The Nottinghamshire Heritage Partnership is a forum which intends to reveal and celebrate Nottingham's diverse histories and heritage.

They have identified individuals and organisations who embody "The Story of Nottingham". On February 27th, some of those individuals and organisations were presented with medals.

One of the medals went to Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage.

At the end of March 2020 we faced Lockdown.

Many groups were unable to meet and pubs and clubs closed - some permanently.

One casualty was Propaganda. The financial impact of the Covid crisis meant that the club could not renew its lease. The club had run in the Lace Market for 11 years

Notts LGBT+ Network was based at Nottingham Community and Voluntary Service for 45 years - from 1975 onwards.

Nottingham CVS has been forced to downsize and the Network had to look for a new base.

In May, they started operating from an office at Bizspace, 35 Park Row, Nottingham.  The advantages of the new office are that it is much bigger than the old office, providing space for most meetings and that it allows 24 hour access. The disadvantage is that is is much more expensive.

During lockdown many local social groups decided that it was impossible to continue meeting, but some of the groups which ceased to meet physically decided to operate virtually using techniques such as Zoom.

Examples are shown on the right.

To get around the cancellation of in person Prides, many such events went virtual, including Nottinghamshire Pride. You can see the whole event on Youtube below

Early in July 2020, pubs started to reopen - under Covid restricted guidelines.

Here's the New Foresters on July 4th.

We found too soon that Covid was not going away and further lockdowns led to further closures.

Some groups found ways around the Covid restrictions.

Hyking Dykes monthly walks carried on by splitting the group into two groups of six and walking in a socially distanced manner.

Under normal circumstances, Nottinghamshire’s Rainbow Heritage would be organising its 14th Celebration and Awards evening during LGBT History Month in February 2021. Circumstances are not normal, but it was decided that the awards could still be made.

The awards are given to individuals, groups and organisations which have benefited the local LGBT+ community. Matching the impoverished financial state of Nottinghamshire’s Rainbow Heritage, the awards are simply a certificate. As they say “it’s the thought that counts”. This year, there are four awards:

• To Notts Trans Hub and to their administrator Nat, for their vital support for Nottinghamshire’s Trans community and also for their work with Nottingham University Hospitals. They have provided “fantastic help, support and advice in developing LGBTQIA+ issues including Gender Diverse inclusion.”
• To the Women’s Midweek Book group, for providing a valuable alternative social route over many years and which now continues in virtual form.
• To Nottingham Transinvasion, spearheaded by Tania Thomas. If Covid hadn’t intervened, 2020 would have seen their 100th monthly social.
• to QB Newsletter. This free newsletter has been running since 1998. At first it was put together by Healthy Gay Nottingham and later by Notts LGBT+ Network

Inevitably, 2021’s LGBT History Month activities were constrained by the Covid lockdown. Despite that, there were lots of activities online from both the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University.

Online events included: a conversation with writer and poet Emeritus Professor Gregory Woods, who in 1998 was appointed Chair of Gay and Lesbian Studies at Nottingham Trent University; a conversation about gendered language with Dr David Charnock and Ella Guerin; Bridging the Gap with farmer Ben Andrews - “Farmer Ben” as he is known on social media shared his experiences of being “out on the farm” and working in an agricultural fairly heteronormative setting. 

Nottingham Girls High School celebrated LGBT History Month by unveiling a version of Daniel Quasar’s Progress Pride Flag emblazoned with the School’s logo. Students were involved with activities educating them on LGBTQ+ history, including talks from LGBTQ+ people, and explorations of different themes with the English department.

The City Council organised a vote on where to site Nottingham’s first LGBT+ plaque and the local branch of Relate fronted an LGBT+ focussed promotion and awareness raising campaign.

Nottingham University Hospitals Trust arranged an online conference, which included speakers from Notts Trans Hub and Nottinghamshire’s Rainbow Heritage. The Trust also lit up their hospitals in rainbow colours throughout February.

The 2021 census has, for the first time, questions on sexual orientation and gender status. Answering these two sets of questions is optional and even in 2021 many people will have good reasons to wish this information to be private.

There are also good reasons why those questions should be completed.

• The provision of resources across the country is frequently driven by statistics. Showing the full extent of the LGBT+ community will make it harder for the community to be ignored.
• The data gathered by the Census is anonymised
• The personal details of the Census are only released after 100 years.

A rainbow pedestrian crossing has opened at a Nottinghamshire hospital. King's Mill Hospital unveiled the rainbow crossing on March 2nd as part of its recognition and support for the LGBT+ community. It is thought to be the first of any NHS site in the county

It follows Sherwood Forest Hospitals' LGBT+ history campaign in February, which saw the launch of an ally scheme, blogs and a rainbow flag placed outside the Sutton-in-Ashfield hospital. The rainbow crossing, is the latest in the trust's schemes to recognise people from the LGBT+ community.

David Selwyn is the trust's medical director and is also the LGBT+ staff network executive. He said: "The crossing is one of the many ways the trust is showing its inclusivity towards Sherwood colleagues and also towards our patients, visitors, guests and the local community. People visiting our hospitals may see colleagues wearing rainbow lanyards or badges. This means that they have signed up to the NHS’s LGBT+ rainbow badge scheme or the Sherwood ally pledge.

These colleagues are available for a friendly, safe and supportive conversation about who you are, your identity and how you feel, and they’ll do their best to get support for you if you need it. It is important that everyone in our local community feels safe and welcome in our hospitals so they can receive the care they need.”

Total lockdown ended in April and bars all over the country used the opportunity to serve customers - as long as it was out of doors.   Local LGBT venues made use of their canopied beer gardens.

Troy Jenkinson is a local headteacher and writer of some LGBT-friendly children's books.

He has put together an LGBT walking tour of Nottingham which takes in 34 places of relevance to our history. The printed leaflet setting out the tour can be obtained from the Tourist Centre. 

Troy acknowledges that a great deal of the information in the leaflet was obtained from the Venues section of this website. To download the leaflet, click HERE

Earlier in 2021 we were contacted by Dennis at the Karlsruhe Queer Youth Centre. Their city is twinned with Nottingham. He wrote

“For an exhibition during the “International Day Against Homophobia” (IDAHO*) in Karlsruhe (May 17th), we are looking for people who would like to share their experiences as a lesbian or a gay man. The aim is to create display boards that reflect the individual experiences of people who came out before 1990, when homosexuality was still categorized as a disease according to the WHO.”  The Centre hoped to get contributions from Karlsruhe’s twin cities.

The final set of display boards included four boards each from Nottingham and Krasnodar (in Russia). 

You can see the names of those from Nottingham below. Naturally, the text is in German. The information for the display boards was provided by some of the more mature (i.e. ancient) members of Notts LGBT+ Network and Nottinghamshire’s Rainbow Heritage.

For as long as we can remember, the Lord Roberts pub had a sign showing the Victorian General Lord Roberts.

There were occasional comments that the image gave off signals that this was an "old man's pub".

To provide a newer image, it was decided that the face of the pub should be the pub dog,  Robert who has been enobled and his portrait now greets customers.

Uncertainty over Covid precautions meant that Nottingham Pride 2021 was organised very late in the day. There was no time to arrange the usual stalls, but despite that a very well populated march took place along the usual route from St Peters to Hockley.  The march took place on September 11th and in recognition of the tragic associations of that date, there was a respectful silence before the march started. The local venues helped to make things brighter with several Pride, pre-Pride and post-Pride events

Earlier in 2021 a vote had established the New Foresters as the first LGBT place in Nottingham to be awarded a blue plaque.  The plaque turned out to be pink (described by one observer as “Germolene pink) and was installed at the New Foresters on September 17th,  drawing the attention of ITV News and the Evening Post.

For the past 20 years the pub has been in the capable hands of landlady Debbie Law and during that time has won many awards.  The plaque was unveiled by Debbie and Councillor Angharad Roberts, who is an out gay woman.

At the start of 2022, several new social groups got underway, each with the aim of filling a gap in the current provisions for socialising. Two of them - the men's social group and Rainbow Vision - were started by Notts LGBT+ Network in response to their awareness of the gaps which existed.

Though there are social and support groups for young people and a group for 55+ gay/bi men, the 30s to 50s are  poorly catered for. The new men's social group is aimed specifically at this age range.

The Sherwood Social is a Sherwood based meet up for LGBTQ+ people between the ages of 16-35 who have dealt with loneliness and periods of bad mental health.

Rainbow Vision is a Nottingham based social group for lesbian/bi women.

The social group in Ashfield attempts to answer the question "What is there in terms of socialising outside Nottingham?" To which the answer was usually "nothing".

After a Covid-related gap in 2021, Nottinghamshire's Rainbow Heritage's Celebration and awards evening returned on Feb 23rd. About 110 guests attended Nottingham Council House in person and others viewed the awards section via Zoom.

There were many stalls from a variety of groups and organisations e.g. pictured are Notts Fire and Rescue/Notts Police (upper left), Global Wordsmiths (upper right), NASUWT (lower left) and Singing Proud (lower right). They were joined by Victim Care, the CPS, Notts LGBT+ Network, Nottingham City Employees LGBT+ Network, Insight IAPT, The Health Shop, Outburst Youth Group and Nottingham Lions Football Team.

Thanks must go to Councillors Angharad Roberts and Sam Webster for their help and support in organising the event.

Last year's award winners (Tania Stevenson, Dr Nat Thorne & Notts Trans Hub, QB Newsletter and the Women's Midweek Book group) were joined by the winners for 2022. They were: Troy Jenkinson, Nottingham Lions, Catherine Kirk, Craig Pennington and David Edgley. Details of these awards can be seen in the section on the website devoted to the award winners.

Callum Roome, a student at Nottingham Trent University, has created a documentary on Public Displays of Affection. It looks at the barriers that LGBT+ people have experienced over simple issues such as holding hands with their partner in public.  The picture below on the left, shows Callum setting up his recording equipment. You can see the video by clicking on the part where it says "watch on YouTube".

In May 2022, Debbie Law retired as the landlady of the New Foresters. Her place was taken by Brent Foster - seen on the left.



He says “As a gay man myself I am very passionate about our community. I would like to confirm that The New Foresters will be remaining a safe place for the LGBT+ Community to come and enjoy ourselves and enjoy what we will have to offer.”

One of the novelties Brent has introduced is the neon rainbow angel's wings, which have become a magnet for photo opportunities

The Queen's Baton Relay travelled to every region in England, before arriving at the Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham on 28 July 2022.

Amdani Juma, from Nottingham, was chosen as the baton bearer for the East Midlands. 

There were three reasons why he was selected.

1. He is chair of the Nottingham Sports Group

2. His work for the African Institute to tackle HIV in Nottinghamshire and the region 

3. Setting up Sanctuary Nottingham in support for LGBT asylum seekers who were left vulnerable to abuse due to lack of support. 



On July 1st 1972, the first rally with the slogan “Gay Pride” took place in the form of a march from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park.

The Royal Mail is commemorating this 50th anniversary with a set of Pride stamps, some of which are shown on the left



Shortly before 2022's Nottingham Pride, we noticed that a rainbow flag had been painted on the wall next to the Sainsbury's shop on Fletcher Gate.

What is more, it is the progressive rainbow flag incorporating colours and signs recognising people of colour as well as trans, bisexual and intersex people.

In July and August the East Midlands was bursting with Prides.

The first to appear was in Worksop, which was revived since having rested after 2019 and then being affected by Covid in 2020 and 2021.

The photo shows organiser Crystal Lucas.

More photos from Worksop Pride can be seen on the Slide show section of the website  - click HERE

Helped by a generous donation from IKEA, Notts LGBT+ Network was at last able to afford a professionally produced website.

The website was set up by the LGBT+ friendly Nottingham firm Tank PR and Warbox.  The revamp was put in place just in time for Nottingham Pride and in addition to the website, there were also new leaflets, posters, info cards - the lot. 

After a restricted, parade-only Pride in 2021, Nottingham Pride returned bigger than ever on July 30th. The estimates were that there were 15,000 people in the march alone and many more thronged the streets, visited the community stalls on Goosegate and enjoyed the musical acts.

There were many after-Pride events at places like the New Foresters, the Lord Roberts, Nottingham Contemporary and Popworld.

More photos from Netherfield Pride can be seen on the Slide show section of the website - click HERE

The first of 2022's surprises was Pride in Netherfield.  Organised by Harlee Roseanna, the event began in the morning with a collection of stalls in a paved street in Netherfield.

Later in the day there were events at Connect Cafe and, it is hoped, that the cafe will host regular LGBT+ socials in the future.

Hucknall Pride differed from the above Pride's in two ways. Firstly it was held over three days - Friday 26th of August to Sunday 28th.  Secondly, it had no external stalls or parade, but was made up of a series of events at a variety of venues: four pubs, a cinema and a community centre.

The events included a disco, a coffee and chat morning, a showing of the film "Pride", a yoga session and more.

More photos from Hucknall Pride can be seen on the Slide show section of the website - click HERE

On November 19th, Five Leaves Bookshop organised an event which, they hope, will prove to be the first of many.

It was called "Reading Proud".

Several LGBT writers introduced their books and the afternoon also included poetry readings and a performance from the "Singing Proud" choir, whose name was an inspiration for this literary equivalent.

Shown on the left is Simon Smalley, who introduced his book about his early life - sometimes troubled, sometimes hilarious.