Events tagged with "Peace Centre"
Birmingham Gay Liberation Front
The early 1970s saw the emergence of the Birmingham Gay Liberation Front. Younger members of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) who wanted to take a more radical approach to gay rights formed the Birmingham group in 1971. A London group was s...
Birmingham Gay Liberation Front Newsletter
First published in 1971, the Birmingham Gay Liberation Front Newsletter was produced monthly and contained news, events and editorial. It was distributed in a variety of ways from street sales in place such as the Bull Ring Shopping Centre to sympath...
Lesbian and Gay Community Centre, Aston
The Lesbian and Gay Community Centre Aston opened in September 1984 at 291 Corporation St , opposite Aston University. The centre was 'a voluntary, non-profit making organisation run by homosexual women and men, whose aim it is to promote the welf...
Peace Centre
The Peace Centre was an alternative book shop on Moor Street Queensway, which stocked many left wing politcal publications along with enviromental books and gay and lesbian literature. It was also home to Birmingham Gay Liberation Front in the early ...
Memories tagged with "Peace Centre"
Birmingham activists just changed hats, 1970s
Betty: “In the ‘70’s, the Gay Community Centre started, but also the Peace Centre, and GLF (Gay Liberation Front). Around that time a mixture of gay and lesbian people including Pete Kirby and Helen Rose put on a musical starting with the song “There...
Controversy over selling the SCUM Manifesto
Belinda worked at the Peace Centre from 1981 until it closed in 1985.“There was a controversy over whether to sell copies of 'Coming to Power' by Samois, published in 1983. It was produced by the Californian coalition of sado-masochist lesbians. At t...
Gay News on sale at Peace Centre - 1981
“The Peace Centre was an intellectual centre; we sold gay and lesbian books at a time when these were difficult to buy. We sold 'Gay News’ when the only other place that sold it was Leesons, a local newsagents, noone was gay but they’d taken the deci...
Gay Pride London and Birmingham marches
The GLF group went to the Gay Pride marches in London and even held a few small marches in Birmingham in the early 1970s. “These were not very big and they were not police chaperoned at all, we took banners and marched down New Street, about 30 of us...
Gay Times at the Peace Centre
“I also had links with the Peace Centre; there were a large number of gay people involved with the Peace Centre. The Peace Centre sold Oz, Gay News, including the controversial copy of Gay News that had the poem that Mary Whitehouse took against and ...
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...
Pink triangles at the Peace Centre - 1981-4
"circa 1981-1984 - the indie/hippy/lefty 'Peace Centre' Shop at the back of what is now the Pavilions Shopping Centre would sell Gay News, Square Peg, Spare Rib, along with books. Later (I think) they had Pink Paper, although I could be rememberin...
Printing the GLF newsletter and Gladrag
"The Birmingham Gay Liberation Front Newsletter was produced between 1971 and 1974, there were only about 4 or 5 five editions published. They were printed using one of those old hand-cranked Gestetner duplicators. You had...
The Peace Centre, a gay gathering place
Belinda was employed at the Peace Centre near Moor Street, next to Reddington’s Rare Records, from 1981 until 1985 when it closed. The core of its clientele were anarchists, anti-nuclear activists and gay people. “At the time there weren’t many ‘gay ...
Transformation from CHE to GLF 1971
Nick talks about the political and physical transition from CHE into the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in the early 70s. "Before we moved to the Peace Centre, our first place in Birmingham was the Quakers Meeting House, we met there for nearly two...
Volunteering at Switchboard 5 nights a week
Lyn became involved with Switchboard from 1983 to 2000. “I started training on the first Saturday after New Year in 1984. It was a fairly successful organisation with 20 or so regular operators. There was a separate Lesbian Line on Wednesdays but sti...