The Freedom Exhibition is curated by Heard Storytelling and is part of Manchester Pride’s Superbia programme. It runs for one month from 26 August. The outdoor garden gallery is free to experience, with no booking required.

Norman, Pauline and Tony were three of the eleven ‘living portraits’ celebrating true stories told by LGBT+ people. We had candidly shared our lived experiences in a series of audio recordings to accompany beautifully shot portraits captured at the Kampus neighbourhood.

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After the launch night Norman’s interview on Granada Reports and Tony’s interview for BBC North West Tonight were aired on 27 August 2021.

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From secret bars in the 1970s to the top of the tallest trees – the fascinating stories take listeners on a journey of love, loss, adversity and triumph. The exhibition has been conceptualised to deliver a powerful message of solidarity, life and hope.

The Out In The City group met on Canal Street and made our way to Via for food and drinks before visiting the exhibition.

Peter took a few more portraits which can be viewed here.

If you would like to contribute to the virtual guestbook, please send a message via WhatsApp to 07842 667862. These messages will be shared on Kampus social media platforms and website.

These gay wedding photos from 1957 are incredible … but who are the grooms?

Decades before gay marriage became legal anywhere in the United States, same-sex couples were committing themselves to each other in front of friends and loved ones. Few records of these ceremonies existed – until now.

Neal Baer is a board member at the ONE Archives Foundation in Los Angeles, dedicated to preserving LGBT history. He and fellow researcher Michael Wolfe stumbled across a series of photos taken at what appears to be a gay wedding in the 1950s.

The photos were acquired by a collector a few years ago who had bought them at an online auction. He realised their significance and donated them to the Archives.

The couple in the pictures appear to be in their 20s or 30s, so they would be in their 80s or 90s if they were alive today. The grooms and their guests are dressed up in dark suits with flowers in their lapels.

The celebration took place in a modest flat with the blinds drawn. It featured a ceremony officiated by someone who appears to be a member of the clergy. The grooms are shown kissing, cutting their wedding cake and opening presents.

Here’s what they know about the pictures: they were printed in 1957 at a neighbourhood drugstore in Philadelphia. They capture a ceremony featuring two grooms. The photos also depict the exchange of rings before witnesses, an officiant leading the ceremony, the kiss, the cake, the gifts, and more.

The owner of the drugstore where the film was dropped off to be developed decided they were inappropriate and refused to return them to the unknown grooms.

Now, Baer and Wolfe are trying to identify the couple.

“We have put in months and months and months investigating who these guys are,” Baer said. “We just left pretty stunned,” researcher Wolfe adds. “We were a little bright-eyed about, ‘Oh, we’ll just go and find the guys in these photos,’ but it’s turned into a long-term project. We get to go and hunt down this amazing story.”

“Does anybody recognise them?” says Baer. “We’d love to know that. What would be a huge help is just getting these photos in front of a bunch of 80 and 90-year-olds. We are hopeful that in the connected age that we could spread them fairly widely and get more eyes on them,” adds Wolfe. “There are too many recognisable faces among the set that we couldn’t find a match.”

The US Supreme Court didn’t recognise the right for gay people to marry the person of their choice until 2015.

The 1950s was very oppressive for the LGBT community. Many people lived in the closet because they feared losing their job if anyone learned they were gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. In fact, the federal government during the 1950s said gays and lesbians were unfit to work in the public sector. The government engaged in a massive witch hunt to hunt down and fire members of the LGBT community.

In 1952, The American Psychiatric Association (APA) classified homosexuality as a “sociopathic personality disturbance” in the first edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the listing of known psychiatric disorders. After considerable lobbying by activists, the APA removed homosexuality from the second edition of the DSM in 1973.

Double Ender

Double-Ender is an evening of two fast-paced, entertaining, and sometimes laugh-out-loud monologues performed and written by Joshua Val Martin and Jez Dolan. 

They share personal, candid stories about LGBT+ people – past and present – living, learning, and loving in a rapidly changing Manchester.

Joshua Val Martin shares stories of his company Free Manchester Walking Tours. He has some unusual encounters as he takes people on tours of the city: fetish events, the Uruguayan rugby team … and Noel Gallagher. And there’s the dark underbelly of warring tours.  Who’s got more right to the story of the city? 

Jez Dolan; part stand-up, part-lecturer, and fantbulosa sing-a-long host, gives the lowdown on Polari, the subversive and lost language of gay men spoken in the gay pubs and secret spaces of yesteryear.  You’ll learn your actual Polari; it’s bona to vada your dolly old eek! 

Leave the theatre with a far wider and cheekier vocabulary than the one you went in with … that’s a promise.

Double-Ender has been crafted with love and is out on tour:

The Edge, Manchester (Thursday 16 – Saturday 18 September);

The Met, Bury (Thursday 30 September);

The LBT, Huddersfield (Friday 24 September) and

Oldham Coliseum (Thursday 14 October). 

Booking details here

Survey

In May 2021, the UK Government proposed plans to make photo ID compulsory for voting. Stonewall and the LGBT Foundation have launched a survey and welcome responses in order to understand the impact that this proposal can have. They are especially keen to get responses from LGBT+ communities that have been traditionally under-represented. Here is the link for the survey.

Drag Yourself Out

During Pride James and Tony, as two members of the LGBT Foundation’s Pride in Ageing project in conjunction with Southway Housing, performed their drag debuts on the Alan Turing stage in Sackville Park.

These are the “before” photos:

These are the “after” photos:

To see the process have a look at the photos here.

The performance was exciting.

Here we are as Di Chotomy and Patsy De Kline getting lots of attention in the gay village.

We were exhilarated and exhausted afterwards.

After changing and washing off the make-up, we had another wander around the village but this time we were invisible.

Vesta Tilley

Matilda Alice Powles (13 May 1864 – 16 September 1952) was an English music hall performer and an early drag king. She adopted the stage name Vesta Tilley and became one of the best-known male impersonators of her era.

With her father’s encouragement, Powles first appeared on stage at the age of three and by six she was appearing to sing songs dressed as a man. She would later perform male roles exclusively, saying that “I felt that I could express myself better if I were dressed as a boy.”

Her career lasted from 1869 until 1920. Starting in provincial theatres, she typically performed as a dandy or fop, but she also found additional success as a principal boy in pantomime.

By the 1890s, Tilley was England’s highest earning woman. She was also a star in the vaudeville circuit in the United States, touring a total of six times. She married Walter de Frece, a theatre impresario who became her new manager and songwriter. At a Royal Command Performance in 1912, she scandalised Queen Mary because she was wearing trousers.

Becoming Lady de Frece in 1919, she decided to retire and made a year-long farewell tour from which all profits went to children’s hospitals. Her last performance was in 1920 at the Coliseum Theatre, London.

She then supported her husband when he became a Member of Parliament and later retired with him to Monte Carlo. She died in 1952 on a visit to London and is buried at Putney Vale Cemetery.

Manchester’s First Dedicated Gay Bookshop

A brand-new addition to Tib Street in the heart of the Northern Quarter, opening Queer Lit UK has been a chaotic six-week journey for owner Matthew Cornford, but one that actually started back in 2020 with the launch of a massive online bookstore.

Hoping to make LGBT+ titles more accessible to readers across the UK, Queer Lit initially carried around 700 fiction and non-fiction books from some of the world’s biggest queer authors.

Self-confessed book lover, Matthew set up Queer Lit after his struggles getting his hands on queer literature, and, after a rather unsuccessful visit to Waterstones on Deansgate, who told him that they’d done away with their LGBT section, setting up his own bookshop was the obvious next step.

Opening last Friday (27 August), Matthew’s new Northern Quarter store stocks over 1,700 LGBT+ titles, and looks absolutely stunning. He’s set out to provide a dedicated safe place where queer readers can find books that cater for them, and he’s certainly delivered.

One of only four dedicated queer bookshops in the UK, Queer Lit UK stocks a dazzling array of titles from some of the most famous authors, but also hard-to-find and rare books straight from publishers who primarily deal with queer literature.

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The books are split up into easy categories, from gay to lesbian, trans, non-binary, parenting, youth (10-14 years), graphic novels and even children’s books – there’s an almost overwhelming selection on offer, but fear not because Matthew and his lovely members of staff are on hand to answer questions, offer recommendations or just to have a chat.

Future plans include a separate ‘safe space’ downstairs, where customers can sit, read or just relax, somewhere comfortable away from the stresses of everyday life in the city – which should hopefully be open before the end of the year.

Matthew and team are open every day, so pop in, have a coffee, a bit of wine and a chat and check out this fantastic new addition to the city. Keep your eye out for their colourful window display – you can’t miss it!

Visit to Irlam Railway Station

The railway station in Irlam, Greater Manchester is 8.75 miles west of Manchester Oxford Road on the Manchester to Liverpool Line.

The original station was opened on 2 September 1873, but after lying derelict for nearly twenty-five years, the station building had a two million pound renovation. It was reopened in March 2015, and is currently used by over 350,000 passengers a year.

The station has a railway-themed café, and due to the fantastic weather we decided to eat outside during our visit. I think one or two might have gone for healthy options, but most of us had the hearty “Full Steam Ahead” breakfast which consisted of sausages, bacon rashers, tomatoes, black pudding, eggs, baked beans, hash browns, mushrooms and toast with tea or coffee!

With the homemade food, great conversations and informal ambience, dining at the station is highly recommended. There is a lot to see and make sure you have a look at the photos here.

Mary Cunningham Simpson, the UK’s forgotten lesbian pioneer, tragically dies aged 74

Mary Cunningham Simpson, a pioneering lesbian campaigner who fought for the rights of same-sex couples in the UK, has sadly passed away aged 74.

Mary was at the forefront of the early LGBT+ rights movement in the 1980s as she challenged laws that discriminated against same-sex relationships – yet today her achievements are widely forgotten.

In 1986 she became the first woman to take a case to the European Convention on Human Rights in an attempt to gain legal protections for cohabiting same-sex couples.

Although her case was unsuccessful it provided an important basis for future cases that ultimately led to a change in the law, both in the UK and at the European level.

“The world should remember Mary Simpson and all she stood for,” said sociology professor Paul Johnson, who interviewed Mary in 2015.

“Mary was a pioneer. She brought one of the earliest cases under international human rights law challenging discrimination against same-sex couples. She did this at a time when same-sex couples had no legal protections in the UK, and when homophobia was endemic.

She suffered attacks on her home, and her campaign took a significant toll on her life. But she would not give up, and she would not give in … she is a lesbian hero and should be honoured as such.”

Mary Cunningham Simpson was ahead of her time

Mary’s fight began when her partner, Nicky, died in 1984, which led to Mary being threatened with eviction from the council house they shared.

They’d lived as a married couple for years, running a joint household, sharing all expenses and sleeping in the same bed, but that meant nothing as the law at the time only made provisions for “husband and wife”.

Mary refused to leave her home and the council launched legal proceedings against her. But she refused to back down, taking her fight to the County Court, the Court of Appeal and finally the European Court of Human Rights.

Her case is now believed to be one of the earliest attempts to establish that rights and benefits associated with marriage should extend to partners of the same sex.

She had a deep-seated desire to live in a society that cherished the freedom for everyone to be themselves

“Although Mary had been treated very cruelly by others she responded not with anger or bitterness, but with a quiet determination to live the life she wanted to live.

She was kind to others, and had a deep-seated desire to live in a society that cherished the freedom for everyone to be themselves,” Johnson said.

“As she told me: ‘I’m me. There are no two people like me. I am me. I will fight for my rights and I will keep on fighting until everybody gets their share of their rights.’”

Tragically the European Commission of Human Rights dismissed Mary’s application, stating that a same-sex relationship fell outside of the scope of the “family life”, “private life” or “home” section of Article 8.

Her treatment by the Commission at that time was not atypical, since complaints about discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation were routinely rejected.

But despite the many hardships and rejections she faced, Mary regretted none of it.

“You’ve got to keep chipping away at the paintwork, bit by bit, until you break through. I’m proud I did it. They walk about with gay pride, but I’ve got pride inside,” she said.

 “I’m proud that I stuck my neck on the block and tried to get something done. It makes people realise that we can’t be trodden on. Because a lot of people think gays are the riff-raff of society, they’re the queer lot of society … and I thought, no, I’m not having it, I’ve got to do something to make people realise we’re still human beings. No matter which side of the fence we sit, we’re still human beings.”

Ultimately, Mary was ahead of her time: the type of discrimination she endured would persist in the UK until 2002.

Mary’s achievements were widely forgotten

Mary spent her final years in Calne, Wiltshire, where she was known for her love of animals – but not for her important legacy in the field of LGBT+ rights.

Now, many are calling for her to be remembered as the true lesbian hero she was.

“Mary Simpson was a true pioneer. She should be celebrated and recognised for her bravery and determination to fight injustice,” said associate professor Loveday Hodson of the University of Leicester.

“Because her fight for recognition stemmed from what we might consider her private life, rather than in the public theatre of criminal law, it has received less attention and isn’t recorded in many history books.

Mary deserves to be recognised as a warrior for lesbian rights.”

To learn more about Mary Cunningham Simpson and the case she brought to the European Court of Human Rights, check out “Going to Strasbourg” by Paul Johnson.

Dial-A-Pride-Poem with Maya Chowdhry

Maya Chowdhry presents a selection of special readings which you can enjoy via your telephone.

Dial-A-Pride-Poem offers charming musings by spoken word artist Maya on seduction by wild violets, and why nature is not outraged by sex-switching.

Simply dial this number 0800 005 3904 and choose a poem. It will be recited just for you, for free, and is best listened to with headphones.

This is a Superbia Spotlights commission, and this project will be live from 12 August until 12 September 2021.

Queering the North Exhibition

Performance Space, Manchester Central Library

23 August – 28 August 2021, 10.00am – 4.00pm

The OUTing the Past International Festival of LGBT+ History (established in Manchester in 2005) has teamed up with the Museum of Free Derry to create the first retrospective showcase of Queer Activism in Northern Ireland.

This is a rare insight into the previously unacknowledged tenacious heroism of queer activism in Northern Ireland before, during and following “The Troubles”. The project was greatly enriched by the support of several archival collections and regional LGBT+ groups and queer veterans.

The Queering the North Exhibition aims to bring to a wider public an expansive and nuanced reading of the history of the LGBT+ community in Northern Ireland. It brings together archives and recollections from a range of key activists within a scaffolding provided by academic research. The exhibition includes an expansive chronology of key events, commencing with the deliberate exclusion of Northern Ireland from the decriminalising legislation offered by the 1967 Sexual Offences Act through to the introduction of Equal Marriage to Northern Ireland in January 2020.

Museum of Derry Curator Adrian Kerr described the exhibition as a natural step for his institution: “This is a part of our collective past that has been kept hidden, and this is reflected in the nature of the information available for the exhibition. It is the hope of all involved that this will act as a provocative spur towards the creation of the first comprehensive reading of our LGBT+ history.”

The Mayor of Derry City, Cllr Michaela Boyle: “I had the great pleasure of hosting a reception in the Guildhall for the Exhibition Launch. I believe that this exhibition goes a long way towards creating a better understanding of the sensitivities and changes faced by the LGBT+ community and how we can all work collectively to create a better informed and respectful environment on this important issue.”

Sue Sanders (Founder & Chair of LGBT+ History Month UK and Professor Emeritus of the Harvey Milk Institute): “A thrilling and crucial exhibition that reflects the vital importance of working together to seek human rights for all.”

Free – please drop in

Richard Wilson

Richard Wilson has something he wants to get off his chest: “When I did Desert Island Discs, they didn’t mention my directing at all.” But he wants to set the record straight; despite coming to fame as Victor Meldrew in the BBC sitcom One Foot in the Grave, he is most proud of his work as a director, which has seen him do associate stints at the Royal Court in London and, latterly, Sheffield Theatres. “I always felt that my directing was much more important than my acting,” he sighs. “I was rather p—ed off.”

The actor was “outed” when Time Out included him in a list of influential gay people in 2013. Richard, now 85, has been a supporter of gay rights organisation Stonewall. He said “I was delighted it had come out. I was a bit worried my sister might find it difficult but it did not seem to worry her at all.” He said being gay in the 1950s when homosexuality was illegal did cause problems.

Richard has long campaigned for gay rights, but never spoken about his sexuality. “I don’t mind people saying I’m gay, because I am,” he says. “But I don’t live in a gay relationship”.

Today, he’s a dashing gent of a man with an OBE for services to his profession and a reputation as a thoroughly nice bloke, but he remains painfully shy, rarely venturing out of his flat without a pair of glasses and a cap.

Here are some things you might not know about his life and résumé:

1. He originally passed on his iconic role as irascible retiree Victor Meldrew.

2. He and Sir Ian McKellen once considered moving in together.

3. He was officially “outed” by London’s Time Out magazine in 2013.

4. He describes himself as a “lifelong socialist”.

5. His voice may be instantly recognisable — but he wasn’t always proud of it.

6. He reunited with his One Foot in the Grave co-star Annette Crosbie on British daytime show Loose Women in 2018.

7. The only thing he disliked about playing Gaius in Merlin was his wig.

8. Over the years, he’s been a prolific theatre director — and a popular one.

9. He became good friends with Alan Rickman after casting him in a play he was directing.

10. Oh, and for the record: He doesn’t think he’s too much like Victor Meldrew.

“Victor was the opposite of me in many ways. I always thought that he was, maybe not a Conservative, but certainly a member of the Liberal Party, and I have always been a staunch left-winger. He had no work at all, poor man, and I had too much. But I suppose there is a sort of Scottish dourness about Victor … and me.”

Sonder Radio

In celebration of Manchester Pride, Sonder Radio are having two full days of throwback shows from Bill Haycraft, Tony Openshaw and Rachel Oliver along with some amazing out and proud music!

Listen on 27 and 28 August on sonderradio.com

Trip to Llandudno

Thirty of us enjoyed a day trip by coach to Llandudno, the largest seaside resort in Wales, with a population of just over 20,000 people.

During the first lockdown due to the corona virus pandemic, frisky goats ventured down from their mountain home on the Great Orme into Llandudno in search of something to eat.

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The goats became a sensation on national news roaming the empty streets during the lockdown.

We set off at 10.00am and arrived in time for lunch at the Fish Tram Chips Restaurant. There was only room for sixteen people (advance bookings were not taken), so some people had a takeaway and some dined at the pub over the road.

Most of the group took the Great Orme Tramway to the summit of the Great Orme headland, which has fantastic views over the peninsula. The tramway is a cable hauled 3ft 6in gauge tramway, open seasonally from late March to late October. It takes over 200,000 passengers each year from Llandudno Victoria Station to just below the summit of the Great Orme.

It is Great Britain’s only remaining cable-operated street tramway, and one of only a few surviving in the world.

We didn’t have much time in the town to see the pier on the North Shore, a Grade II listed building, built in 1878. It is the longest pier in Wales and has attractions including a bar, a cafe, amusement arcades, children’s fairground rides and an assortment of shops and kiosks. Professor Codman’s Punch and Judy show (established in 1860) was spotted on the promenade near the entrance to the pier.

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All in all, a great day out and as usual great photos can be seen here.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874 – 1965)

Throughout his life, Churchill showed little interest in women other than his wife, enjoyed the company of homosexuals, and was deeply attached to male friends including his secretary Edward Marsh, although there is no evidence of any physical relationships. Edward Marsh, Churchill’s private secretary for twenty-five years was a ‘wispy falsetto-voiced’ man of noted good looks who was known to be homosexual. Churchill described him as “a friend I shall cherish and hold on to all my life”.

In 1895 Churchill was accused of having committed “acts of gross immorality of the Oscar Wilde type” while a cadet at Sandhurst. He sued the accuser for defamation and was awarded £400 in damages.

The writer W Somerset Maugham is said to have asked Churchill whether he ever had any homosexual experience, and been told: “I once went to bed with Ivor Novello: it was very musical.”

When he was told that a member of Parliament had been caught in the park with a guardsman, Churchill said: “On the coldest night of the year? It makes you proud to be British.”

The notebooks kept by the Cabinet Secretaries contain short handwritten accounts of the conversations of ministers on a range of issues. On 24 February 1954 the Cabinet discussed the issues of prostitution and homosexuality, then inextricably linked as ‘sexual offences’ in the eyes of the legislators.

Gay sex between consenting adults, even in private, was a criminal offence, and many hundreds of gay men were being caught and convicted of sodomy and gross indecency every year.

The high-profile journalist Peter Wildeblood had been arrested for homosexual offences the previous month, but he did not stand trial until March. The scandal surrounding his arrest and that of Baron Montagu of Beaulieu led to public discussion of homosexuality.

At Cabinet the Home Secretary David Maxwell Fyfe seemed mystified at the spike in convictions for homosexual offences: “While crime generally has doubled, these offences have risen four and a half times. Some think existing law should be limited to protection of young and public indecency. I don’t agree: homosexuals make a nuisance of themselves. But admit I can’t account for this increase.”

Prime Minister Winston Churchill bluntly replied that the Tory party were not going to accept responsibility for making the law more lenient towards gay men.

He suggested that an enquiry might be the way forward, proposed limiting press coverage of the convictions of homosexuals, and suggested that any man caught by police should be offered the option of medical treatment. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t touch the subject,” he said. “Let it get worse – in hope of a more united public pressure for some amendment.”

The idea of an enquiry into prostitution and homosexual offences was considered by several Cabinet ministers, among them Oliver Lyttleton, Secretary of State for the Colonies.

But the Prime Minister perhaps best explained the realities of politics in 1954. “Remember that we can’t expect to put the whole world right with a majority of 18,” he told his colleagues.

Seven months after that Cabinet meeting, the Wolfenden committee met for the first time to consider whether a change to the laws on homosexuality and prostitution was needed. They took evidence from a range of people, including religious leaders, police officers and Peter Wildeblood.

When the Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution was finally published in 1957, it came to the conclusion that: “The law’s function is to preserve public order and decency, to protect the citizen from what is offensive or injurious, and to provide sufficient safeguards against exploitation and corruption of others. It is not, in our view, the function of the law to intervene in the private life of citizens, or to seek to enforce any particular pattern of behaviour.”

It was ten years before a Labour government backed a private member’s bill to introduce the changes to the law on homosexuality that the Wolfenden committee recommended.

Solitaire

Solitaired have created an online solitaire game featuring LGBT+ figures and activists in history to commemorate Pride Month.

You can play their Pride edition of solitaire here.