The back of the flyer reads:

9pm - 4am - Tickets £8

DJs Kath McDermott, Philippa Jarman and Sarah Furey play all the best in house and garage.

Pyrotechnics, sweets and lucky bags were available.

Probably the only all-female all-star DJ line-up on the mixed club circuit.

DJ Jane Compton went on to create Switchflicker Records, Club Brenda and the gallery/club space Kraak - all alt-queer cornerstones of the city.

Design: Stan Chow

Steppers Delite - a mixed night at the Rocket Bar with DJ Jayne Compton. Hip hop, funk, indie and soul were the order of the day.

Design: Stan Chow.

Cruz 101 keyring, given out at the club to members.

Taken from the Cruz 101 website:

"CRUZ 101 opened its doors to the public on 22nd May 1992. After a year-long renovation, an old bonded shipping warehouse was transformed into Manchester’s first purpose-built gay nightclub - one that would be instrumental in changing Manchester’s gay scene from 'ghetto' to 'village' and has set the standards for others to follow ever since.

The club’s licence did not come easily and at first people would have to wait 48 hours to obtain membership to this exclusive club, but due to demands from customers and a lengthy High Court battle, this changed to instant membership being available at the door.

The ’membership’ rule was to prove both an inconvenience and benefit to the club. Whilst being restricted by many license conditions other clubs need not meet, the membership rule was also one of the largest factors in keeping the club the only true safe gay space in Manchester. This remains the case today as Cruz is still the safest gay space in Manchester, remaining true to its original ideals.

Entertainment has always been one of the club’s priorities and over the years many famous people have visited the club including pop acts Sonia, The Weather Girls, Phil Oakey, Heaven 17, Hazel Dean, Margarita Pracatan, Sybil, The Candy Girls and Take That."

Promoter Ian Bushell writes:

"The Freedom Gala. My Manchester swan song and the biggest thing I'd been involved in to date. We tried the impossible in turning GMEX into a club environment. I remember we hired what we thought were massive spheres but when we rigged them they disappeared into the vast roof. We also kind of forgot how bright it would become at 5am in the morning. Not a pretty sight... Still a legendary event with performances by M People, The Beloved, Marc Almond and an amazing set from the late Tony de Vit. One of those August Bank Holidays when we all worked for 4 days with practically no sleep."

An excerpt from a Chloe Poems DVD shot in Manchester. Chloe was a raging and outrageous transvestite poet who did many gigs in Manchester's alternative gay clubs.

Her creator, Gerry Potter now performs under his own name and was one of our panelists at the Queer Noise event 2010.

A very interesting documentary from 1996 that reveals the conflicting feelings about what was happening to Manchester's Gay Village at this time. Following the empowering surge of the early nineties 'Gaychester' scene, Canal Street had become a popular party destination for hetero hen and stag nights.

Talking heads in this documentary include Toby Manning - a bisexual music writer who loathes the gay scene, comedian Debs Gatenby, who questions the safety of the village for LGBT people and 'Polly' - former owner of Metz and Taurus, two long serving bars on Canal Street that now have different names and owners. A fantastic snapshot of this time!

This is a Barraclough Carey North production for Channel 4, directed and produced by Kristiene Clarke. Originally created by Paul Graham.

DJ Kath McDermott writes:

"Quite weird being in a gay club with so many football colours being worn, seem to remember a few skirmishes between the dyke contingencies! Philippa Jarman always used to wear her Leeds United scarf to Flesh which used to raise a few eyebrows.

Although I would have been honoured to wear the number one shirt (Keegan!), Dave Kendrick would have been the star of the show, an ace mixer who played it harder than me which kept the punters happier when we started opening till 4am.

John Shard ended up djing in the Gay Traitor this night. He took some fantastic photos of Flesh as a young whippersnapper and went on to have a successful career as a talented photograher.

We were mad for K-Klass piano hooks so I'm sure they would have gone down well too.

Like the 'For leftfooters and shirtlifters' line; Paul Cons had a season ticket for City so probably conjured that one up at Maine Road on a slow day!"

Richard Douglas writes:

"The night we met...

I kept this ticket because it's where I met Chris.

Flesh FC was one of the later Flesh nights which we followed with a few hours at Danceteria over at Central Park.

That was when we could keep the pace."

DJ Kath McDermott writes:

"It was always good to be involved in Queer Up North events and these were no exception, you never knew exactly how twisted Divine David would get on the night, he usually went too far, which was why he was so revered. He was a tough act to follow for sure! Twinkle was a great character who was a clueless Canal St raver invented by our friend Debs. Chloe Poems was hilarious as always.

I seem to remember us going on a bad-taste-tack-fest for the music on these Gag nights."

The flyer for the last ever Flesh - a fold out poster of all the preceding flyers.

An interesting piece from The Girlfriend* magazine (1996) revealing contrasting views on the demise of FLESH - a hugely popular queer night at the Hacienda, which ran from October 1991 to October 1996.

Steven Whittle (not the trans rights campaigner) is glad to see the back of the club night:

'...FLESH was always about the money. [...] When FLESH was created it was a great way for the Hacienda management to show how liberal they could be - at the same time pushing up takings on an otherwise slack Wednesday night. It was expensive enough to deter the old and ugly working class, but the 'nice gay boys', who bought apartments in the city centre and the warehouse projects, were to come and practise ideas of clean, safe, yet entertainingly camp, sex without ever actually cumming.'

Ian Stevenson is sad to see it go:

'Why was FLESH so special? I suppose it was really a combination of factors. Luck played a part; it happened to be in the right place at the right time. The promoters took a huge risk and introduced a rampant imagination onto a dull and stale gay scene. The DJs pioneered a sound that seems obvious in today's clubs (both gay and straight). It tapped into an energy desperate for a bigger stage (there would have been no FLESH without the equally legendary Number One Club). But most importantly the people who paid homage to a lifestyle month after month, the people who spent weeks planning their outfits, saving for their drugs, working themselves into a frenzy: this was the thing that made FLESH such an amazing experience."

*The Girlfriend was a local queer culture zine edited by Kristin Armstrong.

Invitation to a Queer Up North 5th birthday event at Icarus. (I'm not sure what this venue became. Anyone?)

The ticket is printed on acetate, which doesn't really come across in this scan.

queerupnorth began life as 'It's Queer Up North' in 1992, when it was founded by two of the staff at Manchester's Green Room, Tanja Farman and Gavin Barlow. The name, a play on the well known phrase 'it's grim up north', was an idea borrowed from 'Flesh', a gay club night held at the Hacienda club. In 1998 the first word was dropped from the organisation's title making it simply queerupnorth. The idea was to provide a platform for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender art, including drama, cabaret, club nights, comedy, film, fine art and performance art. In 1992 it was not conceived of either as a festival or a sustainable event, but was rather one small element of that year's Manchester Festival. When it did prove possible to have another season in 1993, it was branded as 'The National Festival of Lesbian and Gay Arts 1993'.

Queer Up North had its funding pulled in (I think) 2007 and folded at that point.

Ursula Martinez is highly acclaimed writer and performance artist.

Climax membership card. This was a women only night that ran in Generation X on New Wakefield Street. I think it also ran at the Paradise Factory occasionally.

Reverse of membership card - Women's Own in the loft at the Paradise Factory.

Claire Solanki writes:

The start of the dreaded wristbands! I'm not quite sure why I have this intact wristband - I think there must have been some lesbian drama where one of my mates didn't turn up.

This is the envelope the wristband came in.

A playlist from the 'Homo Electric Chronicles' demonstrating the club's music policy, which was much more open and risk-taking than most other gay spaces at that time.

Chiming in with punk fanzines of the past, Linder Sterling's collage art and also HomoCult, the 'Chronicles' zines helped to shape the anti-'orange queens' ethos of the club.

The bar at Follies, Whitworth Street, taken on a HomoElectric night, around 1998.

The key detail here is Martina Navratilova, who served as a kind of incorporeal bar manager.

Rae & Christian with the amazing Veba, back in (I think) 1998, which is when All I Ask and Spellbound came out. The album was Northern Sulphuric Soul.

Veba is also a DJ who frequently plays alt-queer nights such as Club Brenda.

She used to MC at Homo Electric from time to time, when it was at Follies in the early days, dropping her sweet soulful improvs over house records.

Film maker Nick Lansley writes:

"Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 caused the controversial addition of an amendment that stated that a local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".

Although I had graduated form Leicester Polytechnic the year before and started work in the south east of England, I often returned to the many friends I had made in Leicester. So I was happy to participate in their affirmative rallying action. When they attended this Manchester rally, I was happy to take part and film Manchester's response to the forthcoming Section 28 enactment.

This movie documents that rally, which took place in March 1988 in the gardens outside Manchester Town Hall at Albert Square,and later on at the Free Trade Hall.

In this video, look out for:
00:00 - 09:50 - Rally in Manchester by 20,500 people on the streets.
05:30 - A sense of the size of the rally crowd!
09:53 - Speech by Leader of Manchester City Council
12:14 - Tom Robinson speaks and sings 'Glad To Be Gay'
15:52 - Speech by Ian McKellan (actor and now Sir!)
17:20 - Speech by Michael Cashman (who at the time played gay Colin in Eastenders)
20:10 - Speech by actors Steve Parry and Sue Johnston from C4's 'Brookside'
22:13 - Inside the M.E.N Arena to join Michael Cashman
26:20 - Reprise by Sue Johnston (who played 'Sheila Grant' in Brookside)
27:50 - Tom Robinson plays and sings 'Have You Read The News Today'
31:26 - Speech and verse from Tom Robinson
35:30 - Tom reprises 'Glad To Be Gay'
39:45 - Hazell Dean sings her pop hit 'Who's Leaving Who?'
41:15 - Jimmy Somerville sings the Communards hit "There's More To Love Than Boy Meets Girl"
43:17 - Music from a-capella group The Hot Doris Band
48:45 - Speech and acting excellence from Ian McKellan
58:22 - Michael Cashman salutes Ian McKellan saying (at 58:48) "When a great man (or a great woman) gives up enoblement for the benefit of his humanity and the humanity of others, then he lives. Ian McKellan!". It was thought that by attending this rally, McKellan had destroyed any hope of being knighted for his work as an actor. Fortunately he was knighted in 1991."

The rally is seen a turning point in Manchester's LGBT history.

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.”

Mini Flyers promoting Homo Electric. Tiny flyers in transparent envelopes.

Love the text!