Nightingale charges Switchboard peppercorn rent
1981
“When the Nightingale opened in Thorp Street (in 1981) Switchboard
was invited along with Friend to take rooms there for a peppercorn rent
for something like £100 a year. There was a stretch for about 3 years
when the Nightingale declined to ask for the rent – they saw that as
part of their social remit. The Nightingale was unique.
They never saw
themselves as a commercial venue, they saw themselves as a social
organisation that provided a safe space with alcohol. A gay working
men’s club! It’s hard to imagine that given the glitz and glamour of
the current Nightingale. There were originally some women members at
the Nightingale but not many. The need for a woman to be signed into
the Nightingale by a male member only came about in the 1980s. There
was a growing sense of political pressure for gay rights and a reaction
from more established gay men that they didn’t want to be associated
with anything political, and a lot of lesbians were seen to be
political.
The women at Switchboard were fairly philosophical about the
move to the Nightingale because of the low rent. Switchboard remained
above the Nightingale in Thorp Street until it moved to its new
premises in Kent Street in 1995. Switchboard then moved just further
down to an office block on Hurst Street. The Nightingale gave
Switchboard a golden handshake that set us up for about 2 years. I was
secretary to Switchboard for about 3 years. The old offices at the
Nightingale could hear the disco come 10 O’clock and the rain came in.
There was a labyrinth of stairwells and little rooms above the
Nightingale some of which were used and some weren’t. It wasn’t
decorated but it was almost free and there was enough room for 3
operators. By the time we moved in 1995 we had built up again to 20 or
so operators, the highest we ever got to was 29. There was a minimum of
one line open every night but on most nights we had two lines open or
on occasions we had three. We secured a lottery grant for about 3 years
that enabled us to pay for a 3rd line and some training – we did some
joint work with a local GUM clinic, and it enabled us to pay for some
publicity. It was quite a good period in the mid to late 1990s”.
Contributed by: Lyn David Thomas, 47