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Memories by Belinda

Rainbow Voices is vitally important

“Rainbow Voices (LGBT (choir) is vitally important, I had stopped identifying as a lesbian some time previously. I was dragged there kicking and screaming by another prominent Birmingham lesbian on the basis of my previous musical career as a singer,...

Sensitive policing in the late '80s

Belinda recalls “The Police had a 12 year old boy who had been picked up for cottaging. The police were concerned that he was being exploited by older men and directed him towards the discos at The Matador feeling that this would be a much safer venu...

Comfortable at the Matador

“The Lesbian and Gay Community Centre discos went on at the Matador for years, alternating I think with Switchboard discos. I liked it very much, at times there were a lot of women, times more women than men, or vice versa, I always felt OK there, I ...

Yeee haaa to the Cuckoo's Nest

“Boot Women, the predominantly lesbian women’s walking group, started in the mid-nineties, wanted to have social events (Boot Women Socials) and because The Cuckoo's Nest was the only women’s band in town they would set up ceilidhs and people actuall...

Lesbian feminist becoming bisexual

Having moved to London at 14, Belinda started dating men and didn’t act on any lesbian feelings until 1977 when she was 17 and “whole gangs of us were becoming lesbians because of the Women’s Movement”. However her primary relationships since 1990 ha...

Early attraction to girls

Born in 1947, an American, Belinda spent her early teens in Germany in the sixties because of her father’s work. Belinda explained how she was attracted to girls – “I had ‘close emotional friendships’ that caused no trouble apart from when I bought a...

Women’s Liberation Conference 1978

“There was beginning to be a feeling that the Women's Liberation Movement was on a downward slope and everyone metaphorically threw things at each other at the National Women's Conference in Birmingham in 1978 which was the last national conference. ...

Boy children

In 1980, Belinda moved to Birmingham because she had started a relationship with a woman from Birmingham but was living in a radical feminist household where she found herself “more and more alienated in that setting because I was involved with a wom...

The Peace Centre, a gay gathering place

Belinda was employed at the Peace Centre near Moor Street, next to Reddington’s Rare Records, from 1981 until 1985 when it closed. The core of its clientele were anarchists, anti-nuclear activists and gay people. “At the time there weren’t many ‘gay ...

Gay News on sale at Peace Centre - 1981

“The Peace Centre was an intellectual centre; we sold gay and lesbian books at a time when these were difficult to buy. We sold 'Gay News’ when the only other place that sold it was Leesons, a local newsagents, noone was gay but they’d taken the deci...

Controversy over selling the SCUM Manifesto

Belinda worked at the Peace Centre from 1981 until it closed in 1985.“There was a controversy over whether to sell copies of 'Coming to Power' by Samois, published in 1983. It was produced by the Californian coalition of sado-masochist lesbians. At t...

Co-fostering as a lesbian mother

“The woman I was in a relationship with had one child but wanted to foster, which came to fruition in the late eighties. My role was an unofficial one as I spent a lot of time with the household but didn’t live there but I was a key part of the child...

Women’s music scene

Belinda was also involved in the alternative women's music scene, establishing a reputation as a lesbian feminist musician. Before she came to Birmingham “I had a brief moment of fame in London with two other women, each performing their own material...

Women’s Swing Band

Belinda recalls being asked to join the Women's Swing Band, “I don’t think we were ever very good but we had a great time!” We mostly played Glenn Miller, somebody got all the parts, and photocopied them, it was a good laugh. I think it was three qua...

Greenham Common

“The Women's Big Band had a link during the 1980s with the anti-nuclear movement, there was input from women involved with the protests at Greenham Common, ‘Oh you generals in the military, what’re your atom bombs for?’ with a brass backing, that was...

Cuckoo’s Nest 1989 - 90

“I was recruited to the Cuckoo's Nest, a women’s ceilidh band, because the Birmingham City Council Women's Unit had put up some money to organise a women-only ceilidh and they wanted a women’s band to play. Pam Bishop was going to put together this b...

Henrietta's Out

“'Henrietta's Out’ was a social mailing list operating in the late nineties, I was briefly on the list, and incorporated the Boot Women list, there would be various social gatherings, such as older lesbians' events and an International Women's Day ev...

Deaf group at the Fox

Belinda said "My contact with ‘the scene’ since the nineties has been limited to playing in the band (The Cuckoo's Nest) at lesbian events and occasionally dropping in at the Fox, I like it because they run a Deaf BSL signing group on a Thursday and ...

The Matador

“The Gay Community Centre discos went on at the Matador for years, alternating I think with Switchboard discos. I liked it very much, at times there were a lot of women, times more women than men, or vice versa, I always felt OK there, I never felt o...