80s and early 90s publications
1983
"There were no other commercial or non commercial publications in Birmingham in the mid 1980s although the The Pink Paper started shortly after. Birmingham Friend and CHE had each produced newsletters as had the Metropolitan Community Church but these weren’t for wider circulation. The Nightingale produced a publication called ‘The Voice’ for many years which was sent to all its members and available in the club. There was an attempt in the early 1980s to start a Gay Publication that lasted for 6 editions called The Gay Midlander, covering the area from The Wash to Aberystwyth - the only other attempt at a community based publication. Prior to the 1980s the only people who tried to produce newsletters were the group of people in the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) which survived in Birmingham long after it disappeared elsewhere and the GLF people were the core of the people who became involved in the first Gay Community Centre and the Switchboard. In the mid 1970s they produced Zap and Gladrag. These were not available on newsstands but you could get them in places like the Peace Centre and various venues. The GLF used to go to a pub that was dying on its feet called The Jester and which stocked publications intermittently."
Contributed by: Lyn David Thomas, 47