands need only read the paperback and proceed with caution. It will save so much time.

  So here at 45 I will tarry a while, casting a bloodshot eye back at what may or may not be the first half of my natural life, but what can, come what may, unarguably be called ‘My Youth’.

  THAT’S MY GENERAL angle. I think I’ll put the emphasis on the comedy. I am a comedian, after all, so we’ll all be looking for a bit of uplifting sauce and slapstick, but expertly combined, correct me if I’m wrong, with what is loosely known as ‘light and shade’. You want the tears as well as the laughs, the lows, the traumas, the self-doubt, the drugs, the scandals. You want unexpurgated gay sex, and if you’re a Daily Mail reader you’ll want that followed by disease, death and loneliness. This may be just the book for you.

  Once work gets a grip, depending on the work you do, it becomes the meaning of life for a while, as much an imperative as eating or sleeping. A career won’t be denied; it chomps away at your allotted 24 hours and its hunger is satisfied only temporarily before the next urge, as sure as waves roll in from the sea. And even if your work is cam
p comedy, it’s as all-consuming as a thesis. It has a life of its own.

  In the throes of the early 1990s I might as well have been Sylvia Plath, so possessed was I. Buggery jokes, not bumble bees, perhaps, but I’d found my niche and took up the make-up brush as the poet does the pen, the teacher the chalk or the porno star the penis – i.e. with relish!

  It doesn’t last, of course. Things change: self-parody creeps in, laziness rears its sleepy head. Then there are well-meaning (or otherwise) TV producers who trust their own vision more than yours. Battle with them for a few years and your resistance may cave in, the path ahead obfuscated. By then you have tax bills and mortgages, expensive tastes and expectant friends to dish out for. What was once a joy becomes a job. You’re not new and exciting, you’re old and reliable, if you’re lucky.

  But why did I choose this particular line of work? It just happened, as things do. But here’s how.

  So prepare for a taste of a young man’s passage.

  It’s not going to be easy for any of us.

  LAMONT

  ONE DULL SUNDAY afternoon in December 1993 I lay on the carpet in front of the fire and thought about my life for a while. I couldn’t indulge myself for too long as a car would be coming to collect me soon to take me to the British Comedy Awards. But the more I pondered my life, the harder it was to get up. My boyfriend had dumped me, my manager had lost interest, I was taking Valium during the day and sleeping pills at night. Even Fanny the Wonder Dog, while she hadn’t exactly withdrawn her unconditional love, had taken to avoiding me: after 13 years of sleeping in my bed (under the duvet, head on the pillow), she now retired to a spare bedroom at night.

  As far as I could work out, my life had gone pear-shaped two months previously when I moved house. Could it be that mere location coupled with bricks and mortar caused my emotional well-being to evaporate so suddenly? I lay on my back and looked up at the high ceiling. I tried to focus on the empty space, on the nothingness that hovered there. It was an unnecessarily large house. Detached, as I was, with a garage and a garden. This listed Victorian home was bleak, not impressive, as I had thought when I made the purchase. It was situated on a corner and the local Holloway youths congregated there, shouting unimaginative insults whenever they saw me, even heaving a brick through the kitchen window a few weeks earlier. It had been a mistake to buy it, but I was rich and it seemed a good idea at the time. I was trying to make sense of my newly acquired fame and wealth and saw 9 Middleton Grove, London N7 as an appropriate symbol of my status.

  At the third attempt I managed to get off the floor and go upstairs for a shower. It was a black-tie event so I had better make an effort and pull myself together. These award evenings could be fun if you were in the right sort of mood. Of course, I hadn’t been nominated for an award – I was presenting the award for the best comedy actress. Before I left the house I stroked a glum-looking Fanny and slipped a Valium in my pocket in case I had one of my panic attacks. I knew there was a lot of small talk ahead and I might get stuck talking to someone tiresome. In the cut-throat world of television, people sometimes enjoyed saying hurtful things. I had bumped into Chris Evans a few weeks before at the Groucho Club. ‘How are you?’ I said. ‘Your career went off the rails a couple of years ago,’ was his cheery reply.

  When I got to the studio from where the bash was being broadcast live, I forced a smile and found my manager, Addison Cresswell, milling around the champagne reception. ‘All right, mush? Our table’s over ’ere.’ He seemed happy and excited; maybe because two of his other clients, Jack Dee and Lee Evans, were nominated for awards. ‘Should be a good night for the stable,’ he said, talking out the corner of his mouth, as if he were a drug dealer discreetly offering a sale. His company, Off The Kerb, was hugely successful, and when he’d had a few drinks he would state his worth in no uncertain terms. Poking himself vigorously in the chest, he’d say, ‘I’m a multi-fucking-millionaire, mate!’ He was proud of the comedians he looked after, and viewed us a bit like racehorses. When he signed Jo Brand he said to me: ‘It’s good to have a female in the stable,’ as if she might be serviced by Jeff Green and produce a mini comic genius.

  I was presenting the penultimate award so I was free to watch the show for a while and think about what I was going to say. Before you read the nominations and opened the envelope to announce the winner, you had time for a bit of banter with the host, Jonathan Ross, and one quick joke. I hadn’t thought of my joke yet, but there was plenty of time. I had some champagne and nibbled my Valium. I looked round the room. The set that year was an imaginative rural display of greenery, sprouting branches and scattered autumn leaves. A veritable Who’s Who of British Comedy sat in the audience along with other television stars of the day. Near the front I spotted the Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont. Fancy inviting him, I thought. How inappropriate.

  ONE

  Mother, I love you so.

  Said the child, I love you more than I know.

  She laid her head on her mother’s arm,

  And the love between them kept them warm.

  ‘HUMAN AFFECTION’ BY STEVIE SMITH

  WHENEVER FRIENDS ANNOUNCE a pregnancy, I feel a sense of bereavement, and by the time they’ve finished the sentence they’ve begun to disappear, as if walking backwards into the mist.

  I know why. I feel displaced. As a bachelor of a certain age, one wants one’s friends forever available for evenings of white wine and general bonding. Boyfriends and girlfriends are unlikely to be welcomed into the fold. I don’t want to know about their nesting or their breeding. I am the star of the show. All eyes and all attention must be upon me.

  When you’re the host to such gross narcissistic tendencies, it’s not easy to pretend you’re interested in a world before your time. How on earth did they manage? I shake my head in sorrow, but perk up when I consider my parents and the generations before them, the chance meetings, the fateful couplings, the mysterious but unstoppable life force, genetic combinations and cellular activity that culminated in what I modestly refer to as ‘me’.

  I feel a connection, more imagined than real, with my great-grandfather, Michael McDonald, who came to London from Nenagh in Ireland in the 1880s, with his two brothers Dan and Tom. Escaping from hunger, poverty and famine, the whole family was bailing out. Three other brothers went to America and were never heard of again. ‘I always like to think they went on to create the McDonald’s burger chain,’ says Tess, Michael’s only surviving daughter, aged 92. Michael and his brothers, meanwhile, opened a grocer’s store in Brentford High Street, west London. Dan minded the shop while Michael and Tom took the horse and cart around the posh streets of Notting Hill to sell their wares.

  Around that time, in my wistful imagination like a heroine in a Thomas Hardy novel, Louisa Watts set forth from her home on a farm in Chipping Norton to work as a housemaid in Brentford. Louisa had a fine singing voice and had joined the Catholic Church some years before because they had the best choir in Oxfordshire. It might be that Louisa’s mistress fancied an omelette for her tea one day and sent her maid to the grocer’s, where Michael, as he handed over the symbols of fertility, caught Louisa’s eye.

  Their son, Hector, was my maternal grandfather. My paternal grandfather, John Clary, worked in a tobacco factory and met my grandmother, Elizabeth, in a pub. Perhaps she was drinking a snowball at the time, but there is no official record.

  But let’s talk about me.

  ‘It was surprisingly one morning, and that’s as far as I’m prepared to go,’ said my mother when I asked about my conception. I already knew the deed was done at Clacton-on-Sea, and working backwards from May 1959, when I was born, I could see it was evidently during a late summer break at Auntie Flossie’s bungalow. Now I knew the time of day!

  I was 44, and I wanted to know. How was I . . . ?

  I had always assumed, it being the 1950s and all, that the miracle of life occurred after dark with the lights off, but no. Morning. Brazen as you ple
ase. Anyone could have walked in. Where were my sisters? Frances and Beverley would have been three and one at the time. Had Auntie Flossie taken them down to the beach to give my parents some time alone? How thrilling to think of my parents overcome by passion, intoxicated by the sea air, writhing and cavorting in the kitchen as the morning sun filtered through the net curtains.

  I really wanted to know the details of that particular sexual act but as always my mother knew what my game was, and her ‘that’s as far as I’m prepared to go’ had rather put me in my place.

  The truth is my mother always knew within hours if she was pregnant. This being her third such experience, she was in no doubt. A vague nausea and a tenderness in the nipple region.

  Somewhat chagrined at the prospect of bottling her own potential for a few more years as another life took over, but simultaneously overcome with those glorious, earthy feelings only hormones and heterosexual liaisons can produce, she soon got used to the idea of another child.

  The blood pressure that had escalated during her previous pregnancies was now a serious problem. At eight months, a routine visit to her GP brought bad news. She would have to go to hospital at once. She refused. Frances and Beverley were so small. They needed her. If she had to go home, the doctor told her, then she must stay in bed and do nothing. It was vital for the well-being of the baby. She cried. Quite stressful, I should imagine. The next day there was a knock at the door. It was Auntie Flossie. Four foot nine and 62 years old, all the way from Clacton.

  ‘I’ve come for your girls,’ she said, and so she did. My mother’s confinement, released from the responsibilities of motherhood, continued as prescribed. She stayed in bed, nursing the foetus within. She watched a lot of boxing matches on the television.