Dennis Simmonds’ Memories of The Gay Centre
Dennis Simmonds (right) with his partner Alex Beyer (left)
Dennis Simmonds first became aware of the South London Gay Community Centre from an article in the local press about the centre's Gay Liberation Front candidate in the 1974 local and general elections:
"I'd seen pictures of Alastair (Kerr) and Malcolm (Greatbanks) in the South London Press standing for some political office. The address of the Gay Centre, Railton Road, was there. There was a photo of them outside it. So that's how I placed it. I must have bee 17 at the time which was about 1974."
He eventually plucked up courage to enter and likened discovering the centre to a "flood of light" dispelling the dark gloom of the closet.
"I took a walk up Railton Road to have a look but I couldn't bring myself to go in. That was on a Saturday evening when the need to be with other people, to be with other males, was felt to be very pressing. So I scouted round and checked it out and promised I would go in and all that. Then one Saturday evening I pushed myself through the front door. On my first visit I met Andreas (Demetriou), Julian Hows and John (Lloyd). Malcolm Greatbanks was there also. I began going on marches. There was an early march about 1975 I'd read about in Gay News. It wasn't until my return to London (from Farnborough) that I began to go (to the gay centre) on a really regular basis."
In June '76 he moved into a gay squat at St. George's Residences just behind the gay centre with Alex Beyer his lover for over 20 years. This was at a time when the centre was winding down and the people he met and lived around were almost to a person those who opposed what they termed the elitist 'hierarchy' in charge of the gay centre. They in turn were characterised by the 'hierarchy' as 'nerds', 'disruptive elements', 'untogether people', 'druggies'. The divisions between the two groups are what basically closed the centre down. That and the refusal of a grant, by Lambeth Council, to cover basic running costs.
"We lived with Ken Fuller. Crazy Ken and his keys....I was squatting in Vauxhall when I met Al. We began to spend time together....and he was living in one of the Residences....in the place that Ken Fuller had squatted. Ken had let him have a room. The squat in Vauxhall closed down so I moved into number 19....with Al and Ken. Then mad Marie, Ken's girlfriend, turned up."
"There was Chris Langan and Lloyd Vanata living in number three....Aunty Alice (Alastair Kerr) may even have lived over the centre at some point (he occupied the second floor flat as 'caretaker' of the gay centre with David Callow). So there were in the Residences three gay squats which mushroomed later to perhaps about eight. There was also one on the other side of the Residences which had Michael Cotton and his boyfriend Stefan. Michael Cotton was in the wrestling group and had something to do with Battersea Arts Centre."
On the positive value of squatting:
"I mean squatting was part of an alternative...to everything. Alternative diet to my parents, alternative beliefs to my parents, alternative sexuality to my parents to.....try my own form of expression in the world. That was what Auntie Alice personified for me and people like him....and the gay centre personified. Enough freedom to express that individuality. Maybe a lot was able to happen because people didn't have to work. People could get by on unemployment benefit and grants."
His memorable people and events consisted of the 'coup' at the gay centre when it was taken over by the 'nerds' with the main usurpers being Marie, Ken, Graham Mumford and his girlfriend Skippy and Mark Carroll; he recollected the Captain Morgan's rum campaign against an anti-gay advert for that product; He remembers Kay, a drag queen, throwing his weight around. Also he recalls provocatively snogging in pairs on tube trains and at bus stops in front of straights to 'freak them out'.
He saw the 'Sissy' as a hero of the gay movement and the bad guy as macho and was annoyed when the wrestling group of 'great big hunky, over the top, overloaded, over everything....men' were handing out copies of Zipper magazine. He saw this as indicating a huge contradiction between the ideals of gay liberation sissy heroism and the practice of ‘macho’ wrestlers consuming a commercial porn magazine.