469: AIDS 5 - Moralising 2, James Anderton nil

James Anderton was the chief constable of the Greater Manchester. His campaigns to combat crime were complemented by his public opinions on social, sexual and moral matters informed by his strong religious beliefs. Hence he was nicknamed “God’s Copper”. On December 11 1986, officers from police forces across the country attended a seminar organised by the Greater Manchester police to discuss police handling and interaction with AIDS victims. Anderton, until recently a Methodist lay preacher, had converted to Catholicism. (The Catholic Church of the time was strongly resistant to AIDS campaigns which emphasised sex education and the use of condoms.) There he spoke about how AIDS was primarily a risk just for prostitutes, drug-users and homosexual men:

“Everywhere I go I see increasing evidence of people swirling around in the cesspool of their own making. Why do homosexuals freely engage in sodomy and other obnoxious sexual practices knowing the dangers involved? Why is this question not asked of these people.”

Which pretty much speaks for itself. In particular, Anderton’s phrase “swirling around in the cesspool of their own making” has gone down in history as the epitome of 1980’s Establishment homophobia.

Noel Ford in The Daily Star, 13 December 1986

JAK in The Evening Standard, 16 December 1986

Private Eye, 6 February 1987

413: Michael Trestrail

Something for the Jubilee. Something other than just posting a load of puns involving the word “Queen”, mind you. So something related to her majesty specifically instead – which will mean a few “queen” jokes, I’m afraid, but what can I do about that. I have no time machine to forcibly restrain people from making these slightly lame jokes in the first place.

One of the odder incidents before her children and their marriages became a thriving tabloid feature (toe-sucking, squidgygate, I want to be your tampon, etc.) was the incident in July 1982 when the Queen was visited by an intruder in her bedroom. Michael Fagan climbed over the walls surrounding Buckingham palace, broke into Buckingham Palace undetected, then made his way to the Queen’s bed chamber, where he woke her up and sat on her bed for about 10 minutes.

This was the sixth breach of security at the Queen's London residence that year and there was a clamour to know why the Queen’s security had been breached so many times. On July 19th the Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw announced to a stunned parliament that the Queen’s chief of security, Commander Michael Trestrail had resigned, not because of any failings in his job but because he had been involved in a relationship with a male prostitute.

The 51 year old Trestrail had worked for the Royal Family since 1966, and had become a Member of the Royal Victorian Order in 1978, a personal award of the Queen. It was revealed that several years previously Trestrail had met a couple of times with Michael Rauch, a male prostitute in his 30s. When Rauch had discovered Trestrail’s position he had tried to blackmail him but nothing had come of it. Following the interest in Fagan’s break-in, Rauch tried to sell his story to “The Sun” newspaper, but the tabloid instead passed this information to Scotland Yard.

Trestrail immediately resigned. All of this was not just embarrassing to the palace but also to the government. Trestrail was security checked every couple of years, and his last vetting had only been 3 months previously. Furthermore, Trestrail’s resignation occurred independently of any awareness by the government. Whitelaw was only in the position of announcing what had already happened. Various investigations would follow, which would open up the more private operations of the palace making it more accountable.

Most of the papers and commentators were largely sympathetic to Trestrail. The Attorney General announced: “There should be no general presumption that homosexuality is evidence of inherent personality defects disqualifying the individual from positions of responsibility”. There was an investigation by Lord Bridge, with the report issued in November 1982. Trestrail was exonerated as “no threat to security at the palace”, nor responsible for the Fagan incident, although Bridge remarked on “casual and promiscuous homosexual encounters which (Trestrail) himself recognised as sordid and degrading …[which] still attracts general disapproval”. So if nothing else, an indication of how attitudes have changed in the last 30 years.

All the reports suggest an immensely private man, whose testimony gives the impression of being not entirely comfortable in his sexuality. Headlines and observations were full of the phrase “Secret Double Life”. Developing from the Vassall and Lavender scandals of the early 1960s most of the commentary is still about blackmailing of homosexuals, but now instead of campaigns for purges, the assumption is that honesty really is the best policy.

One good thing in all of the material that follows, almost none of it is directly or personally about Trestrail but only about the mix of homosexuality, royality, policeman, national security, and Fagan’s break-in.

Raymond Jackson
Evening Standard, 21 July 1982
As with almost very other JAK cartoon, if he’s not some effeminate sissy, then a homosexual is a large chap with extravagant facial hair in lady’s evening wear. Pythonesque or just lazy all-poofs-are-transvestite gags? Anyway, here they are infiltrating away like mad.

Michael Heath
Spectator, 24 July 1982
And here’s the first of our queen/ royalty meet’s queen / homosexual puns. Writes itself, wouldn’t you say?

Trog – aka Wally Fawkes
Observer, 25 July 1982
The police officer is Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw. But isn’t that just the mimsiest-looking chap on the step?

Michael Heath
Punch, 28 July 1982
A gay interpretation of the everyday behaviour of policemen. Could almost be a pocket cartoon by Marc Boxer, but none of Boxer’s pieces for “The Times” touch on this story's homosexuality even by allusion.

Punch, 28 July 1982
A Queen gag again. Anthony Blunt for previous secretly gay Royal employee allusion. Quentin Crisp as a default reference for homosexuality. And an ethos of secrecy about being gay.

cover, Private Eye 30 July 1982
A “Hello Sailor” joke. Ho-hum.

David Austin
“Hom Sap” strip in Private Eye, 30 July 1982
Austin is better than a joke whose pay-off is a hand on hip, and a “Haven’t we all, sweeties”? but this is for “Private Eye” in the early 1980s which wasn’t in the market for any subtlety in its jokes about homosexuals.

Michael Heath
“The Gays” strip in Private Eye, 30 July 1982
“It’s wonderful to feel persecuted again”?

David Austin
Spectator, 31 July 1982
An inversion of the whole Trestrail situation. Note the topical homosexual moustaches and realistic early 80s attire in contrast to the character in Trog’s cartoon.

Punch, 4 August 1982.
Listing all the gay signifiers in this would be almost as the piece itself: Cambridge and Foreign Office spies, hairdressers and ballet dancers, Oscar Wilde, leather gear and cottaging. No Jeremy Thorpe reference is surprising, although for those with a particularly good memory, a copy of Baldwin’s novel was involved in Thorpe’s seduction technique. The only other thing missing is some sort of disco reference, but then the audience of “Punch” isn’t hip in anyway.

Cartoon by Geoffrey Dickinson
E.J. Turner
Punch, 4 August 1982
A lengthy piece about the evident failures of the vetting procedure invoking the idea of “effeminate drinks”, James Bond’s odd piece of folklore about homosexuals not being able to whistle, Oxbridge traitors, bachelor holidays to gay venues, interior decorating, handbags, and so on. And a “gay men have handbags” reference in the cartoon too.

Michael Heath
“The Gays” strip in Private Eye, 13 August 1982
Not a bad gag in this context. Although still within general milieu of pity, misery, envy, petty lust, resentment and recrimination of the strip.

Private Eye, 13 August 1982
Easy “hello sailor” cliché aside, this instance looks at the sexual scandal element of the story, in regard to Trestrail’s consorting with prostitutes. The three signatories are all disgraced figures, but the Kincora Boys Homes is a low blow as that was a notorious contemporary paedophile scandal.

Clive Collins
The Sun, 31 August 1982
A camp bitchy gay. Again the idea of being pervasively infiltrated. Although the “I’ll scratch their eyes out” line has probably been a cliché for at least the last 10 years.

Private Eye
3 December 1982
Analysing the Bridge investigation as a cover-up so as not to further embarrass the Palace. Mr Sweeties Roughtrouser is a name revisited from jokes about Thorpe.

After that Trestrail falls out of the public eye. But there is one last reference. The second volume of Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole books, “The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole” (1984) has the following topical entry, in which the events of the outside world are brought within Adrian’s self-obsessed petty orbit:

“MONDAY JULY 19TH “The Queen’s personal detective, Commander Trestrail, has had to resign because the papers have found out that he is a homosexual. I think this is dead unfair. It’s not against the law and I bet the Queen doesn’t mind. Barry Kent calls ME a poofter because I like reading and hate sport. So I understand what it is like to be victimized.”

282: Anthony Blunt 3

At the beginning of November 1979 Anthony Boyle published “The Climate of Treason”. The book could not explicitly refer to Blunt, but it still raised suspicions that Anthony Blunt was the Fourth Man. That Blunt employed a lawyer to demand that the copy be vetted for any possible references was a disastrous action since it only drew further attention and at last gave reasonable grounds for journalists to make public comment. On 15 November 1979 the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, prompted by questions from a Labour MP, confirmed in the House of Commons that Blunt had been an agent and talent spotter for Russian intelligence. Immediately Buckingham Palace, where Blunt in his capacity as a respected art historian had been employed as personal advisor on art, announced that Blunt’s knighthood was cancelled and annulled. On 20 November 1979 Anthony Blunt gave a wholly unexpected interview to “The Times”, so providing his personal account. Thus the sudden if slightly belated interest in homosexual matters that results in everything below. Comment about commie queers prior to Blunt’s statements might have been a tad libellous. Blunt was rightly vilified across the press, although in the abuse heaped on him there may be some undigested elements of class hatred and homophobia. So what follows is a test of ingenuity as cartoonists and humorists vie for as many ways as possible to spin gags out of the idea that gay = spy


Mac in “Daily Mail”, 19 November 1979

So first off it’s a Russian boyfriend. For an aging civil servant, as Blunt was. Possibly some aspect of the idea we’ve seen before that the civil service is packed with ‘em, that the high-end of the bureaucracy is a veritable boy’s club for well-educated pooves. Although the humour lies in that it’s a phone call from a lover at the most inopportune moment.


Bill Caldwell in “Daily Star”, 20 November 1979

Then it’s a subversion of the previous macho spy stereotype of James Bond. Which we’ve seen Cyril Connolly do already fifteen years earlier. Besides a “Punch” parody from the mid-1970s when someone or other said the intelligence service was stuffed full of homosexuals: “The Spy Who Minced In”, it wa.


JAK in “Evening Standard”, 20 November 1979

As we’ve seen before, when homosexuality is the problem then Jak can be relied upon to turn the situation on its head, replacing the institutionalised homosexual – vicar, sailor, or whatever, with some definite instance of heterosexuality.


Cover to “Private Eye”, 23 November 1979

Can’t you see? Are you blind? It’s a pun – queen, her royal majesty, and queen, homosexual.


Michael Heath in “Private Eye”, 23 November 1979



Michael Heath in “Spectator”, 24 November 1979


Michael Heath in “Spectator”, 19 January 1980

This is Michael Heath’s regular trick of blanket assumptions of equivalency. Both of these assume that anything gay is therefore automatically associated with spying.



Mahood, in “Punch”, 28 November 1979

Assorted suggestive pictures to append speech bubbles to. You’ll notice that two men together in a semi-intimate setting could be either spies conspiring to pass confidential information or else a homosexual clinch. The phrase “fellow traveller” was used to describe the Communist sympathisers who sprang up in England in the 1930s


from “Punch”, 19 December 1979
a spoof article about the events of the 1980s
speech bubble reads “Shut that file!” – a play on Grayson’s catchphrase “Shut that door”.

It was sheer coincidence, but both Larry Grayson, the well-known camp British entertainer and Blunt had the same horse-faced mien. So here the writers employ Grayson’s camp, luvvie tones to retrospectively interpret the scandal of the previous weeks. So some of it is an attack on Grayson’s persona, his behaviour on TV, his treatment of his guests and his limp wrists. There’s also a slight denigration to Blunt in suggesting Grayson was the ideal man to play him. It’s the acceptable face of homosexuality, without hinting at any bedroom shenanigans.




The first 1979 series of “Not the Nine O’Clock News” had a sketch about the Communists and Western forces trading spies at a checkpoint. After the exchange, the camera follows the Russian spymaster leading his English double agent back to Russia. The English spy thanks his spymaster (Mel Smith), and enquires what work he will get in Mother Russia. The spymaster says “Don’t be foolish. No boyfriend of mine works”. So it’s back to the same assumption that any spy must be gay.

193: Jeremy Thorpe 11

Thorpe had given his resignation as leader of the Liberal party to David Steel on 10 May 1976. In considering how the great man could have been brought down, if you obviously discount the homosexual affair and murder plot, then you find yourself haring after some bloody strange suppositions.

These two cartoons are based on one of the weirder and more curious byways of investigation shooting off the case. Thorpe had been quite outspoken in his criticism of South Africa, and it was suggested at the time that Scott’s allegations were really sponsored by the South African Bureau Of State Security (BOSS) to smear Thorpe’s reputation. Even Harold Wilson, the soon-to-resign Prime Minister, backed up these odd rumours. Of course, this was all a wrong-headed diversion.

Raymond Jackson, however, takes the opportunity to ring the changes on secret gay conspiracies within several days.

“Evening Standard”, 11 May 1976
In the first, the fat, bearded chap on the far right is a stereotypical thuggish South African, and as far from a gay stereotype as possible, hence the surprise of the joke.

“Evening Standard”, 14 May 1976
In this one, JAK offers us a regiment of stereotypical homosexuals, all looking like variations on Dick Emery’s effeminate Clarence character.

150: Keith Hampson 6 - JAK

in “The Evening Standard” 15 May 1984

Most of the editorial cartoons about the whole affaire d'Keith Hampson either relate to the police (which I’ve already exhumed) or touch instead upon embarrassment by association for Michael Heseltine (which just don’t really fit my brief). If the issue is homosexuality though JAK will usually try his hand. And so, here’s an attempt at a cartoon about gay MPs. But fuck me sideways through a hedge if it’s not as impenetrable as the Pope’s back passage.
Unless there was some other news item at the time I’m unaware of, I can’t for the life of me see the need for closeted MPs to go around as members of the KKK. Do you? Although that they need to be sheets with the letters “MP” blazoned upon them conspicuously for us to have even the faintest clue as to what’s going on, is only a further indication of this cartoon’s epic-three-and-a-half-hours-with-a-ten-minute-comfort-break-cinemascope-in-full-sound-"o"-rama fucked-uppedness.
Oh yes, and the Rastafarian looks a touch to much like a golliwog for my comfort, too.

137: Police - JAK

Raymond Jackson (JAK) in the “Standard” 20 August 1981

It’s that man JAK again. And he’s actually using the cliché tagline from the end of my waffle about “In Sickness and In Health”. Well, it seemed inevitable somebody would immortalise it in print. And JAK is just the sort of man to really mean it, too.

This cartoon is produced in response to Livingstone’s speech at the Harrow Gay Unity Group in August 1981 where he said “Everyone is bisexual”, and which also provoked various humorous squibs such as this "Private Eye" cover.

We’ve seen other bits and pieces about gay policeman, (including this later one by JAK too) but I think at this time in the early 80s there’s an ever so slightly nastier undercurrent. Aside from all the details of a police locker room that looks more like a drag queen’s changing room is an assumption that, despite how frivolous and effeminate all this seems, homosexual men really do need policing. There’s no mention of cottaging and sex, but since it these activities which make gay men are criminals, then policemen at this time would seem the natural opposition to be homosexually co-opted for maximum satirical effect.

113: GLC 15 - JAK

Raymond Jackson in the “Evening Standard” 2 April 1986

The Greater London Council was disbanded on 31 March 1985, following the passing of the Local Government Act 1985. Here we see Livingstone looking for a job – hence the Livingstone Memorial Service on the poster. Irish is twinned with gay because Livingstone had made highly controversial political gestures and contacts with the IRA during his period in office. Lesbians are powerfully buxom but burly women in tweed dress suits who smoke pipes, yes?

112: GLC 14 - JAK

Raymond Jackson in the “Evening Standard” 6 December 1985

“Barmy Bernie” is/was Bernie Grant, one of the first black MPs. Before that, in 1985 he was the leader of the GLC. Grant was quite anti-Police, largely believing they were racist, and making some unfortunate comments in the process of expressing his views.
A gay policeman would of course carry a little handbag. With hands on hips and little wiggle lines to show them sashaying down the street, this is basically the Mr Humphries stereotype. If only they had three arms, JAK could have also shown them walking hand in hand, but such are the artistic limitations and choices imposed by biological fact.

110: GLC 12 - JAK

Raymond Jackson in "The Evening Standard" 10 July 1984

The GLC had put up advertising hoardings publicising the Conservative Government’s failures and promoting the GLC’s successes. The Conservatives constantly sought to abolish the GLC.
Here you have a joke about waste of public money again – a) on wasteful self-promotion, b) on ludicrous minority oriented social projects. The assumption being, why would anyone want these people running your council.

107: GLC 9 - JAK

by Raymond Allen Jackson ("JAK")
in "Evening Standard" 29 January 1983

“Trots” is Trotskyites.
“Anti-Irish Jokes is a reference to that notorious Politically Correct lack of humour that left-wingers evidence.
“Poofters” is rather unexpected.
Homosexuals with vigorous handshakes is a new one on me.
The movement squiggles on the chap walking into the party may be an attempt to suggest a gay sashay.

106: GLC 8 - JAK

by Raymond Allen Jackson ("JAK")
in "Evening Standard" 25 November 1982

With repeated antagonistic reporting and distortions from the tabloid press, Livingstone and the GLC began to exclude the press in return – which really didn’t help matters, as this cartoon only proves.
Of course, the way to distinguish a GLC job advertisement from any other, it is that it simply must feature some gay slant.

55 - Church Outing aftermath: Jak

"Bring up the boiling oil, Peter Tatchell's queers are coming."
Jak (Raymond Jackson) in the “Evening Standard”, 22 April 1997

I could unpick this. All I’ll say, is that out of all the things I’ve come across, I think this is the most shockingly offensive one to date. And notable for it’s very late appearance.

52 - Church outing 1987 (part 2)

When the General Synod convened, the Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie refused to be railroaded by extremists. Instead the Synod was led to take a moderate approach which effectively fell between two stools. The Synod condemned “homosexual genital acts”, but refused to approve any expulsion of homosexual clergy from the Church. So homosexuals got a public beating from the church, but homosexual clergy got to keep their jobs. As “The Sun” so charmingly summed it up the next day, “Pulpit Poofs must stay”.


Stanley Franklin in “The Sun”, 13 November 1987
Stanley Franklin goes for the transvestite motif, and also gets to reuse the “Sun”’s own blatantly offensive phrase. Why think up something new when you can whip up someone else’s thick-witted second-hand vitriol.


Michael Cummings in “The Daily Express”, 13 November 1987
Michael Cumming’s strikes a slightly more moralistic tone. References to Sodom and Gomorrah being slightly more up market. Lot’s Wife is a strangely superfluous and touch, although I suppose it’ll jog the memory of any who can’t quite get what the caption is alluding to. Archbishop Runcie is the driver of the confessional car. This is about the only cartoon to put the event in any sort of context for the Church of England, and what it signifies for Runcie’s leadership. The rest just go for easy comic stereotypes about poofs. Cummings has though chosen to go for the twinkly eyed theatrical stereotype of homosexual.


Mac (Stan McMurtry) in “The Daily Mail”, 13 November 1987
Not an actual homosexual in sight. Just a comic situation. Although it could suggest that homosexuals are so predatory even young bridegrooms have no powers of resistance, or just that she had the wrong sort of taste in men. Anyway, if that’s the way Mac draws his matronly women, no wonder his transvestites look so damn odd.


Bernard Cookson in “The Sun”, 16 November 1987
I honestly don’t know whether to be offended or just contemptuous.


Jak (Raymond Jackson) “Evening Standard”, 16 November 1987
Again, 26 years later JAK reverts to the same blatant show of big-titted heterosexuality to sweep away the gayness as he did in #21
An interesting piece of gossip about JAK. You’ll notice the cartoon conspicuously features “Benson & Hedges” and “C.S.T Wholesale Meat” – which are both real business enterprises. You might think this is just for a touch of realism. But it was revealed that companies who featured in JAK’s cartoons would then buy the originals at surprisingly high rates, so that the companies were effectively rewarding JAK for advertising their brands in his work.

51 - Church Outing 1987 (part 1)

The first mass outing of gay clergy in the Church of England came from conservative elements from within. Possibly, because they felt homosexuality was morally wrong, or that homosexuality was fundamentally unnatural and disgusting, or just possibly that homosexuals constituted a large enough clique wihin the organisation that they were therefore a powerbase, and so this frontal attack was a way to make the way clearer for certain young thrusters.
A young Evangelical, Tony Higton, put forward a motion condemning homosexuality in the church of England, and also made statements as to the pervasion of homosexuals through the Church. His motion gained popularity throughout the summer and autumn to become the issue when the General Synod would convene in November 1987


Zoke (Michael Attwell) in “News of the World”, 12 July 1987
An early effort from when newspapers weren’t sure which way the wind was going to blow on the debate. Besides, the Royal marriage was getting into a frightful mess already and made for much more obvious material. Then again, the “News of the World has always been bitterly homophobic, so it really wasn’t likely to miss an opportunity. It is, however, a surprising forthright representation of what homosexuality actually means.


Mac (Stan McMurtry) in “Daily Mail”, 23 October 1987
At then end of Anglican services the vicar usually waits outside the cathedral to shake the hands of his parishioners. (The Kiss of Peace is Catholic, otherwise, who knows what the cartoonists would have run to).



Jak (Raymond Jackson) in “Evening Standard”, 23 October 1987
Again, the recourse to transvestism, although note how the pipe sets off the stockings. A surprisingly detailed background, and don’t forget to look at the stained glass window on the far right


Mac (Stan McMurtry) in “Daily Mail”, 27 October 198
The right wing, both the newspapers and politicians, were rather sick of being admonished by holier than thou liberal clergy. Homosexuality was a jolly useful stick to beat them off with. See how Mac offers us the same strange transvestite person as #23

21 - Vassall Case 7: JAK

Raymond Jackson in "Evening Standard", 27 April 1963