JH - How did you first hear about the gay community?

MJ - Well, I was a member of the Gay Activists' Alliance. I came from Australia about six years ago originally as a
temporary visit. But we got involved in various groups and when I broke up with my lover he went back to Australia
and I stayed here which meant that quite shortly after that I was looking for somewhere to live. I spent some time in
hostels and that sort of thing. They weren't particularly good. At that stage a lot of people from around here were
involved in the GAA and it was almost a running joke in the thing....you know...."Where are you going tonight? - I'm
going to Brixton - everybody can..." (pause) Erm, I knew Don Tyler....he was living here in 146 (Mayall Rd). I came
round a few times to talk about gay activism and stuff and also just to meet people round here.

A lot of people have been introduced into the community by having lovers here - by sleeping with people here and
that sort of business. Do you want all this in detail?

JH - You don't have to mention any names.

MJ - Well, I did my turn. Let's put it that way. Also, I just got friendly with the people around here and I had to move out of the hostel where I was staying. It was only a summer holiday let which meant that I was becoming homeless. I tried to get private accommodation which turned out to be horrendous. Living up above the landlord sort of business. Then I heard that this house was being opened up again (152 Mayall Rd). (Anna Duhig) had left it about three months ago and a guy called Lee Boswell was in the process of doing up some rooms. So I said I wanted to talk to him and he was quite amenable to me moving in. I actually moved in before him. I think he was staying over at 155 (Railton Rd) at that stage and I think Malcolm (Watson), Stephen Gee and John Lloyd were staying there as well. (I think he means 157 Railton Rd not 155).

JH - Do you remember when that was?

MJ - That was five years ago - October 10, 1978. Just a few days before my birthday and it was the first time I'd spent my birthday away from people I knew really well. It was a bit strange.

JH - Were you here on your own for your birthday?

MJ - Yes, I think so. I did know some other people who were over from Australia and in London. I went up to see them.

JH-So when your lover went back to Australia and you lived in the hostel where you there all the time on your own and how did you feel about moving into a community?

MJ - Yes, I was on my own. I felt quite enthusiastic about moving in.

JH - Had you lived with other groups of people before?

MJ - I'd lived with some friends in Australia for a while which was disastrous for a variety of reasons. I then lived with my Mother for a while and when I moved here I went into some short- life accommodation because we were sort of going off all over the place (travelling?)

JH - So did you have any kind of notion of what kind of things you wanted from living in the community? Had you thought about definitions of 'community' and what it would mean to you?

MJ - No. I was very naive at this stage. I was just twenty one. I know after having lived here for about three months, getting to know people around here, I had a job as a filing clerk for a Diners' club and I was desperate to hold on to that job just as I was settling in. Then I left that job and started to do something I wanted to do. I wanted to do some stage writing but never did. Just after I left Brixton Faeries were putting together a show and it was the first time I had worked as a technician. We did an Old Age Pensioners' gig just around here through Julian's connections with Jack Thompson. It was the most bizarre thing....I think I or they had ever seen anything like it. It was a kind of mixture of camp fantasy and radical gay politics. The story of the Sleeping Beauty. Andreas did a dance in this brilliant yellow frock. Long, fake nylon.
It's made me feel so much more secure living here. It made it possible to contemplate a decision like leaving a job and trying to get into whatever I wanted to do which I have done. It wasn't quite what I thought of at first but still....I can remember very clearly crossing the garden and seeing a lot of Julian because we were very close. Crossing from his kitchen to mine. This was the most amazing place to live. It was great. You could just pop across the gardens whenever you wanted to see people. If you didn't want to see people then you could just retire to your room. Particularly in Julian's place there was always coffee on the go, activity, talk. It was great.

JH - What about ideas and, shall we say, non-sexual relationships.

MJ - Well, as I say, I was very close to Julian. We never actually slept together. But, I mean, we got into to doing all sorts of things together. He got me to buy a pan which meant that we went round looking for things to put together a market stall. You just got involved with people at a very practical level. Like getting each other up in order to go to the market early. Going through....talking about what we have got to buy, sort of thing. Julian was an amazing person to do that with because his knowledge of London, how the markets work as a business. Something I would never have come into contact with otherwise. Working on the first Brixton Faeries thing. The Brixton Faeries show that was being put into the Oval. One half of it was Minehead (Minehead Revisited). The first version, so it was quite short. We did another thing on WH Smith as well (Tomorrow's Too Late). They were real....I mean the first performances of those were just amazing because it was like a village hall atmosphere. Everybody came round to see their friends and the show. All the sentiments were kind of colourful, black and white, and everybody cheered them. I mean 'Minehead Revisisted' actually turned into quite a sophisticated show by comparison.

JH - And you were doing the technical aspects?

MJ - Yeah, that's right.

JH - Did you ever find the community imposing itself on you in a way that you didn't like? Ideas, attitudes, the physical surroundings?

MJ - Not particularly from here, the ideas and stuff. To live here through my first Winter, it was a shock to find London to be so cold. I was used to centrally heated places. We ended up using an electric fire virtually all through the Winter. At the same time people knew how to fiddle the gas (etc, etc). We still owe the electricity board £500.

JH So some of the financial and physical aspects of the community....

MJ - Yeah, but they were good because there was so much shared. You didn't actually find the lack of very much. Lee and I, when I was first living here, used every so often to go on binges. We'd just smoke for about seven days non-stop. We'd do things like paint the ceilings, talk, make endless cups of tea, put graffiti on the walls....which was very good. I think that was actually part of the process of breaking from old ideas. One thing which did astonish me was that everybody here had such a settled view of the transience of most people here who'd been here for any length of time. We joined Brixton Housing Coop and they had their places set up elsewhere which was strange because I thought this community and this physical setting was very important to everyone. It's a bit too late. I think the old community round here has disappeared a bit. I think we have seen some very hard times over the past few years which have I think put me off the idea of living quite so closely together. In which the conversion scheme (Brixton Housing Coop conversion to single person units) round about now seems to be a very good things. People will very much have more space and will be able to associate with each other much more.

END OF TAPE

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