Dennis recalls gay old times with Syd

AS great love stories go, it's less Romeo and Juliet, and more Romeo and Romeo. With swearing. Lots of swearing. Things didn't get off to a glamorous start for Dennis Dewsnap and Syd Wood, who met in a toilet at the height of the Suez Crisis in 1956. But during their 46 years together they had more than their fair share of glamour and adventure, including run-ins with the Krays, parties with royalty and long-standing friendships with the famous and the infamous.

All of which is laid out in technicolour detail - with technicolour language to match - in Dennis's autobiography, What's Sex Got To Do With It?, launched next week at The Churchill Hotel in York, to mark the first anniversary of Syd's death.

Homosexuality was still illegal when the couple first met. It was widely regarded as a mental illness, treatable, although not curable, by electric shock therapy and hormone injections.

To this day, Syd's mother, Mrs Wood, very much a woman of her time, has never completely accepted that her "little Sydy" was gay.

"She saw our relationship as some sort of temporary aberration, an adolescent precursor to Syd marrying a nice girl and settling down," says Dennis. "A hope she continued to voice throughout her son's life, even on his 70th birthday."

The only time they were ever apart was during Dennis's National Service, which took him to Munchen Gladbach, Germany, as part of the Royal Army Pay Corps from 1957-59.

His talent as a pianist made him much in demand at corps bashes, including playing Happy Birthday to Princess Beatrix, the future queen of Holland.

"Before the evening concluded she asked if I could play the hit of the day, Chow Chow Bambino," says Dennis. "When I said yes, she jumped up on the piano and sang the lyrics. Needless to say, she is the only real queen I have ever had the privilege of accompanying."

Originally from Sheffield, Syd and Dennis first visited Tangier in 1963 after a booking mishap meant a holiday in the Canary Islands became a jaunt to Morocco. They immediately fell in love with the city, becoming card-carrying Tangerinos in 1964 when they opened their bar, Maxime's, followed shortly by their second successful nightspot El Piano.

Their customers, who soon became firm friends too, included the campest Carry On star of them all Kenneth Williams, Scottish comedian Stanley Baxter, A Taste Of Honey star Rita Tushingham and diminutive comic Ronnie Corbett.

It was at this time that they also came into contact with the infamous Kray twins, who Dennis and Syd mistakenly believed were holidaying stock-brokers because they insisted on wearing suits despite the hot weather.

Luckily, the London gangsters found their naivet highly amusing, returning to the bar every night for the next week, often sitting next to Dennis as he went through his piano repertoire.

"We had no idea that their flight to Tangier, in both senses, had been precipitated by a warrant issued for their arrest on charges of multiple murder and torture," said the ivory tickler.

Syd and Dennis returned to England in 1971 with a useful £20,000 in their pockets (the equivalent of about £250,000 today) with which they bought the lease of The King William IV pub in Castleford, West Yorkshire.

One of their customers in the early Seventies was Arthur Scargill, leader of the NUM, who Dennis describes dismissively in his book as "droll in a contrived 'working class' way".

In 1974, the pair bought The Hammerton Hotel, between York and Harrogate, for £50,000.

The locals didn't know what had hit them, as their local watering hole fast became one of the hottest cabaret bars in the region, with Syd strutting his stuff as one half of the drag act Fun 'n' Feathers, and the queen mother of all queens Lily Savage testing out her early material.

Unfortunately, the poor local doctor didn't know what had hit him either.

One of Dennis's boyfriends (there were a few, but not as many as Syd had during his illustrious life) took a whole bottle of paracetamol; Syd had to be sedated in the middle of the night during a nervous breakdown; and two barmaids slit their wrists in the loo.

And then there was Syd and his slapstick accidents. First he gave himself a serious electric shock by picking up a storage heater with wet hands. Then he fell through a newly-plastered ceiling.

"I rushed panic stricken down the stairs expecting to find Syd lying dead on the floor, or at least badly injured," said Dennis. "Much to my amusement, I found him jammed tight in the ceiling, his fat little legs flailing about like those of a jogger snatched up unexpectedly by a passing pterodactyl."

The couple, who were both elected as members of York Racecourse in the 70s despite a ten-year waiting list, left for sunnier climes again in 1983.

They spent three years in retirement at a stunning penthouse overlooking the Acropolis in Athens before the pull of Yorkshire and work became too strong.

Syd and Dennis bought The Churchill Hotel in Bootham in 1986 for £200,000, breathing new life - and a new, distinctive sense of style - into the elegant Georgian grand dame.

But ill health began to take its toll on the daring duo in the late 80s, with Syd suffering from depression and Dennis undergoing two heart operations and a subsequent bypass. So, they set off in search of paradise once again. And found it.

Paradise Villas in Pattaya, Thailand, became their home away from home in 2001. It was also where Syd died in May last year.

As soon as Dennis saw him, he knew his partner of almost half a century had suffered a massive stroke.

He spoke gently to him and began to administer mouth-to-mouth.

"Gradually, it seemed to me, he started to breathe, but in reality it was my own breath simply finding release," said Dennis. "He was dead, and all my pleading with him not to leave me was in vain."

A Buddhist funeral was quickly arranged, and Syd's ashes were put into three urns: one for Pattaya, one for Tangier and one for The Churchill Hotel, York.

Dennis is the first to admit that while Syd was perfect for him, he was by no means perfect.

"He had a heart of gold, but he also had a tongue as sharp as a Gillette razor and a bite every bit as venomous as the asp that bit Cleopatra," he said.

"Fools, pedants and poseurs of all kinds were the ever-deserving victims of his wrath, which blended the sparkling wit of Oscar Wilde with the calculating viciousness of Dorothy Parker."

Dennis now spends most of the year in Thailand, popping back to York and his beloved hotel every now and again. So what is life like after Syd?

"Life after Syd would be an odd way of describing my existence now, as there is not a minute during the day or night when I don't feel his presence," he said.

"I am still leading the good life though, or as he would have said 'havin' a f*****' fabulous time'."

Dennis Dewsnap's autobiography, What's Sex Got To Do With It?, is available now at The Churchill Hotel, York, for £12.95. Phone 01904 644456 or email dd@churchillhotel.com for details. All proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to the Tangier Crche for Abandoned Children and Heart 2000 Aids Charity in Pattaya, Thailand.

Updated: 09:39 Friday, June 04, 2004