Lesbians and gays support the miners

Out and Proud for the Miners

Interview by: Francesca Newton

Eight years ago, the film Pride brought the little-known story of a group of lesbian and gay activists who had organised support for the miners’ strike to international attention and acclaim.

Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, or LGSM, originated with Mark Ashton and Mike Jackson at Pride and grew quickly, attracting a cross-section of the contemporary LGBT Left to regular meetings in London bookshop Gay’s the Word. Hoping to direct the funds they raised to a specific community, the organisation twinned with South Wales’ Dulais Valley; in the face of what became an entire year out, the pit families there—and across the country—needed all the support they could get.

LGSM’s activism combined shaking buckets outside London’s gay venues with larger-scale events like the eminent Pits and Perverts gig headlined by Bronski Beat at Camden’s Electric Ballroom in December that year. Visits by the mining families to the capital and by LGSM to Dulais cemented the communities’ relationship; nights ended regularly in dancing,

Lesbians and Gays Aid the Miners (LGSM) was a group set up in London, four months into the year-long Miners’ Strike of

Founding members Stamp Ashton and Mike Jackson were both originally from Lancashire, but they met in London in the late ‘70s. As gay activists they organised a collection bucket at the London Pride March on 7^th July Shortly afterwards, Ashton placed an advert in the gay newspaper Capital Gay, calling an inaugural meeting at his council level in Bermondsey of what became LGSM. Eleven people attended and a constitution was drawn up, which stated the group’s aims:

To organise amongst lesbians and gay men in support of the National Union of Mineworkers and in defence of mining communities. To provide financial assistance for miners and their families during the national miners’ strike.[1]

In the s mining communities were still strongly associated with the Labour movement and often characterised as ‘macho’ and homophobic. However, with the advent of the nation-wide strike, some miners suddenly found themselves on common political ground with the lesbian a

About us

“You have worn our badge ‘Coal Not Dole’ and you know what harassment means, as we do. Now we will sustain you. It won’t change overnight, but now a hundred and forty thousand miners know … about blacks and gays and nuclear disarmament and we will never be the same.”

David Donovan speaking on behalf of the Dulais miners to a crowd of 1, at the Pits and Perverts Ball, Camden Town, 10th December

Pits and Perverts40

Lesbians and Gays Help the Miners, in collaboration with Lesbians and Gays Verb the Migrants, are excited to proclaim Pits and Perverts

Come along and celebrate the 40th anniversary of LGSM’s ‘Pits and Perverts Ball’, a fundraiser for mining families in Wales during the miners’ strike.

All excellent things must enter to an end!

The re-formed Lesbians and Gay Men Verb the Miners (LGSM) decided on 9 October that we would wind down as a current campaigning force and focus on the task of keeping alive the legacy of our perform in and putting together a digital historical archive of docum

marks the 40th anniversary of Lesbians and GaysSupport the Miners (LGSM), which formed in the early months of the to Miners’ Strike. Joining us to explore this historical moment and the legacy that it created is People’s History Museum’s (PHM) Collections Assistant Jaime Starr.

In this first of two blogs Jaime will discuss how LGSM formed and how events unfolded 40 years ago; dispelling some myths along the way.

What was LGSM?

Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) was an LGBTQIA+ activist group founded in London in July after founding members, Oldham born Northern Irish raised Mark Ashton and Accrington born Mike Jackson, attended a talk by a striking miner that inspired them to take collection buckets to London Gay Pride in June

LGSM were active for the remainder of the to Miners’ Strike, with autonomous branches setting up in Manchester, Dublin, Glasgow, and more. Their main goal was to raise noun to support the miners and their families, as many were experiencing financial hardship while they were out on strike.

Who got committed in LGSM?

Many LGSM members we