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As a gay person, I've never pushed that. It's never been important to me that I was gay or straight in any of the things that I've been presenting in the way I did my job except the time when it meant something as an overall picture like the homosexual law reform bill. [00:00:30] But it's never been something that I have set out to push because in some ways I believe that the less fuss you make of it, once you've won certain positions, the list, it stands out as something to be ridiculed or fought, or UM [00:01:00] or or to be made an issue of before we have legality. It certainly had to be made an issue of, but it's like it's like the Maori pakeha situation. I feel the stronger you make each of the sides, the less you have a total. And in some ways the gay thing fitting into a straight community [00:01:30] works best. I think if people don't have to say they're gay or whatever, because it will be accepted in my career as a broadcaster, it's been pretty well accepted for me all the way through. I've never had to worry about stress. That's been caused me because of my work on radio. Some people may have had that. I don't know. But from my point [00:02:00] of view, I've never had to try and cut out something. When I get on radio. That is part of my private life. Um, that may also be because of the acceptance thing being in theatre and radio at the time I was didn't really give me a hard time. And so I've never had to in a commercial radio, uh, situation where you have so many macho sounding [00:02:30] people and everything I've never had to, um I've never had to fight for what I what I had or what I wanted to be. But then I was not overtly gay. So maybe there was just no problem there. Who knows if I if I had been an effeminate Fay person, maybe I'd have had a hell of a time. I don't know. [00:03:00] Um, so I've never had to to change myself on air to cope with something like that. Most people on the radio anyway that I've worked with don't give themselves completely away. I'm not suggesting they're all hiding something. I'm not saying that, but I don't think many of us are [00:03:30] prepared to give away our complete personality. We want to keep a bit for ourselves. And I suppose ultimately the personality you develop for the radio is what we were always told. What they wanted was a pleasant, warm, friendly voice. Those were the words they always use pleasant, warm, friendly. And it's an old cliche. But we were told when I was a young announcer that you were a guest who'd been invited into somebody's home. And so you behaved yourself. Uh, so I never tried to [00:04:00] be, um, intrusive. I never tried to talk too much about myself, not because I was hiding anything, but because I thought I don't think people tuned in to hear me talk about myself. They wanted to hear me talk about other things that were interesting to them. I can't say why I haven't pushed the Gay Barrow. It may be, it may be, If I'd been given a really rough time, [00:04:30] I would have felt I had the fight. In which case I may well have come back with something. Um, because I'm not a political person, I. I really Hm. I really don't have enough interest in those sorts of things. In a way, I don't know whether that's selfish or not, but right now I can't see when I'm when I'm on air broadcasting. [00:05:00] I'm just me. I'm just a person, and I follow the philosophy, which I've which was taught to me and which I always believe, is that you're talking to just one other person by and large. And so that's the way I communicate through a microphone. I'm talking to you, uh, about myself, or about what I'm playing, or about something that's in the news or whatever. And if it's a gay thing that I'm talking about, then I just treat it like that. But I feel I have [00:05:30] an insight in it to maybe add something to it if I want to, Um, without seeming like I'm pushing a barrow or forcing something down someone's throat, those people who are noticeably gay and who um presumably they are aware of the fact that when people see them walking down the street or hear them talking or observe their gestures, they think that person is gay. Uh, I think those people are tremendously brave, Um, because they [00:06:00] just get on with life. Um, but the fact is that, uh, gay people who don't exhibit those, uh, tendencies who who don't who can't, uh, be picked out as being gay. They're not necessarily being dishonest. It's just the way they are. Music fascinated me. Um, in the same way that that you you read about people [00:06:30] that suddenly you you found out were gay. You say, Hey, that's amazing. Music was a bit like that, too. I remember the first time I heard one of the first homosexual songs I heard was Charles, the French singer who was a a lover of Edith PF at one stage, uh, singing a song called What Makes a Man About a Guy who lives with his mom in Paris, I suppose, and, uh, he's a gay person and and [00:07:00] what his life is like and he goes out and and associates with people who are like himself, and it makes it. It makes it sound that that sort of liaison is quite sleazy. And he asks the question, Um um, why, why? How can anyone judge what makes a man a man? And I thought, God, this is This is a song which is in support of homosexuality. Um, and and it's saying that it's virtually like saying what the song from [00:07:30] LA says, I am what I am And, uh, I I felt wonderful when I used to hear things like that really good. And I got a chance to play it once or twice, and I would use it and say it. Well, I suppose I it's I suppose life could have been very complicated, Um, if I wish to make it that way. But, uh, I think there are a lot of gay people who feel that, um uh, it's nobody else's business apart from their own [00:08:00] what they're like and that other people don't want to know about anyway. And, um, they would just much rather get on with their lives, um, and not go about, um, making a big drama of the fact that they're they're gay. Because if you do that, I think you could make life a little bit more a little bit more difficult for yourself. Maybe. I think the the the see the thing that is that, um, has always concerned me much more is is justice for gay people. That's [00:08:30] really what is what, uh, has been, uh, uh at the back of my thinking all the time. Um, and I didn't ever come across as far as I was. Any Any examples of injustice? No. But, uh uh, it must still exist, but I've been very fortunate working in an area where I work with very educated people, Um, who have got first class minds, and with people like that, you don't come across [00:09:00] prejudice very much. It sounds, doesn't as if I'm sort of living in cuckoo land, but that's genuinely what it's been like as far as being What's the word? Not an icon. An example for someone who's younger who might be coming out. Um, hard to say this in a way. [00:09:30] I've never felt that I've really been that big enough a name to have had influence on people. I think in some ways, that's why I've never been got as far as truth or those newspapers were concerned if they suddenly had a story or an angle on somebody, if they'd had an angle on me being a person who was gay, it probably wouldn't have been newsworthy, so they probably wouldn't have bothered. And I [00:10:00] suppose That's the way I felt about it, Um, being an example for younger people or whatever, there's been no real reason to to push myself out and up. But that's also partly to do with with my own philosophy about saying that I don't think one should be different from the other. In a sense, it should all be part of a mix. And once you don't have to push for certain things, then maybe you don't push for certain things. [00:10:30] I don't think it was. I don't think it was protecting my position. I don't think that's what I was doing. I just think probably that it it maybe didn't feel that important to me. Or maybe I just didn't have anything to say or know how to say it. Really, Um, I was just happy being what I [00:11:00] was. People shouldn't change what they are. Be happy with your voice. Be happy with your gestures. Be happy with the way you walk and the way you talk and what have you, Um, and, uh, if it bothers other people? Well, it's their lives, isn't it? [00:11:30] I was working on one radio station when there was a series of events in the town that had nothing to do with the radio station at all. Um, but, uh, there was a whole series of court cases of gay men being taken to court, and it was just awful. Uh, several of the local businessmen were were, um, appeared in court, and the atmosphere in that town was truly, truly dreadful. And this was [00:12:00] at a time when, um, not many gay people were actually being taken to court. But in this, I think it must have reflected, to some extent, the thinking of the local police, I suppose. Uh, but the atmosphere in the town was absolutely awful. Um, And when the homosexual law reform bill was passed, I remember thinking, Thank God that sort of situation won't happen again. It [00:12:30] was bad for everybody. It was not. It was bad, not only for gay people. It was just bad for everybody. Because what happened was that once you start once rumours start, once two or three prominent local businessmen have appeared in court. Then the rumours start and there were so many names were mentioned. He's going to be up in court next week. Um, and it was just a dreadful, dreadful time to go through. I've never really had nasty moments because [00:13:00] of my gayness at all. I've been really, really lucky because you hear people talk about some of the terrible things they've been through, and I've been really fortunate with that. Like when I was doing the Children's programme video dispatch on television in the eighties. That was the time that the homosexual law reform bill suddenly became an issue. And I was doing things like putting my name to those huge advertisements where all sorts of people were putting in their names, supporting [00:13:30] the homosexual law reform bill. And, uh, I did one of my programmes one day and came off air. And the producer David called me through and said, We've seen your name on one of these ads in the newspaper and I said, Yeah, I said, I, I, um, I find it's one way I said, What's happening now is I'm a gay person, I said, And I'm living with a gay person at the moment in a really, really happy and important relationship for me, [00:14:00] and the one way that I can help in doing something like this is to do these small things without actually suddenly turning it into a whole flood of, of of how you feel because it was a kids programme I was involved with. I felt I had to be more careful and I thought, by doing things like marching in the marches and by putting my name to these particular ads and things, then I was I was doing something that people might notice and see that might be important to them and was adding to [00:14:30] the overall picture of support for the homosexual law reform bill. And so I said, I said all this to them and they said, OK, well, we'll support you if anything comes up. And I thought that was fantastic of them to say that really as far as New Zealand is concerned, there's no doubt that the the the the the crucial thing has been the passing of the homosexual law reform bill. And if you're not young enough to remember that, [00:15:00] um, I don't think you could, you could comprehend the difference that's made to our society. You'd have to use your imagination a lot. I think the the the the the difference has been so profound it is I. I would love now to be a young gay man of 14 starting out again. I would love that because it would be so different. It'd be so different. [00:15:30] So any regrets? Oh, no, II. I belong to the old fashioned school that says What did say I regret nothing.
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