A Taste of Honey 1961

Shelagh Delaney was criticised for the ‘unsatisfactory’ ending of A Taste of Honey.  It was seen to be both sad and, somehow, incomplete. 
 
She argued that it simply reflected real life which does not always turn out as we would wish. 
 
She told people not to worry about Geoffrey - the gentle and kind homosexual who, in the final minutes of the film, was turned out of his home with nowhere to live.
 
‘Geoffrey will be OK.’
 
In composing Secret Summer which is about my great love, I was faced with the same problem of how to conclude my novel.  
 
If readers want a happy ending, where should the story end?  Along the continuum of life, there are days when we are happy and days when we are not. 
 
Real life is like that.  And all my titles are about real life and real people within the LGBT community. 
 
On the last page of Secret Summer, I address my readers directly.   My boyfriend and I would have preferred to be ‘strangers in paradise’- lovers who meet in a lovely garden, under the whispering leaves of a mulberry tree, as did the Caliph and his true love in Kismet. 
 
Alas, we met in the orgy room of a gay bathhouse - but that did not make my great love any the less great or less fulfilling.
 
Many gay men of my generation met in a urinal. This does not diminish a life changing, profound relationship.  Real life is like that.   
 
Under pressure from well-meaning friends, I contrived that the lovers in my book were ecstatically happy on an evening of blissful reconciliation and delightful reunion against a backdrop of magnificent sunset of brilliant red, purple and gold.  It was cold, but they cuddled together to keep warm. 
 
It made an all-important physical connection which continued to weave its magical spell – continued to keep them together. 
 
I resisted the temptation to reach for the traditional ending to a fairytale love story.  The old cliché - and they lived happily ever after - would have to be implied rather than spoken, if I was to be completely honest.
 
Narvel Annable