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jbjb What s your name? Roger Desouches. And do you mind telling us how old you are? Sixty
four years and two months. I was born 20th of February, 1946. Gosh. Where were you born?
I was born in Camden Town, in Arlington Road, which runs parallel to the High Street. And
you went to school Richard Compton School, and then Haverstock until I was fifteen. When
did you come to the East End. Hang on. Nineteen seven well, nineteen seventy two. A long time
ago. What made you come here. I married a woman. Did you really? m still married to
her, believe it or not. Er, yah. We lived in Highams Park, then Walthamstow. Then we
had a chance to by a where we live now. In North Chingford. And er grabbed it with both
hands. You see she s got disabilities. Em s got mental illness etc. Em s easy to manage.
I m very lazy. Ha, ha, ha. That s why I ve got a cleaner comes in every week now .cause,
cause she s sixty two and I m sixty four. And we ve been married thirty seven years
and three months. I do have a boyfriend. I spoke to him this mornin . He s in Aberdeen
at the moment. But he s on a little bit of a holiday with some old friends. He lives
regularly in Newcastle and he s getting a bloody hard time at the moment. Tyres damaged
twice. Aerial damaged. Er abusive text messages. I ve seen a flat advertised locally and em
I gotta ve got the number written down at home. I ve got to take some time tomorrow
to ring the number up and er..and see er is going. He has also got disabilities. He s
had a stroke down one side but he can drive a car. And er. er on his part, there s a lot
of jealousy. But er re doing the best we can. We re going to sort of bring him down here.
And em how did we meet? There s a gay church that meets here, and that s how we met. Where
s the gay church. Here. Meets here every Sunday. Brilliant. Love it. Are you a Christian? Yes,
I am. Er I go to an open Anglican Church in North Chingford. They are very very nice.
Stop that bloody noise. Em and em, I also come to MCC. Matter of fact, tonight, when
I ve left you, I m going up to town to have a look at something. And I ve got a, All Churches
Pride meeting tonight. An er for the first time since I ve known it, er re all getting
together and marching as one voice which is a excellent thing er, because the newspapers
always project those who hate us. They are supposed to be Christians? Do me a favour.
I also do, locally, police work for the LGBT people in Waltham Forest and m also on the
borough Community Safety Board. And I do, well panel work for the Met and the local
community. Do you ever have time for yourself then? Yeah. Facebook! In the mornin and in
the afternoon. Em, sometimes yeah. I do have a social life. We are fortunate now to ave
a fairly well established gay night once a fortnight at the Victoria pub. It was to start,
well, originally, years ago we had two completely gay venues. One dropped off, closed. The other
one changed hands. Central Station? Walthamstow? Somebody took it over. It was em mysteriously
burnt down..er and then, all of a sudden, Paul, who I have got to know, the guy who
runs ly, nationally, started up a gay night at the Vic where I go in every fortnight.
Paul also runs Club Lick in the lower half of er Hove Street. Em s on a Friday night.
And if I tend to go out, I tend to go out on a Sun, Saturday night, and go with some
of the boys from church afterwards over the holidays and most, most Sunday evenings. Did
you come out officially. Oh yeah! To a married man to come out to your wife after twenty
five years is like the death sentence. But I will say something, an er, I m not, I m
not afraid to say it. I can t perform. I had my prostate done when I was fifty eight and
my libido has gone, phweet, out the window. Richard, Ricky. Same problem. But with his
stroke, he also can t perform. It s not the be all and end all of a good relationship.
A good relationship is founded on, I think, as a Christian, the love of God in Christ
Jesus and God has brought us together and we, we just love it. Carry on. What e, what,
what d u say? I was going to ask. What did your wife make of it when you came out. Not
very much but she, er she accepts it because. Eighty percent of the time, as a carer, I
m there. Em, she has a little whinge occasionally but er I don t do anything in the house with
Ricky or any other of my friends. Er, two rules. Not in the house. Not in Church. The
other thing in Church, when we take communion, when I m with Ricky, we always u go up hand
in hand. That I insist on. Certain people in the Church not sort of, mm, you know, he
s got a wife, he s playing away I So you know, you get that. But it s easy. Em m well enough
now because I ve been doing ve being doing Pride for ten years. I ve been, this is my
eleventh season comin up and I ve been doing Pride in Brighton for, for ten years. This
is my tenth season. About all the great work you do policing and everything. Could you
tell us something about your experience with the police. Excellent! Excellent! I mean,
two of my best friends. One s a Chief Inspector, er and the other one s my, the, the sergeant
that runs the what, the em GLBT group and most of the others The police s attitude in
Waltham Forest is em since they started the GLBT group Sergeant Jan Henry and most of
the people that are there, they are as good as g, they re as good as gold. Em, crime reporting,
I mean in some aspects I suppose they re a bit lax, they re a bit sort of, you know,
take it down the scale of em priorities. Em ve never ever heard of any poli police brutality
locally to gay, gay men or women. If I did, I d jump on them like a dose of sauce, I can
promise you. Because nobody treats them better then what they could, could treat me than
to treat me like that, you know. Em. it s well known that Waltham Forest has got two
two of the biggest em cruising places, the Hollow Ponds, and another one. But em I mentioned
it to a friend of mine who works for the Council and er the ward sergeant which happen to cover
my area, was down there, you know, checking up and eventually er, one of the operatives
here will go and do some outreach out there because, it s alright in pubs and clubs and
all that sort of thing but if the em if they took a liking to em other places em they d
find that there would be an awful lot more that they could do outside of the pubs and
clubs you know. I mean the pol, police in Waltham Forest are alerted that there is now
a ven, couple of venues. They haven t paid us a visit yet er, but I keep sort of tugging
their chain, pulling their chains and Why don t you come and show your face you know.
I mean, alright, we are in a closed environment, we re chatting, we re drinking whatever, it
s a case of em what happens after that no concern of mine. Only if I get a story that
so and so went picked up so and so and they, er, on their way home or on their way up to
the house they were assaulted or anything like that. But you, you don t read it in the
papers. You don t read it on fact sheets which I get from Waltham Forest Council. Em But
dealing with the police, even at Pride, they leave it to the people that know. You get
a couple of officious people occasionally er, but em provided that it s happening behind
closed doors there s no problem. But, em they do like to make their presence felt. That
they are concerned. And when you have got gay officers who are assigned specifically
to gay matters you get a more sympathetic view. And there s right, right to er superintendent
assistant chief constable outside of London. You ve got all ranks. It s like the army.
You ve got all ranks. A lot choose to say I am gay or I am a lesbian whatever. But a
lot of them, you know s like the American thing is, t tell t ask, don t tell. So, what
was I going to ask you. Em have you ever been abused or attacked? No. Em verbally abused
yeah but in that and out that. I just let it pass. Tell me about your look. my demeanour.
Er, quite frankly I wear my gay triangle. MCC East Lon, MCC er logo. That s the former
one and that s the present one. There s my membership ring that I had done. That s my
ring. It s got Roger and Ricky. Always wear the rainbow rings and the MCC earring. I ve
got a pendant under here. MCC pendant. I love MCC. And I just got ?...chain. I ve got loads
and loads of other jewellery I could wear if I wanted to. And that one. I ve got just
a a bracelet that I had made. It s, on one side it s got Roger. On that side it s got
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