I Am What I Am (26 page)

I also loved all the knick-knacks made from tin cans that the African children would sell. I bartered similarly for them. I bought a cool-looking Citroën car from a young boy made out of recycled Glade aerosol cans. It’s one of my favourite souvenirs, and sits on a side table in the dining room in Sully.

Later that week, Gav, Stu, Scott and I decided to book a day trip to swim with the sharks.
¹⁴
The boat and its small group of passengers zipped out into the ocean, where anyone who wanted to could be lowered into a heavy, steel protective cage and then dropped underwater, where he or she came face-to-face with Jaws.

We all decided to sit up on the top deck of the boat and see how this whole thing played out, with a few other passengers going first, before we committed ourselves either way. I wanted to see how safe the ‘cage keeps the sharks out’ theory really was.

It didn’t take long for us to realize that there was no way we were going down into the ocean in that cage. Not because the sharks came up really, really close, but because in order to get the sharks to come up really, really close, the tour operator and his buddy had to drop pounds of thick, raw chunks o’ chum on top of the cage. Everyone who came up after the experience was covered in bloody bits of fish flesh and looked like rejects from Brian De Palma’s
Carrie
. We all stayed put and we had much better views sitting on the boat deck, watching the sharks have a nibble at the other passengers. One poor woman freaked out so much when the chum hit her head and the sharks started to dive-bomb the cage that she had to be hauled out of the water, screaming hysterically. After an hour of this shark snacking, we were all hungry and bored. The movie was way more exciting.

We spent a much less messy day when we took the cable car up to the flat top of Table Mountain, which frames the city of Cape Town. The trip was fairly uneventful and the views stunning – until we had to be evacuated back down the mountain at top speed when the winds changed dramatically, the temperatures dropped from balmy to bloody freezing in a matter of minutes, and a huge band of heavy clouds cut right through the middle of the mountain.

The final leg of this holiday was our tour of the Stellenbosch wineries, where I fell in love with blended wines of every concoction: Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot; and their Pinotage … to name two favourites. When we returned to London, Scott and I had wine packed in every nook and cranny of our luggage – but absolutely no more than our maximum customs allotment each.
¹⁵

Before we left Cape Town for the wineries, I rented a helicopter to take all of us on an aerial tour of the Western Cape, including viewing the wildlife on the beaches and the marshes along the Atlantic coastline.

Those of you who know me well know I have a deep and enduring love/hate relationship with flying, but I have a passion for planes and anything that defies gravity. The helicopter, however, is not my favourite flying machine.
¹⁶
Nevertheless, the aerial tour came highly recommended and I thought it would be something we’d all enjoy.

Initially, the helicopter cruised at a very low height, and the panorama of the miles and miles of Cape coastline was stunning. For a quick detour, the pilot took us inland a little, over the townships that are, in fact, man-made slums and shanty towns. This part of the tour broke my heart to see, and I didn’t feel right flying above people’s homes and gawking into them. We asked the pilot to go back over the water, which he did, sometimes only by a matter of a few feet as he swooped in and out of the wake, sending flocks of birds into a frenzy ahead of us.

Before we had to head back to the airport, the pilot asked us if we’d like to experience a torque turn. Now, if you’ve ever flown in a helicopter, you’ll know it’s a very noisy machine and, even with headphones on, it can be difficult to hear clearly. I thought he’d asked if we’d like to see the ‘stork run’; I thought it was another bird swoop, so I said with great enthusiasm, ‘Absolutely!’

I discovered when I looked into it later that a ‘torque turn’ is actually one of the most dangerous tricks you can do in a helicopter. Although it was commonplace during the Vietnam War, most armed forces have since discouraged the manoeuvre because, well, it’s an easy way to crash.
¹⁷

The pilot pulled the helicopter into a steep, high climb with the nose right up in the air. Then he cut the tail rotor and, for a beat, we were hanging in mid-air, spinning on our axis. The pilot flipped the tail back up, and we dropped forward so fast it felt like we were free-falling on the world’s wildest roller coaster, the ocean rushing towards us with full force and my stomach in my mouth. All of us inside the helicopter
did what I think it is fair to say most men would have done in a similar situation: we screamed like little girls.

Our most recent holiday in Barbados was much more tranquil and much less risky.
¹⁸
In the mornings, I’d get out of bed at around 7 a.m. and park myself in a deckchair at the lagoon pool, which looked out across the beach and the ocean. After that, I’d rouse myself for only the most necessary of physical functions. And as much as I love the active trips Scott and I take, where we explore new places and shop and visit historic sights and shop, I cherished the fact that when I roused myself from my deckchair one afternoon, I realized that I hadn’t been on my phone or checked my email for three whole days.
¹⁹

Every evening at 5 p.m., a number of families we’d met since we’d arrived at the resort joined Scott and me at the pool bar. The adults ordered mudslides,
²⁰
but mine was kept on ice. Instead of drinking right away, I’d take all the kids into the pool and we’d play Marco Polo, or go to the beach and body surf, while all the mums and dads
²¹
got an hour to themselves to sip in the sun. A couple of the children were big
Doctor Who
fans, and young enough that they truly thought they were playing Marco Polo every night at 5 p.m. with Captain Jack, which, if you think about it, might well be exactly what Jack would want to play. He probably even knew Marco Polo.

Spending this time in Barbados and sharing some of our holiday with these other families made me understand another reason why my parents may have shifted our family vacation from the caravan to the resort at Eastbourne. A resort, especially one that you return to every year, allows families to connect with other families from walks of life that, in your home environment, you’d likely never have contact with. Plus, vacationing at a resort community usually means more friends for the children to play with and more eyes to watch them when they do.

There is also another, very important bonus. I don’t care if you’re at Butlins in Minehead or at Crystal Cove in the West Indies, every resort has a karaoke night – and they’re a hoot.

For the Crystal Cove karaoke evening, I played DJ. I insisted that all of the guests in the bar and main room, adults and children alike, get up and sing, and everyone did. The management told me the next day that my karaoke night was the best and most popular one they’d had since they opened.

I do like a good karaoke or a cabaret night. Always have. Years ago, when my friend from university, Marilyn, and my mum, dad and I were driving from Glasgow to London for my second audition for what was to be my debut in
Anything Goes
, we stayed at a hotel outside London the night before. The hotel had a piano bar and Marilyn, my mum and I commandeered it and entertained everyone for a couple of hours. We even made a few quid in tips. The next day, as my dad was checking out, the hotel manager asked if he could book the three of us for the following weekend.

The day after the Crystal Cove karaoke, Scott and I rented jet skis. In the mornings, the beach would swarm with entrepreneurial Rastafarians hawking such wares. For a tenner each, Scott and I got the run of our machines for the day. Barbados had very few rules, but the Rasta guy did suggest, for our own safety, that we didn’t venture too far down the coastline … man. Scott and I headed out into open water, and thought, ‘Hell – it’s Barbados!’ and we made a run for it. We drove the jet skis all the way down the coast, taking in the sights and sounds of the beaches and the other resorts as we cruised.

When we crossed back into the harbour, where a number of cruise ships had docked, we started waving to the tourists standing on the decks. Pretty soon, our waving turned to doing doughnuts and figure-of-eights and putting on a little show for the people waving back to us, and then pretty soon after that, a hulking, flashing coastguard boat headed towards us at quite a clip. The cruise-ship captains had notified the coastguard of a possible terrorist threat from two erratic jet-ski drivers in the harbour. Scott and I drove up next to the boat, apologized profusely, and got the hell out of there.

Before Scott and I left Barbados, we heard from our new friends that
the
place to dine was a restaurant called The Cliff. The problem was that in order to get a table, you usually had to book months in advance; to land the best table (called, naturally, Table #1), a table that appeared to float out over the water, was nigh-on impossible at short notice. This was the kind of restaurant where there are no prices on the menu and they happily accept a second mortgage or your first-born in order to secure a reservation.

However, while we were mudsliding one evening, one of the couples told me that they’d had to cancel their booking at The Cliff because they couldn’t get a babysitter. Since my babysitting services were only available in the evenings at 5 p.m., and figuring that there was a chance other couples had had the same problem, I immediately rang the restaurant – and I got a slot for the following evening.

When Scott and I arrived, the manager greeted us at the door. He said he was so happy to see my name
²²
on his list for the evening, and that he was a huge fan of
Doctor Who
and
Torchwood
. He escorted us to – drum roll – Table #1. We ate an amazing meal, sitting out over the ocean in the soft glow of black coral candelabra and my own contentment.

Have I mentioned how much I love being Captain Jack?

★

‘I believe in doing what I can, in crying when I must, in laughing when I choose.’

Noël Coward, ‘If Love Were All’

1 I shop at Costco (sometimes daily).

2 I have an obsession with flossing my teeth (sometimes ten times daily).

3 I love kitchen gadgets (size doesn’t matter).

4 I love ‘Swedish Fish’ (a delicious gummy candy my family brings me by the ton).

5 I’m allergic to shellfish (everything swells).

6 I’d love to own my own hotel and spa some day.

7 I have a room full of shoes (organized in plastic containers from … Costco).

8 I put on a massive fireworks display for my friends in July.

9 I get bored quickly.

10 I love a scary read and a frightening film.

11 I’ll watch anything about a crash, cyclone, tornado or hurricane (can’t help myself).

‘M
ornin’, dear!’

‘Lovely day.’

‘Hmm, yes.’

‘What’ll you have for your brekkie?’

‘Toast, strawberry jam and black coffee, please, love. Oh, and today, I think I’ll be gay!’

My family tree is a long and ancient one, with branches stretching from the north-eastern coast of Northern Ireland to the midlands of Scotland. The Barrowman name, as with many of all our names, is a derivation of a medieval profession – just like Carpenter, Cooper, Miller, Potter, Reeve, or my personal favourite, Rimmer.
¹
The Barrowmans were highly skilled and very spiritual workers. I kid you not. Barrow men were paid to guard ancient burial mounds, called barrows, and their duty was to make sure the grave mound wasn’t robbed or desecrated before, I’m guessing, the soul had a chance to ascend to the afterlife. Of course, it’s possible that my ancestors just spent a lot of time in the fields shovelling shit and pushing a wheelbarrow, but I prefer my first version.

When I was asked to participate in the BBC documentary series
The Making of Me
, one of the things that attracted me to the project was that the documentary would trace my roots in a different way from a traditional family history. Instead of genealogy and lineage, the show explored biology and genetics to help me understand one of my most defining characteristics – being gay.

Since my career began, I’ve always been open about my sexuality, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have questions about it. I was lucky
enough to be raised in a family where sex was not a four-letter word. I’m a very curious person. I love the kind of television show where things or events or even people are taken apart to see what makes them tick. Whether it’s a brand-new car or a plane crash,
²
I’m intrigued about how and why things work the way they do, myself included.

The producers of the series explained to me that this documentary was going to explore current medical facts, scientific knowledge and psychological tests, many of which they’d apply to me, all with a mind to answer the question: what shapes a person’s sexuality? Or, in my mind, what makes me gay?

Although I think the numbers are shrinking, there are still people who believe that being gay is a lifestyle choice, and that one morning I woke up and decided to be gay. I knew that participating in
The Making of Me
was a risk because, from the beginning, I agreed that I would go wherever the science, the tests and their conclusions took me. This meant that I had to be open to discovering things about myself that I didn’t already know. The big question the show was exploring through my journey was one of the most interesting questions human beings ask: is our sexuality a product of our nature, or the result of how we’ve been nurtured?

My answer before the show? I was born gay. Homosexuality is part of my nature; it’s as much a part of who I am as the colour of my eyes, the size of my feet and the fact that I can roll my tongue. But my agreement with the producers was that, no matter what happened, I would take the risk of learning something I might not want or like to know.