She could remember where she met him in the late 50’s. It was at a Saturday night hop at the Memorial Hall. She went there with her girlfriends – there was a live band and BOYS. He must have been the friend of the brother of one of her school friends. He liked ballroom dancing and enjoyed glided around the untidy jiving bodies with her his partner.

He had a small car and after school came regularly for elocution lessons in her neighbourhood. He would drop in to her home afterwards for a chat a cuppa and to play the grand piano in the sitting room. He always played Noel Coward tunes but the significance was not realised.

His family had recently returned to England after several years in Africa. They had come back by boat together with all their furniture and belongings. However bad weather on the voyage sadly caused precious items to suffer water damage. He explained to her the bizarre ceremony enacted as they cross the Equator which featured Neptune and a selection of crazy games.

His mother invited her for dinner. The house was built on a slope in a wooded residential area with private roads. You entered the house on a level with the sitting room dining room and kitchen. You then went down stairs to the bedrooms which opened onto the garden – an upside-down house. Dinner was late at 7pm a first for her with wine another first. Dinner was very formal. His mother was friendly and sociable but never invited her again.

He took her to the cinema to see ‘My Fair Lady’ – costumes designed by Cecil Beaton but significance was not realised. He was studying French at A level and went on an exchange to Paris. On his returned he cooked her a genuine French omelette using only eggs and chopped parsley – the most delicious omelette she had ever tasted.

At school he became head boy then went on to Cambridge to study law and had ambitions to eventually become a judge.

He usually came back home from University in the holidays. On one such occasion he took her to a party in a private house in the city. But she felt strangely out of place amongst the motley group of party goers. The fashionable twist was playing loudly on the turntable. There was a tall well built young man not the usual intellectual type associated with their friends – he worked in a shirt factory. My friend seemed very close to him but significance was not realised.

She never met him again after that party.

It was only when she was married and had a family of her own that she realised he must have been gay. At the time she was ignorant of gayness and just accepted him as a good friend.

Maybe he found a loving partner and had a happy and fulfilling life.

After Thought: Was she used? She was there as a decoy to mask his homosexuality until the law changed. When it was no longer a criminal offence she was cast aside.