"People just assumed that because you're gay you're promiscuous and you'd sleep with everything. It's the biggest load of rubbish this side of Christmas!"

At the time I came out, Aids was very much beginning. 'Everybody who's gay would get Aids', full stop.

People just assumed that because you're gay you're promiscuous and you'd sleep with everything. It's the biggest load of rubbish this side of Christmas!

Mum and dad had gone out for a while and I was cooking dinner for myself and Clive, my boyfriend. He came round and we had a lovely meal.

All we were doing was watching TV and cuddling up together on the sofa, and yes, we were kissing - when dad walked in.

Of course that's not the ideal way of telling your parents that you're gay. And it was horrendous! We were a very close family. It makes me laugh now, but I went to hell for two weeks. I wasn't spoken to by my dad. Mum thought she'd lost me forever.

I still think that until I was 24 they thought I'd grow out of it. Then there was a very unfortunate incident that happened. A very close friend of mine - who I would have got together with - was found at the bottom of a river. Nothing has been proved; I have my own thoughts on that. But it was only through that, when I was on Victim Support counselling, that my mum and dad thought: 'hey, this is real; he's not sleeping with everybody; we'll accept him for what he is'.

Before mum and dad died they were both happy with my sexuality. They weren't bothered. Provided I didn't get used and screwed financially and mentally, they were happy.

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As a gay man living in Northampton, I don't really like it at all, frankly.

Walking down the street, you do get looks; you get stares; you think: 'Gosh, I must remove this bowl of fruit from my head!' You get ridiculed; you get names. You get the 16-year-old thugs who don't know any better.

I was beaten up once through no fault of my own - just walking home from a club - that was when I was younger.

"I got accused of 'eyeing up somebody's bird'. I mean, get a life!"

It's naivety and ignorance. And it's peer group pressure: 'There's a poof, let's call him a name!'.

To a degree, I think you have to let it go over your head because if you don't you'd never go outside the front door.

On the over hand, I've got a good gay friend of mine who's living next door to a lot of straight, young people and yet they're the best of friends. They look out for him all the time.

But I would say a vast percentage of the time I've been ridiculed and mocked because people judge you for what they think you do and what you are.

I think they're incapable of thinking: 'hang on, this guy can love another guy and have years of happiness'. They don't understand and I don't quite know how you get that message across.

I don't like going to straight clubs at all because I guarantee, if I go to a straight club I'd probably get beaten up.

I was in a straight bar two years ago having a glass of wine on my own and I got accused of 'eyeing up somebody's bird'. I mean, get a life!

I won't go to straight nightclubs because I guarantee I'd have trouble for the way I dance, the way I'm standing, the way I hold my glass, the way I am. That narrows it down to where you can go out.

Personally speaking, Northampton is not a very nice place for a gay man as far as going out is concerned.

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