Laddish to ladylike can be quite a step
BECOMING DRUSILLA by Richard Beard (Harvill Secker, £12.99)
By Val Hennessy
Last updated at 3:34 PM on 21st May 2008
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-1020961/Laddish-ladylike-quite-step.htmlFor years, Richard Beard has enjoyed spontaneous outdoor holidays with his biker pal, Drew.
Together they go hill-climbing, canoeing and cycling, revelling in the muddy slog to the next pub, the pints, the blokeish jokes, the stinky two-man tent, and the general Boy Scoutishness and larking about away from wives, children and jobs.
In everyday life, Beard is a writer, while Drew works in the boiler rooms of cross-Channel ferries. And then, out of the blue, Drew drops the bombshell. He announces that he is having a sex change and that by their next trip he'll be Dru (short for Drusilla). Beard goes to visit his now female hiking partner at her home and admits: 'The first time I saw my friend Dru in pearl earrings I coughed and pretended nothing had changed.' He wants to laugh, not with amusement, but with nerves. Flummoxed by his inappropriate reaction, he reminds himself that there can have been absolutely nothing funny for Dru to have been a woman trapped in a man's body all her life. Although, it has to be said, Dru can be fairly funny about it herself when she goes into detail.
