Events tagged with "Laurie Williams"
Angels
Initially opened by Laurie Williams in 1996, as a private members bar called Laurie's International Club. Later brought by Gareth Scratchard and reopened as Angels. It was the first gay bar in Birmingham to have plate glass windows open to the stree...
Impact of Licencing Laws
Much of the way that gay people socialised, when and where, was influenced by the licencing laws at the time.Back in the 1950s and earlier, bars were licenced only till 10:00p.m. so many gay men moved on to one of a number of cafes, coffee bars or mi...
Laurie Williams
Laurie Williams was the godfather of the early gay scene in Birmingham, he regularly held parties and promoted club nights pre 1967. He was instrumental in setting up the Nightingale Club in premises at Camp Hill and later opened the Jug. He was know...
The Jug
The Jug was owned and managed by the charismatic and well known Laurie Williams. Laurie named his club The Jug being an acronym of ‘Just Us Guys’, later changed to ‘Just Us Gays’. Originally situated on Albert Street and later on Water Street, the Ju...
The Royal Court of Campania
The Royal Court of Campania was an honours system invented by Laurie Williams and Peter Scott-Fleeman, aka 'Ada', and given to people who had made an outstanding contribution to the gay scene. Laurie and Peter were part of one of the ‘in’ groups of g...
Victoria Club
A nightclub in a building situated on the site of what is now Victoria Square in central Birmingham. Laurie Williams had organised several gay nights in the venue, until the owner closed the club and vanished with the gay community's money. This is s...
Women's access to bars
Pre 1960s Prior to the 1960s, and well into the 1970s there appears to have been very little opportunity indeed for lesbians to get together openly in a social or public space. All the bars noted as being popular with the gay crowd in the 40s and 50...
Memories tagged with "Laurie Williams"
GLF leafleting the gay scene
"We used to leaflet the gay scene about political things, we had tactics around this as we were often threatened (by other gay people) and we had been beaten up. We used to have to find a route through the pub, hand out the leaflets and get out the o...
Great send off for Laurie
Lyn recalls “Laurie Williams died in 2002 or 2003, after I had moved back to Cardiff. His funeral was amazing; it was a humanist funeral, it was packed solid with several hundred people; anyone who was anyone that was involved in the pubs and clubs o...
He was very gay and a great character
“I recall Laurie Williams, he was a great character, a great Brummie character, very flamboyant and very gay. Laurie was a bit like Quentin Crisp because he was flamboyant and I remember him coming into the Trocadero one night, in this fabulous...
How Campania came about
Alan discusses The Royal Court of Campania "Peter Scott-Fleeman and Laurie Williams met one New Years Eve in the 1960’s and they were talking in a camp way about the honours list, they joked that the gay scene, although it was called the homosexual s...
Laurie and The Jug
“Laurie Williams worked at the Home Office and he managed to get the Nightingale a late licence, like a Working Man’s Club, in a tin hut in Camp Hill. Then they had a political fall out about whose club it was and Laurie was booted out, so he set up ...
Laurie was unique
Laurie Williams was unique; an interesting and complex figure. He was an openly gay man from the 1940s, a pioneer. He was involved in gay life in World War II in Birmingham. He survived the 1950s because he was so out. That gave him a degree of...
Laurie Williams and the Jug
“Laurie Williams was later the owner of The Jug, first in a central area (Albert Street) now redeveloped, and then it moved to Water Street/ Livery Street. Laurie was involved in politics and was a lifelong humanist. He was a good friend and agent of...
Laurie Williams recalls the 1940s
“One source of information was Laurie Williams who would tell me about gay sex during the blackout in Birmingham in the war; there was active cottaging and cruising; a circuit of notorious toilets to visit; clubs that were accessed by going up the ba...
Laurie's funeral
“Laurie William’s funeral was the best funeral I’ve ever been to in my life and I’ve been to many. I’ve stopped going to gay funerals, except for very personal and close friends, half way through the nineties because it reached literally hundreds. I ...
Memories
"I first met Laurie Williams and his partner Lionel Strawbridge in 1977. I was a student at Birmingham University where, during term time I helped run the Birmingham University Gay Society, (GaySoc). In the 1970s The Nightingale Club, at Witton Lane,...
One summer with Laurie is like a lifetime
"I first met Laurie Williams and his partner Lionel Strawbridge in 1977. I was a student at Birmingham University where, during term time I helped run the Birmingham University Gay Society, (GaySoc). In the 1970s The Nightingale Club, at Witton Lane,...
Other bars in the late 80s
“I vaguely recollect going to The Grosvenor House Hotel on the Hagley Road with a late night piano cabaret bar. There were also premises that moved from Albert St to Water St on the site of Subway City, called The Jug. One of the proprietors was very...
remembering the Gale at Camp Hill
The Nightingale started life at Camp Hill (in 1969). “It was a terraced property, which basically consisted of two rooms plus a backyard that was built upon. A long thin tunnel…the restaurant kitchen was on the back; the Manager’s office and the to...
Robot DJ
"I also happened upon The Jug, off Livery Street and run by a charming older man called Laurie Williams. This was a bizarre venue in that it had all these cheap Spanish wine bottles hanging from the ceiling, the back room/lounge smelt awful as it had...
Sacked on Friday, back on Saturday
Andy Williams a.k.a. Emma Roids, DJed for Laurie Williams, for 17 years, throughout his time running the Jug. "He was a strange bloke, you either got on with him or you didn't. I don't know how many times he sacked me! He'd sack me on the Frida...
Smoky Trocadero
“In the mid sixties when I first started going into the Trocadero, I remember one Sunday night in November vividly. Laurie Williams came in dressed spectacularly in a pure white raincoat, he said his ‘hellos’, everyone called him ‘La Williams’. He co...
The Nightingale was born
After the ‘Queen Victoria’ closed, there was a barren period in Birmingham in respect of club life. ‘La’ (Laurie Williams) approached me one night in the Imperial Bar and told me he had found a backer who wanted to put up the cash to start a gay memb...
The Water Garden stank
Steve remembers The Jug during the late 1980s. This was a club that was located in the same building that Subway City is now, on Livery Street. Two older gay men, Laurie Williams and his partner Lionel ran it and also lived above the club with their ...