Paul Mann: writer of queer merchant seafarer history

 P&O purser Paul Mann (1938-2017) is overlooked, but was the best writer of queer merchant maritime fiction in the UK. Literary, he was kind of latterday gay James Hanley, but far more explicit - and Hemingwayesque.

Interestingly, he was not into campery and liked to write about tenderness and complexity. You got the impression he'd read a lot of Graham Greene; there was such profundity in his works. 

I'm writing about him because I'm shocked to find that experts on queer maritime life don't know about him. He deserves attention. I got to know him remotely c.2005, when we were talking about what role he might play in the forthcoming Hello Sailor exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum. By email he answered some questions - more than there is space for here. We became friends and I liked him.

Paul Brain Devanney Mann didn't get the scale of attention he deserved, because he was not published by a large mainstream company but by a small gay company, Paradise Press (from whose website he is now absent. See logo). Also he hated doing promotional work about his publications.

HIS BOOKS 

Both novels and short stories deal with complex relationships on ship. In most cases the main protagonist - sometimes the narrator - is a mature and critical purser who is not out. The backgrounds are exotic. But the richness lies in this totally other story of gay life on merchant ships, especially cargo ships. Mann's sociological awareness reveals a different life to that of stewards enjoying the flamboyant floating 'gay heavens': passenger ships and cruise vessels. It's also very little like closeted Royal Navy life.

• The Queer Commando, 2001, 2006
• Seaman’s Mission, 2005, 2006
• Nailing Frank, 2005     
• Stowaway, 2006
• The Last Cargo Ship, 2008
• The Queer Businessman, 2011
• George's Edited Journal, 2011
• The Open Season for Mongooses, 2014

 

TIMELINE

1938. Born. Grew up in Poole, Dorset, and attended Poole Grammar School

C 1957-1959. Was one of the final few young men required to do National Service. He had wanted to join Royal Navy but was put in the Royal Marines. Served with 42 Commando based as Bickleigh Camp near Plymouth. In August 1957 he was disqualified from driving for riding a motorbike while very drunk. There is no mention of him serving abroad, but this was the time that troops were readying in the 1958 Suez crisis. 

He said “As a Corporal, if you knew someone was gay or lesbian, you, it was your duty to report it to the top so I never, I just closed my eyes to it, because I just didn’t feel it was my duty to do that. Many lesbians and gays had horrible experiences when their sexuality was brought to the attention of the military authorities.” It sounds like he was not out, even to himself, at that point. The Queer Commando is his main novel referring to that period.  

C 1960. Went out to Toronto and worked as an assistant accountant in a bank. The experience probably got him the desired position as purser for the British India Steam Navigation Company, later part of P&O.

C1961-1970s. His different ships include the Waroonga to Australia, an oil tanker circumnavigating the world (probably the Quiloa), and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Sir Galahad, where his exotic ports included the British Virgin Islands, Borneo, and Bangkok before the advent of mass tourists. His visits to Singapore's iconic Bugis Street are included in some of the novels. BISN diversified into educational cruises and he ’grew to loathe cocktail parties and ritual dining.’ Also the routes were limited.

1970s. He left the sea and spent some time collecting ’tickets on a chain ferry that clanked a three-minute transit from Sandbanks to Shell Bay, in Dorset … the gateway to a notorious nudist beach.’

1980s. At some point he began seeking publication for his writing, initially small pieces. He may have done a University of the Third Age creative writing course, and been involved in the Gay Authors’ Workshop (begun in 1978). 

His numerous publications included the Royal Marines Historical Society’s Sheet Anchor, Southern Arts publications, the Manchester Evening News, Nautical Magazine, Gay Men’s Press, Third House (the University of the Third Age magazine) and The Marine Society’s newsletter The Seafarer. He is said to have won prizes for writing but few are now traceable.

In the early 21st century he said of himself that he ‘packed bread in Tesco’s where he lasted one week. Now he dusts and takes the dog out. He is a member of 42 Commando Association’ (which met annually after 2001).

2001-2014. His books were published by Paradise Press, and Paradise Press North (he lived in Manchester for a time, where it was also based). PP had been founded in 1991 and published the works of the Gay Authors’ Workshop members. 

He was very positively reviewed by some prestigious reviewers such as Christopher Isherwood. His success is likely to have been aided by the new climate created by the 1999 TV series Queer as Folk.

2017. Died in Sussex age 79.

LGBT+ ATTITUDES

In my papers I found the following from 2006, which I think are some summarising notes I wrote after a conversation. I apologise if they are someone else's material.

~ Paul thinks that perhaps some homosexuals thought that life at sea was free and easy, and you could come and go as you pleased. 

~ Paul found gays who were ‘overtly camp’ a real turn-off. "I am comfortable with effeminate men, but not those who push ‘camp’ in others' faces and think they are funny. It’s like watching a bad pantomime!”

~ Eventually Paul realised ...  "straight men didn’t have to go around proclaiming their straightness, so why should I have to tell everyone I was gay?"

 Used copies of Mann's books can still be found via internet bookshops. He would be an  ideal focus for someone looking to do a thesis on queer maritime fiction of the 1960s and 70s