7 .sx The Hopkin Myth .sx MINTON had a gift for clowning ; he knew how to employ mimicry and extravagant gestures , maiden-aunt intonation and camp humour to un - cover the risible in everything , thereby denuding uncomfortable feelings of their power .sx It was a welcome gift , especially in Soho where the habitual tough , brazen stance often overlaid doubts , anxieties and unhappiness .sx Even the seemingly unassailable Henrietta Law grew to adore Johnny Minton partly because she felt , in his company , that things were all right .sx For Ricky Stride , association with Minton was like being in the presence of an exploding star :sx anything might happen , for he created around him an exciting and excitable atmosphere .sx He could not walk into a room without arousing a response .sx Some hated him , envying his success and finding his whole manner anathema .sx Among a certain type he invited violence but was protected from this by the proximity of Ricky Stride whose physique gave him the appearance of a bodyguard .sx A regular attender at body-building clubs , Ricky kept himself in good shape and his hair blond ( " you were falling over bottles of peroxide at every corner , " Leslie Todd-Reeve recalled) .sx This stocky Apollo , in Robert Buhler's phrase , could be easily provoked .sx In addition , Minton's intermittently hysterical behaviour and desire to shock brought out in Ricky the exhibitionist who would undress at parties and was game for any prank .sx Underneath his impudent and occasionally violent behaviour lay a fundamentally nice , simple , easy-going , exceptionally warm - hearted character , in whom Minton took much pleasure .sx Because Ricky was the first boyfriend to live openly with Minton , he attracted comment .sx Among Minton's homosexual friends there were those who liked to dismiss Ricky , perhaps out of jealousy , as a dumb blond tart , a male Betty Grable , a powder puff on the make .sx Michael Wishart thought that , apart from his looks , Ricky had 'no point' for Minton .sx Some tell how , even in front of Minton , Ricky would make passes at others .sx But though Minton , in turn , often treated him like a mere house-boy , giving him money to go off and buy the food which he afterwards cooked , Ricky carried out his duties with considerable charm .sx His dedication was further shown by intermittent attempts to curtail Minton's drinking .sx His physical appeal was overwhelming .sx When asked her opinion of Ricky at this time Marsh Dunbar described him as " a vision " .sx Another Sohoite , Jenny Mortimer , found him " meltingly attractive " .sx When Ricky began taking Jenny out she was surprised to learn that Minton paid him money and had taken him to the Caribbean .sx Minton , on the other hand , was not pleased to learn that Ricky was seeing Jenny regularly , and , despite her vivacity and love of fun , never liked her .sx He accepted , as a necessity and as a form of self-punishment , Ricky's need for women , but when Ricky returned from a weekend away he would ask rather bitterly , " Was she worth it ?sx " The tension in his relationship with Ricky was made worse when he began to needle him , to run him down in front of others .sx Towards the end of their time together fantastic scenes would erupt .sx " Shut up or I'll hit you , " Ricky would yell .sx " Go on , be a big man , hit me !sx " Minton would retort .sx A punch would be delivered and Ricky , thinking this had ended the row would take himself off to bed only to find the next minute that Minton was emptying a bottle of water over him .sx And so these schoolboy fights went on .sx On another occasion Ricky knocked Minton out on the platform of the Underground , afterwards propping him up on a bench until he recovered sufficiently to be walked home .sx Minton's ebullient energy remained unimpaired .sx In normal spirits he seemed to need only two steps to cross a room .sx Tall , lively and springy , he characteristically flung his elbows about , his gait reflecting an angular gawkiness like that found in his drawings .sx He remained keen on jiving and would throw himself all over the place , hair wild and eyes sparkling .sx Another characteristic was his habit of prodding people .sx In conversation he could , if encouraged , be elaborately fluent on a subject and in any exchange was naturally warm-hearted and responsive .sx His vocabulary was curiously outdated :sx he went , not to a film or the cinema but to the " movies" , and ha'penny was always by him pronounced " half-penny" .sx He also studded his talk with lines from humourists he admired - James Thurber , Charles Addams and the Canadian Stephen Leacock in particular .sx " It's all up with me , Maud , " was a much repeated line from Thurber .sx The element of wildness in his behaviour had originally been brought to the fore by Colquhoun and MacBryde , as a protest against repressive convention .sx As the pace of his life increased , this wildness became ingrained and its purpose more obscure ; it became harder to understand what he was pursuing or being pursued by .sx Michael Middleton has argued that Minton's search for stimuli in exotic places and his febrile manner of living reflects a longing to escape self-consciousness and to live in the moment :sx " He was for ever dashing off , afraid he might be missing something round the corner - another party , an evening at the Jazz Club , a drink on the Soho circuit .sx " But the compulsion behind this need remains unexplained .sx Black holes of discontent , which suddenly and horribly punctured his frenzied sociability , suggested that his ulterior motives remained unfulfilled .sx No amount of friends and laughter could disguise the loneliness and sadness that dogged his life .sx When asked what caused his melancholy he would refer to his dread of getting old .sx He continued to assert that he would not live beyond the age of forty and even implied that he would take steps to ensure this .sx At the same time he was prone to feeling of guilt that his art was not what it ought to be .sx Visible expression of his anxiety could be found in his fingernails which were so savagely bitten that his sheets were often stained with blood .sx Owing to his strength of character , he could quell despair and , in public , continued to exert a potent spell over his audience .sx Towards the end of 1951 he undertook a Sketch-Club criticism at St Martin's School of Art where his liveliness and way of talking impressed the young David Tindle , who , though not a student at St Martin's , was sitting in among the audience .sx Tindle was then working as a commercial artist in Soho and living in a room in Portobello Road .sx When early in 1952 he held an exhibition of his work at the Archer Gallery in Notting Hill , he rang up Minton and invited him to see it .sx This Minton did , afterwards taking Tindle back to Hamilton Terrace where his large picture , The Death of Nelson , still in progress , was hanging on one wall .sx After this Tindle saw a lot of Minton , either at Hamilton Terrace or Portobello Road where Minton did a drawing of the younger man in April 1952 , afterwards painting a half-length portrait of Tindle which now hangs in Pallant House , Chichester .sx Gradually Tindle also got to know Keith Vaughan whom he visited regularly on Saturday mornings after Vaughan had moved to Belsize Park .sx Despite his liking for Vaughan , Tindle could not help noticing that his seriousness was veined with self-importance .sx Once , when angered , Vaughan without any trace of humour told Tindle , " Well , that strikes you out .sx You won't go into my book !sx " It was , Tindle reflects , a remark unimaginable on Minton's lips .sx From Tindle's exhibition at the Archer Gallery Minton bought a small self-portrait ( Plate 16 ) which Lucian Freud also wanted to acquire .sx Painted very much under Freud's influence but with a neo-romantic hangover , this portrait incorporates a considerable amount of emotive distortion which serves , not to break the realist mode , but to enhance the immediacy of the sitter's presence , so that Tindle's face seems to press forward from within the picture space with almost mesmerising effect .sx Whilst looking at this picture Minton told Tindle :sx " You're the first to see something in Lucian .sx " Prior to this Minton had not been altogether convinced by Freud's painting , which he had tended to regard as cranky and a bit na i ve .sx But as Freud , with his own particular brand of madness and insistence , pressed on into a more realist style , Minton was obliged to recognise the power of his intensely probing vision .sx His acquisition of Tindle's self-portrait amounted to an admission of Freud's relevance :sx from now on Minton's own portraits , however romantic in feeling , were to be dressed in a realistic style .sx Tindle never became a boyfriend of Minton's but once , when he stayed the night at Hamilton Terrace , he woke to find Minton's long face beside his , his big eyes staring as he remarked , " Sex happens before seven !sx " As he got to know Minton well , Tindle could not help admiring the older man's flair for living and the way his response was never dense or dead .sx He also noticed a certain rectitude , a tight primness , at odds with his easy sociability .sx He was , for instance , punctilious about paying his models the agreed amount and would work out the precise sum owed to the last quarter of an hour .sx After this , however , the young man might find himself taken off to Soho , where Minton's prodigality contrasted with his former carefulness .sx " I know you're frightfully heterosexual , " Minton once teased Oliver Bernard when he stayed the night at Hamilton Terrace .sx On another occasion he remarked to Bernard that though he enjoyed flirting and foreplay , he found sexual intercourse unsatisfactory .sx When one of his young men buggered him , he admitted to Bobby Hunt and other intimate friends that he did not like it .sx Minton belonged to the kind of homosexual whose ideal is manly because their temperament is feminine .sx Time and again he fell in love with young men who had nothing effeminate about them and who , though temporarily involved in a bisexual life , did not share Minton's inversion and could not on any long-term basis return his love .sx Money procured for Minton the kind of men he needed , but his inability to possess them left him with unsatiable desire , to such an extent that his relentless pursuit of young men began to intrude into everything he did .sx Love , for him , became like an incurable malady .sx Frustration sometimes gave his mocking playfulness a malicious edge .sx David Tindle observed him suddenly turn on his young men in a deliberate attempt to wind them up .sx Aware of their vanity and dread of baldness , he would reach over and lift up a lock of hair , saying , " A little more brain showing today ?sx " He also liked playing one person off against another , mischievously involving a young man with the girlfriend of a boy he himself fancied .sx He could also be more bluntly manipulative :sx on one occasion he walked up to a sailor , with his girlfriend at the bar , saying , as he gave him pounds20 , " When you've finished with her , come and see Auntie Minton , she's got plenty more .sx " At the other extreme he sometimes pushed his boys into bed with girls in order to make himself suffer , though a part of him may also have enjoyed the proximity of heterosexual life .sx Frank and unremorseful about his homosexuality , he never fully resolved his attitude towards it , in part because it denied him the family he would have liked to have had .sx And as the romantic in him began to despair that his dream would never materialise , his promiscuity increased .sx Driving round Piccadilly Circus in a taxi he would screech out of the window , " I'm the Queen of England but I can't remember which .sx " Meanwhile , in place of his ideal he substituted " rough trade " , favoured by other homosexuals of his class partly because it is easily discarded .sx Some of his boys he treated like kept poodles , thereby displacing the scorn he felt for himself .sx The film director Michael Law whom Minton met in Soho at this time has provided a vivid metaphor for his condition :sx " Johnny was really like a clock with the machinery hanging out .sx