Though he only lived in London for a short while, author Colin Clews has fond memories of The Fallen Angel, a bar in Islington. Whilst desperately waiting for a visa to go to Australia, Colin volunteered at the newly formed Terrence Higgins Trust, and supported fundraising efforts of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, and has a slew of stories from this time to share!
Find out more about Colin at his website.
Transcript
Colin Clews 00:01
Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Story my life.
K Anderson 00:10
I am K Anderson and you are listening to lost spaces, a podcast that mourns the death of queer nightline. Every episode I talk to a different person about a venue from their past, the memories they created there and the people that they used to know. Colin blues is the author of gay in the 80s from fighting for our rights to fighting for our lives. Though he lived only briefly in London, he packed a lot in after moving here in 1984, diving headfirst into campaigning with Lesbians and Gays support the miners, as well as volunteering for the then newly formed Terrence Higgins trust. We met to discuss the Fallen Angel, a bar that stood in Graham street is LinkedIn.
Colin Clews 01:24
The 70s kind of politicised me very, very much. Before I went to university, I was really politically naive. When I was in university, I became really, really, really politically aware of your like. So even though I was involved in predominantly the anti racist movement, I kind of knew that politically, or wanted a better expression. There was nothing wrong with being gay, that there should be no stigma around being gay. It’s almost, you know, some of my best friends again. If I knew gay people, I wouldn’t have any problem with them sort of that whole kind of thing. So I’m not really sure what it was to be quite honest, I don’t know. But I was just, I wasn’t ready for a relationship. Or I was just a bit too anxious that if I kind of started getting involved in gay stuff, then I’d have to do things more publicly more visibly, I have to make a commitment if you like, if I had a boyfriend, I couldn’t imagine kind of being the kind of person you know, who has a boyfriend and then, but then lies to anybody in everybody. And, and, you know, try to pretend that these just the best friend from school and all that kind of stuff. If I wanted a boyfriend, it was going to be a boyfriend, not as somebody I know, when can you quickly go into the car around the corner? Now somebody I know is coming down the street. So yeah, I’m not entirely sure. To be perfectly honest. I did move to Nottingham, from Leicester in it in it. So I don’t know whether it was kind of all my anti racism stuff had been in Leicester. So it was, what am I going to do now? Now that I’m in Nottingham? Well, I know why don’t I get involved in some gay issues and see what it’s really all about? I couldn’t really give you as big a budget the parent for me rambling on for 10 minutes. I could do very clear, straightforward answer to that one.
K Anderson 03:39
Yeah, but rather than dip your toe in you, you flung yourself fully into the gay scene. And then you set out gay East Midlands in 1983. But then the next year, you move to London?
Colin Clews 03:53
Oh, yes, I did. Because part of my long term agenda was to move to Australia. In 1980. I met some Australians when I was on holiday in Greece. In 1982, I went to visit them in Australia, and just fell widely and mildly in love with the whole place everything about it. So I came back in 1982. From the holiday, basically thinking, I want to go to I have to go to Australia, or need to go to Australia, I want to live in Australia. So became slightly obsessed. So in 82, I started a master’s degree in social work from 82 to 84. So all the time I was doing that, and being involved with gays, middle and various other things. I was also kind of trying to figure out ways that I could get a visa to go live in Australia, and it wasn’t easy. So I tried a whole host of strategies, some of which I don’t think we’ll go into in the course of this conversation. Some riskier than other, shall we say. So by the end of 84, I finished my Social Work course. And there was really nothing in my mind to keep me in England now, it was a question of pollinators of these. And I’ll be on the way to Australia. So I actually moved to London at the end of 84. With the with the idea that I’ll just be there for a few weeks, they give me a beta. And I’d be on my way. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out like that. So I ended up spending about a year in London, I think. That’s when I first discovered a fallen angel. It’s when I also became involved with Lesbians and Gays support the miners. It’s also when I became involved with the Terrence Higgins trust, which at the time was kind of run entirely by volunteers. So that’s why I was in in London in 84, initially, because I thought it was going to be just a short, short stay. And then it would be on the way to Australia, as I say, didn’t work out like that. It soon kind of felt very much like, you know, I just put my entire life waiting this data, which wasn’t going to happen. In June 85, I think, June or September 85. I moved back to Nottingham and got involved in setting up Notting amazing promotion project. And because of that, I kept going to London, so I kind of had an ongoing contact with a fallen angel. That was my, the place I would go when I was in London.
K Anderson 06:55
Okay, I was gonna say can we talk about the venue? Can you tell us like physically what, what
Colin Clews 07:03
it was account what I would call an old style pub. Sort of a sparely square, set building on three. Well, there were three floors. The downstairs was that was the bar. And then upstairs on the first floor was was used as meeting rooms for various groups and various organisations, lesbians and gays support the miners system it there for one thing. So downstairs, the bar itself, it was a kind of sort of the U shaped bar, if I remember correctly, remember, this has gone back 3034 years or something. The place was decorated within an inch of its life with all sorts of murals on the ceiling of the bar was a picture of the eponymous Pauline Angel. And the say the race was almost like the whole place was covered in frescoes downstairs. My memory of it was predominantly pale blue. But as I say, I think that’s talking 34 years ago now.
K Anderson 08:19
And so do you remember your first night? God?
Colin Clews 08:26
I can’t say I do to be honest. I mean, I can remember how I felt about the place because up until that time, I’ve been going into the rather more closeted venues in Nottingham. So it was a very, you know, in Nottingham basically the situation was there weren’t any exclusively gay pubs, you either kind of there was a pub, which a side room was the gay bar. Another one was the downstairs bar was the gay bar. And then kind of the sort of the, the dance halls or had these things like the first Monday of every of every month was gay night. You know, it was it was kind of just unusual to in the first place to find an exclusively gay pub, although there were a lot of them in in London, obviously. What what kind of attracted me to the Fallen Angel was the fact that it was also a bit of a political conscience. So they had on Tuesday nights, they had women only night. As I say upstairs, they kind of they they left the rooms to also the whole range of different queer organisations. It was the sort of guy with a cat gathering place for people on the left. Generally, I think it served vegetarian and vegan food which was a rarity in those days. I’m going to kind of sort of like talk stereotype of the gay pub in London when I say this, but it wasn’t the kind of meat market, the way you know, some gay pubs, you will go into it predominantly for the purpose of manipulation. Yes. Yeah. And in order to achieve that goal, it was almost like a bit of a sort of theatre going on, there was posturing and, you know, moving here and moving there, and all of these things going on between different people and stuff. And the Fallen Angel didn’t have any of that it was just kind of lots of people went in most people very chatty. One of the vivid memories I have of a fallen angel was talking to a guy one night, and he was from the northeast of England. And I said, Oh, which part of the Northeast the family and he said, Oh, you wouldn’t? You wouldn’t know really. And I can renew immediately that was from my hometown of Chester Street. And I said, Is it just the street? And he said, Yes. And I said, that’s fine. That’s what I used to say to people who were when I was in London, where are you from? And I’d say, Well, I’d say Durham, a new customer, or you will know it. So yeah, so that was one morning to remember. The Fallen Angel.
K Anderson 11:15
Can we talk a little bit about lesbians and gays support the miners and your involvement with that? Are you talked already about some of the meetings happening in the fallen angel? Is that Is that how you first got involved through the path?
Colin Clews 11:31
I got in I would have got involved not through the pub just it’s a chicken and egg situation. I think that get involved with a four lane shelter Lesbians and Gays support the miners. It’s been suggested for the miners. No, I know for that, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t because they just got for Nigel got involved licence case, suppose a minor. When I lived in Nottingham, I was in, I lived in Notting Hill for the first six months of the strike. And Nottinghamshire was kind of an absolute battleground. It was a sort of pivotal area in terms of strike, just the majority miners in the Nottingham Chicago field had just started to keep on working. So what that meant was flying pickets from other parts of the country would get Dustin to pick it these working minds all the time. And, of course, Margaret Thatcher had a vested interest in breaking the minus strike. So she in turn, invested massive police resources into Nottinghamshire. So it became almost like a bit of a police state. It was quite literally the case that if you drove around various roads and knotting and main roads and not him, you would be likely to come up to a police roadblock. And they would ask you, if you didn’t if you didn’t look like your average than two kids, then you would generally be interrogated to where you were going, what you were going to do, and even which party you voted for at the last election. So pretty heavy. And so yeah, I mean, we regularly saw large convoys of police vehicles driving through the centre from nothing. And in the middle of the night. It was kind of it was at that level of kind of conflict there. So I was involved with the strike Centre in Nottingham advantages collecting money before I moved to London, and then when I moved to London with a job just before I moved to London when everyone I’d heard about lesbians and gays support the miners, so that seemed to be kind of the most obvious group to move towards. And that’s why I became involved with Lesbians and Gays support the miners. If you like it was a continuation of my work. And Amicus one thing I I also feel I need to say this about lesbians and gays support the miners that Lesbians and Gays support. The miners were a group have identified themselves as lead guys, and set up specifically to support the miners. But Lesbians and Gays were involved in supporting miners right around the country, but not necessarily from the basis of a specific group. They were there were 11 husbands or gay support minus groups around the country by the end of the strike, but as my experience showed, in Nottingham, I was a gay man. I was working to support them if I wasn’t involved in a specific group there. I just did it. Because of my political beliefs. I come from a mining community. Clearly, I have sympathy with the miners or no, the miners like, like, and so on and so forth. There were lots of lesbians with supporting the women’s support group. Yeah, there were lots of gay men involved in in supporting the miners, but in lots of different ways, either through the unions raising money through the labour campaign for lesbian and gay rights, helping to raise money, helping to raise awareness, so that somebody else will need to say that lesbian and gay activity in support of the minors was not limited to. Yeah, it was not limited was not the exclusive domain of ltss. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So then that’s, that’s how I that’s how I came to London. That’s what I used to do. I kind of when I first got there, as I say, I was waiting. I didn’t, I wasn’t looking for work or anything like that, because I was expecting to get on the plane in a second. And so I volunteered at the Terrence Higgins trust. So during the week, I volunteered during the daytime the term deconstructs. And in the weekends, I used to go and rattle the bucket, lesbian, gay support. The binders are the outside guides that word bookshop, various gays, gay pubs and clubs. Basically, that was it. I mean, that was that was it for the vast majority of ltsa members. That’s, you know, that. That’s what the group did. And that’s one of the things which really impressed me, which was having been involved with the political left to 70s. When you see different members of different groups, different left groups come together. Generally, there’s fighting going on than anything else. I used to be the Leicester organiser for rock against racism. It’s a political manoeuvring there between the Socialist Workers Party, the International mark, scrub donor, so it’s really unhelpful. With Lesbians and Gays support the miners. People came from a range of different political backgrounds. There was the Communist Party, there were people from the Labour Party, there were people from Socialist Workers Party, from the International martyrs group, and so on. And so, but rather than kind of sit and argue, political points in the meetings, basically it was it was just, they were just strategy meetings this much this week. how, you know, this purple school, that purple shade, eerie idea, what shall we do next week? Who was available to do with? And that was it. Really, that was? That was one thing, which particularly impressed me about lpsn. Event then. Well, what kind of goes
K Anderson 18:07
there. Can you tell me about tech Terrence Higgins trust and what was happening at that time and why you got involved?
Colin Clews 18:17
Well, I mean, he, you know, the first case of AIDS was reported in Britain in December 1981. Wasn’t Terrence Higgins. A lot of people think that he was the first to die He wasn’t. Terry Higgins was diagnosed in 82. And basically, here’s the Friends of Terry Hagen’s we’re so appalled at the treatment he got when he was in hospital, that you know, the whole stigma, the whole, you know, sort of isolation, the unnecessary precautions, people refusing to watch, you have anything to do with them, you know, prepared to go in and breathe the same air, that kind of stuff. So, it was his friends who were so distressed and angry about the treatment he got, who kind of got together and started what they called the parents, Hagen Memorial Trust. And they kind of they didn’t have a great deal of kind of knowledge of kind of campaigning and fundraising or whatever. It was just a group of people who are they who were devoted more by their anger than than any and so they kind of belong for a while. Meanwhile, London lesbian gay switchboard being inundated with calls about AIDS from literally from all over the country. So switchboard was certainly failing the demand and they they they knew there was a need for something. But they couldn’t afford to run Separate aids to Well, they’ve already kind of stretched the limit as it was. So there was a conference organised in I think it was late 82 where it was it was organised under the auspices of switchboard and the gay Medical Association. And if my memory serves me right, an organisation called the volcom group which were basically a bunch of leather or rubber fetishes technic and, and where people from the Terrence Higgins trust Memorial Fund are also involved in in all of that. So basically what happened at that conference was, it was agreed that switchboard shouldn’t be the organisation to respond to the AIDS crisis. Terrence Higgins trust as it was then people their way out of their depth. So a number of people in who have had more sort of campaigning experience, people from switchboard kind of sort of was seconded on to Terrence Higgins trust, to make it the organisation that needed from then, then that’s when the kind of like this strategy developed. So, from 80 to 83, it was basically just building bit by bit, tried to get the resources together, to put together the most basic service telephone helpline, and produce some information for gay men to be distributed. So that would that set the ball rolling pubs and clubs had fundraisers. For the turns, he was just to get off the ground. And I’m not quite sure when they actually got their first office space. But it was, it was this tiny little office in Mount Pleasant, it was in one of these big buildings, it’s got lots of individual opposite kind of your rent, can have you know, there’s a, if you want as a centralised switchboard that will take your call and pretend to be your company and so on. So we’re in this kind of large, very large building, sharing with all sorts of other people, including, it turns out some people who were making gay porn movies, a few doors down the corridor. And this was, this was at a time when it was it was not legal. And so the first we knew it was when we came in one morning to discover that their dog had been smashed in with a sledgehammer by the police. And they’ve been raided. So. So yeah, it was, you know, all sorts of people were in there. So anyway, when I was joined them in whenever it was September of 84. It was this, this this one, single office with one single telephone, and, and basically an army of volunteers. And we were still trying to kind of put us to the strategic framework around it. And now what do we need whatever. We had things like the bodies group, right, it’s basically a befriending it’s a one to one reading kind of scheme. It was started by Gay Men’s Health crisis in New York, to support individual people. So we had a buddy, we had a buddies group, which was one of the first things to get off the ground. And we had a medical group that it was was linked into all the main medical players, if you like in country. And it was a bad kind of, sort of disseminating information, sort of, if you like, translating information, medical information into into sort of understandable information. So there was that there was this AVS member of the social services group that just getting up. And that would be answered and basically, to try and encourage social services to do their bit in providing their sales to people with AIDS. Because again, a major problem that we still had at that stage was that people were still scared of it because they were torn about it as the game played. A key theme and media reporting of those was, you know, it was highly infectious. It’s not hardly infectious. But, for example, the Sun newspaper did this double page spread on the facts about AIDS? And the strapline underneath that was? it’s spreading like wildfire. That’s not a fact about AIDS. That’s a complete load of bullshit. worryingly when you kind of, you know, you put the two together here, the fat spreading like wildfire. It’s that kind of it’s, it was the use of that kind of language, which kind of made people think it’s incredibly infectious. So consequently, people with AIDS, were often basing describe discrimination not just from people in the street or the neighbours, but even from service providers. So we were trying to kind of, we couldn’t meet the needs of all people with AIDS ourselves, and we knew it was going to be a growing problem. So the idea was to try and kind of support the professionals out there with education and training, to get them up to speed and to do that. So that that was basically it. We had that the AIDS helpline ran from 8pm to midnight, every night. So we so we, I’ve worked in the office during the day, so I didn’t usually have to do any calls. Except for people who were so desperate, who would just say the number and ring it anyway. So I did, I did get one or two calls during the day. And again, just kind of an indication of the levels of anxiety we’re out there on there. We had one guy who used to ring up the bring up one day and said, Can you get it from a one of the things he asked me was, can you get it from billiard balls? No, you can’t get from. Okay, thank you. Right? He will bring up the next day. Can you get from chairs? No, we can’t get from chair. Okay. Seemingly reissued up until the next day, when you rang up? Can you get it from towel rail, and Emma just, you know, when often and on and on, but this guy really need deep psychological input, his his, his level of AIDS was extraordinary. I also got phone calls from the media who wanted comments, or data points have a reporter who said, I tried to explain, part of the issue of blaming gay men bent, the number of men who had sex with men actually believed that I could do what they like, but as long as they didn’t say they were gay, they’d be fine. Wow. And so this then led into the whole thing about gay men who get married in order to kind of conceal the fact that they’re gay. But then go off now, Canada, sort of anonymous sex. Because the stigma of being gay was driving them to do this. All the time, I was talking to the reporter or saying this, I just I was thinking, I know you’re gonna just be petty is going to blame gay men again. And I said, I actually told it to muster the day to assure me not going to just write yet another hysterical report about the poor. Talk about what the real issues are. One of the groups we need to get to men who have sex with men did not identify as gay. They’re not, you know, they’re a risk of HIV. They may be a risk of transmitting HIV, but they’re not doing it maliciously. They’re doing it out of out of a sense of fear. We need to sort of, you know, take an educated approach to that problem. So he said here that’s been shown I promise known as kind of stuff. Anyway, the kind of when the when the article finally came out, it was the mutual Tiger had been quoted, I had admitted, admitted that they were so not gay men who are still out there, having sex with men, and then going and having sex with their wives and all this. And again, that whole tone of their way. I hadn’t admitted to anything. But again, that’s another that’s another way that media fit in their own agenda. To add it to something suggests that Archie Archie been trying to conceal something. But yeah, you got it out. I mean, yeah, I admit. Yes, this is okay. I didn’t admit, I talked about stuff. But it was in that, you know, you know, ice reporter managed to kind of get the truth out of them when he admitted something. So that’s, that’s the kind of stuff that we did. Terrence Higgins trust, and then that was also going out to local groups, giving talks about a so the little that we knew about AIDS. Yeah. So that’s what I did during the week. And then the weekend I did. It was GSM. We’ve gone a little off topic.
K Anderson 29:55
So sorry. I really, really appreciate it. Telling me, tell me about this. But we need to talk about the Fallen Angel again. So if we go through if we go back, you don’t remember your first time. But do you remember what a typical night out there was like?
Colin Clews 30:13
Well, I mean, it was basically for me, it was just a place to get to go and have a drink, a quiet drink, and a bit of a chat and meet people. And, you know, these people are not, no, it wasn’t like a business. I wasn’t a cruising ground. Like some gay pubs were in many ways, I was gonna say it’s like your average pub was like your average pub, serves vegan food and has all the rules, frescoed with a large, fallen angel painted on the zoo, typical everyday pub, which is pretty old news. I think in a way, it was like a safe space. It was a safe space, not just for being gay, but there’s also space for we’re actually been being a bit of a lefty because, you know, lefties that never been exactly welcomed with open arms, including within the sort of within the lesbian and gay community who, you know, certainly in the 80s, or the people saw as just troublemakers sort of demanding gay rights, which were obviously putting making people antagonistic to us. So it was that every now and then, sort of. On one night, they had a sponsored reading of Mr. Morgan’s Tales of the City. Are you familiar with our Yes? Oh, good. I couldn’t have had this awful thing as Oh my God, please tell me. So when your dad was a sponsored reading of Tales of the City in order to raise money for the gays, gays the word defence fund, because as you know, guys, the word were raided by the police in 84. I think there was there was some music nights I don’t think disco necessarily. It was like live music nights. There were art exhibitions. The ones that this The other thing about the Fallen Angel was that back in those days, we had these really old antiquated lice. Now, it could be open from 11 to 11 to two bedroom. It had had to close until six and then was open from six to 1011 or whatever. So what what the Fallen Angel did was they turned it into a cafe from two o’clock to six o’clock. So it wasn’t just typical night. I mean, there were there were there were days I’ve spent in there as well. You know what I mean? Yeah, it just going in as a as a cafe. And just had a had a quiet afternoon in the chat with people.
K Anderson 33:03
And so are there any songs that stick in your mind from that time of your life?
Colin Clews 33:10
Well, because I was waiting to go to Australia, Randy Crawford’s one day I’ll fly away with something that I related to particularly I am what I am by Gloria Gaynor because it was a kind of it was a popular song about being gay. And it kind of everybody I know was toe was taken from the musical like casual fall. But nonetheless, it got into the mainstream charts. And so it was kind of lots of people dancing into a new scanner. It was a very, it was a kind of sort of assertive song if you like. And then the other Gloria Gaynor one which is kind of that whole era is I will survive. And that obviously came basically against them. When you might call the early aids generation, the people the first people to be diagnosed with a because this was the time remember it was the day we had our first British death in December 1980. We didn’t get HIV testing to 1985. The first aids treatments and then very rudimentary aids and AZT didn’t come in until 1987. So, so within that six year approved. And nowadays it was pretty shit anyway, it wasn’t till 89 mighty that we actually got some treatments, which had been developed, specifically HIV AIDS, it had been been a failed anti cancer drug, which had been put on the shelf and then in 87. But he said, Why don’t we try that and see if that works. And that’s basically it, though he said, Take a pretty shitty drug. So we’ve got that period from really 82 when people became aware of AIDS, right the way up to 8788 89, when we had no real hopes of treatment. And so people were basically kind of having to try to work out for themselves, what they thought the best approach was. So, people adopted a whole load of sort of different strategies, some are very, you know, sensible, some sort of, you know, basic, just live a stress free life, reduce your stress, you know, we can kind of assume from that, if you live a stress free light, that’s bound to boost your immune system, do lots of exercise, eat a healthy diet, and so on, so forth. So those thoughts, and people did meditation, a lot of people did meditation. But on the other hand, there were people who just adopted in St. Louis, and they practice. People they couldn’t believe people who said, like Louise Hay, and my, the woman I love to hate, Louise Hay wrote a book called, you can heal your life. Basically, she made a fucking million bucks and scandalous, she made millions of people’s desperation, basically, her almost any illness, you’re putting is not at ease with it. So she came up with this, just this theory about AIDS and AIDS is is actually caused because gay men are so obsessed with youth and beauty. They don’t want to live to old age anyway. You know, so basically, the sort of a cure for AIDS, according to Lewis Hayes was just to learn to love yourself more. My point in all of that is this is where I will survive, comes in. It was within that context of where there was no, easily accessible, guaranteed treatment for AIDS or HIV. It was down to you at the vigil. And so I will survive. Basically, it was almost like a mantra of people, people living with AIDS, you know, I’ve the willpower, I have the will to live, I will, I have the whoop, I will survive, I will survive. And the first person, person living with AIDS I ever met was in San Francisco. In 1983, there was a guy called Bobby Campbell. They may not mean anything to you, but Bobby Campbell, was a policy San Francisco was one of the area’s most badly hidden. In the very early early years. Campbell was one of the first people to come out openly and say I have AIDS, he kind of attended all sorts of public meetings and things of which is where I met him. And in his own words, to describe themselves as as the AIDS postable way, or Bobby Campbell’s very famous if you like, in a test. When I met him, he was wearing a badge. The badge said, I will survive and I will remember that. And so yeah, die will survive was a memorable song. And important. So
K Anderson 39:01
I noticed just been tearing up a few times as you’ve just been telling my story. It gives a whole new context to that song for me when I’ve never considered
Colin Clews 39:16
Thank you. Well, you’re just one of the song. Which is it? I don’t know whether it’s I wouldn’t say too much but it’s my favourite song but it was it was the it was again goes back to the age thing which was so many men so little time, which just happened to was in the in the gay clubs and I can’t remember who who was saying it now.
K Anderson 39:40
Get their way. And I’ve got here Miguel Brown.
Colin Clews 39:44
That’s a yes. Now that was very popular in in the guy discos. But, again, as Azan folded, it began to take on a completely different meaning. But you say that it was an anthem for gay sexual freedom, initially. Free aids so many men, so little time, get out there and fuck around. And then at the end, it was in so many men with so little time. How many men have surveil time. So it’s actually, ironically, was actually used in an AIDS education, AIDS education lately, that I picked up when I was in San Francisco 93 little cartoon guy, wearing the T shirt, so many men so little time. So even then, it was actually new. In the context of AIDS education, gosh,
K Anderson 40:46
this music is really my life that music, it means so much. To me, it’s so interesting to talk about the different interpretations and pieces of music. One thing, one thing I always ask, and I recognise that it’s quite cheesy, but my question is, if you could go back in time, you met yourself in 8485, what would you say to
Colin Clews 41:13
be a lot more focused, be a lot more believe a lot more in yourself. Be a lot more strategic. I think I kind of I mean, you know, just everything from applied to Australia for a visa, not what employment categories, they were setting up gays Midlands, not a fucking clue where the money was going to come from, how we were going to fill it, what should be in there, where the target market was how we were going to distribute it. So. So yeah, we’re focused, more strategic. But, I mean, ironically, having said all that, I also believe in yourself cuz I’m not sure I actually did all of that. Because I believed in myself, I think I did all of that, because I wanted other people to like me to say what a good guy was what it was doing for the community. Yeah,
K Anderson 42:11
I think that never, it never really changes.
Colin Clews 42:15
I do think it’s important that we understand our own history. And the battles we fought in notice, it wasn’t just the GSM defending goes the word it was biting section 28 trying to get the police and criminal evidence changed, the now getting equal age of consent and all of those kinds of things. So it’s important that people know who was fighting, and more importantly, who was who was resisting.
K Anderson 42:57
Did you ever go to the fallen angel? Well, if you did, I would love to hear from you. Please share any photos or stories that you might have. From that time with me through social media. You can find me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, with the user handle and K Anderson music. You can also find out more about Colin and his website, gay in the eighties.com la spaces is not only a podcast, but a concept record as well. I’ve been writing songs about queer venues and the people who used to live their lives there. And we’ll be releasing songs over the coming here. You can hear the first single well groomed boys which is also playing underneath when talking right now on all streaming platforms. If you liked this episode, I would really appreciate if you subscribed, left a review on the iTunes Store or just told people who you think might be interested to find out about it. I am K Anderson accurate I’ve been listening to lost spaces