Gorton Monastery

Gorton Monastery is a short 15-minute bus ride from Piccadilly Newton Street.

The monastery is a former church and Franciscan friary, which has been described as architect Edward Welby Pugin’s masterpiece. It is also known as Manchester’s Taj Mahal.

Derelict for many years, it was saved from ruin by the charity and building preservation trust that still maintains and operates the site to this day. Stockport-born broadcaster and writer Joan Bakewell and former Beirut hostage Terry Waite backed the campaign to save the church and are patrons of the Gorton Lane Monastery.

In 1997 the monastery was placed on the World Monuments Fund Watch List of 100 most endangered sites in the world, alongside the Taj Mahal, Pompeii and the Valley of the Kings.

Today, The Monastery operates as a heritage visitor attraction as well as a venue for hire.

Once we arrived we settled in the café and enjoyed soups, paninis, jacket potatoes and toasties all prepared by the wonderful Carl. We then looked round the enclosed garden, church, cloisters, sanctuary café and refectory. More photos can be seen here.

Canonisation of David Hoyle

On 22 September 1991, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence canonised Derek Jarman as Saint Derek of The Order of Celluloid Knights of Dungeness. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are an international order of queer nuns with groups all over the world, including here in Manchester.

They perform radical queer and left-wing activism, essentially HIV and community fundraising work that, in their own words, “expiate stigmatic guilt and promulgate universal joy”.

On Saturday 9 April 2022, as a finale to the Derek Jarman PROTEST! exhibition, Jez Dolan (the artist in residence) together with The Manchester Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence held the canonisation of internationally acclaimed performance-art icon, David Hoyle, hereafter to be referred to as Saint David of the Avant-Garde.

As is traditional and time-honoured in these matters, the ceremony began with the procession of the Saint-to-be through the streets to the place of canonisation. The procession, accompanied by the Eclipse New Orleans Parade Band, began from New York New York in Manchester’s gay village.

The night before we had attended Dame Gracy’s Memorial at Tribeca. We learnt that Gracy, back in the day, had led a march from the Rembrandt pub along Sackville Street. However before the dozen or so people reached Portland Street they were all arrested by the police.

Today’s parade took the same route out of the Gay Village and continued through China Town to the renowned splendour of the Manchester Art Gallery accompanied by flags and banners, smoke and mirrors.

Once we were in the Art Gallery, Jez Dolan announced: “In the beginning Gloria created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was nanti form, and void; and munge was upon the eke of the deep. And the Fairy of Gloria trolled upon the eke of the aquas. And Gloria cackled, Let there be sparkle: and there was sparkle.” This made the whole event truly fantabulosa!

More photos can be seen here.

Pride in Nature

The RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) Garden Bridgewater organised a Pride in Nature event and members of Out In The City attended. We walked through the gardens, enjoyed refreshments and listened to the talks from Queer Out Here (an LGBT+ walking group), Hidayah LGBT (a group which supports LGBT Muslims) and Let’s Get Botanical Together (a collaboration between Pride in Ageing at LGBT Foundation and Manchester Art Gallery to create a pocket park inspired by Derek Jarman’s garden at Prospect Cottage in Dungeness).

UK Government’s LGBT+ Conference cancelled

The UK has cancelled its first-ever international LGBT+ conference after a boycott by more than 100 organisations.

The three-day “Safe To Be Me” conference was scheduled to begin in London on the 29 June, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of London’s first official pride marches, to promote LGBT+ rights within the UK and globally.

The event will not go ahead after LGBT+ charities and other groups pulled out over the government’s stance on conversion therapy. They also failed to get sponsorship from Vodafone, BP, Virgin Media, NBC Universal and OVO Energy due to the government’s poor record on LGBT+ rights.

The Stonewall statement (below) is backed by more than 100 LGBT+ and other organisations including GIRES, Gendered Intelligence, Mermaids, The LGBT Foundation, The Peter Tatchell Foundation, The Intercom Trust and The Proud Trust.

Stonewall Statement on the “Safe To Be Me” conference

“Due to the Prime Minister’s broken promise on protecting trans people from the harms of Conversion Therapy, we regret that we are withdrawing Stonewall’s support for the UK Government’s Safe To Be Me conference. We will only be able to participate if the Prime Minister reverts to his promise of a trans-inclusive ban on conversion therapy.

This is a decision we take with a heavy heart. As the UK’s first global LGBT+ conference, Safe To Be Me should be a moment for redoubling efforts globally to improve LGBTQ+ people’s rights and experiences. This is why we have worked hard with government and civil society organisations over the last few months to try to make the conference work.

However, last week’s leaked plans, which revealed that Number 10 planned to scrap the conversion therapy ban, have left us with no choice but to withdraw our support. That the Prime Minister would so casually walk away from four years of promises to the LGBTQ+ community is appalling, and we cannot in good conscience back Safe To Be Me at a time when our community’s trust in the UK Government is shattered.

We recognise that in response to outrage from the LGBTQ+ community and our allies, the Prime Minister’s position has shifted. He now proposes a partial ban, one that protects lesbian, gay and bi cis people, but leaves trans people, including trans children, at continued risk of abuse. This is out of step with every other nation that has recently introduced a ban on conversion therapy and ignores all credible international research that is available, including the position of the UN Independent Expert.

It is apparent that trans people have once again been sacrificed for political gain. Commissioning a separate body of work to unpick something that has already been resolved many times the world over, can only be read as an attempt to kick the issue of protecting trans people into the long grass. This is callous and unacceptable.

Conversion therapy is happening to LGBTQ+ people in the UK right now, and every day without a ban is a day where LGBTQ+ people remain at risk of lifelong harm. Trans people are amongst the highest risk groups in our community – the latest research from Galop shows that 11% of trans people have been subjected to conversion practices by their own families.

Trans people are no less worthy of respect, care and protection than cis lesbian, gay and bi people. If the UK Government cannot stand behind and respect all LGBTQ+ people’s fundamental human rights, it should not be convening an LGBTQ+ rights conference on the global stage.

Stonewall remains a civil society co-chair of the Equal Rights Coalition, and we continue to engage with ERC processes and events. This includes the upcoming ERC conference, which is separate from the UK government’s ‘Safe to be Me’ event, and which we will continue to be a part of. Our commitment to this mechanism, and to progressing global LGBTQI+ rights, remains unchanged.”

RHS Garden Bridgewater

Have you got your garden ticket ready for #PrideInNature on Sunday 10 April?

There’s a cracking line up of performances, talks and workshops to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community who work and make a difference in the horticulture, environment and nature sectors.

Out In The City has 15 free tickets (usually £11.50 each). There’s still two left. Please contact us here to be added to the guest list.

RHS Garden Bridgewater is at Occupation Road, off Leigh Road, Worsley, Salford M28 2LJ.

In April 1938 Homosexual Prisoners Were Sent To Concentration Camps

Paragraph 175 was a provision of the German Criminal Code established in May 1871 that made homosexual acts between males a crime. It was not until April 1935 that the German Nazi party broadened the law so that the courts could prosecute any “lewd act” whatsoever, even one involving no physical contact. That move caused convictions of gay men under Paragraph 175 to multiply by a factor of ten to over 8,000 per year by 1937.

Just when it seemed things couldn’t get any worse for gay men in Germany, on 4 April 1938, the Gestapo publicly announced that men condemned for homosexuality would be deported to concentration camps.

Under the orders of Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, the police and the Gestapo arrested around 100,000 men suspected of the crime of homosexuality.

In his memoirs, Rudolf Höss, commandant at Auschwitz, describes how the camp guards would often assign homosexuals, forced to wear pink triangles for recognition, to some of the most dangerous jobs and they were sometimes separated from other prisoners to prevent homosexuality being “propagated” to other inmates and guards. Judges and officials at SS camps could even order the castration of homosexual prisoners without consent whenever they wished.

Survival in camps took on many forms. Some homosexual prisoners secured administrative and clerical jobs. For other prisoners, sexuality became a means of survival despite the Gestapo’s best attempts to stop it. In exchange for sexual favours, some Kapos protected a chosen prisoner, usually of young age, giving him extra food and shielding him from the abuses of other prisoners.

SS doctors also performed cruel experiments on prisoners to “cure” them of their homosexuality. In fact, these tests resulted in illnesses, mutilations and the deaths of hundreds upon hundreds of gay prisoners.

Even though there are no definite statistics on the number of homosexuals murdered at the Nazi camps, estimates range anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 gay men were detained in concentration camps under the Nazi regime with little chance of survival.

Paragraph 175 stayed in effect in Germany until 1969. Even after the concentration camps were liberated gay prisoners who had survived would be sent to regular prisons to finish out the terms of their sentences.

In 1985, gays and lesbians had wanted to place a plaque in the camp at Dachau, but it was not until 10 years later, in 1995, that they would be officially recognised as victims of the Holocaust.

Requests for help

Out In The City has been contacted by Alex Schellekens, a trainee journalist, who is producing a TV documentary about gay men who were convicted under historic anti-gay laws, in light of the recent amendment in January to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill to waive those convictions.

He is currently looking for more interviewees! If you were previously arrested due to old homophobic laws, or maybe had a close encounter with the police, he would love to hear your story. Equally, if you have any friends or family members who were arrested and convicted he would love to hear from you as well.

All interviews will be handled sensitively, and if you prefer to remain anonymous that is something that can be arranged.

If you’re interested in speaking to Alex, it would be great to arrange an initial chat soon, with a view to hopefully filming interviews between 11 – 24 April. Please contact us here and we will put you in touch.

Out In The City has also been contacted by Alex Bingham, who is working on a feature-length documentary which will celebrate 50 years since the first official Pride march in the UK. The aim is to tell a story not just of how Pride events in the UK have developed since 1972, but also how Pride’s history reflects broader changes in LGBTQ+ lives and communities during those five decades – including key battles fought, and those yet to be won. The film is being made by BBC Studios for broadcast premiere on Channel 4 at the start of July this year. 

Central to the documentary will be the voices, memories and perspectives of a diverse range of LGBTQ+ figures from around the country.

If you have memories or stories relating to Pride events, please contact us here so we can link you up.

More than a century ago, rural gay men were invisible. Thankfully, this same-sex couple had a camera.

A new book spotlights a photogenic gay couple in rural New Brunswick in the 1910s and ’20s

While LGBT+ history goes back millenia, our records of it tend to focus on urban experiences, leading us to believe that rural gays didn’t exist. They did. But without the critical mass to create institutions like bars, associations and clubs – or the freedom granted by the anonymity of city living – they tended to be discreet about their lives, making it harder for us to see them across time.

We would probably never know about Len and Cub, a gay couple living in rural New Brunswick in the early 20th century, if it wasn’t for the self-timing camera. Self-timers started to become more widely available in Canada around 1917, just in time for Leonard “Len” Olive Keith to use it to document the halcyon days of his relationship with Joseph Austin “Cub” Coates. 

Born 14 December 1891, Len was eight years older than Cub – their families were neighbours in a rural area about 50 kilometres west of Moncton. Len’s family owned a match factory and grist mill, and their prosperity is probably why the family could afford a camera with a self-timer in the first place. In 1911, Len’s father became the first person in his village to own a car. Then seen as a “rich man’s plaything,” the vehicle provided Len with more mobility and freedom than his peers; he’d take Cub out for rides.

In their new book Len & Cub: A Queer History, Meredith J Batt and Dusty Green use Len’s photos as a window onto the lives of the two men and what it would have been like for them in the context of their time. Batt and Green are co-founders of the Queer Heritage Initiative of New Brunswick, which is dedicated to collecting and preserving the records of LGBTQ2S+ history in the province, including conducting oral history interviews. In this excerpt, they write about who the men were and how they might have thought about themselves.

Leonard Olive Keith and Joseph Austin “Cub” Coates were both born in the rural community of Butternut Ridge (known today as Havelock), New Brunswick, at the end of the 19th century.

Len was an amateur photographer and automobile enthusiast who went on to own a local garage and pool hall after serving in the First World War. Cub was the son of a farmer, a veteran of the First and Second World Wars, a butcher, a contractor and a lover of horses. The two were neighbours and developed a close and intimate relationship with each other. Len and Cub’s time together is documented by the many photos taken by Len showing that the two shared a mutual love of the outdoors, animals, alcohol and adventure. As many amateur photographers do, Len photographed what was important to him, and Cub’s prevalence among the hundreds of photos is striking and impossible to ignore. The photos taken in the 1910s and 1920s show the development of their relationship as Len and Cub explore the wilderness of Havelock and spend time alone together. Unfortunately, these adventures would cease when Len was outed as a homosexual by community members in the early 1930s and forced to leave Havelock.

Cub, however, remained seemingly untainted by scandal and stayed in Havelock until 1940, when he married Rita Cameron, a nurse born in Chatham, and relocated to Moncton after the Second World War. He would go on to become a prominent figure in New Brunswick’s harness racing circles before his death in 1965. Len never returned to Havelock, residing near Montreal before succumbing to cancer in 1950. Len’s photos were donated to the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick decades after his death by Havelock resident and local historian, John Corey, who had purchased the albums at the Keith family’s estate sale in 1984. Growing up, John heard stories of Len and Cub from his father, Roy Manford Corey, who had been a classmate of Len’s. When John donated the albums [to the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick] in 2011, he described the pair as “boyfriends” – a term noted by the archivist in the collection’s finding aid. The archivist also noted, after a conversation with John, that Len had been “driven out of town for being a homosexual” by a group of Havelock men. This anecdote is written on an envelope containing a photo of one of the men responsible for Len’s outing.

Even with the remaining records of Len and Cub’s lives, loose ends and ambiguities abound. As time passes, anecdotes fade, records crumble and living contacts pass away, a certain amount of reading between the lines of history is necessary. Still, it is remarkable that these photos exist at all. To end up housed at the Provincial Archives, they first had to have been taken by Len, sent for developing and preserved by Len throughout his life, then held on to by his sister Lucy, acquired by John Corey at the Keith family estate sale and finally donated to the archives. During this time, photos have no doubt been lost or destroyed, as Len, Lucy or even John may have been concerned with the legal or social repercussions of owning records that depicted a same-sex relationship too transparently. As far as we know, there are no love letters between Len and Cub and no photos of them being more intimate than those in this book.

As we explore what Len and Cub’s relationship might have been, it is important to remember that the remaining records are a product of their time, when a homophobic undercurrent prevented same-sex couples from living and loving openly. Gay records from the early 1900s are rare, and as such, scholarship on gay rural Canadian experiences from this period is scanty. It is clear Len was smitten with Cub, and vice versa. Many of the photos support this narrative and show the means by which their relationship was allowed to blossom in that time and place and the lengths they would have gone to conceal the true nature of their affection.

During Len and Cub’s formative years, the terms homosexual and heterosexual were not part of the vernacular of the villagers of Havelock. Such definitions of sexual orientation were largely reserved for use by early sexologists working to develop new models of decoding human sexuality. Still, an absence of language or classifications to define oneself did not mean that same-sex love was accepted. “Unnatural” sex (i.e. non-procreative sex) was stigmatised by religion, gay sex was prohibited by law, and to live and love openly was virtually impossible for same-sex couples. So how might the boys have understood and interpreted their same-sex attraction? Would they have been bothered at all by any notions of stigma around gay sex and love? 

While the LGBT+ subculture of New York’s nightlife would have no impact on the lives of two young rural New Brunswick men, a lack of visibility or alternative representations of gender and sexuality in Havelock allowed Len and Cub to fly under the radar, or pass as straight. The fact that Len and Cub were young men who worked and dressed in conformity with their masculine gender status would have been enough to avoid public suspicion from their fellow villagers for some time. Yet this view of same-sex attraction may have contributed to Len being driven out of town, though not Cub. Len was older than Cub, a seemingly confirmed bachelor who never dated or spent much time with women; he may have been perceived as truly queer in the derogatory sense, an oddball, someone suspect, who just didn’t fit in and was therefore worthy of being ostracised.

By the early 1930s, North American society had become increasingly concerned with policing the boundaries of gender and sexuality as a direct response to the perceived decadence and debauchery of the Roaring Twenties. By mid-century this policing had led to an extremely rigid divide between heterosexuals and homosexuals, firmly entrenching heterosexual men as the pious, patriotic, masculine standard and homosexual men as their immoral, feminine, perverse opposite.

With this in mind, it makes sense that Len would be outed in the 1930s as the stigma around gay people was on an upswing, and society’s moral policing of gender roles more actively sought to suppress deviation from the norm. Ironically, the fact that men and women operated in distinctly segregated social spheres inadvertently provided space for same-sex romantic friendships to develop without intense scrutiny as to why two men or women might be spending so much time together.

Len and Cub lived in a complex era, but in some ways their love may have been less complicated than our preliminary stage-setting suggests. It is possible that Len and Cub’s relationship developed without much worry over the personal implications of their same-sex desire for their sense of identity. Where you did it mattered, and who knew about it, but the boys no doubt took precautions to hide the true nature of their affections. Yet, same-sex desire was in no way endorsed, and so their romantic entanglement could never have been acknowledged publicly.

Excerpts were originally published in Len & Cub: A Queer History by Meredith J Batt and Dusty Green, co-founders of the Queer Heritage Initiative of New Brunswick, an archival and educational initiative that aims to collect the queer histories of LGBTQ2S+ people.

Protest!

Sixteen of us squeezed into the China Buffet restaurant on Nicholas Street. It’s in the Chinatown area of Manchester under Ho’s bakery and next to the Chinese arch. It’s aptly named as it’s a small all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet style restaurant.

It’s very popular, fills up quickly and is just two minutes walk from Manchester Art Gallery, where Protest! a major retrospective of the work of Derek Jarman was being exhibited.

Jarman (1942 – 1994), one of the most radical and influential figures in 20^th century British culture, is best known as a pioneer of independent cinema.

Artist Jez Dolan gave us a guided tour of the exhibition which expanded our understanding of Jarman’s wider practice which encompassed a range of media and disciplines: painting; filmmaking; design; writing; performing and gardening. More photos can be seen here.

There are two more events before the exhibition closes – Stormy Weather, a day of debate defiance and celebration on Friday, 8 April from 10.00am to 6.00pm (book here – cost £5) and The Canonisation of David Hoyle on Saturday, 9 April from 2.00pm.

Jez Dolan and The Manchester Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence invite you to the most solemn occasion of the canonisation of internationally acclaimed performance-art icon, David Hoyle, hereafter to be referred to as: Saint David of the Avant-Garde.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are a worldwide Order of queer nuns, the tenets of the Order being the promulgation of universal joy and the expiation of stigmatic guilt. It is with this in mind that The Sisters will be making their first English Saint since Derek Jarman (Saint Derek of Dungeness) in 1991. As is traditional and time-honoured in these matters, the ceremony will begin with the procession of the Saint-to-be through the streets to the place of canonisation. The procession, accompanied by the Eclipse New Orleans Parade Band will begin (2.00 pm sharp) from New York New York, a legendary queer space in Manchester’s gay village.

Join us on the procession to Manchester Art Gallery accompanied by flags and banners, smoke and mirrors to the ceremony of canonisation within the Derek Jarman Protest! exhibition. The slogans are: “Everyone equally VALID, Everyone equally BEAUTIFUL, Everyone equally JUSTIFIED”. Afterwards ALL are welcome for thanksgiving sherries at New York New York.

Transgender Day of Visibility

Transgender Day of Visibility is an international event on 31 March dedicated to recognising the resilience and accomplishments of the transgender community. On this day, we celebrate the trans people amongst us, raise awareness about the struggles that they face, and advocate for more protected rights for them in a bid to reform society and empower this community – as it so rightfully deserves. Let’s join hands together with the trans community to celebrate not ‘fitting in’ when we all yearn to stand out!

History of Transgender Day of Visibility

There is no doubt that the transgender community continues to face discrimination worldwide. Be it in the workplace, schools, or society, it has been subjected to immense harassment and inequality in every part of the world for the ‘sin’ of being born different.

Rachel Crandall, a US-based transgender activist, founded this day in 2009 to raise awareness for the incredible burden of discrimination the community faces in every setting imaginable. The need to bring a day of ‘visibility’ for the transgender community is indicative of the oppression they face in many sectors of life. Crandall wanted to highlight the fact that the only transgender-centric day that is internationally recognised is Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is in mourning of members of the community who had lost their lives, and that there was no day to pay homage to living transgender people.

In 2015, many transgender people took part in the event by participating in social media campaigns. They successfully made the day go viral by posting selfies and personal stories. Therefore, on Transgender Day of Visibility on 31 March, annually, we recognise and revere their contributions, successes, and relentless resilience in standing tall and strong in the face of injustice. Through this Day of Visibility, we hope to induce moral responsibility and tolerance, and lift the restrictions on the rights of transgender people.

Tennessee Williams

A gay rights activist from Kharkiv, Elvira Schemur was killed on 1 March 2022 during the Russian bombardment of the city centre, her colleagues at Kharkiv Pride said. She was killed at the local territorial defence office where she volunteered.

“Elvira was an activist and a patriot: she participated in all possible actions and democratic events of Kharkiv. Together with Elvira, we went through three Kharkiv Prides and three women’s solidarity marches. Elvira was actively engaged in human rights interventions and pride performances,” the colleagues said.

“She inspired and motivated not only our team but all volunteers around. People followed her into her struggle for freedom and equality. And when she smiled, everyone smiled back. Elvira was one of the first Kharkiv Pride volunteers that joined the Kharkiv defence office. She was brave and courageous. A patriot and a hero. And this is how we will remember her and never forget.”

How would you define ‘obscenity’?

The Well of Loneliness is a 1928 lesbian novel by Radclyffe Hall. It follows the life of Stephen Gordon, an English woman from an upper class family whose “sexual inversion” (or lesbianism) is apparent from an early age. She finds love with Mary Llewellyn, whom she meets while serving as an ambulance driver in World War One, but their happiness together is marred by social isolation and rejection, which Hall depicts as having a debilitating effect on ‘inverts’.

Invert was a term used by sexologists, primarily in the late 19^th and early 20^th century, to refer to homosexuality. Sexual inversion was believed to be an inborn reversal of gender traits: male inverts were, to a greater or lesser degree, inclined to traditionally female pursuits and dress, and vice versa. The novel portrays inversion as a natural, God-given state and makes an explicit plea: “Give us also the right to our existence”.

The book became the target of a campaign by James Douglas, the editor of the Sunday Express newspaper, who considered it a ‘moral poison’, although its only sex scene consists of the words “… and that night, they were not divided”.

James Douglas wrote on 19 August 1928 under the heading “A Book That Must Be Suppressed”: “I would rather give a healthy boy or a healthy girl a phial of prussic acid than this novel. Poison kills the body, but moral poison kills the soul.”

In November 1928, Chief Magistrate Sir Chartres Biron ruled that, although the topic in itself was not necessarily unacceptable and a book that depicted the “moral and physical degradation which indulgence in those vices must necessary involve” might be allowed, no reasonable person could say that a plea for the recognition and toleration of inverts was not obscene. He ordered the book destroyed.

In the US, the book survived legal challenges and publicity over The Well’s legal battles increased the visibility of lesbians in British and American culture. For decades it was the best-known lesbian novel in English, and often the first source of information about lesbianism that young people could find. Some readers have valued it, while others have criticised it for Stephen’s expressions of self-hatred and viewed it as inspiring shame. Its role in promoting images of lesbians as “mannish” has also been controversial.

Although few critics rate The Well of Loneliness highly as a work of literature, its treatment of sexuality and gender continues to inspire study and debate.

The book has been reprinted many times:

Inside Britain’s first LGBT retirement homes – (by Patrick Strudwick / inews)

Lydia Arnold reclines on her squashy, mustard-yellow armchair, tilts her bright pink trainers skyward, and begins to describe the moment she became the first resident of Britain’s first LGBT retirement community. It was just three months ago, in early December 2021.

She ascended the lift in the modern, bulbous, tower block on the banks of the Thames, walked down the corridor – past the unoccupied rooms – and arrived at the threshold of her new apartment.

“On the doorstep was a big white package with a rainbow ribbon,” says the 74-year-old. “I carried it in, and inside was a hamper and a mug.” On the mug was the motto of Tonic Housing, the organisation behind this pioneering housing scheme: “How we live our lives out.” The double meaning – uncloseted, for the final chapter – wasn’t lost on Lydia.

“I was on my own. And I burst into tears,” she says. Relief from the memory resurges. She begins to laugh. “I thought, ‘Wow. Fantastic.’”

It marked the end of a frightening year for Lydia. Her 16-year-old relationship broke down. “And then in May I was diagnosed with lung cancer,” she says. “They removed half my lung.” In the September, the retirement community officially opened, and by December she was in.

“The idea that I was the first was more than exciting,” says Lydia, pushing up her tinted glasses. She has short, white hair and the mischievous demeanour of a valuable dinner party guest. In the weeks after arriving, her appreciation deepened. “I thought, ‘This is really quite special. To feel safe, to feel comfortable. It’s my little cocoon.’”

Before Lydia, no lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender pensioner in the UK had ever stepped into a housing scheme designed to look after them. Those who have moved into mainstream facilities for the elderly have often found themselves surrounded by the very attitudes they spent a lifetime trying to escape.

Over the last 20 years, studies into older LGBT people, conducted by Age UK, Stonewall, and Opening Doors London have captured a concerning picture. Not only are LGBT people much more likely to be single, have HIV, mental health problems, live alone, not have children, and not have support from their family, but also, they may go back in the closet in elderly care homes.

A Stonewall survey, albeit from 2011, found half do not come out to their care staff and two thirds believe care services will not understand them. In 2020, a follow-up by Opening Doors London, Tonic and Stonewall Housing found 12 per cent had experienced bigoted abuse in their current housing and over half (56 per cent) would prefer an LGBT specific provision.

Other countries, including Spain, Germany, and the USA, have tried to address this with different variations of LGBT elderly housing, but Britain has lagged behind – until now.

‘Safe for the rest of my life’

Tonic spans 19 apartments on the uppermost four floors of Bankhouse, a Norman Foster-designed block which already housed 11 lower floors of a mainstream retirement home. It’s a 10-minute walk from Vauxhall tube station. Residents in the LGBT floors can opt for one- or two-bedroom apartments, with on-site care options, and communal areas to mingle with the other LGBT residents – although everyone in the building can mix.

Regular events, such as a cinema club, are already in place, but there’s more planned: art classes, coffee mornings, drag shows, and on the roof, opportunities to grow herbs and vegetables.

The motto, as well as being on mugs, now greets you at the front entrance. Inside, the lobby resembles a swishy cocktail bar, with velvet couches and a pink neon “TONIC” sign against William Morris wallpaper.

Eleven stories up you reach the interlocking communal areas: a white minimalist-style bar enlivened by a somewhat ironic, deliberately self-knowing picture of Judy Garland; a modern living room with colourful cushions; and a cosy reading room.

“All my friends who’ve been round are incredibly envious,” says Lydia, looking across her kitchen-living room, with its wall-mounted spice rack, cherry blossom perched in the window, and sapphic pictures of women in ecstatic poses.

Sun beams in from her balcony. You can see half of London from up here. Below, vast railway lines bring people into Waterloo station from the so-called home counties – a trip that endless young gay people have made to escape. What does Lydia feel when she stands out here?

“A surge of excitement,” she says. “And when I walk out of the building in the morning, and I see the river in front of me, I go for a little wander along the embankment, and I just have this waaaaaahhhhhh! feeling.”

Lydia grew up around here in the 1950s, before gentrification sent house prices into orbit, and before the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967. It took until the 80s for her to realise who she was.

“I fell in love with a woman and realised why my earlier life had not been very successful,” she says, laughing. At the time, she was working as a probation officer and was happily out at work, but her parents’ reactions were trickier.

“My mother never accepted that it wasn’t her fault that I was a lesbian,” she says. Lydia’s father, John Arnold, was president of the Family Division of the High Court. “He was the first judge to grant custody to a lesbian mother in a divorce case,” she says. “I was extremely proud of him.” But when it came to his own daughter?

“He never acknowledged my sexuality,” she says.

Forty years on, Lydia was newly single, facing her mortality, and contemplating a stark question – where to move for the final time? – when she stumbled upon Tonic Housing. She was still living in Marseille following the breakup with her partner.

“I was looking on the net one day, sort of fantasising. I tapped in ‘lesbian retirement accommodation in London’, and up popped Tonic,” she says.

“I thought, ‘this is perfect, because there is going to come a point when I probably will need some help, and the idea of going into an old people’s home in France, where I was a lesbian, English, and living with all these heterosexual people who didn’t understand where the hell I was coming from?’ I thought, ‘I can’t face that.’”

Lydia rang up and, “straight away I knew,” she says. “Knowing that if I moved into this place, I was safe for the rest of my life, in an atmosphere where I could be me. Where I didn’t have to pretend to be married or have children. Then I could be as I’ve always been: out and happy.”

She had questions, however. “I did wonder whether they would be more men than women, purely because men have more money than women,” she says. “But actually, that doesn’t necessarily bother me. It’s a community, but we are also independent.”

Currently, there are only a handful of residents who have moved in, and the other four are men, but Tonic is determined to ensure diversity on all fronts. Eventually, this retirement community will also welcome renters needing social housing, but currently part-ownership is the only option.

The need to have money – at least £133,750 for a 25 per cent share of a one-bedroom apartment – prompted some to criticise the scheme, particularly when the Mayor of London announced a £5.7m loan to Tonic Housing to enable the place to open. But Anna Kear, the CEO, wryly suggests that people be cautious about opining on such matters until they “actually understand how social housing works.”

Specifically, she explains, statute dictates “you can’t provide affordable rented housing without being a registered provider.”

This meant, “We had to get a property first, before we could even apply to the regulator. I’ve just spent the last six months doing the application.”

It has been a 20-year marathon to reach this point. The genesis of which was the experience of Geoff Pine, the former chairman of Tonic Housing, whose partner of 30 years, Jamie, suffered from a degenerative heart condition before he died.

“He needed support and they couldn’t find wheelchair-accessible, appropriate care,” says Kear. Instead, they enlisted a carer until eventually Pine discovered what was happening to Jamie because of his sexuality. “The carer had been coming in and praying for his ‘condemned soul’ at the end of the bed.”

The need was clear. The execution has been arduous. After joining in 2018, Kear, who has decades of experience in housing, had to deliver a rather awkward reality check to the board.

“I said, it’s going to cost about £50m to develop a scheme like this. And that’s very, very difficult. I don’t like to say the word impossible, but it’s close to it.” Their faces, she says, fell. “But it was necessary to move forward.”

Investment followed, and the loan from the Mayor of London, which is repaid each time someone part-buys an apartment. All the existing carers in the building were then given specialist LGBT training to ensure no one has an experience like Geoff Pine’s partner.

“It’s a huge responsibility,” says Kear. “Part of the original vision was about being both a provider and an exemplar.” The hope is that many more facilities for older LGBT people follow.

‘A place we can live without fearing any prejudices’

For now, the first few residents continue to settle in. On my second visit, I knock on the door of another apartment and a trim, chatty, Malaysian-British man, Ong Chek Min, invites me in. He’s 73 and one half of the first couple at Tonic.

Min’s 80-year-old partner, Tim, sits in a wheelchair in the living room, with his carer Sam helping him with his lunch. Behind them sweeps a curved white mural of a forest; the bark of which is raised, creating shadows that lead you beyond the wall as if lost in Narnia. They’ve had a terrible two years.

“Tim had a stroke in February 2020,” says Min. By then the couple had been together for 40 years. “I came downstairs, and he was lying on his side. Being a nurse, I knew straight away.” Min administered aspirin to stop any further clotting. “That saved him.” But their lives were never the same again.

“It affected his communication centre,” says Min. “That was the last time I conversed with Tim as he was. I’ve lost him in a way. And I grieve all the time. It’s very hard. I try not to because I know that I have to look forward.” His manner is like many who care for their loved ones: practical, determined, trying to stay positive.

But as we begin to talk about their lovely new place, Min begins to cry. “Tim can’t share this,” he whispers, covering his face as the grief streams out.

They met at the opera, in London’s Covent Garden, in 1980, shortly after Min arrived in Britain to become a nurse. “It was June, he was leaning against a lamppost outside the opera house. We caught each other’s eye, and just clicked.” But it was the interval, so when the bell sounded for the second half they quickly scribbled their phone numbers on each other’s ticket. “I still have that ticket,” he says.

They built a life together, survived the Aids crisis – while losing numerous friends – and witnessed dramatic attitudinal shifts towards homosexuality. But during the pandemic, hate crime rates against LGBT people have soared, while many newspapers and broadcasters have begun attacking LGBT charities for supporting transgender people.

i was the only media organisation allowed in since residents arrived.

In 40 years, I ask, have you ever held hands in public?

“No, we never show affection in public,” he says. “I try to avoid any chance of anyone abusing me.”

After retirement, they began to consider the future.

“We discussed how we wanted to end our life,” he says. “We thought it was a good idea if we can find a place that we can live without fearing any prejudices, and amongst people we feel comfortable with.”

But they couldn’t find anywhere. After Tim’s stroke, a friend suggested Tonic. “I was really happy,” says Min. “You don’t have to worry about someone yelling something unpleasant, especially with Tim being ill.” To be the first couple here is a bonus.

“I’m just very honoured,” he says. He hopes that he’ll be able to take Tim to the opera one last time.

Until then, they’ve begun to meet other residents. The previous Saturday they went down to the communal area for an art workshop. “We were sitting there chatting away. It was very, very, nice,” he says, smiling and looking out the window over the London skyline. “It feels like home.”