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An oiled individual in tight, spangled trunks adjusted his hard hat, peered above his designer glasses and gushed: “I think it is truly wonderful that an event like this can be staged in our great city.

“An event that is helping to banish homophobia and the entrenched stereotypes attached to gay men and women.”

I paused my ballpoint and asked: “Would you mind awfully facing our video camera and lisping ‘I’m free’ while flicking your wrist?

“Then if you could mince out of....”

“That,” hissed the reveller, “is exactly the outdated and offensive image of gay men we are attempting to break free from.”

“Fair enough,” I nodded. “How about a petulant ‘Shut that door’?”

The muscled individual shook his head and walked away, distancing himself from my pleas of “How about a quick ‘Oooh, missus’?”

This was the city’s gay Pride Festival, a rainbow-coloured cavalcade of shimmering mother love that is fast becoming Birmingham’s biggest event.

Why I, a reporter who cut his teeth in the 1970s, a time when there was a role for openly gay men (Widow Twankey in the local amdram society’s Christmas performance of Aladdin), was chosen to provide coverage at the lavish event remains a mystery.

“Don’t,” growled my editor, stubbing his finger at me, “underestimate the power of the pink pound. Thankfully, celebrations such as this can take place in our city without prejudice and stigma.

“It is a major LGBT event...”

I mouthed the initials, before asking: “That’s a sandwich, isn’t it? I’ve got the lettuce, bacon and tomato, but what’s the G? Guacamole?”

At that point a sales executive raced excitedly into the boss’s office and proudly placed artwork for a proposed advertising campaign on his gleaming desk.

“You’ll love this one,” he gushed, holding a garish ‘visual’ aloft.

He cleared his throat and read: “Make your gay day complete with half-price fishfingers and chicken kievs at Iceland, Erdington.”

The poker-faced editor scrutinised the ad and growled: “Colouring the fishfingers pink doesn’t work. They look like ice lollies.”

“There’s more,” beamed the sales chief, wiping sweat from his brow.

“Young man,” he sang, YMCA-style, “there’s a place you can go, I said young man when you’re short on your dough... Braithwaites Bicycle Repairs, Coronation Crescent...”

The editor waved the suited rep away and fixed me with a steely glance: “This is a very important event. The LGBT community is very important to this newspaper and this city. It is a celebration of the great strides that have been taken in stamping out homophobia.

“The gay community has had a terrible cross to bear.”

“They didn’t have to listen to that crap music,” I argued. “I mean, I’d be loathe to come out if meant an eternity of Kylie’s greatest hits.”

“You,” the editor barked, “and every other member of staff should feel proud of what is happening today.”

“And you’ll find out, Mike,” he sniffed, leaning back in his chair, “that not every member of Birmingham’s gay community wants to dress like the Village People.”

“So,” I asked the tall individual in Red Indian outfit and war paint, “what makes this weekend so special?”

“I think it’s fantastic,” he babbled with a dramatic flourish of his head-dress, “that we can celebrate our sexuality through a fun, family event like this.”

“It’s certainly opened my eyes,” I nodded. “I thought I’d run a gauntlet of men making passes at me.”

The Indian chief looked yours truly up and down before declaring: “We do have standards, you know.”

Yes, it was a great day. Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

To gauge the feeling among Birmingham’s ‘straight’ community, I conducted a quick vox pop in a boozer many miles from the flamboyant gathering.

“I have long been a massive advocate of Gay Pride,” said one middle-aged patron.

“But it has posed problems at West Midland Safari Park.

“They say it’s interfering with their lion breeding programme...”

Further Birmingham Mail coverage of Birmingham Pride