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    Filling in the Gaps: My Hi-de-High Life - The Sequel
    Filling in the Gaps: My Hi-de-High Life - The Sequel
    Filling in the Gaps: My Hi-de-High Life - The Sequel
    Ebook120 pages1 hour

    Filling in the Gaps: My Hi-de-High Life - The Sequel

    By Peter Keogh

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    About this ebook

    Filling in the Gaps follows on from Peter Keogh’s acclaimed and popular autobiography My Hi-de-Highlife: Before, During and After Su Pollard. This exciting sequel explores aspects of Peter’s life that were left out of his autobiography, including how a gay boy raised on a farm, and in spite of abuse both physical and emotional, was finally able to come out as a homosexual man. This book is at times comical, sexual and heartbreaking and provides further insight into Peter’s relationships with people like Debbie Reynolds, Australian producer John Frost and a distasteful encounter with a famous English MP. The book also reveals more of Peter’s life with the stars, his well-publicised trial in London and his relationship with his partner of 25 years, Sacha. Peter’s life has been a complex mix of highs and lows and his experiences have ranged from hilarious to terrifying. Filling in the Gap details how, against difficult odds, Peter has managed to survive to be the man he is today and will inspire people of all ages, gay or straight, to realise that there is light at the end of every dark tunnel.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherApex Publishing Limited
    Release dateSep 4, 2015
    ISBN9780993263002
    Filling in the Gaps: My Hi-de-High Life - The Sequel

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      Book preview

      Filling in the Gaps - Peter Keogh

      Australia.

      Discovering Dad

      They say that if one writes a book the next one is always much harder, so I pursue this with trepidation but inspired by the comments of so many who have asked me to Fill in the Gaps!

      Before I continue the next part of my journey, I would like to share with you something that only came to light very recently. My dear mum has been quite unwell and she gave me a large bundle of typed notes that my late dad had written during and just before the war when he was engaged to Mum. Included in those notes was one page written in 1951 by Harry Impson, who it appears, served with Dad overseas during World War Two. I was six years old at the time and the note, in which I am mentioned by name, was sent to Dad to give to me when I was older. In fact, to me now he is quite the hero and I realise how lucky I was to have him as a dad. Hopefully, it also gives you, the reader, a fairer picture of the man I have written about but without much clarity of him as a ‘man’, apart from being a distant parent.

      Dated July 15th 1951

      From W. X Cpl. Impson 3568 ‘B’ Coy 2/16th Battalion. ABROAD

      "This letter will occasion you some surprise but I thought you would be interested to hear about ‘Doug’ from one who has been with him all the time.

      In Syria Doug received his baptism of fire in a heavy engagement involving the crossing of the Litani River under heavy fire and capturing dominating ridges that were stubbornly defended. He did a splendid job as we lost our platoon commander (wounded) and I had to act as sergeant, Doug led the section, and led it well through many bitter scrapes, not bad for the youngest in the section was it?

      The action in which Doug was wounded involved the capture of Sidon along the coast of Tyre (memories of Biblical history). We advanced across open country for about three miles and were within half a mile of Sidon when the enemy counter attacked with tanks and with one tank at very close hand. Most of the group with me were killed and Doug wounded.

      That should have been enough to give any boy the jitters but Doug carried on for an hour or so after he was hit! The wound has healed well and he is working in the orderly room here at the hospital.

      I will miss him very much when I leave here, for at any age it is stimulating to have as a companion such a clean living lad, whose strong faith guides his actions!"

      I find the above letter quite sad now because he was obviously an exceptional man and I miss him as I write this more than any other time since his death in 1999.

      Mum also gave me a sort of diary he had written about the pleasure he had travelling throughout Western Australia with Mum and especially his brother Len and his family. I will try to collate his writings soon. They are a total joy and were a revelation to me. In my earlier book, and later on in this one, you will note that Dad and I had some major issues with regard to closeness, for various reasons. I cannot tell you how much I wish I knew the man represented in his writings. I never heard him say ‘I love you’ to anyone, and how I yearned to hear those words. Mum too probably! However, in his writings a side of Dad I never dreamed existed touched me deeply - his love of his family, his fiancée at the time (my mum) and his respect for and caring of his fellow soldiers. Plus his wonderful sense of humour! Following are a few quotes from his diary about travelling from Fremantle to fight overseas that made me see him through newer and clearer eyes. The photo below is of his regiment, most of who were killed and were mentioned in the letter above. Dad is in white shorts, second from the left.

      On learning he was about to be shipped overseas:

      "The thought of having to leave all that was dear to me was not very pleasant, but this was offset by the thought that we all had a job to do and it was my job as much as anyone else’s."

      As the ship left Fremantle wharf I climbed up the rigging and had a very good vantage point to see all that was going on. I felt that I wanted to be alone to sort my thoughts. A feeling which was foreign had come over me and left an ache in my heart. Where was Nita (my mother) - would she be true to me, would she miss me, and a thousand other thoughts flashed through my mind!

      This was written about his ship coming into Aden:

      The journey had an exciting incident as we were bombed by the Italians who occupied Eritrea only a few miles away! When the sirens sounded we were herded below much to our disgust as we wanted to see what was going on. Fortunately for us all of the bombs fell wide. I spent the majority of the time writing letters although I knew they would not be posted before we arrived at our destination but I had made a promise that I would write every week and I intended to keep it while I could.

      For me the letters were a goldmine of information about a man I really wanted to know more about. Now reading the letters I believe that we were both actually quite alike and could have been great friends as well as father and son. It makes me feel rather sad but also warmed by the gift of his writings. Perhaps a little of his writing talents may have rubbed off on me after all!

      As you continue to read you will note that sex seems to raise its head a great deal in my writings, hopefully in most cases with a hint of humour. Looking back, I realise now that the reason it does so is that I seemed to use it as a sort of currency to obtain the affection I yearned for - if someone wanted me sexually I felt I was accepted and needed, whereas more often than not all the person wanted was sex. For me the hook with a partner was huge once a relationship was consummated. I guess because of my inability to communicate satisfactorily in any other way - having such a bad stammer and absolutely no confidence in any aspect of myself - sex was my only way of making contact. And because I was cute looking there was never any lack of people wanting to have sex with me, but few wanted to stay very long afterwards!

      Growing up on a farming property I was surrounded by a large family who, whilst close, had no sense of how important it was to supply a needy child with the physical affection that I in particular craved. The Keogh family were a strong unit but it was very much a family where the male was the master of his domain and all that came with it. I also knew that I was quite different to my cousins who, whenever we had a family function, would play all the manly pursuits that were totally foreign to me. I would seek out my female cousins and thoroughly enjoy their company much more than kicking a football, or each other! Even the adults were often aggressive towards one another, which terrified me. In those days, women and children were not allowed into public bars and I can recall sitting in our car outside the Mt. Barker Hotel with my younger sister Jenny and watching horrified as two uncles thrashed the living daylights out of each other, starting in the bar and ending up on the footpath. It also instilled in me an almost total hatred of drunken people that is still with me today, but to a lesser degree. I think it is the aggression that alcohol seems to trigger that I recoil from. Even the smell of beer on a person’s breath in those days would turn my stomach. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I found I could tolerate alcohol but being unskilled in the mature manner of drinking alcohol I would drink liqueurs as if they were a milkshake. As a result, after one drink I would often be under the table and after two I would sometimes be under the host!

      My parents were actually quite nurturing of my sister and me but were limited by their own childhood experiences. I’m sure that when I was born they had high expectations for their first born but after I wore my aunt’s brassiere to school as a five-year-old those expectations were lowered considerably! I often felt that I

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