Good morning, boys and girls, and welcome to Marching Boys History 101. For those who are counting, this course is worth 0.5 credits, and is fully compatible with your other orientation classes.

Naturally you are all here out of a keen sense of academic curiosity in obscure backwaters of our cultural heritage rather than because you think it will be a bit of a doss, hmm? I thought so. It is only fair to warn you, however, that if you're looking to learn some tacky formation dances for nights out at The White Swan you should probably skip this whole semester and come back after Easter, when the practical sessions will begin.

[Drifts off into a reverie just long enough to be disquieting without actually causing students to run wild.]

Far back in the mists of ancient time, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and mobile phones were the size of a transit van, the fair city of London played host to an annual demonstration of homosexual solidarity that actually meant something to those involved, though whether there were any long-term repercussions is still a matter of some debate. This occasion was known as Gay Pride.

Excuse me? Yes indeed, my young friend, a distant relation of this event does exist today, but no, that vacuous piece of commercialized fluff is not what I'm talking about. You'll have to excuse me for pulling rank, but I am older, and not only do I have more insurance, I am also in a position to tell you that things were different then.

Perhaps as a consequence of its origins in the struggle for acceptance in a frankly hostile society (see me afterwards for references), Gay Pride was, though heartfelt and very much enjoyed by its participants, myself included -- yes, strange as it may seem, the staid, mortarboard-clad figure you see before you was also young once -- Gay Pride was, I'm afraid, a rather dreary occasion. Principles were affirmed, rights were proclaimed, but let's face it nobody really gave a flying toss one way or another -- yes, pipe down at the back there, I'm allowed to say "toss" now that you're out of short trousers -- and a lot of very well-meaning people schlepped around the backstreets of London without anyone taking very much notice. And it really was the backstreets: if you want a good laugh sometime, take a look at some of the routes the Metropolitan Police sent us down in those days.

In any case, as I'm sure I don't have to tell you wonderful, pampered whelps, this was not the way things were handled everywhere. Some countries, notably the United States, had been doing the whole gay thing a little longer than us, and doing it with considerably more vim and vigour, and were not willing to put up with this sort of nonsense. While others, for example -- and this is not an idle or random choice -- Australia, despite coming to the table rather late, took an altogether more hedonistic approach to the fight for political status, with the result that their protests, though at first fuelled by righteousness and brutally suppressed by the evil police state, soon became something more in the manner of a celebration, a carnival, a Mardi Gras; and, as time wore on, began to attract huge audiences and considerable tourist revenues.

By the early 1990s, Sydney's Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras had become an institution: loud, lurid, camp as a row of pink tents -- political, yes, there were plenty of issues to be angry about, but never to the detriment of public enjoyment. Make 'em laugh, make 'em smile, send 'em home humming a happy tune...

In 1991, the Sydney Mardi Gras, by then a substantial corporation, created and funded (among other things) a parade float called the Marching Boys, a campy parody of the Drum Majorettes that appear in parades the world over. This phalanx of men in white underwear, spangles, sashes and tall hats performed a simple, repeating, pom-pom twirling dance routine throughout the length of the parade -- to rapturous applause. One of their number was a very charming man by the name of Neil Fitzgerald, a pillar of the Sydney gay community who has surely by now earned the respectful appellation "old queen".

At this same time, a young man of homosexual persuasion, who had lived for a while in that far city of night-time parades and sybaritic polity, was reacting to his return to harsh, dreary, Protestant London by involving himself in radical queer politics. From turning himself in to the police as an averred sex criminal to handing out condoms in the early hours of the morning at the notorious cruising grounds on Hampstead Heath, he embraced aggressive, improving, direct action as a substitute for the simple wallow of pleasure in its own right that had characterized life Down Under. Getting in there and doing things to piss people off -- yes, calm down, I can even say "piss off" to students at your level, god only knows how you ever made the grade in the first place -- seemed a lovely, necessary thing to do. Make them face those fears, terrify them until they see there's nothing scary about us after all...

In 1992, this young man -- who, boys and girls, will remain nameless for the moment in a desperate attempt to retain some shred of objective credibility in this lecture -- went to Sydney, in blatant contravention of the terms of his Science and Engineering Research Council grant, for a brief Mardi Gras holiday. Yes, as it turns out, it is possible to wilfully miss a couple of weeks' lectures and still get through your courses with distinction, but please don't count on it -- and I'm thinking especially of you, Roberts, and you Ellingsworth, when I say that. No, I don't mean anything in particular by that remark. You must draw your own conclusions.

In any case, this young man went to Sydney and was hosted by the aforementioned Mr Fitzgerald, one of the Drum Majorettes of the previous year. The first Marching Boys outing had been such a great success that a new and bigger incarnation was planned, and all previous Marching Boys were invited to return. Alas, Mr Fitzgerald had already committed to participate in another float, an anti-racist effort in which he was to be the pot calling the kettle black. Ah yes, I think you perceive, my attentive and most beloved students, where this is leading. Come the first night of rehearsals, a mere five days before the parade -- these Australians are known for their reckless ways -- a substitute rolls up at the Royal Hall of Industries to take Mr Fitzgerald's place, and that substitute is, of course, our visitor from the benighted North.

Five evenings of intensive drilling later, our protagonist dons skimpy shorts and helmet to portray, in oh so limited a fashion, a Village People construction worker; twirls his pompoms from Elizabeth Street to the RAS Showgrounds; and emerges rapturously exhilarated, eyes opened to the redemptive power of making a spectacle of oneself in front of hundreds of thousands of people.

And then, home.

No, Harris, not you, we've still got a few minutes left.

London in March, and the return to humdrum normality after an impromptu visit to the lotus-eating tropics, can be pretty dispiriting, but on this occasion the blow was cushioned by a new-found missionary zeal. After all, if they can do that sort of thing in Sydney, why couldn't we do something similar here? Admittedly, Pride and Mardi Gras were -- and remain -- completely different kinds of events, but surely at least a bit of fun and sparkle could be infused into the UK proceedings?

And on that basis this chap set out to recruit as many people as he could to dance in the London Pride march. See, for example, the following Usenet post:

which, perhaps surprisingly, managed to net a couple of visiting Americans.

One of the relatively early recruits was Neal Cavalier-Smith, then Managing Director of UK gay softcore publishers Prowler Press, who not only recruited all his friends but also provided a small amount of sponsorship for the group and constructed the truly Heath Robinson collage of wired-together ghetto blasters that would provide the music.

Rehearsals started the weekend before the march, mostly conducted in Highbury Fields, to the bemusement of local park-goers. The Drill Hall Arts Centre provided a studio for a long final rehearsal the night before. There was only a single, repetitive dance routine, with choreography rather derivative of that in Sydney, though with the addition of a small amount of partner work.

The whole thing went off pretty much without a hitch. Passers-by, march stewards and the police were slightly baffled but entertained, and all the boys had a whale of a time. And thus was an institution -- albeit a rather haphazard and not very well known one -- born.

Goodness, is that the time? Alright, students, we'll resume this next time. For homework, watch any episode of Have I Got News For You from a week when gay issues were making headlines. Any questions, see me outside or leave a message in my pigeonhole.