Before Stonewall: Jane T's Interview Clip 2 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Jane T's Interview Clip 2 of 4
Even after giving God the heave-ho, Jane still has baggage to cast off as she proceeds along her life's journey.
In this extract Jane recalls how her lesbianism became important in her life despite the internal conflicts it caused while she was at school, at university and during her early career as a schoolteacher. Raised in a devout family and going to a religious grammar school for girls, Jane was surrounded by religious ideas. Politics was never discussed at her school where the emphasis was always on religion and 'good womanhood', but after hearing a young curate's sermon on God being the only possible object of total devotion, and no one else, Jane became an atheist there and then.
Jane remarks that giving up on religion and recognising her lesbian self, marked the point in her life when she began to think for herself. Still bearing the legacy of conflict, even in her physical relationship with her partner, Jacky, Jane had to overcome the conditioning, which caused her to think sex between them was wrong.
She recalls how another struggle, in the 1970s, between feminists and lesbians affected her personally. As she considered herself a 'femme' she was now conflicted about cutting her hair or the way she dressed. She also observes that there were no positive lesbian role models, especially in literature and the wider culture. Lesbians were always mad, bad and sad, and always died at the end of the story. She also considered the American lesbian pulp fiction she read, to be too riddled with homophobia and self-hatred. One had to go elsewhere to find positive, happy lesbian role models.
Jane was born in 1945 to a family of shop keepers in London's Notting Hill. After passing her 11+, she attended a religious grammar school for girls. Becoming an atheist after a particularly annoying sermon, Jane decided to follow inclinations she already felt and develop her lesbian identity.
While studying at St Anne's College, Oxford, she met Jacky, who would become her life-long partner. After graduating Jane became a schoolteacher and lived with Jacky in both London and Oxfordshire. Together, they've published 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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