When we first moved to Preston we went to Chris's chairman's house for drinks one evening. He lives in a lovely house overlooking Stanley Park in Blackpool. As we were leaving one of his neighbours was shouting coo-ee and doing high kicks in the front garden. Turns out that this bloke was otherwise known as Betty Legs Diamond and was the headline act at Funny Girls in Blackpool. Chris's chairman tried to reciprocate and made a valiant effort to high kick back at him but when you're in your mid sixties and you've had half a bottle of red wine this can appear quite graceless. Betty put me in mind of a transvestite I met two August bank holiday's ago called Samantha from Burnley. Samantha from Burnley was a bus driver during the week and came down to Manchester at weekends to get all trashed up and drink pints of bitter.
I love trannies - not drag queens, just trannies - especially the ones who look like they've just come off the building site and put a frock on for the night. The librarian ones you see standing quietly in the corner on a Wednesday night on canal street talking to the teacher ones - all tweed skirts and cheap pearls. The cocky ones who've gone a shade mad with their human hair wigs and plumped for a shade of maroon that will show off their glittering cleavage enhancer and the married ones who are out for the night with their ever so understanding wives.
I can't imagine wanting to dress up like that - either as a lifestyle thing like a transvestite or as an entertainment thing like a drag queen. I did once wear a skirt on my head though when I was five years old.
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