I have no idea how I responded to this verbally but I’m sure the bubble over my head would have said, “silly old fart”, or words to that effect. It turns out he was enraged by the fact that I dared to talk to the CHC dressed as I was. The next morning my boss called me into his office and asked me if I was trying to make a statement. Then one day we were attending an event at Canada House and I spent an enjoyable few minutes conversing with the Canadian High Commissioner. My boss didn’t seem to mind that I wore trousers in the office. The one time I was challenged about wearing trousers at work happened almost thirty years ago in London. However, I would try to get away with keeping the trousers on as long as I could. In winter I would wear trousers to school with the understanding that I would change into a skirt when I arrived. At the schools I went to there wasn’t a uniform but girls were expected to wear skirts. I was never subjected to abuse of this kind growing up as I did, mainly in Canada. But in Juliana, the author really brings home the terror of just wearing trousers in public that could to lead to not just verbal and often physical abuse but also the threat of being imprisoned. And I know I’ve read about it before – the time when women could be stopped by police and asked to prove that they were wearing the requisite number of items of women’s clothing. Vanda’s portrayal of the times has been well researched. But there was no public recognition at all back then. Still the case, I know, in many places now. The narrator in the story is initially a naïve young woman who doesn’t understand her attraction to a talented singer, Juliana, and fights the idea that she is one of ‘them’ – the pariahs that mainstream society then considered homosexuals to be. I’ve just finished reading a fascinating book called Juliana by Vanda, which is set in early 1940s New York.