Douglas Stewart

He is finding a country, Scotland at the time, would be transforming utterly.

You know, it had been a very working class, heavy industry patriarchy for centuries probably.

And now we're finding it's de-industrializing.

It is changing.

It's becoming incredibly liberal very quickly.

And so he sees much more hope in the world as a young gay man and much more acceptance.

But the problem is, is in that wonderful moment where we all leave home for the first time and we think we're going to get to step out into the world and become our own people far from our families.

He has called home to take care of his sick grandmother and he finds himself exactly back where he started.

Yeah.

I mean, in fact, I didn't have any understanding that I was gay for most of my young life.

I was sort of pointed out as being different to the other boys around me because masculinity was expressed in a very narrow way.

You know, we were all sons of hardworking fathers who did very difficult, dangerous jobs.

And so men were meant to be a very

very specific sort of way, you know, very brave, very strong, hardworking, but also quite emotionally distant.

Because I think if you were going to start talking about your feelings, one of the very first feelings you would have is this job is dangerous and underpaid and I don't want to do it anymore.

And so as a way of sort of coping with whether it was coal mining or shipbuilding, men became quite cut off even to themselves.

And, you know, at five or six, I was quite an expressive young boy.

I had too much to say for myself.

I probably always have had.

And the other boys just sort of turned at me en masse and said, what is wrong with you?