'I and most of the homosexuals whom I knew best wanted 'something in a uniform'.... When I was young the word 'soldier' meant one of the red-coated guardsmen who strutted up and down Knightsbridge in the evenings. These men were willing to go for 'a walk in the park' for as little as half-a-crown...'

The Naked Civil Servant by Quentin Crisp

J R Ackerley, author of We Think the World of You, and long-time friend of E M Forster, was an authority on Guardsmen. According to Ackerley's biographer, Peter Parker, nothing was more admired amongst Ackerley's friends than 'the scarlet jackets and gold epaulettes of His Majesty's Brigade of Guards... The guardsmen... in a time-honoured tradition combined ceremonial duties and casual prostitution... it appears that young recruits were frequently "broken in" by their elders when they joined the colours'.

Guardsmen in the last century were keenly aware of the fascination for, as Wilde so eloquently put it, 'feasting with panthers' and there have always been those who have been ready and willing to exploit this particular peccadillo. Molly houses, or homosexual brothels, had been a feature of London's queer underworld since the eighteenth century. One infamous house of ill repute was, run by a Mrs Truman, next to Albany barracks, situated between Regents Park and Euston Station.

For those who were ill at reason in such establishments, there were other venues for those who were lured by the sight of a scarlet tunic. As Simon Raven explains in his revealing (for its time) article, 'The Male Prostitute in London', first published by Encounter magazine in 1960:

'.... He was told to try several pubs in Kensington and the West End, and if still unsuccessful at closing time to take up a stance in the region of Gloucester Gardens.'

Such assignations could be costly and not just in monetary terms.

Ian Harvey, a Conservative M.P. and rising star at the Foreign Office, was caught with a guardsman in Hyde Park in November 1958. He had to resign his seat in the Commons, bringing his burgeoning political career to an end. For others, the threat of physical assault was more likely, as it still is today, and one had to be careful.

Off-duty guardsmen prowled Hyde Park, a major cruising area, robbing punters, often beating them up in the process. A regular feature of business at magistrates' courts in the West End was due to these violent robberies.

Prostitutes congregated at the all-night coffee stalls near Marble Arch but keeping to different parts of the park, guarding any encroachment upon their territory with the same ferocity that the nation might exhibit in battle. Removing the soldier from his uniform was one thing but it was another to tame the fighting man wearing it.

Reginald Jacobs, a twenty-one year old ex-Grenadier Guardsman was found dead in July 1936 in the London flat of Colonel Munro Cuthbertson, a member of the Consular Service at Cairo. The father of the dead man explained to a reporter:

'My son was expelled from the Army for his association with Col Munro Cuthbertson.... Ultimately I forced him out of the house.... He was not fit to associate with his brothers and sister.'

The threat of blackmail was always there, until the partial decriminalisation of the Labouchere Amendment in 1967. Some guardsmen, however, sought out rich patrons to buy them out of the Army. These relationships could last for years, but others ended more swiftly as the young man's looks, and the novelty, faded.

© Howard Watson 2009