It is with great sadness we learn that Dale Wakefield died in Bristol Royal Infirmary on Saturday 5th September 2020. Her family were at her side. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s she was a prominent figure in lesbian and women’s rights in Bristol.
Dale was born in Bristol in 1941, started her working life in insurance firms and subsequently worked as a teacher, a nurse and in later years in accounts. She married and had two children but the marriage broke up when the youngest was only months old. Dale went to London to work as a prison officer at Holloway women’s prison and it was there she first fell in love with a woman although no relationship ensued.
She returned to Bristol in the early 1970s and came out first on the gay scene. Soon she was active in the second-wave Women’s Movement and with Monica Sjöö and two others started the Gay Women’s Group and a collective that produced ‘Move’ magazine for about three years.
Attending a Gay Women’s Group meeting in Clifton, the constant phone calls received at the premises (from gay men and lesbians alike) alerted her to the enormous need for information and a friendly ear. Bristol Lesbian & Gay Switchboard was founded at Dale’s home in Hill Street, Totterdown and took its first call on 1st February 1975, using her private phone line.
For over three years it ran from her house, with volunteers taking phone calls during the advertised hours and Dale answering at all other times, often during the night. In 1978 Switchboard moved to new premises at Bristol Gay Centre, however Dale remained involved until the early 1980s. She later helped organise Bristol Lesbian Line, and was active in Women’s Aid providing refuge provision for women fleeing domestic violence.
Dale remained a resolute advocate of women and men working together at a time when there was a lesbian-separatist trend within the movement in Bristol. A believer in collective approaches to action, she was critical of the hierarchies that characterised orthodox and male-oriented ways of organising. Her quiet authority, clear focus and belief in the power of collective action made her one of the most significant figures in the story of LGBT rights in Bristol.
In the words of Tim Manning, a fellow founder of Bristol Gay Switchboard: “Because of her, lives were saved, closets opened, and she helped us change our world for the better”.
We send our thoughts to her son Shaun, daughter Teraza, and four grandchildren.
Dale in 2013 beside her portrait by Malcolm Ashman; now displayed in Bristol’s M Shed Museum. Copyright: Matt Seow.
I knew Dale in the mid 1980s, and was in close touch with her until the early 2000s. She was passionately interested in ancient history, taking a degree in archeology at Bristol University when she was in her late 50s. I went to Majorca with her, the artist Monica Sjöö, and Joan Hammond, another stalwart of the Bristol Women’s movement, in the early 1990s. She was a fantastic and inspirational guide around the temples and sites.
We spent many evenings discussing feminism, lesbian politics and many other things. We often disagreed profoundly, especially about separatism and other aspects of feminism, but I learned a lot from her and our debates. I worked with on Lesbian Line in its early days. I very much regret that we lost touch.
Mandy Kidd