Events tagged with "Silver Slipper"
Cinemas as meeting places
As well as cottages, some cinemas provided places for gay men to meet. One such cinema was the Jaycee on Station Street, possibly active due to its proximity to the infamous Silver Slipper cottage....
Cottaging and Cruising
Cottaging, from the Polari slang for Public Toilet. Cruising, slang. Meaning to look for sex. Historically for many gay men cottaging and cruising were the only way they could meet other gay men, not only for sex but also for friendship. For ma...
Silver Slipper
The Silver Slipper was a large Victorian underground public toilet, curved in shape. It was Birmingham's most notorious cottage for many years, until it was closed in the late 1980s. It got its nickname from a ballet supply shop opposite whose sign w...
The Victoria
The Victoria is a traditional Victorian corner pub situated next to the Alexander Theatre on Station Street. It became popular with gay men from the 1960s and was still used by gay men until the early 90s. The reason for its early popularity might ha...
Memories tagged with "Silver Slipper"
Cottaging was rife
“I used cottages before John and during the end of my relationship with John but not in the middle, no. I didn’t, I was part of a couple so I didn’t cat around, no, for a long time, that was later on. I was 24 when I met him (1965), 25 when we ...
Intimidating Slipper
“Way back before I moved to Birmingham, when I was 18, (around 1985)I went to the Silver Slipper behind New Street Station. I was completely petrified; it was so busy and so intimidating to a young gay man. ‘What are all these guys doing?’”....
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...
Notorious 60s cottages
“There were some notorious cottages, such as the Silver Slipper on Station Street. There was an underground one on New Street Station before it was rebuilt and probably many more in the centre of town that I did not know about. I would also go out to...
Silver Slipper the only option 70s/80s
“Another thing that is important to the gay history of Birmingham was a phenomenally busy cottage called The Silver Slipper in Station Street, long since covered in tarmac. For young gay men in the 1970s and early ‘80s, meeting people in cruising gro...
The end of the Silver Slipper
The closure of the Silver Slipper as reported by 'In The Pink', April 1987.OBITUARYThe Silver Slipper, so named after the Silver Slipper dance studio on the corner of Hill St & Station St, has been filled in. Consequently Birmingham City has lost...