CHE was the largest, most all embracing, most democratic – and most active - mass gay organisation England ever had.

Its time was 1960s, 1970s, and 80s.

It arose when enough gays became strong enough to publicly "come out" and say we are what we are and have a right – a human right - to equality within the law. This hadn’t happened before simply because queers - as gays were known and often called themselves – queers were just frightened to publicly say what they were.

The early moves to law reform were done FOR gays by straights – like J.B.Priestley, Leo Abse, Lord Arran - and the first UK gay activist Anthony Grey who was gay – but very quietly so. You had to be in those days. Antony did sterling work for law reform by lobbying the great and good, who would of course be non-gay. This group based in London called itself the Homosexual Law Reform Society and it had its charitable arm called The Albany Trust, after Albany off Piccadilly, London which was J.B.Priestley’s flat where the first meetings were held.

But by the 1960s gays themselves started to “come out” and most noteworthy, writing letters to the papers, and articles for left wing periodicals, was a colliery clerk, Allan Horsfall from Lancashire.

Out of Allan Horsfall’s energy a group gathered in Manchester to support Antony Grey in London and this group were more radical, and were mainly gay – and quite soon all gay – so it was out of Manchester a movement began to demand full law change. There must be equality: an end to discrimination and C H E as it became called advocated and worked for the practise and use by gays of their rights under the law. And to actively claim what should be their right.

So CHE Campaign for Homosexual Equality became this great national movement of a vast range of gays from Tories to Lefties, from north and south, from promiscuous to partnered – and it worked in two great areas – to lobby for Parliamentarians to change the law – and the harder work of having public opinion constantly being “educated”. And in a second way CHE was great in making pioneering moves to have society accept gays might want their own dances/clubs and ways of meeting. And meeting without fear.

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By the 1980s and 1990s many of the objectives had been won and as laws were changed, and gays took advantage, the need for a political mass movement on a CHE scale fell away. Many gays were starting living just normal lives – and partnering openly – and for those who wanted it - creating an open social life – of clubs: chat lines: personal ads: and even cruising pages on the Internet became eventually accepted.

While some gays later took a leaf from the U.S.A. experience and founded a copycat radical pink revolutionary path of Gay Liberation, CHE was always wary of Gay Lib – taking a much broader, all encompassing view that gays came in all shapes and shades and sizes – and true freedom would be when being gay no longer mattered. And of course C H E was democratic – the membership voted: the annual conferences passed binding motions in a trade union manner. It was “built in” though, that victory would be won when to be gay no longer mattered . It’d be the kind of quality of person you are that matters - a situation that has at last, as far as the written law is concerned, come to pass.

The successors to CHE were STONEWALL the professional lobby group who pushed through the final tidies to the law in a professional lobby way – and Peter Tatchell’s OUTRAGE who want freedoms we had won to happen in Zimbabwe and abroad, and wanted a more radical shake of sex politics/ thought. In fact on reflection STONEWALL is more like a successor to the lobby effort of Antony Grey’s Homosexual Law Reform Society, and Peter Tatchell’s OUTRAGE more a successor to the militant Gay Lib of Bob Mellors.

Gay Pride ? – well that today is a parade of hedonists – it’s a Mardi Gras and politics have gone. The need has passed. CHE trod the broad and middle ground – in a politically populist way and there’s no need for that now. So – although CHE does still exist – it is no way what it was and no other movement has or could come along and do what it did – for that time has thankfully passed and been won.

The founder of CHE was Allan Horsfall – a colliery clerk, and his partner Harold Pollard a primary school head. Allan is still alive and lives in Bolton, Greater Manchester. Early on CHE was greatly helped by the Church of England in Manchester Diocese who provided the early meeting rooms at the Board for Social Responsibility offices in Blackfriars Road, Salford. And provided CHE with its first chairman – a non gay Scot, Colin Harvey, who worked full time as a lay worker for the Church of England Manchester Diocese and was a greats supporter of gay rights.

CHE’s early development was also greatly helped by the then Bishop of Middleton (Manchester), another non gay, Ted Wickham, a Cockney, who was willing to stand out and be the first Vice-President of the early CHE.
As was Neil Pearson, a leading Manchester solicitor, who was the first President.

CHE collected a GOOD BODY, an honourable body, of Vice Presidents – these things were very necessary in those days – but the main bulk of the early committees – and later of all committees were of gays themselves who were the first to “come out”.

Other vice-presidents included:-
Professor Colin Adamson, D.SC., M.Sc,Eng, MIEE	The Very Rev. Alfred Jowett, MA, Dean of Manchester
Sir Alfred Ayer, FBA	Peter Katin
Lord Beaumont of Whitely	Josephine Klein, PhD
Humphry Berkeley	Dr Arnold Linken, MB, B.Ch
Anthony Blond	Peter Maxwell Davies
Bridgid Brophy	George Melly
Dr R. W. Burslem, M.D., FRCOG	Dr Jonathan Miller
Robert Chartham PhD	Richard Neville
Rev. Tony Cross, MA	Rev Dr Norman Pittenger
Michael De-la-Noy	Harold Pollard
Margaret Drabble	Rt Rev John Robinson
Martin Ennals	Michael Scofield
Professor Anthony Flew, MA	Dr Maurice Silverman, MD, DPM.
Peter Hain	Tony Smythe
Ian Harvey	Donald Soper
Dr James Hemming	Peter Wildeblood
David Hockney	Angus Wilson
H. Montgomery Hyde	Dr Michael Winstanley

The work of CHE fell roughly into two areas –

• There was the lobbying of the parliamentarians to change the law – and the writing and speaking to change public opinion – from a position where all male gay sex was illegal.
• Was to set up a social life – for gays who in those days had no open clubs, no press – all social life was done in secret: and in fear.

This made life “exciting” – for some. But horrid for most: and clearly unfair and wrong. An early supporter of CHE was Reg Kilduff, the landlord of The Rembrandt hotel on Sackville Street, who was the first publican – gay himself, running a noted “queer bar” – prepared gingerly to let his name be attached openly to a gay list. Today of course every newspaper publishes gay event lists – but not then. Nobody dared. To be anything gay was a shame - a love that dared not speak its name. The young generation have no idea how things were.

And CHE were the first to come out – and in Manchester this movement was before the New York City Stonewall riots. From Manchester, CHE began to publish the very first lists of gay bars/gay meeting places, and to hold socials in hired rooms and publicly begin the first moves to openly ask for licenses to operate property an as an open gay club. We were always turned down. And this activity got CHE into considerable hot water with the London campaigners for law change who said, "You're rocking the boat". Indeed Lord Arran, who had passed through the House of Lords a bill said that said that gays could in private have relationships (if they were over 21) – he declared in the Evening Standard he’d never have pushed through such a bill if he’d realised gays would be wanting to have their own clubs.

Looking back, at times there were hilarious moments, particularly for the organisers who had bravely “come out” and passed through the first scary barriers. But we must not forget - for the membership of CHE in those early days just to be a member took great courage – for queers did live then under real fear and the repression so many lived under often resulted in blackmail and tragic suicides. No greater example than that in Manchester of the mathematician Alan Turing.

The "promised land" for CHE was to live in a world like the Dutch comrades were creating with the COC organisation in Amsterdam – caring and fun, yet serious and respected. But when CHE applied for a licence to run such a club in Burnley, the outcry was furiously led by a Roman Catholic priest beneath the slogan – “We’ll have no buggers' clubs in Burnley”. CHE persisted – constantly meetings were held – we took the main Central Library in Burnley: advertised on the buses. Ray Gosling chaired the packed and volatile public meeting.

And in the fight for clubs -“Esquire Clubs” they were to be called - the directors were not only Allan Horsfall, broadcaster Ray Gosling but the M.P. for Bootle the late Alan Roberts. Let us salute the pioneers. Our Esquire clubs never happened, but what we wanted has. It was a worthwhile battle – decently fought – and won. Partly because CHE went public – came out of the closet and argued common sense rights.

No disrespect to all the other people who played their part – but CHE played a leading role in the 1960s THE most important period in the fight for liberty – and now in Manchester it is to be honoured.

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