Rex's RADA days and Howard Keel's codpiece are fondly recalled in this amusing extract, which also features Britain's first film to tackle a homosexual subject.

In this extract, Rex looks back on the books, plays and films that fascinated him in the pre-legalisation era. Remembering the glamour of American films, he recalls the musical 'Kiss Me Kate, which featured the actor-singer, Howard Keel, wearing tights and a large codpiece. Rex also knew that the theatre had its fair share of gays, and he spent three years studying elocution at RADA. Among his classmates were Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell.

Rex recalls that 'Victim', starring Dirk Bogarde, was the first British film to feature gay content and much of it was filmed at a pub called 'The Salisbury' in St Martin's Lane. Rex is thankful for the bravery of 'Victim' as it raised the issue of blackmail. Rex's partner, John, worked at J. Sainsbury's, as did Rex at one time, and knew a married man there who was being blackmailed. The man's managers, checking the 'claims', went one evening to the White Bear pub in Soho, which they said was 'full of queers'. Luckily, their employee had just left the venue. In an ironic twist, Rex mentions that Sainsbury's recently gave a large party for its gay staff in Old Compton Street.

Recalling his RADA friends, Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, Rex says that he liked Kenneth a lot but Joe pushed him too far and didn't give him much credit for inspiring Orton's work. Rex lost contact with both Orton and Halliwell long before they became famous

Teacher, actor, author and tour-guide, Rex was born in 1928, in Dorset. His father was a village butcher, and his mother was a housewife. Having his first homosexual experience when he was nine or ten, Rex went to school in the sea-side town of Weymouth, where he had several more encounters with sailors and men in public lavatories.

Aged 19, Rex began a relationship with an older man, a debonair and cultivated ex-officer, who was part of the 1930s 'country house set', and who also introduced him to the word 'homosexual'. On moving to London, Rex lived with a new partner, John. Meanwhile, the well-set 'country gentleman', back in Dorset was arrested and later convicted for 'corrupting young men'. Rex was also drawn into the police investigation but escaped their close attention.

Rex attended RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, along with John (later Joe) Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, both of whom he knew and liked, though he lost touch with the pair before they became famous (Orton was later murdered by his lover, Halliwell, in 1967). Rex had a few bit-parts in films and worked as a freelance writer for BBC Radio, though for most of his life, he was a teacher His partner John worked for J. Sainsbury's, as did Rex for a short while, though John stayed on at the company.

Rex penned an autobiographically based novel called 'Rid England of this Plague', the title of which is a quote from a 1953 statement from the then Home Secretary, David Maxwell Fyfe, who promised to eradicate homosexuality from Britain. In his later years, Rex was involved with the 'Friends of Nunhead Cemetery' conservation group, becoming a committee member and the author of many of their publications. Rex died in 2017.