Pride!
I just thought I would share this, in particular for our non UK friends who may not yet have seen the film 'Pride'
Here is a synopsis from IMDB
In 1984 20 year old closet gay Joe hesitantly arrives in London from Bromley for his first Gay Pride march and is taken under the collective wing of a group of gay men and Lesbian Steph, who meet at flamboyant Jonathan and his Welsh partner Gethin's Soho bookshop. Not only are gays being threatened by Thatcher but the miners are on strike in response to her pit closures and Northern Irish activist Mark Ashton believes gays and miners should show solidarity. Almost by accident a mini-bus full of gays find themselves in the Welsh village of Onllwyn in the Dulais valley and through their sincere fund raising and Jonathan's nifty disco moves persuade most of the community that they are on the same side. When a bigot tries to sabotage the partnership with a tabloid smear Mark turns it back on her with a hugely successful benefit concert to which most of the villagers, now thoroughly in tune with their gay friends, turn up. The miners are defeated and return to work but at the Pride march the following year a vast contingent of miners show up to repay their comrades with their show of support.
Be warned you will need a box of tissues! (Behave!)
My first pride march was in 1982 I attended in 83 and in 85 and witnessed the miners coming to support us. It was a seminal moment in LGBT history here in the UK. On Pride marches in the 80's. We where abused spat at and if you got separated you may well have been physically assaulted. And that was just from the police. in 1985 when the colliery bands and miners turned up it changed everything. We where no longer alone in our fight! Later that year the Labour party enshrined Gay rights into their constitution largely on a block vote from the NUM (National Union of Mineworkers)
Today is the anniversary of the death of Mark Aston. He was the leading light of Gays Support the Miners and now he is remembered with a blue plaque (significant and notable figures in the UK are marked with a blue plaque at the place they lived or worked)
Watch the film with pride and for you young'uns remember it was the sacrifice and fight of my generation that gave us much of the freedoms we enjoyed today!
'To all the loves that bring us to life'
