The South London Gay Liberation Front was established in 1972 and suffered an enforced nomadic existence in attempting to find a permanent place to meet. The first meetings took place in the children's section of the Minet public library on Knatchbull Road, Lambeth, with up to 40 or 50 people attending. Sitting in a circle to be 'unstructured' in an attempt to be more open and democratic the meetings were dominated by one or two of the more politically vociferous people. The location proved to be geographically inaccessible with shrinking numbers attending as people drifted away. Social gatherings were held at the nearby Paulet Arms. According to Bill Thornycroft the pub was "a little back street working class pub that was overwhelmed....because we were mostly middle class, noisy, mouthy types". This led to a certain amount of resentment from the customers and the landlady refused to rent the SLGLF an upstairs room on the grounds that it had 'dry rot' which was felt to be a cover for gays-not-welcome.

Bill's self-esteem was boosted when the advantages of being gay were discussed. He believed that being gay was second best. Awareness groups were established "where we talked about our navels." He was amused at people who attended meetings expecting a "sexual orgy" but they soon got bored and departed when they found "people talking earnestly about life".

Julian Hows was a teenager when he first attended the SLGLF meetings. The pushy charms of an 'underage' but lively 'on the make' gay youth was treated with caution at first because he was considered to be jail bait. It was important for him to go the meetings and discos having found the 'straight' gay scene inhospitable. This experience soured his attitude to so-called radical gay people. Despite their caution he still picked up people from the meetings and felt that their radicalism masked hypocrisy. They were "...sort of chicken hawks who...under the guise of going to gay liberation meetings were playing out exactly the same kind of relationships....in Brixton cottage or picking kids up at swimming baths. It was with a slight sense of foreboding that I actually went to the Gay Centre*. I was agreeably surprised that it was nicer than I thought it would be."

Gary de Vere first encountered gay liberation politics in 1971 at huge gatherings in All Saints Hall, Notting Hill. As an 'outsider' he was bewildered by the cacophony of voices and debate going on and found it fascinating without any real understanding of why he was there. He later took part in a 'gay youth march' from Marble Arch where "...somebody stuck something in my hand and asked me if I would start making a poster on the pathway. Abandoning the book hunting expedition (Gary was a book trader) I went off on the march and had a marvellous time. It's one of the best marches I have ever been on."

But it was only when he attended several SLGLF meetings at the Minet Library that things began to change. He still felt very green regarding the discussions going on but the friendly atmosphere gave him a firm sense of his gay identity and the gay liberation movement: "I could identify with other people there and I identified also with the movement. Also a vocabulary was being defined. Ideas were being defined. What I felt after all that was that the unexpressed feelings inside me couldn't be expressed because there wasn't a vocabulary for them....SLGLF provided a way of putting these things into a formal structure and context...everything I heard and everybody I saw and the way they related and the way they thought about themselves....there was something inside me that kept on saying "yes, yes, yes," this is me."

The next stop for the SLGLF was the crypt of St. Matthews Church lying in the triangle between Effra Road and Brixton Hill. At the invitation of a friendly local vicar the group was allowed to use the basement for meetings and a disco which was well attended with gay people from other parts of London turning up. The stay was short-lived because of objections from other user groups and entrapment in the basement by 'a phalanx of angry young men' who attacked the meetings by throwing stones and bottles down the steps to the crypt at the inhabitants as they tried to leave. 

The crypt of St Mathews Church, Brixton. Objections from some users of the community centre and hostile attacks by misguided youths meant the Gay Liberationists had to find another venue for meetings and socializing. People unknown.

The shift to the Oval House Theatre proved to be less hazardous. Meetings were held in a fairly secure and friendly environment with occasional dances at the Surry Hall in nearby Stockwell to raise funds for the group. As a community-based venue offering facilities for innovative and experimental theatre, drama and modern dance workshops and a print shop it would play a fruitful role for staging productions from various gay theatre groups based in Lambeth and beyond including Brixton Faeries, Gay Sweatshop and the lesbian theatre group Hormone Imbalance. But the disco at the nearby Hamilton Arms proved to be more problematic. The landlady banned the group because the customers were hostile. Beer glasses and verbal insults were thrown at Malcolm Greatbanks and Kay, two of the SLGLF members, in the downstairs bar and a fight occurred outside the pub. 

Despite the precarious nomadic existence of those early SLGLF meetings and social events sufficient numbers of people 'came out' to form an ongoing viable group of activists. An earlier start in February 1972 with discos, dances and weekly meetings established a clear collective identity but it wasn't until 1973 that the SLGLF became active in a number of campaigns including an attempt to set up an adult education gay studies course and involvement in Icebreakers a radical gay liberation counselling organisation. The group also embarked upon a number of demonstrations. With a more militant element pushing the agenda, chiefly Bill Thornycroft, Gary de Vere, Colm Clifford and Mary Evans Young, a decision was made to proclaim, through the street presence of gay people in every town centre in South London the arrival of gay liberation(1). Moving out of the shadows of oppression roughhewn, home made placards were paraded in Streatham, Croydon, East Street market (Southwark) and Brixton. Leaflets were distributed and deliberate displays of same-sex kissing, hugging and holding hands were insisted upon with some eagerly complying and others, fearful and reluctant, approaching the task more hesitantly. Declaring homosexuality for all to see and worry over, bringing gay liberation to the masses, provoked bemusement in some quarters and hostility in others. The worst that befell the proclaimers on those first occasions were a few verbal insults and some rotten tomatoes thrown at them from stall-holders at Brixton market. The Croydon police persisted in disallowing the use of the pavement and insisted that those involved in the demonstration should stay in the gutter which was seen by some as symbolic of the position gay people were expected to occupy in society. But from this point onwards a marker had been put in place clearly denoting the beginnings of a highly visible and long-term presence of politically active gay people in South London.

The SLGLF also participated in a number of joint campaigns and social events. Besides arranging a fund raising disco for the nascent Gay Pride Week Committee at the Hanover Arms, prior to the ban, the SLGLF also engaged in activities organised by the GLF information service which had the responsibility, among many other things, of producing a newsletter to advertise and co-ordinate the activities of all the GLF groups in London. The GLF office was housed at 5 Caledonian Road, Kings Cross, the Headquarters of 'Peace News' and became an important centre for the dissemination of information and propaganda especially through Gay Switchboard. 

A lightening strike against queer-bashing bigotry by the Hendon Times was one such joint venture. These immediate responses to instances of gay oppression had come to be known as ‘zaps’ and formed the chief method of direct action protest from the unflaging energy of many gay militants. The Hendon Times had allowed a journalist to write an unintelligent, thoughtless piece about abnormal and unhealthy perverts committing indecency of the nastiest type. Some radical gay men from Brixton were only too willing to oblige the call to action and joined the demonstration outside the newspapers headquarters on 25 August 1973(2) to demand the withdrawal of this slur against gay people, to force the paper to issue a public apology and to demand a right of reply. The demonstration of about one hundred people was directed via several cottages en route to the Hendon Times. Passing by a police training centre the marchers took the opportunity to wave and blow kisses at the occupants with exhortations to ‘come out’ no doubt to the bemusement of cadets at the local police college who were given a foretaste of ‘suspicious types’ who they might one day be arresting in the near future.

SLGLF was invited to speak to various university societies, political parties, colleges and schools. In a letter dated 22 January 1973 the newly formed Imperial College Gaysoc expressed an interest. Judging by the unreturned stamp addressed envelope, David Duce's invitation was not taken up even though the topic was one close to the hearts of gay centre radicals:

"...we'd rather like one of you nice militants to come and speak to us...possibly something controversial to stir the hets. up..."

The West Lewisham Young Conservative Association wished to hold several meetings with different 'minority groups'. Heather Thompson, the Vice-Chair, offered two possible dates for one or more members of ‘your movement‘ to attend. By return letter the 8 May 1973 had been chosen and a polite and efficient response came back complete with map and directions on how to get to the Forest Hill Constitutional Club. There is also a letter confirming a meeting at St. Leonard's ward Labour Party, Streatham, meeting on 10 September 1973.

With limited archive records available these were some of the fragmentary opening salvos of campaigns and events involving the fledgling SLGLF. In the following sections it is worth considering in some detail the attempt by Malcolm Greatbanks to establish a gay studies course at adult education institutions. Also the involvement of SLGLF members in the Icebreakers collective to demonstrate more radical approaches to challenging gay oppression than the conventional avenues of lobbying the great and the good or relying on the patronizing paternalism of the helping professionals.

*South London Gay Community Centre, squatted on 22nd March 1974

(1) Gay News issue 34, report of 5 weekly 'zaps' by SLGLF

(2) Gay News issue 31, report of Hendon Times picket