Brace yourselves people!

I am a Transvestite, and I spend as much time as possible as my alter ego Angela; basically that means that I dress as Angela whenever I feel that I can, and that's most of the time. I shop, socialise, and travel as Angela, and many people have never seen me dressed in any other way.

I have always loved wearing women’s clothing, ever since I first discovered how attractive it was compared with my own at my very first school, and I have been hooked ever since. There was more to it than just that though. My Dad gave me a very rough time when I was a kid, so I was always a really unhappy little boy, lonely, isolated, and bullied, but dressing as a girl (I saw girls as much nicer people) gave me a means of retreating into fantasy; I could quite literally escape from everything that made me unhappy. That need to escape no longer exists any more, but the sheer pleasure I get from wearing beautiful clothes hasn't changed and (if anything) is more intense than ever now. I think that ceasing to worry about what other people thought of me has made that possible; I am what I am and, if someone has a problem with that, it's THEIR problem to sort out.

How I envy women though, not because I can't wear the same clothing - most of the time I can - but because it's not mine of right. Nor have I ever had the figure to be able to just wear in public whatever I fancy, a common complaint among women I know, but complicated in my case by a masculine (although fortunately slim) frame. Nevertheless I pay scant attention to what is considered fashionable, preferring instead to choose things that I like and which suit me. That can often include clothing deemed suitable for younger people, but since when has clothing been marked with a "use by age " date?? I'm as old as I feel, rather than the age that my Birth Certificate says I am, and that's how I dress when I can get away with it. Okay, perhaps miniskirts and mini-dresses are a bit OTT (in PUBLIC!!), but I'm NOT about to dress as though I'm just one step from the grave either.

Fashion can be a dutiful servant, but makes a poor master, in my opinion.

To broaden the picture a little, perhaps a few details about me are in order. I have been married, and have children (they know about me being a TV) who have long since grown up and left home. My wife (now, sadly, dead since December 2007) knew about my interest, but was understandably less than enthusiastic about it, so my transvestism was kept much in the background prior to her death.

After she died, which was a complete shock, it soon dawned on me that I now had a chance to indulge my interest as much as I liked, and that is what I have done. Not only did it ease the pain of her death a little, but it gave me a positive direction again when I was in danger of losing interest in doing anything.

Initially I had my ears pierced and began to get myself waxed on a regular basis, but confined my cross dressing mostly to my home, and the occasional surreptitious public outing. Then, on the 5th November 2008 (a particularly appropriate day if there were to be any fireworks!) I began just to live as the person I wanted to be. Where before I had kept the two parts of my life apart, now I joined them together, and I have to say that I am happier now than I have ever been before.

I feel complete, at last.

Nor has it made life as difficult as it could have been. The neighbours are used to me now, and surprisingly tolerant on the whole, for which I'm grateful. I think that my change of clothing is now seen as nothing more than exactly that, and I'm otherwise the same person as I was before. Nor have I had any real problems when away from home (the odd startled look, perhaps a silly comment, and sometimes silly little girls trailing me and laughing at me, for which I have a remedy) and most people seem quite comfortable with me. The secret seems to be just to act "normally".

I'm not ashamed to say that I dress well, to the point that I tend to show off, because I enjoy doing it; when I'm in women’s company it's often commented upon that I'm better dressed than any of them. I don't try particularly hard to pass as a woman, firstly because my face is a give away, and secondly because what I do is not about BEING a woman. I'm not unhappy about being a man, I'm just unhappy being a man in what I regard as boring and uninteresting men's clothing, when women have so many more interesting and exciting things to wear. I'm also told that "You're much too graceful for a man", and I know that I have a number of feminine traits (from spending so much time with my Mum rather than my Dad), so I feel at home in that sort of "middle ground" between being all male or all female without feeling any need to make deliberate changes.

Not only that, but to make the effort to change my voice and all my mannerisms - to BE feminine - simply isn't warranted. I don't want to be a plastic imitation of a woman, I just want to be myself, and I am.

The only concessions I have made are to wear some make-up and simple jewellery, and to buy a pair of woman’s frames for my glasses, in order that I don't appear too outlandish, like some sort of caricature or cartoon character.

Physically I'm 5'8" tall, which is not too bad, and about 160 pounds in weight. I was lighter, wearing size 12 tops and dresses and size 10 skirts in my younger days, but I'm now up a size in each area - 14 and 12 respectively. I'm fortunate that I can easily wear ladies size 8 shoes, and happily trot around in 4" heels when out on my own, but come down to flat shoes when I'm with other people; I don't want to tower over them all.

I'm now in my late 70's but, although there is some wear and tear (Hair? What hair?? Wigs for me), I'm still disgustingly healthy. I'm told that I don't look my age, and I'm fortunate in that I certainly don't feel it, and I don't think that I act it either. My age is just a number, not a way of life.

I've had some bad times - like being made redundant from three different jobs in the late 70's and early 80's - but I've always found work of some sort shortly afterwards. It was often not the sort of work that I wanted, but it kept my family and me alive, and that was more important than being fussy about what I did for a living. It's paid off too, as I now have more money coming in from pensions, and odds and ends, than I ever did when I was actually working full time. It's also a good moment for me to be in that position, because I now have the leisure time to enjoy that luxury too.

The years since my 60th birthday have been a very important period for me, and so much has changed, mostly for the better. In fact the only cloud on my horizon was the death of my wife and, although her demise left me free to do whatever I wished with my future, I would still gladly give it all up to have her back again. She had been retired less than a year, and we were just beginning to enjoy our additional leisure time together, then she was gone. It was so unjust too - she had worked hard all her life, and never had the chance to enjoy the rewards that she had earned.

But I'm jumping ahead. Up until early 2001 I had always been a loner, no friends, just people I knew. The problem was that I was afraid of people, worried that they might find out I was a TV, so I kept everyone at a distance. I wasn't a nice person either, very selfish, thought only of myself, and had no respect for anyone, but that has all changed now. The key was to gain respect for myself first, and that meant that I had to face a lot of painful facts about myself that I'd spent most of my life ignoring.

It was hard, and there were some really low points, but it has been worth it. People now tell me that they think of me as a friend, that they like me and respect me, just as I have learned to like and respect them too. Yet it still comes as a surprise sometimes, and I may never feel entirely comfortable with being liked and regarded as a friend. It's rather like a pair of new shoes - they need to be worn for a while before they become really comfortable, if they are to become comfortable at all.

So, that's me in a nutshell. It's taken me a long time to get here, and there have been times that I would sooner forget, but it's all worked to shape the person that I am now.

And on the whole I'm content with that; I have more than I expected, and perhaps more than I deserve.

Angela XXX