VHS doc on Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners benefit at the Hacienda in March 1985. Interviews with Paul Cons, Tony Wilson, Debbie Withall, Pete Shelley, The RedSkins.

Uploaded to YouTube by Fac51vault. With thanks.

Paul Cons interview excerpt:

"Nationally, Lesbians and Gays Support The Miners was started in 1984 after Gay Pride in London and quickly spread to other towns. We set up the Manchester group in October. We decided that because we hadn't managed to raise much money around gay clubs and therefore hadn't been able to publicise LGSM amongst the gay community in Manchester, the most effective way to do that would be to hold a very large benefit in Manchester.

Only as a separate group could we draw attention to the fact that lesbians and gays are involved in the miners' dispute.
We felt that that was important in terms of taking the miners' dispute to the gay community, and taking gays to the miners. We wanted to bring out the links between the miners struggle and our struggle."

Kelly Marie of 'Feel Like I'm In Love' fame does a turn at the New Hero's, Ridgefield Street.

An unmissable experience, I'm sure!

Courtesy of Dubwise-er.

An advert for the Lesbian Link disco with DJs Philippa Jarman and Jo Sugden aka Ninja Sound. This advert gives a commendably full description of the access situation for the venue, from the carpets up!

This night is often cited by older gay women as one of the only 'safe' places to go in the 80s. Phil would have been just 20 years old at this point.

Advert for Archway, 1985, The Mancunian Gay magazine.

Flamingo Club and Gemini Club were situated in Blackpool and Huddersfield respectively.

Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information & Archives. You can make an appointment to see this collection by emailing: archiveslocalstudies@manchester.gov.uk

Uploaded as part of Manchester Pride’s OUT! heritage project.

'Clubbing' Press article, 1985, taken from The Mancunian Gay magazine.

First Page: Featuring reviews from Bolton venues -The Dance Factory, Church, Star and Garter and the Railway.

On the bottom left you can find an advert for Les Cokell DJing at Liverpool club night Jody.

Reviews for High Society, Naps, Archway and Stuffed Olives also included.

Second Page: Review of Hero's, Dickens, New Union Hotel, Thomsons, Sacks Rembrant and Monroes.

Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information & Archives. You can make an appointment to see this The Mancunian Gay magazine collection by emailing: archiveslocalstudies@manchester.gov.uk

Uploaded as part of Manchester Pride’s OUT! heritage project.

A special film night at the regular Music & Dance night at the Haç. The Life & Times of Harvey Milk was a 1984 documentary documentary looking at the successful career and assassination of San Francisco's first elected gay councillor.

A full page advert from Lesbian Zone magazine advertising their monthly disco. Ninja Sound was Philippa Jarman's DJ moniker back in those days. She was ably assisted by Jo Sugden.

A fantastic handwritten list of Ninja Sound's top spins in '86. Most of these records still get played out a lot today!

"The best (if you like good music)".

Ninja Sound was Philippa Jarman and Jo Sugden, stalwarts of the lesbian scene.

A fantastic, guitary performance of Homosapian by Pete Shelley from Cue the Music. in '86.

Wikipedia states:

In 1981, Shelley released 'Homosapian', his first solo single. On this recording he returned to his original interests in electronic music and shifted emphasis from guitar to synthesizer. The song was banned by the BBC for "explicit reference to gay sex", which didn't stop it from becoming enormously popular in dance clubs in Europe and North America. At this time, Pete Shelley also talked about his bisexuality, which had been implicit in many of the Buzzcocks songs he had written but now came to attention due to "Homosapien" and the BBC ban. The next year saw the controversial single followed by an LP of the same name.

Excerpt from the Savoy website detailing the origins of the 'Lord Horror' character who was based on Chief Constable James Anderton.

Lord Horror featured on a cover of 'Blue Monday' by The Savoy-Hitler Youth Band, the first release on Savoy Records:

"David Britton is co-proprietor with Michael Butterworth of Savoy Books, a publishing company established in the late 1970s. Its early products included a number of previously unpublished books by Michael Moorcock, new editions of novels by Henry Treece, M John Harrison, Nik Cohn, and Jack Trevor Story, a number of books on rock music and a few miscellaneous nonfictional oddities.

The stock carried by Britton's bookshops was and is of a kind which is generally available in similar shops throughout the British Isles. Britton's principal shop, however, happens to be in Greater Manchester, which for many years boasted a Chief Constable named James Anderton who was notorious (or famous, depending on one's point of view) for his muscular Christianity and outspoken illiberalism. Anderton formed a local Obscene Publications Squad (the only one in Britain save for the one based in London) to mount a concerted attack on the sale of pornography in his region; in pursuit of this crusade Britton's Manchester shop was regularly raided during the 1980s and various materials were rather indiscriminately seized therefrom—including some of the Savoy Books titles.

Britton's and Butterworth's response to this hounding was to issue a plush anthology called Savoy Dreams in 1984, which included fiction and non-fiction by many Savoy authors intermingled with newspaper clippings, some exhibiting the kind of bizarre horror stories which regularly appear in British tabloid newspapers and others detailing the exploits of James Anderton.

The first Savoy Records release, in 1986, was a twelve-inch single credited to The Savoy Hitler-Youth Band, featuring 'Lord Horror' on vocals. The record's sleeve featured a caricature of James Anderton, his head exploding amid a tattered halo of hateful obscenities; the lettering on the other side overlaid photographs taken during the liberation of Dachau. The song—which superimposed the lyric of Bruce Springsteen's Cadillac Ranch on a version of New Order's Blue Monday—was actually sung by Bobby Thompson, of Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes. The cover illustration was sufficient to get the record banned, and a new phase in the conflict between Britton and his bête noire was joined—a conflict uninterrupted by the subsequent retirement of Anderton."

Christian writes: Archway was a Gay club housed in one of the arches under the railway line on Whitworth street. The look of the club was what we would now call 'Industrial'...Exposed brick, dark and with a high arched ceiling clad with metal sheets.

At this time Manchester had a big Punk/Goth scene. Weekly nights at clubs such as Cloud 9, Legend, Playpen/ 42nd Street, The Ritz Ballroom, Berlin/Asylum were mixed (Gay & Straight).

Sexuality wasn't an issue in those places, being 'different' was the norm. Archway attracted some of that 'Alternative' crowd too.

The added buzz of the night was that the whole club would shake every time a train passed overhead!.

Source: The Mancunian Gay, 1986.

An advert for Gay Mondays at the Hacienda, probably designed by Glenn Routledge.

Gay Mondays was an early attempt at a queer night at the Hac, predating Flesh by at least 6 years. It was run by Hac Ents Manager Paul Cons, but didn't quite take off.

Source: The Mancunian Gay, 1986

Stuffed Olives was previously Bernard's Bar, owned by Bernard Slingsby. It was also known at points as Slingsby's and Apartment 38.

Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information & Archives. You can make an appointment to see this The Mancunian Gay magazine collection by emailing: archiveslocalstudies@manchester.gov.uk

Glenn writes:

Flyer for Glenn's (Gay) Birthday Party held in the Gay Traitor bar at the Hacienda 1986. Featuring the one and only Avril 'A' (Paris is for Lovers) 1986. The place was hot, sweaty and full to capacity!

Erasure at the Haçienda:

'An intimate soiree in machine man Vince Clarke's company' - NME

'Damn good dance music' - RECORD MIRROR

A James Anderton-taunting 'Private Eye' cover from 1987. Private Eye nicknamed Manchester's famously illiberal and outspokenly homophobic Chief Constable 'Knacker of the Yard'.

In 1986, James Anderton described people affected by AIDS as 'swirling in a cesspit of their own making'.

Anderton was behind a number of gay club raids in Manchester in the 1980s, including ones at Mineshaft/Rockies (1984) and Napoleons.

Red Wedge Womens' Tour put on at the Haç to coincide with International Women's Week 1987.

Taken from City Life magazine.

An article from NSM magazine, April 1986. Michelle Smith samples Manchester's lesbian and gay clubs "armed with Gay Life magazine, a bottle of poppers and something to speed us on our way."

Includes mentions of Sappho's; The Village; New York, New York; The Victoria; The Number One Club; Napoleons; and The Archway.

An article from NSM magazine, April 1986. Michelle Smith writes:

"We both felt that Sappho's was one of the nicest places we'd been to in a long time, though this was somewhat marred by the knowledge of the discrepancy between the wages of the women bar staff and those of the men downstairs at Rembrandt's."

An article from NSM magazine, April 1986. Michelle Smith writes:

"It's the same old problem, the eternal search for something a bit more than 'ladies' clubs' run by gay men (however well meaning) and the 'wimmin's' discos confined to the function rooms above pubs."

Front cover of the 100th issue of the listings magazine City Life. Note amongst the other cover stories pieces on the Hacienda, The Fall, New Order and others.

Footage of the anti-Section 28 rally in Manchester in 1988, featuring Tom Robinson, Sir Ian McKellen, Andy Bell and Jimmy Somervillle, filmed by Nick Lansley.

This rally was a real turning point for the LGBT community in the North West. Before this time it was common for people to travel to London or Brighton in pursuit of a 'scene'. This demo powerfully illustrated the sheer size of the North West community and the strength of feeling that Section 28 generated within it.

There follows an excerpt from a Queer Noise interview with a march attendee, 2015:

“In the early 80s Anderton had succeeded in dividing and conquering the community. Everything was very tucked away. Men and women socialised quite separately.

Then the Anti-Clause 28 rally happened. It was the starting point of what became ‘Gaychester’. Men and women at last came together to set that up.

There was such a coming together of different groups. For the first time in Manchester being gay and being visible was a really positive thing.”

An advert that illustrates what a night at the Number 1 Club would have been like before its highly successful reincarnation as a gay house club in 1991.

I'm not sure what the night with June Brown and Michael Cashman would have entailed!

Friday and Saturday nights, 'Cabaret Night' and 'The Heat Is On' respectively, are both described here as 'male orientated', whilst other nights are mixed.

The ad also advises punters to 'dress to impress'.