Against the Law: A Courageous, First-Person Account of What It Means to Be a Homosexual by Peter Wildeblood & Max Lerner

Author:Peter Wildeblood & Max Lerner
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Gay, Crime & Law
Publisher: NY: Julian Messner
Published: 1959-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

Part Three

We remained in the cells beneath the court room for about three hours. I could not tell exactly how long it was, because I had given my watch, with my fountain-pen and loose change, to a friend for safe keeping. The warders made tea on a gas ring, and we stood around drinking it, not finding much to say. I felt, suddenly, very tired; after the months of suspense, the days of the trial, the hours of waiting for the verdict, it was all over. I was going to prison. I was not frightened by the prospect, nor even curious about it any longer. I merely wanted to go there as soon as possible, and get some sleep.

At last, when it had grown quite dark, the order came for us to be moved to Winchester Prison. One of the warders, speaking stiffly, as though he was reading from a book, said: ‘You will not be submitted to the indignity of wearing handcuffs; just carry on up the stairs.’ I had not thought of handcuffs. I wondered how they would feel, and look. There was something extraordinarily grotesque about the idea, until I remembered that I was now a criminal.

Upstairs in the courtyard, outside the great stone door, stood a stately and antique Rolls-Royce which was to convey us to prison. There was a small group of people surrounding the car, mostly women. I remembered the woman who had spat at me, a few days before, but I no longer cared. They were silent as the warders opened the doors of the car. Then one of the women said, in a loud, toneless voice: ‘Which is Lord Montagu? Ah, there he is!’ I thought: Please, don’t let them do any more to him. They’ve had their pound of flesh. And then the crowd began to press round us, shouting. It was some moments before I realised that they were not shouting insults, but words of encouragement. They tried to pat us on the back and told us to ‘keep smiling’, and when the doors were shut they went on talking through the windows and gave the thumbs-up sign and clapped their hands.

I did not know, then, that this was why we had been kept waiting so long in the cells. Immediately after the verdict a crowd of about 200 had gathered outside, and the authorities were afraid there would be a demonstration. There was, in fact—but not of the kind which they had anticipated.

Arthur Prothero, when he had said goodbye to me downstairs, had gone back into the court room to collect his documents. He told me later that when he had been there a few minutes he had heard a rising chorus of boos and jeers outside, which had upset him so much that he ran to the door. He found, however, that the shouting was not directed at us, as he had feared, but at the two prosecution witnesses and their police escort. McNally and Reynolds, white and

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