Not Straight Forward

This is a disarmingly candid portrayal of a vulnerable Englishman, a homosexual Roman Catholic Priest and a Jungian analyst who wonders if his life is a complete failure.

Although he loved several times, he had two big loves. The first was his mother, and the other was Werner.

His mother moved in elite circles. As a child she was the playmate of the future Queen of Spain, her godmother was Princess Beatrice, the youngest child of Queen Victoria. But her world of royal connections was not that of his father’s and the marriage was rocky from the start.

Peter’s memories are littered with recognisable names. His father owned the renowned business of Astley s pipes in London’s smart Jermyn Street where Marlene Dietrich purchased her cigarette holders. He met Placido Domingo, Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore, Peggy Guggenheim – who tried to seduce him – and Harry Cipriani who tried to seduce his mother.

Peter is a highly intelligent man of letters and literary insights, but his life has been beset by emotional turmoil. He was an over enthusiastic Catholic convert and he rushed to confession incessantly. It was hardly surprising he joined the priesthood – and hardly surprising that he left it.

Peter still tries to be a good Catholic, but was a feminine gay who struggled to contain his sexual desires at the Brompton Oratory in London where he was often vaguely in love with some fellow priest. After the Oratory he went to the Jung institute in Zurich where he plunged into a language of dreams, of blinding lights and hallucinations of spiders, where he read and painted where he clung to his little dog as his best friend and he was lonely and marked out as different. Until, at last, aged 50, he met Werner. But much to the dismay of Werner's sister...