LGBT History Month 2016 began with the premiere of "Something about us", a film put together by Eden Productions and the WOW LGBT youth group from Worksop.

For their film, the WOW people had interviewed several older LGBT people to get a picture of what things were like in the "bad old days". The film was first shown at the Savoy cinema in Worksop.

Their Youtube videos "Something about us" and "WOWing me, WOWing you" can be seen below

The University of Nottingham arranged a series of events, some on campus, one at Broadway Cinema and another at Five Leaves Bookshop, where LGBT Hate Crime was the topic. Speakers at the latter included David Edgley, who gave a presentation on how issues relating to "coming out" have changed over a span of 80 years.

Nottinghamshire’s Rainbow Heritage’s annual Celebration and Awards evening at Nottingham Council House was attended by about 100 people on Feb. 23rd. Displays on LGBT Olympians, Famous Trans people, a “Who did what?” quiz and Pride of Place.

The Police and Notts Healthcare Trust are regulars at the event. Here (lower, to the right) are Deputy Chief Constable Sue Fish and the Trust’s Head of Equality and Diversity, Catherine Conchar.

The evening’s guest speaker was Tim Franks. Recently Tim has worked in London, but in Nottingham he was involved with: Nottingham’s first LGBT youth group, with the GAi Project (Health Gay Nottingham), the first Pride-type festivals (Pink Lace) and with QB. He spoke movingly of coming out as a teenager only to be met with, firstly, AIDS hysteria and secondly Section 28.

Various groups and organisations had stall around the ballroom. They included:

• Nottingham City Homes,
• Notts Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust,
• Notts Police,
• The Terrence Higgins Trust,
• Eden Productions,
• Nottingham City Council,
• Notts Pride,
• Family Care
• Nottingham BallBois,
• Notts Lesbian and Gay Switchboard
• University of Nottingham.

Awards were presented to:

• Debbie Law of the New Foresters
• Notts Lesbian and Gay Switchboard
• Tim Franks

As Tim was also the guest speaker and the guest speaker usually presents the awards, Tim's award was presented by Shirley Macredie.

Two events took place on February 25th.

Firstly, there was a conference organised by Notts NHS Healthcare Foundation Trust which focused on transgender issues.

Later in the day, the HSBC LGBT Network put on "HSBC's Got Talent", a fundraising variety show which brought in nearly £500 for Notts LGBT Switchboard.

On April 14th at Five Leaves Bookshop, Professor Greg Woods launched his new book “Homintern” - How Gay Culture Liberated the Modern World.  It’s a hardback at £25 from Yale University Press. 

Drawing a parallel with the Comintern (the Communist International set up by Lenin), people like Cyril Connolly, W. H. Auden, Maurice Bowra and others jokingly gave the name “Homintern” to the informal network of friendships that Cold War conspiracy theorists would come to think of as      the “International homosexual conspiracy”.

The actor Sir Donald Wolfit complained that “the theatre is controlled by an international cartel of poufferie!”

Victoria Villasenor, Nicci Robinson and Global Words have previously worked with local people to produce two books. One was “Late Outbursts”, a book of memoirs by older LGBTQ people and “Speaking Out”, an equivalent book by LGBTQ young people.

On April 16th a new book was launched to a full house at Waterstones - “In Different Shoes": Stories from the Trans Community”. The book consists of memoirs by Trans young people, mainly from the Nottingham group Trans4me.

The foreword to the book was written by Katie Cornhill who also started the afternoon with an inspirational speech about her own experiences as a trans lesbian. Most of the young contributors were present to read extracts from their own memoirs.

In April 2016, the New Foresters was awarded special status by voluntary organisation the Campaign for Real Ale, which fights for local pubs. The bar, which opened in the late 1950s, has been named as an "asset of community value", which allows a greater level of protection if an owner wanted to change the use of the premises or demolish the building.

Delighted landlady Debbie Law said: "I have been here as a landlady for 15 years and I'd like to be here for another 15. This gives the pub security and we're dead chuffed.”

The focus of this 2016’s IDAHO/IDAHOBIT Day was mental health and well-being and to commemorate this day Nottingham City Council in partnership with Nottinghamshire Pride raised the rainbow flag from Nottingham Castle at 11am.

There was a series of short speeches from partner agencies: Rainbow Flags were also raised on a range of public buildings throughout the City & County to mark Idaho Day.

In the evening an IDAHO Young Peoples ‘SPEAK OUT’ Panel event in partnership with Out in Education was held at Loxley House, panel members included Nottinghamshire Police, Out in Education, Nottingham University Hospitals and Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue. Discussions were held on various topics:

The event was a great success and was attended by over 50 people. Labour Councillor Sean McCallum, for Sherwood and Mansfield said “It was an extremely well run event that was organised by Nottingham City Council in partnership with Out in Education – great to speak with LGBT youth”

The appalling murders in a gay club in Orlando were recognised when several vigils were held in June in Nottingham to commemorate the victims and to remind ourselves that there are always those who wish to reverse the progress which has been made.

Events such as these make real that often intangible entity “the LGBT+ Community” and show that hope and love will triumph over hate.

Worksop’s first Pride event took place on July 10th 2016.

The Worksop Guardian stated that about 1200 people attended. Thanks must go to the no doubt exhausted organiser Crystal Lucas - shown here with the Mayor of Worksop.

Notts Pride’s luck over the weather continued for yet another year and the numbers in this 2016’s march were, by a long way, the biggest ever.

5000+ people joined the march from Castle Gate to Hockley with representation from big local organisations and many of the city’s LGBT social/support groups.

Pride 2016 was the date chosen by Notts Lesbian & Gay Switchboard to carry out its rebranding. There's a new name, Notts LGBT+ Network, a new logo, website, e-mail address and literature

On October 28th the City Council LGBT Network organised a well-attended LGBT health event at Antenna.   Eighteen organisations were present, including Outburst, Rape Crisis, Nottingham Women’s Centre, Notts LGBT+ Network, Healthwatch, New Leaf and Terrence Higgins Trust.

One of the major gaps in LGBT social provision was filled in December, when Age UK Nottinghamshire was supported by Notts LGBT+ Network in the setting up of a group for older (55+) gay and bi men. The £1 entrance fee covers the hire of the room but also includes tea/coffee/biscuits.

The group has had several guest speakers, some short film sessions, quizzes and afternoons with members talking about things their own personal interests.

The group decided to call itself Silver Pride and now meets in the afternoon on every first Friday of the month

For details either contact silverpride55@gmail.com or

e-mail info@nottslgbt.com

Like last year, 5 Nottinghamshire organisations appear in the 2017 Stonewall top 100 index. They are, with last year’s positions in brackets:

• 35 Notts Police (64),
• 51 Notts County Council (64),
• 60 West Notts College (93),
• 81 Nottingham City Homes (-),
• 99 Notts Fire and Rescue (89).

The Police’s position will have been helped by the mentoring they have received from Notts Healthcare, which is now classed as a Stonewall Star performer following their previous number 1 position on the index.

One of the most significant events of this year’s LGBT History Month was the exhibition at the Galleries of Justice museum.

This was a collaboration between the museum and the City Council - led by Rosey Cox, who is pictured on the right. One cell in the museum housed the door behind which Oscar Wilde was imprisoned at Reading Gaol. On the walls of the cell were posters relating to both Oscar himself and to the timeline of LGBT history landmarks leading up to and beyond the 1967 Sexual Offences Act.

In the cell, projections of hundreds of famous LGBT people could be seen and recordings of local LGBT relating their experiences could be heard. The projections and recordings were provided by Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage.

Later this year, the museum will house an exhibition about gay Leicester playwright Joe Orton.

About 120 people attended the event on Feb. 28th at Nottingham Council House. More organisations than ever had their own stalls:

• Nottinghamshire Police
• Nottingham City Council
• Notts Healthcare
• Nottinghamshire County Council
• Terrence Higgins Trust
• Out in Education
• Global Words
• WOW
• Nottingham City Homes,
• Nottinghamshire Pride
• Notts LGBT+ Network
• Nottingham Amnesty
• Five Leaves Bookshop

Awards were presented to

• Out in Education  (see right - with Shirley Macredie)
• Sarah Lee and her team at the County Council
• Trans4me (see right - with Shirley Macredie)

On Feb. 24th both the City and County Councils joined with Notts Healthcare, Notts Police, Notts Fire and Rescue and West Notts College to hold a conference on the importance of positive role models for LGBT people

The event launched a short film based on interviews with role models from each of the organisations. The people featured as role models are shown below along with two students from West Notts College who recorded and edited the film. 

The film consisted of brief extracts from over forty minutes worth of interviews recorded by the students and is available on Youtube..  Below you can see a photo of the role models and also the complete Youtube video. The separate contributions follow one after the other.

The Journey to Justice exhibition ran at the National Justice Museum (formerly the Galleries of Justice) from April until June 2017 .

Journey to Justice was an exhibition exploring human rights movements and celebrating those people who have stood up to make a change.

As well as stories from the US civil rights movement, the exhibition features a number of local stories. It illustrates the vital role of gay black man Bayard Rustin, who has sometimes been described as the “organisational mastermind” behind the civil rights movement.

he local elements include the story of Viv Anderson, the first black footballer to represent England in a full senior match and an integral part of Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest team that went on to win two European Cups. 

Another element of the exhibition looked at how the law affected gay men in pre-1967 days. In particular, it spotlit the story of local man John Clarkson, whose trail was one of the last which resulted in imprisonment In 1965 under pre-1967 legislation. 

The main photo below represents the bed sheet that was presented to the jury during the trail of 19 year old John Clarkson. The trial actually took place in the very building which now houses the exhibition.

John was sent to prison for two years because he was gay; his older partner was sent to prison for three years.. The picture of John on the right was taken in 1985.

The trial had some extraordinary features and was described in humiliating details by local journalist and documentary maker Ray Gosling.

To read about the trial, click HERE.

To coincide with the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, the National Justice Museum on High Pavement hosted an exhibition devoted to gay Leicester playwright Joe Orton.

The free exhibition explored the fascinating aspects of crime in Orton's life and work including the defacement of the library books; his trial and imprisonment and his murder and legacy. 

You can see the website dedicated to Joe Orton if you click HERE

On July 8th 2017, a gloriously sunny day welcomed the second Worksop Pride.

There were two novelties this year:

firstly, the official 12 o’clock opening of Pride was preceded by a parade, with oompah band, Mickey Mouse and Batman and led by the Centre Place team

secondly, the stalls were set out in the Market Square rather than being indoors as they were in 2016.

Years ago Worksop was rather shaken by the raising of a rainbow flag. These days it looks as though Pride is establishing itself as a regular feature of Worksop’s Summer. Everyone seemed to be having a great time.

Notts Pride’s luck over the weather continued for yet another year in 2017 and the numbers in that year’s march were, by a long way, the biggest ever.

The Pride committee’s luck did not extend to the stalls.

Essentially “it fell off the back of a lorry”. A lorry carrying quite a few of the stalls intended for Pride was involved in a road accident in Leicester. The result was that some stallholders had no stalls to “hold”. As they say, “these things are sent to try us.”

Stonewall’s Rainbow Laces campaign came to Nottinghamshire in November 2017, with support from Notts County, Nottingham Forest, LGBT Magpies, Nottingham Lions and Nottingham City Council.

At Notts County, the official logo turned rainbow, players wore the laces, the corner flags and the captain’s armband went rainbow for the day.

On Saturday November 25th two members of LGBT Magpies and their two boys walked the rainbow flag leading the players to the centre of the pitch. The LGBT Magpies also had a full page in the team’s mag.

We can hope that things are progressing from the time when Justin Fashanu was treated with appalling homophobia by Nottingham “icon” Brian Clough

As was proclaimed across the world, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle visited Nottingham on December 1st 2017.

Here they are with Amdani Juma (of the African Institute and Sanctuary) at the Nottingham branch of the Terrence Higgins Trust event for World AIDS Day.

LGBT History Month 2018 got off to a quick start on February 1st with a flag-raising ceremony and a session on LGBT hate crime at Notts NHS Healthcare Trust. On the same day, Age UK Nottingham put up their display of 55+ year old gay and bi men - they run the social group Silver Pride for 55+ gay/bi men.

Broadway cinema ran a season of LGBT themed films and the University of Nottingham arranged several events including: “What became of Gay Liberation?” at Five Leaves Bookshop; a panel discussion about LGBTQ+ experiences in Nottingham and two events on LGBT progress in Taiwan.

Notts Healthcare, Nottingham City Homes, Notts Fire & Rescue, Nottingham Community Housing, Nottingham City Council, Nottinghamshire County Council, the Police and West Notts College came together to celebrate “Bisexuality and Other Identities”.

Several speakers dealt with their experiences as bisexual people and Jessica Lynn (see right), a trans woman from the USA, talked about her roller coaster of a life and her mind-boggling encounters with the USA legal system. One thought to take away - steer clear of Texas.  Jessica’s work and her story can be read at by clicking HERE

Two of the organisations present faired well in the Stonewall Index. Notts Police was at no. 39 and Notts County Council at no.22 

The month was rounded off with the annual (the 11th) Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage Celebration and awards evening. The event took place on the coldest night of the Winter in a blizzard. Several people and groups weren't able to attend because of the weather, so it was slightly amazing that 75 people turned up.

There were stalls from:

 the City Council, Nottingham City Homes, Notts Police, Notts Healthcare, Amnesty International (see right), The Crown Prosecution Service, Notts LGBT+ Network, Five Leaves Bookshop, Nottingham Lions (see right), Outburst LGBT Youth Group and Victim Care.

Awards were presented by Notts Chief Constable Craig Guildford to:

• Rosey Donovan
• Mel Jeffs

The evening closed with a speech from the Chief Constable.

An award was scheduled to be presented to the Centre Place team for their work on LGBT issues and supporting young LGBT people in Bassetlaw.

Though the weather was bad in Nottingham, it was appalling in Worksop and they were unable to attend.

Nevertheless, the audience enjoyed a short film assembled by members of their WOW LGBT youth group as well as another film about the trial of John Clarkson, whose story has been related elsewhere on this website. The film was put together by Richard McCance and the late Chris Richardson, with a voice over by Dave Pitt.

A Youtube video of this film can be seen on the right.

Several organisations - Nottingham City Council, Fire and Rescue, Notts Police, Notts Pride - got together on May 17th to commemorate IDAHO/IDAHOBIT 2018 day - the international day against homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.

On June 3rd, Nottingham Lions arranged a charity cricket match when they played against a team of local celebrities and raised over £2000 for Notts LGBT+ Network.

Enterprise Rent a Car is an organisation which is rsiing rapidly on the Stonewall index. In early June they presented a cheque for £1000 to Notts LGBT+ Network.

Over the weekend of June 9th, the Call it Out Pride in Football group organised a symposium on LGBT issues in football at Nottingham Forest.

Many LGBT football groups were in attendance: Spurs, Arsenal, Notts Trickies, WBA, Celtic, Brighton, Aston Villa, Liverpool.

One session included a panel discussion on what it would take for an elite footballer to come out.

This was set in the context of a lengthy article in the Sun about a bisexual footballer.

The Sun proclaims that it knows the identity of the footballer, but chooses not to reveal it. Ryan Atkin, the sports first openly gay referee, expressed his anger at the story and at the fact that such high profile news outlets still feel it's acceptable to imply a threat that they could "out" the player in question. It's that "We know who you are" statement which is insidious.

Worksop Pride seems to have tapped in to that hold over the weather that is associated with Nottingham Pride. Rainbows were omnipresent on July 7th 2018, but the parade was led by a unicorn - magical things can happen in Worksop.

Lots of Notts organisations, including the Police, Notts Women’s Aid, Centre Place, Stonewall and Notts County Council, were represented on the parade and on the stalls which lined the market square.

Pride organiser Crystal Lucas appeared on the stage along with the star of the show - her daughter Esme, who loves having two mothers.

It was 2018's Nottinghamshire Pride on Saturday July 28th.

For the first time for over ten years … it rained … just a little … and after 3 weeks of heat wave, it was not unwelcome.

The march was huge and took 75 minutes to pass by and included three marching bands, banners from all the “usual suspects” plus a lot who were new, including Co-op Funeral Care’s amazing rainbow hearse.

Once again we need to thank the Pride Committee for all the hard work which it takes to organise an event on this scale.

In the Autumn, Notts LGBT+ Network and the North Notts LGBT+ Service began to work with Mansfield Town Football Club on equality and diversity issues.

Here’s Helen Azar from the North Notts Service and some of the young people from the Worksop WOW group at the Mansfield FC ground.

LGBT History Month 2019 was launched on February 1st by both Notts Healthcare, with a session on LGBT hate crime and a flags raising and Nottingham City Council, with an event at the Council House.

Councillor Catherine Arnold, the Sheriff of Nottingham, joined 120 people at the annual Nottinghamhsire's Rainbow Heritage Celebration and Awards evening at Nottingham Council House on 27th of February.

This year, four awards were presented.

The first award was presented to the team at Centre Place, Worksop. It was delayed from 2018, as last year the “Beast from the East” left them snow bound. The team’s Helen Azar was also nominated for one of the Nottingham Women’s Centre’s Women of the year.

Jane from Five Leaves Bookshop accepted the award for the bookshop other awards went to Crystal Lucas, founder of Worksop Pride and Victoria Villasenor and Nicci Robinson of Global Words books.

We also remembered Shirley Macredie, who died in 2018. It is no exaggeration to say that without Shirley's input Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage would not exist. Despite living in Sheffield, she made frequent journeys to Nottingham to help with both the initial planning of the project and later putting into practice.

As well as the team from Worksop, some other local LGBT groups and services were present:

• Outburst
• Notts LGBT+ Network
• Nottingham Lions Football Team
• Notts Police
• the County Council
• Notts Healthcare
• the CPS
• Enterprise Rent a Car
• Victim Care
• Amnesty International
• Trent Wills & Estates
• Nottingham City Council
• Nottingham City Homes.

The free exhibition Desire, Love, Identity ran at the National Justice Museum (High Pavement, Nottingham NG1 1HN) until March 3rd. It included some pottery and coins from ancient Greece and ancient Rome. An ancient Greek pottery cup is on display and was used for all -male drinking parties where the wine was served by naked youths.

The gender fluid deity Bahucharaji is depicted (see below) and provided a link to India’s Hijra community. There was a collection of drag queen themed playing cards, some early sketches by David Hockney and details about Saint Sebastian, who seems to have become a gay icon. On display there was also a ceramic winged penis.

There was a collection of LGBT Badges illustrating aspects of gay activism - though we have to point out that the collection gathered by our own Rainbow Heritage is much larger and more varied!

On May 17th the Nottinghamshire Diversity Champions hosted their 4th annual conference. The theme was LGBT+ mental health.

The champions are made up from Nottingham City Council, Notts NHS Healthcare Foundation Trust, Notts Police, Notts Fire and Rescue, Vision West Notts College, Nottingham City Homes, Nottingham Community Housing Association and Notts County Council.

Inspired by the Desire, Love, Identity exhibition at the National Justice Museum, the Museum in collaboration with Victoria Villasenor and Nicci Robinson from Global Words books, produced a book of LGBT memoirs from 28 local contributors.

Each contribution was sparked by a visit to the exhibition. The contributors' ages ranged from 14 to 73.

The book was launched on June 12th with readings from several of the contributors. The book costs £8 and can be obtained from the Museum.



July 2019's Pride Month was the month of rainbows in Nottingham

On July 16th, the leader of the City Council, Councillor David Mellen, cut the ribbon which marked the installation of four permanent rainbow crossings - three on the newly pedestrianised section of Broad Street and one on Carlton Street.

The crossings were sponsored by Nottingham Together, Robin Hood Energy and Nottingham City Homes and were the Uk's first official rainbow crossing.

Members of Notts LGBT+ Network decided to do an “Abbey Road”. Some people even felt the urge to get up close up and personal.

A couple of weeks later, there was an article on the BBC website's homepage describing "The UK's first rainbow crossing" opening in London. Oh! The London-centric media.

Later in the month both Nottingham Council House and Wollaton Hall were lit up in rainbow colours for several nights in the run up to Pride

Not to be outdone, on July 18th Lord Byron himself welcomed visitors to Newstead Abbey girded in a rainbow flag.

A little later, his lordship scaled the heights of the Abbey’s tower to hoist the rainbow flag up the flagpole.

That’s good going for someone born in 1788.

The 4th Worksop Pride was held on July 13th and continued to build on the success of previous years.

The parade was led by children from St. John’s CofE school, a school which has no problem in acknowledging diversity.

Some of the children took to the stage (see right) along with Worksop Pride organiser Crystal Lucas (well done, Crystal) & star performer Esme Lucas.



Yes, it rained a lot at Nottingham Pride 2019 - the first time since 1998.  But though clothes were dampened, spirits were not. Some amazing costumes were on display in the huge parade

To go to the next Timeline, click HERE