Memories by Malcolm Gibb
Getting involved in GLF
“Les, another student at Keele University, went to the first meeting of London GLF (Gay Liberation Front) at LSE (London School of Economics). I hardly knew him but he had identified me as gay. He came straight up to me and said, ‘You’re gay aren’t y...
Joining Birmingham GLF
“After Keele, I lived in a commune in Bristol then came to Birmingham in 1973 to do a post graduate course for a year. I knew there was a Birmingham Gay Liberation Front (GLF) as we’d had various conferences at Lancaster University and su...
Commune Living
“Quite a lot of people in GLF and gay people ended up living in groups, I guess from a belief that gay people needed to make new living arrangements. We had a strong Marxist analysis, that capitalism relied on atomised families and allowed no place f...
The Gay Education Group
“GLF had various sub-groups, one of which was the Gay Education Group. It was the longest lasting and later on as GLF petered out the Gay Education Group continued. Its main function was to educate. It did an awful lot over the years, we did talks at...
A sex education pamphlet
“The Gay Education Group (of the Gay Liberation Front) also produced a sex education pamphlet called ‘Growing Up Homosexual’, which we then sold, we sold quite a lot nationally. We had help from Martin Cole who was a biologist who gave us some rather...
Hughie Green dismissive
“The response we got was usually quite dismissive when we challenged media coverage. Hughie Green from ‘Opportunity Knocks’ once made some remark about ‘puffs’ and we challenged that. He wrote a very brushing off letter, which we published in one of ...
Producing Gladrag
“GLF produced a newsletter for a number of years called ‘Gladrag’, it started out as a duplicated number of sheets, we sent it out to people all over the country and we sold it around town, at gay clubs too if they would let us. Gay News had also sta...
Getting the Gay Centre started, 1976
“The Gay Community Centre arose though one person called Glen who was frustrated by the fact there was no alternative gay activity going on. He got us together and said, ‘Why don’t we run a gay centre?’ I think we were before the London Lesbian and G...
Funding the Gay Centre
“We got people to sign up to monthly standing orders of two or three pounds. Over a year that was quite a lot of money. I think one or two people lent some money and the lease had been on the market for quite along time, it was a depressed period (ec...
A space for the community
“We took the three five storey buildings fronting Bordesley Street and did an awful lot of work, we made a suite at the back on the ground floor with a separate entrance for Friend, which was up and running by then. We had Switchboard who had accommo...
Gay Centre Closes
“The Gay Centre ran for about three years, until the lease came to an end, there were problem with dilapidations and whether we would be stung to repair the premises. We closed it there so it would not peter out.” “There are six terraced houses nearb...
Edwina Curry visits
“We tried to get funding from the Council, I remember Edwina Curry came down, before she became an MP, she was chair of Birmingham Social Services. We thought we deserved money as we were providing a social service, she was a very smart politician an...
Lost friends
Malcolm talks about the devastating affect HIV/AIDS had on the gay community and him personally. He is HIV positive himself and he lost his partner, whom he had been with for 25 years.“My partner died a year before the anti-retrovirals became availab...
Stigma in the health service
(Talking about his own and his partner’s treatment for HIV): “He had a very difficult time, it was at a time when there was very distinct hysteria about medical staff with HIV. I think he delayed diagnosing because of that, although I don’t think it ...
The developed gay scene
“A lot of us felt lost after the Gay Centre closed, I’m still friends with a lot of the people I met there, there is a kind of regret as those days were wonderfully exciting, we were making it up as we went along. With the burgeoning of the commercia...
Not welcome in What's On guide
In June 1976 GLF Birmingham requested the GLF Disco be included as a listings in the councils publication ‘What’s On’. This was refused and a letter writing campaign was begun for inclusion, eventually they were successful after the intervention of L...
GLF Leaflet Sunday Bloody Sunday
The following text is copied from a leaflet distributed by GLF members to the public at showings of the film Sunday Bloody Sunday in 1971.THE DOCTOR (PETER FINCH) IN THEM FILM YOU HAVE JUST SEEN IS A HOMOSEXUAL.do you think he ought to be allowed to ...
GLF general leaflet
The following text is copied from a leaflet was handed out by members of Birmingham GLF in the early 1970sHAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU?Because of the strict rules our society imposes on itself many of us are forced to pretend we are something that w...
Draft VD leaflet
The following text is a draft VD lealfet aimed at the LGBT community in the mid 1970s.Birmingham Gay Education Group. 3rd Draft Dec. 1976 VD Leaflet.'What is VD ?'For a start, VD is not a punishable sin it is a bac...