LGSM News
It's quite illogical to say ‘I’m gay and I’m into defending the gay community but I don’t care about anything else.’ It’s important that if you're defending communities, you’re defending all communities and not just one.
Mark Ashton
It's quite illogical to say ‘I’m gay and I’m into defending the gay community but I don’t care about anything else.’ It’s important that if you're defending communities, you’re defending all communities and not just one.
Mark Ashton
LGSM have started the massive task of building an archive of all the historical records from our year of existence between July 1984 and July 1985. This archive will include minutes of meetings, press cuttings, photographs, interviews, film footage, ephemera, reminiscences and much, much more. This will be supplemented with material from our reformation as LGSMA (Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners Again) in 1992, when a second round of pit closures was announced. And finally, we will include more contemporary material from our reformation in 2014.
LGSM has backed the call from the Peterloo Memorial Campaign for a permanent memorial to commemorate those who died or were injured by a British Cavalry charge on 16 August 1819 with a message of support in advance of their mass picnic on Sunday 16 August in Manchester. Full details of the event are here. Christopher Eccleston, Maxine Peake, John Henshaw, John Thomson and many more will be there in support.
It’s probably no surprise that we got a great reception when we marched in Leeds Pride: West Yorkshire was, after all, a very active mining area. And even though the majority of the pits have gone, the memories – of both the pits and the 84/85 strike – haven’t. They’re carried forward not only by the miners themselves but also their sons and daughters.
The LGSM roadshow hit Liverpool on Saturday 1 August to join the Liverpool Pride Parade and Festival in St George’s Gardens. This year’s Liverpool Pride had a distinctly stronger community feel to previous years and even the rain throughout the early afternoon did little to dampen the spirits of those who came along. And rain it did – for approaching two hours – but the clouds did pass over later in the afternoon.
LGSM has backed the call from the Orgreave Truth & Justice Campaign for a full Public Inquiry into the policing of the Orgreave picket in June 1984 by writing to Theresa May, the Home Secretary.
