First off, thanks to Silk and Satin for your kind comment
and also to the people who requested more at least there are a few who have
similar tastes to my own. I haven’t been in much form to post anything lately
so hopefully readers will like the attached illustration.
I’m assuming that most readers of this blog also visit Bea’s
blog – Bea’s TV Station- so will know of Bea’s recent death. Bea was a very good friend and while his death
was expected it still came as a shock – as it always does when a close friend
or family member dies. We exchanged mails on a weekly basis for over eight
years and apart from my wife he was the only one who knew my secret so we had a
very close bond.
When I first came across his stories I was blown away, they
were just what I was looking for. Like
most sub CD’s I’d read a lot of this stuff on various sites like Fictionmania
and while I liked some of the stories I had never come across a style of
writing that hit what Bea used to refer to as
“hot buttons”. This genre is very limited in how many ways the
protagonist is forced into life en femme
but Bea managed to do this wonderfully and without resorting to crude or crass
storylines or language. He wasn’t a saint and could swear like a true
Glaswegian but this never seeped into his writing.
As I mentioned in the post
to his blog I first got to know Bea when I sent him a mail saying how much I
enjoyed his stories and after a tetchy reply I thought this guy is an arrogant
prick and didn’t want fanboys bothering him so I assumed that was that and put
it down to experience. I had never contacted anyone connected with
crossdressing before this and was a bit taken aback but when he contacted me
again I knew his earlier mail wasn’t meant to offend –it was just his
forthright nature. We never looked back after that and while we disagreed on
some things it never got in the way of a growing friendship.
Bea was a complex man and had a forceful personality, he
lost his mother when he was a toddler and was raised by his grandmother
(another formidable personality from what he told me on many occasions) in a
working class area of Glasgow. He was evacuated from Glasgow to the country
during World War II, an experience he
intensely disliked, he trained as a mechanical engineer and when he finished
his apprenticeship he spent a short time at sea before emigrating to Canada in the mid 50’s with his wife, both were in
their early to mid 20’s. He soon made his way to California and after the
requisite period took out US citizenship. He loved America and its people but
never lost his strong Glaswegian accent which he told me caused him a few
problems with co-workers over the years.
All this time he was a crossdresser and it is important to
note that he told his wife this before he married her. I really don’t know if
this is usual or not but it was something that I greatly admired about him and
is a testament to his honesty, he always shrugged this off saying that he could
not expect his new wife to marry him without knowing his deepest secrets. A
better man than I. As I’ve mentioned on this or Bea’s blog before, my wife discovered
my crossdressing purely by accident after 20 years of marriage- not a pleasant
experience but she was ok about it. He could never understand my reluctance to
tell her but was never judgemental.
Despite this honesty I recall him saying he disliked himself
intensely well into his 40’s because of
his crossdressing and it was only when he accepted his CD side as a part of his
overall persona he finally began to be at ease with himself. I found this
fascinating as I never had major issues with crossdressing and always used to joke
with him that his Protestant upbringing left him more scarred and guilt ridden
than my Catholic one.
He was an incredibly intelligent man and a fountain of
knowledge about so many things and while he may have come across as a trifle
blunt on his blog he was a very sensitive man in many ways and because of his
own self-loathing in his early life he just wanted to help CD’s come to terms
with their alter ego and be happy with themselves as people. He loved his wife
and two sons and grandkids and if you were fortunate enough to be his friend he
loved you too.
I'll miss him a lot.
Carrie
