The annual Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage Celebration and Awards evening, held at Nottingham Council House, was well attended and pictures of the awardees (Singing Proud, Base 51, Tina Nock and Queer Arts Collective) can be seen in the Awards section of this website.

Several organisations set up stalls for the first part of the evening. Shown here are Nottinghamshire Hurricanes Rugby Team, the NASUWT teachers' union, Five Leaves Bookshop and Notts Police.  Thanks should go to Councillors Roberts and Webster for arranging the event in conjunction with Rainbow Heritage.

Brianna Ghey was a young trans woman from Warrington who was murdered on the 11th of February. Two teenagers have been charged and it is suspected that her murder was a transphobic hate crime.

Vigils for Brianna took place in many locations across the UK. Notts LGBT+ Network helped organise a vigil in Nottingham on February 17th.

It is estimated that nearly 500 people gathered near the Brian Clough statue just off the Market Square. Flowers were placed and candles were lit as several speakers paid their individual tributes. The photograph below gives some idea of the size of the crowd.

In 2023 Uganda became the third country in Africa which has instituted the death penalty for same sex activities. Uganda still remains a member of the Commonwealth.

Museveni maintains that homosexuality is a "Western practice". He should be reminded that King Mwanga II of Uganda was bisexual, that current attitudes in Uganda are the result of British colonialism and that King Mwanga reacted very strongly to British missionaries trying to impose their ideas about sexualiy.

In June  2023 a rainbow wall appeared at the entrance to John Lewis. It was made up of 1,000 paper cranes made by the students from Fernwood School in Wollaton.

Why paper cranes? The crane is a mystical or holy creature in Japanese culture. They are symbols of peace and are also created by groups as a collective effort when wanting to offer good fortune to others.

The students are members of the schools LGBTQ+ group.

Nottingham's Pride was fortunate in occupying one of the few fine days during this period. The numbers on the march were greater than ever - nearly 10,000. 

Worksop and Netherfield Prides returned and were joined by new Prides in Retford, Harworth & Bircotes and Sherwood.

New social groups are always welcome and four started up over the Summer and Autumn

Front Runners is (no surprise) a group for runners who will complete a 5km run each week ... ending up at the Lord Roberts. Three member are shown on the left.

The other groups were a board game group aimed at local lesbians, a queer craft club, which has been initiated by Notts LGBT+ Network and a ten-pin bowling group with the unforgettable name of Gay City Bowlers

On November 14th (at 8.30 am) the news arrived that Notts LGBT+ Network had been awarded the King's Award for Voluntary Service.

This is the equivalent of an MBE for a voluntary group and is in recognition for (at the time) 48 years of service. The actual awarding ceremony will take place in 2024.

2024

At the end of January 2024, Nottingham Panthers  ice Hockey team put on what now seems to be an annual Pride Night.

There were Pride mascots, Pride jumpers and a fundraiser for Notts LGBT+ Network which raised over £2000

It is still fairly rare for schools to celebrate LGBT+ History Month, but some Nottingham Schools do.

The High School set up a fundraising day powered by the opportunity to lose that uniform.

Notts LGBT+ Network was informed in November that it had received the King’s Award for Voluntary service - the equivalent of an MBE.

The award was actually presented on February 24th by Sir John Peace, the Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire.

The award, in tangible form, consists of a certificate and a glass crystal. Holding these are two of the Network’s trustees, Charlie and Tony.  This was a milestone on the journey to another  milestone - in 2025 the Network will have been operating for 50 years.

This year's Celebration included an illustrated presentation by C.J.DeBarra who gave a fascinating insight into their two books which will appear (along with an exhibition at Broadway) in 2025.

The first book will deal with LGBT+ Nottingham from 1960 to 1990 and the second book will cover the period from 1990 to 2020.

This year's event was a joint effort. Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage joined with Notts Pride and each presented their awards. For Rainbow Heritage, the awards went to Nadia Whittome MP (top centre) for her support for LGBT+ people both locally and nationally. She is seen here with Shuguftah Quddoos, the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Next to Nadia are two members from the Health Shop, who received recognition for the Shop’s longstanding support for LGBT+ People - always present at Pride, frequently setting up specific health events, providing a base for Silver Pride and, of course, distributing their "shag packs".

Bottom right is a member of Badminton Social. That group has been running for nearly 20 years and which allows people to enjoy socialising in an inclusive atmosphere over a game of badminton.

Bottom left are two members of the Pride Hosts, who help the running of Pride each year. They received the first of Pride's awards. The second award went to members of Tiger Community.

The evening ended with rousing performance from Nottingham's LGBT+ choir, Singing Proud.

Nottingham Forest ‘s previous LGBT+ supporters’ group was LGBT Trickies. Proud Forest is the new LGBTQ+ Forest supporters group which has filled the gap left by the closure of LGBT Trickies.

Founder Martin Hyland says “I am proud to be part of the Forest family that is welcoming, diverse and, in the main part, inclusive.

“ Seeing our club actively take part in the Rainbow Laces campaign, makes us feel that the club has got our back as LGBTQ+ fans and wants us to be part of this amazing journey.”   

The Outlaws is a new group which is the LGBTQ+ and allies supporters group, for Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club and The Blaze.

Our website is currently a Facebook group which can be found here at

https://www.facebook.com/groups/557658973013935

Find us on twitter too! @OUTlawsNCCC

The Under the Rainbow exhibition took place late July/early August at Broadway Cinema. It was organised by the Sparrow’s Nest library and archive with help from the People’s Histreh radical history group.

The Sparrow’s Nest looks after tens of thousands of books, journals, pamphlets, zines, leaflets, posters and other items which includes local radical and LGBTQ+ history. You can download their archive from

https://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/

The main elements of the exhibition were focused around Nottingham’s LGBTQ+ newsletters and magazines from the 1970s onwards as well as photographs from Nottingham Pride taken by local photographer Alan Lodge. (See lowest image)

Many of the extracts were from newsletters produced in the 1980s and 1990s by Richard McCance. These were Gay Nottingham, Metrogay and Outright. Richard (in the yellow tabard) was present at the opening of the exhibition. 

Videos produced by Richard and his husband, the late Chris Richardson, were played. One video related to the notorious trial of John Clarkson - sent to prison at the age of 19 because he was gay. John later became chairperson of what is now Notts LGBT+ Network. Reading some of the display reminded us that Richard was Nottingham’s first “out” councillor - and, we believe, only the second “out” councillor in the whole of the UK.

On show was the terrifying papier mache head of Margaret Thatcher produced and regularly worn by Chris Richardson.

As Nottingham Pride gets bigger and bigger, the idea of having a main stage in the small streets in Hockley has now become impractical.    The many thousands on the march followed, more or less, the previous year's route but them continued down Goose Gate and across the road to Sneinton Market Square (see left) where the large stage was set up.   Groups and organisations had their own individual stalls in the walk ways around Sneinton Market.

You can see more photos from Pride HERE

The 2019 rainbow crossings in Hockley had started to look a bit worn, but they were revived in time for Pride and with the addition of some colours from the progressive rainbow flag. Should we be surprised that some black tyre marks appeared soon after the renovation? Another reason why Pride is still relevant and necessary.



After the various Summer Prides, Autumn can often seem dull.  Thanks to Jake Orr, Queer Up Duck is an LGBTQ+ festival that enlivened October.

Over 20 events took place at a range of venues and some  of them involved:

• Films at Broadway
• Drag Bingo at Rough Trade
• A Halloween night at Saltbox
• Writing events at the City Library
• An installation at the National Justice museum
• An art workshop at City Arts
• A comedy night at Squire Performing Arts Centre
• A history of queer activism presentation at Fabric

November saw ten evenings of comedy performers bringing the Nottingham Comedy Festival to the Lord Roberts.

Organised by Dan Webber, the  Festival championed local, regional and national LGBTQ+ comedy talent.

Stuart Linden Rhodes used to work as a photographer for Gay Times and APN (All Points North) in the 1990s while at the same time teaching at a further education college. On February 6th at Central Library he gave an illustrated talk about his work which now forms the basis for two books.

His work for Gay Times took him all over the country, but inevitably there was a focus on London. For APN there are photos from Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham but also Nottingham, Derby and Mansfield.

Included in some of the photos are famous people such as Lily Savage, Julian Clary, Boy George, Sue Pollard, Hazel Dean and Nicki French. there is even a photo of pre-fame Take That, taken on Gary Barlow’s 21st birthday - with a 16 year old Robbie Williams.

This year's event began with a celebration of the 50th anniversary of what is now Notts LGBT+ Network.

Starting in 1975 as Nottingham Gay Switchboard, a one-night-a-week telephone helpline, it gradually expanded to five nights a week.  Later it was involved in starting several local LGBT+ groups which are now independent - the Chameleon Group, Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage, Silver Pride, Rainbow Vision.  It now supports our local community in a variety of ways.

This annual event is a collaboration between Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage and Nottinghamshire Pride. 

This year Rainbow Heritage presented three awards and Pride presented two.

The Lovers sees internationally renowned artist Sunil Gupta present his critically acclaimed photographic series, Lovers: Ten Years On (1984/85), alongside a new body of work produced with artist and husband Charan Singh, titled Lovers, Revisited (2023/2024). Created 40 years apart, both collections depict LGBTQIA+ couples, as directed by the sitters, photographed in their homes.

The exhibition (February - May 2025) at New Art Exchange (NAE), marked nearly four decades since the 28 black-and-white Lovers photographs have been seen together in their entirety. They are Juxtaposed against the 12 new works from Lovers Revisited,