Reith in Love

An awfully good looking boy: 1909-1917

The untold story during Reith's lifetime was his deep affection for a younger man, Charlie Bowser, whose family lived near Reith in Glasgow. There is no clear proof that Reith was gay, although Reith's biographer Ian McIntyre suggests he was.

When their relationship ended, Reith destroyed many of the relevant sections of his diary and got rid of Charlie's letters. But even the expurgated recollections tell of times when they swam naked together, shared a bed and kissed.

And if people today are less likely to take a moral stand on LGBTQ matters, they might be less indulgent about the way Reith used his influence to get the young man jobs. He even proposed him for an OBE.

Brief encounters

Reith was repressed. He admitted that himself. When he was 20 he had a brief romance with one of his father's congregation in Glasgow, a 15-year-old girl, May MacQueen. Dr. Reith was keen on a match: 'Father announced that he would awfully like May for a daughter-in-law, a hint which I shall not take.'

During a church picnic he kissed her, though he remembered 'it was awkwardly done'. Shortly after came 17-year-old Cissie Murray. 'Very pretty' he described her and they would meet once or twice a week. This relationship didn't even run to an awkward kiss. His recollections, dictated to a secretary in 1929, said he felt no sexual attraction towards Cissie, or to any other girl, and 'as far as I was concerned, she might have been a boy.'

Meeting Charlie

The first time Reith met Charlie Bowser he was 22 and Charlie was 15. 'Very nice little chap' he recorded in his diary entry of May 26th 1912. By September he was describing Charlie as 'Very good looking and awfully pretty eyes'. The attraction wasn't unnoticed.

Reith's family were 'huffy about it' and it led to a row with his brother Douglas. When Reith moved to work in London in 1914, it was not because he wanted to better himself in the capital, but because the Bowsers were moving there. That summer Reith and Charlie spent a weekend in Perthshire where they were like young lovers, carving their initials on a hilltop seat.

On a later weekend in the Highlands they slept together in lodgings - though, it has to be said, two men sharing a bed in those days was seen as a way of saving money on accommodation rather than a sign of sexual activity.

Kisses and Bible reading

When Reith served in France, he carried two photographs in his wallet: one of his father, the other of Charlie Bowser. When Reith first left for the front, Charlie saw him off at Waterloo, and when he returned on leave early in 1915, his schoolboy friend was there again, throwing his arms round his neck and kissing him.

On Reith's last day of leave, Charlie wore his ring and kissed it before giving it back, and Reith promised not take it off until they were together again. A few months later Reith was sent home to recover from dysentery and they visited Scotland together. Reith's diary entry mixes the potentially homo-erotic with respect for the Sabbath:

'Topping to be chasing around together. Church at 11. In afternoon to Monzie Falls and had a ripping bathe, climbing about naked all over the place. Tea at 5 and then read Paradise Lost to mother and C.'

Reith's return to France had echoes of their previous parting. Charlie kissed his signet ring. On the station platform, Reith kissed Charlie.

America's prettiest girls

"She came over and sat very close beside me, but I did not touch her."

Charlie stayed in Britain while Reith worked in the United States in 1916-17. And there, Reith made a new young friend, 14-year-old Jimmy Laws. He took the boy shooting at the Remington factory range and bought him a signet ring for his birthday.

Jimmy had a sister, a second year university student called Jeanette 'the prettiest girl I have seen in this country by a very long way' wrote Reith. 'Is, moreover, clever'. But that wasn't enough for him 'though I may be very fond of Jeanette, she does not enter into the picture compared with him [Charlie]'.

One evening he notes, almost romantically, it was 'a very nice starry night and a full moon'. But when Jeanette came over and sat close to him, he didn't touch her. 'I do not know whether she expected me to kiss her or no,' the 27-year-old Reith told his diary.

It was just as well he maintained this restraint with another girl he met in the States. He described Betty Stewart as 'ravishingly pretty', 'fascinating' and like a 'fairy princess'. He thought she 'put Jeanette in the shade'. Reith taught Betty to drive his car, gave her a gold bracelet and took many photographs of her. Betty Stewart was 12 years old.