IN THE PINK News Paper

This publication grew out of the Birmingham Lesbian and Gay Community Centre Newsletter.  It was an attempt to fill the gap that existed locally for West Midlands based news and to spread increase the visibility of the Community Centre. The "national" UK wide gay press was limited, Gay News had collapsed in 1983 and its place was taken by a number of publications including Gay Times, which was more male and London orientated. In the void other locally based publications emerged - such as Gay Scotland, Mancunian Gay and Capital Gay in London. Later in 1987 the Pink Paper appeared, initially in the South East of England and eventually UK wide.

The previous L&G Community Centre newletter was available at the Community Centre and sent approximately monthly by post to centre members. Produced using a desk top publishing program for the BBC B micro computer called Fleet Street Editor. Very primitive by modern standards, it enabled you to create 8 panels of text or graphics or a mix per page. Using a dot matrix printer to cut a stencil by removing the ribbon and using the pins to punch holes in the stencil. This with an ink duplicator enabled the centre to do a print run of several hundred copies relatively cheaply.

A decision was taken to widen the readership of, what had been, the centre newsletter to a wider audience, with Birmingham and West Midlands relevant LGBT news. Utilising the same software and sending finished A4 sheets to the Trades Union Resource Centre (Turc Print) an initial 4 page newpaper was produced. Double sided A3 sheets were hand folded by centre regulars and the production team consisted of members of the centre management committee, their partners and friends, including myself. The original print run was 2000 copies and was distributed, by hand, to pubs and clubs in Birmingham and Wolverhampton, and by post to pubs, clubs and LGBT community groups through out the West Midlands region (West Midlands County, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire, Hereford & Worcester). Centre members and the Birmingham Library also received a copy.

First issue was printed and published in November 1986.