I think the reality was that there were some people who were obviously out, but on balance, at that stage, it was not something that you necessarily talked about. Being gay was relatively in the closet, I think. You obviously knew the other gay people because you could possibly have met them socially in bars or in some social context. At this time also I was a very active member of CHE – Campaign for Homosexual Equality –, which was based in Manchester. So I can’t really recall how I fared as being a gay person, except that I think some people knew and got on with it, but other people were disagreeably anti-gay. And I don’t think that was anything they thought through; I think it was just the norm at the time to be homophobic. Unwittingly, you know, I mean, there are people now, if I put my finger on them, I remember a director, making remarks that would now be considered very homophobic. I don’t think they were intended to be, I just don’t think they were conscious that perhaps gay people were about, to the extent that it was acceptable to make remarks, and certainly the homophobic jokes that were told on The Comedians… I remember coming back from a holiday where I’d sent a postcard to my crew and put something like, “Having a nice time by the pool,” so the card lay in the in-tray, and one of the crew – and I know exactly who it was – had written, “So the poof is lying by the pool, is he?” You know. And that person was viciously racist, viciously homophobic.
