The Single File
Bachelor is still a word that conjures up a certain antiquated cool; it evokes images of glamour, both in the surroundings a bachelor knows as home and in his swish sartorial uniform. One thinks of convertible sports cars, jet-setting to Paris, Venice and Rome, casinos, a Martini shaken and not stirred, one-night stands with beautiful women and strictly no strings attached. Bachelor is a euphemism for freedom, freedom from responsibility to others, to wives and children, to everything perceived as a restriction of what should be a man’s instinctive yearning to be unencumbered. A husband can effectively be seen as a castrated bachelor. James Bond is a bachelor, of course, so he has a lot to answer for; and for those of us who enjoy immersing in some quintessential kitsch, Jason King is another unlikely role model for the single man. Very few heroic fantasy figures are married men. The only time a bachelor was ever cast in a negative light was when the prefix ‘confirmed’ was added, and the subtle implication of this transformed him into a less envied outsider.
By contrast, the labels attached to single women were not so desirable – spinster and old maid. Instantly, the images are not of freedom and Cool, but of imprisonment and exclusion. One thinks of a scruffy mad woman living with a dozen cats, oozing unseemly odours of wee, sweat and stale menstrual burgundy, socially inadequate, probably a closet lesbian. Perhaps the traditional viewpoint was that spinsterhood was an abdication of a woman’s natural role – that of wife and mother; and the word spinster seemed to emphasise it. It’s not that far from spider, after all.
Ironically, both bachelor and spinster appear to have finally become closer in the public perception now. Young men and women, especially those remaining in the family bosom, can get away with singleton status – young, free and single goes the phrase, of course. But this is seen as a permissible phase, a necessary opportunity to play the field before finding ‘the one’ and settling down to the social engineering project that ensures the survival of the species. But what of those that fail to find ‘the one’ – either backing the wrong horse and paying for it with divorce, or simply never getting that far, even if not through want of trying? Middle-aged, free and single or old, free and single don’t quite have the same ring to them. If the archaic apogee of a woman’s ambition has been reinforced by the likes of Bridget Jones, men have also had to endure the revival of the family man as the pinnacle of their achievements.
Whether the David in question is Beckham or Cameron, being seen with wife and children in tow is increasingly imposed as the norm we should all aspire to. Somebody single over the age of, say, 35 is both pitied and feared. Pitied because they have yet to join the club and the consensus is they want nothing more than to do so; feared because if they have chosen not to join the club, there’s clearly something wrong with them. Couples who decide not to have children are bad enough, but men and women who choose not to even be one half of a couple? What are they trying to hide?
Publicised examples of single men way beyond the age at which they can expect to be admired and envied for their absence of a ball-and-chain are far from positive. Think of the treatment dished out to Christopher Jeffries, catapulted onto the front pages as a murder suspect whose guilt was presumed largely because he had rejected the recommended route to social enlightenment; then there’s Jimmy Savile, of whom enough has been said already; there is Cliff Richard – ditto; and back in the news a decade after his death, there is Ted Heath, a man whose rise to the apex of political power despite the lack of spouse and offspring props seems more unimaginable the further we travel from his tenancy at No.10.
Had Christopher Jeffries been dragged into the spotlight thirty or forty years ago, his singleton status would have caused many to come to the conclusion he was ‘queer’. The same rumours plagued both Savile and Heath when their public profiles were at their peak in the 1970s. Back then, homosexuality, possibly aided by the late age of consent, was often confused with paedophilia. An episode of the classic sitcom ‘Rising Damp’ in which an actor lodger (played by Peter Bowles) is suspected by landlord Rigsby of being ‘one of them’ sees Leonard Rossiter’s character attempt to explain his suspicions to Richard Becksinsale’s character, whose lack of suspicion is regarded as naivety. Rigsby poses the question ‘Did your mother never warn you not to take sweets from strangers?’ – something that inadvertently defines the times the programme was produced in and demonstrates how the two strands of deviant sexual inclinations were entwined in the public imagination.
Four decades on from ‘Rising Damp’, we are supposed to scoff at the prejudices on display and smugly celebrate how far we’ve come since 1975, yet for the single man in particular, public perceptions are no more enlightened now than they were then. If anything, we’ve gone backwards. A single man over the age at which a man is allowed to be single now has a greater awareness of how his lack of a permanent partner marks him out as a target and how he is uniquely vulnerable to awful accusations in a way he wasn’t before.
In the manner of an AA meeting, I shall now stand up and admit I am a single man in my late forties. I’ve never been married and I’ve never had children. I can’t say I was especially bothered about the latter, but the former I probably anticipated would have happened at some point. It almost did seventeen years ago, but the bride changed her mind on the day, so it didn’t. In retrospect, it was the only favour she ever did me, but I’m digressing. Those who are familiar with another side of my lyrical waxing via occasional visits to a more personal project will know there have been missed opportunities that I bitterly regret, and finding myself living alone at my age is something that has both advantages and disadvantages. Thankfully, I don’t reside on an ‘estate’, surrounded by couples and families where I would be viewed uncomfortably unfavourably. In my time, I have been suspected of being gay, though if I were, there would be no tangible reason for me to pretend otherwise in this day and age other than wishing to preserve my privacy.
Ah, yes, privacy. Now, that’s a dirty word because it implies secrecy and an unwillingness to wear my proclivities as a T-shirt. Unfortunately, the insidious virus of both reality and confessional television – not to mention the minutiae of day-to-day life being broadcast on social media – has rendered a reluctance to be ‘open’ 24/7 as masking something unpleasant, and a single man careering towards his half-century obviously has something unpleasant lurking in the background. Otherwise, why won’t he discuss it with the world and his wife? He never married, y’know…
Petunia Winegum
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August 11, 2015 at 9:26 am -
I recall Mr Ed married his long-term partner in something of a hurry once he became leader of the gang. In the old days of course, he could have claimed common law status.
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August 11, 2015 at 9:48 am -
There’s a long history of political types, approaching chances of high office, quickly changing their non-marital status – we must assume only for the most honorable and romantic reasons. In recenbt times William Hague, Gordon Brown and Leon Brittan all spring to mind and it would be quite unfair to infer that such changes were either opportunistic or some sort of cover-tactic. That both Ted Heath and Peter Mandelson did not compromise their non-marital state should probably be celebrated as confidence and honesty (although in Mandelson’s case, any use of the term ‘honesty’ may be pushing it a bit).
It is sad that the apparent ‘model’ for high public office still requires a partner and offspring to demonstrate real-world credentials, when the truth is that the new real-world accepts all manner of configurations without batting an eyelid.-
August 11, 2015 at 10:02 am -
Mandelson actively not flaunting his boyfriend in public was the requirement for him surely? Gay but celibate, like a monk – or perhaps like Stephen Fry… who not so long ago (in my lifetime) was overtly claiming to be asexual… this always made me think of him as an amoeba, which is what he eventually became as far as the BBC was concerned. Ubiquitous and spreading. Is he still on much now he has a child bride? And whatever happened to Derren Brown… not so much enigmatic these days so much as just queer perhaps. Now you see him, now you don’t.
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August 11, 2015 at 9:32 am -
August 11, 2015 at 11:46 am -
Good piece my Mathew Parris in The Times this Saturday – basically saying that Heath was either a-sexual of gay but completely repressed, and the idea of him being a child rapist with a predilection for young girls was barmy. Followed up by Dominic Lawson in the Sunday Times, (who visited him as a child to no ill effect) pointing out Heath was always surrounded by security and unlawful behaviour would have been all but impossible. Clearly evidence of an Establishment cover up then….
But if you advertise, you tend to get clients. And since police forces have put out a call for “victims” to come forward, I am sure they will. As others have pointed out, if you ask 70 million people if they have been abused by aliens (a much more likely scenario in my book, but that is another story) some will come forward and say that they have been rogered by a “Grey” from Andromeda or worse still one of those Arcturians (all kinky buggers, if you pardon the pun).
Moral panic, and general stupidity. How much will this be costing?-
August 11, 2015 at 12:18 pm -
Moral panic, and general stupidity. How much will this be costing?
In faggots? Have you seen the price of half a cord of ash recently? As anyone from a Norfolk village can tell you-,only ash or oak will do. Accept no substitutes and never, never NEVER try auto-da-féing with Homebase briquettes…trust me on this; THEY DO NOT WORK!
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August 11, 2015 at 1:30 pm -
Also Jonathan King who came in for some schtick for saying that he had once tried to seduce Heath to no avail on a flight to America…and concluded that he wasn’t gay!
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August 11, 2015 at 1:50 pm -
One of the consequences of the normalisation of homosexuality is that if you are not overtly and identifiably gay, nor overtly and identifiably homosexual, then you must be… well… what’s left? Not normal.
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August 11, 2015 at 1:50 pm -
identifiably heterosexual that should have been… Ed in bucket…
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August 11, 2015 at 11:52 am -
And then there are those of us unwillingly made single for whom the loss is difficult to resolve satisfactorily – easy to enjoy the company of others by involvement in clubs & organisations, and to find new friends, but it’s not the same as the quiet companionship of a partner.
My standard response to the usual widows’ question ‘have you found someone yet?’, is ‘No, I’m not looking for another wife, I just wouldn’t mind borrowing someone else’s now & then.’
Doesn’t always go down too well, -
August 11, 2015 at 2:01 pm -
Who was the guy who sang Batchelor Boy? I didn’t notice and ‘double entendres’ at the time but maybe I was thick or naive or just too young to notice. V popular and nobody nudged and winked – at least in public.
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August 11, 2015 at 3:03 pm -
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August 11, 2015 at 3:45 pm -
Was it really Alistair Campbell ?
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August 11, 2015 at 3:47 pm -
Or Raymond Baxter ?
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August 11, 2015 at 4:23 pm -
or maybe even 60’s singer Heinz
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August 11, 2015 at 5:02 pm -
He couldn’t sing for a hill of beans.
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August 11, 2015 at 6:37 pm -
He sang marginally better than America’s Fabian though! Heinz wasn’t actually gay at all – being dead at the time, they made that up for the Joe Meek movie, “Telstar” – in real life Heinz told Meek he didn’t want “any of that”, which made the rampantly gay Mr Meek very annoyed as he really fancied “his” blond bombshell, Heinz Burt. Meek threatened to wreck Heinz in showbiz. I recently saw Fabian on a TV series about American rock and roll – he said gave up music as he would wake up in hotel rooms finding himself being molested by his manager – Fabe only liked girls too. The biggest pre – Beatles pop entrepreneur in the UK, a dedicated “consenting adult” called Larry Parnes, actually turned down Cliff Richard for his stable of Brit “rockers”. Parnes built up a roster of good looking young singers to manage, almost all of whom – Tommy Steele, Adam Faith, Billy Fury, Marty Wilde, Georgie Fame etc – were, interestingly enough, firmly ladies men.
In America, the priggish right winger J Edgar Hoover, a bachelor for life, head of the FBI from the early 1920s till he died in 1972, is now commonly identified as a homosexual and often as a transvestite too. In the 50s, some of the left/liberal persuasion in America would try to “smear” Senator Joe McCarthy as a “queer” – he wasn’t (though he married “late”, when already in his 40s), but his committee chief counsel, Roy Cohn certainly was gay ( he was a homosexual who always denied being one long after it was legal and “accepted”, and he’s meant to have persecuted homosexuals and been an enemy of gay rights – like Hoover). Mc Carthy’s downfall is sometimes seen as having been primarily caused by a gay “scandal” – Roy Cohn tried to get favours from the US Army for his great friend G David Schine (who was actually not gay at all).
It’s interesting to contemplate what would have happened to dear old Oscar Wilde – now sanctified as a “gay martyr” for many years – in today’s climate. He committed “indecent acts” with male teenagers. Though the age of consent did not apply then, as by the 1885 law any homosexual acts were illegal, regardless of age, it would appear some of Oscar’s young friends may have been below the current age of consent. Lord Queensberry’s detectives had dug up and prepared all the private dirt on Wilde to counter the author’s legal libel action he brought against the peer for accusing him of “posing as a somdomite” (sic). If Oscar lived in Northern Ireland today, he could be arrested and convicted for “paying for sex” too (even if those involved were over consenting age), as he gave money, meals and expensive gifts to many of the young chaps (rent boys etc) he committed “indecent acts” with (Labour was well on the way to bringing this new offense of “buying sex” to England when they were removed in 2010).
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August 11, 2015 at 2:30 pm -
Whilst I have no problem with anyone being as they are, for whatever reason, there’s such an apparent underlying air of wistfulness to this post – if perhaps unintentional, then please forgive my presumption – which leads me say that I really do hope that, for you, life tomorrow is very different from what may have been yesterday
On the other hand though, your past seems to have also made you a Grand Master at Top Trumps. It’s going to be well nigh impossible to beat ‘stale menstrual burgundy’ in any republic on earth…
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