”I don’t think we go too Croydon, do we?”

Derek sounded very Lady Bracknell in response to my suggestion that there was a party that Saturday night. Geoffrey rather agreed with him; Croydon was definitely ‘beyond the Pale’ (a fence delineating the part of Ireland under English rule in the 14th century). It was 1970 and we were living in Burgh Street, Islington, our first house which we had bought one-third each with Geoffrey for the princely sum of £15,500.

The Catacombs in Earls Court was one of London’s first gay discos and a few weeks before I had met a bubbly blonde teenager there. George Watson was from Northern Ireland and he handed me round his friends the most recent of whom was another Irishman called Neil who worked as an air traffic controller and lived in a big shared flat in Croydon. The love of George’s life was Tony Murray, a charming but unreliable partner, short dark, nice looking and about twenty five; at the time we met, Tony was still living in Ireland. George swore he would disfigure Tony to make sure no one else would want him if he ever came to London.

When I returned down the stairs to the living room with Neil that Saturday night I was concerned that Derek might be at a loose end and not too happy with my disappearance. But as I looked down on the busy living room I saw he was jammed onto the long sofa with four or five others. Squeezed up next to him was a very attractive dark young man; they seemed to be best friends already. I was relieved but also surprised; Derek was not in the habit of becoming cozy with strangers, attractive or otherwise.

“Is it alright if we take him home?”

This was before we even been introduced but even with Neil at my side, I was quick to say,

 “Yes, OK!”

Tony Murray and Brian had met on the tube. Later that night he moved into the big bed on the top floor of Burgh Street that Derek and I shared. He didn’t move out until many years later when Burgh Street was sold and he and Derek bought their house on the corner of Danbury Street.