George Montague

George Montague (5 June 1923 – 18 March 2022) was a British gay rights campaigner, known as the Oldest Gay in the Village. Convicted of gross indecency in 1974, he campaigned for many years for the government to apologise to the men convicted under such laws rather than merely pardon them, and received an apology from the Home Office in 2017. He was a founder member of the Sailing and Cruising Association and a familiar figure at Brighton Pride, where he took part in the parade each year on a rainbow-draped mobility scooter.

Early life

Montague was born in Hackney, London, the son of George Montague and Nellie New, and was brought up at Hitcham in Buckinghamshire.

He recognised that he was gay in his twenties, but married a woman and had three children; the marriage lasted more than twenty years before the couple divorced. He later said that he had always believed his wife knew he was gay when she married him, but that it was never discussed. He rose to become a senior Scout commissioner, working with severely disabled boys.

Conviction, 1974

In July 1974, at the age of 51, Montague was arrested in a public lavatory after police officers observed him from above the cubicle, and was convicted of gross indecency with a man and fined. He maintained throughout his life that the officer's account of what had happened was untrue. He said he had been placed on a "queer list" kept by the local police, and wrote in his memoir that men were arrested and charged enthusiastically by homophobic officers assisted by provocateurs and informers.

A good relationship with local journalists kept his name out of the newspapers, sparing his family and the Scouts the publicity, but the conviction ended his career in the Scout movement.

Sailing

Following the conviction Montague was introduced to sailing by a close friend who was a yachtsman. He spent three years fitting out a 27-foot Macron Saber and became a founder member of the Sailing and Cruising Association, the LGBT sailing club formed in 1980. He later wrote that the friendships he made through the club had saved my sanity, and had allowed him to put the past behind him.

Later life and the campaign for an apology

Montague met his partner Somchai Phukkhlai in 1997. They entered a civil partnership in 2006 and converted it to a marriage at Brighton Town Hall in 2015. He said that he had come out publicly in his eighties.

He published a memoir, The Oldest Gay in the Village, and became an ambassador for Brighton Pride, where his rainbow mobility scooter was a fixture of the parade for many years.

When the government announced in 2016 that men convicted of abolished homosexual offences would be pardoned under what became known as the Alan Turing Law, Montague declined to accept a pardon, arguing that a pardon accepts that you were guilty and that what was owed was an apology. Thousands signed his petition, which he delivered to Downing Street with his husband, and in 2017 – forty-three years after his conviction – he received a letter of apology from the Home Office.

Death

Montague died at home in Brighton on 18 March 2022, aged 98. Shortly before his death a message was published on his behalf thanking those who had supported his campaigns, expressing the hope that he had helped a little towards a better world, and asking that people continue their good works. It ended: I shall rest now, goodbye.

Tributes were paid by Peter Tatchell and by Brighton Pride, whose director described him as a lovely spirit who had died a happy man.