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30 Jan to 6 March 2015 – ‘Revealing Stories’ exhibition at University of Bristol Union

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Jan 052015

OutStories Bristol’s highly successful ‘Revealing Stories’ exhibition is to be displayed in the University of Bristol students’ union building from Friday 30 January to Friday 27 February 2015.
STOP PRESS: now extended by one week to 6 March.

The exhibition is based on archival records and oral history interviews with lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people associated with Bristol and the surrounding area. Focusing on living memory (c. 1940s to the present) it tells how people fought to shape and control their own lives. It is the story of those who witnessed these changes and helped to make history.

Friday 30 January to Friday 6 March 2015

University of Bristol Students’ Union (UBU), The Richmond Building, 105 Queens Road, Bristol, BS8 1LN

Map, getting there, and building opening hours

Please note: this display comprises vertical text panels only; it doesn’t include any of the objects that were in the original exhibition at Bristol’s M Shed during February/March 2013.

The Richmond Building is open to all – not just students! The exhibition is on the first floor, adjacent to the spiral stairs from the entrance foyer.

Accessibility: there is level access via a door to the right of the main entrance doors on Queens Road, with a lift to the first floor.

LGBT Bristol have produced a programme of all LGBT History Month events in Bristol and Bath. Click here for a full list.

Bristol Post front page shortlisted for award

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Dec 202014

This front page picture on the Bristol Post caused quite a stir – and not all of the comments were positive! It has now been shortlisted for a national award for ‘front page of the year’.

It shows Bristol couple Mike McBeth and Matthew Symonds on their wedding on 29 March, the first day that same-sex marriage was allowed in England and Wales.

It would be nice to see a positive LGBT headline getting recognised – click here to vote.

Bristol raises trans flag

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Nov 232014

Lord Mayor of Bristol, the Rt. Hon. Councillor Alastair Watson, raises the transgender flag in front of City Hall

November 20th was Transgender Day of Remembrance and, for the first time ever, Bristol City Council held a public event aimed specifically at trans people. At 2pm the Lord Mayor, the Rt. Hon. Councillor Alastair Watson, raised the transgender flag in front of City Hall. A number of other City Councillors were in attendance.

Transgender Day of Remembrance is an international event held in memory of the hundreds of people killed every year simply because they were deemed to have transgressed social gender norms. In the last year alone, 226 victims from 28 different countries are remembered. There have been a total of 1,612 reported killings of transgender people in 62 countries worldwide since January2008. Transgender murders often involve extreme violence and torture. Several of the victims were teenagers and the youngest was just eight- years-old. The vast majority of the victims identified as female.

Bristol City Council equalities officer Simon Nelson, Lady Mayoress of Bristol Sarah Watson, Lord Mayor of Bristol Councillor Alastair Watson, Martin Spellacey and Amy Mosley of Bristol City Council Rainbow Group, Bristol City Council employee Jessica Davidson and Cheryl Morgan of TransBristol”. Photo: Amy Jones.

Although there was only one known British victim this year, life for transgender people in the UK is by no means easy. Negative portrayals in the media, discrimination and difficulty accessing health care are all major issues. According to the Trans Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing Study 2012, 48% of British transgender people had attempted suicide at some time during their lives.

Councillor Watson said: “By raising the transgender flag over City Hall on this important day, Bristol is sending a clear signal to the many trans people who live and work in the city that they are valued members of the community, with as much right to life, health and happiness as any other citizen.”

Martin Spellacey of Bristol City Council Rainbow Group – which organised the event together with Bristol LGBT Forum – said: “While Bristol has recently been voted the best city to live in Britain, this is unfortunately not the case for many transgender people, many of whom face discrimination on a daily basis.”

Listen here to a conversation on Ujima Radio between TransBristol’s Cheryl Morgan and Simon Nelson, the Equality Officer of Bristol City Council. They discuss the Trans Day of Remembrance and how the City Council can do more for its trans citizens (starts 36 minutes into the programme).

20 Nov 2014 – Trans Remembrance Day

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Nov 112014

Your invitation to Trans Remembrance Day

International Trans Day of Remembrance is held to remember and memorialise those across the globe who have lost their lives to transphobic hate crime over the last 12 months and to raise awareness of this issue. Three events are happening in Bristol.

At 2pm the Trans Flag will be raised above City Hall, College Green, by the Lord Mayor, The Right Honourable Councillor Alastair Watson. This is a public event and all are invited.

A Ceremony of Remembrance is to be held from 6:30pm to 7:30pm at the Pavilion on the Harbourside, near to the Lloyds TSB building. Organised by Bristol’s trans community, this is a private event open to trans people, their friends, family and allies. The Pavilion will be open from 6pm.

After the ceremony, join the Rainbow Group (the LGBT network at Bristol City Council) and LGBT Bristol for refreshments and nibbles. Ruth Arnold from Bristol Hate Crime Services will be there with information on Hate Crime support, and Sarah Minter from LGBT Bristol would like to hear from all those who would like to input into research she and Alex are conducting to develop a plan for funding to provide better trans support, provision and awareness in Bristol.

For further information see the TransBristol website. Click here for directions to the Pavilion.

Bristol University will be having their own Remembrance Ceremony outside of the Victoria Rooms starting at 8:15pm. Details are available on Facebook.

We look forward to seeing you there.

14 Nov 2014 – Talk ‘Homer’s Deep’

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Nov 112014

Achilles, in his anguish, stares out from the Trojan shore. What does he see in the “wine-dark” sea?

For an answer Shane Butler takes us on an unexpected journey to Victorian Bristol where John Addington Symonds looked back to ancient Greece in order to look forward to the liberation of “unspeakable” love.

This is the inaugural lecture by Shane as Professor of Latin Language and Literature at Bristol University’s Institute of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition. It is a public lecture and open to absolutely everyone. Free and no booking required.

Friday 14 November 2014. 6pm.

Wills Memorial Building, Queens Road, Bristol, BS8 1RJ

John Addington Symonds’ 174th birthday celebrated!

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Oct 142014

Happy 174th birthday. John!

About 40 people gathered at Goldney Hall, Clifton, on 5 October to celebrate the legacy of one of Victorian Britain’s greatest scholar-writers, John Addington Symonds.

Born in Bristol in 1840, Symonds was the author of numerous works including The Renaissance in Italy, in seven volumes, and the first major study of ancient sexuality A Problem in Greek Ethics, published in just ten copies in 1883.

The event was co-sponsored by the Institute of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition (IGRCT) at the University of Bristol and OutStories Bristol. In his introduction the IGRCT’s director, Professor Shane Butler, said that the institute promotes research into all aspects of Greco-Roman culture from antiquity to the present day in the belief that classical culture remains a vital influence in the modern world.

Shane described the significance of Symonds to academic study and to Bristol, and finished with a quote from Memoirs in which Symonds spoke of his first love as a youth, Willie Dyer, a chorister at Bristol Cathedral “I could not marry him; modern society provided no bond of comradeship whereby we might have been united. So my first love flowed to waste.” How happy Symonds would be today to see gay marriage become a reality in Britain.

For OutStories, Andy Foyle said that while Symonds achievements as a writer, poet, critic and art historian were well acknowledged, his contribution to the early homosexual rights movement was largely ignored. It is OutStories’ aim to spread awareness and ensure that his significance is recognised.

The occasion was also the first public demonstration of a new map-based website Symonds in Bristol created by OutStories member Gemma.

After addresses, Shane cut a celebratory birthday cake. Louise Hopkins of University Heritage Volunteering led some of the guests across the road for a tour of the gardens of Clifton Hill House, Symonds’ home for many years, and described plans to restore the gardens and incorporate many elements of their original layout.

: Happy 174th birthday. John!

: Shane Butler

: Shane Butler

: Charles Beaton, OutStories Bristol

: Andrew Foyle, OutStories Bristol

: Shane Butler cuts the birthday cake

: Shane Butler with IGRCT interns Jessica Romney and Rhiannon Easterbrook

: Clifton Hill House (rear)

Photos: Leonardo Proietti and Chris Leigh

BLAGS grant gifts portraits to M Shed

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Oct 132014

When Bristol Lesbian and Gay Switchboard (BLAGS) stopped taking calls earlier this year, they were left with a dilemma: what to do with the money they had accrued over the years? £1,000 was donated to the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard who now answer calls to the Bristol helpline. The remaining £2,000 was placed in a Community Fund and BLAGS invited bids from local LGBT community groups.

We are delighted to announce that BLAGS have granted a £600 award for OutStories Bristol’s proposal to buy three portraits from Bath artist Malcolm Ashman for donation to Bristol’s M Shed museum.

Daryn Carter, Peggy Hancock and Dale Wakefield. Portraits by Malcolm Ashman.

Portraits by Malcolm Ashman. Photo: copyright Matthew Seow www.facebook.com/matthewseow,

The pencil portraits were drawn by Malcolm for the Revealing Stories exhibition at M Shed in February/March 2013 and portray three people significant to Bristol’s LGBT history:

Daryn Carter who worked for Pride’s revival in 2010 and is now Director of Bristol Pride;
Peggy Hancock was barmaid at the Radnor Hotel, Bristol, from 1955 and a friend to many LGBT people at a time when most were not;
Dale Wakefield who was co-founder of Bristol Gay Switchboard in 1975.

The portraits are to be donated to M Shed and will become part of the permanent history of the city of Bristol.

Many thanks to BLAGS for generously giving the money for their purchase. It is particularly appropriate that one portrays Dale; for its first three years the helpline operated from a bedroom in her home in Hill Street, Totterdown, using her private phone line.

Thanks also to the artist, Malcolm Ashman, who agreed to sell the portraits at well below their market value.

Honouring Bayard Rustin

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Oct 072014

Bayard Rustin in 1963
(photo: Wiki/Commons)

October is Black History Month and we are featuring Bayard Rustin (1912 – 1987), a USA leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, non-violence and gay rights.

Bayard Rustin was a gay man who had been arrested for a homosexual act in 1953. Rustin’s sexuality, or at least his embarrassingly public criminal charge, was criticized by some fellow pacifists and civil-rights leaders. From the 1950s through to the 1970s he was attacked as a “pervert” or “immoral influence” by political opponents from segregationists to Black power militants. In addition, his pre-1941 Communist Party affiliation when he was a young man was controversial.

To avoid such attacks, Rustin served only rarely as a public spokesperson; nevertheless he was an influential adviser to Martin Luther King Jr and a key strategist behind the 1963 civil rights march on Washington.

In the 1970s he became a public advocate on behalf of gay and lesbian causes.

On 20 November 2013 President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Rustin the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the USA’s highest civilian honour.

Click here for the full article.

With thanks to www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk

The International Business Times also has a feature on Rustin.

18 Oct 2014 – Talk on Simeon Solomon + AGM

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Sep 202014

Simeon Solomon: a talk by Frank Vigon

Simeon Solomon

Bacchus

The painter Simeon Solomon was born in 1840 in the East End of London to a well-known Jewish family. His mother, sister and brother were also artists and he associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, as well as Swinburne. Solomon was something of a celebrity: he exhibited at the RA, Oscar Wilde owned his work (and mentions it in De Profundis) and a long poem he wrote, “A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep”, was praised by John Addington Symonds.

In 1873 Solomon was arrested in public toilets near Oxford Street and tried for “attempted buggery, effectively ending his artistic career. A year later, he was arrested in another toilet in Paris and imprisoned. Within a decade of imprisonment, Solomon was in a workhouse in Covent Garden, still painting but alcoholic. He died of drink-related complications in 1905 and was buried at Willesden Jewish Cemetery.

The Sleepers, and the One that Watcheth

Solomon’s restored grave at Willesden Jewish Cemetery

His life has fascinated writers including Neil Bartlett whose 1987 play about the painter is also called “A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep”. Frank Vigon became interested in Simeon Solomon when preparing a lecture on Jewish painters. He has campaigned to restore Solomon’s long-neglected grave in Willesden and set up a scholarship at the University of York to establish a legacy in the artist’s name.

The talk is free but donations will be gratefully received.

OutStories Bristol AGM

The talk will be followed by refreshments and the annual general meeting of OutStories Bristol, which all are welcome to attend. We will update you on what we have done so far and what projects we are working on next.

Saturday 18 October 2014 2:30pm to 4:30pm

M Shed
Princes Wharf, Wapping Road, Bristol, BS1 4RN
How to get there and map

5 Oct 2014 – Happy 174th birthday John Addington Symonds!

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Sep 202014

Image by Vigor, from the Symonds Music room in Clifton Hill House

A Young John Addington Symonds

Join us for a garden party to kick off the new academic year by celebrating the legacy of scholar and gay-rights pioneer John Addington Symonds.

Born in Bristol in 1840, Symonds was the author of numerous works, including The Renaissance in Italy in seven volumes, and the first major study of ancient sexuality A Problem in Greek Ethics published in just ten copies in 1883.

All are welcome at this relaxed event which will include refreshments and brief introductions by local experts to Symonds’ life, works, and relationship to Clifton and Bristol. Co-sponsored by the Institute of Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition (IGRCT), OutStories Bristol and the Department of Classics and Ancient History.

Admission is free but booking is required via the IGRCT website:
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/research/collaborations/igrct/events/2014/29.html

Sunday 5 October 2014, 2pm to 5pm

The Orangery of Goldney Hall, Constitution Hill, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 1BH

Location map for Goldney Hall

Give this flyer to your friends!

Fancy a bit of gardening?

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Aug 212014

Clifton Hill House

In the 1880s and 1890s writer and art historian John Addington Symonds wrote ground-breaking books in which he argued for a rational approach to homosexuality and for law reforms. For many years Symonds lived in Clifton Hill House in Clifton, now owned by the University of Bristol.

University Heritage Volunteering are seeking volunteers to help restore the historic gardens much beloved by Symonds to their former glory. The digging might find “busts of those unlovely emperors and philosophers” that Symonds brought back from Greece and are known to have been buried in the garden by his descendants when they left the house.

If you are interested in finding out more, contact Louise.Hopkins@bristol.ac.uk.

17 & 18 May 2014 – Tom Marshman ‘Move Over Darling’

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May 062014

Join Tom Marshman on a walk around the old city, stopping by places rich in memories, as he unveils true stories of the local LGBT history. From the politically charged marches and protests, to the prosaic and the illicit, this walk-about performance celebrates full lives of a community through their stories.

For details see the Bristol MayFest programme.

Note: This event is not organised by OutStories Bristol.

12 July 2014 – OutStories at Bristol Pride

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Apr 252014

OutStories Bristol will have a stall in the community marquee at Bristol Pride, the free outdoor LGBT festival held each year in Castle Park. Drop in and chat to our volunteers about what we do and how you could get involved.

Pride Day Saturday 12th July 2014 12pm on
Castle Park, Bristol, BS1 3XD
Map

10 June to 4 Oct 2014 – ‘Revealing Stories’ at Bristol Record Office

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Apr 232014

OutStories Bristol’s ‘Revealing Stories’ exhibition is on display in the Bristol Record Office from 10 June to 4 October 2014.

As well as the vertical text panels from the original exhibition at Bristol’s M Shed in February/March last year, this display includes material from the Bristol City archives not previously shown including programmes from Bristol Pride festivals in the 1980s/90s and early documents relating to Bristol Gay Switchboard, Gay West and the Campaign for Homosexual Equality.

It will be accompanied by a talk ‘Untold Stories’ on 11th July about the making of the exhibition and the stories and people featured in it. The talk will reference documents at Bristol Record Office and excerpts from oral histories collected from LGBT Bristolians.

Tuesday 10th June to Saturday 4th October 2014

Bristol Record Office
‘B’ Bond Warehouse, Smeaton Road, Bristol, BS1 6XN

Bristol Record Office opening hours How to get there and map

Revealing Stories exhibition at M Shed, Feb 2013

11 July 2014 – talk “Untold Stories” DATE CHANGED!

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Apr 232014

To accompany the ‘Revealing Stories’ exhibition at the Bristol Record Office, OutStories Bristol will give a talk titled Untold Stories about the making of the exhibition and reveal more detail of the stories and people featured in it. The talk will reference documents at Bristol Record Office and excerpts from the 42 oral histories collected from LGBT Bristolians to inform the exhibition.

Friday 11th July 2014, 6pm to 7pm

Bristol Record Office
‘B’ Bond Warehouse, Smeaton Road, Bristol, BS1 6XN
How to get there and map

This event is part of Bristol Pride Week 5 to 12 July 2014

OutStories Bristol’s ‘Revealing Stories’ exhibition is to be displayed in the Bristol Record Office from 10 June to 4 October 2014.
For details click here.
Read about the making of ‘Revealing Stories’

Revealing Stories exhibition at M Shed, Feb 2013

To mid-May 2014 – ‘Revealing Stories’ at UWE

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Apr 222014

Revealing Stories: lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans Lives in the Bristol region from c.1940

OutStories Bristol’s highly successful ‘Revealing Stories’ exhibition is on display in the foyer of UWE Frenchay campus library from Friday 11 April to mid May. The exhibition was originally displayed at Bristol’s M Shed during LGBT history month (February) in 2013 and extended for another two weeks due to popular demand.

‘Revealing Stories’ at Frenchay campus library

Another chance if you missed it at M Shed! The exhibition is open to visitors.

Note: this display comprises the vertical text panels only; it doesn’t include any of the objects that were in display cases at M Shed.

Friday 11 April to Monday 19 May 2014 Click here for library opening hours
Closing date may change due to library refurbishment – click here for latest information

Frenchay campus library, University of the West of England, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol BS16 1QY

Frenchay campus library contact details Directions, map and parking UWE events diary

LGBTQ history in Gloucestershire online exhibition

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Apr 222014

Between September 2013 and March 2014 Gloucestershire Archives ran a LGBTQ history project to explore the previously hidden histories of LGBTQ residents in Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire.

From the "Founders' and benefectors' book" of Tewkesbury Abbey, Bodleian Library (Oxford), via WikiCommons

Hugh_le_despenser

The results have been published as an online LGBTQ history exhibition and include:

Pubs in Cheltenham and gay discos at the Racecourse.
Hugh Despenser the Younger, a ‘favourite’ of King Edward II, buried in Tewkesbury Abbey.
A 1716 charge of sodomy against a Cotswold tenant and a visiting farm labourer.
Suffragette Mary Blathwayt whose diaries can be interpreted to refer to lesbian relationships.
Music producer and ‘Telstar’ songwriter Joe Meek born in the Forest of Dean.

The exhibition is presented by geographical district – just click on the map to learn it’s history.

Photo by Robert Thursfield, via WikiCommons

OutStories Bristol – the next chapter

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Nov 262013

The success of the Revealing Stories project resulted in encouragement from the Heritage Lottery Fund to bid for further funding for a new long-term project. We propose to create a project about place.

Place will be a series of explorations of LGBT lives, both historic and present. The project will seek to draw teams of people together to research and record histories of the diverse individuals and communities that make up Bristol’s LGBT life.

Radnor Hote, St Nicholas Street, Bristol

Radnor Hotel
Copyright: Anna Henderson

Places of significance may range from common places where people meet (now or in the past), the shifting map of the LGBT scene, sites of memory or life events significant to one individual or small groups, places of religious toleration, dissent and diversity, and sites relevant to public, political and civic oppression and acceptance.

The internet offers the most flexible and powerful way for us to deliver a new project. We envisage an interactive map-based system from which multi-media information would be accessible – including images, film, photographs and artworks inspired by place, sound clips from oral history recordings, music, text and digitised extracts from local press or publications.

The Bristol Archives website Know Your Place is well-established and provides a series of map bases from 1750 to the present to which community information is attached. We are already discussing with Bristol City Council how we can use Know Your Place as a platform on which to build our ‘layer’ of LGBT history data. This approach would extend our partnership with Bristol Museums Service and the Bristol Record Office. We will also aim to include links with educational/schools groups which was a notable success for Revealing Stories.

Everyone is welcome to get involved. We seek people to do research, conduct oral history interviews, produce video/audio, create artwork and construct the website. Get in touch via our contact form.

February 2014 – LGBT History Month

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Nov 212013

Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans History Month takes place every year in February and celebrates the lives and achievements of the LGBT community.

LGBT Bristol and OutStories Bristol are producing a programme of events in Bristol and Bath: speakers, films, history walks, club nights – and a one-night ‘revival’ of 1960s Park Street coffee bar ‘Calypso’ . OutStories Bristol’s Revealing Stories exhibition will be displayed throughout the month at Southmead Hospital.

Watch this space for the full programme when it is finalised.

2 Dec 2013 – oral history team briefing session

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Nov 212013

Want to get involved in gathering LGBT oral history?

Come to the briefing session for current and prospective interviewers to plan and kick off the next round of interviews.

Monday, 2nd December 2013 for two hours starting at 7pm.

Call or text Charlie on 07802 422091 for venue.

Photo: Brand Davidson. Graphic design: Marcus FitzGibbon.

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