ransvestia

enough, I shall never know. It was a comparatively cheap pleasure in those days. The depression was still being felt and people were glad to earn a little extra money.

When I was twenty-five I met my future first wife. It coincided with a worsening of the political situation in Europe. War was immi- nent. We decided to get married and emigrated overseas. We founded a family, we worked hard, we succeeded, we were happy. for a few years, until our marriage broke up. There was a divorce and for many years I was at loose ends again. Although I had greater freedom now to dress up, I took little advantage of it. I was simply longing to get married again. I can't and I don't want to live alone.

At times I was tempted to join a circus as a clown. I love dressing up as a clown, with a face extremely well made up, day after day, for hours on end. Once or twice I had a go at it, for a short time only, but I lacked the courage to give up my job and become a full time circus clown. My life was too closely tied up with other people, friends, conventions, etc. I took part in amateur theatricals as I liked the stage and all that goes with it. The smell of greasepaint is exciting to many people, I believe.

At long last I met my present wife. We have been married for almost twenty years. Unfortunately, we have no children. But I think our mar- riage is otherwise as near perfect as a marriage can ever be. Very early in the piece I spoke to my wife about my condition. It was something she had never heard about. She was understanding and evntually co- operative to the point of buying garments for me and allowing me to dress up at home. We even went to public fancydress balls. Once I was dressed as Madame Pompadour, once as a geisha. My wife always went as my male partner but as she loathed dressing up our outings were un- satisfactory and we discontinued them and limited my activities to an occasional evening at home.

All the time I felt I was imposing on my wife's patience and under- standing. In an effort to side-track from the main issue I began training as a clown to entertain children. I finally succeeded in getting engage- ments at birthday and Christmas parties, and I am still doing this work which is quite well paid and gives me some pleasure at the same time.

About four years ago I burned all my femme-clothes. I had been to a psychiatrist who was of no help. I felt that by purging my FP personality I could rid myself of it. For over three years I had been successful. About three months ago I was back to where I had left off, or where I had

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