A Boy Called Audrey (Pictures from an Exhumation)

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Then, one night, I was sitting at Waterloo Street bus station, waiting for my bus home, when these obvious queens arrived, all camp and outrageous. I was petrified but fascinated at the same time. Inevitably they came over and started taking to me… that was when the door opened. A flamboyant personality in a small coal-mining town, he knew from an early age that he was different, but felt condemned to a life of clandestine sexual assignations until a late-night bus- stop encounter with four “obvious queens, all camp and outrageous”, who took him to a gay bar. They dubbed him Audrey Auburn – on account of his hair colour – and changed his life. “All the burdens I’d felt, this great pressure to go out with a girl to fit the mould, had gone,” he told his friend the journalist Liam Rudden in an interview in 2021. “It was like God had given me a huge gift, that there was a way through life for me that I had never anticipated.” His parents bought him a piano and he started taking lessons from the age of seven – by 15 he was being classically trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music. His formal education took place concurrently at Rutherglen academy and then the University of Glasgow, where he studied music and English.

Being part of the scene was like belonging to an exclusive club and, despite homosexuality being illegal in Scotland until 1980, as opposed to 1967 in England and Wales, George recalls the police tended to approach the law with a very light touch. My father said, ‘Well that’s the way it is…’ The policeman continued, ‘Not that we pursue people in such a situation, but your son is actually under age…’ Whatever that means, in those days you were illegal at any age. There was just no sense to it all.

You can picture it, the Bonnie and Clyde of Glasgow and a bloody sailor's handbag," he laughs. When my father bailed us out, the copper said to him, 'We are a little concerned about the relationship between your son, who is 19, and this man who is 28, because we realised they share a bedsit and they also share a bed.' We lived in a bedsit and there were two American sailors in the basement room. Based at the Holy Loch they were only in Glasgow at weekends. One day, one of them left his bag, a beautiful leather bag, on the doorstep. Tommy said, 'I fancy that.'

That came about when Tommy, my boyfriend at the time, and I were charged with theft,” he reveals. “It really is a stupid, stupid, stupid story. Logan moved to London in 1965 and while working as a computer programmer he frequented a gay pub in Marylebone. One day the pianist for the drag acts did not turn up and so Logan filled in and was soon a regular fixture, eventually conceiving his own solo drag-and-piano act. Next thing, the boy comes looking for his bag. He'd left it at the door while he went to pay his taxi. Anyway, when he went away, we opened it... it was full of booze and cigarettes. When the booze was all drunk and the cigarettes smoked, I told Tommy to get rid of the bag... Although I'd heard of people in the 1950s who had got into trouble for being in a gay relationship, I never knew of any in my time. That they didn't pursue people in relationships was something that came to my attention when I got into trouble with the law - my father was told by a police officer that the higher-ups had said not to pursue people who had private gay relationships, just to keep an eye out for gatherings."

‘Ready To Go’ - What is it?

Life was much simpler but not nearly as much fun. There's something about being on the edge and slightly under the radar that is more exciting." George wasn’t in drag at the time, but it was around the same time, long before he’d make his name as Dr Evadne Hinge, that he was first tempted to drag up. Then, one night, I was sitting at Waterloo Street bus station, waiting for my bus home, when these obvious queens arrived, all camp and outrageous. I was petrified but fascinated at the same time. Inevitably they came over and started taking to me... that was when the door opened. Moving to a flat in Nottinghill Gate in 1965, George, a trained musician soon landed a job playing piano in a Marylebone pub. Despite his new found freedom, life in Glasgow still held dangers. Gangs hung out on every street corner and it didn’t do to be too obvious.”You did all your camp stuff when you were in your group or at a party, on the street you had to screw the nut a wee bit, that is to say, you developed a kind of supernatural sensitivity as to when it was the time to ‘let it out’ and when to ‘keep it in,’ and I did that. I knew people who had opened their gobs at the wrong time and ended up with a sore face, but that never happened to me.”

As I was watching all these acts I realised they were getting eight quid for doing gags I’d heard a hundred times. I thought, ‘I could do that and play the piano at the same time and keep the whole 10 quid to myself. That’s how I got into show business, although I didn’t get the 10 quid. As I was a beginner I got eight for doing both – but eight quid for half an hours work wasn’t bad.” George as Audrey

A Boy Called Audrey

Although I knew I was something, the word gay was not one I would have known," he explains, adding with a mischievous grin, "Oh, I knew I was an alien... I just wasn't sure what planet I belonged to. |He was very good, original. Then I started playing piano for the acts in The Escort Club, Pimlico, and one night it was this Perri St Claire. We got chatting and discovered we didn’t live far from each other. Dear Ladies The police officer continued, 'Not that we pursue people in such a situation, but your son is actually under age...' Whatever that means, in those days you were illegal at any age. There was just no sense to it all. How we weren't arrested I'll never know. Until I went to London a couple of years later, that was my first and only cross-dressing experience." A gay pub near where I lived put on drag acts. One day, the pianist didn’t turn up. The landlady said, ‘You play the piano don’t you? I’ll give you two quid to play for the act?’ So I did, and became the regular pianist. “

He wrote: “We became friends and a couple of years later he asked if I’d ever thought about doing something different as an act? He said, ‘I’m tired of all the glamour, the wigs and everything. We could be something like an old retired operatic singer who still thinks she can sing and you could be her pianist’. As a man, of course. I thought, ‘If there is money in it, I’ll try it.’ As I was watching all these acts I realised they were getting eight quid for doing gags I’d heard a hundred times. I thought, ‘I could do that and play the piano at the same time and keep the whole 10 quid to myself.’” That came about when Tommy, my boyfriend at the time, and I were charged with theft," he reveals. "It really is a stupid, stupid, stupid story.

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He was born in Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, the eldest child of Sarah (nee Rae) and George Logan, who worked in the motor industry. There were theatrical cousins on his father’s side and theirs was a musical household, with young George enchanted by the Tchaikovsky recordings he heard on the radio. At first, London was a disappointment for the young George. “Life was much simpler but not nearly as much fun. There’s something about being on the edge and slightly under the radar that is more exciting.” He wrote: "A gay pub near where I lived put on drag acts. One day, the pianist didn’t turn up. The landlady said, ‘You play the piano don’t you? I’ll give you two quid to play for the act?’ So I did, and became the regular pianist. George wasn't in drag at the time, but it was around the same time, long before he'd make his name as Dr Evadne Hinge, that he was first tempted to drag up. A student at the time, the implications were minimal for the 17-year-old , for others however, the consequences were far more serious.