MACE is the strategic lead organisation for screen heritage for the East and West Midlands regions. An independent charity based at University of Lincoln, MACE preserves and makes accessible a collection of more than 100,000 historic moving images representative of the diverse cultures and histories of communities throughout the heart of England from the Lincolnshire coast to the Welsh border.
The Labour Party and LGBT Rights
(Central Lobby)
A step on the road to equality as the Labour Party enshrines LGBT rights.
After a declaration at the Labour Party Conference of 1986, it became Labour Party policy to formally protect the rights of LGBT citizens. Rob Whitehouse investigates how the new policy was being implemented in different Labour controlled council areas. He discovers an immense variation across the country: from Coventry, where the council was refusing to make a formal declaration of support, to Haringey in London, where the council was employing seven full time employees to protect LGBT rights.
In Nottingham, Whitehouse finds a dispute that was all too familiar at time, but may surprise modern viewers: a backlash against swimming sessions for gay people based on unfounded concerns that AIDS could be contracted by swimming in a pool shared with someone who is carrying the virus.
Getting the message heard, from the placard and megaphone to the campaign video.
These films celebrate the right to protest, with a look at how the campaigners of the 1980s reacted when they were met head on with a radical government sustained by strong electoral majorities. This collection also showcases campaigns that embraced the new medium of video, taking their battles to the next level with tapes of their own, free from television's editorial controls.
The material in this collection comes from two sources: television and an independent video production company. On television we find a more genteel approach to activism, where studio discussions take centre stage. Away from television we look to the work of the Trade Union Resource Centre in Birmingham, which helped groups to get their messages across in their own way.
So join us as we look back at life in the 1980s, in some ways a depressingly familiar place - with families struggling to survive on meagre incomes, the NHS in crisis, and the most vulnerable in society unprotected.
