The Gay Slayer: The Life of Colin Ireland Serial Killer
When it comes to serial killers in England, there are few as brutal as Colin Ireland. Known as "The Gay Slayer," Ireland preyed on homosexual men who were into sadomasochism--so when he began to restrain them, they thought it was just a game.
With page-turning suspense, this book examines the motives and tactics of the man some said was one of the most organized serial killers who ever lived.
With page-turning suspense, this book examines the motives and tactics of the man some said was one of the most organized serial killers who ever lived.
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Excerpt
Introduction
Apart from complaining about the weather few things are as British as a traditional neighborhood pub. The image of a friendly bar where everyone knows everyone else is a common feature in TV and movies, and it’s pretty closely based on reality. Everything changes though, and now when the British aren’t discussing the rain they’ll often talk about how there aren’t enough proper pubs left these days. It’s easy to see what they mean. Too many old-style locals have been taken over by national chains and remodeled into soulless identikit franchises. Interiors that have evolved over decades or even centuries have been ripped out and replaced with Ikea-style modern furniture or – even worse – fake memorabilia. Changing demographics, falling alcohol consumption and the 2007 smoking ban have driven thousands of pubs into bankruptcy and forced thousands more to rely more on food sales. That’s good if you’re looking for a reasonably priced place to take the family for dinner. It’s not always so great if you want somewhere to drink and relax with friends.
The Pembroke Inn, a remodeled bar in London’s Earl’s Court district, is a typical modern gastropub. Located in a three-story brick building, the exterior hasn’t changed much since it opened in 1866. It’s all brown marble cladding and dark green cement moldings, small-paned windows and flowers in hanging baskets. It sits on a T-junction, and there are three entrances – one each on Coleherne Road and Old Brompton Road, and the main one right on the corner itself. Since it was refurbished by a major pub chain the old signs have been replaced by a minimalist logo of a simple large P, and a few small tables on the sidewalk outside give it a European café feeling when the weather’s good. Inside, half of the old horseshoe-shaped bar is now dedicated to food. The Pembroke is trying hard to rise above the standard microwaved pub meals and each plate that comes from the kitchen is artfully arranged and garnished. The menu is trendy-cosmopolitan – halloumi and quinoa, braised rabbit ragu over pappardelle, vegetarian Indian platter for two – and the bar snack list includes Cretan olives and chickpea fritters. Draft and bottled beers come from around Europe, and there’s Prosecco on tap. Even at 6:00pm on a Thursday it’s busy. The crowd is young, groups of friends laughing on the big chesterfield sofas and a lot of couples. The main bar is bright and airy, and there’s also a music bar upstairs and a beer garden out back.
It wasn’t always like this. The Pembroke Inn was once The Coleherne, a Victorian working mens’ pub that started attracting actors from nearby theaters sometime in the 1930s. By the 50s it had become a gay bar and over the next two decades it slowly morphed into the center of London’s leather and bondage scene. It’s that period in the pub’s long history I’ve gone there to learn about.
The Pembroke is busy enough that I have to take care as I weave my way to the door clutching two pints of Bitburger, but I make it past the knot of smokers outside the door and sit down at one of the tables. Sitting opposite is a fit-looking man in his early 60s, dressed smart but casual and quietly respectable. He wasn’t always like this either. He first visited The Coleherne nearly four decades ago, at the height of its notoriety, and was a regular visitor through to the mid-1990s. Today he insists on sitting outside, at this wobbly table. That’s not because of loyalty to its old identity or to avoid painful memories; it’s because he’s smoking a steady chain of Gauloises and doesn’t want to keep interrupting to stand outside the door. Sitting outside is okay though. It’s cloudy this evening, but mild and dry.
“It wouldn’t have mattered, then,” he says. “The place was a blue fog. Smelled like an ashtray of course.” There are no ashtrays on the tables today, and my companion scowls distastefully every time he flicks a butt into the street. “God, it was rough. Then again that was the attraction. The gay scene around the West End was fucking awful, you know,” he affects an effeminate lisp, “dreadfully camp, dahling. All mincing old queens and skinny little fairies sipping Babycham. This place was different.”
It certainly was. The Coleherne was an international mecca for the leather crowd and it had an almost cultivated air of seediness. The windows that now flood the place with daylight were mostly covered with flyers advertising bands or nightclubs (for a while they were even blacked out with paint) and the interior was dim, loud, smoky and vaguely menacing. Its ethos had been shaped in the 60s and 70s, when openly gay couples still weren’t welcome – and sometimes weren’t safe – in mainstream pubs, and even in the 1990s it maintained a defiant, almost aggressive outrageousness. Gay celebrities, many of them still in the closet, were regular visitors; the tabloid press didn’t venture into The Coleherne’s murky depths, so it was a place they could relax and be themselves. Comedian Kenny Everett was well known there, as were Psycho star Anthony Perkins and dancer Rudolf Nureyev. Queen front man Freddie Mercury, at the height of his fame, used to slip gratefully into the anonymity of The Coleherne. Its fame even spread to gay capital San Francisco, when author Armistead Maupin mentioned it in his novel Babycakes.
“Basically it was the opposite of a celebrity nightspot,” he says. “Somewhere like Stringfellows, you go there to be seen. This was a place you came to hide. Or enjoy a bit of rough, of course. Couples diving into the broom cupboard for a quickie, the toilets ankle deep in piss… not classy.”
I ask about the secret code that regulars used to identify their sexual preferences – it’s a key part of the story I’m interested in. The Coleherne’s clientele included many with specialized tastes, some of which would be awkward to ask a stranger about.
“Oh, the handkerchiefs? Yes, some people did that. Bit of an affectation really.” He suddenly realizes there’s an ashtray bolted to the wall a foot behind him, and sheepishly drops his latest butt into it. “Probably somebody brought the idea back from San Francisco and it caught on. Just imagine, all those pasty-faced Englishmen going for the California look.” Two young men, obviously gay, walk out of the Pembroke and look around for a cab. He points them out with a nod. “They’d have hated the place back then. Far too grotty for them.” He plucks another cigarette from the pack. “Personally I loved it. There was just this amazing buzz of rebelliousness, of not giving a shit what people thought.” He picks up his lighter then suddenly frowns, toying with it for a moment. “And danger, of course. Yes, there was always a hint of danger in the air.”
Apart from complaining about the weather few things are as British as a traditional neighborhood pub. The image of a friendly bar where everyone knows everyone else is a common feature in TV and movies, and it’s pretty closely based on reality. Everything changes though, and now when the British aren’t discussing the rain they’ll often talk about how there aren’t enough proper pubs left these days. It’s easy to see what they mean. Too many old-style locals have been taken over by national chains and remodeled into soulless identikit franchises. Interiors that have evolved over decades or even centuries have been ripped out and replaced with Ikea-style modern furniture or – even worse – fake memorabilia. Changing demographics, falling alcohol consumption and the 2007 smoking ban have driven thousands of pubs into bankruptcy and forced thousands more to rely more on food sales. That’s good if you’re looking for a reasonably priced place to take the family for dinner. It’s not always so great if you want somewhere to drink and relax with friends.
The Pembroke Inn, a remodeled bar in London’s Earl’s Court district, is a typical modern gastropub. Located in a three-story brick building, the exterior hasn’t changed much since it opened in 1866. It’s all brown marble cladding and dark green cement moldings, small-paned windows and flowers in hanging baskets. It sits on a T-junction, and there are three entrances – one each on Coleherne Road and Old Brompton Road, and the main one right on the corner itself. Since it was refurbished by a major pub chain the old signs have been replaced by a minimalist logo of a simple large P, and a few small tables on the sidewalk outside give it a European café feeling when the weather’s good. Inside, half of the old horseshoe-shaped bar is now dedicated to food. The Pembroke is trying hard to rise above the standard microwaved pub meals and each plate that comes from the kitchen is artfully arranged and garnished. The menu is trendy-cosmopolitan – halloumi and quinoa, braised rabbit ragu over pappardelle, vegetarian Indian platter for two – and the bar snack list includes Cretan olives and chickpea fritters. Draft and bottled beers come from around Europe, and there’s Prosecco on tap. Even at 6:00pm on a Thursday it’s busy. The crowd is young, groups of friends laughing on the big chesterfield sofas and a lot of couples. The main bar is bright and airy, and there’s also a music bar upstairs and a beer garden out back.
It wasn’t always like this. The Pembroke Inn was once The Coleherne, a Victorian working mens’ pub that started attracting actors from nearby theaters sometime in the 1930s. By the 50s it had become a gay bar and over the next two decades it slowly morphed into the center of London’s leather and bondage scene. It’s that period in the pub’s long history I’ve gone there to learn about.
The Pembroke is busy enough that I have to take care as I weave my way to the door clutching two pints of Bitburger, but I make it past the knot of smokers outside the door and sit down at one of the tables. Sitting opposite is a fit-looking man in his early 60s, dressed smart but casual and quietly respectable. He wasn’t always like this either. He first visited The Coleherne nearly four decades ago, at the height of its notoriety, and was a regular visitor through to the mid-1990s. Today he insists on sitting outside, at this wobbly table. That’s not because of loyalty to its old identity or to avoid painful memories; it’s because he’s smoking a steady chain of Gauloises and doesn’t want to keep interrupting to stand outside the door. Sitting outside is okay though. It’s cloudy this evening, but mild and dry.
“It wouldn’t have mattered, then,” he says. “The place was a blue fog. Smelled like an ashtray of course.” There are no ashtrays on the tables today, and my companion scowls distastefully every time he flicks a butt into the street. “God, it was rough. Then again that was the attraction. The gay scene around the West End was fucking awful, you know,” he affects an effeminate lisp, “dreadfully camp, dahling. All mincing old queens and skinny little fairies sipping Babycham. This place was different.”
It certainly was. The Coleherne was an international mecca for the leather crowd and it had an almost cultivated air of seediness. The windows that now flood the place with daylight were mostly covered with flyers advertising bands or nightclubs (for a while they were even blacked out with paint) and the interior was dim, loud, smoky and vaguely menacing. Its ethos had been shaped in the 60s and 70s, when openly gay couples still weren’t welcome – and sometimes weren’t safe – in mainstream pubs, and even in the 1990s it maintained a defiant, almost aggressive outrageousness. Gay celebrities, many of them still in the closet, were regular visitors; the tabloid press didn’t venture into The Coleherne’s murky depths, so it was a place they could relax and be themselves. Comedian Kenny Everett was well known there, as were Psycho star Anthony Perkins and dancer Rudolf Nureyev. Queen front man Freddie Mercury, at the height of his fame, used to slip gratefully into the anonymity of The Coleherne. Its fame even spread to gay capital San Francisco, when author Armistead Maupin mentioned it in his novel Babycakes.
“Basically it was the opposite of a celebrity nightspot,” he says. “Somewhere like Stringfellows, you go there to be seen. This was a place you came to hide. Or enjoy a bit of rough, of course. Couples diving into the broom cupboard for a quickie, the toilets ankle deep in piss… not classy.”
I ask about the secret code that regulars used to identify their sexual preferences – it’s a key part of the story I’m interested in. The Coleherne’s clientele included many with specialized tastes, some of which would be awkward to ask a stranger about.
“Oh, the handkerchiefs? Yes, some people did that. Bit of an affectation really.” He suddenly realizes there’s an ashtray bolted to the wall a foot behind him, and sheepishly drops his latest butt into it. “Probably somebody brought the idea back from San Francisco and it caught on. Just imagine, all those pasty-faced Englishmen going for the California look.” Two young men, obviously gay, walk out of the Pembroke and look around for a cab. He points them out with a nod. “They’d have hated the place back then. Far too grotty for them.” He plucks another cigarette from the pack. “Personally I loved it. There was just this amazing buzz of rebelliousness, of not giving a shit what people thought.” He picks up his lighter then suddenly frowns, toying with it for a moment. “And danger, of course. Yes, there was always a hint of danger in the air.”
