Gary Rose found his way to the Silhouette Club, following a break up, which left him homeless and in debt. He came from a dysfunctional family who rejected him and he suffered from bullying at school – and all because of his sexuality. Joining the Silhouette Club became his sanctuary, a place where he felt safe from the outside word and, most importantly, accepted. During the 1980’s, he worked as a nursing auxiliary at Kingston General Hospital on Beverley Road. In 1992, he transferred to Hull Royal Infirmary, leaving in 2000, to study at Sociology at Hull College and then went on to study at the University of Hull, where he obtained a BA(Hons) degree in Sociology. After graduation, he worked as Residential Social Worker in a home for misplaced children – but hated it because it brought back memories of his own childhood traumas. Following early retirement in 2009, he returned to College, where he studied Genealogy. Having passed his exam, he set up his own Family History Group, as a volunteer, at the Fred Moore Library on Wold Road, which is now in it’s 16th year.
Gary was heavily involved in the creation of the Silhouette book by Andy Roe, in which he interviewed several ex- regulars on Andy’s behalf. He is currently volunteering on Scene But Not Heard and is using his research skills to uncover the history of gay culture.
Due to my upbringing, I never felt as if I fitted in with the rest of society, I was always the odd one out. I never had the confidence to do the things I wanted to do (and achieved later in life) or any encouragement from my family and teachers. And being gay made me an easy target at school. But becoming a part of Silhouette changed everything. I was suddenly mixing with other people who felt out of place. I was hanging around with people who did not judge me for being gay and who accepted me for being me – not “Gay Gary” as I was so often referred to, but just Gary. But I still had my “demons” – times when things from the past that I’d buried, would rise to the surface and I’d be overwrought with anxiety and depression. But a night at the Silhouette always cured that! The Silhouette Club was so unique. It offered a safe haven for others like myself, who lived on the edge of society. Not just gays and lesbians but, also, punks, Goths, hippies and other sub-cultures that were considered “social deviants” by the rest of the society. It was our safety net. The Silhouette Club changed my life in so many ways and I met some wonderful people in there, many of whom become close friends and are still in my life to this day.
At the same time, I was working full-time at Kingston General Hospital. I was a nursing auxiliary – not a qualified nurse but a hands-on nurse, doing all the dirty jobs such as emptying catheters, doing bed baths and all the other run-around jobs that the qualified staff were “too busy” to do. The AIDS crisis had just started and some of the victims were admitted to the ward I worked on. I knew some of them from the gay scene and I found it very difficult – and traumatic – looking after people I knew. I don’t think anyone can comprehend what it was like for a gay nurse to look after gay patients with, what the press described as the “gay plague”. It was an awful time for me. Many of the regulars from Silhouette would come onto the ward to visit them and ask how they were but, of course, I wouldn’t tell them because of the confidentiality agreement I had with the hospital. What was more upsetting was the way that staff treated AIDS patients. Some of them refused to look after them, whilst others just treated them with contempt. I was quite defiant and would go out of my way to care for them and it got me into a lot of trouble. Up until the AIDS crisis, I had got on with the staff – and management – but everything changed after that. They made my life as difficult as possible. Basically, they wanted rid of me. I would go out to the Silhouette, get extremely drunk and then go home and cry – but not for myself, I cried for those victims. I lost two of my closest friends to AIDS. They kept their illness to themselves for fear of being rejected by their family or losing their jobs. They were courageous and dignified to the very end. When Kate Genever invited me to take part in this project I accepted because I wanted to be their voice. I want people to know how much they suffered and how painful it was for us all to go through it. I still feel that pain today. Being gay back then, we had to live in the shadows, be secretive about it. We fought so hard to be accepted and it was a long, hard battle. And we did it for future generations, so that they could walk hand-in-hand, in the streets, without fear. To give them the freedom that denied us.
