George: I first saw Philip at a club called Bangs in Tottenham Court Road. I was with my girlfriend Laura. I'd never been to a gay club before. I saw this vision dancing on a platform. He had black eye make-up on and a skirt and a weird Egyptian collar and leather gloves and pit boots. He was dancing like a mad goblin. I can remember saying to Laura "We've got to get friendly with him" Laura followed him to the ladies, which we also thought was very fascinating. I said "Go in and borrow his black lipstick" But he came out and walked over to us and said "Hello, dear, where are you from?" I said "I'm from Eltham" He said "Oooh, the sticks"
I started regularly commuting to his house in Dollis Hill. Philip was this pied piper and all these freaks and punks and suburban kids used to commute to his house on Fridays and we'd all get into different cars and go off to various clubs and gigs. He was our guru. He was 10 years older than me and he knew the Sex Pistols and was far more outrageous than we could ever have hoped to have been at that point.
Early on, I sheepishly said to Philip, "Excuse me, can I ask you a personal question?" He said "What?" I said "Are you gay?" "Why, are you interested?" I almost fainted with terror. He said "Why, are you?" I go "I dunno" He says "Of course you are, dear" Three weeks later I came out. I was not interested in him sexually but as a friend. We've never slept with eachother. We're sisters.
The thing about Philip was that he was really dressed up but he wasn't pretentious. We thought if we looked a certain way it made us more important than other people. Philip put that idea to rest quite quickly. He always used to say "A lot of people dress up to disguise the fact that they've got nothing to say" He was full of philosophies on everything and extremely intelligent.
When you first meet him he can come across as being quite vacuous. On the surface he gives a lot away but really he's only giving you a small percentage of who he is. It is hard work getting to know him because he doesn't let that many people in. I've known him for 20 odd years and I think we still have problems being intimate. As I got older and more worldly I realised that Philip was much more insecure than I ever thought. His banter and his drag were like an armour, which I think we have in common. It was protecting vulnerability, stopping people from getting too close. I've learnt to be less defensive as I've got older and I've calmed down quite a lot. That's affected the way I relate to Philip. He has all these bizarre concepts about me. - ( BOY GEORGE - 1998 ) -
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