I am almost entirely sure that the first indication that I was "different" (although I didn't identify those feelings as "different" then) was my unshakeable attraction to Swiftnick from the Adventures of Dick Turpin.
I know.
I can remember one particular image from the children's novelisation that I would go back to again and again. It was a line-drawn illustration of Swiftnick - he'd been captured and was being questioned by some Sherriff of Nottingham-type figure. He was viewed, in the majority, from behind and he was, notably, stripped to the waist. His blond, curly hair was tied in a pony tail with some bow-tied black ribbon.
I have looked and looked for this book, in later life, but to no avail.
Thirty-odd years later I can still recall this picture and I can still recall going back to it time and time again. I'm sure, at the time, I didn't know why I was going back to it but there was clearly something about his back. His strong, muscular back.....
There was, in fact, something about homo-erotic imagery and imaginings, in general, that kept me coming back again and again. On many a night I would go to sleep, having this lengthy elaborate fantasy about being at some sort of futuristic boarding school where everyone arrived and was told to take off all their clothes. We were stood in cubicles - all of which faced the same way - towards a stage at the front where there was, perhaps, a hologrammed head, giving orders. The head would then order us to put on a type of loincloth worn by red indians.
Well - some people count sheep....I even wrote all this up in a school project (this is all pre-11 by the way!) complete with illustrations.
What must the teacher have thought! Well, I'm sure there were other signs.
