BEATLENCYCLOPEDIA

Boy, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away

In 1949, a fifteen-year-old Epstein writes:

Help me. I am lost. Help me. I am lost. This is a hell, a hell of madness.

Brian Epstein, who was born in 1934 was anything but a happy child and briliant pupil.

Only being shy and Jewish would be enough to be one of the least popular boys in the class. About school he writes (16 year old) :

"To be a success at school one must above all be either distinctly original or good at games (all of them). Intellects of a quiet nature are at school invariably a failure.

Depression is the route of all great and important thought.

“Playing Soldiers” in what is presumed to be an intellectual establishment is futile and childish and a waste of anybody’s time.

The majority of boys are lyers. [sic] Public schools as such encourage lying. However, they fail to realise it."

After trying to survive at RADA or succeed as a dress designer and all his dreams fails, he goes to The National Service, which is a horror for him. In 1952 he writes in his diary:

"I venomously hated nearly everything about the army and suffered at the merciless hands of the RSM [regimental sergeant major]."

He was suspended for officially impersonating an officer, as he writes in his autobiography A Cellarful Of Noise:

"I had deviously secured a posting to Regent’s Park barracks and I used to
enjoy off-duty life in the West End for I had a lot of relatives in London. On
this particular night I had myself brought back to camp in a large car. It slid
gently to a halt outside the barrack’s gate. I marched into camp wearing—
rather pompously I’m afraid a bowler, pin-striped suit and, over my arm, an
umbrella.

The guard saluted me and the guard commander saluted me and two
wretched convicted deserters, wearing denims and carrying buckets, jerked
their heads in an Eyes Right. Also, a myopic clerk, who worked at the next
desk by day, peered at me and said: ‘Good night sir.’ All of which I allowed
to pass by without a murmur one way or the other.

The orderly officer did none of these things. He came from behind a
white-washed wall like a cat, and marching into the baleful yellow glow
from the guardroom, he barked: ‘Private Epstein. You will report to the
company office at 10.00 hours tomorrow morning charged with
impersonating an officer."

We should not forget that while writing his book, he was still keeping a lot of secrets and there are many factical mistakes or legends, which everybody else deny (for example Cilla Black taking their coats in Cavern, which both Cilla and George Martin denied). The fact is, tkat he was recommended to visit a doctor, who diagnosed him a serious illness - homosexuality, in those days both: a crime and official disease.

He works in a family business then and even though he is successful, he's not happy...

"My life became a succession of mental illnesses and sordid unhappy events bringing great sorrow to my family…"
1954

On 24th April 1957 he is arrested for "persistently importuning". After this horrible experience, Epstein reflects:

"I do not think I am an abnormally weak-willed person – the effort and determination with which I have rebuilt my life these last few months have, I assure you, been no mean effort. I believed that my own will-power was the best thing with which to overcome my homosexuality. And I believe my life may have become contented and I may even have attained a public success…"

" I am not sorry for myself. My worst times and punishments are over. Now, through the wreckage of my life by society, my being will stain and bring the deepest distress to all my devoted family and few friends. The damage, the lying criminal methods of the police in importuning me and consequently capturing me leaves me cold, stunned and finished."

At the end of this diary he adds:

"I must apologise for my writing which I realise is difficult to read. I was unable to procure a typewriter and my hand is nervous."

***

Uff, the same for me today👆. I'm sorry there is a gap in the regular publishing - I'm extremely busy now. You know, final exams in clarinet, creating videos for music school, schoolwork, lawn moving...

This chapter wasn't happy and it'll have a sequel - Brian and The Beatles - some day. The italic parts are authentic, I've managed to get pieces of his diaries, which were auctioned and sold for a big amount of money... If I or museums could only afford them....

+the chapter was thematic 😉 in the Pride month.