 Welcome to Inside Leather History, a fireside chat. I'm Doug O'Keefe, your host for the chats. I produce these chats with Mistress Joanne Gaddy. Today, I'm in London, England, and I'm about to film a wonderful chat with Terry Hazelwood, a very prominent London leather man. I would like to extend special thanks to Carl Hayden who's filming this and has come all the way from Dublin to do that. And also, sincere thanks to Matt Spike who's donated this wonderful location for us right in Soho. It's a beautiful day in London and we're filming this outside if you can believe it. Today is Sunday, October 21st. Terry Hazelwood, thank you. I appreciate you participating in Inside Leather History, a fireside chat. On this beautiful day in London in Soho. So, tell us a little bit about your early life, your family time. Thanks Doug, it's a pleasure to be involved in this fireside chat and to get all our leather history into an archive like this. My early life, I think it was pretty bland or was pretty bland, much like a lot of guys' early lives. It was a school, a family, two brothers. At my age of 16 now, there was not a great deal of gay imagery around in the UK at that time. So, it was, I went to the usual phase, I think there were a lot of guys as I was started to realise that there was such a thing as sex where I didn't quite fit in with all my friends who wanted to go out with women and I didn't. So I think many of us go through that. And it was quite some time before I realised that I began to accept that there was actually another side to sex and that the bit that I wanted was not the same as everybody else's. So what was your first exposure to the concept of homosexuality? Surprisingly enough, it would be a schoolmaster. A schoolmaster. Not the stereotypical gym guy, gym hunk or anything like that. It was a history master. It was a woman, Ray Chesters was her name. And she was, I later found out, a lesbian. And she lived with her partner. And it's quite common for women schoolteachers to live together and the idea that they would live together and do that and have a relationship and everything was, that was the first idea that this could actually happen. How did the concept of lesbianism come up? How did you ascertain this about her? She told us. Oh, my gosh. She did. Yeah, I would have been about 15 at the time. And this was quite, the school I was at that stage was a state grammar school, which doesn't really exist so much in the UK now. But we had a very progressive headmaster. We didn't have corporal punishment or anything like that at school. And the idea that somebody's, if we asked a question, she would, they would answer it. So I did ask. That's very heavy for that time. It is very heavy for 1970, yeah, 1972 at the time. It was after we'd been reading Women in Love in English Literature. That's when it came out. My gosh. We did quite a lot of D.H. Lawrence and quite a lot of Lady Chatterley as well. So sex was all the rage, really, where we were. There was no problem with it that this actually happened. It's just that everybody else was quite happy with Lady Chatterley having it off with Melas, whereas I wanted to have it off with Melas. When we were preparing for this interview, you actually said you knew you were gay at age 11. Tell us about that. I knew that I was different. And in order to get in touch with gay guys, or in order to get in touch with other boys at that time of my age, I would very much threw myself into sport. I think this is quite common. And I was a cricket, a big cricket player. Now, cricketers are quite big blokes. And a joint shower with the cricket team really convinced me that I was gay. How so? It was the sexual attraction I had to the guys. These guys were the guys I wanted to sleep with. Wow. And what about it appealed to you? Well, it's what this masculinity, that's the $64,000 question. They appealed to me because they were guys and not women. Is that an answer to your question? No, but to delve a little deeper, was there, did you bring this up with them? How did you confront this? Never brought it up with them. Like a lot of us, I kept it hidden for a long time. But I knew that I wanted to sleep with them. I knew that they were the guys that I was going to spend my life with if they felt the same way that I did. I just wasn't actually sure that they did. And in many of them didn't, a lot of them turned out to be straight. But most of them turned out to be straight. So it was a complicated relationship. We tried to work out how I would broach the subject of would you like to sleep with me. And that came much later, that came at university. But at such a young age, this is even before, presumably before you knew about this lesbian teacher, would be about the same sort of time. Well, at 11, yes, before I knew about the lesbian teacher. Yes, lesbianism had not figured in my thoughts at that stage because women were not really part of my thought process at all, really. Being 11, 12, 13, if you like, I tended to take a very much singular approach to it. Women didn't really come into it at all. The idea that sexuality could in any way be fluid and it may change through your life would have been a concept too complex for an 11-year-old. 11-year-olds thinking about, oh, well, I need a new bike now. So therefore, this is what I want and this is what I'm going to have. So if you wanted to sleep with a guy, the idea that you might one day want to sleep with a woman or a woman and a guy, or that two women might sleep together was just something too sophisticated for me at that age. But did you truly understand that what you were feeling, what you were experiencing was homosexuality? No, I don't think I did. I saw it as the way I felt. I didn't try to quantify it in any way. I didn't try to say, oh, this is homosexuality or that anything else was heterosexuality. I just saw it as the way I felt. Oh, OK. That came later to realize what this actually all was. So this was just an urge you had, a sensation you had at that time without really understanding what it was. Quite, yes. That would be a fair assessment of the situation then. Now, you were in the RAF. I was, yes. Please tell us about that. That was from 1975. After just finishing university, I joined the RF as an engineering officer. Now, many people have this idea that, oh, it's got into the armed services and everything. It'll be fabulous. You'll have all these guys to do. It isn't like that at all. It's fucking hard work, really, or there's a lot of work involved. But I think my main reason for joining was that there would be, at that stage, we wouldn't come across many women. And where I was on our Harrier Squadron at the time I spent most of my career on those, there were no women at all then. So this was like a male world, which suited me perfectly. What were you doing with the RAF? I was an avionics engineer. How did that come about? I went to, well, it was the, I'd always been interested in electronics, so that was the way I went. I could have been, I could have been, it could have gone wrong and I could have been a motor transport officer or something like that, but it just happened to fall right. So it was okay. As far as I was concerned, it was great. Okay. But that led to a lucrative career with British Airways. So take us up to that. Well, it's a bit of background here at the time. This would, we're now coming to 1987. At that stage it was still illegal to be gay in need. The Sexual Offences Act in the UK never applied to the armed forces at that time, or the Merchant Navy for that matter. So when they found some letters, which they inevitably would, and some photographs and everything, it was time to resign, time to go. So I was asked to go, and then I joined British Airways after that. Tell us about these letters and photos. It was, I was having a very long-term relationship with a navigator on another's corner, on another station. And we had written to one another and some letters had gone astray. The way the mail system worked at that time, I was living in an officer's mess and they were like pigeonholes with all the mail. Mine had gone in another officer's pigeonhole and they'd opened it. And that was enough to do. That was enough to do it. And then once they got that, they did their search of the room and found photographs and all sorts. And then it was all over then. As far as they were concerned, the game was up. How did you meet this navigator? We'd been on exercise in Canada and our eyes met across a crowded officer's mess bar, really. And I knew and he knew instantly, but we also knew we could never discuss it. We were like people would have been in the early 50s in civilian life in the UK when it was still illegal because we were in a society where it was still illegal effectively. So, yes, that's what happened. You mentioned a moment ago the lawyers about homosexuality changed in Britain. Tell us a bit about that. And you said it didn't apply to the armed force. No, it was the Sexual Offences Act, 1967. And it became... the law changed at that time prior to the 1967 act. All gay sex of any sort was illegal, whether in public, anywhere in private, anywhere people could be and were blackmailed for two years. The police would raid people's private homes if they suspected people. The 1967 act loosened things up significantly in that it suddenly became legal to have sex with your partner, but not in public. Now, the legal definition of public for the purposes of the 1967 law was in a house where there were just you two, just a pair of you. So a house of multiple occupancy, say you shared a room with somebody else, would count as public, so sex in that house would be illegal. So by public, they don't mean, as we are now outside, for the purposes of that being in public would be in a house with other people. Wow. Children. Certainly children, yet anyone, other adults, anyone. It had to be two guys in a house that was empty, essentially, then it would be all right. Fascinating. Fascinating. But none of this applied to the armed forces. And why not? Because they believed at the time that if people were having sexual relationships with one another, the main thing that panicked them was that they would be a security risk. Which I've never understood, because the way things were, people could be blackmailed and have their career ripped to pieces. So surely that would be a significantly greater security risk than allowing people to do it in the open. Or allowing them not to have to live a double life. Fascinating. But that's really what they were... And they were always convinced also there was the side that somebody who was a non-commissioned or a commissioned officer would have a certain amount of power over some other lower ranks. And they might use that to force them into some sexual activity that they didn't want to do. A situation that I've never understood. Because this is assuming that a sexual dynamic will fit in with your military dynamic. And it didn't necessarily be like that at all. Right. What work did you do for British Airways? I was chief avionics engineer on the Boeing fleet at Heathrow. My gosh. I'm just retired now. So I've no longer that any longer. I kind of grew up with jumbo jets and I like them very much. Were you able to travel the world? Yeah. I fly on a lot of Boeing aircraft. Yeah, I like Boeing aircraft very much. If I was starting an airline those were the aircraft I would buy because they're easy to refit and rehash and turn them into flying operated theaters or freight or anything you like. There is one in Africa that flies and does eye operations in Africa. There's three theaters on this jumbo and it lands and they have people lined up for cornea replacements and all things like that where they can do them really quickly. Because the spares are easy to get and they're more common really. There's more of them around. The spares are available worldwide. Okay. If I was starting an airline they would be what I would buy. Fantastic. A second hand Boeing, a second hand couple of jumbo's would stand you in good stead. You could go anywhere in the world with them. But let's come back to the London Gay scene as you knew it. You mentioned there were many bars when you came out into the scene. They were. My main one was the Colhearn in Earl's Court. That was my favorite bar. At this point we get into the leather scene side of it. I've realized early on that leather was the thing. Leather was my fetish and always has been and I've never deviated from that at all. So which is unusual. A lot of guys are into rubber and all sorts of things but for me it's always been leather. And the Colhearn was full of guys that looked absolutely fabulous in their leather all the time and rode motorbikes these and I rode a motorbike at the time and it was just fantastic. It was a bit like cruising with alco... alco... potato. But why leather? How were you called to that? Well, now we get to the abusing part of the tale about what actually kicked me off. As I was explaining earlier there was a time when there was a very little gay imagery at all as I was growing up. They were not readily available. There was nothing on TV or anything like that. There were no magazines around. But there was a magazine called Exchange and Mart. Now this is like a prehistoric eBay. Like if you live in London like a loot it's a paper full of small ads where people wanted to sell things. Meet people and this is before Grindel or anything like that. Well in the adult reading section of Exchange and Mart there was a advert for the leather-leaning company and I've always remembered it and contained within this advert was a Tomofinolesk drawing of this guy in these leather pants. And I saw that and the synopsis fired and that was it. Wow. That was it. That was it. It was... That's what I want. I want to be that guy. That's what I want to be. Because that's what we all want, isn't it? We all want to be the person that we're seeing. How did you go from that to the full-on leather scene? That took a number of years. I mean this would have been about 13. These jeans at the time cost 14 pounds and they might as well have cost a million pounds. I didn't have 14 pounds. But from then on then I had my first trip to the Coal Herd then and bought my first leather article which was an Arab strap. It wasn't a piece of leather clothing at all. It was the thing that went round your bollocks and your knoll but that sort of thing too. It's just directions. And it just happened to be leather at the time and that just did it for me constantly. I was a frazzle. How did you even learn about the Coal Herd? I think I saw some... I was in London, in Ellescourt and came across it by accident. There were a load of guys standing out. I didn't even realise it was a gay bar thinking about it. The concept that a bar could be a gay bar is not something that had occurred at that time really. But I went by it and looked in and thought, oh that's a nice bar, I like all these guys. And I went in and there were some magazines a couple of ancient copies of drama hanging around that it's no longer with us. And a few... I think there might have been a capital gay at that stage a couple of gay newspaper about. And for a second, in fact for several seconds I was, oh my God, what am I doing in here? Do I really want to do this? Do I know what I'm doing? Is this all right? Is this for me? And it took me a while to become comfortable with it. At this time I ran into Ian Allen who would have been in his 30s at this stage and he had a bike and he used to hold cold in the cold. He denies it now, but he did. He denies all of this, but it happened. He denies everything, but we were there and that was really good. I had the privilege of interviewing Ian Allen last year. Yeah, he's a super guy. He's just a complete... he's a mind of information, but he can't hold court. Yes. And oddly enough, Ian was in the RAF as well. Yes, I know. Anything shocking about activities you saw in the bars at that time? Certainly there was. Yes, certainly in the cold. There was an awful lot of people being given blowjobs and things. And whilst I knew blowjobs happened, I'd never actually seen anybody doing one. But I had to assume that they must occur because I wanted what had done to me. Yes, so I assumed... By this stage, I had realised that I wasn't the only one in the world. I think many of us go through that stage when we're very young that it's only me. Well, by this stage I knew it wasn't only me. There would be other guys too. So what would they be doing and what would they... But to actually see somebody in public doing it was a bit, wow, these guys are so out there. I'll never be able to do that. I would never be able to do that. I was still a bit repressed, I guess, at that stage. But later I sort of opened up a bit. What about... Did you learn any new activities while you were in there? Something that titillated you or drew your attention? At that stage it was maybe the blowjobs that did it for me. There was nothing... Oh, yes, there was one thing where this guy was shoving his finger up this guy's arse and it happened as prostrate. Now that did it for me. Well, at first I had that done to me. And I could see that the pleasure on this guy's face he was having it done. And that had never occurred to me that somebody would be able to do that. It sounds so naive, but this is a long time ago. We have to go back to a world of no internet, no social media, no anything. When if you wanted to arrange a meeting with a guy and fill in a small island, send your photograph off and they would send theirs to you and it could take weeks to arrange it. There wasn't the instant gratification that there is now. Today's leather scene, the gay scene in general, is completely different from that time. You said that you feel your generation had the best time. I think we all feel our generation had the best time because it's the generation at the point at which we're young, the point at which we're discovering ourselves and discovering everybody else. So I think my period was the best time. Guys in their teens and in their 20s now will say that their generation is the best. And so it is for them. In other words, there is no best time. It's the best time for you. I don't think there is any really good time or any Pacific period that's best and everything else is downhill. I don't go along with that idea at all. Older guys like me now will say, of course it's not so much fun now because we have the instant gratification and it doesn't take weeks to set up meetings and you want to see a guy and you expect him to be perfect and not have any spots and everything to be wonderful. But I'm sorry the guy is going to pick his nose and everything else because that's what people do. This is what human beings do. We are none of us perfect. When you move in with the guy, he will leave the toothpaste cap off the chair. You will put the socks under the bed and you will wind each other up. But that's life. But doing it on a grinder or any or social media perhaps, particularly now where you can change photographs. So the photo you see might not be that guy at all. And you may have sent him a photo that isn't you, so effectively we've got two virtual people chatting together. When you eventually meet there's going to be an awful lot of disappointment. But tell us more about some of the other bars that you knew here that are long gone maybe. My favourite club was The Block. Now The Block was around in London a lot and it moved from different venues and it was really a very good idea and something I'd like to see more in London. I used to go when it was in a pub called Traffic at the back of King's Cross. And it moved to its main sort of HQ if you like, it was in Ballum. But it also had a pub in Shepherd's Bush and I can't remember the name of it was but there was one in Shepherd's Bush there. And it was the same club very much like The Backstreet which is very much like the meat rack bar in Cruising. Very much like that. Backstreet's a bit like that. Well The Block was a bit like that except not quite as full on because it would be different for different venues. The one at King's Cross was because the pub on a cellar so it looked exactly like that. Fantastic. And now that was really good and at that stage we were still getting to the point where the police would raid occasionally. This is, we're coming to the point now where ages has started to occur and local authorities are getting panic-stricken that people are having unprotected sex left, right and sex to all of the, and so the police would come in and have a look around or firemen would come in and do a spot check fire check and fire extinguishers or something. But was this truly to squelch the AIDS epidemic or was this harassment toward the men? This was, this was harassment in a ball of panic. I mean, because they didn't know what to do about AIDS at that time. So prior to the AIDS epidemic these things did not occur? Certainly they occurred, but they did occur but it's just that we're getting back to the point of what was your best time for me it occurred because it was the aid for other people. People would say, oh well that happened anyway but I wasn't around then. But it did happen. Certainly it happened before the sexual offences actually it was illegal, pubs were raided all the time and as I say people's homes were also. Yeah, yeah. Does that make sense? It does. You bring up AIDS. How did you see the AIDS epidemic impact the London community? I think as in America too it hit the leather guys particularly hard. Very hard. An awful lot of people got sick very quickly and I've been to far too many premature funerals. There was, because I think maybe because of the sexual practices we're getting but people were having it unprotected. Well, there was no such thing as unprotected sex. It was just sex. And the worst you might get is a dose of golemia so you take a handful of pills that it all be over. Yes. And that was as far as, so there was never a problem. The idea of using condoms I don't think it ever occurred to anybody. I suppose it must have done, but it never occurred to me at that time. How did you react to it? How did you react to seeing AIDS and what was happening? A panic stricken I think. I think I was panicked at the time. I didn't know whether it was, I didn't know when it was, when friends started to get sick and disappear and I'd go and visit them in the middle sex hospitals and somebody who'd been an absolutely beautiful guy was suddenly a wizened up person. I thought, well, it's me next. Clearly it's going to happen to me. It's happening to everybody else. Why wouldn't it happen to me? So I got a bit sort of panicky at the time, like a lot of guys. And we were also putting up with there was a lot of stuff in the media then going, oh, it's the rot of God and you're all evil and everything's going to die. And you would get a lot of that in the street too, even in London. Or perhaps particularly in London because we were so visible. But that eventually cleared. Eventually as the penny dropped that all these people, this disease is not actually going to go rampant through the community in general. It will affect us, leather guys in particular, and gay men less so, but leather gay men particularly us. It will hammer us. And suddenly the government really aren't going to do a lot about it so we better sort of sell out. We better look after ourselves. And then the condoms came in and things started to slow. I'm paraphrasing here, but things started to slow down a bit. And the idea that you could have sex and you could not and you could protect yourself. And then the panic faded a bit from my perspective, certainly from... Whether it... That's how it happened in London. Whether it would have been like that all over the country, I don't know. But that's how it occurred in London. Mainly because there's more of us. Even then, or then particularly, there was a very large gay community in London and small towns in the UK would not necessarily... They would have been like going back to 15 years. They'd have been guys in the closet. How different is the London leather community post AIDS holocaust? Well, what's occurred is that the leather fetish community has become almost mainstream. It's becoming... Now, people will disagree with me, but I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. I don't mind the idea that that I could go into... I could go in my leathers into any pub, actually, not necessarily a gay pub in London, and nobody would really take any notice of me. And I could walk down the street and people would go, oh, you look fantastic, but that's it. It won't necessarily be abusive. So I think that's what's happened. It's become mainstream. That fetish, in general, has moved more into the straight community. Yeah. We even have ads on TV now selling sort of whips and things for straight people to play with. Not that they didn't always do this anyway, but now it's been advertised. Incredible. Now there are magazines for it. So now other people will disagree who don't live in London. Well, that's all very well for you in a big city, like London or Manchester or Birmingham. Try doing that in some small place. And there would be rights. I'm not in a position to argue or think they're wrong. I think they are rights. Yeah. But we can only go by our own... what we own... our own sort of experiences. Yeah. But I think there is still... I mean, there's... we're not 100% accepted yet, not anything like it. There is a long way to go, but we're certainly getting there. Things have improved an awful lot. When I was 19, chatted to a guy who's as old as me now, then they were really upset with the sexual offences act coming in and semi-legalising it because they said it took all the thrill out of it. Oh. Fascinating. It's taken all the excitement out of it. Now it's a bit like drinking when you turned 18. Yeah. Suddenly it doesn't matter so much. Suddenly you're not kicking against society in quite the same way. You're not breaking the law, if you like. So there's a few guys thought like that. Tell us about London Leatherman. London Leatherman is... this year, as in its 45th year, it sprang from a group called MSC, the Motorbikes Sports Club of London. And it goes back to a time when leather fetish guys used motorbikes as a cover, really, because you could wear loads of leather, so long as you were carrying a crash helmet, this gave you legitimacy. I am wearing all this leather because I've got a motorbike and society. Oh, that's okay. He's wearing leather because he's a motorcyclist. In fact, it's not... it isn't anything to do with having a motorbike. We've moved now to the point where people are in fact more honest now where they're just leather fetishists. So we don't need the motorbikes any longer. So we changed it from MSC to London Leatherman and Manchester did the same. Went from MSC Manchester to Manchester Leatherman. It is a grouping which I am trying to encourage younger guys into it. This is difficult because there are so many other distractions now. When I was 18 or 19 there was nowhere else to go and find out about this stuff other than to go out to a bar like the Coler and other block. There was no social media, no grandeur or nothing. Now there is. And it's no good trying to turn the clock back and now guys could stay at home on their computer. They don't need to go out. Right. So we need to encourage them. We need a USP to get them out and I find that the actual social interaction helps a lot. To get guys out to go to see us at a club night and particularly in London we have the spreading around now but we have the Leather socials the first Sunday in Compton. These are very popular and they do get guys out to say ah, you know these are people who are like me warts at all. How did you become the president? I was, well it would be I could skirt right that and say I was elected but there you go. I know what you say how did you get elected? I was asked to stand the previous president was standing down and he had been president for a long time and seen the club through its branding change from MSC London to London Leathermen and you could only be president for three years and I'm in my second year now but Paul Turner who was the previous president was president for four years to give him that extra year to see them over the branding and he asked me to stand up. His idea was that we could bring a new a new image to London Leathermen to encourage and we're still really at the stage where in many ways we have two separate clubs we have a club from the older members and the club with the newer members and the newer members are the ones I want to to get on board and as you were saying Matt Spike gave us this fabulous venue Matt Spike is now part of London Leathermen committee to assist me and assist ourselves in doing this and he's made tireless efforts to encourage us and everything to get guys involved so I see it moving forward good but when we were preparing for this interview you said you're not a front stage sort of a person that you're more of a background person I'm not a front of house guy I know that's what I said people have asked me years ago would I like to have gone to stand for Mr Leather UK or would I still like to stand for Mr Leather UK the answer is no I prefer to more organise in the background I prefer to be the guy who's the instigator of it all pulling the strings well I wouldn't see it that way but yes if you like because I'm not the guy I'm not it's no good expecting me at 61 to encourage somebody who's 19 to join London Leathermen what I can do is set up the events and make it work to encourage them they're not going to want to come and see me but they might want to come and see the right Mr Leather UK okay so that's really what it's about just in a nutshell I'm too old well what are your personal fetishes interests they are it is actually still the finger up the arse not to put too far it really is you must cut your nails oh yes it is that's really what does it for me I'd file them yes cuticle, a banner cure is essential that is my main thing if you could go both to do it and to have it done to me okay have plenty of emery boards to keep those nails sure yes keep those nails done if you could go back in time in your leather journey in your gay history any of that is there anything you would change or do differently that you wish you'd done I wish I'd been more honest with myself when I was younger I wish I'd go to the stage of instead of going through the fear of worrying about what other people think I wish I'd been more upfront and said well it's going to be and that's it but in many ways that's not a very good answer because you could say that about anything and about anybody's life and anyone and I'm sure they would but that's really it isn't anything I've done or not done but I wish I'd done it more openly I wish I'd done it earlier perhaps really I feel the same way I wish I'd done but I think earlier about what's the best time to be gay the best time to be gay is your particular spot in time there is no so if you changed it or if I changed it it didn't necessarily have been the best time something else would have gone wrong there are things that we don't know that would have happened you just can't tell can you really we are what we are and that's it what's the biggest misconception about you me that that's a bit of a that's a tough question because it'll be that I tend to be a bit I tend to try and overpower people not in that not in the BDSM sense but try to put over my views in front of everybody else and then I don't listen well I do listen I might not take any notice but I do listen okay that's fair it is and people will say you're not listening to me you're not listening to our you're not seeing it our way and I will say well I am it's just that you're wrong Terry Hazel with President London Leatherman thank you I'm so pleased to meet you and so pleased to be here in London thank you Doug and have a have a great time while you're here