The contrast to Brighton – the UK’s gay capital – is Rochford, where I grew up and still live. It’s worked for me, but it hasn’t always been easy, says local councillor and property investor James Cottis
came out a couple of years later. It still felt like a taboo. I was petrified about coming out or even telling anyone I was gay.
Rochford, unsurprisingly for the straightest town in England, did not have any gay clubs – for that you had to go down the road to Southend or, as I preferred, to Heaven, the gay club in London. For me, like many other young people finding out about their sexuality, it became the place I could be who I really was. It felt as if I was living a double life – as a country boy in Rochford during the week, and a different person on a Saturday night in London.
Nobody treated me any differently, most local people either didn’t know or didn’t care. I was aware that I represented a number of older people, who may have had negative attitudes about LGBT people, and I had to tread carefully, but I never experienced any hostility in Rochford. I did, though, from my own party. I planned to stand for election again in 2014, but some localtook a dislike to me and tried to stop me standing.
There are other LGBT people in the town and surrounding area, and probably many more than the census revealed. Maybe the people who were marking the tick boxes felt they couldn’t be honest, even to themselves.
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