LGSM: All Good Things Must Come To An End

The re-formed Lesbians and Gay Men Support the Miners (LGSM) decided on 9 October 2015 that we would wind down as a current campaigning force and focus on the task of keeping alive the legacy of our work in 1984-85 and putting together a digital historical archive of documents, photos, personal stories, videos, audio recordings and all other written material connected to the strike. A full archive of our work in 1984-85 and more recently will be made available to all on the LGSM website (lgsm.org) in the coming months.

We took this decision with enormous pride at the role we have played in inspiring a new layer of activists and supporters to remember the strike, to keep the flame burning and to embrace the spirit of solidarity embodied by LGSM’s work. We are certain that the many young (and old!) people that have been encouraged by our work will play a full part in LGBT, socialist and labour movement campaigns and in the wider struggle to create a better society.

LGSM members will carry on taking the fight to the Tories and the rich elite in any way we can in a range of campaigns, trade unions, parties and other movements.

However, we felt that it would be wrong for future campaigning work to be channelled through LGSM, for the following reasons...

Now read on...

Their reasons for doing so are sound and noble.

That one of our most audible and visible radical gay voices was a revived goup that came together to fight something that happened 30 years ago seemed incongruous - and yet depressingly telling.

They note; 'We have no intention of becoming a LGBT version of the British Legion! To join Pride marches every year under a banner of a historical strike would soon start to look quite strange...'

Owen Jones choosing LGSM's Mike Jackson as his Hero of 2014 was completely surreal, and yet depressingly telling of OJ's grinning cluelessness when it comes to gay politics.

Wished they'd been more critical of that awful depoliticised film.

Though much of the lauding of the relaunched LGSM was clearly to do with that pink-tinted 'feel good' movie, and not the movement.

Letter Of The Day: More Pride Shame

The way we walked: London Pride 1985

Like many other trade unionists and activists for the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people we had been really looking forward to marching at the front of London Pride this year alongside members of the original Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) in a recreation of the spirit of solidarity so brilliantly depicted in the film Pride in this, the 30th anniversary of the miners’ strike.

We were shocked to see that the Pride in London (PiL) committee has now decided not to allow supporters of LGSM from the unions to march at the front with them, preferring instead to give pride of place to corporate sponsors such as Barclays, Citibank and Starbucks.

This domination of the corporations at Pride must be questioned, and the success of the film Pride should have provided the perfect springboard for that. The fact that the chair of PiL is political head of broadcasting at 10 Downing Street shows how far we have moved from the origins of Pride protests in the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969. It would seem that PiL is echoing the government in its determination to sideline unions and silence protest.

We are determined to challenge the portrayal of Pride as a showcase for multinational companies. Among the companies currently sponsoring Pride are those who must be held responsible for the financial crisis, don’t pay their taxes and don’t allow unions to organise.

LGSM will now be heading a union bloc in the middle of the parade, and we hope people will turn up in large numbers to join in with their posters, placards and loud voices. Thirty years ago we had to take on the union-busters and supporters of clause 28 under Margaret Thatcher. Today David Cameron has made clear his intention to shackle the unions and ramp up austerity measures that will hit LGBT people hard. It’s time to reclaim the true spirit of Pride.

Letter to The Guardian signed by LGSM and a number of trade unionists.

Please don't tell me you're surprised by any of this.

There's as much chance of stopping London Pride being a shameless slave-whore to big business as there is of me becoming the next Labour leader.

Pride's original offer to LGSM to lead the parade seemed more about the movie than the movement, anyway.

Thought For The Day: Jonathan Blake

"In December '82 I tried to commit suicide but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand the thought of someone having to clean up the mess after me. And I thought: 'If you can’t kill yourself, you’d better get out and live.' And it's difficult when self-confidence is just on the floor, but I saw there was going to be a gay gathering on 1 April 1983, and I just thought: 'Let’s do this, let’s go out and join the world again'."

Jonathan Blake, co-founder of Lesbians And Gays Support The Miners, on how he felt after being diagnosed with HIV, The Independent.

33 years on he's still out, proud and fighting (and community gardening). 

Pride: Shame

The cover for the American DVD release of Pride has removed all mention of homosexuality.

The film, about a group of gay and lesbian activists who rallied in support of striking miners in the 1980s, was released in the UK to acclaim last year.

However, the US DVD cover makes a number of shocking changes, entirely removing homosexuality from the story...

Pink News - thought I'd nick a story off them for a change, rather than vice versa (though at least I give credit for my sources). Can't be arsed to check it, so it could be balls.

The film also fails to mention The Sun was behind a smear campaign against LGSM. 

Thus this is just a paper - the movie is distributed by Murdoch's Fox, coincidentally.

The real question is not how a DVD cover excised The Gays, but how the film makes two great political struggles seem so anodyne.

Update: The film’s director, Matthew Warchus said he “understands”, that it was a “clumsy”, but a “valid” marketing strategy.

“Changing the cover is kind of clumsy and a bit foolish,” he told BBC Radio 5’s Phil Williams.

“But this is a film that is loved by people of all political persuasions and sexual orientations.

“I’m just keen for as many people who have yet to see the film to see it.”

Continuing, he said he “didn’t want to preach to the converted” and that he wanted the film “to find a mainstream audience [and] broaden people’s minds.' via Pink News.

Pride: Seen The Film? Buy The T-Shirt!

Now opening in the US - as in the UK, the film is distributed by Rupert Murdoch's 20th Century Fox.

Which might explain why all references to the LGSM and NUM-bashing The Sun - the origin of the term 'Pits And Perverts' - have been erased.

Fagburn wonders what that pinko commie queer, Mark Ashton, would make of all this...

Mark Ashton: Trust

There's a lovely archive being assembled on the Facebook page dedicated to Mark Ashton, co-founder of Lesbians And Gays Support The Miners.

A new oral history (inc some gays) documentary about the miners' strike, Still The Enemy Within, is in cinemas from today.



PS A friend remembers Mark. 

Typo Of The Week: Pink News

Pink News.

Damn you Daily Mail and all your pesky communist columnists!

PS Good piece in Sunday's Observer on LGSM's Mark Ashton; The real-life triumphs of the gay communist behind hit movie Pride.

PPS Apparently, Stephen Beresford is 'in talks' about turning Pride into a West End musical. Oh dear...

Mind you, maybe that means there's still hope for my feel-good musical about the Poll Tax riot.

PPPS On reflection, it can be a musical on condition that director Matthew Warchus gets Tim Minchin to write the songs. K?

Pride: Support

"You have worn our badge, Coal Not Dole, and you know what harassment means, as we do. Now we will pin your badge on us, we will support you. It won't change overnight, but now 140,000 miners know that there are other causes and other problems. We know about blacks and gays and nuclear disarmament and we will never be the same."

Dai Donovan, then a striking South Wales miner, addressing the Pits & Perverts benefit concert organised by Lesbians And Gays Support The Miners in 1985.

He is featured in an Observer article inspired by the film Pride, that also has interviews with Jonathan Blake and Mike Jackson from LGSM, and Siân James from the Miners' Wives' Support Group (she's now a Labour MP).

Strange how some other media think that what people who acted in the film think about LGSM and the miners' strike is more important, insightful and interesting.

The four people above all think the film Pride has - hey! - done everyone who was involved proud.

Fagburn still thinks it's notable how the movie is getting raved about in the usually union-bashing and gaybashing right-wing press - the biggest quote on the poster is the Daily Mail calling it 'Indescribably wonderful!' - and by gay journalists with the politics of a wobbly pink blancmange.

The Sunday Times has a feature, Stephen Beresford: How I turned the miners' strike into a gay comedy.

That title alone surely speaks volumes - maybe the appeal of Pride (the movie) is that it's coal dust and dirt, blood, sweat and tears, dipped in some fabulous gay glitter?

PS And here's a video made by LGSM in 1985, Dancing In Dulais.

Pride: Now That's Magic!

Modern culture is obsessed with the idea of gays giving straights a moral makeover. Apparently gays are really politically switched-on and super-fashionable – not to mention dab hands at interior design! – and so they are encouraged to grab straights by the scruffs of their badly dressed necks and turn them into better people. You see this trope everywhere these days: in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy; in the Aussie reality TV show that sent a busload of drag queens to “educate” the beer-swilling inhabitants of South Australia; in Glee, in which pretty much every storyline involves a monosyllabic jock having his prejudices corrected by a shy, erudite gay kid. The TV Tropes website describes this kind of character as the “Magical Queer”, who has “all of the wisdom in the world because he is gay” and who is often charged with “bringing culture to his heterosexual brothers and sisters”...

The Magical Queer trope takes on a political edge when it is applied to the miners’ strike. What we have here is a subtle but quite profound rewriting of history, with the miners’ strike wrenched from its historical context and turned primarily into a problem of attitudes among far-away communities rather than a life-and-death political conflict. Thatcher might have beaten the miners, but it is the new cultural treatments of their strike that really bury them, through reducing them to little more than exhibits in today’s moral trial of British men and our being found guilty of having been too macho for too long and now needing to become softer, more consensual and a bit more gay...

Brendan O'Neill, The Telegraph blog.

[Insert obligatory, 'Now while I don't agree with everything Brendan O'Neill says...' caveat here].

I haven't seen Pride (The Movie) yet, but there is something deeply disturbing about how fawning and uncritical the coverage has been.

See the ever-so-slightly OTT quotes used on the poster above, for example.

The cover of the latest issue of Attitude even declares it; 'The greatest gay film of all time'. 

Of course it is, dear. 

Maybe this is because the subject matter is - now that enough time has passed - a wet liberal's wet dream?

And how ironic that a film about working-class resistance, rebellion and non-conformity should induce such cosy bourgeois conformity.

For shame.

PS Brendan O'Neill's piece seems to be founded on a belief that homophobia no longer really exists and all is hunky-dory for The Gays now. If so, may I kindly ask him to read the Telegraph readers' delightful comments? A gay version of Lewis's Law?

Update: The Daily Express - that well-known champion of striking workers and gay rights - has called it 'an absolute joy from start to finish'.
Makes you suspect the people behind this film have fucked-up big time, no?

Thought For The Day: Mike Jackson

“The one thing the ruling class don’t want is solidarity; they don’t want us to join the dots up.

“Real change always comes from the bottom up. Change has never come from the top down, it comes from ordinary people, not so-called politicians or leaders.”

Mike Jackson, co-founder of Lesbians And Gays Support The Miners.

From a piece in The Guardian by Owen Jones on the film, Pride. 

Fagburn gets the feeling every critic will gush about this 'feelgood movie' about industrial strife and homophobia, even in papers that in 1984 hated queers as much as they hated striking miners.

Might have been interesting to hear more from Mike about LGSM than the two lines above, but there you go...

The Rev Richard Coles and comrades supporting the miners in 1984.

• Celebrating Community Spirit During The 1984-85 Miners' Strike: Q&A with members of LGSM and the cast of Pride. People's History Museum, Manchester. Saturday 23rd August.

Pride: The Digested Review Bingo

Important romcom about gay activists and striking miners... heartwarming, faith-restoring... unlikely but true story... Kinky Boots style dance-off... impossible not to smile or be moved... Bill Nighy...  Imelda Staunton... reminiscent of Billy Elliot and The Full Monty... an uplifting film about humanity and kindness... it's not out til September.

The Independent.

Don't forget to play words bingo in all reviews.
And note from the quotes used here it's getting ecstatic notices from the very papers that demonised the miners and queers in the 80s.
This is one of the trailers that makes you feel you've watched the film - it does look like they've airbrushed all the grit and coal dust out of the story.
To make 'The feel good comedy of the year'?
Fingers crossed the miners win.

Pride: Everyone's Talking About The Gay Full Monty/Billy Elliot!

Warchus is no stranger to critical acclaim: his stage successes include the smash hit Matilda, Art and Ghost: The Musical. But with Pride, he seems likely to reach a far wider audience than ever before, with reviewers predicting Billy Elliot and The Full Monty levels of goodwill and word of mouth for the film.

The Times.

Fagburn will give £10 to any viewers who spot a review of this film that doesn't mention The Full Monty or Billy Elliot.

'A feel-good culture clash comedy drama about The Gays, the miners, industrial decline and class warfare!' Fagburn.

And you can put that on your posters.

Pride: Strike!

Both groups in the film – LGSM and the Welsh miners – are certainly politically minded, but it's their humanity that's so compelling. Pride engages the audience not in party politics or preachy agendas, but in much bigger concepts of generosity and compassion. As I sat down to edit the film, something dawned on me. The film humorously depicts the developing relationship between apparent opposites who somehow overcome the obstacles between them. In a way, it is a classic romantic comedy. But the relationship isn't between individuals, but between two groups, or communities. And they are driven not by romantic love, but by compassion. I think it reminds us of the idea of society – that there is, of course, such a thing after all.

Matthew Warchus, director of Pride, a film about Lesbians And Gays Support The Miners, to be released in September.

The Guardian.

Fingers crossed it isn't like a gay Full Monty...

PS Colin Clews on LGSM.

Update: Cannes 2014 review: Pride - Billy Elliot continued with rousing gay rights romance set during miners' strike - The Guardian. a hard-hitting political drama, then...

Lesbians & Gays Support The Miners: Pits And Perverts

It’s the summer of 1984 – Margaret Thatcher is in power and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is on strike. At the Gay Pride March in London, a group of gay and lesbian activists decides to raise money to support the families of the striking miners. But there is a problem. The Union seems embarrassed to receive their support.

But the activists are not deterred. They decide to ignore the Union and go direct to the miners. They identify a mining village in deepest Wales and set off in a mini bus to make their donation in person. And so begins the extraordinary story of two seemingly alien communities who form a surprising and ultimately triumphant partnership.

PRIDE will be directed by the Tony Award winning theatre director Matthew Warchus (Matilda: The Musical, God of Carnage). The large ensemble cast will be led by Bill Nighy and Imelda Staunton with the other roles played by a host of well-known British actors including Dominic West...

BBC Films.

It'll be like Billy Elliott, Brassed Off and The Full Monty - but with added gays for a bit of culture clash comedy-drama!
A pivotal moment in British gay politics, let's hope they don't fuck this up - and it ends up more like The Comic Strip's Strike.

Here's a first person account by Paul Canning, who was a member of the LGSM delegation to South Wales.
And here's a lovely retro video of Manchester LGSM and the benefit they organised at the Hacienda.
Or alternatively, if you know fuck-all about it - like this fool at Gay Star News - why not just copy whatever drivel you just read on Wikipedia, and then get it even more wrong.
Gay journalism at its very, very best.