Hull drag artist: losing touch with sons was my big regret

A 70-year-old drag artist has spoken about his huge regret at losing touch with his sons.

Ray Millington has been performing in Hull under the name, Bobby Mandrell, for 51 years.

He said he stopped seeing the boys after leaving his marriage, aged 19, and coming out as gay.

Mr Millington told the BBC that seeing his youngest son for the first time in 30 years, as he performed his drag act in a pub, was a "smack in the face".

The 70-year-old, who grew up in the fishing community of Hessle Road, has been performing since the 1970s at pubs around the city and venues across the UK, and has worked in showbiz with the likes of comedian Jimmy Cricket.

"People used to say to me 'aren't you're frightened of getting up on stage dressed like that in front of all the fishermen and such' but that never bothered me. Never bothered me at all. If anything I had a good laugh with them.

"To stand on that stage and to see people applaud and laugh, it's the most wonderful feeling in the world."

But not all of his performances were met with mirth and merriment in those early days of hitting the stage.

"I've got booed. I've had ashtrays thrown at me, bottles thrown at me, cigarettes flicked at me. We had to leave the club through a window."

However, he said, he had seen a significant improvement in the city's attitudes to people who identify as LGBTQ+ and there was far more acceptance now than when he came out in the 1970s.

Before taking to the stage as Bobby Mandrell, Ray had started a young family and two years after getting married at age 17, he left his wife and two sons - one of whom has since died.

"I wished I'd have stayed in touch with my two sons," said Ray.

"When I realised that I was gay. I didn't think, in my own little world, it was fair in those days for them to have a gay dad, for people to find out that their dad's gay.

"I wanted my two boys to grow up in a normal environment or that's what I thought.

"I never saw my youngest son for thirty years."

It was not until years later when the "Queen of Hessle Road" was left stunned by an unexpected visitor to one of his shows in Hull.

"We always used to say that anybody who hasn't seen the Bobby Mandrell show is a virgin - Bobby Mandrell virgins," said Ray.

"[One day] Andrew, my dresser, said: 'Bobby, we've got some Bobby Mandrell virgins in' and I went 'Ooh, I'll do me best for you'.

"Then a voice said: 'I'm a Bobby Mandrell virgin as well, dad' and I turned and he went, 'I'm Lee, your youngest son'.

"I mean what a smack in the face that was."

The pair reconnected more than 10 years ago and have since remained "the best of friends", Ray said.

While the stilettos have been kicked off for semi-retirement, these days Bobby Mandrell is mostly seen at charity events, having achieved "everything I wanted to do" in life.

"To be called the Queen of Hessle Road that just did it for me. I thought I'm there.

"I just want to see somebody paint my face on the side of a building and I would've made it, I know I'm there then."

Follow BBC East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastyorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk