Teardrops on My Drum

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Teardrops on My Drum book cover
Teardrops on My Drum book cover

Teardrops on My Drum is an autobiographical novel of Jack Robinson’s boyhood in Liverpool in the 1930s (ISBN 0-85449-261-5, Gay Men's Press, 1998). It is a story of the sexual adventures of a young gay boy growing up in poverty and with parental neglect.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Teardrops on my Drum tells Jackie Robinson’s story up to the age of fourteen. His first sexual experience was mutual masturbation with a man in the cinema when he was aged ten or eleven. At the same time, he also falls in love with Timmy (or Eggy as he is known), a school friend of the same age. Eggy and Jackie gradually become more and more intimate and remain friends through all their other relationships.

Eddie, the paedophile in the cinema, asks to see Jackie and again and turns out to be a loving caring police officer who buys Jackie clothes and treats him with real love and respect while abusing him. Jackie is a more than willing participant in all his sexual encounters, whether they are with older men, mature teenagers, boys his own age or younger pubertal boys.

Jackie goes through a series or casual relationships, searching out new partners, then just after his fourteenth birthday, he signs up and joins the army. Army life, with all its handsome young homosexual boys and men, suits Jackie and he forms an intimate relationship with both an older boy Chesty and a younger one Toby in his regiment.

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