Life After the Navy

Initially in the late 1980’s I was busy here improving my house. I was renting out rooms mostly to work colleages. I could now plan my holidays and took holiday out of the country at all opportunities. Social life here in Guildford was limited to a few nights out with work friends.
I made some use of the gay scene in London and went to saunas and bars/clubs occasionally.

Then in 1988 I met Adrian in the sauna in Streatham and I went back to visit him often, he was a nurse, we got on well. Next he moved into an empty room here at my place, we continued to get on well but he was clearly not someone I wanted a permanent relationship with. We went on a holiday to the States, hired a mobile home and travelled around from California to Texas for three weeks. This was enjoyable but Adrian just didn’t pull his weight as far as was needed to make the holiday happen. We also went to Amsterdam a couple of times. The relationship muddled along with me not wanting to throw him out but knowing I would never have a permanent relationship with him. We were more like housemates who had sex together.

Over the period of a couple of years, work colleages moved on and I didn’t refill the rooms. In 1991 Adrian suddenly didn’t come home.  Friends, work or parents didn’t know where he was. I was living here alone. After two months he suddenly turned up. He wouldn’t tell me what had happened but had clearly gone off with somebody else and it had not worked out. Obviously I would not have him back and I took him to the train station. A couple of weeks later he came back again late one night. I said he could stay the night but would have to move on the next day. He attacked me with a knife during the night; luckily I was not badly injured. I believe he had become schizophrenic. It was strange; when he came round he just could not understand or believe what he had done. I think I should have called the police or taken him to A&E. Anyway he agreed to get help and I took him to the station again.  Some years later I randomly met him at The Black Cap in Camden but, apart from a couple of christmas cards, there has never been contact again.

After Adrian’s departure I decided to get out on the gay scene a lot more. I joined some gay groups and clubs and got some new gay or gay friendly housemates into the house. There was a huge increase in my gay social life and a decrease in my work social events.

This continued for some years then in 1997 one of my gay housemates Nader fell in love with me. Although for many different reasons I felt similar to before in that I enjoyed our relationship but it wasn’t going to be right for me for the long term. I hoped we could solve the problems and make it work. We did work on making things right but the more problems we solved the more trivial things became a big problem. We had a holiday to Florida which was probably the highlight of the relationship. We decided to buy a house jointly which would give us space away from my other housemates. This was a solution to one of the big problems in our relationship. We moved into this house Sept 1999.  Again, one problem solved and more minor ones surfaced.

Also at this time the next door neighbours put their house on the market, I decided this was going to be a good investment and bought it to rent out. I got the keys January 2000. Only a couple of days later Nader in a state of stress and depression tipped paint brush cleaner over his clothes and set it alight. I managed to quickly put the flames out and saved him from serious burns but not without some injuries to myself. He had inhaled some of the flames and after four weeks in hospital he died due to lung injuries. With my mental and physical injuries and a police investigation, this put an end to my job.

I decided to leave getting another job for a while, get myself better and get the houses fixed up and occupied by tenants. A year or so later I decided the job could wait longer I was happy with the rental income from 12 bedrooms rented out and there was a lot more improvements I wanted to make. Now eight years later I’m still making improvements and will never be looking for a job.

I really enjoy living with my housemates here, it works out well.  I look forward to them coming home and I plan to carry on much as I am for 20+ more years. Beyond that, I have no idea what my long term future will be.

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