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Conversion therapy I knew nothing about. Every hour I was getting the injection, I had nothing left to bring up. I was absolutely incensed with anger. I cannot tell you how horrendously angry I was.
This is the national health executive podcast bringing you views, insight and conversation presented by Louis Morris.
And hello, everyone, and welcome back to the National Health Executive podcast. Today I'm very pleased to welcome well known and some might say internationally acclaimed broadcaster and journalist, Mister M. Pete Price. First of all, Pete, how are you this morning?
I'm very well indeed. I'm, thrilled to be interviewed by you, for this podcast. I'm delighted, I haven't talked about this subject for many, many years. It's a difficult subject to talk about. You're going to tell everybody what it is in a minute, but I'm just going to, you know, tease them now by saying it is a difficult one. something happened to me when I was younger, so, yes, I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for asking me. And let's do it.
It might be worth addressing right from the get go that, Pete, you aren't one of our usual podcast guests and a very good reason for that, as you've alluded to the last week, we had on, of course, Sue Holden, who's CEO at Aqua. But as you've mentioned, you've had a. And I've, to be honest, I've been trying to figure out the words to describe the story that I've heard, just little bits of. so honestly, I think it might just be worth coming from your own mouth, what your story is in relation to aversion therapy. And firstly, can you describe the difference, if you don't mind, between aversion therapy and conversion therapy?
Right, well, let's start with that, which is a great question. First of all, conversion therapy I knew nothing about, and it's reared its ugly head a few times I've been on television and talked about it. It is where they immerse in trying to stop you being a, homosexual. And let's face it, the word homosexual was the word. The word gay didn't exist in those days from me, which I'll tell you about in a minute. So conversion therapy is when they brainwash you. Aversion. Ah, therapy is what they did to me. So that's what we're going to be talking about. But there is a difference. So let me tell you again, conversion and aversion. I'm a 78 year old Mandev, I'm in show business. I've been in the business now for 50 years, a broadcaster, comedian, panto, dame, everything. Growing up was, very difficult for me, because at the age of twelve, I discovered I was a homosexual and didn't understand it, didn't know what it was about. All I knew was that my pals were all going out with girls and I wasn't. And I wasn't attracted to girls, but I went out with girls. So I fought my sexuality. Growing up, I fought my sexuality, because in those days, I was a criminal. It was against the law to be a homosexual. And we were taught that there were bad people and it was a wicked world to be in. And the most dreadful thing said about people who are just being themselves. So it was a very hard situation for me to deal with. And because I wanted to be in show business, that would help me, because I could be flamboyant and get away with who I was. So at the age of 14, I went to the doctors and said to the doctor that I'm a homosexual. And he laughed in my face. He said, go away, go away. Grow up. You'll grow out of it. And it was weird. And I don't know where I got the strength from to even say it to somebody, because the idea of speaking to somebody about it is abhorrent. A year later, I went back and I said, it's not changed. I still am a homosexual. To which the doctor, doctor Lansley, who's no longer with us, prescribed me valium. And, for some reason or other, I put them down the toilet. If I hadn't put them down the toilet, I might have been here today. I might have been, oh, God knows where I would be. But he prescribed Valium to cure me of being a homosexual. I lived my life. I had a girlfriend, I was engaged. I did everything that normal people, normal inverted commas, normal people did to fight who I was. And, then I was working in nightclubs. I had a lovely boss who was tremendous, who, was very kind to me. They realised who I was. And I would work in Liverpool in show business, but I'd go to London where I could be myself. And I always remember the first time I went to London. It was twelve and six in old money. Anybody listening now, twelve and six in old money. It's about 75 pence that was returned to London. I got off the train at Euston station. I put my coat on my shoulders, I got a cigarette holder out, and I minced down the platform. I was camp. I was. I could be who I was anyway. A lot of things happened. One day, my mum found a letter. She wasn't a nosy woman. It fell out. And I kept this letter and it was a stupid letter. Something like, if you marry John, I'll kill myself, David. It was a stupid letter. And I came home from work one night. It was 02:00 in the morning. I was working a nightclub called the Cabin Club. My mum was in bed. She looked dreadful. She had the letter in her hand. She said, what does this mean? I said, well, I'm a homosexual. to which she vomited everywhere. She loved me, but she couldn't control or understand what was going on. she had a breakdown. Then a long story. We worked through that together and we found out there was a cure for being gay. So that is the background of going up to the story. I then went to the doctor with my mother, said, I'm a homosexual and I believe there's a cure. And he said, yes, there is. So that was it. It was set in stone. I would go into hospital to be cured. But it wasn't a hospital, it was a mental institute. A loony bin, because that's what it was called in those days. And it was a place called Diva, not far from where I live, up the road from Chester Zoo. It was a dreadful place. Everybody used to talk about the basket cases in there and something that stayed with me when I went in. I'll never forget it as long as I live. A girl of 28 who had been in there for twelve years because she had a baby out of wedlock, she was put into a mental institute because she had a baby out of wedlock. So they put me in to this mental institute with a false name because I was a criminal. So I couldn't go in as a homosexual with my name. So I went up there, said goodbye to my mum, told nobody, was worried sick, was really worried. And for two days, two or three days, I mixed with basket cases where I was asleep in bed and people were breathing down my ear. I was absolutely petrified. I was 18, going on for 19 years old. I didn't know what the hell was going on in my world. And then I met the psychiatrist. and then he told me what was going to happen. So there's the buildup to what happened. Now I've then got the treatment. So picture this. I have a meeting with the psychiatrist. He's got a grundy tape recorder, which is an old fashioned reel to reel tape recorder. Always remember it. And he recorded on the tape for an hour what you did sexually. But he put it in graphic, graphic terms to make it sound repulsive, to make it sound vile. Everything. To take all the love and emotion of a relationship took everything out of it, stripped it bare. Stripped it bare. It was vile. Vile. So that was an hour. Then they put me in a room with a male nurse, young guy like yourself, sitting there to look after me in case anything happened to me. So I was in a bed and I always remember I was in red pyjamas. Red pyjamas in a bed. So I've got the tape. Then they gave me some books that were. They called dirty books. It was photos of men in bathing costumes. There was nothing sexual about them, just guys in bathing costumes. And they asked me what I drank. And in those days, I drank Guinness. So there's cases of Guinness in the room, books to look at and an hour of tape. So there you are in the bed, listening to the tape with the graphic expressions, looking at men's bodies and also drinking. That lasted an hour. Halfway through the hour, they injected me. Now, I did know what it was, but I don't now because I've wiped it out. It's gone from my memory forever. So they gave me an injection which made me physically very, very ill. To which I then said to the male nurse, can I go to the toilet? He went, no, just go in the bed. So I am now, lying in my own excrement, vomit all down me. And that lasted an hour and an hour and an hour with no food, no drink, no water, no nothing. I had nothing left. Every hour I was getting the injection, I had nothing left to bring up. I had nothing left to lay out of my bowels. I was in a dreadful state. And for 76 hours I lay in that bed with a male nurse who was incredibly distressed at what's going on. I then said, I need to be released from this hospital. He said, right, well, we'll use the electrodes on your penis first. And I said, what does that do? He said, if you get sexually aroused, electric shock will go through your body, through your penis, which will put you off. Mendez. I've laid for 76 hours in puke and excrement. The last thing on, God's earth I am going to do is get sexually aroused by anybody or anything. I fought it and fought it. They tried to put the electrodes on me. The nurse was getting a little bit violent, but not because he was embarrassed by it all. Eventually, I got out of hospital. I went, home. I got a lift home from a mate of mine, my mother, was away. I lay in the bath for about 8 hours. I scrubbed my skin till it was raw. I was in a dreadful state. I then woke up two days later and my mum came back. I can't tell you how upset I was. She was upset because I told her honestly that I hadn't finished the treatment and she couldn't forgive me for that. She loved me. She loved me uncontrollably, but couldn't forgive me for that. Having said that, if I'd have told her what they'd have done to me, I think she would have committed suicide. I think if she knew until the day she died, which was a few years ago, she never, ever knew. The end of my story is horrendous. About two months later, I was in a gay club in Manchester. There was very few gay clubs and there was a man standing at the bar. And I'm not a violent person, but I physically attacked him. I was absolutely incensed with anger. I cannot tell you how horrendously angry I was. The doorman got me off. As I say, I'm not a violent person. They got very bit abusive with me, took me to one side. I then told them who it was and guess what? It was the psychiatrist. So the man that put me through that torture, that man was gay. So whether he was getting his rocks off watching me being punished, or whether he was torturing people to see if it worked so he could have it done to him, I never knew. From that day onwards, I then decided I would never, ever, ever talk about it and I would be who I am. that was the treatment and I didn't talk about it for years. That's it in a nutshell. But what I can't put in my conversation, it's the smells, the violence, the filth, the dirt, which I still have nightmares about all these years later.
And can I just double cheque, Pete? Did this happen in 1964, I believe, if that's correct, I'm not very good on dates.
I'm a 78 year old man now, so I was 18 going on for 19. So it would be roughly them that would have been.
That would have taken it three years prior to the decriminalisation of homosexuality, I believe.
Yes, indeed it did.
I don't know if you remembered, was there a change in attitudes after that? I believe it was the sexual Offences act at that point.
Not at all. Not at all. And there is still no change. Homophobia is alive and well, make no mistake about that. It's changed in the respect that, it's grown over the years. But when it happened, it didn't, a few gay people were, because, don't forget to. People wouldn't come out. The blackmail, the queer bashers, the people that committed suicide because they couldn't fight their sexuality because of the public. So, no, when it came out as legal, a handful of people were ecstatic. Everybody else went, yeah, this is going to take a while. By the way, here's a story that came out later. I went out publicly. I, remember a case, that was on television, and it was five, people that were in the forces, three men and two women. And they went to the court of human rights because they tried to get rid of them out of the forces, and they couldn't. I then saw in the paper that one of them said, by the way, they won the case and, ah, they were allowed to stay the forces. One of them said, I was offered aversion therapy, and that opened a wound that I didn't even know was existing, didn't even know was happening after that, that's when I went public and I went to a friend of mine, a journalist, to work for the Independent, and I told him a story. He laughed in my face. He laughed in my face and then started to take me serious. When we started to investigate, every door was closed. The hospital where I went, which was missing, hot's, part of diva, they've all been pulled down. Every door was closed. Long story short, we opened the doors and the story was told. After the story was told, a lovely man called Roger, a few years later, stopped me in the street in Liverpool and said, can I talk to you? Lovely man. Gay Mandeh. Lovely man. And it turns out he wasn't my nurse, but he was a nurse. He sat in the room with people who were being converted from gay to straight. He was a nurse. But what the point he made was, he said, there were so many nurses like him, but we were living in fear because we were gay, working for the NHS. We didn't want to be found out, but we watched you being tortured and it could be us. He apologised to me publicly and in fact, I wrote about it in one of my columns. So that was incredible. And to think, never thought for 1 minute that the young man sitting, watching me being tortured for 76 hours, sitting in that stench in that room, might have been gay. Wow.
That was actually going to be. My next question is, as you mentioned, the psychiatrist that you met in Manchester, obviously this Mandev, has there been anybody else that has reached out to you apologised, I mean, I presume the, I guess, outcry after this story came out in public, I believe it was the 1990s, was it?
The only person that spoke to me about it was Peter, ah, Tatchell. And Peter Tatchell thought that I should sue, the NHS. And I didn't want to do that, because the awful thing is, when the NHS was doing that, they probably thought that was right, so why sue them? They've got enough problems in NHS without me suing to try and get money out of them. Yes, I've had nightmares over it all my life, but he was the only person that reached out to me when I, went public. Ah, there was a documentary done for BBC Two called Dark Secrets. I had my radio show, I was in full flow then, doing five days a week, 4 hours a night. And I said to my listeners, I mean, I was outrageous, but I never said I was gay. But on television tonight, there's going to be a documentary. I will take calls after the documentary, then the next night we go back to normal. Then I'm just another human being and we do the show. The documentary was shown, it was in all the papers. The next day, my listeners came on for 4 hours and most of them just wept openly at what had been done to me.
I can only imagine so as well, and bringing this back to the present day, I suppose the reason why I really wanted you on the podcast is because it's quite relevant in terms of parliament. Now we've got, It is different. I've already mentioned the difference between conversion therapy and aversion therapy, but there's a conversion therapy bill, prohibition bill that's making its way through the House of Commons and the House of Lords. How important is it that, something like that passes? We've just had pride month. We've got a new Labour government. How important is it to people like you that these things get passed?
It's not important to me. It's important to everybody out there, especially the young people are coming through. Life is hard these days. We're living in a very bad world with world wars, with problems. We've just had a pandemic. Everybody needs to be what they are. I'm in being interviewed by you. I'm not asking about your sexuality, we're talking about mine. But we're just two human beings having a conversation. Why should anybody? And who has the right? And let's face it, some of these priests and vicars who have a go are ah, fighting their own sexuality. But that's another podcast. But who has the right? We shouldn't even be talking about this. Everybody should just live their life because we get one chance.
And I think, Pete, those are, absolutely fantastic words to live by. I mean, again, I started this podcast by saying I didn't really have the words to describe your story. And after hearing it in detail, I'm still not sure I have the words to say it. But I can only say thank you for sharing it with us, and I'm sure our listeners will take great heed of it.
Thank you for having me on. I would like to finish off by saying quite simply to everybody, we do get one life. If your children, whatever sexuality they are, whether it's trans, lesbian, gay, whatever, there's a million, a million things. All I'd say is, be there for them. But we need to live in harmony. Cause the world is a bit of a shit place these days. And I hope in my way over the years, me, Larry Grayson, Paul O'Grady, a generation that has helped the cause to have the world look differently at people and say, hey, he's just him. She's just here. let's just live together.
Absolutely.
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