This
enterprise, when we first embarked on it in 1968, seemed to be
an idea whose time had come. The legal advance secured by the
- admittedly flawed - implementation of the Wolfenden Report's
proposals had created a situation where gay men could identify
themselves as such without necessarily attracting the attention
of the police.
The social situation of gay men, however, remained desperate with
many, particularly in the smaller towns, existing in complete
isolation. The Campaign for Homosexual Equality, as the old North-west
Homosexual Law Reform Committee had eventually become, soon discovered
that the local campaigning groups which it had established were
not meeting the needs of the countless thousands of men living
without the support of any kind of gay social network.
So was born the rather grand idea of a string of social clubs,
not owned by any proprietor or organisation, but belonging to
the members themselves and modelled on much the same lines as
the Working Men's Club and Institute Union.
These,
we figured, would provide places of refuge and socialising without
the rip-off prices of the city-based commercial clubs and would
also be able to operate in the smaller places which commerce had
neglected.
But
we reckoned without the depth and intensity of resistance which
this modest proposal was to arouse. An early blow came from one
of the two leaders of the Parliamentary reform movement. The late
Lord Arran - "Boofy" to his friends - had introduced
what eventually became the first successful reform Bill into the
House of Lords. One of his little eccentricities was to always
refer to the reform Bill as "William" and when, on the
4th September 1968, he took the opportunity to use his regular
column in the London Evening News to attack the Esquire development,
he wrote:-
I
am shocked at the proposal to set up "Esquire Clubs"
for homosexuals. Had I known that this was likely to be the result,
I would never have introduced William. In
my final speech I begged homosexuals not to flaunt themselves
because whether they liked it or not, the fact is that homosexual
practices are ludicrous to most people
and offensive to many. The setting up of these clubs is an open
flaunting of the new and legal freedom of output…
…When
I was a young man, I and my brother were taken to one such club
in Munich where dancing was proceeding. It was a solemn and grotesque
sight and we were hard put to choke back our laughter.
Suddenly there was a police raid, not because of what was going
on but because the club only had a licence for dancing on Thursday,
and this was Friday. Typically German. An enormous lady I know
went to this same club where she had a colossal success. She had
no idea why until she discovered that she had been mistaken for
a Prussian officer dressed as a woman. What a drag!
This,
of course, was all of a piece with the rest of his closing speech
at the end of the Bill's successful third reading in the Lords
when he said "This is no occasion for jubilation; certainly
not for celebration. Any form of ostentatious behaviour now, or
in the future, any form of public flaunting, would be utterly
distasteful and would, I believe, make the sponsors of the Bill
regret that they have done what they have done."
Clearly, Arran believed that the formation of gay clubs constituted
"public flaunting," although it could be argued that
clubs, being private places, would assist in keeping the dreaded
condition away from the public eye!
On 1 February 1970, in the course of a full-page article by Joanna
Slaughter which appeared in the Observer under the heading "The
men who still feel hunted" she reported:-
The
homosexual search for companionship can lead him into danger.
Loneliness drives him to importuning; this in turn may well land
him in a magistrates' court, with alarming social consequences.
Since 1967 some reformers, aware of this, have made attempts to
found clubs which would provide social facilities for homosexuals.
In the north of England one company has been trying unsuccessfully
for over 18 months to form a chain of clubs which, it is hoped,
will eventually be able to offer not only social facilities, but
also a counselling service to members supplied by a panel of lawyers
and doctors. The organisers are anxious that the clubs (in contrast
to the
dreary 'gay' pubs already in existence) should not be exclusively
homosexual, but places to which members will feel free to take
heterosexual friends and relatives.
The
two planning applications made so far, In Swinton and Eccles,
have both been turned down. In Swinton councillors complained
that members would be a risk to an existing youth club nearby;
in Eccles, after five months of indecision, the council turned
down the application on the grounds that the building was not
suitable for a licensed club and that there was nowhere to park
vehicles.
Not all the reformers concerned with pressing for the 1967 legislation
regard these efforts with approval. Mr Leo Abse points out that
one of the purposes of the Act was to integrate homosexuals into
society. "I think a lot of people have got to get out of
their ghettos," he says.
I
commented in the following week's Observer that gay men would
be very grateful if they had a ghetto to go to! To be fair to
Abse, he eventually came to accept the idea of clubs albeit, I
suspect, with gritted teeth, but urged that membership should
be confined to those over the age of 21, possibly a very wise
piece of advice at a time when we all worried about recondite
laws being wheeled out to deal with situations which upset the
moral right.
The reformed law which Arran and Abse had piloted through Parliament
provided for a maximum of two years imprisonment for a man who
procured another man to commit an act of buggery with a third
man, even though such an act was no longer an offence. Nobody
could guess whether a jury might be persuaded that introducing
men to each other via membership of a gay club would constitute
procuring.
It is indicative of the mindset of Parliament at that time that
there is no punishment laid down for a woman who procured such
an act by two men. It would appear that they took the same view
of this possibility as Queen Victoria allegedly took about Lesbianism,
namely that it just didn't exist!
It had been stressed throughout the Parliamentary debates that
homosexual acts, even if legalised, would remain immoral and reprehensible
and we were aware of the dangers posed by the common law offence
of Conspiracy to Corrupt Public Morals which had been resurrected
a few years previously to successfully prosecute the publishers
of the Ladies' Directory, in which prostitutes had been able to
advertise their services.
It became clear then, that no move should be made towards opening
a club until the attitude of the local police had been ascertained.
We had meetings with the police, usually at Chief Constable level,
in Sheffield, Burnley and Bolton and found them surprisingly supportive
although the Chief Constable of Sheffield was rather naughty in
that, having agreed to see only three of the six-man deputation
which attended, he then sent his lackey to discover the names
and addresses of the excluded three, something which, in the atmosphere
of the time, could only be interpreted as being intimidatory.
Encouragement for the idea of establishing members' clubs for
gays had come from the owners of two established commercial gay
clubs in Manchester and, in order to encourage people to subscribe
to the idea, we were able to offer Esquire members free entrance
to the Rockingham and the Rouge clubs in central Manchester, an
arrangement which soon ran into trouble as those who had offered
this facility began to get cold feet.
The
commercial club owners seemed to have had mixed motives for supporting
the Esquire project. They were aware, as were we all, of the successful
prosecution of the Flamingo Club in Wolverhampton in 1967 when
the police were able to convince a court, without producing any
witnesses, that there had been sexual shenanigans in the clubs
toilets, resulting in punishment for the owner and closure of
the club.
In
this prosecution the club owner had enjoyed no support network
other than that provided by the smallest handful of his members.
I suspect that the Manchester club owners took the view that they
would be more immune from prosecution or, if not that, from conviction,
if they were seen to have the support of a growing political movement
and Esquire Clubs, being a subsidiary of the Campaign for Homosexual
Equality, was seen as providing that kind of limited guarantee.
Reg Kilduff, the owner of the Rockingham Club, had volunteered
his willingness to transfer ownership of the club to Esquire and
it was agreed that an independent valuation should be carried
out Although a valuer was agreed upon, he was never able to gain
access to the premises to carry out his task. This was the first
indication that this arrangement was beginning to fall apart.
Both club owners, having necessarily conducted their businesses
clandestinely for many years when homosexual acts by men were
totally illegal, had been used to a rather selective approach
to the acceptance of membership applications and were now becoming
somewhat alarmed to find that the new arrangement with Esquire
was producing visitors to the club who would not have fitted easily,
if at all, into their former selective mould.
While such selection might be construed as an snobbery, I believe
it was in part a reaction to the perceived continuing threat of
police action against the clubs. A general tightening of the policing
of all clubs in Manchester had emphasised that a condition of
the late licences which they all enjoyed was that the drinking
should be ancillary to the dining and the dancing - an unrealistic
objective which I believe has yet to be achieved. It hadn't escaped
the attention of either the owners or the police that dancing
in an all-male club could itself potentially be construed as immoral
conduct under the remaining laws.
Because most clubs found that the laws under which they operated
were too tightly drawn they were mostly conducted with that degree
of illegality which not only placed them in constant danger of
prosecution but also made them subject to the attention of corrupt
policemen. In the case of gay clubs, both perils were multiplied
by a substantial factor. I remember talking to Reg Kilduff at
the bar of his club early on evening when his manager came over
to inform him that his usual Monday evening visitors had arrived.
He was away for some time and, on my way to visit the gents' I
found him in the corridor looking very worried and I inquired
who his usual Monday night visitors were and why he was looking
so agitated. "It's the police again" he said "and
I can't decide whether to give them cash or spirits this week."
I have no means of knowing how widespread this kind of corruption
was. Suffice it to say that some time afterwards the whole of
the plain-clothes squad responsible for policing licensed premises
was suddenly transferred to routine uniformed duties!
Anxiety about the new-found club visitors grew to a point where
the Rockingham Club insisted that no Esquire members would be
admitted to that club unless they had been personally vetted by
the proprietor and his manager. This was unacceptable to the Esquire
directors as being against the whole spirit of the enterprise
and consequently the arrangement with that club broke down, as
did the arrangements with the other club, the Rouge, for much
the same reasons.
The
next hurdle we encountered was that of planning permissions, where
we anticipated converting premises which had not previously been
used as a club. Local authorities advertise these applications
in order that people had the chance to object, and object they
did, in spades!
The
first place was Eccles, Lancashire, where we had our eyes on disused
bank premises in the town centre. There was never the slightest
indication that change of use consent might be granted and councillors
were no doubt reinforced in their determination to block the project
by the constant talk of the threat which it would pose to the
town's youth - something we were to encounter much more of as
our work progressed, or at least attempted to. One or two members
attempted to put a little gloss on the council's attitude by suggesting
that they should at ;least meet the applicants (i.e. ourselves)
but no such invitation was ever received.
The
going was even harder in nearby Swinton. Proposals for a meeting
were immediately rejected and councillors unashamedly proposed
that the change of use application we had submitted should be
judged on moral, rather than planning, criteria.
On 10 September 1969 The Daily Telegraph reported:-
Teenagers
at a Swinton youth club would be in danger of being "perverted"
if a club catering for homosexuals were opened nearby, it was
claimed yesterday.
An application by Esquire Clubs Ltd. To open a club in the basement
of Swinton's shopping precinct was rejected by the town's planning
committee.
Following a statement by the Town Clerk that the club would be
used by homosexuals, Councillor R. Beech told members that they
ought to reject the plan "on moral grounds."
"These
people might be very nice - I don't know and I don't want to know
- but what about the youngsters in the youth club near there?
"They
might go down to have a look and to have a giggle, but some of
them might become perverted - and I think homosexuality is a perversion,"
he said.
The Town Clerk, Mr. D. Cudworth, said: "This is a club for
providing facilities for homosexuals. They could have applied
to get this as a night club and then let it be used in this way
and we could do nothing about it. But they did not. They have
not tried to hide this."
Councillor B. M. Sampson suggested that it was "only common
courtesy" to meet the representatives before reaching a decision,
but Councillor K. Clements said: "I don't want their people
here."
Councillor
Mrs E. W. Muldoon said a meeting might suggest that the council
was condoning the club.
Shortly afterwards, the Guardian published a letter in
which I said:-
I
read with interest your report of the refusal of Swinton's Planning
Committee to grant an application for a social club for homosexuals
and I am impressed by the Town Clerk's reported observation that
the applicants "could have applied to us to have opened….as
an ordinary night club and then let it be used by homosexuals
and we could have done nothing about this. They have not tried
to hide from us what they want the club for."
By
its decision the Planning Committee has managed at a single stroke,
both to strike a blow against civil liberty and to put a premium
on dishonesty.
The
determination of the council to prevent the project moving forward
was widely shared in the town, as demonstrated by the volume and
ferocity of readers' letters in the local press, but nobody had
actually suggested that the establishment of a gay club would
be illegal, although doubts about the legality of our project
had been aired earlier by the Albany Trust, which was the charitable
arm of the London-based Homosexual Law Reform Society.
Esquire
invited the chairman and the secretary of the Dutch C.O.C. organisation
to visit Manchester to discuss our proposals. C.O.C. was established
in 1946 and, by 1968 it had over 4000 members with gay clubs in
several Dutch cities and had established close and mutually helpful
co-operation with the police and probation services and was sometimes
consulted when the courts had to deal with offenders against young
people below the age of consent.
We had, of course, been aware of this organisation for a long
time, but its existence had been brought to the attention of the
wider public through an article headed "A club for homosexuals"
which Roy Perrott wrote in the Observer at the beginning of 1963,
with a sub-heading which said "A meeting place not only where
homosexuals gather quite openly but to which they are directed
by the police - this may sound unbelievable to English people
but it exists in Holland."
"C.O..C.'s philosophy" wrote Perrott "rests on
the same basis as that which both Wolfenden and the Church of
England Moral Welfare Council have accepted as essential. The
homosexual, it says, must be allowed to integrate himself into
the wider community as himself, accepting his own nature (how
abstinent or active he is thereafter remains, of course, his own
decision) Only in this way can he adjust himself tolerably to
the social disciplines and get the same chance of personal development
as other people have."
The meeting with the C.O.C representatives took place on 6 June
1968. I doubt that our visitors were aware of the extent to which
homophobia remained rampant. In the U.K., their experience of
our citizens being mainly based around the British gays who visited
the C.O.C. club.
It was both interesting and enlightening however that they expressed
the view that it would take a further ten years before British
gays felt sufficiently confident in their new-found freedom to
take proper advantage of any clubs which might be established.
In addition to this meeting, Alan Fitch, the MP for Wigan, had,
at our behest spoken to the Home Secretary about the Esquire project.
Although the Home Office had not raised any objection they had,
of course, no powers over law enforcement and so could offer no
assurances in this respect, nor had they been expected to.
On 16 September 1967 - within days of the gay law reform Act based
on the Wolfenden Committee's recommendation receiving the royal
assent - Geoffrey Moorhouse had written an article in the Guardian
headed "Homosexuals seek respectable centres to meet."
In this piece that Albany Trust was quoted as believing that "if
the Act implied a social revolution this was only because it was
the very first blow for legality; most of the battles are still
to be fought." Moorhouse continued: "The legislation
they (Albany Trust) want to see now would make the man-man situation
entirely comparable to the man-girl one…..It would also allow
meeting places to be established which are not florid but where
homosexuals could behave naturally."
At this remove, many people will find it difficult to understand
why people whose private behaviour had just been legalised should
not be free to establish clubs where they could meet socially
without further legislation, particularly since it is widely believed
that, under English law, what is not specifically forbidden is
permitted.
Would that it were so simple. We were living in days long before
people had the protection of the Human Rights Act, which didn't
come into force until the turn of the century and at a time, moreover,
when judges were able to punish under "common law,"
which they made up as they went along, anybody who had done something
which the authorities thought he ought not to have done.
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