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Rigby Taylor

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  1. Rigby Taylor

    Riviera

    Rigby Taylor posted new chapter in Dancing Bare

    In the days before credit cards and instant international money transfers, travellers used traveller’s cheques that had to be exchanged at a bank or major international hotel for local currency, using passport ID. Arrive in a country on weekends or after the banks closed and you could be penniless. Passports and money are a problem if you're on your own and want to swim. My tatty canvas duffel bag probably wouldn’t have been any sensible thief’s target, but to be on the safe side I left it i
  2. Rigby Taylor

    Cruising

    Rigby Taylor posted new chapter in Dancing Bare

    London was transformed! Summer’s tints and light-filled spaces had replaced wet, drab and cold. Streets had become leafy avenues and the sun shone through gaps in fluffy clouds. From the top of the bus, Hyde Park was a sea of green, the Victoria and Albert Museum peeped coyly through verdant foliage, and the Cromwell Road boasted overhanging boughs and dappled shade as we made our way to Earl’s Court, where, to celebrate my return to civilization I planned to take a room at the Overseas Visi
  3. Rigby Taylor
    There was no welcoming committee at the station and the town was not as I remembered. It was quieter, older, tattier, and less interesting. So was the theatre, where the doorman had no idea who I was, refused to let me in, told me to come back at one o’clock, and shut the door in my face. It was just after ten, so I shouldered my bag and legged it through streets lined with terrace-houses and cluttered with pallid, soccer-playing youths to Harry’s, where I’d get the welcome I deserved!
  4. Rigby Taylor
    Although I had no idea who I’d be working for or where I’d be performing that night, I trusted the Mays and wasn’t worried. As for Sean, despite spending five days with him, I had no idea what he would think about such things, so in an effort to discover more I told him I'd been asked to dance in a ‘g’-string for some wealthy people; what did he reckon? He chewed on his lip for a bit, then asked why I would do such a thing. “Thirty quid!” “You’d be selling your body. No better than a
  5. Rigby Taylor
    Very courageous and enlightened of you. I think it is a shame that single-sex swimming has been outlawed. It was an opportunity for father to bond with son without the all-seing eye of a monitoring mother. We used to go to the "Ward Baths" in Rotorua, wondrously hot pools designed like a Roman Bathhouse. It was one of the few times Dad and I relaxed together. If there was sex, I never noticed and neither did he.
  6. Rigby Taylor
    Packing and making a bundle of the things I couldn’t squeeze into my imitation leather holdall took four minutes. By nine o'clock the room was clean, my bag was in the Hockey’s spare room, and Sean [Mr. Hockey] was brewing tea. His wife had been up since dawn and after a quick peck on Sean’s cheek and a cautionary nod at me, she stumped up the stairs to the waiting taxi. Sean’s wheelchair didn’t confine him to the house, but bureaucracy confined him to the immediate neighbourhood. He could h
  7. Rigby Taylor
    While other passengers read or dozed, I clung white-knuckled to my seat as the train careered along none too even tracks at over a hundred miles an hour. Exhilarated at having broken my land-speed record I jogged to the centre of Colchester, rehearsing a speech that would convince any interviewer I was deadly serious about acting. Colchester was a large Roman garrison and is the oldest recorded English market town. Half-timbered houses, remains of walls and gates, a grim old castle, the rive
  8. Rigby Taylor
    It's not a rant, it's interesting and sensible. I agree with both your points. But are there any votes in it for politicians?
  9. Rigby Taylor
    Dearest Canuk. Without your wisdom over the last year or so, I'd be a sniveling wreck. You are correct, of course, my definition of self-confidence was flawed. Your sincere hope has been granted; I feel well and truly corrected and jubilant to know there is someone on the planet who has insights into my character. It has always been such a mystery to me.
  10. Rigby Taylor
    Live bands in a large cellar on Kings Road drew dancers with their excellent Rock ’n Roll and Twist. Dancing then was a social occasion as well as a meat market, because megawatts of amplification didn’t prohibit conversation and endanger hearing. I would arrive as the band was setting up and dance till midnight without stopping; often with Suzie who had three excellent attributes. She was slim and attractive, a natural dancer, and had a boyfriend who didn’t dance but sat at the bar and watc
  11. Rigby Taylor
    That's odd, I have never felt self confident about anything; in fact at the start of every new activity, from hanging a painting to restoring a run-down house, I'm riddled with doubt about my ability to make a go of it, so I just take a deep breath, dive in and simply do what seems the best thing to do at that moment. In an unplanned life, as mine has been, too much self confidence prevents reacting to circumstances and leads to bullish, uncompromising behaviour instead of openness to new ideas, possibilities & adventure. I think everyone makes their own luck to a certain extent. It all depends on how we react to others. Thanks for continuing to read and comment.
  12. Rigby Taylor
    By the time I arrived home I’d convinced myself I’d been lucky to have experienced a bit of the ‘low life’ one reads about; emerging unscathed – apart from a dose of well-deserved embarrassment. I hadn't lost any money – just performed for free. And it was rather funny – but not something I’d tell anyone. Best of all, it was clear from they way they ignored me at the end that the Boss had lost interest in me so I was perfectly safe. After a hot shower I slept like a log. On Sunday, a red hai
  13. Rigby Taylor
    Now, now, Okie, take a deep breath. I often think how lucky I was to be young when there was no internet, I could do those sorts of things without fear that someone has filmed it and posted it on some social media and ruined my reputation. Anonymity has always been my sanity/safety-net. Now that no one is anonymous anywhere/anytime, it's one reason I've become a semi recluse.
  14. Rigby Taylor
    Fears about Saturday’s show prompted a long walk to soothe the seething senses. I always think best when afoot, sometimes wandering blindly for hours as the little grey cells wrestle with disorganised thoughts. Plenty of men were photographic models – I'd been one myself; sitting in front of the fire with an ex Miss New Zealand on an IGA calendar; carrying another young woman over the threshold of a new house for a housing developer’s brochure and newspaper advertisements… but they weren’t l
  15. Rigby Taylor
    You are right, Canuk. I've never felt I 'missed out' on my youth, as several of my acquaintances seem to feel, especially after waiting until it was too late to go travelling. One of the rewards of being queer, I guess, not getting myself tied down to supporting a wife, mortgage and 2 kids. Yes, I'd never dare now do most of the things I did without thinking when young.
  16. Rigby Taylor
    Sunday was my birthday. A brisk walk in soft old desert boots because of budding corns on little toes, took me to Hyde Park Corner and Marlborough Arch, plonked like a gigantic 18th-century folly in its island of grass, then along Park Lane to where a crowd of goggle-eyed fame -watchers was standing opposite The Dorchester. A black Rolls rolled up and discharged a small woman who hurried straight into the foyer without a glance at the crowds. According to the woman next to me it was Elizabet
  17. Rigby Taylor
    Conceit, ignorance, and optimism are the main ingredients of youth. Without a fair dollop of all three I'd never have dared turn up in the largest city on earth, the centre of the English-speaking theatrical world, expecting to land a job as an actor. I was nervous, of course, but that added spice. An existence devoid of unease would be pretty dull. Even hunger triggers exhilaration. Ignorance – some would say stupidity – sometimes propelled me into situations that later, in the light of cal
  18. Rigby Taylor
    Thank you, Jeffrey. I'm pleased Rigby continues to please. Yes he was a bit silly--very silly according to many, but genuinely so, but he has avoided the nail-studded collar, while doing his best to follow Hippocrates' injunction to "At least do no harm."
  19. Rigby Taylor
    Bloody impertinent and stupid was the general consensus when I told the tale later. Jealousy, of course. But the 1960's were very different from 1980... then we were genuinely ignorant; by 1980 worldly wisdom and fearful caution were insinuating themselves into youthful minds. The world had turned out to be not what we had hoped.
  20. Rigby Taylor
    There was no time for sadness; I had about four hours of daylight to find digs. A nightly rate, even at the slum where we'd spent the night, was out of the question. Fortune favours the brave according to purveyors of proverbs, but it also favours the ignorant. Unaware of the accommodation shortage and the overcrowded hostels of work-seekers descending on the capital, I hoisted my bag onto a bus labelled Victoria. “Hold very tight, please!” called the conductor, “ting, ting,” went the bell a
  21. Rigby Taylor

    Escape

    Rigby Taylor commented on Rigby Taylor's story chapter in Escape

    Oooh, I like being compared to Eros [actually Anteros, the god of requited love, and punisher of those who reject love and the advances of others.] You're worse off than us, at least our air is smoke free at the moment. The hunky firemen are almost dead from exhaustion, apparently. They're the ones who should be receiving medals for bravery, not the guys who go to other countries to kill strangers.
  22. Rigby Taylor

    Escape

    Rigby Taylor commented on Rigby Taylor's story chapter in Escape

    Thanks, Okie. Especially for the handsome face...you have a vivid imagination.😀
  23. Rigby Taylor

    Escape

    Rigby Taylor posted new chapter in Dancing Bare

    An ocean liner is a small town replete with gossip, intrigues, and scandal, fuelled by enforced idleness. When these floating cities set sail from New Zealand for Europe, the nervous and somewhat prim young passengers wandered around an almost empty ship. On arrival in Sydney, hordes of noisily confident young men and women invaded the bars, saloons and decks, determined to remain in a drunken stupor for the entire voyage – spending more on booze than the fare. For a young male intent on
  24. Rigby Taylor
    Thanks... Yes... Adolescence... As Maurice Chevalier sang in GiGi in the early sixties... I'm so glad, that I'm not young any more.
  25. Rigby Taylor
    Thank you, Jeffrey. I hope you continue to enjoy Rigby's odyssey. I certainly enjoy your kind words.
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