Christmas 2005 was soon upon us. Christmases in the army are magical; whether serving abroad or, like me, in the capital, everyone comes together and celebrates the end of a long and demanding year.
The ethos of community and camaraderie is heightened as the season’s festivities get into full swing. The regimental carol service usually signifies the start of this period and the troopers’ Christmas lunch follows, the only occasion in the calendar when troopers are waited on by the senior ranks, before the customary food fight between us and the Tins. The seniors are usually forced to abandon the service to avoid being hit in the head with a roast potato. Then it’s time for Christmas leave, with half of the regiment heading home and the other half covering duties – the palace still needs guarding over the Christmas holidays. Before New Year’s Eve, those who spend Christmas on leave come back to allow the others to head home for the rest of the festive season. The system works well. I used to opt for Christmas off, celebrating in Wales with my family, and then return to London to work over the New Year period, which always placed me in the capital for my birthday on New Year’s Day.
That year I spent New Year’s Eve in Trafalgar Square with my gay friends, having spent the previous two weeks on leave at home with my folks. I loved catching up with them all, but it was a million miles away from my life in the city and they still didn’t know about my sexuality. I couldn’t wait to get back to London on 27 December. How long would I keep this secret from them?
As soon as New Year was over and 2006 was underway, work returned to normal, as did my regular nights out. Life was exactly the same as it had been for the previous year, and it was starting to take its toll on me.
One night out, I remember talking to Stuart about the experience I’d had with Steven the previous year. I told him how excited I was to have an actual love interest and, as short a relationship as it was, I had felt better in those three weeks than I had ever done before. Stuart, who adored the gay scene and had quite a bit of experience, explained to me that going out and getting drunk and then ‘getting fucked’ wasn’t the be-all and end-all. As good as it was, there was more to life than just being a ‘slag’. He introduced me to an online dating site called Gaydar, where you could search online for the gay man of your choice, arrange a date and then take it from there. However, the truth was that most men on there were actually just looking for sex from the comfort of their living room instead of in a bar in Vauxhall. Still, I agreed to get on there and give it a go.
I didn’t own a computer back then, so Stu let me use his at his flat in London Bridge. I made a profile and uploaded some pictures to help persuade potential onlookers. Astonishingly, people sent me messages almost instantly. I was asked things like ‘Are you a top?’ or ‘Are you into BDSM?’ and once just the simple word ‘Piss?’
I had no idea what any of this meant and I’m very grateful to my pal Stuart for taking half an hour to explain fully what all these weird and wonderful expressions meant. There was suddenly a whole new world out there – and quite a scary one at that. In 2006, there was still a little bit of taboo surrounding online dating and meeting strangers off the web but as my life was risqué enough already, I didn’t really get too shocked by the things I became exposed to in this strange new technical world of hooking up with other men.
I used the internet terminal in the bar back at camp to keep up with my messages on Gaydar but two weeks into the experience, I hadn’t been asked out on a proper date once. This was most frustrating. After a quick initial exchange on the site, however, I had met the same guy three times in Finsbury Park for casual sex. I was joining in with the very thing I wasn’t looking for. I began to find it all a little too much.
One morning I woke early as always and a little hungover. As I scraped the slight stubble off my face with a razor, I noticed a strange sensation down below. Giving myself a quick scratch, I didn’t ponder over it; I was in a rush to get sorted for work. I jumped in the shower and, as usual, began to pee. Instantly I felt the same sensation, only this time it was a hundred times worse. I’d never experienced a pain like it in all my life. It was unbearable. There was something very wrong.
I dried myself, avoiding my groin as much as possible, got dressed and headed down to the stables. I couldn’t begin to imagine what was wrong with me. I’d never had any pain like that down there before in my life. What the hell was it?
Once at the stables I told my corporal of horse that I needed to see the doctor. He rang ahead to the medical centre and told them I’d be across shortly. Sitting in the waiting room, a number of fellow sick soldiers sat beside me, I glanced over the many leaflets that littered the tables and walls. My eyes kept automatically looking towards the harrowing pictures of ‘STIs’ and ‘sexual health’, and I began to wonder if my sudden pain during peeing was down to my sex life. Panicking, I thought of a million reasons why it couldn’t possibly be something like that but I was fooling myself. There was one clear reason why it could have been: I’d been so foolish in recent weeks. I’d been casually meeting more guys than ever and not paying any attention to my own well-being. My stupid behaviour had caught up with me.
It turned out that I was quite ill indeed. I had to go to a special hospital in Hammersmith and get treatment, along with a number of other tests, and was taken immediately by a driver from the barracks. Travelling to hospital, I wanted to call Mum and tell her that I wasn’t very well. Whenever I’d been ill in the past, Mum would look after me until I was better. But I knew I couldn’t call her. I knew that she’d ask too many questions. I hated myself for the situation I was in. I hated that I wasn’t able to pick up the phone and have an honest conversation with the one person in the world I should have been able to.
The doctor put me through a lot of very unpleasant tests to find out exactly what was wrong with me. It was an experience I didn’t want to go through again. My penis was in so much pain already, the things he stuck into me made the whole thing unimaginable.
‘Have you taken an HIV test recently?’ Recently? I’d never taken one in my entire life!
‘How many sexual partners have you had in the past six months?’ Dozens of different faces dashed through my mind. I lied and told him that there’d been only three.
‘Three in six months is an awful lot. You have to be more careful. You should have been tested.’
The doctor was doing a very good job of making me feel extremely bad about myself. Today, I’m thankful he did. I needed to be told. Something like this had needed to happen to make me understand what I was doing to myself.
I waited for the result of my HIV check fully hating myself and the lifestyle I had chosen to lead. I remember thinking that nobody had forced me into making the choices I had done. Nobody was encouraging me to hit the bottle as much as I did, then lose control and head home with strangers. Somewhere, I’d missed the stop sign. Waiting to find out if I was HIV-positive was the lowest point of my entire life. Nineteen years old. Was I about to find out I was dying?
The doctor opened a door and called me in. I braced myself. Inside his room a lady sat waiting on a chair. She shook my hand and introduced herself as a sexual health counsellor. I was sure I was about to receive some devastating news. My heart sank and I began to shake. Everyone was so serious.
‘Mr Wharton, you aren’t very well. You have gonorrhoea.’
Gonorrhoea? I had gonorrhoea! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I knew exactly what it was from the platoon sergeant’s sexual health lessons back in Harrogate. How could I be so careless?
‘We can treat you today. We can sort that out here, so don’t panic.’ I realised that he was building himself up to the main event. The HIV result. The woman kept looking at me and giving me sympathetic nods of reassurance. I considered walking out right then. I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to hear the news I was about to get.
‘We’ve tested your blood and the result has come back negative.’ For some strange reason, I took negative as something bad, as something negative in itself and gave a loud gasp. For a second I thought the doctor was telling me I was HIV-positive.
‘You’re extremely lucky. You have to be more careful. This lady is going to spend some time with you discussing your sexual behaviour.’
The doctor gave me an injection for my little problem and I spent the next hour with the sexual health counsellor discussing the stupid things I was doing and the risks I was putting myself in.
I left the hospital in a complete mess. I called the only person in the world I could be honest and talk the whole thing through with: Faulkner. Faulkner, like the counsellor, did an equally good job of underlining how idiotic I’d been. He told me that I had to protect myself and take care. He told me off like a father would. He’s always been effective at grounding people.
Following the health scare, I took a few weeks off my night-time antics. I concentrated on work more and simply returned to my room and watched movies in my spare time. The doctor had made it very clear that I wasn’t to have sex with anyone for a couple of weeks, which suited me as I was in no mood to jump straight back into bed with my old habits. I needed to process where I was in life. I was still a very unworldly nineteen-year-old, but I was sensible enough to know that I wouldn’t make it to twenty-one if I didn’t get my act together. It was an incredible contrast knowing that in one sense I was a complete failure in terms of my own personal development, but in another, in my professional manner, I was an extremely decent royal guard. Behind the breastplate and under the helmet I wore on a daily basis in the public eye, I was actually a complete disaster.
Addiction has an incredible hold on its sufferers. I thought I’d simply erase all the bad parts of my life and return to the old James, the James that didn’t need to head out on a nightly basis and drink himself into such a state he could barely string a sentence together. I found myself isolated: I had nobody to support me throughout this crucial stage. My friends, however brilliant, couldn’t sort my problems out for me. Neither Faulkner nor Stuart had the answers to my issues. Soon the inevitable occurred: I ventured back onto the scene and it welcomed me back with open arms.
Spring dawned and with it the start of the ‘silly season’ at the mounted regiment. As silly seasons go, 2006 was a pretty run-of-the-mill year in terms of how busy we were putting on escorts. I looked forward to the days getting longer. Heading to the stables at six o’clock every morning was depressing enough and the darkness made it a thousand times worse.
Everyone in the army has to use all of their annual leave by the end of every March or risk losing the days they haven’t spent. In Knightsbridge, the regiment simply had too many duties and responsibilities to keep, and not enough manpower to allow every man his full entitlement of annual leave. In 2006 we were very lucky to have at the top of our command a corporal major who had the balls to tell the regiment to get lost. All his men were getting their annual leave.
I went to work one Thursday morning (with a terrible hangover) and was informed straight away that I’d be going home on leave later that day, and not returning until my annual leave days were all spent. I had seven days remaining. This never happened. Men in Knightsbridge just weren’t handed seven days’ leave out of the blue. I cashed in one of my three free-rail warrants and rang ahead to Wrexham, exclaiming I’d be home by the end of the day.
Mid-morning, I popped into the bar and logged onto Gaydar. I had a mission. I wanted to see how many profiles there were registered in Wrexham. I had an idea there’d be about three. I didn’t know anyone from my hometown who was gay; nevertheless, I searched in the hope that I’d find someone who’d like to meet up and perhaps be up for a bit of a laugh while I was home in the local area.
The search returned an incredible eighty profiles. I couldn’t believe it. There were at least eighty gay men in Wrexham! I began to trawl through the profiles, spending a couple of judgemental seconds on each picture before clicking to the next. Amazingly, there was a lad on there who was in my year at school. I had no idea he was gay. I didn’t fancy him at all, but couldn’t help but send him a quick hello. He must have been very surprised to see a message from me.
Continuing the hunt, I eventually stumbled across a profile that immediately caught my attention: Thom from Wrexham, an eighteen-year-old hairdresser.
Considering the other profiles you’d find on Gaydar, this was like finding a diamond in a mountain of stone. He was so youthful and fresh looking, and looked like he was up for a drink and a dance, like I always was. It was nice to see a profile that had actually been put together with some thought. It wasn’t anything like mine; he’d actually taken the time to put some personal information down. He stated that he loved Kylie, had a passion for fashion and designer labels, and he loved his job as a trainee hairdresser in a salon in the town centre.
After drooling over his photos and fantasising about possibly meeting up with him, I sent him a message.
‘Hey, I’m a nineteen-year-old soldier heading to Wrexham for a week or so on leave. Do you fancy grabbing a drink or something?’
Admittedly, it was quite short and sweet, and I didn’t think for one moment that he’d even bother to respond, but I felt excited by the possibility. I logged off, returned to work for a final few hours, packed my bags and headed to Euston to catch my train home to North Wales. As the train pulled out of the noisy station, I couldn’t help but feel the grip of city life loosen from around my neck. I was heading home.
The place I’d longed to escape as a child now offered a degree of solace. London, which had promised so much freedom and joy, had in fact delivered nothing but addiction, pain and depression. The thin thread holding my head above water was getting very close to breaking point.