On February 16th 2010, Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage took over the Ballroom at Nottingham Council House for a celebration and awards evening. Was it the free food and drink which attracted nearly 150 - some from as far as Leicester?

Those present saw several displays from NRH as well as others from Nottingham Ball Bois (complete with mannequin), the Adoption and Fostering Service, UNISON and Notts Police. A video of the 2009 Nottingham Pride march was shown and awards were presented (by the Sheriff of Nottingham, Councillor Leon Unczur) to Breakout Gay Men's Group, Nottingham Hyking Dykes and Healthy Gay Nottingham. Also, the first Michael Raymond Memorial awards were presented to Lesbian Line and The Pavilion Club. The awards are for people or organisations which are no longer with us, but were valuable in their day. To find out why the awards bear Mike Raymond's name, click HERE.

From the Ballroom we could see into the Market Square and were please to note that the illuminated big wheel had "Nottingham Pride" on several of its gondolas

Health and Safety intervened over the 2010 Nottingham Pride in relation to the ever growing numbers who wanted to attend.

Nottingham Pride bowed to the inevitable and moved from the now-too-small Arboretum to the Forest Recreation Ground.

There were advantages and disadvantages and some of the disadvantages were sorted by 2011.

The march was attended at the end by a rather pathetic demo from some young Muslim men.

Quaker lesbian Clare Dimyon was presented with an MBE by Prince Charles at an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace on Friday 29th October 2010.

She was honoured for “services to promoting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Central and Eastern Europe”

While this is not the first honour for LGBT people, nor the first recognition for work to advance the human rights of LGBT people, it is believed that this is the first time in British history that the words “Lesbian”, “Gay”, “Bisexual” and “Transgender” have been explicitly used in a citation, either individually or together. These are the words that were read out by the Lord Chamberlain, in the heart of Buckingham Palace. 

Under the Equality Act, there are nine protected characteristics:

• age.
• disability.
• gender reassignment.
• marriage and civil partnership.
• pregnancy and maternity.
• race.
• religion or belief.
• sex.

The main purposes of the Equality Act are to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination; to advance equality of opportunity; and to foster good relations.

February 2011 produced 222 entries (mainly in Nottingham) on the National LGBT History Month calendar for events in the East Midlands, which was the area with the most entries.  London's entries put it in second place.

The high spot here was Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage's Celebration and Awards evening at Nottingham Council House.

Peter Tatchell made a speech and presented the awards including one to Outburst youth group and one to Nottingham Ballbois football team.

A rainbow flag flew over Duncan Macmillan House, the home of Notts Healthcare NHS Trust. For 2011, The Trust was number 13 in the Stonewall top 100 best LGBT employers.

Nottingham City Homes had an LGBT History Month display by several organisations and a presentation on LGBT History by Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage, though the most astonishing component of the event was the huge (delicious) cake to end all cakes

Nottingham's LGBT historian Tony Bilton was asked to put on a display in the foyer of County Hall. The exhibits - dealing with LGBT Olympians and the Holocaust- are shown here.

Leicester LGBT Centre (which had just started its own LGBT History project) invited Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage to fill their first floor with some of its display materials - about 10% of it is shown above. The materials also included projections and extracts from interviews.

Idaho Day - May 17th - was celebrated in several ways in Nottingham. The Nottinghamshire Pride committee arranged for Rainbow Flags to be flown on several sites, in particular Nottingham Castle.

This flag was produced by David Gibson, aged 23, who is studying first year costume design at Nottingham Trent University.

At the University of Nottingham an IDAHO Day conference was organised by Dr. Andrew Yip as part of a joint initiative between organisations in the UK, Italy, Hungary and Slovenia.

The pictures show part of the displays by Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage and Healthy Gay Nottingham and also Dr. Luca Trappolin (of the University of Padua) speaking against a delightfully starry (and rather camp) background - see below.

Mrs Kay Cutts, Conservative leader of the County Council, bans QB after reading a critical(and 100% accurate) article about her.

“Dear All,

 As a matter of urgency, would any Libraries that receive a copy of the publication Queer Bulletin, please remove the latest edition from their shelves. I will be phoning all Libraries who receive a copy as soon as possible, but please take it off now and don't wait for a call before acting.   

Thanks.      Fiona. Principal Librarian: Resources”

“Unfortunately we will be unable to display the latest (June/July) edition of QB due to the nature of the article on the front page. As Nottinghamshire County Council are one of our main funders I am sure you can appreciate that we aren't in a position to display a publication that includes an article criticising their head, especially one that carries it on the front page. As mentioned in the original email we will still be able to hand out the QB on request, but sadly we won't be able to have them on display. I hope this clears up any confusion.

Kind regards Simon Redgate Senior Information Officer/Budget & Finance, Nottingham Tourism Centre”

Was Mrs Cutts action prompted by QB likening her to "the wife of Dobby the House Elf?"

Pride 2011 was the second year at the Forest Recreation Ground and the larger area was needed as 25,000 people turned up.

This year Nottingham Pride became Nottinghamshire Pride, to recognise that those attending came from all over the County - and in many cases from even further afield.

The march was well populated. The Mayor and the Chair of the County Council were amongst the marchers.

For IDAHO Day 2012, The big poster was displayed  2012 on the wall of the Methodist Mission on the corner of George Street and Lower Parliament Street.

2012 was the year when the Pride committee decided to extend the event over 2 days.

The general consensus was that they overreached themselves. Saturday was quite successful and was preceded by a well-populated march, but Sunday was a double wash out both in terms of attendance and weather.

Unfortunately, the event made a substantial loss.

Towards the end of 2012 a local internet radio, Trent Sound appeared.

They began an LGBT chat/music programme - every Friday from 10 to midnight.

At the time, it was hosted by Natasher Beecher and Leigh Ellis, who were both volunteers on Lesbian and Gay Switchboard.

The LGBT programme is no longer being broadcast.

February 2013 saw much LGBT History Month activity. The Rainbow writers organised events at Trent University and Newstead Abbey.

Trent University ran a series of lecturettes + question and answers.

Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage set up displays in 7 libraries (including the Prison library), a civic centre, Rushcliffe register office and a police station as well as their regular Celebration and Awards evening at the Council House.

The Mayor, Councillor Leon Unczur, was a guest at the Celebration and the speaker was Professor Greg Woods (pictured) from Trent University. Awards were presented to Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust (and Catherine Conchar, their Head of equality and Diversity), Nottingham Women's Centre and WOW, the Worksop-based LGBT Youth group.

Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust achieved 4th position in Stonewall's employers' ranking. At their HQ at Duncan Macmillan House, they hosted displays and performances by Sapphist Writers, housed the "Living my Life" Trans exhibition, raised the rainbow flag, organised a conference and a film show.

On June the 1st, the Pride Committee encouraged people to come to the Market Square and have their photos taken against the famous Left Lion, which they had draped with a rainbow flag.

The “God Hates Fags” Westborough Baptist Church website is an amazing demonstration of the power of the gay world.

In Summer 2013 they informed us that not only is the coming out of basketball player Jason Collins responsible for the Oklahoma tornados in May 2013, we also prompted God to cause the explosion at a Texas fertiliser plant.

Holy shit!

The 2013 Nottinghamshire Pride was preceded by the now customary parade from the Market Square.

To most people's delight the parade ended in a return to the Arboretum, which is generally more congenial than the Forest Recreation ground used in 2011/12. Attendees enjoyed, amongst many other things, some Sumo wrestling.

Pride closed at 6.00pm and the weather was perfect until 6.01 pm, when the heavens opened.

The County Council Hate Crime steering group spent some time looking at homophobic hate crime.

One outcome is that a series of LGBT awareness training sessions will be held starting in 2014. This was supported and financed by Paddy Tipping, the Police and Crime Commissioner, seen on the right.

These training sessions were delivered by David Edgley on behalf of Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage.

They were made available free to any organisation which could provide a venue and gather at least eight participants.

They were to continue until 2020 and details of the training and of some of the organisations which took up the training can be found by clicking HERE.

The older among us will have fond memories of Mushroom Bookshop on Heathcoat Street, which closed in 2000. It was an “alternative” book shop which was very LGBT friendly and supported Notts Switchboard by selling copies of Gay News and giving Switchboard the profit.

Ross Bradshaw, who used to work at Mushroom, has now opened Five Leaves Bookshop.

Ross says “"Five Leaves Bookshop will include dedicated lesbian and gay sections from the start. Supporting and promoting LGBT concerns is important to us, and we welcome people dropping in leaflets and posters advertising LGBT events as well as shoppers!”

The shop is at 14a Long Row, that’s down the little alleyway next to Primark and over the road from the Tourism Centre. It opened on November 9th 2013.  Since the, the bookshop has regularly organised evening events involving presentation and discussion by LGBT+ authors or on LGBT+ themes.

To go to their website click HERE

On December 31st 2013, Healthy Gay Nottingham ceased to exist. It was opened by Sir Ian McKellen in 1994 and had provided a varied and effective service for gay, bi men and MSM since that time at its base on Broad Street. For much of the time it had 3 full time staff and part time outreach workers.

It provided professional training and in its earlier days was a driving force behind the first Pride-type events (Pink Lace) and QB newsletter

Its closure was a consequence of the transfer of responsibility for sexual health and public health to the City Council. Those in charge decided that a revamp was needed, despite quite a bit of concern expressed by the community that a trusted service needed to be retained.

It proved difficult to get information from those in charge about what, if anything, would replace it.

What we now have is a limited service at the Victoria Health Centre (see right) on Glasshouse Street. One compensation is that the Health Shop (on Broad Street) has substantially increased the service it provides for LGBT people.

As usual, Nottingham provided a full calendar for 2014's LGBT History Month.

Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage set up 13 mini displays in libraries, civic centres, a police station and Nottingham prison. On the right is the West Bridgford Library display.

They also gave LGBT history presentations at Whatton Prison and for Notts Healthcare NHS Trust. This year's innovation was a two week exhibition organised at short notice at the gallery in Central library. 27 panels covered a range of LGBT themes.

They have booked the space for the whole month in 2015.

The annual celebration and awards evening organised by Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage saw awards presented to:

• the E.on LGBT Network
• Tagadere (the HIV support group)
• trans group Recreation.

The guest speaker was Nottinghamshire's Chief Constable, Chris Eyre and the evening closed with a performance from Les Follies - shown on the left, who are members of the E.on LGBT Network.

Central library was also used as the focus for a series of reminiscences by several older members of the LGBT community.

The activity was organised by local author Victoria Villasenor in conjunction with the City Council.

These were published a few months later as "Late Outbursts" and were presented at an event at Waterstones on June 1st. Peter Tatchell was the guest speaker.

In 2013 Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust were number 4 on Stonewall's employers' index. Now, in 2014, they have risen to second place.

As usual the Trust organised numerous LGBT History Month activities: a conference; a film night; talks; displays; training and a sponsored walk.

The process to rescue Nottinghamshire Pride and return it to financial viability was put into action by Pride's new committee.

Fundraising was taking place, including via a CD of songs specially put together for Pride - thanks go to the City Council LGBT network for organising this.

Negotiations with the City Council took place around ways to organise an event which would minimize the costs.

The decision was made that the event be centred on the “Creative Quarter” of Nottingham, which includes Hockley and the Lace Market.

It will use some of the roads, small squares and venues in that area, for example: Lace Market Square, the paved areas in Hockley, Broadway Cinema and bars such as the Lord Roberts, Revolution and Propaganda. Broad Street and Heathcoat Street will be closed to traffic.

Having many bars, restaurants (and toilet facilities - the cost of portaloos at places like the Arboretum ran into thousands of pounds) already in place saves both money and organisational problems.

So Pride went ahead on July 26th in Hockley, as planned. Perhaps the most important end result of Pride 2014 was that it reversed the financial misfortunes of several consecutive years.

The event made a profit of about £8000 and helped reduce the losses which had built up. The move to Hockley did not break Pride's amazing sequence of good weather.

No Bystanders is Stonewall's campaign to tackle bullying and abuse and a No Bystanders event was organised jointly by Notts Police and Notts Fire and Rescue. It took place at Notts Fire and Rescue HQ on November 21st.

Chief Constable Chris Eyre (see left) called on Notts organisations to attend and more importantly to sign the pledge and show their commitment to addressing this type of behaviour within the workplace and the community at large.

Earlier in 2014 the Global Words publishers brought out Late Outbursts, a series of reminiscences from older LGBT people.

Speaking Out is another Global Words collection of memories put together by the Nottingham-based Outburst LGBTQ youth group with help from editor Victoria Villasenor.

The book was launched on November 29th at Waterstones, where the young people read out extracts from their own contributions.

In 2015, The University of Nottingham Hockey team adopted a novel way of countering homophobia in sport.

They have produced a video as part of the “Voice your rights” project. It shows them taking part in a naked hockey game - see the still picture on the left.

Below that picture, you can see the full video on Youtube.

In 2015 Truevision was taken on in Nottinghamshire as a way of reporting hate crimes such as homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.

Their website contains advice and guidance and explains clearly what a hate crime is and that includes internet hate crime.

You can report hate crimes online, if you do not want to report directly to the police. The police take hate crime very seriously and will record and investigate this offence even if you do not want to give your details.

To go to the Truevision website, click HERE

Early in January 2015 the news came out that Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust had become the number 1 employer on the Stonewall index.

This, to a large extent, was due to the untiring efforts of their Head of Equality and Diversity, Catherine Conchar - shown below with others (at the right of the rainbow flag) on the steps of their HQ.

Those attending the Manchester LGBT History Festival on February 14th 2015 were given a dose of reality when they attended a presentation by David Edgley called "Nottinghamshire, centre of the LGBT Universe". Ample evidence of the County's status was provided:

Same-sex marriage started on March 29th 2014, but in Nottingham they were doing it in the 14th Century. The city has many firsts: the first “official” gay club; the first Trade Union support group; the first UK Professor of Gay and Lesbian Studies; the first “out” footballer; home to the founder of GLF in the UK; Stonewall’s “first in the NHS organisation”. 

To that you can add tales of the Pansy’s Parlour, the Coffin Parade; the Asda Kiss-in; the gay swimming furore; Robina Hood’s Gay Street Theatre; the secret bomb plot and the world’s most valuable bathroom loofahs. And when you read a 1964 newspaper article that makes it clear that all gay men look like a well-known Nottingham MP, you must come to the conclusion that Nottinghamshire IS the centre of the LGBT universe.

2015's LGBT History Month included many local activities and events.

The City Council managed to get a reference to LGBT History Month on the information signs at Nottingham bus stops.

At the 2015 Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage's annual Celebration and Awards evening at Nottingham Council House on February 24th, the awards went to:

• Catherine Conchar
• The Pride Committee 2014 ("The team that saved Pride")
• Eat Out Nottingham.

As usual, the Notts Healthcare NHS Trust organised several events for LGBT History Month, including a conference on the theme of "coming out". 

The picture on the right shows Richard McCance talking at the conference about his involvement with the "Late Outbursts" LGBTQ memoirs.

Around the City Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage also put on its usual small scale displays in 9 libraries, 2 civic centres, Nottingham Prison, Duncan Macmillan House, the Women's Centre and Loxley House.

The University of Nottingham was very active during LGBT History Month, with various films and lectures. One of the lectures centred on the life and work of Alan Turing. another was done in conjunction with Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage and used their 80 panel Nottingham Map display.

On a less pleasant note, Notts Lesbian and Gay Switchboard staffed a stall at Broadway Cinema for a showing of the film "Pride".  They were handed a document which, when opened, revealed the note (from a Christian) shown on the right.  The supplier of the card was removed from the cinema and banned from attending in the future.

Throughout May, Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage organised an exhibition at Central Library.

The exhibition, called Pink Spring, included:

• LGBT T shirts
• LGBT-themed books supplied by the library
• The LGBT Nottingham map
• Literature related to local LGBT groups
• The operas of Benjamin Britten
• A huge rainbow flag

and a lot more. Our favourite bit was the cabinet full of teddy bears festooned with LGBT badges from our collection.

In 2015, IDAHO/IDAHOBIT day turned into  week.

It kicked off with a flag raising ceremony at County Hall. Present were Sue Fish (Deputy Chief Constable), The Chair of the County Council, The Police and Crime Commissioner (Paddy Tipping) and members of most local LGBT groups and organisations.

Rainbow flags were coordinated to be raised at numerous sites across the County: police stations, fire stations, council premises and various individual companies.

Another event involved 5 groups of people streaming towards the Brian Clough statue from different locations.

Several short speeches were given, including one by Deputy Chief Constable Sue Fish, pictured standing in front of the rainbow-bedecked and homophobic Clough.

At Trent Bridge, Nottinghamshire Cricket Club showed the IDAHO Day flag on their big screen.

1980s civil rights activist Russell Christie was invited to give an introduction to a double bill of films - Looking for Langston and Tongues Untied at the Nottingham Contemporary on May 26th. He took the opportunity to reflect on IDAHOBiT in Nottingham:

May 17th each year now is International Day Against Homo, Trans and Bi-phobia. As I walked around the city at the beginning of last week, rainbow flags flew above the council house, above the castle, above the Notts Police HQ, above the Notts County Football ground, and above John Lewis. It was very friendly.

The architecture supported me, the buildings said, ‘Hello, we’re on your side.’ A city almost entirely the same, and a city almost entirely different. An open city, a welcoming and acknowledging city. Suddenly my city as much as anyone else’s. The buildings sang Hello and sang their esteem. And I thought, ‘Is this what it’s like to be the heteronormative, the white hetero male into whose fold I am now admitted – given, on an ongoing basis, all these supports, all these affordances for my self to be sustained, all this beckoning and open and smiling possibility for my life.

The International IDAHO Day organisation said that there were more activities in Nottinghamshire than anywhere else in the UK. They went on to say that there were entire continents which were doing less than Nottinghamshire.

On Friday July 24th 2015 it rained. On Sunday July 26th it rained.  But the 25th was Pride Saturday and the rain was ordered to hide. Notts Pride continued fortune with the weather continued.

People seemed to like the City centre location and "bigger and better" was a reasonable description.

Big changes to the Nottingham "gay scene" took place in the Autumn.

When NG1 club decided it was no longer a gay venue, the change was recorded in Nottingham Evening Post. The Lord Roberts changed ownership and it, too, was no longer gay, though groups such as Bitopia and See You Next Tuesday were still welcomed.

Notts Lesbian and Gay Switchboard's telephone helpline started in 1975. In October 2015 the service celebrated its 40th anniversary with a gala at Nottingham Contemporary and with the printing of an anniversary booklet.

To read the booklet, click HERE

Pictures from the gala are shown to the right along with a pic of the huge 40th anniversary cake.

To go to the next Timeline, click HERE