The National Lesbian Conference London 1981
1981
The first national
lesbian conference was in London, in 1981 and I don’t recall there
being a second one. The women I went with were a real cross over
between the revolutionary feminist group and the Women and Manual
Trades group, some weren’t part of our group but hung out with us
because they were plumbers or carpenters and there was a link. I can’t
remember anything about the conference itself, what it was for, the
content, or what came out of it, but I do remember the excitement and
the postcard which I thought was very cool. It had a black background
with three lesbian symbols against a flash of fire. I sent one to my
mother, her response was ‘What will the postman think?’, and my father
was going ‘I don’t think you should worry about the postman’. I do
remember there was a lot of aggro around it and the reaction of the
police. For some reason the police were out a lot and a lot of
different women got arrested and there was a real carry on. We must
have been having some sort of protest, I remember running round on the
streets, piling in when a copper tried to get someone out of the crowd,
and making sure they didn’t. One woman was put in a police car, and
these other women went round and opened the other door and she just got
out again, but ended up being arrested again and up in court the
following morning, so we did a lot of hanging around in the police
station. Another friend had this huge argument with the policeman and I
dragged her off and nearly suffocated her, just holding her so she
couldn’t fight and get arrested. A couple of friends of mine got
convictions, but I can’t remember what they were doing".
Contributed by: Trisha McCabe, 51