December 9, 2025 • 65 mins
Ted Brown, veteran of the Gay Liberation Front and a driving force behind black gay activism in Britain, joins us to trace a path from a civil rights–inspired childhood to organising the first UK Pride, and to a battle many don’t see coming - staying out and safe in elderly care.
We start with Ted’s mother, a Jamaican activist who stood with the US civil rights movement and taught him to read prejudice as a system, not a personal failing. From there, Ted walks us into the early GLF meetings at the LSE, where liberation meant more than law reform. He shares how drag, gender-nonconformity, and the idea of sexuality as a spectrum found space in rooms that were chaotic, joyous, and deeply political. We get inside the strategy debates—CHE’s legal focus versus GLF’s cultural transformation—and the reality of racism and sexism in early gay spaces.
Ted details the founding of black queer institutions, including Europe’s pioneering Black Gay and Lesbian Centre, and the hard lessons from confronting media homophobia during the Justin Fashanu saga. His organising forced a powerful newspaper to rethink its stance, showing how targeted pressure can shift hostile narratives.
Then comes a sharp turn to the present: the quiet violence of care homes that ignore or erase LGBTQ relationships. Ted recounts fighting for his partner Noel’s dignity, the systemic misrecognition of their civil partnership, and the ease with which abuse can hide in “care”. He lays out “Not Going In The Care Closet”, a campaign ensuring no one must hide at the end of life.
This episode was hosted by Jonathan Chambers and James Alexander
Editing by Hannah Stewart
Music: Mystify created by AlterEgo
Visit our website, https://tvfh.co.uk
Follow us on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/theviewfromherepodcast
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Intro (00:01):
There were a thousand people in the hall, and I said,
My name is Chris Smith.
I'm the Labour MP for IslingtonSouth and Finsbury.
And I'm gay.
A group of us in the GayLiberation Fund hit on the idea
of holding a gay pride march tochallenge that shameful view.
Equality, and for some people inStonewall like me, equality was
(00:24):
kind of like what you got to asa starting point.
James (00:27):
Welcome to The View From Here, the podcast that explores
the lives of key people in theLGBTQ Plus movement.
I'm James, and I'm Jonathan.
We hope you enjoy the podcast.
Today we're joined by TedBrown, a veteran of the Gay
Liberation Front and a powerfulvoice for black gay activism.
Jonathan (00:47):
Today's episode explores themes of coming out,
community building, and how hisactivism continues right up to
the present day.
This episode speaks to thepower of intersectionality and
resilience in the face of racismand homophobia.
And why were you July 1st, Ted?
Ted (01:22):
Because I was one of the people to help organize the very
first gay pride march back in1972.
Jonathan (01:32):
Incredible.
Before we get to the gay pridemarch in 1972, I would love to
take you back and just ask alittle bit about your early
life.
Where were you born?
Where did you grow up?
Ted (01:43):
Yes, I was born in New York.
Jamaican parents who divorced.
They split up sadly ratheracrimoniously.
And my mother, because of heruh status as a Jamaican, which
she lost once she divorced myfather, uh, was deported and
(02:08):
came first of all to Jamaica,and then she managed to get us
to England because she felt thatthere were certain um uh
aspects of education and socialpolitics that we would not be
able to enjoy in Jamaica, butwould be able to follow up in in
(02:30):
Britain.
She had been an activistherself, um, had been on various
demonstrations with the civilrights movement, and in fact,
that was one of the reasons thatshe was deported.
On the documents that came truesaying that uh she was being
told to leave the country, uh,she was labeled as a
(02:51):
troublemaker because she hadbeen involved in the civil
rights movement.
Jonathan (02:56):
And um, was it the NAACP that she was involved in?
Ted (03:00):
Yes, yeah, yeah.
She she had actually met MartinLuther King.
Well, uh, not on a personalone-to-one basis, but she'd been
to some of his uh speeches uhin New when he came to New York
and had been very, veryimpressed.
And I think he appealed to her,uh, his movement appealed to
(03:21):
her because her background inJamaica was very conventional.
Her parents um were both headteachers of s of schools, and
Jamaica at that time, theestablishment, had very kind of
Victorian attitudes to thingslike discipline, um uh about
(03:42):
race, for example.
I mean, it was quite open inmany tim um in the 1950s for
people to be uh escalate up thesocial ladder, depending upon
how light or dark they were.
Yeah.
And she uh she objected verymuch strongly to that stuff, and
(04:03):
she found going back to Jamaicawas um quite intolerable.
Um, so she came to Englandinstead.
James (04:10):
So and so so your your early childhood, well your m
most of your childhood was was aa kind of a liberation struggle
that you saw your motherengaging in, but it was it was
racial rather than uh homophobiaor LGBT rights.
Ted (04:26):
Yeah, because I mean obviously at that stage I didn't
know um that I was that I wasgay.
That came up later because Iwas born in 1950.
So um things had changed agreat deal over the years for
for me.
James (04:44):
And you've you've helped shape things to be better for
all of us.
So we're gonna talk a lot aboutthat.
Jonathan (04:51):
And when did you end up coming out?
And for that experience, didyou have the vocabulary to
understand what you werefeeling?
Ted (05:00):
Uh well, it's not really a case of um initially it's not a
case of coming out.
It's a uh a case of being awareof who you are and how you're
feeling.
Uh when I was about 13 or 14, Ihad very close friends with
various girls in school.
I was living at the time inDeptford in South London, and
(05:26):
I'm very close to the same areanow, 50 years later.
Um but my interest in themwasn't sexual, but there were a
couple of boys in school that Ifound very attractive, and I
think I began to realize thatthat's um what was happening,
(05:47):
and I had a really revolutionaryum experience when I was when
our my school, which was SouthEast London Secondary School, on
Creek Road in Greenwich, theyhad a section separate section
for the older children, whichwas in New Cross.
(06:07):
So I used to walk from my homein uh Deprichurt Street to New
Cross to go to school, and enroute there was what was called
the popular bookstore.
I don't think they still existnow.
There may be one still in uh inum Charing Cross, but uh they
(06:28):
were a shop where you could buya book or a magazine and take
that book back to get 50%credit.
So if you bought it for apound, when you took it back,
you got 50% uh 50p credit on thenext thing that that you
bought.
And one of the things that Isaw in their window was a
(06:50):
drawing by Tom of Finland.
Oh wow, wow.
I didn't, I could actually, Ishould have bought the picture.
It wasn't actually uh sexualactivity, it was one of his
early pictures of him standingover uh uh Tom's you know,
character standing uh in uh inhis kind of um that actor um
(07:17):
Marlon Brando kind of look.
When do you do you know aboutthe film Wild One?
Mm-hmm Wild One where he'swearing jeans and on the
motorcycle and all theoverwhelmingly butch um and he
is he's standing in front of uhsomebody who's uh uh a young
(07:41):
younger man who's cleaning apair of jeans, and that's on the
cover.
But the storyline in the book,when you look through all these,
you know, like 30 pictures, isthat he's giving a lift to this
guy on bike, and the guy doessomething that causes him to
crash the bike.
And that leads to him gettingoil on his pants, so he has to
(08:09):
take his pants off, and he'sstanding just in his underwear,
and the guy in front of him iscleaning the crutch of these
jeans.
And I walked all the way homewith the one of the hardest
erections.
And that's what I knewabsolutely for sure.
James (08:31):
And you didn't I'm assuming you didn't take that
book back and get the thehalf-five deposit back.
Ted (08:35):
I I didn't get it immediately, and I uh I thought
I'd need an awful lot of nerveto actually take it.
Um, you know, I did uh it wouldbe something that if I had it
in the house, I would have tohide it.
Hide it.
Yeah, for sure.
Because this is 1963-64, whichis before um Stonewall happened.
(08:59):
That was 1969.
So homosexuality was not a s asocially popular topic to
discuss.
Um I knew it would be condemnedby everybody, except again by
my mother.
(09:19):
Because I did come out to herabout two years later.
Jonathan (09:24):
You're about sixteen.
Ted (09:26):
Yeah, fi 15, 16, yeah.
And because I had a real crushon a particular guy at school,
and I felt I had to talk tosomebody.
And I knew my mother would notcondemn me if I wasn't doing
(09:47):
anything that was harminganybody else.
Yeah.
And so she cried on myshoulder, I cried on her
shoulder because she said to me,You're going to have to deal
with the hostility people havetowards both black people and
towards homosexuals.
And I hope, you know, somehowyou you manage to cope with
that.
James (10:07):
So her response was almost uh outpouring of care and
love.
Ted (10:12):
Yeah, yeah.
She's amazing.
I mean, yeah, she was.
I mean, I think I think alsoshe was influenced by a number
of things that actually verymuch strongly influenced me,
which was um oh god, um thecivil rights movement, one of
the early marches, the biggestmarch held by the civil rights
(10:36):
group, was organized by BayardRustin.
Sorry?
Jonathan (10:40):
Bayard Rustin.
Ted (10:41):
Bayard Austin, who had a time and he was openly gay.
James (10:46):
Interesting.
So there was actually thatsomewhat interconnection between
the different civil civilrights and LGBT movements.
Exactly.
And your mum was influencedpositively by that.
Ted (10:57):
Right, too.
And also, a couple of yearslater, I mean uh she died in
1965 when I was 15.
Jonathan (11:05):
Oh my gosh.
Ted (11:06):
Uh yeah, and she was, I think, only 49, but she'd had a
really difficult time with um uhstress and all sorts of other
issues.
And um she pointed out to methat uh one of the people in the
the black power movement, theblack panthers, had been very
(11:32):
supportive of of the gaymovement and no a lot of a lot
of people know that.
And you can actually look itup, which is Huey Newton, who
was the commander in chief ofthe said um when he was talking
to a gay person who was out andprotesting about the way that
gay people were being treated,uh, he said, yeah, maybe a
(11:54):
homosexual could be morerevolutionary than eating black
people, because they get kickedin the teeth even more than we
do.
Yeah.
And yeah, you can find thatonline.
And again, that's him y beingahead of time because he was
talking about gay people in apositive or at least a not
(12:15):
condemning way, years beforethat that was acceptable.
Yeah.
Jonathan (12:21):
So you know, I think one of the interesting things
that we've experienced is that alot of the stories, and I'm
very interested, particularly II've said on this podcast before
that I'm Jamaican myself, um,and I had a very lucky and
positive experience coming outto my family.
But we've heard lots ofpositive experiences of people
coming out.
Um now, of course, that's notuniversal, and lots of people
(12:42):
still struggle to come out totheir families, and a lot of
people, when they come out totheir families, have really
negative consequences of it.
Yes.
But there are the positivestories.
There are the stories of loveand care that transcend people's
sexuality, which I think isimportant to highlight.
Was Bayard Rustin aninspiration for you as well?
(13:02):
Did you realize at that time at16 years old that there was
this figure in the Black CivilRights Movement in America who
was like you, or did that comelater?
Ted (13:11):
Uh no, she she did mention that.
Um she had not been able to goin that great march, but she
knew about um oh god, I forgothis name again.
Jonathan (13:24):
Bayard Bayard Ross.
Ted (13:24):
Bayard Russin, yeah.
Um, and that he had been fairlyopenly because he had made a
statement um and one of thedemonstrations that one day gay
people will be fighting fortheir rights in the same way
that black people were.
Because he was being treatedpretty badly by some of the
people in the civil rightsmovement.
(13:46):
Because as you you know,sexuality is considered in a
very different category to raceby many people.
Jonathan (13:55):
And so your mom died when you were sixteen.
Ted (13:58):
Yeah.
Jonathan (13:59):
How did that affect you other than being awful and
emotionally terrible?
Ted (14:04):
Uh well, I got a feeling that I had my younger brother
and younger sister to lookafter.
It was they later said thatthey were surprised at how I
handled the situation because mymother had very bad asthma.
It was an asthma attack thatled to her attack.
(14:25):
And we were living in what wascalled 10th Street in Greenwich,
which is where I'm living now.
50 years later.
Um, and there was a telephonebox, and I tried mouth-to-mouth
respiration.
I didn't know what I was doing,but I had heard about it.
Ran out to the phone box, um,made a call, we waited for the
(14:48):
ambulance to turn up and so on.
And Jackie, who at that timewas eleven.
James (14:54):
It's your younger sister.
Ted (14:55):
Yeah, and my younger brother, who was then only five,
right.
Uh, Jackie said that she wasvery proud of the fact that I
didn't just stand wringing myhands, I did try to do something
sensible about that.
And I felt really boistered byby that.
Now, all the years in betweenthere was still this feeling of
(15:19):
isolation, and it was only atthe time after uh we moved in
with a couple of uh schoolteachers.
Uh two teachers at my schoolheard about my mother's death,
and he took me in with hisfamily, me and and my younger
(15:42):
brother and sister.
Wow.
And were very supportive.
Um by then I was at Elton GreenCont Comprehensive School.
And yeah, well which was reallyvery helpful because we we had
spent a short period of time ina care home.
And although care homes thenwere quite efficient, I think
(16:05):
they were better than they arenow in some ways.
Because they relied much moreon people who were really
committed to helping childrenrather than those who were
following an obligatory socialagenda.
So we felt wanted.
We weren't in a care homebecause we are in a care home.
(16:29):
People are actually taking uson when they didn't have to.
And we were there for quitesome time.
Then I moved out when I wasabout eighteen to go and live uh
by myself.
And at the time there were alot of underground papers you
(16:50):
might have heard of.
There was uh Friends and OzMagazine.
And I met one of the editors ofum Oz Magazine around the time
that they were taken to courtbecause they had done two issues
that were really concontroversial.
(17:12):
Oz Magazine.
I think it's worth you having alook at some of their stuff.
Um they did a gay issue inwhich they asked people who were
homosexual to just express saywhat they wanted to, and they
were really open about it.
They just let them say whateverthey want.
And the school kids' issue, theschool kids' issue was the one
that they really got intotrouble with because they gave
(17:34):
editorial powers to 15 and16-year-olds, and they said, you
print, you say whatever youreally want.
Those kids is somethingoutrageous.
I mean, you you wouldn'tbelieve I don't know if you can
say this on the podcast, youmight have to cut it out.
Um, one of the things, one ofthe kids, 16 or 70 years, 17
(17:58):
years old, was a very skilledartist, and he did a uh parody
of Rupert Baer.
Oh my god in the enormousdirection having sex with
another popular two kids umcharacter.
(18:19):
I can't remember this was thatand uh and a couple of pictures,
you know, one of them involveshim pressing his fingers on a
vagina to say, is this where itgoes?
I mean, Oz just the Oz had beenuh thrown out of Australia,
(18:42):
that's where they originallycame from, that's right there.
And um I found out that theJim, well, I've forgotten his,
I'll get his second name, wasopenly gay.
And I met with him, um, didn'thave sex with him, but I was
just amazed that they were soopen.
(19:02):
And for the first time I metpeople who were prepared to let
young people say exactly whatthey wanted, yeah, with no
restrictions.
So, of course, they wound up incourt, and it was an enormous
um debate and controversy.
Um, but they got funding frompeople like the Stones.
(19:24):
Wow, okay.
Wow.
I'm trying to think somebodyelse that was favorable.
I think it was Led Zeppelin orBob Delin people from States,
you know, you're such a big uhbig issue.
Um and I think ours it I thinkit was in ours that I read there
(19:45):
was going to be a form theforming a group for homosexuals
to object to the way that gaypeople were being treated.
And I uh tootled along to thethe l LSC, London School of
Economics.
But I wasn't there for the veryfirst meeting.
(20:07):
Right.
Right.
And it was only then that Iheard about Stonewall.
Stonewall happened two or threeyears ago.
James (20:15):
And it wasn't widely reported.
Ted (20:16):
No, it wasn't, no.
No.
James (20:18):
Wow.
Ted (20:18):
And in fact I don't think um I I'm still trying to looking
it up, but I don't think ourfirst Pride March was mentioned
in many of the papers either.
A very effective way.
I mean I had this debate with alot of people uh uh both as a
black person and as a gay personwhether if society wants to
(20:39):
suppress somebody is it moreeffective for them to shout and
shut you down or more effectivefor them to it completely ignore
you.
Ignore you and silence you yeahI think being ignored is much
more effective because thenthere was there's no debate.
James (20:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah.
James (20:58):
But it's particularly back in the 70s when when when
media the media landscape was sodifferent to how it is now you
don't have social media otherwhat was printed in the
mainstream newspapers was whatwe had to learn about.
Ted (21:12):
Mm-hmm Yeah but that's that what you got.
And so I went to the thirdsecond or third meeting at the
LSC and I think somewhere Ithink some of the stuff that
I've uh given you now has metalking about what it felt like
to be in a room full of otherhomosexual people who were
(21:33):
actually angry about the waythat we were being treated and
were planning to do somethingabout it.
So I went to their meetings andI think they were fortnightly
yeah and there were so manypeople meeting at the LSE that
we actually got thrown out and Idon't think it was homophobia.
I think it was just so manyyeah and also this was a group
(21:58):
of people who were coming outfor the very first time so
they'd be absolutely outrageousand doing things that they'd
never wanted you know there werestudents from the LSE who were
coming to the meetings in drag.
Oh wow wow you know becausethey said I've always wanted to
be and in fact I think a lot ofwhat were then called
transvestites were actuallytransgender people but
(22:22):
transgender wasn't a very availavailable or popular issue in
those days there only um there'sthat famous transgender yes yes
uh who was outed I think by theDaily Mirror because she was
there was no question that shewas a woman you wouldn't look at
(22:43):
her and think this is you knowthe result of an operation or
anything like that.
And I think somebody at theDaily Mirror or something after
they did an article called Howto Spot a Homo um a possible
homo so how did that make youfeel when you read and saw
articles like that?
(23:03):
Uh did it make you want tofight no I just translated it
from how I felt about um the wayI'd been reading about black
people for years.
It wasn't anything new new forme.
And in fact I also think thatthe reason I didn't feel shame
about being gay was because Ididn't feel shame about being
(23:27):
black.
And I recognized the similarhostility and the similar
prejudices and realized that itthe problem wasn't me.
The problem was in fact it'sbeen a m one of my real um
issues for a very long timeabout our language and the way
that we talk about things Inever say so and so got abused
(23:52):
because he's gay or because he'sblack and I always say so and
so got abused because thosepeople are prejudiced or those
people are racist.
Because the first sentenceleaves the abusers out.
Yeah they're not mentioned andit also implies grammatically
(24:14):
that the problem is with thisperson.
They're being abused becausethey're black.
Is there being black is is thecause of the problem rather than
the yeah um and uh that'salways been um uh one of the
things I've been talking aboutfor some time and so we moved to
Middle earth which is in CoventGarden Covent Garden Yeah yeah
(24:36):
and in fact I think that's oneof the first occasions on which
I became aware of Net Netty.
Yeah oh who we meant whoalready spoken to yeah did she
did she mention because uh I wastalking about the similarity
between being abused as a blackperson and being abused as and
(24:56):
uh she said that she came inwhile I was halfway through this
speech and she was quite umimpressed by it.
And that's where where yeah wewe first met.
James (25:09):
Netty very much talked about being a woman in the
burgeoning LGBT equalitymovement.
Yes and I guess her reflectionsof that were that it was it was
difficult.
You know it was a very maledominated but I suppose it was
also very white male dominatedum environment.
And what what were yourexperiences as a black man
coming into the into thatmovement?
Ted (25:30):
Well I it's it's what I expected actually I knew that
there was going to be uh aproblem most of the people in
the Gay Liberation Frontinitially were middle class
white men right because they'rethe ones who could afford to do
it.
They you know they could g giveup their jobs for a day or
(25:53):
whatever it involved.
Traveling in those days wasmuch more expensive per yeah out
of your income.
The ability to write about it,I mean the editor of if you're
writing a magazine, you're notworking class.
Yeah of course you know so thethe I was aware of that.
(26:14):
And also there is the uh theissue that no one should ignore
which is that there was no lawagainst being a lesbian.
The law was made mainly aboutkeeping men in line as men.
And I I was for a long time Iwas the only black person there
(26:35):
and there were advantages anddisadvantages to that with s
with with some people again Ithink I can manage it.
But occasionally I'd meetsomebody who would sidle up to
me and um find me attractivebecause they were convinced as a
black man I had to pick a cock.
(26:57):
You know because you know thesethese rumors and and myths and
they permeate all sorts of uhclasses and so on.
And it's you know and Iexpected it.
I knew that that that thatwould happen or I even met
(27:19):
people who occasionally I meanthis not all the time it's only
a few people but also I'verealized that for every person
who is actually saying thatthere would be at least two
people who felt that way buthadn't said it.
James (27:32):
Right.
Ted (27:33):
Yeah but there were also people who were were aware they
would say you know I I betyou're going through a bit of a
difficult as a black person herebecause there's no there's no
space.
Yeah uh we don't allocate spacefor for you and uh the thing
about I do remember on a coupleof occasions where people were
(27:55):
saying they didn't really wantthere to be women at the
meetings because women had no nono problem because because of
the law.
James (28:08):
And that's the so that comes on to an interesting part
which is the this this thecampaign for oversexual equality
talked about and very was veryfocused on law change, legal
change.
Yes.
Whereas GLF was seemingly morefocused on societal change,
liberation cultural change.
What side of that did you fallon and why did you become part
(28:29):
of GLF not CHE or were you wereyou still pushing for legal
change as well as for for forcultural liberation?
Ted (28:36):
Well yeah I was much more interested on the um the social
the social change because that'swhere it actually impacted us.
For a lot of people they theydid not know what the law
actually said.
Yeah what they did know wasthat they couldn't come out to
their families.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah.
Ted (28:57):
Or what they all of us who were suspected of being gay had
certainly as men had been umabused at school by other kids
for example whereas I'm notaware that girls who were not
feminine were being teased asbeing lesbian.
James (29:20):
But still had the same challenges of coming out to
their parents and and had uhchildren that were taken away
and you know and and so otherhuge challenges that are awful.
Ted (29:32):
Yeah.
James (29:32):
And so the social challenges were just even if it
wasn't codified in law thesocial challenges were just as
challenging.
Ted (29:40):
But I did do some we did do some research on that and
apparently they did try toinsert anti-lesbian laws uh via
Queen Victoria and her replyapparently consisted of two main
arguments one is that no threeone that women wouldn't do that
(30:02):
kind of stuff secondly ifthere's no penis around it's not
sex.
Ah interesting and becauseapparently she was quite a
sexual person.
She very much loved what was itwhat was her Albert I mean they
had dozens of children.
And I mean and they made it bigI do even remember reading
(30:26):
about her in terms of thatbecause somebody in the Gay
Liberation Front argued that shehad a very close relationship
with some of the handmaidens orwhatever they call them in in
the palace and that she may havehad some kind of lesbian
relationship with one or two ofthese people but it wouldn't be
(30:49):
really recognized in the sameway that some people don't
consider that I mean look atstraight porn straight male porn
sometimes involves watching twowomen having sex yeah with each
other but they're not lookingat it as two lesbians.
Yeah you know and again that'sa bit of the if there's no penis
(31:15):
involved it's not really sexand also women don't really it's
not really sex in that waybecause women are more romantic
or sensitive or all sorts ofthings.
Yeah.
Did the JF talk or think aboutthese philosophical concepts
around sex yeah I think it was alot yeah a lot of arguments
about um the the way we're uhbehaving I mean I didn't bring I
(31:40):
think I may have on my phone umI don't know how to get some of
the stuff that I have on mylaptop onto my phone but we the
first marches um had a lot ofpeople there's a picture of me
being kissed by somebody in mwhat might be drag, but it's not
(32:01):
drag in the sense of lots ofmakeup wearing women's clothes
and you're not absolutely surewhether it is male or female and
they were in involved andnobody was critical or um
offended about them.
I mean GLF was surprisinglyopen about the different types
(32:25):
and shades of sexuality becauseone of their arguments was that
sexuality is on a spectrum.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Right.
Ted (32:34):
Yeah you don't have to be male John John Wayne Butch stuff
or Marilyn Monroe feminine.
James (32:43):
Yep.
Ted (32:43):
Yeah there's a whole range in between so um yeah I think GF
was really ahead of time.
James (32:50):
I was gonna say that's that is extremely ahead of time
I think even at that pointthinking about spectrums of both
sexuality and gender andthere's there's often a sort of
sense that early um gay rightsmovements were very much focused
on gay men and and quite binaryin terms of gay not anything
(33:11):
else men not anything else andand that that being the focus
but GLF was such a broader moreprogressive thinking
organization.
Ted (33:21):
Yeah.
And and I I really say it'sreally important that we weren't
an organization.
James (33:27):
Well of course yes tell us about that.
Ted (33:29):
Because yeah because the idea with GLF we had these
things did they mention thinkthink ins to you mentioned think
inside about thinking fromNetty but I'd love to hear your
Yeah it was really uh theimportant that anyone should be
listened to oh did I include umum I'd moved actually I moved a
(33:52):
lot two years ago from the howour house after my partner died
after Noel died and uh someitems that are missing I don't
know what's happened to them instorage one is the double pink
pink triangle I don't know if Ihaven't sent you a photograph of
that I will send you aphotograph it's a double pink
(34:12):
triangle the large triangle wasfor GLF as a whole and the small
triangle was for the youthgroup because uh at the time the
law had changed but no sex uhfor gay men under the age of 21
yeah and I do I will I will sendyou a photograph of me um at
(34:35):
the first march with the youthcontingent who allowed me to
march because I'd been involvedwith them but at the time I was
actually 22.
James (34:45):
Oh right and so tell us about that youth contingent
march because that was the yearbefore the pro the first Pride
March is that right uh no no nono the we had a separate march
we started the march and theleading the march was the youth
group ah okay yeah saying youknow um equality you know if you
(35:10):
have uh for heterosexuals umfreedom of uh sex sexual freedom
was available at 16 it shouldbe for homosexuals as well yeah
so I wish I had bought thatphotography actually it might
actually have it there's there'san amazing array of literature
that you brought with you topaint painting a picture we've
got a table a table here coveredin books yeah leaflets we
(35:34):
recently had um I think it'slast year we put this blue
plaque up there the blackthere's an amazing picture of a
blue plaque with a with arainbow rounder which is
incredible I loved it um and ittalks about the the black gay
and lesbian centre which was setup from 92 to 95 Europe's
groundbreaking first supportcentre for black queer
communities and you you wereheavily involved in this yes
(35:55):
yeah because you know as I saidI think for about two years I
was the only person in the GayLiberation Front and I think
also it gives you an idea of theway society is structured
because even if you hadn't saidthat to me I would have known
that the first people to startfighting about gay rights would
(36:18):
be middle class white menbecause they they have all the
they have the assets the moneythey have the press the media
and so on and so forth.
Ted (36:27):
And that applies in every every other situation as well
that the the social positionthat they have on in terms of
race and class feeds into theiractions and their rights and
their powers.
Jonathan (36:44):
And the other I'm hesitant to call it an
organization in case it wasn'tbut the other organization you
were a part of well you werefoundational in was black black
lesbians and gays against mediacan you tell us a bit about that
um and specifically aboutJustin Fanshu as well?
Ted (37:02):
Uh yeah well that was specifically about trying to um
help black people um who werealready dealing with the hit the
issue of the racism and sayingfighting on uh the sexual rights
is also helping on the raceissue as well because for
(37:23):
instance my relationship mypartner was was white right and
we both had to fight racism fromboth the black community and
the white community they came inin different ways you know um
some of them really hurtful alot of them I didn't expect but
the ones that we were hurtfulbecause of my identity as a
(37:47):
black person were the blackpeople who assumed that Noel was
the boss in our relationshipbecause he's white.
Oh right and I must you know asa black person to be working
with a white person I mustactually be like a good servant
or something.
Wow and to realise that thatbut but that to me is a an
(38:09):
element of the the Jamaicanattitude like I was saying
earlier you know it's still trueisn't it do you remember um
what was that beauty contestwhere that Miss Jamaica was
bright red hair and bonds.
Jonathan (38:25):
Oh yeah I I think it was a it might have been a Miss
World or um a Miss Universe butI mean that the two the two Miss
Jamaicas who have won MissWorld have been very light
skinned.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Yeah.
Jonathan (38:37):
You had Cindy Breakspear in 1979 I think
although don't quote me on thedate who was very light skinned
I mean my sort of complexion andthen you had Lisa Hanna um in
the late 90s.
I don't know why I know thisbut who was also very light
skinned and who's now a senatorin the Jamaican Parliament.
So yeah though it still verymuch exists.
Ted (38:58):
I think you know it because deep in all of us is an
understanding or a realizationof what is happening.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah.
Ted (39:07):
Sometimes we don't have to put it in words but we all know
that this this stuff ishappening and there are
different ways ways of dealingwith it.
But um yeah and can you tell usthe story about Justin
Fanschuck well Justin Fashnoucame out uh did I keep all the
(39:27):
pictures um yeah he came out asuh gay because actually he was
um being threatened by the Sunnewspaper that they were going
to expose him as being gay.
James (39:41):
Because he was a very very well known footballer at
the time.
Ted (39:44):
Yeah very popular also uh were the first black footballer
to work be worth a million orsomething like that something
really remarkable and because hewas also very good as a
footballer and they were goingto expose him and he thought
it's better for me To come outthan for them, you know, to be
exposed as like somethingshameful.
(40:06):
And so he did.
And unfortunately, the voicenewspaper interviewed his
brother and did headlines aboutmy brother is an outcast.
He's brought shame on thefamily, blah, blah, blah.
I mean, some of the stuff thatthey were writing was like, you
(40:32):
know, straight white newspapershadn't done that kind of
negative stuff for ages.
And so we organized thisboycott, the voice newspaper.
We had interviews with them.
But uh by this time, I was nowliving in uh Brick Brixton with
(40:53):
Noah, and the offices of thevoice newspaper at the junction
of Raylton Road and CoultHarbour Lane.
So we could actually walkthere.
James (41:02):
So you're just down the road.
Ted (41:03):
Yeah, so I went there and we debated with them.
And I think I've I've includedwith you um a a letter that we
had from them after, I think,was it nine weeks?
The whole of NALGO boycottedthe voice newspaper.
And they finally agreed to stopbeing um so madly homophobic.
(41:26):
Because the things that upsetum Justin, he was expecting a
lot of criticism from white thewhite community, but it really
hurt him the way the voicenewspaper targeted the black k
community against him becausethey his brother said Justin has
(41:49):
brought shame on our family,whereas various editorials in
the voice newspaper were sayinghe has brought shame on black
people in general.
Wow.
Which is really you know and hehe had very much dependent upon
(42:09):
the support of of the blackcommunity as a as a footballer.
He was very proud of hisachievements.
Jonathan (42:16):
And we referred to him in the past tense because
unfortunately he tragicallyended his own life.
Ted (42:22):
Yes.
And that was quite complicatedas well, you know.
You know, he went to the Statesand he was accused by some
17-year-old of sexual assault.
So he came back to London andlocked himself in the garage and
um turned on the engine.
And uh, yeah.
(42:42):
Even though I had a civilpartnership with Noah in 2017,
because I realized he wasgetting dementia, and I needed
to make sure that I had aresponsibility as a carer.
And the the council and variousother people did not recognize
(43:08):
our relationship.
And when he was first movedinto this care home, I had
correspondence with one of thepeople who was actually involved
in his care specifically.
She'd met me, she'd met Noah,who's a white, yeah.
And I had protested at themthat Noah had been in the care
(43:32):
home for two weeks and hadn'thad an assessment.
He should have had a when youmove into account, they assess
you to try and avoid things likeum giving you the wrong kind of
food if you've got an allergyand so on and so forth.
So I wrote to them sayingwhat's happening with this
assessment, and they wrote backuh Can I read this?
Jonathan (43:54):
Yeah.
Um so it the it it comes back,and the the the response was
following our telephoneconversation, I can confirm that
an assessment of health needswill be carried out for your
father, John Glynn, thisafternoon at 2 p.m.
This will be carried out by ournurse.
Ted (44:14):
Yeah.
Jonathan (44:15):
So they thought he was your father.
Ted (44:18):
Yeah.
Well, they didn't think that hewas my father.
Uh that that's one of thethings I I made an issue of.
They did not want to recognizethat he was my partner.
They didn't want to want torecognize uh gay gay people as a
relationship.
James (44:35):
And the important thing about this is this email is do
is dated um January 2019.
Ted (44:41):
Yeah.
James (44:41):
This is not distant party as a this is right up to to to
now.
Ted (44:48):
Right.
So Noel at the time was uh Iwas 69.
69, he was 75, and we had acivil partnership.
When he went into the carehome, we gave him all the
documents about our civilpartnership, about you know, the
(45:08):
care that I had been givinghim, and they wrote, you know,
he's white, he's seven yearsolder than me, they have our
details, and he's not my father.
But they still insisted ondoing that.
So we then um the follow-up tothat has been we got in touch
(45:30):
with the care quality commissionabout the treatment of lesbian
and gay people, and they came upwith this, which is actually
quite good.
So how much it's uh this is aleaflet from the cabin.
During the visit by Ted andJulia in May 2016, that was
before that this.
And it's absolute excellent,right, about how gay people
(45:55):
should be treated and recognizedand so on and so forth.
And then we went eight yearslater to this production in
which no gay people, no gaynessis not mentioned.
Jonathan (46:08):
And Ted is showing us a magazine of a care home
magazine for October 21.
Ted (46:12):
It takes absolutely no acknowledgement whatsoever.
It's as though we haven't met.
I mean, there's l they got LizTruss's uh right.
James (46:22):
Tells you what you need to know.
Ted (46:24):
Um so yeah, so you're you're right.
There's it stuff hasn't changedso much.
They have changed the way thatthey speak.
They sound much moreunderstanding, but if I was uh
going into a career now, I wouldnot let them know that I was
gay.
Jonathan (46:45):
That's a shocking thing.
Ted (46:48):
Yeah.
Why are we calling theorganization um not going in not
going in the care closer?
That's what we are setting up.
We expect it to be have online.
Initially, it's going to be awebsite for people who are
concerned that they are goinginto a care home or somebody
that they know is going into acare home, and to give them both
(47:09):
legal and social advice aboutwho to go to.
Because, for instance, when Isued the care home, I actually
had a lot of difficulty findingsolicitors who could handle it
because you actually need toknow about social care policies
and and the legal aspects of soon and so forth.
(47:31):
Most people would not be ableto protect their partners if
they were being homophobicallyabused in a care home now.
Jonathan (47:39):
Wow.
And I think that we've that Imean, James, and I'm a little
bit older than James by a fewyears, which he reminds me of
regularly.
Um but we're both in ourforties, and there's a
generation younger than us thatwe're hoping we'll listen to
this.
But there's a generation that'solder than us who are who are
going into care homes and whoearlier you said to me their
(48:00):
colleagues were weren't the mostaccepting of Belgique people,
and now they're gonna findthemselves confronted with these
same people in the care homes.
Ted (48:10):
Yeah.
And I mean I summed it up.
One of the slogans that we'reusing for uh the campaign not
going in the care home is theperson who beat you up last
night is bringing you breakfastin the morning because it's a
one-to-one.
I did a little article aboutsome LGBT people in care homes
(48:32):
that I saw what was happening,and you'd be surprised how easy
it is, and how often a carer canjust accidentally uh kick your
ankle as they're preparing yourmeal or changing your bed or
whatever it is, or oops, did Ispill tea on your lap again?
James (48:53):
Yeah, you are extremely vulnerable in that.
Ted (48:56):
Yeah.
And it's a one-to-one.
They're in a room with you'rein a room with this person,
there's no other witnesses.
They can do what they want.
Jonathan (49:05):
And of course, there are care homes that are
positive, that will treateveryone with respect and care
and dignity, but we need to makesure that all of them.
All of them are absolutely makean issue.
James (49:17):
And so what what are the core campaign issues that you're
that you're calling for?
Because you know, you're caughtfrom a not being in the care
closet.
I think it's uh it's a it's awonderful name for the campaign
because it's not going in thecare closet.
Ted (49:30):
Yeah, not going in the care case.
James (49:32):
Because people are are live their whole lives as openly
uh LGBTQ people and then haveto change that at that very end
of life moment when you're mostvulnerable.
Ted (49:44):
Yeah, well, that's what we are finding, because I do have
some friends who are in in acare home, and they I went to
visit them and they asked me,please don't let anybody know
here that uh that I'm gaybecause you know.
I mean it it's uh it's part ofit is is structural.
(50:05):
For example, they have these uhNoah was involved when they
have these entertainmentevenings.
You know, sometimes a goodheart care home will have
evenings where they show filmsor whatever, but they're always
heterosexual films, yeah?
Or uh games like Spin theBottle.
Do you know Spin the Bottle?
(50:28):
Right, where inevitably you'replaced opposite a woman.
Right.
Jonathan (50:33):
If you're a gay male or whatever, yeah.
I definitely that said, if I'min a care home, want there to be
spin the bottle.
I really want there to be spinthe bottle, but for equal
opportunity spin the bottle.
Ted (50:46):
Yeah.
Um so I mean uh six uh sevenyears later they came out with
this, and I actually went backwith them with uh Julia who made
the film, Ted and Noel.
James (50:58):
Did you say you hadn't seen it?
I haven't seen it, but tell usabout the film.
Ted (51:01):
Uh yeah, it was just when I was beginning to um uh raise
issues about what was happeningto Noel in the care home, and
they uh came came to film me andto talk about some of the
issues.
Uh, but I had to be fairlyrestrained because Noel was
still in the care home.
That's the other thing that youhave to be careful.
(51:22):
If you are you you have apartner who's in a care home and
you think they're beinghomophobically abused, you have
to be very careful about itbecause you don't know whether
the person managing the home islike Margaret Thatcher in her
section 28 days, yeah, or justone of the one of the staff.
(51:45):
So you have a staff, say 50people, right?
You only need three or four ofthem to be raging home
approaches to make their lifepeople's lives.
And you need to have rulesspecifically saying that you
cannot abuse or insult people onthe basis of their sexuality,
(52:05):
and that this is, you know,being lesbian or gay is
acceptable and desirable and allthe rest of it.
Because otherwise you're justleaving it to a bunch of people,
many of whom are employingpeople.
A lot of the care homes, theyget cheap stuff because they're
employing people from countrieswhere it's still illegal to be
gay.
James (52:25):
So there's actually a big cultural issue in in in the
very makeup of the stuff in somecircumstances.
Ted (52:32):
Exactly, yeah, yeah.
And uh the other thing, ofcourse, is that this has never
been raised with the care homesbefore.
You know?
Because one of the weaknessesof the Gay Liberation Front, and
I don't blame them, but it's,you know, I was involved as
well, is that it was it was ayoung movement.
It was full involved youngpeople, it was about, you know,
(52:56):
uh we want to have sex withoutbeing condemned and so on.
If you were over 40, forget it.
No, uh, that's a bit extreme,but um you know, you know what I
mean, you know.
Nobody was thinking about carehomes then.
Nobody was thinking about umdisabled people.
James (53:16):
Um but also you're the first generation to have been
openly gay throughout most ofyour adult lives, and now you're
getting to the stage where thatgeneration is is is cannot hold
the community in care homes.
Ted (53:28):
Yeah, exactly.
James (53:29):
So I just want to kind of go back and just because you
you got an award from LambethCouncil for for for your work on
this, um, which you've beenproudly showing us the award on
your phone, it's fantastic.
But but it was ultimately itwas Lambeth Council that you
actually were suing um for forfor this.
Tell us about tell us about thethe legal side of this.
Ted (53:49):
Well, yes, they just realized I actually wanted to
make sure the the the homeitself was sued because I wanted
this the staff and themanagement there to recognize
that this was an issue.
Yeah.
But the fact that it wasactually allocated to Lambeth
meant that the home just keptdoing what it did.
(54:11):
You know, it's none of ourbusiness.
It really doesn't matter.
They were suing Lambeth,basically, and I think the
£30,000 that we got was smallcompared to what would have
happened to Noel.
Because I was I've got thevideo somewhere here of me
discovering the hole in the backof his hand where they stubbed
(54:32):
out cigarettes on the back ofhis hand.
Um various other behaviors.
James (54:40):
And and tragically, the the case took so long that Noel
was no longer with us when thewhen the settlement came through
either.
Ted (54:46):
Well, the money the money came through.
I'm trying to think of there'ssomething similar that uh is
widely known where the the theliability has been quite clear.
Oh yeah, the post office.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
Yep.
Ted (55:02):
Those people have been waiting ten years and more for
money that they were entitledto.
It's not this still a debateabout whether they should be
getting compensation.
They said ten years ago youshould get this compensation.
Nothing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know?
Jonathan (55:20):
And I you know, I I I'm gonna struggle to form this
question.
Uh but you were you were beingan activist, which you've been
throughout your life, at a timewhen you were also going through
tremendous grief because youwere losing your partner.
Ted (55:35):
Yeah.
Jonathan (55:36):
How did you do that?
Because I'm hoping that therewill be people here who listen
to your story and think, I wantto be a troublemaker like your
mom, like you.
But it requires resilience, itrequires grit.
And I wonder how you managed tobring all of that to bear while
you were going through thisgrief.
Ted (55:56):
Well, I think it's the recognition of other people.
If you care for somebody andthey're being badly treated, I
don't think you have an awfullot of difficulty in trying to
fight for them.
No, I agree.
It's a different issue if it'sif it's uh p political or
(56:17):
social, if you're can you knowcampaigning for gay people in
theory.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But if it's somebody that youknow who has been punched in the
face or kicked them out orsomething, but what uh the
really difficulty is aboutstrategy is about me uh knowing
(56:38):
and suspecting one or two peoplein particular of abusing Noel
and having to be quiet about itand talk to them politely
because every time I left afterwhen I went to visit him, I
thought, well, he's the one whohas to deal with that.
(56:59):
I can't antagonize thesepeople.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jonathan (57:08):
I'm conscious that we're kind of just over an hour,
but there's one question thatwe've asked everyone, and it's
about messaging, right?
You know, we're hoping thatpeople you know, we're in a
state today where we're startingto see rights being rolled
back, particularly for transpeople.
Um and you know, we've we'reseeing the rise in some cases of
(57:31):
the far right.
And I'm wondering what messagesactivists of your generation
have for the activists of today.
Ted (57:40):
Yes, I well well, I would say um don't let it um get you
down because um we've beenthrough worse.
Yeah.
It's only it's less than 200years that black people were
slaves.
unknown (57:56):
Yeah.
Ted (57:58):
And we fought back again.
It didn't happen because thewhite people suddenly decided
that they were gonna stop, theywere dealing with uh, you know,
insurgent black riots anddemonstrations, and the civil
rights movement was uh fightingin a situation where it was
actually illegal for uh blackpeople to actually walk on the
(58:20):
street in some place, in someplace in the in the south, if a
white person was walking alongthe pav pavement and a black
person was walking up, the blackperson would literally have to
get and walk into the the thestreet, um, you know, the the
traffic to let the white personwalk past.
(58:42):
And if they didn't, they couldget arrested or fined.
That's how bad things were.
And that was when I was 14 whenthat law uh those laws were
changed in 1964.
Jonathan (58:54):
Wow, so within living memory.
Ted (58:55):
Within living yeah.
That's some of the the theworst of these things, yeah.
Um but unfortunately, as you asyou say, I think uh well
actually I'm not quite sure.
But I'm actually shocked atAmerica at what Trump is getting
away with because I know thathe he got in the presidency by
(59:20):
appealing to the worst aspectsof a of America.
It's racism, it's sexism, um uhc uh financial greed and so on.
But I didn't think he would getto the stage of being able to
deport people who hadn't beencharged with anything, who are
not guilty of anything, to othercountries, and hardly anyone's
(59:46):
doing anything about it.
James (59:49):
It definitely feels as though for everybody that's been
an activist or that thinks wwonders whether they should be
an activist, the time the answernow is definitely.
We need people to continue topush to continue because rights
can be eroded as much as theycan be granted.
Ted (01:00:08):
Exactly.
And um I'm trying to get intouch with the LGB alliance.
Do you know them at all?
They're the people who want toremove trans people from the
LGBT.
They don't want to and theythey're they don't realize that
their behavior is contributingto the behavior of people like
(01:00:30):
Trump.
Because he's going for thetrans people first, because
they're they're the ones who aremost easily criticized by
straight society, and alsocriticized by some members of
the uh the LGB society.
But they'll go for us, uhstraightforward gay gay men and
(01:00:50):
women, if they can get away withit.
Because uh Trump is justtesting the water all the time.
What c what can he get awaywith?
And apparently he can get awaywith anything.
I mean, so some of the stuff Imean I thought he was I knew how
bad he was, but I actuallythought he would be stopped by
(01:01:13):
now, even by the Republicans.
I thought some of them weregonna say, no, no, this is not
on, you can't have someone beingthrown into prison because
Trump says they should.
And apparently you can.
Jonathan (01:01:28):
And if you were going to speak to a young UK activist,
um who maybe wasn't, you know,thought, okay, America's too big
of a challenge for me to takeon.
But a young UK activist here,what should they do?
What should people be doing nowto make sure that we don't get
(01:01:48):
there?
Ted (01:01:49):
Oh, I would say stand up for what you believe is right.
Um align yourself as closely asyou can to the people that you
know would be most vulnerable.
If you know other trans people,uh gay people, people subject
to racial abuse, uh to ho umreligious uh denigrations, um
(01:02:15):
back them up.
Let them know that you want tosupport them.
And as I said, the reallyimportant thing is to recognise
that this is much less than someof the stuff that we have
overcome to get where we arenow.
Because we take for grantedstuff that for 500 years was
just not not possible, you know.
(01:02:37):
Um was it 1923?
I think women got the vote.
unknown (01:02:43):
Yeah.
Ted (01:02:43):
102 102 years ago.
And they actually had to goand, you know, what's that
woman, I've forgotten her namenow, who threw herself
underneath one of the king'shorses.
Oh, um Davis.
Yeah.
As part of the campaign to getthe publicity and say, you know,
we we want so for the last howmany thousand years in Britain,
(01:03:08):
women had no vote.
Or um the injustice of of classin this system.
I only recently found out thatwhen Anne Boleyn was being
challenged by um Henry VIII, shewasn't allowed uh uh solicitors
(01:03:29):
or lawyers.
James (01:03:30):
Really?
Ted (01:03:31):
I did not know.
I thought I thought, bye, he'svery powerful, he's brought
accusations against her, andshe's you know, the case that
she has mounted uh didn't standup, or he just ran over it.
But she wasn't allowed.
I mean, what is that?
James (01:03:49):
Yeah, the corruption of power.
Ted (01:03:52):
Yeah.
Yeah.
James (01:03:55):
And so yes.
And the things people will doto stay in power, yeah, and the
way that they'll push downminorities to stay in power.
Exactly.
It's a story of the ages thatdoesn't go away, and we might
feel that things are good at onepoint, and people would be very
happy to come in and take awayour rights.
Ted (01:04:13):
Yeah.
I mean, uh to anybody who's abit concerned about these
things, I would say um thesepeople will only get away with
what they're trying to get awaywith if we say we can't fight
back.
Jonathan (01:04:28):
Yeah.
And with that, I'm gonna saythank you so much.
It's been such a pleasure totalk to you.
It's been brilliant.
James (01:04:35):
Thank you so much.
And thank you for your lifetimeof activism, of being a
troublemaker of your mom.
Yeah, yeah.
Jonathan (01:04:48):
Thank you for listening to the view from here.
Of course, there's a lot ofpolitics in any movement, but
the political views you've heardacross the series don't
necessarily reflect the views ofthe podcast.
James (01:04:59):
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider
subscribing and leaving areview, as well as sharing the
word on social media.
Join us next time for morepersonal stories from the front
lines of LGBTQ history.
There were a thousand people in the hall, and I said,
My name is Chris Smith.
I'm the Labour MP for IslingtonSouth and Finsbury.
And I'm gay.
A group of us in the GayLiberation Fund hit on the idea
of holding a gay pride march tochallenge that shameful view.
Equality, and for some people inStonewall like me, equality was
(00:24):
kind of like what you got to asa starting point.
James (00:27):
Welcome to The View From Here, the podcast that explores
the lives of key people in theLGBTQ Plus movement.
I'm James, and I'm Jonathan.
We hope you enjoy the podcast.
Today we're joined by TedBrown, a veteran of the Gay
Liberation Front and a powerfulvoice for black gay activism.
Jonathan (00:47):
Today's episode explores themes of coming out,
community building, and how hisactivism continues right up to
the present day.
This episode speaks to thepower of intersectionality and
resilience in the face of racismand homophobia.
And why were you July 1st, Ted?
Ted (01:22):
Because I was one of the people to help organize the very
first gay pride march back in1972.
Jonathan (01:32):
Incredible.
Before we get to the gay pridemarch in 1972, I would love to
take you back and just ask alittle bit about your early
life.
Where were you born?
Where did you grow up?
Ted (01:43):
Yes, I was born in New York.
Jamaican parents who divorced.
They split up sadly ratheracrimoniously.
And my mother, because of heruh status as a Jamaican, which
she lost once she divorced myfather, uh, was deported and
(02:08):
came first of all to Jamaica,and then she managed to get us
to England because she felt thatthere were certain um uh
aspects of education and socialpolitics that we would not be
able to enjoy in Jamaica, butwould be able to follow up in in
(02:30):
Britain.
She had been an activistherself, um, had been on various
demonstrations with the civilrights movement, and in fact,
that was one of the reasons thatshe was deported.
On the documents that came truesaying that uh she was being
told to leave the country, uh,she was labeled as a
(02:51):
troublemaker because she hadbeen involved in the civil
rights movement.
Jonathan (02:56):
And um, was it the NAACP that she was involved in?
Ted (03:00):
Yes, yeah, yeah.
She she had actually met MartinLuther King.
Well, uh, not on a personalone-to-one basis, but she'd been
to some of his uh speeches uhin New when he came to New York
and had been very, veryimpressed.
And I think he appealed to her,uh, his movement appealed to
(03:21):
her because her background inJamaica was very conventional.
Her parents um were both headteachers of s of schools, and
Jamaica at that time, theestablishment, had very kind of
Victorian attitudes to thingslike discipline, um uh about
(03:42):
race, for example.
I mean, it was quite open inmany tim um in the 1950s for
people to be uh escalate up thesocial ladder, depending upon
how light or dark they were.
Yeah.
And she uh she objected verymuch strongly to that stuff, and
(04:03):
she found going back to Jamaicawas um quite intolerable.
Um, so she came to Englandinstead.
James (04:10):
So and so so your your early childhood, well your m
most of your childhood was was aa kind of a liberation struggle
that you saw your motherengaging in, but it was it was
racial rather than uh homophobiaor LGBT rights.
Ted (04:26):
Yeah, because I mean obviously at that stage I didn't
know um that I was that I wasgay.
That came up later because Iwas born in 1950.
So um things had changed agreat deal over the years for
for me.
James (04:44):
And you've you've helped shape things to be better for
all of us.
So we're gonna talk a lot aboutthat.
Jonathan (04:51):
And when did you end up coming out?
And for that experience, didyou have the vocabulary to
understand what you werefeeling?
Ted (05:00):
Uh well, it's not really a case of um initially it's not a
case of coming out.
It's a uh a case of being awareof who you are and how you're
feeling.
Uh when I was about 13 or 14, Ihad very close friends with
various girls in school.
I was living at the time inDeptford in South London, and
(05:26):
I'm very close to the same areanow, 50 years later.
Um but my interest in themwasn't sexual, but there were a
couple of boys in school that Ifound very attractive, and I
think I began to realize thatthat's um what was happening,
(05:47):
and I had a really revolutionaryum experience when I was when
our my school, which was SouthEast London Secondary School, on
Creek Road in Greenwich, theyhad a section separate section
for the older children, whichwas in New Cross.
(06:07):
So I used to walk from my homein uh Deprichurt Street to New
Cross to go to school, and enroute there was what was called
the popular bookstore.
I don't think they still existnow.
There may be one still in uh inum Charing Cross, but uh they
(06:28):
were a shop where you could buya book or a magazine and take
that book back to get 50%credit.
So if you bought it for apound, when you took it back,
you got 50% uh 50p credit on thenext thing that that you
bought.
And one of the things that Isaw in their window was a
(06:50):
drawing by Tom of Finland.
Oh wow, wow.
I didn't, I could actually, Ishould have bought the picture.
It wasn't actually uh sexualactivity, it was one of his
early pictures of him standingover uh uh Tom's you know,
character standing uh in uh inhis kind of um that actor um
(07:17):
Marlon Brando kind of look.
When do you do you know aboutthe film Wild One?
Mm-hmm Wild One where he'swearing jeans and on the
motorcycle and all theoverwhelmingly butch um and he
is he's standing in front of uhsomebody who's uh uh a young
(07:41):
younger man who's cleaning apair of jeans, and that's on the
cover.
But the storyline in the book,when you look through all these,
you know, like 30 pictures, isthat he's giving a lift to this
guy on bike, and the guy doessomething that causes him to
crash the bike.
And that leads to him gettingoil on his pants, so he has to
(08:09):
take his pants off, and he'sstanding just in his underwear,
and the guy in front of him iscleaning the crutch of these
jeans.
And I walked all the way homewith the one of the hardest
erections.
And that's what I knewabsolutely for sure.
James (08:31):
And you didn't I'm assuming you didn't take that
book back and get the thehalf-five deposit back.
Ted (08:35):
I I didn't get it immediately, and I uh I thought
I'd need an awful lot of nerveto actually take it.
Um, you know, I did uh it wouldbe something that if I had it
in the house, I would have tohide it.
Hide it.
Yeah, for sure.
Because this is 1963-64, whichis before um Stonewall happened.
(08:59):
That was 1969.
So homosexuality was not a s asocially popular topic to
discuss.
Um I knew it would be condemnedby everybody, except again by
my mother.
(09:19):
Because I did come out to herabout two years later.
Jonathan (09:24):
You're about sixteen.
Ted (09:26):
Yeah, fi 15, 16, yeah.
And because I had a real crushon a particular guy at school,
and I felt I had to talk tosomebody.
And I knew my mother would notcondemn me if I wasn't doing
(09:47):
anything that was harminganybody else.
Yeah.
And so she cried on myshoulder, I cried on her
shoulder because she said to me,You're going to have to deal
with the hostility people havetowards both black people and
towards homosexuals.
And I hope, you know, somehowyou you manage to cope with
that.
James (10:07):
So her response was almost uh outpouring of care and
love.
Ted (10:12):
Yeah, yeah.
She's amazing.
I mean, yeah, she was.
I mean, I think I think alsoshe was influenced by a number
of things that actually verymuch strongly influenced me,
which was um oh god, um thecivil rights movement, one of
the early marches, the biggestmarch held by the civil rights
(10:36):
group, was organized by BayardRustin.
Sorry?
Jonathan (10:40):
Bayard Rustin.
Ted (10:41):
Bayard Austin, who had a time and he was openly gay.
James (10:46):
Interesting.
So there was actually thatsomewhat interconnection between
the different civil civilrights and LGBT movements.
Exactly.
And your mum was influencedpositively by that.
Ted (10:57):
Right, too.
And also, a couple of yearslater, I mean uh she died in
1965 when I was 15.
Jonathan (11:05):
Oh my gosh.
Ted (11:06):
Uh yeah, and she was, I think, only 49, but she'd had a
really difficult time with um uhstress and all sorts of other
issues.
And um she pointed out to methat uh one of the people in the
the black power movement, theblack panthers, had been very
(11:32):
supportive of of the gaymovement and no a lot of a lot
of people know that.
And you can actually look itup, which is Huey Newton, who
was the commander in chief ofthe said um when he was talking
to a gay person who was out andprotesting about the way that
gay people were being treated,uh, he said, yeah, maybe a
(11:54):
homosexual could be morerevolutionary than eating black
people, because they get kickedin the teeth even more than we
do.
Yeah.
And yeah, you can find thatonline.
And again, that's him y beingahead of time because he was
talking about gay people in apositive or at least a not
(12:15):
condemning way, years beforethat that was acceptable.
Yeah.
Jonathan (12:21):
So you know, I think one of the interesting things
that we've experienced is that alot of the stories, and I'm
very interested, particularly II've said on this podcast before
that I'm Jamaican myself, um,and I had a very lucky and
positive experience coming outto my family.
But we've heard lots ofpositive experiences of people
coming out.
Um now, of course, that's notuniversal, and lots of people
(12:42):
still struggle to come out totheir families, and a lot of
people, when they come out totheir families, have really
negative consequences of it.
Yes.
But there are the positivestories.
There are the stories of loveand care that transcend people's
sexuality, which I think isimportant to highlight.
Was Bayard Rustin aninspiration for you as well?
(13:02):
Did you realize at that time at16 years old that there was
this figure in the Black CivilRights Movement in America who
was like you, or did that comelater?
Ted (13:11):
Uh no, she she did mention that.
Um she had not been able to goin that great march, but she
knew about um oh god, I forgothis name again.
Jonathan (13:24):
Bayard Bayard Ross.
Ted (13:24):
Bayard Russin, yeah.
Um, and that he had been fairlyopenly because he had made a
statement um and one of thedemonstrations that one day gay
people will be fighting fortheir rights in the same way
that black people were.
Because he was being treatedpretty badly by some of the
people in the civil rightsmovement.
(13:46):
Because as you you know,sexuality is considered in a
very different category to raceby many people.
Jonathan (13:55):
And so your mom died when you were sixteen.
Ted (13:58):
Yeah.
Jonathan (13:59):
How did that affect you other than being awful and
emotionally terrible?
Ted (14:04):
Uh well, I got a feeling that I had my younger brother
and younger sister to lookafter.
It was they later said thatthey were surprised at how I
handled the situation because mymother had very bad asthma.
It was an asthma attack thatled to her attack.
(14:25):
And we were living in what wascalled 10th Street in Greenwich,
which is where I'm living now.
50 years later.
Um, and there was a telephonebox, and I tried mouth-to-mouth
respiration.
I didn't know what I was doing,but I had heard about it.
Ran out to the phone box, um,made a call, we waited for the
(14:48):
ambulance to turn up and so on.
And Jackie, who at that timewas eleven.
James (14:54):
It's your younger sister.
Ted (14:55):
Yeah, and my younger brother, who was then only five,
right.
Uh, Jackie said that she wasvery proud of the fact that I
didn't just stand wringing myhands, I did try to do something
sensible about that.
And I felt really boistered byby that.
Now, all the years in betweenthere was still this feeling of
(15:19):
isolation, and it was only atthe time after uh we moved in
with a couple of uh schoolteachers.
Uh two teachers at my schoolheard about my mother's death,
and he took me in with hisfamily, me and and my younger
(15:42):
brother and sister.
Wow.
And were very supportive.
Um by then I was at Elton GreenCont Comprehensive School.
And yeah, well which was reallyvery helpful because we we had
spent a short period of time ina care home.
And although care homes thenwere quite efficient, I think
(16:05):
they were better than they arenow in some ways.
Because they relied much moreon people who were really
committed to helping childrenrather than those who were
following an obligatory socialagenda.
So we felt wanted.
We weren't in a care homebecause we are in a care home.
(16:29):
People are actually taking uson when they didn't have to.
And we were there for quitesome time.
Then I moved out when I wasabout eighteen to go and live uh
by myself.
And at the time there were alot of underground papers you
(16:50):
might have heard of.
There was uh Friends and OzMagazine.
And I met one of the editors ofum Oz Magazine around the time
that they were taken to courtbecause they had done two issues
that were really concontroversial.
(17:12):
Oz Magazine.
I think it's worth you having alook at some of their stuff.
Um they did a gay issue inwhich they asked people who were
homosexual to just express saywhat they wanted to, and they
were really open about it.
They just let them say whateverthey want.
And the school kids' issue, theschool kids' issue was the one
that they really got intotrouble with because they gave
(17:34):
editorial powers to 15 and16-year-olds, and they said, you
print, you say whatever youreally want.
Those kids is somethingoutrageous.
I mean, you you wouldn'tbelieve I don't know if you can
say this on the podcast, youmight have to cut it out.
Um, one of the things, one ofthe kids, 16 or 70 years, 17
(17:58):
years old, was a very skilledartist, and he did a uh parody
of Rupert Baer.
Oh my god in the enormousdirection having sex with
another popular two kids umcharacter.
(18:19):
I can't remember this was thatand uh and a couple of pictures,
you know, one of them involveshim pressing his fingers on a
vagina to say, is this where itgoes?
I mean, Oz just the Oz had beenuh thrown out of Australia,
(18:42):
that's where they originallycame from, that's right there.
And um I found out that theJim, well, I've forgotten his,
I'll get his second name, wasopenly gay.
And I met with him, um, didn'thave sex with him, but I was
just amazed that they were soopen.
(19:02):
And for the first time I metpeople who were prepared to let
young people say exactly whatthey wanted, yeah, with no
restrictions.
So, of course, they wound up incourt, and it was an enormous
um debate and controversy.
Um, but they got funding frompeople like the Stones.
(19:24):
Wow, okay.
Wow.
I'm trying to think somebodyelse that was favorable.
I think it was Led Zeppelin orBob Delin people from States,
you know, you're such a big uhbig issue.
Um and I think ours it I thinkit was in ours that I read there
(19:45):
was going to be a form theforming a group for homosexuals
to object to the way that gaypeople were being treated.
And I uh tootled along to thethe l LSC, London School of
Economics.
But I wasn't there for the veryfirst meeting.
(20:07):
Right.
Right.
And it was only then that Iheard about Stonewall.
Stonewall happened two or threeyears ago.
James (20:15):
And it wasn't widely reported.
Ted (20:16):
No, it wasn't, no.
No.
James (20:18):
Wow.
Ted (20:18):
And in fact I don't think um I I'm still trying to looking
it up, but I don't think ourfirst Pride March was mentioned
in many of the papers either.
A very effective way.
I mean I had this debate with alot of people uh uh both as a
black person and as a gay personwhether if society wants to
(20:39):
suppress somebody is it moreeffective for them to shout and
shut you down or more effectivefor them to it completely ignore
you.
Ignore you and silence you yeahI think being ignored is much
more effective because thenthere was there's no debate.
James (20:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah.
James (20:58):
But it's particularly back in the 70s when when when
media the media landscape was sodifferent to how it is now you
don't have social media otherwhat was printed in the
mainstream newspapers was whatwe had to learn about.
Ted (21:12):
Mm-hmm Yeah but that's that what you got.
And so I went to the thirdsecond or third meeting at the
LSC and I think somewhere Ithink some of the stuff that
I've uh given you now has metalking about what it felt like
to be in a room full of otherhomosexual people who were
(21:33):
actually angry about the waythat we were being treated and
were planning to do somethingabout it.
So I went to their meetings andI think they were fortnightly
yeah and there were so manypeople meeting at the LSE that
we actually got thrown out and Idon't think it was homophobia.
I think it was just so manyyeah and also this was a group
(21:58):
of people who were coming outfor the very first time so
they'd be absolutely outrageousand doing things that they'd
never wanted you know there werestudents from the LSE who were
coming to the meetings in drag.
Oh wow wow you know becausethey said I've always wanted to
be and in fact I think a lot ofwhat were then called
transvestites were actuallytransgender people but
(22:22):
transgender wasn't a very availavailable or popular issue in
those days there only um there'sthat famous transgender yes yes
uh who was outed I think by theDaily Mirror because she was
there was no question that shewas a woman you wouldn't look at
(22:43):
her and think this is you knowthe result of an operation or
anything like that.
And I think somebody at theDaily Mirror or something after
they did an article called Howto Spot a Homo um a possible
homo so how did that make youfeel when you read and saw
articles like that?
(23:03):
Uh did it make you want tofight no I just translated it
from how I felt about um the wayI'd been reading about black
people for years.
It wasn't anything new new forme.
And in fact I also think thatthe reason I didn't feel shame
about being gay was because Ididn't feel shame about being
(23:27):
black.
And I recognized the similarhostility and the similar
prejudices and realized that itthe problem wasn't me.
The problem was in fact it'sbeen a m one of my real um
issues for a very long timeabout our language and the way
that we talk about things Inever say so and so got abused
(23:52):
because he's gay or because he'sblack and I always say so and
so got abused because thosepeople are prejudiced or those
people are racist.
Because the first sentenceleaves the abusers out.
Yeah they're not mentioned andit also implies grammatically
(24:14):
that the problem is with thisperson.
They're being abused becausethey're black.
Is there being black is is thecause of the problem rather than
the yeah um and uh that'salways been um uh one of the
things I've been talking aboutfor some time and so we moved to
Middle earth which is in CoventGarden Covent Garden Yeah yeah
(24:36):
and in fact I think that's oneof the first occasions on which
I became aware of Net Netty.
Yeah oh who we meant whoalready spoken to yeah did she
did she mention because uh I wastalking about the similarity
between being abused as a blackperson and being abused as and
(24:56):
uh she said that she came inwhile I was halfway through this
speech and she was quite umimpressed by it.
And that's where where yeah wewe first met.
James (25:09):
Netty very much talked about being a woman in the
burgeoning LGBT equalitymovement.
Yes and I guess her reflectionsof that were that it was it was
difficult.
You know it was a very maledominated but I suppose it was
also very white male dominatedum environment.
And what what were yourexperiences as a black man
coming into the into thatmovement?
Ted (25:30):
Well I it's it's what I expected actually I knew that
there was going to be uh aproblem most of the people in
the Gay Liberation Frontinitially were middle class
white men right because they'rethe ones who could afford to do
it.
They you know they could g giveup their jobs for a day or
(25:53):
whatever it involved.
Traveling in those days wasmuch more expensive per yeah out
of your income.
The ability to write about it,I mean the editor of if you're
writing a magazine, you're notworking class.
Yeah of course you know so thethe I was aware of that.
(26:14):
And also there is the uh theissue that no one should ignore
which is that there was no lawagainst being a lesbian.
The law was made mainly aboutkeeping men in line as men.
And I I was for a long time Iwas the only black person there
(26:35):
and there were advantages anddisadvantages to that with s
with with some people again Ithink I can manage it.
But occasionally I'd meetsomebody who would sidle up to
me and um find me attractivebecause they were convinced as a
black man I had to pick a cock.
(26:57):
You know because you know thesethese rumors and and myths and
they permeate all sorts of uhclasses and so on.
And it's you know and Iexpected it.
I knew that that that thatwould happen or I even met
(27:19):
people who occasionally I meanthis not all the time it's only
a few people but also I'verealized that for every person
who is actually saying thatthere would be at least two
people who felt that way buthadn't said it.
James (27:32):
Right.
Ted (27:33):
Yeah but there were also people who were were aware they
would say you know I I betyou're going through a bit of a
difficult as a black person herebecause there's no there's no
space.
Yeah uh we don't allocate spacefor for you and uh the thing
about I do remember on a coupleof occasions where people were
(27:55):
saying they didn't really wantthere to be women at the
meetings because women had no nono problem because because of
the law.
James (28:08):
And that's the so that comes on to an interesting part
which is the this this thecampaign for oversexual equality
talked about and very was veryfocused on law change, legal
change.
Yes.
Whereas GLF was seemingly morefocused on societal change,
liberation cultural change.
What side of that did you fallon and why did you become part
(28:29):
of GLF not CHE or were you wereyou still pushing for legal
change as well as for for forcultural liberation?
Ted (28:36):
Well yeah I was much more interested on the um the social
the social change because that'swhere it actually impacted us.
For a lot of people they theydid not know what the law
actually said.
Yeah what they did know wasthat they couldn't come out to
their families.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah.
Ted (28:57):
Or what they all of us who were suspected of being gay had
certainly as men had been umabused at school by other kids
for example whereas I'm notaware that girls who were not
feminine were being teased asbeing lesbian.
James (29:20):
But still had the same challenges of coming out to
their parents and and had uhchildren that were taken away
and you know and and so otherhuge challenges that are awful.
Ted (29:32):
Yeah.
James (29:32):
And so the social challenges were just even if it
wasn't codified in law thesocial challenges were just as
challenging.
Ted (29:40):
But I did do some we did do some research on that and
apparently they did try toinsert anti-lesbian laws uh via
Queen Victoria and her replyapparently consisted of two main
arguments one is that no threeone that women wouldn't do that
(30:02):
kind of stuff secondly ifthere's no penis around it's not
sex.
Ah interesting and becauseapparently she was quite a
sexual person.
She very much loved what was itwhat was her Albert I mean they
had dozens of children.
And I mean and they made it bigI do even remember reading
(30:26):
about her in terms of thatbecause somebody in the Gay
Liberation Front argued that shehad a very close relationship
with some of the handmaidens orwhatever they call them in in
the palace and that she may havehad some kind of lesbian
relationship with one or two ofthese people but it wouldn't be
(30:49):
really recognized in the sameway that some people don't
consider that I mean look atstraight porn straight male porn
sometimes involves watching twowomen having sex yeah with each
other but they're not lookingat it as two lesbians.
Yeah you know and again that'sa bit of the if there's no penis
(31:15):
involved it's not really sexand also women don't really it's
not really sex in that waybecause women are more romantic
or sensitive or all sorts ofthings.
Yeah.
Did the JF talk or think aboutthese philosophical concepts
around sex yeah I think it was alot yeah a lot of arguments
about um the the way we're uhbehaving I mean I didn't bring I
(31:40):
think I may have on my phone umI don't know how to get some of
the stuff that I have on mylaptop onto my phone but we the
first marches um had a lot ofpeople there's a picture of me
being kissed by somebody in mwhat might be drag, but it's not
(32:01):
drag in the sense of lots ofmakeup wearing women's clothes
and you're not absolutely surewhether it is male or female and
they were in involved andnobody was critical or um
offended about them.
I mean GLF was surprisinglyopen about the different types
(32:25):
and shades of sexuality becauseone of their arguments was that
sexuality is on a spectrum.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Right.
Ted (32:34):
Yeah you don't have to be male John John Wayne Butch stuff
or Marilyn Monroe feminine.
James (32:43):
Yep.
Ted (32:43):
Yeah there's a whole range in between so um yeah I think GF
was really ahead of time.
James (32:50):
I was gonna say that's that is extremely ahead of time
I think even at that pointthinking about spectrums of both
sexuality and gender andthere's there's often a sort of
sense that early um gay rightsmovements were very much focused
on gay men and and quite binaryin terms of gay not anything
(33:11):
else men not anything else andand that that being the focus
but GLF was such a broader moreprogressive thinking
organization.
Ted (33:21):
Yeah.
And and I I really say it'sreally important that we weren't
an organization.
James (33:27):
Well of course yes tell us about that.
Ted (33:29):
Because yeah because the idea with GLF we had these
things did they mention thinkthink ins to you mentioned think
inside about thinking fromNetty but I'd love to hear your
Yeah it was really uh theimportant that anyone should be
listened to oh did I include umum I'd moved actually I moved a
(33:52):
lot two years ago from the howour house after my partner died
after Noel died and uh someitems that are missing I don't
know what's happened to them instorage one is the double pink
pink triangle I don't know if Ihaven't sent you a photograph of
that I will send you aphotograph it's a double pink
(34:12):
triangle the large triangle wasfor GLF as a whole and the small
triangle was for the youthgroup because uh at the time the
law had changed but no sex uhfor gay men under the age of 21
yeah and I do I will I will sendyou a photograph of me um at
(34:35):
the first march with the youthcontingent who allowed me to
march because I'd been involvedwith them but at the time I was
actually 22.
James (34:45):
Oh right and so tell us about that youth contingent
march because that was the yearbefore the pro the first Pride
March is that right uh no no nono the we had a separate march
we started the march and theleading the march was the youth
group ah okay yeah saying youknow um equality you know if you
(35:10):
have uh for heterosexuals umfreedom of uh sex sexual freedom
was available at 16 it shouldbe for homosexuals as well yeah
so I wish I had bought thatphotography actually it might
actually have it there's there'san amazing array of literature
that you brought with you topaint painting a picture we've
got a table a table here coveredin books yeah leaflets we
(35:34):
recently had um I think it'slast year we put this blue
plaque up there the blackthere's an amazing picture of a
blue plaque with a with arainbow rounder which is
incredible I loved it um and ittalks about the the black gay
and lesbian centre which was setup from 92 to 95 Europe's
groundbreaking first supportcentre for black queer
communities and you you wereheavily involved in this yes
(35:55):
yeah because you know as I saidI think for about two years I
was the only person in the GayLiberation Front and I think
also it gives you an idea of theway society is structured
because even if you hadn't saidthat to me I would have known
that the first people to startfighting about gay rights would
(36:18):
be middle class white menbecause they they have all the
they have the assets the moneythey have the press the media
and so on and so forth.
Ted (36:27):
And that applies in every every other situation as well
that the the social positionthat they have on in terms of
race and class feeds into theiractions and their rights and
their powers.
Jonathan (36:44):
And the other I'm hesitant to call it an
organization in case it wasn'tbut the other organization you
were a part of well you werefoundational in was black black
lesbians and gays against mediacan you tell us a bit about that
um and specifically aboutJustin Fanshu as well?
Ted (37:02):
Uh yeah well that was specifically about trying to um
help black people um who werealready dealing with the hit the
issue of the racism and sayingfighting on uh the sexual rights
is also helping on the raceissue as well because for
(37:23):
instance my relationship mypartner was was white right and
we both had to fight racism fromboth the black community and
the white community they came inin different ways you know um
some of them really hurtful alot of them I didn't expect but
the ones that we were hurtfulbecause of my identity as a
(37:47):
black person were the blackpeople who assumed that Noel was
the boss in our relationshipbecause he's white.
Oh right and I must you know asa black person to be working
with a white person I mustactually be like a good servant
or something.
Wow and to realise that thatbut but that to me is a an
(38:09):
element of the the Jamaicanattitude like I was saying
earlier you know it's still trueisn't it do you remember um
what was that beauty contestwhere that Miss Jamaica was
bright red hair and bonds.
Jonathan (38:25):
Oh yeah I I think it was a it might have been a Miss
World or um a Miss Universe butI mean that the two the two Miss
Jamaicas who have won MissWorld have been very light
skinned.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Yeah.
Jonathan (38:37):
You had Cindy Breakspear in 1979 I think
although don't quote me on thedate who was very light skinned
I mean my sort of complexion andthen you had Lisa Hanna um in
the late 90s.
I don't know why I know thisbut who was also very light
skinned and who's now a senatorin the Jamaican Parliament.
So yeah though it still verymuch exists.
Ted (38:58):
I think you know it because deep in all of us is an
understanding or a realizationof what is happening.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah.
Ted (39:07):
Sometimes we don't have to put it in words but we all know
that this this stuff ishappening and there are
different ways ways of dealingwith it.
But um yeah and can you tell usthe story about Justin
Fanschuck well Justin Fashnoucame out uh did I keep all the
(39:27):
pictures um yeah he came out asuh gay because actually he was
um being threatened by the Sunnewspaper that they were going
to expose him as being gay.
James (39:41):
Because he was a very very well known footballer at
the time.
Ted (39:44):
Yeah very popular also uh were the first black footballer
to work be worth a million orsomething like that something
really remarkable and because hewas also very good as a
footballer and they were goingto expose him and he thought
it's better for me To come outthan for them, you know, to be
exposed as like somethingshameful.
(40:06):
And so he did.
And unfortunately, the voicenewspaper interviewed his
brother and did headlines aboutmy brother is an outcast.
He's brought shame on thefamily, blah, blah, blah.
I mean, some of the stuff thatthey were writing was like, you
(40:32):
know, straight white newspapershadn't done that kind of
negative stuff for ages.
And so we organized thisboycott, the voice newspaper.
We had interviews with them.
But uh by this time, I was nowliving in uh Brick Brixton with
(40:53):
Noah, and the offices of thevoice newspaper at the junction
of Raylton Road and CoultHarbour Lane.
So we could actually walkthere.
James (41:02):
So you're just down the road.
Ted (41:03):
Yeah, so I went there and we debated with them.
And I think I've I've includedwith you um a a letter that we
had from them after, I think,was it nine weeks?
The whole of NALGO boycottedthe voice newspaper.
And they finally agreed to stopbeing um so madly homophobic.
(41:26):
Because the things that upsetum Justin, he was expecting a
lot of criticism from white thewhite community, but it really
hurt him the way the voicenewspaper targeted the black k
community against him becausethey his brother said Justin has
(41:49):
brought shame on our family,whereas various editorials in
the voice newspaper were sayinghe has brought shame on black
people in general.
Wow.
Which is really you know and hehe had very much dependent upon
(42:09):
the support of of the blackcommunity as a as a footballer.
He was very proud of hisachievements.
Jonathan (42:16):
And we referred to him in the past tense because
unfortunately he tragicallyended his own life.
Ted (42:22):
Yes.
And that was quite complicatedas well, you know.
You know, he went to the Statesand he was accused by some
17-year-old of sexual assault.
So he came back to London andlocked himself in the garage and
um turned on the engine.
And uh, yeah.
(42:42):
Even though I had a civilpartnership with Noah in 2017,
because I realized he wasgetting dementia, and I needed
to make sure that I had aresponsibility as a carer.
And the the council and variousother people did not recognize
(43:08):
our relationship.
And when he was first movedinto this care home, I had
correspondence with one of thepeople who was actually involved
in his care specifically.
She'd met me, she'd met Noah,who's a white, yeah.
And I had protested at themthat Noah had been in the care
(43:32):
home for two weeks and hadn'thad an assessment.
He should have had a when youmove into account, they assess
you to try and avoid things likeum giving you the wrong kind of
food if you've got an allergyand so on and so forth.
So I wrote to them sayingwhat's happening with this
assessment, and they wrote backuh Can I read this?
Jonathan (43:54):
Yeah.
Um so it the it it comes back,and the the the response was
following our telephoneconversation, I can confirm that
an assessment of health needswill be carried out for your
father, John Glynn, thisafternoon at 2 p.m.
This will be carried out by ournurse.
Ted (44:14):
Yeah.
Jonathan (44:15):
So they thought he was your father.
Ted (44:18):
Yeah.
Well, they didn't think that hewas my father.
Uh that that's one of thethings I I made an issue of.
They did not want to recognizethat he was my partner.
They didn't want to want torecognize uh gay gay people as a
relationship.
James (44:35):
And the important thing about this is this email is do
is dated um January 2019.
Ted (44:41):
Yeah.
James (44:41):
This is not distant party as a this is right up to to to
now.
Ted (44:48):
Right.
So Noel at the time was uh Iwas 69.
69, he was 75, and we had acivil partnership.
When he went into the carehome, we gave him all the
documents about our civilpartnership, about you know, the
(45:08):
care that I had been givinghim, and they wrote, you know,
he's white, he's seven yearsolder than me, they have our
details, and he's not my father.
But they still insisted ondoing that.
So we then um the follow-up tothat has been we got in touch
(45:30):
with the care quality commissionabout the treatment of lesbian
and gay people, and they came upwith this, which is actually
quite good.
So how much it's uh this is aleaflet from the cabin.
During the visit by Ted andJulia in May 2016, that was
before that this.
And it's absolute excellent,right, about how gay people
(45:55):
should be treated and recognizedand so on and so forth.
And then we went eight yearslater to this production in
which no gay people, no gaynessis not mentioned.
Jonathan (46:08):
And Ted is showing us a magazine of a care home
magazine for October 21.
Ted (46:12):
It takes absolutely no acknowledgement whatsoever.
It's as though we haven't met.
I mean, there's l they got LizTruss's uh right.
James (46:22):
Tells you what you need to know.
Ted (46:24):
Um so yeah, so you're you're right.
There's it stuff hasn't changedso much.
They have changed the way thatthey speak.
They sound much moreunderstanding, but if I was uh
going into a career now, I wouldnot let them know that I was
gay.
Jonathan (46:45):
That's a shocking thing.
Ted (46:48):
Yeah.
Why are we calling theorganization um not going in not
going in the care closer?
That's what we are setting up.
We expect it to be have online.
Initially, it's going to be awebsite for people who are
concerned that they are goinginto a care home or somebody
that they know is going into acare home, and to give them both
(47:09):
legal and social advice aboutwho to go to.
Because, for instance, when Isued the care home, I actually
had a lot of difficulty findingsolicitors who could handle it
because you actually need toknow about social care policies
and and the legal aspects of soon and so forth.
(47:31):
Most people would not be ableto protect their partners if
they were being homophobicallyabused in a care home now.
Jonathan (47:39):
Wow.
And I think that we've that Imean, James, and I'm a little
bit older than James by a fewyears, which he reminds me of
regularly.
Um but we're both in ourforties, and there's a
generation younger than us thatwe're hoping we'll listen to
this.
But there's a generation that'solder than us who are who are
going into care homes and whoearlier you said to me their
(48:00):
colleagues were weren't the mostaccepting of Belgique people,
and now they're gonna findthemselves confronted with these
same people in the care homes.
Ted (48:10):
Yeah.
And I mean I summed it up.
One of the slogans that we'reusing for uh the campaign not
going in the care home is theperson who beat you up last
night is bringing you breakfastin the morning because it's a
one-to-one.
I did a little article aboutsome LGBT people in care homes
(48:32):
that I saw what was happening,and you'd be surprised how easy
it is, and how often a carer canjust accidentally uh kick your
ankle as they're preparing yourmeal or changing your bed or
whatever it is, or oops, did Ispill tea on your lap again?
James (48:53):
Yeah, you are extremely vulnerable in that.
Ted (48:56):
Yeah.
And it's a one-to-one.
They're in a room with you'rein a room with this person,
there's no other witnesses.
They can do what they want.
Jonathan (49:05):
And of course, there are care homes that are
positive, that will treateveryone with respect and care
and dignity, but we need to makesure that all of them.
All of them are absolutely makean issue.
James (49:17):
And so what what are the core campaign issues that you're
that you're calling for?
Because you know, you're caughtfrom a not being in the care
closet.
I think it's uh it's a it's awonderful name for the campaign
because it's not going in thecare closet.
Ted (49:30):
Yeah, not going in the care case.
James (49:32):
Because people are are live their whole lives as openly
uh LGBTQ people and then haveto change that at that very end
of life moment when you're mostvulnerable.
Ted (49:44):
Yeah, well, that's what we are finding, because I do have
some friends who are in in acare home, and they I went to
visit them and they asked me,please don't let anybody know
here that uh that I'm gaybecause you know.
I mean it it's uh it's part ofit is is structural.
(50:05):
For example, they have these uhNoah was involved when they
have these entertainmentevenings.
You know, sometimes a goodheart care home will have
evenings where they show filmsor whatever, but they're always
heterosexual films, yeah?
Or uh games like Spin theBottle.
Do you know Spin the Bottle?
(50:28):
Right, where inevitably you'replaced opposite a woman.
Right.
Jonathan (50:33):
If you're a gay male or whatever, yeah.
I definitely that said, if I'min a care home, want there to be
spin the bottle.
I really want there to be spinthe bottle, but for equal
opportunity spin the bottle.
Ted (50:46):
Yeah.
Um so I mean uh six uh sevenyears later they came out with
this, and I actually went backwith them with uh Julia who made
the film, Ted and Noel.
James (50:58):
Did you say you hadn't seen it?
I haven't seen it, but tell usabout the film.
Ted (51:01):
Uh yeah, it was just when I was beginning to um uh raise
issues about what was happeningto Noel in the care home, and
they uh came came to film me andto talk about some of the
issues.
Uh, but I had to be fairlyrestrained because Noel was
still in the care home.
That's the other thing that youhave to be careful.
(51:22):
If you are you you have apartner who's in a care home and
you think they're beinghomophobically abused, you have
to be very careful about itbecause you don't know whether
the person managing the home islike Margaret Thatcher in her
section 28 days, yeah, or justone of the one of the staff.
(51:45):
So you have a staff, say 50people, right?
You only need three or four ofthem to be raging home
approaches to make their lifepeople's lives.
And you need to have rulesspecifically saying that you
cannot abuse or insult people onthe basis of their sexuality,
(52:05):
and that this is, you know,being lesbian or gay is
acceptable and desirable and allthe rest of it.
Because otherwise you're justleaving it to a bunch of people,
many of whom are employingpeople.
A lot of the care homes, theyget cheap stuff because they're
employing people from countrieswhere it's still illegal to be
gay.
James (52:25):
So there's actually a big cultural issue in in in the
very makeup of the stuff in somecircumstances.
Ted (52:32):
Exactly, yeah, yeah.
And uh the other thing, ofcourse, is that this has never
been raised with the care homesbefore.
You know?
Because one of the weaknessesof the Gay Liberation Front, and
I don't blame them, but it's,you know, I was involved as
well, is that it was it was ayoung movement.
It was full involved youngpeople, it was about, you know,
(52:56):
uh we want to have sex withoutbeing condemned and so on.
If you were over 40, forget it.
No, uh, that's a bit extreme,but um you know, you know what I
mean, you know.
Nobody was thinking about carehomes then.
Nobody was thinking about umdisabled people.
James (53:16):
Um but also you're the first generation to have been
openly gay throughout most ofyour adult lives, and now you're
getting to the stage where thatgeneration is is is cannot hold
the community in care homes.
Ted (53:28):
Yeah, exactly.
James (53:29):
So I just want to kind of go back and just because you
you got an award from LambethCouncil for for for your work on
this, um, which you've beenproudly showing us the award on
your phone, it's fantastic.
But but it was ultimately itwas Lambeth Council that you
actually were suing um for forfor this.
Tell us about tell us about thethe legal side of this.
Ted (53:49):
Well, yes, they just realized I actually wanted to
make sure the the the homeitself was sued because I wanted
this the staff and themanagement there to recognize
that this was an issue.
Yeah.
But the fact that it wasactually allocated to Lambeth
meant that the home just keptdoing what it did.
(54:11):
You know, it's none of ourbusiness.
It really doesn't matter.
They were suing Lambeth,basically, and I think the
£30,000 that we got was smallcompared to what would have
happened to Noel.
Because I was I've got thevideo somewhere here of me
discovering the hole in the backof his hand where they stubbed
(54:32):
out cigarettes on the back ofhis hand.
Um various other behaviors.
James (54:40):
And and tragically, the the case took so long that Noel
was no longer with us when thewhen the settlement came through
either.
Ted (54:46):
Well, the money the money came through.
I'm trying to think of there'ssomething similar that uh is
widely known where the the theliability has been quite clear.
Oh yeah, the post office.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
Yep.
Ted (55:02):
Those people have been waiting ten years and more for
money that they were entitledto.
It's not this still a debateabout whether they should be
getting compensation.
They said ten years ago youshould get this compensation.
Nothing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know?
Jonathan (55:20):
And I you know, I I I'm gonna struggle to form this
question.
Uh but you were you were beingan activist, which you've been
throughout your life, at a timewhen you were also going through
tremendous grief because youwere losing your partner.
Ted (55:35):
Yeah.
Jonathan (55:36):
How did you do that?
Because I'm hoping that therewill be people here who listen
to your story and think, I wantto be a troublemaker like your
mom, like you.
But it requires resilience, itrequires grit.
And I wonder how you managed tobring all of that to bear while
you were going through thisgrief.
Ted (55:56):
Well, I think it's the recognition of other people.
If you care for somebody andthey're being badly treated, I
don't think you have an awfullot of difficulty in trying to
fight for them.
No, I agree.
It's a different issue if it'sif it's uh p political or
(56:17):
social, if you're can you knowcampaigning for gay people in
theory.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But if it's somebody that youknow who has been punched in the
face or kicked them out orsomething, but what uh the
really difficulty is aboutstrategy is about me uh knowing
(56:38):
and suspecting one or two peoplein particular of abusing Noel
and having to be quiet about itand talk to them politely
because every time I left afterwhen I went to visit him, I
thought, well, he's the one whohas to deal with that.
(56:59):
I can't antagonize thesepeople.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jonathan (57:08):
I'm conscious that we're kind of just over an hour,
but there's one question thatwe've asked everyone, and it's
about messaging, right?
You know, we're hoping thatpeople you know, we're in a
state today where we're startingto see rights being rolled
back, particularly for transpeople.
Um and you know, we've we'reseeing the rise in some cases of
(57:31):
the far right.
And I'm wondering what messagesactivists of your generation
have for the activists of today.
Ted (57:40):
Yes, I well well, I would say um don't let it um get you
down because um we've beenthrough worse.
Yeah.
It's only it's less than 200years that black people were
slaves.
unknown (57:56):
Yeah.
Ted (57:58):
And we fought back again.
It didn't happen because thewhite people suddenly decided
that they were gonna stop, theywere dealing with uh, you know,
insurgent black riots anddemonstrations, and the civil
rights movement was uh fightingin a situation where it was
actually illegal for uh blackpeople to actually walk on the
(58:20):
street in some place, in someplace in the in the south, if a
white person was walking alongthe pav pavement and a black
person was walking up, the blackperson would literally have to
get and walk into the the thestreet, um, you know, the the
traffic to let the white personwalk past.
(58:42):
And if they didn't, they couldget arrested or fined.
That's how bad things were.
And that was when I was 14 whenthat law uh those laws were
changed in 1964.
Jonathan (58:54):
Wow, so within living memory.
Ted (58:55):
Within living yeah.
That's some of the the theworst of these things, yeah.
Um but unfortunately, as you asyou say, I think uh well
actually I'm not quite sure.
But I'm actually shocked atAmerica at what Trump is getting
away with because I know thathe he got in the presidency by
(59:20):
appealing to the worst aspectsof a of America.
It's racism, it's sexism, um uhc uh financial greed and so on.
But I didn't think he would getto the stage of being able to
deport people who hadn't beencharged with anything, who are
not guilty of anything, to othercountries, and hardly anyone's
(59:46):
doing anything about it.
James (59:49):
It definitely feels as though for everybody that's been
an activist or that thinks wwonders whether they should be
an activist, the time the answernow is definitely.
We need people to continue topush to continue because rights
can be eroded as much as theycan be granted.
Ted (01:00:08):
Exactly.
And um I'm trying to get intouch with the LGB alliance.
Do you know them at all?
They're the people who want toremove trans people from the
LGBT.
They don't want to and theythey're they don't realize that
their behavior is contributingto the behavior of people like
(01:00:30):
Trump.
Because he's going for thetrans people first, because
they're they're the ones who aremost easily criticized by
straight society, and alsocriticized by some members of
the uh the LGB society.
But they'll go for us, uhstraightforward gay gay men and
(01:00:50):
women, if they can get away withit.
Because uh Trump is justtesting the water all the time.
What c what can he get awaywith?
And apparently he can get awaywith anything.
I mean, so some of the stuff Imean I thought he was I knew how
bad he was, but I actuallythought he would be stopped by
(01:01:13):
now, even by the Republicans.
I thought some of them weregonna say, no, no, this is not
on, you can't have someone beingthrown into prison because
Trump says they should.
And apparently you can.
Jonathan (01:01:28):
And if you were going to speak to a young UK activist,
um who maybe wasn't, you know,thought, okay, America's too big
of a challenge for me to takeon.
But a young UK activist here,what should they do?
What should people be doing nowto make sure that we don't get
(01:01:48):
there?
Ted (01:01:49):
Oh, I would say stand up for what you believe is right.
Um align yourself as closely asyou can to the people that you
know would be most vulnerable.
If you know other trans people,uh gay people, people subject
to racial abuse, uh to ho umreligious uh denigrations, um
(01:02:15):
back them up.
Let them know that you want tosupport them.
And as I said, the reallyimportant thing is to recognise
that this is much less than someof the stuff that we have
overcome to get where we arenow.
Because we take for grantedstuff that for 500 years was
just not not possible, you know.
(01:02:37):
Um was it 1923?
I think women got the vote.
unknown (01:02:43):
Yeah.
Ted (01:02:43):
102 102 years ago.
And they actually had to goand, you know, what's that
woman, I've forgotten her namenow, who threw herself
underneath one of the king'shorses.
Oh, um Davis.
Yeah.
As part of the campaign to getthe publicity and say, you know,
we we want so for the last howmany thousand years in Britain,
(01:03:08):
women had no vote.
Or um the injustice of of classin this system.
I only recently found out thatwhen Anne Boleyn was being
challenged by um Henry VIII, shewasn't allowed uh uh solicitors
(01:03:29):
or lawyers.
James (01:03:30):
Really?
Ted (01:03:31):
I did not know.
I thought I thought, bye, he'svery powerful, he's brought
accusations against her, andshe's you know, the case that
she has mounted uh didn't standup, or he just ran over it.
But she wasn't allowed.
I mean, what is that?
James (01:03:49):
Yeah, the corruption of power.
Ted (01:03:52):
Yeah.
Yeah.
James (01:03:55):
And so yes.
And the things people will doto stay in power, yeah, and the
way that they'll push downminorities to stay in power.
Exactly.
It's a story of the ages thatdoesn't go away, and we might
feel that things are good at onepoint, and people would be very
happy to come in and take awayour rights.
Ted (01:04:13):
Yeah.
I mean, uh to anybody who's abit concerned about these
things, I would say um thesepeople will only get away with
what they're trying to get awaywith if we say we can't fight
back.
Jonathan (01:04:28):
Yeah.
And with that, I'm gonna saythank you so much.
It's been such a pleasure totalk to you.
It's been brilliant.
James (01:04:35):
Thank you so much.
And thank you for your lifetimeof activism, of being a
troublemaker of your mom.
Yeah, yeah.
Jonathan (01:04:48):
Thank you for listening to the view from here.
Of course, there's a lot ofpolitics in any movement, but
the political views you've heardacross the series don't
necessarily reflect the views ofthe podcast.
James (01:04:59):
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider
subscribing and leaving areview, as well as sharing the
word on social media.
Join us next time for morepersonal stories from the front
lines of LGBTQ history.
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