My story begins in December 2002, whilst walking back from the cinema one evening my best friend told me that he had cancer! All I could think was “I wonder if we’ll still go out tonight?” It wasn’t that I didn’t care, it just didn’t sink in for a while that’s all, after all people get over it these days, don’t they? Reg didn’t he died just over two months ago.” God is that all its been? It seems like much longer. Reginald Sutherland Bundy otherwise know as “Regina Fong” was my best pal, whether or not I was his is a different matter all together! Anyway I first met Reg when I was about 19,I was still wet behind the ears and naff as fuck! He scared me to death on that first meeting, although he didn’t even remember it, which doesn’t really surprise me “especially with all the vodka that had been consumed“. Five years later our paths crossed again, I had just returned from Denmark where I’d been working with a queen called Jay James with whom I was doing a double act called déjà vu ,“that was fun, NOT” Regina was choreographing a number for a little film being made by a mutual friend of ours ,it was a pile of shit actually but you know! Reg always insisted that this was the first time he noticed me and that’s where it all began.It’s funny how you click with some people you laugh at the same things, the same things piss you off, and then there was the vodka! “oh how we loved the vodka”

Like most friendships ours took time to grow, “about ten years, I’d say“. At first we simply saw each other around said hello, exchanged a few bitchy remarks, “the usual“ then Reg started to reinvent his drag career, the Disappointer days were long gone though not forgotten, at least not by me! The Disappointer Sisters changed the face of drag as the English speaking world knew it, instead of trailing on and off stage in a series of long sparkly frocks trying to look as glamorous as humanly possible and miming to at least four minutes of Shirley Bassey, or whatever female diva they happened to be into that week, Regina, Rosie Lee and Gracie Grabbit decided to make it funny! Which may sound obvious but at the time this was pretty groundbreaking stuff, I will just point out here that I myself am much to young to remember the original Disappointers! But thanks to the medium of video I have seen most of there shows. Meanwhile somewhere in the darkest realms of Reg’s mind a new idea was beginning to take shape.

Her Imperial Highness Regina Fong the last of the Romanoff’s was about to be born, it all happened a bit by mistake actually, one of Regina’s former partners in crime “Gracie Grabbit” was hosting a so called talent night at the Black Cap on a Tuesday, but wanted to go on holiday so Regina was drafted in to take the helm while she was away, needless to say miss grabbit returned only to find she had been replaced,”oh well that’s the cutthroat business we call show for you”. Luckily for Reg and for many others this was to be the beginning of an extraordinary rise to cult stardom that was to last right up until the time that he passed away, but that’s getting to the sad part far too early! because “my god there were so many happy bits in between”. I will try to tell you some of my memories in the most honest way I can, sometimes all the facts may not be as accurate as they could be, but this isn’t meant to be a biography, in truth its more for me than anybody who cares to read it! a sort of diary if you like, something to stop me from forgetting, just a way to get it all out of my head.

The popularity of Tuesday nights just grew and grew as did the character Reg had created “Her Imperial Highness was taking on a life of her own. To begin with Reg kept the format of the show much the same as it had been, all amateur performers were welcome as long as they were human and more importantly didn’t want paying! But that wasn’t going to last for long, for one thing a lot of the acts that turned up were a bit of an acquired taste to say the least, another reason was the dressing room! Which was fast becoming a nightmare, in fact a lot of queens seemed to spend more time backstage than they did watching the show “I wonder who they could be? Ahem” So as anyone who knew Reg will tell you this couldn’t carry on! For a while he tried getting ready upstairs in the pub, but this was to isolating not to mention boring, secretly I think Reg loved the buzz in the dressing room but just wanted It to be a select crowd. Therefore the only thing to do was get rid of the rabble, what he actually did was turn the night into the Regina Fong show with supporting guests whom he would personally invite to perform, which was not only a very shrewd move on his part but also made the show a more organised and slick event ,it became a sort of variety show with Regina the star/ compare! Think about it, all this from a shabby, run of the mill amateur night which every pub in London was trying to do at the time, “the man wasn’t a fool that’s for god damn sure!” A regular guest that appeared with Reg was a drag queen called Zsarday “I hope I’ve spelt that right dear” she was one of the few to have survived from the free for all, which says a hell of a lot for her because there were plenty who would have killed to be in her shoes “literally”.

Gradually Reg started to invent unique little sketches which were made up of obscure clips of dialogue mixed with tag
lines from TV ads and snippets of music, which when all cleverly edited together made some kind of mad sense believe
 it or not. I think the very first sketch was put together by Mr Dave Rosen a long standing friend and colleague of Reg’s
 better known to some simply as “rose” or maybe I’m the only one who called him that, “I don’t know” anyway he
made “she-rah” which was a cartoon on TV at the time, she was he-mans twin sister I believe! He cut a few pieces
 of dialogue together with the theme tune and hey presto Regina had her first number, and the crowd loved it! Even
after all this time it’s still one of my all time favourites "good on ya rose“!As well as Zsarday there would also be a
 different guest act on each week, and that’s where I came in… I remember the first time Regina asked me to do it,
 talk about chuffed! It was not so much about doing the show; although that was part of it, one of the best things
about doing a Tuesday night was the after show party! And believe me there was a party every week. It was on
these nights that I started to get to know Regas more than just a casual acquaintance, well lets face it there’s nothing
better than a few drinks to get people to open up, one thing we found we had in common was the ability to talk
 complete twaddle and find it highly amusing! many’s the time we went off into fantasy land after a few Vodka’s,
 “oh how we laughed!” I remember one night in particular when it took Reg at least two hours to get his tights off ,
they spent most of that time round his ankles.Now don’t get me wrong it wasn’t all drunken nights in dingy little
 dressing rooms, just mostly! No seriously we did do some very cultured things together, it was Regina who gave
 me my first experience at the Ballet, which I thought I would love and not just because of all those men in tights! But
also because I have always wished I had been a dancer, in fact that is probably what led me into drag in the first place,
sadly though my first trip to see Swan Lake was not quite what I hoped, mainly due to the fact that our seats were two
 thousand feet in the air, now I know why they call it the gods! I think it’s because you are sitting in there laps, as
you can imagine this didn’t do much for my vertigo so this mixed with the fact it was “bloody boring” convinced us
 to make a hasty exit and head for … yes you’ve guessed it “the bar” this was not to be my last visit to the ballet
however we did return to see a fab production of “Giselle” only this time we had our feet planted firmly on the
ground with very nice seats in the stalls, courtesy of the lovely Ebony “thanks love” which made the whole
 experience much more enjoyable. This was only one of many things that I would never have done if it hadn’t been
for Reg and I will always be grateful for that.

On the way home from the cinema that night, the word cancer slowly began to filter through into my thick skull I can’t
believe that we had just sat through three hours of Lord of The Rings and Reg hadn’t said a word, waiting until the way
 home to break this news, I can only think he didn’t want to spoil the film… Cancer is such a big word, it covers so
many things and raises a lot of questions! “where is it? Is it operable?” none of which you want to ask, as it turned out
 the answer to the first question was scary enough! There were tumours in two places, his oesophagus and more
seriously the liver, neither of which were operable, therefore the only road ahead was chemotherapy. I don’t think I’ll
ever meet another person as brave as Reg was that night, the way he talked about this life threatening disease was
 quite remarkable! I know I would have been terrified, and maybe deep down inside he was too. But there was one
thing I knew for sure, he was going to put up one hell of a bloody fight! As we came to the corner where we would go our separate ways he said “what time are we going out tonight?” “the same as usual I replied”.

One of Reg’s strange little quirks was his attitude to his home, in all the years that I had known him I had never been to
 his flat (otherwise known as Fong Towers) I’d been round to Grafton road many times to pick him up for work, but
never got passed the door step! so you can imagine my surprise when he invited me round one day, saying that he
wanted to talk to me, of course I immediately thought the worst “being the drama queen that I am” so anyway off I set,
feeling quite nervous actually, wondering what it was all about. It was very awkward when I first arrived, even Reg
seemed uncharacteristically on edge, and it slowly dawned on me that I was the first person to set foot in his home for
quite sometime! ”apart from the man from the video rental company, but that’s another story” This awkwardness
didn’t last long however we were soon laughing and chatting as usual “the few beers helped I think” and eventually
 Reg got round to the reason he had summoned me, now to say that his place was untidy is probably an understatement,
 all I will say is “Quentin Crisp comes to mind” and leave it there. It turned out that Reg had decided it was time to have
a bit of a spring clean, as he would now be having visits from palliative care nurses and the like, so he offered me the
prize position as his “interior organiser” as he so beautifully put it “ha ha” of course I agreed and that was that, an
arrangement that was to last for quite some time actually, this was probably one of the major turning points in our
 relationship, somehow the fact that I went into his home every week seemed to take our friendship to a new level.

The Black cap is a strange place! its one of those pubs that you either love or hate instantly, for me it was definitely the
 former, I was fifteen years old the first time I entered the joint and I loved it! For the first time in my short life I had found
somewhere I could totally be myself. I think a lot of gay people feel this when they first discover the gay scene, although
I know not everyone who is gay feels this way! the scene itself can be a very harsh place, a lot of people find this very
difficult to deal with, I know many people who have experienced more prejudice from other gays than they ever have in
the heterosexual world, racism especially seems to be rife among the male gay community, this may sound like rather a
sweeping statement but I am speaking from what I myself have witnessed and the way that black friends of mine have
 been treated! Now you may disagree with me on this and your entitled to your opinion, but frankly I don’t give a shit!
Anyway apart from all that there is a new form of “Homobigotory” and that’s the straight acting gay guy syndrome, to
 me this term speaks for itself, the very word “acting” says it all. I think this probably stems from the fact that what most
gay men want is a straight man, so a lot of them walk around acting like one? This in itself doesn’t bother me, it’s the fact
 that if you don’t play this game then you must be a screaming queen! Well quite frankly so what if you are? Some of the
 nicest people I know are … shall we say slightly camp, myself included! Its laughable now you even have to pretend
to be something your not to fit in on the gay scene, haven’t half of us been doing that for years in the straight world?
Talking of screaming queens I’d better get back to Reg and the black cap, not only did he work there every Tuesday but
 he also spent a lot of time there socially too, some might say that in the latter years Regina ruled the place and I’d tend
 to agree, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so concerned with the welfare of a pub since Annie Walker left “The
 Rovers Return” I really believe that he loved the place and thought of it as a home from home. He put a lot of his own
 time and energy into it, always coming up with new ideas and offering advice on how to run the venue, as you can
 imagine this did not always go down too well. It depended on who was running the place, and god knows they’ve had
 a variety of different managers in and out of the place over the years. One thing that always made me laugh was that it
didn’t matter what the latest governor thought of Reg or Regina whether they loved or loathed him, and let me tell you
 there were even a few who tried to get rid of him! They all came and went but Her Imperial Highness ruled on!

One person who has managed London’s premiere cabaret bar a few times over the years is Jimmy Smith and I
 must say he always does a good job, I know Reg thought this too & as fate would have it Jimmy had just
returned to the helm shortly before Regina died and it is largely thanks to him thatshe was given such a
spectacular send off .

I suppose it was also down to Jimmy Smith that “The dolly mixtures” came about; I think that he was planning to
 celebrate his 30th birthday (for about the 3rd time) with a big do! and wanted a few of the regular drag queens to
 get together and put on a show so Regina, Zsarday, Millie Turner, Sandra, Titti la Camp, and Moi put our heads
together and came up with a sort of madhouse type affair, that even though I do say so myself worked rather well!
And what started out as a one off bit of fun sort of escalated, mainly due to the fact that there were a lot of other
 pub managers in the audience that night and they saw how well it went down, I think they decided they wanted
a piece of the action, consequently offers to appear at various other venues started to come in, but even though
these bookings were great fun and went well everywhere we performed, I think we were a bit too expensive for
 most places and most of the bookings were only one offs for special occasions and the like, the Black Cap
however called upon us many times mainly for special events and eventually we became the regular act on new
years eve, I think we did about four or five years running, the most memorable being the millennium show not
 only was it the worst show we ever put together but also after all the hype nobody bloody well came . There
were only about two hundred punters in, a poor turn out, when you consider they had expected about a thousand!
Oh well never mind we got paid a nice little wedge! Doing these shows together had an unexpected side effect on
the seven of us involved, in a way it created a bond between us all that had not been there previously, now I’m
not saying we were all the best of mates all of the time, we all had our ups and downs and some of us got on
 better than others but we were all what I like to call Regina, s girls and in my mind we always will be.
Now I can’t just mention these names without filling you in with a bit of background info on each of them. I, ll start
with Zsarday who I mentioned earlier, as I said before this young lady started off working on the amateur nights
 at various different pubs, and eventually made her way to the Black Cap, and when Reg took over as the host
she became his regular supporting act, becoming an integral part of the show, and almost as well known as
Regina Fong herself, I think she was best known for an extraordinary rendition of “And I am telling you I’m not
going” a rather beefy torch song from the Broadway hit musical “Dream girls” I think it was sung by a big black
diva called Jennifer Holiday“I wonder where she is now“ well anyway Zsarday took that number and made it her
 own, I think on more than one occasion the audience made her do it at least three times in a row, believe me!
you had to be there. As time went by it became apparent that Zsarday was not happy being just a drag queen and
that her feminine feelings went a lot deeper, and it wasn’t long before “he” started dressing as a girl full time
(I know it must be getting a bit confusing with all the he’s and she’s! but that’s just the way it is in the twilight world
 of drag, you’ll get used to it) the funny thing is that this was to be what would eventually lead to the parting of the
ways for Regina and Zsarday, as step by step he decided to become a she for good, by taking the extremely
 courageous decision to go for gender reassignment,” I don’t think I ever told you how brave I think you are Zsar,
 but I do and I also think you are a beautiful woman!” unfortunately this decision was to have a rather bad effect on
 Zsardays relationship with Regina, in her mind she was putting on a drag act and now that Zsarday was technically a
 woman there was no longer a place for her in the show ,don’t get me wrong, Zsarday was fully aware of this before
she made her decision, which I think only makes it all the braver of her to go ahead with it, don’t forget she had been
working with Regina for fifteen years by this time and that’s a big chunk of anyone’s life! Personally I think Reg
treated Zsarday rather harshly and it all seemed rather ironic, I’m sure that most sex changes have quite a lot of
difficulty finding employment but I don’t think many have been chucked out of a drag act because of it. Still its not
 really any of my business, however that’s never stopped me before and its my story so I’ll say what I like.

Millie Turner was one of the more talented queens to come out of the amateur nights at the Black Cap, who also went on to become one of Regina’s regular guest artistes, he was also one third of the highly successful triple act “Sandra, Lucia and Millie Turner” I myself also worked with Millie for about four years in which time we became good friends, sadly we had a major falling out which isn’t that surprising considering the amount of time and alcohol we spent together, anyway after a brief period of not talking, Reg in his usual subtle way got us both to do his birthday bash and one thing led to another and its all water under the bridge, sadly though we never got the act back together, I guess some things just can’t be mended.
Recently though Millie and me have built a few bridges and we just worked together at Regina’s annual memorial show, which takes place on her birthday at the Black Cap. In a strange way Reg, s death has brought about some very good things; I only wish that he were still here to see them! Millie also became a very good friend of Regina’s and I know that they both thought a great deal of each other. One of my fondest memories is a show that the three of us did together for a friend of ours birthday, another performer known as “The boy George experience” aka Keith, I think it was for his 30th and he had hired a huge hall for the night with the most glamorous stage, anyway as usual me and Reg were there nice and early and also as usual Millie came in rather late “I think he had been working earlier” well in she swanned got ready in 20 minutes strolled an stage and stole the show! How we laughed…

Sandra who as I said worked with the afore mentioned Millie, is one of those
Queens who seem to have just been around forever, I’m not really sure how she started doing drag or where she came from I just remember her always being there. Apart from the triple she did with Millie she also did a double act with an extraordinary queen called Lucia who was also in the triple act (the word incestuous comes to mind) anyway after doing well in both these ventures Sandra took the risky decision to go it alone which turned out to be probably the best thing she ever did, as now she is one of the most popular acts on the circuit “good on ya girl” I also worked with Sandra, Lucia and Millie Turner in an act called Twisted Sisters, I think I took titty,s place when she left, we had a regular spot a “the Cap” every Thursday, We did some rather bizarre stuff but it was all good fun! We also took the show to a few other places one of which was a boat of some kind moored on the Thames, which had been hired for the after show party of an obscure plays opening night, there were quite a few acts on the bill besides us including Cher Travesty, Mia Carla and some male and female strippers, all in all it was quite a to do! One of the best things of the evening was that the drinks were free, well as you can imagine it turned into quite a party, the lovely Lucia entertained us all by assisting the male strippers? helping them into their thongs and the like “how sweet”!
As we were the last act on by the time we got to our spot we were all a little merry to say the least but all I can say is we had a ball and stormed the place even though the ceiling was so low that we all ended up with skinned knuckles every time we lifted our arms which was part of the dance routine our hands scrapped across the beautiful artex ceiling.

Lastly but by no means least is the outrageous “ Titti la camp” who is probably one of my favourite drag acts! Funnily enough Titti came from a talent competition held at the “Black Cap” which Regina & myself happened to be judging, & before you even think it there was no skulduggery involved, as this was the first time that we ever laid eyes on her! Needless to say Titti won the contest and never looked back, going on to be one of the busiest acts around .I never really got to know Titti very well even though I knew her for a long time & we worked together on many occasions, it wasn’t until Reg got ill that a connection happened between us & a friendship was formed that I now hold very dear, Titti was the most wonderful friend to Regina in the last months of his life, showing himself to be a truly unselfish, generous, caring person, I can honestly say that I’ve never met anyone who gave so freely of his time & energy purely out of friendship! “ Ill never forget what you did for Reg Titti and I hope that we will always be friends, Regina was very lucky to have you!” The most important thing to him was to stay in his own home as long as he could, and you alone made that possible, Sadly he isn’t here to thank you but I know how much he appreciated your care and support, it may not be my place to do so but I thank you on his behalf! One of my fondest memories is the last time I saw Reg, it was the afternoon the three of us spent sitting round the kitchen table laughing and joking like nothing in the world was wrong, how could any of us have known that only a week later he would be gone?

Well that’s the gang all accounted for, although there are a few others that deserve a mention & fear not I haven’t forgotten you! All in good time…
I suppose I should give you a little bit of info on me, well I started drag by entering the annual talent contest at the good old Black Cap, came second did a double act for a while then went solo for a while did another double act then a triple act blah blah,blah. Twenty-two years later hung up the stilettos and here I am!

Christmas came and went, “as it does” and things sort of seemed to get back to normal, I don’t know whether it was denial on my part or that’s just the way it works, because after the initial shock had worn off we just got on with things, working, drinking, you know the same old stuff… Then the chemo started and this brought it all to the fore again, some how making the illness seem real for the first time! Reg was very frightened of this treatment and I tried to support him as much as I could although I don’t think, looking back that I was very good at this. To be honest it all frightened me and my first instinct was to run away from it which to a certain extent I did, fleeing to my mothers “typical queen” but I knew this wasn’t the right thing to do I had to pull up my boots and be there for my mate.
We spoke every day on the phone and also saw a lot of each other socially, doing things together that we would never have done before, I remember when Reg had his first chemo session he had to sit in the hospital for hours while they pumped the chemicals into his body but that wasn’t the end of it, they connected a bag full of the stuff to him and he had to carry it round with him so it slowly filtered into his system. I know Reg hated this not only did it make him feel shitty but it also made him feel like a sick person, so he decided he was going to get on with it and we had a day out at the Tate modern, oh how we laughed that day all the pretentious crap! Pianos hanging form the ceiling a room decorated to look like a chemist shop, Reg said, “ If I take my bag out they’d think it’s an exhibit”.

Things went well for a while. Then the line the doctors had put in for the chemo got infected and he had to go into hospital, when I saw him lying there I couldn’t believe it, for the first time he looked really sick, it was so scary! I thought he was going to die; it was too soon, they said he could have at least a year and it had only been a few months this couldn’t be right it wasn’t fair. Slowly the drugs started to fight the infection and Reg started to get better, after a week or so he was well enough to go home but of course this was only the beginning.
Summer was on its way and things started to look a bit brighter, can you believe that through all this Reg continued to work only having a brief time off when he was in hospital. I truly believe that the shows were one of the main things that kept him so strong; after all if he could take charge of a pub full of queens he could take charge of anything! Talking of full pubs they weren’t all like that, one of the strangest bookings we did together was a regular spot at the infamous south London pub… The Vauxhall Tavern which in its heyday was one of the most fantastic venues for drag in London, once being the home of the now highly successful entertainer Lilly savage aka Paul O, Grady, who was a very good friend of Regina’s, its funny because I always thought of Lilly as the queen of the Vauxhall and Regina as the queen of the Black cap, when they got together it was like two heads of state meeting, and boy did they know how to hold court!
The Vauxhall however was not what it once was, a lot of the drag queens that used to delight the packed venue had moved on in one way or another. Sadly to say many of them had gone to the big dressing room in the sky “I hope this doesn’t sound flippant because its not meant too, it’s meant to be camp!” The place was being run by a young Scottish guy whose name I can’t remember off hand “sorry mate it’ll come to me don’t worry” anyhow he was a huge Regina Fong fan and desperately wanted her to work there so a deal was struck and Thursday night became a regular thing, now to say it was quiet is the understatement of the year “it was like a fucking morgue dear” the first time I did it with her I think there was five people in, that’s including the bar staff! So how to handle this? Well what do you think we did? We got drunk and we got on with it…every week for nearly a bloody year we clacked on and off that stage to nothing but the sound of our own heels! Swearing afterwards that this was the last night! Then we’d come out of the dressing room head for the bar, stay all night and “sing em all” we had some fantastic times there usually not falling out of the place till the early, early hours of the morning, whats new?

There is another person that I need to mention in more detail, and that is Lucia! I spoke about her a little earlier but it would be rude not to talk about her a bit more, because all that I have said before somehow or another also includes this extraordinary queen, I use the word extraordinary because I don’t think I have ever met another person quite like her! We have had some fabulous times together and also some monstrous ones but quite frankly I personally wouldn’t change any of them, so don’t think I’ve forgotten ya girl.


Regina died on the 15th of April 2003. I remember it very clearly, my mobile rang at about 9.30 in the morning, it was Titti. I knew instantly something was wrong, Reg had had a very bad night and called Titti and asked him to come over, Titty told me that he knew straight away that this wasn’t good and something had to be done! So an ambulance was called to take Reg to the hospice in Hampstead. I said that I would come straight up there but Titti said that Regina didn’t want anyone to be told just yet, but titti thought I should know, so I said ok and asked him to ring me later, I can’t tell you how much I regret this! if there is one time in my life that I wish I had ignored Reg's wishes it was then. The next time I spoke to titti was later that day, in the middle of the conversation the nurses came out of Regina’s room and he told me he would call me straight back, can you believe that while we were talking Reg had slipped away, when titti called back it was to tell me Regina had just died.
For a whole year I had imagined what this day would be like, never once did it happen like this! Where was the goodbye? I imagined going to see him in the hospice, sitting by his bed trying to be brave and failing, holding his hand and looking at one of the best friends I will ever know, seeing that smile in her eyes just one more time! It didn’t happen! it would never happen.
There is no one to blame except myself I should have gone straight up to the hospice! I knew it then and I still know it now! I let him down terribly and I’ll never be able to change that, I also let myself down “ always the coward” that’s me!
The one thing that makes this bearable is that the last time I did see Reg was in his kitchen in his own home, the sun was shining, the window was open and me titti and Regina sat round the kitchen table and we talked and we laughed like we always laughed, so perhaps it is better that I will always remember him that way.