the Otter's Pool - web home of Ady Gould -

I returned to my parent's home just outside of Reading to spend time with them. I went out to a party I had been invited to by one of the local bear clubs in the UK. There I had a pleasant evening, but upon return home the next day, I was grilled.

In hindsight I should have told my parents that I am gay, but it was a decision I feared making. I do not know why, but I held off. They, especially my mother, were asking pointed questions, which I was afraid of.

I prayed often in those day, then I visited Gareth at his home. He dropped me off at my parents on the way back, and it was that night, just into Christmas Eve 1996 (by half an hour), that I dropped what was to be the biggest bombshell in my family's life.

When I told mum and dad, to coin the usual phrase, "all hell broke loose." Mum did not want to believe it, said things she did not mean, and cried. Dad sat there, speechless at times, then pointing fingers.

I went up stairs to my room and cried myself to sleep. I had known their reaction was going to be this bad, but the worse was yet to come.

I was hounded for the next 12 hours after I woke in the morning. I rang Gareth quickly and told him that it was not good. And later in the day I was rung by a friend of Gareth's.

I told him all that had happened, and whilst on the phone even then, the fallout was evident. My brother and sister in law (to be) came around that evening with me upstairs crying.

Paul came in with tears in his eyes, whilst Lucy was calm and collected, yet wonderful self. They asked me questions, and with Lucy's love and level headedness, went back downstairs to talk to mum and dad. After they had left I knew that I was being wrung out. Yet I did not predict the ferocity of the attack to come.

It was later that evening that I was blamed for many things, and eventually I elected to leave the house. I expressed the reason to them being "you need time together, I will not be the reason for you two people, whom I love no matter what, breaking up."

I rang Jonathan, and he made immediate arrangements to collect me. I left home at around 10pm, headed for a stranger's home. When we got there, Gareth was rang, and put on the phone to me.

He then rang his mother and said, "Adrian's staying here mum, he's had to leave home." Then headed into the car and along the M4 from Wales to collect me.