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 newsletter 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 newspaper 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.

The second edition of In the Pink (or ITP as it became known to the people producing it) came out the following month, December 1986. The paper was entirely funded through advertising and very occasionally topped up with some money from the individuals who worked on each issue. As a result issue 2 expanded to two sheets of A3 folded – making it an eight page paper. Major news stories were the Archbishop of York wanting to ban mention of homosexuality in sex education classes, a lesbian parenting plan from the Women’s unit of Birmingham City Council and somewhat surprisingly the government stating that firms who discriminate against people with HIV could be subject to legal penalties! The big L&G centre attraction that month was a winter fayre at the centre. The increased advertising enabled an expanded guide and diary to be included. It should be mentioned here that there was a huge cross over between the L&G Centre committee members and Lesbian & Gay Switchboard West Midlands operators. This made facilitating the production of the guide and the diary far easier.

The paper tried to bridge the divide (as it was seen by many) between “the movement” and “the scene”. It is fair to say that most of the management of most of the gay run venues were deeply suspicious of, what they saw as “political” gays – especially lesbians. Correspondingly some activists saw the scene as being hostile to “the movement” and deeply misogynistic. In part to counter this and to broaden the appeal of the paper reports on gay pubs and clubs were to be a regular feature of ITP and together with some arts coverage. This had the additional benefit of being a potential source of advertising income.

The third issue of ITP followed in January 1987, a slimmed down version compared to the previous issue, due to less advertising. It came as an A3 folded sheet with an A4 insert. A decision was taken to preserve the guide and diary section, as it was felt those were a vital public service. Inclusion in the guide was never conditional on advertising from the venue. It has to be said that many venues took the attitude that as the commercial gay scene was so small they didn’t need to advertise and few venues grasped the value of promoting themselves – they thought that the customer would naturally just come to them. To a degree this was true. One exception to this was the newly opened Peacocks bar, which was situated in the Imperial Hotel, an establishment that had hosted a bar popular with a gay clientele in the 1940s and 1950s. Their advertising was most welcome and helped save that issue.

The major news story was that of the Wombourne 12 and the Gas the Gays Storm that they reacted to. South Staffordshire had gained a reputation as a very unfriendly place for minorities in general and gays in particular. The Leader of the Council suggested as a cure for AIDS that 90% of gays should be gassed. The result was that 12 members of the Lesbian & Gay Youth Movement descended on Wombourne and demonstrated outside his house. They were arrested for public order offences and held on remand in a number of prisons and secure units, including Winson Green Prison in Birmingham over the Christmas/ New Year period. I will include an account of this under a separate page on the Lesbian & Gay Youth Movement, which I had been a member of previously.

Other news items included a section of HIV and lesbian sex, the success of the Birmingham Gay Youth Group, the opening of Peacocks Bar and Dudley Council including a non discrimination section for lesbian and gay workers, over the objection of Conservative councillors.

ITP 4 was back up to 8 pages, thanks to an increase in advertising. Major stories were about safer sex and the appointment of a new HIV worker for four of the five Birmingham health boards. A story covered by ourselves stemmed from and action we took, which was to send a copy of ITP to every councillor – resulting in one Conservative councillor complaining that his pigeon hole had been “violated” by the publication and that, having not picked up his mail for some time, the council forwarded it on to his home address. You could always guarantee a bigoted reaction from a conservative councillor and good copy as a result. Still it gave us the opportunity to use the Mary Whitehouse cartoon!

You can see from this issue that the Guide and Helplines sections are in a different format, this we managed by printing out columns of text produced on the BBC B using the WordWise word processor. These were then pasted on an A3 sheet and photo reduced at a photocopying bureau to A4. For the pasting we made a light box out of an old box, a low energy bulb and a sheet of perspex, very Heath Robinson.

For the first time ITP has some photos, another step forward for the publication. These were taken by Peter Gittings of the Wombourne demonstration (note the spelling mistake that was not picked up by any of the production team or our printer! Photos were screened by Turc Print and pasted onto the copy by them. Today this would all be done by software, no spray mount or light boxes or 8 bit computers. The Wombourne 12 story was rightly front page news, Ill cover this in more detail on other pages of my website. Likewise the second lead story – the closure of the Lesbian & Gay Community Centre. That reverberated for a number of issues. Sufficient to say that a combination of the Residuary Body and Birmingham City Council was fatal to the survival of the centre. The guide and diary section were growing and thought by the production team to be a vital part of the paper as a community resource. Feedback from out of town visitors certainly supported this.

Advertisers included The Windmill, Peacocks Bar and the Silver Web.

ITP 6 April 1987 was something of a bumper issue, thanks to the larger amount of advertising in this issue. The Windmill, The Dome, The Silver Web and Peacocks all taking out adverts, in addition to Friends of The Earth, WRPM and Male Image.

There is more coverage of events on the gay scene, with items on the new one nighter at Pagoda Park, coverage of the scene in Cheltenham, reports on local groups and the death of two “venues”, the Silver Slipper cottage and The Lord Raglan in Wolverhampton. A page long article by L&G Centre, Switchboard and Peace Centre stalwart, Peter Kirby looked back at the Lesbian & Gay Community Centre and its expected future – more on this in a separate article elsewhere on this website.

Also the curious case of police entrapment of two hotel owners, badgered into supplying two undercover officers – who had pretended to be a gay couple staying at their hotel – into providing a copy of a gay porn video to them.  After which they raided the hotel and charged the men with a number of offences.

We also have the predictable anti gay outpourings of politicians, this time from Labour in Coventry. We also have coverage of new people working in the HIV/AIDS field. With Pride coming up soon we have an article from a gay conservative as to why you should go...

In The Pink issue 7 May 1987 saw a number of changes with the paper. First and more obvious was the change of font for the body of the paper, this was achieved by ditching the Fleet Street Editor software in favour of printing in columns of text using the wordprocessor on the BBC B, combined with some Fleet Street Editor graphics, and pasting them up on A3 sheets and taking them to a photocopy bureau to reduce them to A4. The result a much cleaner and clearer look. Still done on a shoestring using an 8 bit home computer, a dot matrix printer and a light box. Back to 8 pages but with an insert, a flier adverting the forthcoming Legislation for Lesbian & Gay Rights Campaign conference in London, an insert we included as a public service. We had lost the L&G Community Centre as a venue and Switchboard became home to the boxes of printed copy, which were hand collated and folded, by members of the ITP team who were also Switchboard volunteers.

Local elections gave us the lead story, with a brief analysis of the main parties attitude to LGBT people, which was not very sympathetic. The conservatives were openly hostile, Labour on some councils would prefer we went away while others quietly passed equal opportunity policies. The SDP seemed to be dithering. Only the Liberal Party was fully in favour of our rights.

Changes of management at the Windmill was covered and Funky Duncan – the DJ at the Powerhouse contributed a column. Rod Dungate spotlighted an exhibition at the Icon gallery. We reported on the closure of Pagoda Park after a very short time as a gay one nighter, and the closure of a Boos, a one nighter in Shifnal, Shropshire. The Birmingham Youth Group had found a meeting place at the Star Club (where on at least one issue they helped collate and fold the newspaper). We also covered the sacking of Andrew Hodges, a data processor, from the government GCHQ in Cheltenham on the grounds that his sexuality made him a security risk. Andrew later wrote the seminal biography of Alan Turing. Mosca makes a return with his poems...

ITP 8’s cover story is an incredible account of one gay youth’s attempt to be free of the care system. In care he was subject to homophobic bullying and violence from other children in care. He had asked for the help of the Legislation for Lesbian & Gay Rights group and was staying in a home in London. The group were looking to claim asylum in Norway for him as they had far more progressive laws. The group arranged for Today newspaper to cover his case and unfortunately it backfired when they ran a “shock horror story” and alerted Strathclyde social services. A police raid followed and he was taken back into care. It was believed that the authority would attempt to extend his care until he was 19 - they denied it was because it was he was gay and in touch with a gay rights organisation. Saying that “like any adolescent he is at a very confusing period in his life. We want to support him and help him make up his own mind.”

Elsewhere ITP reported on gay club and scene changes in Birmingham and Wolverhampton with more Women’s events and expanded hours at Wolverhampton’s Silver Web. Mike Ayres gives an account of a disappointing meeting of the Legislation for Lesbian & Gay Rights conference – which seemed beset by factionalism. The General Election was upon us as well, with most parties giving only brief mention of LGBT rights in their manifestos – if at all. Predictably various local conservative worthies peddled homophobic stories and used our existence to to attack other parties.

We saw an advert for Loading Bay Records for the first time and Funky Duncan – the owner – contributed a column of his Powerhouse Playlist.

In The Pink 9 shows some stylistic changes. We adopted a 3 colum layout throughout and letraset for the headlines. We still used a dot matrix to print out columns of text – which were then pasted on A3 sheets and photo reduced – it hid a multitude of sins. We utilised more graphics and included photos going forwards. The commercial gay scene info was grouped together under the heading Nightlife and we also grouped items that you could loosely describe as the arts and literature together, though not under a unified title.

Peacocks, The Dome and The Windmill continued as our major advertisers. All three relatively new ventures or under newish management.

The front page was given over to the news that Birmingham City Council in the form of its Leader Dick Knowles, had torpedoed plans for a new Lesbian & Gay Community Centre, more on this else where on this website under the L&G Community Centre section. In brief the centre the centre was unable to pay its mortgage but secured a grant from the West Midlands County Council for £29,000 which would have cleared the mortgage. This was the very last act of the Council before it was wound up. The Residuary Body, which was set up to wind up the affairs of the council refused to pay out various “death bed” grants and passed them on to the district councils to administer. The Centre entered talks with the city and it was agreed that the city would spend£ 25,000 buying the remaining 10 years of the lease of a building in the heart of the gay village. Then a deputation of Christian organisations, spearheaded by the Elim Pentecostal Church had a meeting with Dick Knowles and let it be known that they opposed any help to the gay community. From that moment on the council went quiet. The offer was never formally withdrawn, we were just left in limbo. Eventually the premises went to another buyer and the centre was left homeless and without the funds that had been voted to them.

Other columns covered social group meetings in Stourbridge and Wolverhampton, a new HIV/AIDS officer for Coventry and a new Youth Group for Coventry. Jeffrey Dickens, a perennial homophobic Conservative MP suggested the repeal of the 1967 act that partly decriminalised male homosexual activity and jailing gays to control the spread of HIV.

ITP 10 gave the front page to an account (and an awful picture) of Pride ‘87, the largest for many years with over 15,000 in attendance. Tickets for a coach from Birmingham were sold out well in advance and the article hopes that the next year would see coaches from Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry. Meanwhile Birmingham was gearing up for the Birmingham Super Prix – a city road race around part of the city centre skirting the gay village. The traditional Birmingham 5 Days of Fun, a bank holiday fixture coincided with this. Hence the advertising of the event jointly by The Nightingale, The Dome, The Windmill, The Jester and Peacocks Bar. The Its a Knockout Competition would see teams from the bars and clubs competing in series of events in the car park next to the Nightingale club… Something of a scene highlight for Birmingham.

Elsewhere in the paper was a disturbing story about Birmingham council making a computerised list of people with HIV and AIDS. The youth group secured a new meeting place at Key Books on Digbeth High Street. News in Brief mentioned that the Sadista Sisters, Carl Dodds and John Lister, lighting jocks from the Powerhouse had secured 2^nd place in the final of Light Jocky of the year…

Lesbian Line was operating on reduced hours due to lack of volunteers. CHE (the Campaign for Homosexual Equality) extended an invitation to all to attend its annual conference in Malvern.

The latest gay film to be shown in Birmingham was the great Dona Herlinda and her Son – the first Mexican gay film to go on the international circuit.

Nightlife reported on The Jug’s LSD night, Lauries School of Drag, Lilly Savage (with Skippy) at Peacocks Bar and a talent competition and pool tournament at the ‘Gale. ITP also published a letter from a reader querying the Nightingale’s policy with admitting lesbians.

ITP 11 was a six page issue, One A3 folded with an A4 insert. This was due to greatly reduced adverting, with the Windmill halving its normal amount and none from Peacocks Bar. Though we had our first advert from premium rate phone gay dating lines.

Front page news had coverage of the visit of the UK Government minister David Tripper who revealed that inadvertently some gay groups (he did not know if they were community or commercial groups) had been accidentally paid some grants out of the government’s inner city program. He pledged that this would not happen in future. He denied being homophobic – just against “positive discrimination in favour of homosexuals.” In a foreshadowing of Section 28 CHE stated that they believed that the government was considering the introduction of legislation prohibiting local authorities from funding organisations that “promote” homosexuality.

Bad news about Bolts at the Dome, the new manager of the club has decided to end the Gay nights there, citing opposition from people in the town and the fear of AIDS. Nicky Price, the promoter of Bolts at the Dome was said to be looking for a new venue.

Inside we had reports on the formation of OLGA, the Organisation for Lesbian & Gay Action – which had grown out of the Legislation for Lesbian & Gay Rights conference and the hope that little local OLGAs would be formed. The European Far Right joined forces to propose compulsory HIV testing for anyone entering the EU, including EU citizens, who had been to North America, Equatorial Africa or “other areas of high prevalence of HIV”. They also called for the banning of pornography and said that condoms were not effective and that anal sex was not sexual intercourse!

In The Pink 12 was back to 8 pages thanks to renewed advertising from Partners, Bolts and the Nightingale, together with the regular WRPM and another outing from The Tele Gay Line.

More hopeful news on the front page that the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, the head of the civil service had written to all permanent secretaries that homosexuality should not be regarded as an automatic bar to promotion for homosexuals. Elsewhere there were reports of queer bashing and agent provocateur activity by the police in and around cottages and cruising grounds. Also a disturbing report of police appearing in full biohazard suits with a person with HIV in the dock.

Confusing mixed signals from the government on HIV education with a ban on “positive images of lesbians and gay men” in sex education but also a directive that teachers have to provide comprehensive information on HIV.

Following the closure of the L&G Community Centre Pinkies, a new social space was launched. Located at Key Books on Digbeth High Street the venue was also used by the Youth Group. It was hoped that providing a non scene social space could prove to fill the gap caused by the demise of the community centre.

For the first time In The Pink had a staff photographer- Peter Baggett. Peter had been a regular member of the team for a while but added his photographic skills to the paper.

So ended the first year of publication. Having started out as a publication entirely produced using computer generated pages we had moved totally to a system of pasting up printed copy and photo reducing the product. A backwards step in some ways but the paper was looking better for it.