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jbjb My mother, I think, was a star, in her own way too because, em, after I came out
to her which I thought was a very successful time, I thought she d be absolutely fine about
me being a lesbian but whenever I was talking to her, she would always refer back to people
from what she thought was my straight life so she d ask me about people who she thought
were straight and she would change the subject if I was talking about my life, er, my lesbian
life. And em, there was a period of time when I felt that she was very de, very depressed
and I wanted her to come and stay with me for a while and er, she did, and and I thought,
well, you know, I ve come out to you, I don t know, four years ago or five years ago,
now is the time you need to kind of start accepting me really. So she stayed for a week.
She d been very very low, em, and em, I said. Come and stay with me. But you know, I want
you to come and do, hang out with me. Em, and so, she came to er, a lesbian discussion
group which, em, I attended and everybody made a huge fuss of her you know, saying how
brilliant is it for er, you to be able to bring your mother, and lots of people brought
her drinks afterwards and made a fuss of her and she went to different places like the
Drill Hall and The Bell and all these kind of lesbian hang outs, em, and er, I was really
proud of her and I felt, now you re really seeing who I am. Em, and, yeah, I was very
proud of her and I, I felt she got the picture of what lesbians are. She she was talking
in the in the Drill Bar with somebody who works for the BBC World Service and she said,
Oh! She s such a nice lady, Is she married? And I said, No mother. She s not. She s a
***. Everybody here is a lesbian. All those women here. All those, everybody s lesbian.
Kind of, you know. This is who we are. We are not people from The Killing of Sister
George for example, you know that terrible film. Em, er so I think, that was a dramatic
changing point for her, too. But, cause, we met each other a long time ago and we had
a relationship. But I never actually asked you what it was like for you moving from South
London to the East London. Well, it wasn t a big deal really. First of all I thought,
good God, where on Earth am I, the end of Victoria line, Walthamstow Central is, god-forsaken
place, miles from anywhere. But after that, you know, it s no big deal. That s where we
lived together. But did you, did you see it differently. Was, did you feel the community
was any different from the people in South London or did you notice any differences.
Didn t have much for a community in South London. My, my community, is lesbian community.
Not geographical. Most of that was sort of in Central London. You d have to go to places
like Islington, around there for clubs and things and certainly there wasn t a lot sort
of in East London itself. I mean, there s a bit more now, or that ll be the odd pub
that would do the odd evening session. But for me, in the same way, for example, where
you might get Muslim people who say, where, what whatever country you happen to be born
in in, is of no significance. What the significance is is that you re all Muslim. You might happen
to be born in Britain, or Bangladesh, or Saudi Arabia, it doesn t matter, you are all Muslim.
For me, being lesbian, doesn t matter if you re from South London or East London or not
London or other, other places in the world, what, what the binding thing is, for me Is
having a community. is having a community. Being lesbian. So, for example, when we went
to Sweden, we met women, total strangers who took us in their car, we went to Gay Pride
in Stockholm. We, we went to the women s centre there and it s like, you know, if, when you
travel, you find where the lesbians hang out and you go. So, like, when, when we re, when
er m facilitating the the discussion group at, at Gay s The Word, every week, every week
there are different people. They can come from anywhere in the world and the do, and
they can be seventeen year olds who are just coming out, or they can be sixty year old
women who have been married all their life and coming out, and, there they are, welcomed,
er. give them lots of information, talk to them, go to the pub afterwards, you ll be
there the next week, there s a kind of instant community if you like. I think that s why,
not only is er er, thing s like the, Gay s The Word, discussion group is really important
but, once we lost the Lesbian and Gay Centre in London, it did make where do you go, because
most of the kind of, em, bars and clubs were in central London and there was very little,
sort of, in the outer parts of London which made, it could be quite isolating for people
who either didn t have transport, couldn t afford it, or didn t know how to get into
communities and I think that that s why, do you remember, I started Dining ***, a long
time ago. And Dining *** was really about trying to get people in this because I, I
started it, sort of from, from people I knew from work, mainly people who lived in sort
of Hackney, this area, and there were just people that we would go out to dinner once
a month, em, and er, it got bigger and bigger. The group got bigger and bigger by word of
mouth. And er, we d go out and you d meet new people with, trying to eat in different
places, but it was a way of connecting people and having somewhere, em, for people to sort
of meet new people and not feel isolated, because there aren t that many, well, it s
it s improved now because you ve got things like internet and you ve got all sorts of
things but before, it OK, you had Time Out, but it was very, it was harder. I think yeah.
But even with the internet now, I think a lot of that is to do with dating, isn t it,
rather than I wouldn t know. No. I think so, rather than I hear rumour that that s the
case. rather than community, whereas something like No but in terms of finding out where
things are going on Oh yeah. or when Sure. and er, you know linking up But what you were,
but what you were doing with Dining *** was making some community that was outside
of that commercial club scene. Yeah. Where you could taik to people Where you can talk
to people. rather than just clubs and bars. Exactly. Exactly. And Hiking *** for example,
is a lesbian walking group that I ve led walks for. Again that s a thing it s non, it s non
profit thing, and it s for women, for lesbians, who like walking. And in fact, in London,
I and I think we re incredibly blessed with all kinds of organisations Better than living
outside of London, that s for sure. all kinds of organisations so there s, you know, football
teams if you play football, there s skating, there s dancing, there all sorts of things.
Yes, lot s of us dancers. And and now I I run a a group which is em, the Waltham Forest
Tea Group Yeah. Well actually it s Waltham Forest Lesbian Institute. Yes. Like Women
s Institute. And that kind of start of as em, I began to realise that that there are
quite a few lesbian living in Walthamstow, in the East, you know. And er, I think it
s like, how can all these people be around but you don t know them. So we started up
the, the Tea Group, and it started as a small group of people that I actually met through
dancing, and when you re dancing Oh, where do you live? Like I go, Oh, I live in Waltham
Forest, and Oh, do you? So do I, but I ve never seen you before. So it kind of started
as a word of mouth thing of of people meeting on a Sunday afternoon for tea, and cake, and
it started as a very small thing and then word of mouth got around and now we meet once
every six to eight weeks. And we ve got something like sixty-five people on the list. And It
s growing. And and you kind of think, well where are all these people? Where have they
all been? And it s lovely, because, the word is spread and hopefully will carry on spreading.
Em, but it s really nice to meet new people to link up, to feel the sense of community
and I think that that group for me has given me much more of a sense of lesbian community
here, er, you know, because I know that there, that person lives around the corner, and you
can pop into them in the way that I suppose, em, heterosexual families have, had have the
blessings to do, like, you know, neighbours and friends. So you ve got your own kind neighbours
and friends. Or maybe they do or maybe they do or maybe they don t I don t know. I think
that that. to me, that sounds like a kind of rosy, spectacled, fifties idea, I don t
know necessarily Well, I think it heterosexual, sometimes I think, I feel, lesbian people
have more, lesbian and gay people have more of a sense of community than your standard
straight people in the street. Possibly. But I I, it s also nice to have that notion that
I can go round the corner and have a cup of tea with somebody Yeah, of course it it. and
it, you know, and that there are people I know in the borough that you can ring up or
contact or whatever, to do something. And and we ve we ve got a lesbian reading group
down at the local library and we ve got more than twenty people attending that too. So
there really has been a growing sense of lesbian and, and gay community in this borough, that
s for sure. Yeah, I I agree with that. And and much more sort of more visible events
like there was the dancing at Chingford Assembly There were, yah. Was that a Christmas Ball
or something? Not, it was a Valentine s Ball. Valentine s Ball. It was a Valentine s Ball.
And I was very impressed with that actually, that the local authority put that on. And
the local authority paid for something, a survey. So I think it s it s about acknowledging
the community in our borough. And it s a double thing isn t it, because, that, the local authority,
probably with all these cuts now, a lot of that stuff will be cut. But I think it s also
stuff that we can do as a, as a, as a people Well, we can sustain it, can t we. or, you
know, the Tea Group, and Because we don t need any money for that. No. The reading group,
you don t need, you need very very little for the reading group as well. And I think
I think that and I really enjoyed meeting the new people through having those links
and and, and those opportunities as well. Meet, met some new friends. Talking about
spreading the word, remind us of Greenham Common. Em, I was, we were just saying earlier,
em, before all the technology of mobile phones and internet and whatever, em, there was this
Embrace the Base em, event, at Greenham Common. It was a December and it was the early Eighties.
I can t remember. Eighty-two or eighty-three. Em, and, based at Greenham Common were American
cruise missiles, em, and there was a protest there for years and there were camps. And
there was a lesbian, there were different gates. Different coloured gates. Red gate
and yellow gate and er, the lesbians were all at I think at, I can t remember what colour
gate, green gate, I don t know which colour gate, but anyway, lots and lots of women going
there. Er, I used to go Long time ago. Yeah, I used to go there. Em, and this event was
calling together enough women to be able to actually physically Surround. Embrace, yeah,
embrace the camp which was several miles, er, in perimeter, er and on this particular
day ten thousand women got there by chain letter. That s how we contacted each other.
You got the letter and you sent it on to ten more women telling when to go and the time
and what we were going to do and the purpose, and em, ten thousand women held hands and
embraced the base at Greenham Common. I think it s interesting we were having a long conversation
er, the other day about how, when we were younger, we were much more politically active.
Yah. And it felt, it feels like younger women now don t have the same, it s not the same
kind of political activism as, I remember or maybe it s just because I m getting older.
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