David is waiting for me in the back room of the Tap and Spile in Morpeth.
I squeeze by the locals to apologetically order a small orange and lemonade at the bar, then go to find him. We’re meeting to talk about being men and whether there’s such a thing as a male identity in the North East. David is a member of VoiceMale, an all-male folk choir.
He has, he tells me, been with it since the beginning, and seen it through thick and thin. Music has been important to him since he was a child, and groups like his – where men gather to sing songs that tell stories of where they’re from – are rooted in the heritage of the region.
A couple of years ago, though, the choir was down to just 10 members, and they could barely sing. Even if everyone was there, it was hard to get all the parts to work, and if a couple of people couldn’t make it, it didn’t work at all. To make matters worse, their musical director had just retired. As treasurer, David knew the choir had about six months left in the kitty.
It seemed a shame to let 20 years go to waste, so they agreed to hire a new director, a young folk musician named Jon, for a few months, and give it a go. David, meanwhile, took to Facebook with digital equivalents of Old Wild West ‘wanted’ posters.
“WANTED: SINGERS. Age: 18+. Height: Any. Eyes: Any. Hair: Optional. REWARD: Hearty singing in good company.”
He made it clear they weren’t after actual singers, just people who liked to sing. You needed no experience; there would be no auditions. It worked. From miles around, people started coming to their Wednesday night rehearsals.
What was interesting was they didn’t come in groups, or even pairs. They came one by one. Individual men, arriving alone seeking something they weren’t finding elsewhere.
They were looking for friendship, and a gentle camaraderie, and permission to be themselves around people who were doing the same. What if that thing we always thought of as a symbol of community – the male-voice choir – was actually always a symptom of loneliness? What if it was always about having a couple of hours a week with different people, doing something different?
Something artistic, something creative, being themselves in the permissive space of the group.
● In the middle of a noisy cafe, surrounded by people going about their day, John tells me his story. But he wasn’t always able to be so open.
When he was 16 years old, John had a crush on one of his friends, which made him realise he might be gay. Not that he said that out loud, not even to himself; the implications were just too big. He couldn’t think of one positive portrayal of a gay man: not at home, not at church, not on the news. It was too seismic a thing to think about.
Instead, he became good at avoiding discussions. No talk about his social life. No talk about girls. Nothing that might draw attention.
Growing up in Sunderland, it felt like everyone knew everyone else, and when the chance to get away to university came around, he took it. There, for the first time, he started to feel like himself.
At 19, he started coming out to close friends, beginning to draw together the two parts of his identity. Being away from home, away from the North East, meant he could be a little more open – but then university ended, and he went back to his parents.
Starting work, John was keenly aware that his personal life and his work life couldn’t meet, he didn’t want it getting back to his family, he didn’t want it public. The AIDS crisis was all over the news: that was the narrative.
There was a senior person at work, high in the department John was working in, who was gay, even if it was never spoken about. For John, the existence of that man meant it was possible at least to be gay and have a career.
When he was 26, John made himself a promise. He was going to get out there more; he was going to find a boyfriend. This was the early ‘90s, way before the internet, so there were only two ways he could do that.
One was to go out to the gay bars, and he wasn’t going to do that. The other was personal ads. He picked up the Pink Paper in the foyer of the Tyneside Cinema and replied to a few ads, met someone for a drink, then met them again, and again.
His boyfriend lived in Newcastle and had gay friends and, at a stroke, John was plugged into a whole world. A community.
● Joe’s knee is in a brace. He couldn’t bend to get his shoes on, so he is wearing a pair of sliders as he hops around on crutches.
It’s his first day back at work at the Newcastle United Foundation, and already people are giving him plenty of advice. When he’d done the same thing to his knee a few years ago, the only advice had been to man up and get on with it.
It’s different now, what with being surrounded by football coaches, physios and youth workers. He isn’t going to get away with not doing his rehab properly. It takes some getting used to, though.
Just a couple of years ago, he’d been bouncing from school to school, caught up in knife crime and drugs and whatever else. He’d finally left school for good at 16, not really sure where he was heading, two weeks before his daughter was born.
He stayed at home while her mum went to work. That didn’t go down well with the men in his life, who thought he ought to go and earn a wage.
Then he got a phone call from a lady at the council. She didn’t even give her name, but she asked if he’d be happy to be put forward for a Prince’s Trust programme. He met Owen, 23 or 24 years old and covered in tattoos, and in Owen he found a signpost for a path to follow.
Joe excelled on the programme, did everything that was asked of him, and helped others do the same, so much so that the Newcastle United Foundation offered him a job. Now, when he goes to work part-time, he gets to wear the club badge and represent Newcastle.
That Newcastle United badge is a shortcut to lots of things. Newcastle United matters. It’s an identity for a place and its people. The fortunes of the club inform the esteem of the city. Wearing that badge makes Joe’s family proud. It makes the kids in the sessions he runs pay attention to him.
And it reminds him he’s part of something bigger than himself. It’s given him strength, and confidence, and a pathway to a future he couldn’t have seen for himself before.
● North East Now is a series of essays commissioned by New Writing North with Redhills and UCL. Further pieces will feature in The Journal in the coming weeks