It was hardly exactly the biggest secret in politics; after all, I was once described by the vile Junor[16] as the Tories' answer to Liberace. But, apart from my immediate circle of very close friends and a few people in politics who had to know, I had never confirmed it to a living soul. In fact it wasn't until a couple of years after the Dislocation that I actually said those exact words - and that was in very awkward circumstances. Everything was done in code back then; not the rough palare of Soho, nor the more strident voices of modern Gay Liberation. You were "So" or you were "musical"; amongst friends you were "family"; to the papers you might be "devoted to your mother" or a "confirmed bachelor". It was a consequence of the times I grew up in. Like many Catholic boys, I tried to sublimate myself by taking a vocation; like many, I fell by the wayside after only a few months - there were far too many pretty young men in Rome with the same idea. I was camp at Cambridge and outré at Oxford; it was a still a slightly permissive era after the war.
