In London in the 1970’s (yes, some of us are that old!), the burgeoning gay community, still reeling from the fact that in 1969 homosexuality was finally decriminalized (well, for men 21 and over) and they were desperate to find ways/avenues to celebrate being queer. In those days, almost a decade before personal computers started to appear, we could only get news by word or mouth or via printed media.  Hence, GAY NEWS, a fortnightly newspaper, was founded in June 1972 in a collaboration between former members of the Gay Liberation Front and members of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality  It very quickly became our bible for the city’s queer life, and at the newspaper’s height, circulation was 18,000 to 19,000 copies. 

The content then was like a two-edged sword: for gay men looking for a hook-up or long-term love, the paper  challenged the authorities from the outset by publishing personal contact ads, in defiance of the law; in early editions, this section was always headlined “Love knoweth no laws.”  We probably didn’t appreciate enough at the time, but more importantly, the paper played a pivotal role in the struggle for gay rights in the 1970s in the UK, which would end up making a massive contribution to how our community would eventually evolve.

Even then the UK had its fair share of Maga-type homophobic extremists that would appoint themselves the country moral guardians.  And like now, the Administration would stand back and try and keep their own hands clean whilst right wing zealots would do ‘Gods Work”.  

70 year old Mary Whitehouse a hardline social conservative spent her post-teaching rallying against social liberalism and the mainstream British media,  and it was inevitable that Gay News would one day feel the heat of her wrath. In 1976 she brought a private prosecution of blasphemy (Whitehouse v Lemon) against both the newspaper and its editor, Denis Lemon, over the publication of James Kirkup‘s poem The Love that Dares to Speak its Name .  She won the court case, but if my memory serves me right, not public opinion.

Whitehouse was not the only one who wanted Gay News to fail, as WH Smith the country’s biggest newspaper distributor refused to carry the paper citing ‘low sales’.  In July 1975, after the paper’s readership had grown, they agreed to distribute the paper  but only in its London bookstalls. Then they dropped it in  January 1978 after a row with the paper over its coverage of the Paedophile Information Exchange. W.H. Smith’s action prompted widespread backlash, causing protests outside of its branches and at the firm’s Annual General Meeting.

Gay News can also take the credit, with the Gay Liberation Front, in 1974 on forming the much needed London Gay Switchboard (now Switchboard – LGBT+ Helpline) .  And in their last year in exsistence n 1983 Gay News alongside Switchboard and the Health Education Council went on to hold the first open conference on HIV/AIDS in Britain on 21 May 1983

Photographer Bob Workman and journalist Keith Howes were part of the original Gay News team who explored London and much of Britain, pushing open closet doors and shining light into the darkness of the often dangerous queer world of the 70s and early 80s. Now they are  reuniting at the Bishopsgate Institute for an evening of reminiscence and revelation. With candid anecdotes and glorious images, two of the iconic newspaper’s key staff members will reminisce and reveal how they helped to build community in a time of fear and persecution, as well as recalling  close encounters with people like Rudolf Nureyev, Divine, Simon Callow, Andy Warhol and Dame Edna Everage.

IT IS MUST-SEE  EVENT FOR ALL LOVERS OF QUEER HISTORY