15 - Vassall Case: That Was The Week That Was

Illustration by Willie Rushton
"But My Dear" by Peter Shaffer in "That Was The Week That Was", edited by David Frost and Ned Sherin, W.H. Allen, 1963

The scene is an office. A senior official is sitting at his desk,. a junior official is quaking nervously as he hands a letter he has just composed to his pompous and bullying senior.

SENIOR OFFICER: (Taking the letter) Give it here. (Reading) 'To Mr Jenkins.' Good. None of that' dear' nonsense. (Reading) 'Pursuant to your letter. . .' Pursuant?
JUNIOR OFFICER: It's the usual phrase, sir.
SENIOR OFFICER: I don't like it. The word has an erotic penumbra. Take it out.
JUNIOR OFFICER: Yes, sir.
SENIOR OFFICER: (Reading) 'I am hoping for the favour of an early reply.' Favour?
JUNIOR OFFICER: The Oxford Dictionary defines the verb favour as 'to look kindly upon'.
SENIOR OFFICER: (Pouncing) Exactly. I am amazed you can be so naive. Looking kindly upon anyone who earns less than you do is a deeply treacherous procedure.
JUNIOR OFFICER: I'm very sorry, sir.
SENIOR OFFICER: You need some basic training in modern manners, can see that. If a man comes 300 miles to see you with papers, keep him waiting in the hall-or better still the drive, if you have one. If you offer him so much as a sandwich you will be suspected of improper relations; and a three-course lunch spells treason.
JUNIOR OFFICER: Yes, sir.
SENIOR OFFICER : You really are an innocent, aren't you?
JUNIOR OFFICER: I'm afraid I am, sir.
SENIOR OFFICER: Well we must change all that. (Continuing to read) 'Hoping for the favour of an early reply. . . . Thanking you in anticipation.' Are you doing this on purpose?
JUNIOR OFFICER: What, sir?
SENIOR OFFICER: Thanking you in anticipation
JUNIOR OFFICER: Is that wrong, sir?
SENIOR OFFICER: Wrong? It's just about the most sexually provocative sentence I've ever read. It whinnies with suggestiveness.
JUNIOR OFFICER: I hadn't intended it like that, Sir.
SENIOR OFFICER: We're not concerned with your intentions, man-merely with the effect you create. And I can tell you that it's nauseating. You have the correspondence style of a lovesick au pair girl. In more honest days one would have said kitchen-maid..
JUNIOR OFFICER: But, sir -
SENIOR OFFICER: Don't interrupt, or I may lose control. Now understand this: in the Civil Service you will never thank anybody for anything, especially in anticipation. You will simply end your letter without innuendo of any kind. Now let's see what you've done. (Reading) 'Yours faithfully' I don't believe it.
JUNIOR OFFICER: That's normal, sir.
SENIOR OFFICER: Normal? In the context of a man writing to a man it's nothing less than disgusting. It implies you can be UN-faithful!
JUNIOR OFFICER: I never thought of that, sir.
SENIOR OFFICER: You think of very little, don't you? Even the word 'Yours' at the end of a letter is dangerous. It suggests a willingness for surrender.
JUNIOR OFFICER: Then what can I say, sir?
SENIOR OFFICER: What do the Pensions Department use?
They're about as unemotional as you can get, without actually being dead.
JUNIOR OFFICER: 'Your obedient servant', I think.
SENIOR OFFICER: Are you mad?
JUNIOR OFFICER: Sir?
SENIOR OFFICER: Your obedient servant. . . . That's just plain perverted.. People who want to be other people's obedient servants are the sort who answer those advertisements: Miss Lash, ex-Governess of striking appearance. To sign yourself an obedient servant is an ipso facto confession of sexual deviation. And that, as we all know, is an ipso facto confession of treason.
JUNIOR OFFICER: Oh, I say, sir!
SENIOR OFFICER: What do you say? (Looking at him narrowly) I believe you are one of those cranks who believe that there are loyal homosexuals! (Accusingly) I think you secretly believe that the way to stop homosexuals being blackmailed into subversive acts is to change the law so they can't be.
JUNIOR OFFICER: Well, it had crossed my mind, sir. Amend the law and the possibility of Vassalls is lessened.
SENIOR OFFICER: Sloppy, left-wing sentimentality! The only way to stop a homosexual being blackmailed is to stop him being a homosexual. And the only way you can do that is to lock him up in a building with five hundred other men. That way he can see how unattractive they really are. Now take this pornographic muck out of here and bring it back in an hour, clean enough to be read by a six-year-old girl, or John Gordon. And leave out everything at the end except your name:, a bare signature, brusque and masculine. What is your name, by the way?
JUNIOR OFFICER: Fairy, sir.
SENIOR OFFICER: I don't think somehow you are going to go very far in Her Majesty's Service. Good morning.

12 - TeeVee and Sympathy 1: That Was The Week That Was

"Confession" by John Braine, in "That Was The Week That Was", edtied by David Frost and Ned Sherin, W.H. Allen, 1963

Heterosexuality is an ugly word. Until recently it skulked in the obscurity of medical text books. Now, one hears it everywhere. Let us be explicit and fearless about its meaning, then. Hetero, as one might expect, is derived from a foreign language, and means 'opposite'. Therefore, a heterosexual man is sexually attracted only to women and vice-versa.
There are few outward signs by which a heterosexual reveals himself, though authorities on the subject claim that a heterosexual will sooner or later give himself away - if only by his clumsiness and coldness, and crashing insensitivity. A heterosexual walks - or rather clumps in hobnailed boots and belted mac - alone. Not for him the joys of true comradeship; his energies are all spent in the pursuit of women. There is nothing he longs for more, than a night out with the boys, but a night out with the boys - in the truest, deepest sense is precisely what he can never enjoy. He is too busy making passes at the barmaid.
What is being done about this problem? Very little. The prevalent official attitude is simply to make heterosexuality as difficult as possible, to scoop it under the carpet.
How do I know all this?
I am a heterosexual.
It began early with me, at my public school. I won't say which one. . . I have dishonoured it enough already. I was fourteen years old, apparently a happy, wholesome normal lad, making friendships which would stand me in good stead for the rest of my life, when suddenly I realised that I didn't feel as I should towards the Captain of the Eleven. I couldn't disguise my growing conviction that he was a big, fat, boring slob. The padre, the housemaster, the housemaster's wife, did their level best to help, but I left school under a cloud.
I became an up-and-coming young executive. My field was corsets. I was good at my job, then one afternoon, I found it necessary to take a client to a strip club. I was watching a young lady in a G-string wrestling with a stuffed snake, when, to my horror, I discovered that I violently desired her. I tried to believe that it was something I had eaten. I tried to behave normally, and only looked at the audience. But it was no use. I enjoyed looking at naked women. .
Of course, my work began to suffer. I lost my job. Now, I am a doorman at the strip club which was the cause of my downfall. I am not actively unhappy, and sometimes the young ladies let me take them home, but it's a strange twilight world I live in. I have fallen farther than most, because I had farther to fall.
Mine is a sad story, but heterosexuals do not cry. I am not a criminal. Before you condemn me out of hand, try and see me as I am, a lost and lonely soul, with perhaps, a more than passing resemblance to - dare I say it - yourselves.

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Now that people could admit that there were such things as homosexuals, homosexuality could be a recognised social problem. And so there began to appear TV profiles and documentaries in which anguished homosexuals could appear to confess they couldn't help it and ask for understanding and sympathy from straight society.
This piece by John Braine, famous as an Angry Young Man for writing "Room at the Top" (1957), is an early example of reversing the whole premise.
Charles Beaumont wrote "Crooked Man" ('Playboy, August 1955), a short story about the persecution suffered by the last few heterosexuals in a world gone gay. It's only slightly sneering, but it's notable that it's promoted in 'Playboy' as a horror story. Which I supoose it would be if you're the typical red-blooded, all-man reader of 'Playboy'. Not that 'Playboy' is really homophobic - it's just that homosexuality has to be largely ignored, so that the interest in consumer goods, men's fashion, etc doesn't attract any funny looks.
Martin Amis also rings the changes on this heterosexuals are a minority in a gay world in his short story "Straight Fiction", which I think I can remember finding a lot more unpleasant.
This is a theme we'll see more of later.