In this third and final episode we hear from the pioneers who set up the first Pride marches and festivals in Newcastle. In the early 1970s, members of the main organisations campaigning for LGBTQ civil rights at the time; the more radical and anarchist Gay Liberation Front and the more middle class, making inroads into the establishment Campaign for Homosexual Equality, joined forces to create the first Pride marches in the city.
Fifty activists marched through the city centre at a time when to claim your space and announce publicly your queerness was very much a political act. Then in the early 1990s, with no knowledge of these prior Pride marches, a new group of lesbians and gay men set up Pride on Tyne, a month-long festival of events and celebrations for the Tyneside LGBTQ community.
Presenters: Jesse Alexander and Alice Thwaite
Interviewers: Jesse Alexander, Melody Sproates, Alice Thwaite and Richard Bliss.
The activists sharing their stories were: Norman Powell,Tim Pickford Smith, Sarah Van Jellie and Emma Holliday.
Produced and edited by Julie Ballands, working with oral history interviews from the HOOH archive.
Music: Sarah Van Jellie.
Handing On Our History is an Equal Arts project created by Alice Thwaite and Richard Bliss and is funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund.