Things were at least developing more positively in other areas , especially politically in London. The mid eighties was quite a strange time here.
Although Maggie and her Tridents (a type of American built nuclear missile she had bought into) ‘ruled the Brittanic waves’ at Westminster, just across the Thames in County Hall ‘Red Ken’ Livingstone was in power, running the Greater London council (GLC). This is a well documented period now but suffice to say there were therefore some very positive initiatives in London, aimed at lesbians and gay men, which were funded with GLC support.
In particular in 1985 the GLC published a booklet called Changing The World – a London charter for Gay and Lesbian rights and supported a number of open meetings in the council chamber of County Hall during that summer. I still have my copy and leafing through it today, feel I can now appreciate better quite what a pioneering document it was, for its time. At the time though, it felt like it was the least we could expect from a left wing labour council, purporting to represent all Londoners. However in a 48 page booklet, under 19 separate headings, starting with language (‘Words and tones can break your bones’) through violence (‘Beaten up’..) classroom studies (‘Tell it in the classroom’) the home (‘Home Sweet Home’), Disability (‘Don’t disallow Disabled People’) and the law and prison (‘Sent Down’) it made a large number of measured recommendations.
Inside, it tells us that the charter has been produced by the Gay Working Party of the GLC as a declaration of lesbian and gay rights – the party being an informal group made up of lesbians, gay men & bisexuals from all over London. It remains, at least in my opinion, a superb document in the way it clearly, sensibly articulates the very wide range of issues that existed then (and still today in many cases) where there was discrimination occurring. The authors write that ‘the Charter has two main aims: to
‘identify the changes necessary in the policies and practices of those providing a public service and those who establish and enforce the law , control information and communication or employ people so that the needs of lesbians and gay men are fully recognised and accounted for‘. Secondly it aimed to bring about a change of attitudes amongst the public to dispel ignorance and foster positive attitudes towards homosexuality and shows that heterosexism (the term will be explained later, a note adds..) should be condemned.
Pages 39-45 contain a summary of the recommendations, there are in fact 142 in all!
It was a hugely ambitious document at the time, when prejudice was being fostered by the Section 28 legislation against the teaching of sexuality and supposed ‘promotion of homosexuality’ in the classroom and attitudes towards HIV & AIDS by many in the media and others, in positions of responsibility and authority. However it also serves as a gentle reminder of how far we have come in the 35 years since it was produced. Things were if anything to stagnate or go backwards though, before progress was made, at least in some areas. With the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic and Clause 28, polls show us now that the public’s acceptance and support for lesbian and gay equality and rights did slip back for some time. It was to be a constant uphill battle to move such attitudes forwards for much of the rest of the 1980’s.
The meetings of the working party also resulted in the creation of a working group, who’s task it was to initiate and create one of just a handful of LGBT community centres already operating in the UK, (after Edinburgh Gay Centre which opened in 1974, Manchester Gay Centre on Bloom Street in 1981) and the Birmingham Lesbian and Gay Community Centre which had opened in 1976).
After much discussion it was decided that a former meat warehouse near Farringdon tube could be suitably converted and this was purchased by the GLC. Vegetarians, look the other way! It was already operating by December 1984, and there were some very ambitious plans developed to ensure it was a multi purposed venue with services that represented all the LGBT communities needs at that time. There was to be a performance space, bar & cafe, bookshop, daycare centre, lounge and meeting rooms and other meeting spaces. The four floored centre had a second floor designated as women only space and the top floor was converted to offices for the Centre management team, and other organisations. So far , so good.
However, as London’s first ‘non-commercial gay venue’ the centre was to attract criticism by various groups who felt underrepresented. It also had issues with recruiting and keeping volunteers, elements of political infighting and high staff turnover. With the abolition of the GLC by 1986 and ownership transferred to the LRB (London Residuary Body) the team worked hard to keep the building commercially viable for the next five years until 1991 but it was in the end unsustainable and it was closed. There were those who said its location was always a problem, being out of the centre of London. In terms of cafe culture the collectively run First Out in Tottenham Court Rd was often packed, whilst the centre’s cafe languished. Without a doubt it had its moments though.
Some were unfortunate; there was the loss of thousands of pounds from its safe, which the insurance firm refused to cover as the safe had seemingly not been tampered with. Rumours were rife. Equally divisive was the discussion (and subsequent ban) over whether to allow SM (sado masocistic) lesbians to use the centre with arguments in favour and against gaining alternate ground for some time. Equally, there was much debate about whether bisexuals should be allowed to use the centre; for example some lesbians felt that bisexual men might harass them. There was a ban on bisexuals using the centre for some time, as a result, too.
For a decent period though, for many people, including myself, it served us well as a multifunctional space offering a wide variety of possibilities. Vice wrote an article about it in 2016 interviewing some of the people involved in it. Steering group member Lisa Power (a grand dame on the scene, who has been involved in one way or another in just about everything gay & lesbian related, happening in the capital in the past four decades) had no qualms about telling it like it was. She felt that ‘the centre wasn’t run by those who had had enough experience in running anything similar in the past,’ and that there was fraud/petty theft at all levels, ‘from volunteers who thought it was fine to let their friends eat for free, to bar deliveries where half the stock went straight into someone’s car’.
She made the point that the women’s floor was only open to the “right” sort of lesbian and that as mentioned, openly bisexual and straight people weren’t allowed in at all initially. She also makes the point about the rapidity of change at the centre ‘every time there was an EGM or AGM depending on who attended and voted. Lisa has never been one to shy away from ‘telling it like it is’.
Interestingly though, she also makes the point (and I very much concur) that issues like S/M were constantly fought over but eventually (and perhaps remarkably) it was a club night called ‘Sadie Maisie’ that eventually became by far the centre’s most successful night. Lisa says ‘many of my friends went who had nothing to do with SM but who just knew it was a great “anything goes” club night’. And she is right, it was really the first occasion as far as I’m aware that gay men and lesbians (and indeed bisexuals) got together under an ‘SM banner’ and danced.
Remembering the 90s; The London Lesbian and Gay centre
For a lot of us men then, dancing with women in an ‘SM’ atmosphere was a very interesting and quite liberating experience and charged with a different kind of eroticism than we had experienced in most of the totally male dominated clubs at that time. Although Lisa is right in saying that you didn’t have to be into SM to go (how one wonders would they even have policed that?) many were and wore sexually explicit clothes and costumes with accessories to match. There were sometimes lesbians I recall who went topless, which was a ‘shock’ to some of us guys (there was a dressing cloakroom, where you could change and store your street clothes). The music was decent though and the atmosphere did develop into something that was tangibly charged. It was ‘the place to go’ for a time for some of us.
I generally used to go wearing a short rubber one piece and DM boots. It was usually fun though due to the nature of the venue it was generally not acceptable to actually have sex on the premises, although I know it did happen in some places (there was a slightly more secluded area of the roof garden and fire escape steps that overlooked the Circle, Hammersmith & Met underground lines for instance If you knew where to look you could easily spot the gatherings outside on the roof garden, whilst on the tube.
Being outside was fine in the summer in a rubber one piece but not so good in winter. One of the more amusing episodes retrospectively, that occurred, was the night at Sadie Maisie’s when someone (accidentally?) set off the fire alarm in the building. Rules stated that everybody in the building should proceed immediately to the designated gathering point, which was about 150 metres away from the building and just outside Farringdon tube entrance. Half way through the club night with everything in ‘full swing’ the fire alarm went off and we were told to immediately evacuate to the meeting point .. there was no possibility of getting clothes from the cloakroom. So about 150 gay men & lesbians in various states of kinky undress trooped up to the tube entrance where we had to hang around for an hour whilst the fire brigade arrived and ensured it was a false alarm. You can only imagine the looks we got from the people using the underground; we played it up at first but it was not summer and as it got colder so we were left standing around wearing virtually nothing, hugging each other to keep warm. There was a definite reluctance from the punters to put stuff into the changing rooms, for a month or so after that event!
Eventually people tired of the novelty of a mixed SM club in a right-on venue, with no sex and we made our way to pastures old & new but I hold a soft spot still for the centre at 69, Cowcross Street. Some wondered why, if Edinburgh, Manchester and Birmingham had managed to run successful centres for so long, why London couldn’t follow their lead. It’s a reasonable question. At its best it was a great thing but I think eventually the communities very diversity and its ability to vociferously articulate its needs got it into hot water, far too often for its own good and in the end it closed its doors in the early nineties. It is now after various incarnations a corporate restaurant called ´The Fence´. Nevertheless, it was a sad day when London’s Lesbian & Gay Switchboard’s big red ‘Ent’s book no longer had its listing in.
Sure, there were other things that came from the GLC’s ‘Changing The World – a London charter for Gay and Lesbian rights’ booklet but that was probably both one of the best and yet, equally, the most controversial.
ON to Sex, love and life (The Rituals) 2.23 1987 Cleancut & ‘Gearing Up for Safer sex’
