Before Stonewall: Jacky's Interview Clip 4 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Jacky's Interview Clip 4 of 4
Jacky talks about the butch look and lifestyle and reveals what she thinks about some of the more modern issues affecting lesbians in the UK.
In this extract, Jacky talks about the butch/femme dress codes that feature prominently in her and her partner's lives. Jacky recounts how Jane, her partner, wore the heels while Jacky wore the Ben Shermans. Both of them 'zestfully' obeyed the accepted dress codes, especially when going out, but Jacky admits that though they played the roles on many levels, in reality, Jane was the 'bossy femme'.
The 'butch' look, however, still required a degree of bravery, as its visibility could often lead to hostility, not that Jacky received much abuse when she and Jane were living in genteel South Oxfordshire.
Jacky concludes her interview by referring to her more intellectual approach to an understanding of her sexuality. Having read most of the available literature, including works by Henry Havelock Ellis at the local public library, Jacky was able to observe the great number of rapid changes in lesbian identity; from the butch/femme dichotomy to the more recent 'aggressive feminism'.
Recalling the split between lesbians and feminists and the subsequent re-unification as well as the issue of motherhood and children, Jacky goes on to admit that she couldn't even conceptualise being a mother, citing her own internalised homophobia as a probable factor. Believing too that she herself would not have made a good mother and was not the right type of person to raise a child, Jacky ends with her belief that the issue of lesbian mothers hasn't been entirely worked out... yet.
Born into a working-class family in 1945, Jacky was a bright girl who would eventually study at St Anne's College, Oxford. Here she met her lifelong partner, Jane.
Jacky remained in academia while Jane became a teacher and lived in both London and Oxfordshire until both retired. Together, they've written lesbian fiction under the pen name of Jay Taverner.
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GLAM Before Stonewall: LGBT Oral History Project
This fascinating and important collection, recorded onto videotape, contains the testimonies, in the form of interviews, from individuals of varying ages, backgrounds and ethnicities from across the LGBT community.
‘Before Stonewall: An Oral History of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community’ was a Heritage Lottery Funded project organised in 2003 by a Brighton-based organisation 'Gay and Lesbian Arts and Media', otherwise known as GLAM.
The project sought to record for posterity the first-hand recollections of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from across the United Kingdom and beyond, of a time before the events in New York’s Greenwich Village which culminated in the Stonewall Riots of 1969. This was a time which was very different, and in many respects more oppressive for homosexual and transgender people, than the one we’re familiar with today.
This fascinating and important collection, recorded onto videotape, contains the testimonies, in the form of interviews, of over one-hundred individuals of varying ages, backgrounds and ethnicities from across the LGBT community. With recollections that reach back as far as the 1920s, what all of the interviews describe and reveal is the whole gamut of human experience, from the deeply tragic to the exhilaratingly joyous - all from the perspectives of a section of society that has often been considered to be ‘different from the others’.
Journalist Charlotte Cooper, who worked for the gay press at the time, co-ordinated the project’s video-recording with volunteers and conducted many of the interviews herself. Charlotte describes her time on the project as both a revelatory and profoundly moving experience.
Screen Archive South East has made available from across this collection a total of eighty four extracts from thirty individual interviews. Together they give an insightful and first-hand account of what life was like for LGBT people, both in the United Kingdom and abroad, and in both the years before Stonewall and after.
75 videos in this collection
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Before Stonewall Summary: Charlotte Cooper Clip 2 of 4
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Before Stonewall Summary: Charlotte Cooper Clip 3 of 4
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Before Stonewall Summary: Charlotte Cooper Clip 4 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Jenny's Interview Clip 1 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Jenny's Interview Clip 2 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Jenny's Interview Clip 3 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Eddie's Interview Clip 1 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Eddie's Interview Clip 2 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Eddie's Interview Clip 3 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Chris's Interview Clip 1 of 1
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Before Stonewall: Peter's Interview Clip 1 of 2
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Before Stonewall: Peter's Interview Clip 2 of 2
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Before Stonewall: Anthea's Interview Clip 1 of 1
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Before Stonewall: Geoff's Interview Clip 1 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Geoff's Interview Clip 2 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Geoff's Interview Clip 3 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Rex's Interview Clip 2 of 6
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Before Stonewall: Rex's Interview Clip 3 of 6
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Before Stonewall: Rex's Interview Clip 4 of 6
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Before Stonewall: Rex's Interview Clip 5 of 6
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Before Stonewall: Rex's Interview Clip 6 of 6
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Before Stonewall: Roger's Interview Clip 1 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Roger's Interview Clip 2 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Roger's Interview Clip 3 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Roger's Interview Clip 4 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Jane H's Interview Clip 1 of 5
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Before Stonewall: Jane H's Interview Clip 2 of 5
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Before Stonewall: Jane H's Interview Clip 4 of 5
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Before Stonewall: Jane H's Interview Clip 5 of 5
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Before Stonewall: Jacky's Interview Clip 1 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Jacky's Interview Clip 2 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Jacky's Interview Clip 3 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Jacky's Interview Clip 4 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Jane T's Interview Clip 1 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Jane T's Interview Clip 2 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Jane T's Interview Clip 3 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Jane T's Interview Clip 4 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Sue's Interview Clip 1 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Sue's Interview Clip 2 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Sue's Interview Clip 3 of 3
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Before Stonewall: David's Interview Clip 1 of 3
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Before Stonewall: David's Interview Clip 2 of 3
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Before Stonewall: David's Interview Clip 3 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Joe's Interview Clip 1 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Joe's Interview Clip 2 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Joe's Interview Clip 3 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Michael C's Interview Clip 1 of 2
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Before Stonewall: Michael C's Interview Clip 2 of 2
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Before Stonewall: John's Interview Clip 1 of 3
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Before Stonewall: John's Interview Clip 3 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Michael's Interview Clip 1 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Michael's Interview Clip 2 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Michael's Interview Clip 3 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Millie's Interview Clip 1 of 6
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Before Stonewall: Millie's Interview Clip 2 of 6
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Before Stonewall: Millie's Interview Clip 3 of 6
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Before Stonewall: Millie's Interview Clip 4 of 6
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Before Stonewall: Millie's Interview Clip 5 of 6
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Before Stonewall: Millie's Interview Clip 6 of 6
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Before Stonewall: Donald's Interview Clip 1 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Donald's Interview Clip 2 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Donald's Interview Clip 3 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Donald's Interview Clip 4 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Sapphire's Interview Clip 1 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Sapphire's Interview Clip 2 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Sapphire's Interview Clip 3 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Sapphire's Interview Clip 4 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Peggy's Interview Clip 1 of 1
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Before Stonewall: Patricia's Interview Clip 1 of 1
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Before Stonewall: Dave's Interview Clip 1 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Dave's Interview Clip 2 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Dave's Interview Clip 3 of 3
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Before Stonewall: Charlie's Interview Clip 1 of 1
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