0:00:08 > 0:00:10BOMBS OVERHEAD
0:00:36 > 0:00:40I require a drink. That - that is for certain.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46I'll be seen here, though. Someone'll bring up my name and say,
0:00:46 > 0:00:50"Isn't that Andrew's boy standing over there?"
0:00:50 > 0:00:52Andrew's boy.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55You'd think this was a bush village.
0:00:55 > 0:00:56Bush village, that way.
0:00:56 > 0:01:01Soho, Bloomsbury, Piccadilly Circus - full of clowns.
0:01:02 > 0:01:06Everything else is either slum or pompous, and little in between.
0:01:06 > 0:01:08I know what I'm saying.
0:01:08 > 0:01:11I've run the length of this city, so I know it all - all of it.
0:01:11 > 0:01:12The East End too.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17And I don't just mean cruising up and down Whitechapel High Street
0:01:17 > 0:01:21like those old queens do, no. I mean down by the docks.
0:01:22 > 0:01:26Workers from around the world with big load-lifting arms.
0:01:26 > 0:01:29Oh, my God...
0:01:29 > 0:01:31If their overalls could speak,
0:01:31 > 0:01:33they'd shame up the whole of polite society.
0:01:33 > 0:01:38There's the Chinese, and people from the West Indies, and more.
0:01:38 > 0:01:41And the locals, of course.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44Mmm. Hands as rough as Empire.
0:01:47 > 0:01:50But down over there you're never far away from an alleyway,
0:01:50 > 0:01:53and a "poof roaching".
0:01:53 > 0:01:55Yes, that's what they call them - "poof roachers".
0:01:55 > 0:01:59The men who might just as well leave you for dead afterwards.
0:01:59 > 0:02:01That's after they've taken their pleasure.
0:02:01 > 0:02:05The beating come, and your money go.
0:02:05 > 0:02:06Threats to involve the law
0:02:06 > 0:02:09if they believe you've got a reputation worth looking out for.
0:02:09 > 0:02:13No, the East End is not for me, mm-mm.
0:02:13 > 0:02:16What is for me is much harder to fathom.
0:02:17 > 0:02:22This mess of dance halls, theatres, smoke-filled bars
0:02:22 > 0:02:26and endless gossip that draws me in,
0:02:26 > 0:02:30holds me close.
0:02:30 > 0:02:31This bush village.
0:02:34 > 0:02:38Three years ago - almost to the day when I first come here -
0:02:38 > 0:02:42Southampton docks was where I first arrived, all sea-legged and smiley.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47I thought I knew it all. I thought I knew all there was to know about
0:02:47 > 0:02:50the motherland, and daffodils, and the poets from the Great War.
0:02:50 > 0:02:53I thought I knew what to expect.
0:02:53 > 0:02:54My daddy told me about the way
0:02:54 > 0:02:59cold here creeps into your fingers and toes until your bones weep.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02He talked me to death about the English cricket teams.
0:03:02 > 0:03:05He packed me a bat and some kneepads and told me, "Off you go."
0:03:07 > 0:03:10"If you can't be a sportsman like me,
0:03:10 > 0:03:12"best go get yourself a proper degree.
0:03:12 > 0:03:14"Come back with a profession.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17"Make yourself into a lawyer, or doctor,
0:03:17 > 0:03:18"and don't bring no shame on we."
0:03:21 > 0:03:22And that was that.
0:03:22 > 0:03:24I was free.
0:03:25 > 0:03:27I was almost 22 and unmarried, no profession,
0:03:27 > 0:03:30but more than good enough grades to get me into law school.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33But I didn't want law school over there,
0:03:33 > 0:03:37and I didn't really want it here either.
0:03:37 > 0:03:42What I wanted, what I still want...
0:03:42 > 0:03:45it's much harder to fathom.
0:03:45 > 0:03:48But it doesn't look like a wife,
0:03:48 > 0:03:49or a briefcase.
0:03:53 > 0:03:571938, yes, and what a time to arrive.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00I had the spring and summer to myself.
0:04:00 > 0:04:04I saw Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, countryside,
0:04:04 > 0:04:06all kinds of people I didn't understand.
0:04:06 > 0:04:10I saw poor white people for the first time.
0:04:10 > 0:04:13A white man trundling along with a broom sweeping the streets.
0:04:13 > 0:04:15White men begging.
0:04:15 > 0:04:17Old white men with sunken eyes,
0:04:17 > 0:04:19still lost from a war they'd fought two decades before.
0:04:19 > 0:04:22I was confused.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25My father never tell me about all that.
0:04:25 > 0:04:29In Wales, I became a valet for a gentleman.
0:04:29 > 0:04:31Oh, his poor wife.
0:04:31 > 0:04:34If she ever knew the things we did behind her back.
0:04:35 > 0:04:38My daddy's kneepads come in handy, I tell you.
0:04:38 > 0:04:40HE CHUCKLES
0:04:40 > 0:04:42But Wales was not for long.
0:04:42 > 0:04:44London was my calling.
0:04:44 > 0:04:48When I come back here, I made a few shillings as an artist's model.
0:04:48 > 0:04:52Standing naked and still while the city ran around me,
0:04:52 > 0:04:55painting me all different shades of wrong.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59At some point, though, I stopped looking at the finished work
0:04:59 > 0:05:01when the artist called me round to the other side of the easel.
0:05:01 > 0:05:03Sometimes it's best to keep your eyes closed
0:05:03 > 0:05:05while keeping your eyes open.
0:05:07 > 0:05:09I started moving with the bohemians in Bloomsbury.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13They were all painters and writers and rabble-rousers and hangers-on,
0:05:13 > 0:05:16and I was adopted into their group.
0:05:16 > 0:05:18Their Freddie.
0:05:18 > 0:05:21I don't remember all their names,
0:05:21 > 0:05:24but their bedposts I can describe in great detail.
0:05:24 > 0:05:26Four-posters, some of them,
0:05:26 > 0:05:29or sometimes a chaise longue in the middle of a studio.
0:05:31 > 0:05:35Tiny lickle rooms with laughing floorboards.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38We'd have late nights drinking at the bottle parties, those places
0:05:38 > 0:05:40- places like the Shim Sham -
0:05:40 > 0:05:43where you had someone other than your shadow to dance with.
0:05:43 > 0:05:48You could press another man to you, hold him close,
0:05:48 > 0:05:50feel him stiffen against your hips,
0:05:50 > 0:05:55and then... release.
0:05:55 > 0:05:57You had to glide with the music, you see.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00That's unless someone at the bar had called for the police,
0:06:00 > 0:06:03in which case when you heard the footsteps raining down,
0:06:03 > 0:06:06you took the hand of the nearest lady.
0:06:06 > 0:06:09It was a fluid movement.
0:06:09 > 0:06:11Then there were the soirees,
0:06:11 > 0:06:16and what they called dalliances between three - or more - of us.
0:06:16 > 0:06:18And it was just then,
0:06:18 > 0:06:21just as I was going to think about my studies, in amongst all of them,
0:06:21 > 0:06:23in the middle of the room, there he is.
0:06:25 > 0:06:27Andrew.
0:06:27 > 0:06:31As sweet and as dizzy-making as an entire bottle of Wray Nephew rum.
0:06:35 > 0:06:36He's over twice my age on paper,
0:06:36 > 0:06:39but there is that something in my blood that draws the sweet
0:06:39 > 0:06:42and complicated to me.
0:06:42 > 0:06:44He has this wicked grin,
0:06:44 > 0:06:46a posterior like one of those marble statues
0:06:46 > 0:06:49I used to go visit at the British Museum.
0:06:49 > 0:06:52Thighs you'd want to hold on to for years.
0:06:53 > 0:06:55He painted me into his life,
0:06:55 > 0:06:57he carried me into his studio,
0:06:57 > 0:06:59and we did not leave it for a month.
0:07:01 > 0:07:04And then...
0:07:04 > 0:07:05Oh, and then.
0:07:06 > 0:07:08I remember seeing myself
0:07:08 > 0:07:11in one of his watercolours on a wall in a gallery in Belgravia,
0:07:11 > 0:07:13and I couldn't help thinking to myself,
0:07:13 > 0:07:16"Why he paint me so dark, eh?"
0:07:16 > 0:07:20I remember standing there with my hand up to the wall,
0:07:20 > 0:07:23and my arm, and contrasting it.
0:07:25 > 0:07:27He had me down just right.
0:07:27 > 0:07:32He had me down so right he could paint me without me being there,
0:07:32 > 0:07:35and after a while I was not there so much.
0:07:41 > 0:07:45Some part of me will always remain on that wall, I imagine.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48In a gold leaf frame.
0:07:49 > 0:07:52The other part of me needs to move on.
0:07:52 > 0:07:55Could never really stick itself to a white canvas.
0:07:57 > 0:08:01I don't want to waste my youth stuck to the wall of his imagination.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06He, though, he'd rather keep me there.
0:08:07 > 0:08:09We write to each other still,
0:08:09 > 0:08:12making promises to meet that are rarely kept.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17I distract myself with as much as I can, with the theatre.
0:08:19 > 0:08:21I've been tending to the theatre.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24My personal back garden, even though it's one bum after another,
0:08:24 > 0:08:26one bum after another.
0:08:26 > 0:08:28Even though all the places for inverts like me
0:08:28 > 0:08:30are disappearing one by one
0:08:30 > 0:08:33there is still so much sweet for all that bitter.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42Mm. This beer is far too weak for my taste, but it will do the trick.
0:08:42 > 0:08:46It's one for the road, and it tastes like tarmac too.
0:08:54 > 0:08:56Monday, things must change.
0:08:58 > 0:09:00My free paper bun,
0:09:00 > 0:09:02but I still have tomorrow to dance.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05RUMBLING PLASTER FALLS
0:09:10 > 0:09:13I have Dodging A Divorcee in my head and I can't shake it out.
0:09:16 > 0:09:18I wish I could carry that song with me everywhere I go.
0:09:20 > 0:09:21Press it against my ears.
0:09:24 > 0:09:26If only.
0:09:27 > 0:09:30If only. It's a foxtrot.
0:09:30 > 0:09:34No foxtrot now, but they're playing ragtime in the ballrooms.
0:09:36 > 0:09:38Ragtime.
0:09:39 > 0:09:43All those West Indians giving the crowd what they want.
0:09:43 > 0:09:48Sweating, smiling, shuffling Colonial boys.
0:09:48 > 0:09:51It's all a part of the game of belonging, and not belonging.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56When I first come over here, the landlady was full of questions.
0:09:56 > 0:09:58"Why are your palms a lighter hue?"
0:09:58 > 0:10:01She'd turn them over at the table, frowning in puzzlement.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04I let it wash over me like the other questions.
0:10:04 > 0:10:06"Where do you learn to speak such good English then?"
0:10:06 > 0:10:08And the like. Oh, she was full of them.
0:10:08 > 0:10:12I used to think it was a working-class obsession -
0:10:12 > 0:10:15my hair, my skin, the colour of my hands,
0:10:15 > 0:10:17all those comments from the East End boys.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19But I'm under no illusions now.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22No, the more refined have their ways.
0:10:22 > 0:10:26I tell them I'm going to become a lawyer, and their eyebrows arch.
0:10:26 > 0:10:29I talk to them about music, and the conversation moves to jiving,
0:10:29 > 0:10:32swing and ragtime.
0:10:32 > 0:10:35All that time I spent revelling the attention of the Bloomsbury crowd,
0:10:35 > 0:10:39the freedom I felt was an illusion.
0:10:39 > 0:10:41I know that now.
0:10:41 > 0:10:44Where I was born, you have to be as light as cornmeal to succeed,
0:10:44 > 0:10:47unless you knew how to entertain.
0:10:47 > 0:10:49Over here it's more complicated.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53And endless game of where you're schooled and who you know.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57Oh, they never slam the door in your face, the upper classes here, no.
0:10:57 > 0:10:59They make you hold the handle of the door,
0:10:59 > 0:11:03and convince you that you don't want to come in after all.
0:11:03 > 0:11:05But all of that is changing with this blasted war.
0:11:06 > 0:11:09Tonight I was good enough for the Cafe de Paris
0:11:09 > 0:11:13because there was no-one else left in Soho.
0:11:13 > 0:11:16The grand Cafe de Paris is where you can dance now,
0:11:16 > 0:11:20where I can dance now they're no longer concerned with my appearance.
0:11:22 > 0:11:25They started opening up their clientele - that's what they said.
0:11:25 > 0:11:29It's funny how some places change their tune, eh?
0:11:29 > 0:11:32They call it the safest spot in town.
0:11:32 > 0:11:37Deep underground with a full swing band, a West Indian band at that.
0:11:37 > 0:11:40A whole heap of brass and brown skins - who'd have thought that, eh?
0:11:45 > 0:11:49I was going tonight, to the Cafe de Paris.
0:11:49 > 0:11:51To see Snakehips, the King of Swing,
0:11:51 > 0:11:52the band leader at the helm of it all.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58He has a twinkle in his eye, this hypnotising movement at the loins
0:11:58 > 0:12:01that make a boy like me salivate.
0:12:01 > 0:12:03He was like that from day one, Snakehips,
0:12:03 > 0:12:06before he plucked himself out from among the riffraff
0:12:06 > 0:12:09to make it into the big halls.
0:12:09 > 0:12:11They all talk about him, "Snakehips."
0:12:11 > 0:12:14Even the Thames seems to do a little dancing dip like he does
0:12:14 > 0:12:17once the river hits this side of town.
0:12:17 > 0:12:21But all that he do isn't real music - it's all showmanship.
0:12:21 > 0:12:25And I'm not complaining. The one entertains, the other sustains.
0:12:25 > 0:12:27And it's not like I don't like the swing,
0:12:27 > 0:12:30the way it makes your body bend, but that is the real difference
0:12:30 > 0:12:32between the bottle parties and the Cafe de Paris.
0:12:32 > 0:12:37It's not just who gets past the doors, but what's behind them.
0:12:43 > 0:12:45I could've been hit by that bomb tonight.
0:12:50 > 0:12:51I should be dead.
0:12:53 > 0:12:57I didn't go there tonight. I went... I went to the theatre.
0:12:57 > 0:12:59That's what I call it, the lavatories around Piccadilly
0:12:59 > 0:13:03where men who speak my language like to entertain each other.
0:13:03 > 0:13:05The real West End theatres are all closed now.
0:13:05 > 0:13:09Soon after the bombs started coming, they were forced to,
0:13:09 > 0:13:11but the Cafe de Paris was open for business.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14Too deep underground for the Germans to hit it.
0:13:16 > 0:13:19I was meant to go, but I couldn't bring myself
0:13:19 > 0:13:22to darken the doors of a place that would have refused me entry
0:13:22 > 0:13:25just a year ago. I'm too proud for that.
0:13:25 > 0:13:30Nobody ever tell me in words, but I feel it in the tailoring of my skin.
0:13:31 > 0:13:35We're proud, or weak-hearted. The result is the same.
0:13:35 > 0:13:37I wasn't good enough to enter then
0:13:37 > 0:13:40unless I was one of the entertainers.
0:13:40 > 0:13:42I was on my way
0:13:42 > 0:13:45and then this urge came upon me like a river,
0:13:45 > 0:13:49and my feet meandered away from the entrance of the club
0:13:49 > 0:13:53and straight into the theatre inside the Regent Palace Hotel.
0:13:53 > 0:13:55It was a fluid movement.
0:13:58 > 0:14:00The porters often turn a blind eye
0:14:00 > 0:14:03so long as we don't cause a disturbance.
0:14:03 > 0:14:06I was stood at the urinals in the semi dark,
0:14:06 > 0:14:09with a middle-aged man's hands inside my flies,
0:14:09 > 0:14:11and he had a strong grip too.
0:14:12 > 0:14:14Halfway through the sirens went off
0:14:14 > 0:14:17and we had to run for shelter right away.
0:14:17 > 0:14:21All of us, except for the chancers, as always.
0:14:22 > 0:14:26The chance of a few minutes to find a hand, or mouth, or more,
0:14:26 > 0:14:28in the dark is too good to pass by.
0:14:30 > 0:14:32I escaped into the streets
0:14:32 > 0:14:35and I caught a glint in the eye of a warden,
0:14:35 > 0:14:37and I followed him down a side passage.
0:14:39 > 0:14:43He tasted of the suburbs, like he had a Hammersmith wife
0:14:43 > 0:14:47waiting for him at the back of his throat.
0:14:47 > 0:14:50There's that something in my blood that draws the married man to me
0:14:50 > 0:14:53with all his sweetness and complications.
0:14:53 > 0:14:55It's not a bad thing. I have a sweet tooth.
0:14:55 > 0:14:57HE CHUCKLES
0:14:58 > 0:15:02Oh, Snakehips is in my head still. Boy, he could move.
0:15:05 > 0:15:07I heard the whistle of it landing
0:15:07 > 0:15:09and I could feel the ground around me shake
0:15:09 > 0:15:11as I pulled the warden's thighs close against me.
0:15:14 > 0:15:17I can see Snakehips dancing...
0:15:17 > 0:15:19and I can hear him singing.
0:15:21 > 0:15:25Right as the bomb lifted him clean off the stage.
0:15:25 > 0:15:29The bomb went down the ventilation shaft, and then...
0:15:29 > 0:15:32Pow!
0:15:32 > 0:15:35The safest spot in London gone, just like that.
0:15:38 > 0:15:41It was an hour or two ago now, but here we are drinking on.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44Another one went off ten minutes later,
0:15:44 > 0:15:47while I still had the taste of the warden in my mouth.
0:15:47 > 0:15:49And just as I'm arriving to the shelter, there's all this
0:15:49 > 0:15:52debris falling, and I don't know where the blood came from -
0:15:52 > 0:15:55if I hit my head or if I bit my lip too hard, but all I see is blood.
0:15:56 > 0:15:59I could've been there.
0:15:59 > 0:16:03I promised myself I would finally see inside of that blessed club.
0:16:03 > 0:16:07Take my rightful place with the creme de la creme.
0:16:07 > 0:16:11But sometimes a broken promise is what it takes to keep you alive.
0:16:11 > 0:16:14Instead, I chose the path of the warden
0:16:14 > 0:16:15who tasted of Hammersmith and gin.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20I can't have been more than 200 yards away from where the bomb hit,
0:16:20 > 0:16:21and I survived.
0:16:25 > 0:16:27Monday.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31Monday is the day I'm going to join up for war service.
0:16:31 > 0:16:34I'll join up before I'm forced to, in my way, in the Fredrick way,
0:16:34 > 0:16:38and I will survive the same way, like I've always done.
0:16:38 > 0:16:40Of course, I knew one day I'd be called up.
0:16:40 > 0:16:42I dreaded it, I never wanted it.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45I'd rather dance away my days than join in the bloodshed, but tonight -
0:16:45 > 0:16:49tonight I finally realised that the fight will come to me
0:16:49 > 0:16:52if I don't come to it first. And I will fight for this bush village.
0:16:54 > 0:16:56For the bottle parties that have come and gone,
0:16:56 > 0:16:58for sweet and complicated men that have come and gone.
0:16:58 > 0:17:00And, yes, for Snakehips.
0:17:00 > 0:17:04And, yes, for the Cafe de Paris.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07But also for the theatres.
0:17:07 > 0:17:08Most of all, I'm going to fight for the theatres
0:17:08 > 0:17:13and all the other places that never closed their doors to men like me.
0:17:13 > 0:17:15That's if they even have doors to start with.
0:17:19 > 0:17:22That is the only fight I can take up with any conviction.
0:17:25 > 0:17:26And I will be back sometime,
0:17:26 > 0:17:30and I will sit down in a Soho pub which will be better than here.
0:17:32 > 0:17:34And maybe even better than the Shim Sham.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40And God help them if they haven't learned to pour decent beer by then.
0:18:07 > 0:18:08Would you mind kissing me?
0:18:08 > 0:18:09You're not even out, are you?