As the 60s world turns upside-down, Millie chooses to put her career first and puts the life she could have on hold - for now!

In this extract, Millie describes that the 1960s was a time when everything seemed to be changing. She was aware of the Stonewall riot in 1969 but still didn't identify as a lesbian, even to her 'inner self'. She hated the word 'lesbian' preferring the word 'gay', even though the word was still more often used in its traditional sense.

Millie doesn't recall when the change in use occurred and says that the only word she knew was 'queer' - and that was only used in relation to men. If two women lived together, they were called 'companions', which was altogether more respectable.

Millie then describes life in the London of her youth. Everyone followed 'dress-codes' and women never wore trousers. However, by the 1960s one could wear anything so Millie wore trousers. She never had the courage to enter London's famous 'Gateways Club', though she often waited outside on several occasions. Fearing that bumping into a colleague or a junior member of staff at the venue would jeopardise her career she admits that she was 'a wimp, a terrible wimp'.

She also recalls that everyone knew that Dusty Springfield was gay, and how brave she was to 'come out' publicly in a 1970 TV interview. Millie admired Dusty saying how lucky she was to come out and still be accepted.

Born in North Wales in 1939, Millie lived alone with her mother and sister after her father left the family when she was still very young. Her mother remarried but Millie did not get on with her stepfather.

A while after leaving school, she trained to be a nurse, eventually being hired as a ship's nurse by the Union Castle Line, which travelled between Southampton and Cape Town.

Millie would later adopt a straight lifestyle when she migrated to Canada but returned to the UK in 1969. Millie rose with the nursing ranks eventually becoming a director of nursing in London during the 1980s. Moving into the private sector she ran several operating theatres at an exclusive hospital in London.

In 1975 Millie enjoyed her first proper relationship before having a shorter affair with another hospital matron. In the late 1990s she met her current partner, and both received a blessing from a local priest at Christmas - time in front of all their family members.

London's famous Gateways Club, which first opened to a bohemian clientele in the early 1930s, was located at 239 Kings Road. From the late 50s, Gina Ware, who was married to the original owner, ran the club. Always a popular 'night-spot' with gay people, the club became a women-only venue in 1967. Lesbians came from all over the country, and the world, to the Gateways Club and for many women their first visit to the 'Gates' was their first experience of the lesbian life.

The club and many of its regular clientele and staff also appeared in the 1968 feature film 'The Killing of Sister George' which starred Beryl Reid, Susannah York and Coral Browne.

During the late 70s and 80s, the 'Gates' still attracted butch and femme couples, which hard-line feminists of the period loathed. Members of the Gay Liberation Front picketed the club and Gina, who wanted lesbian politics kept out of her club, asked the police to intervene. After many decades catering to the lesbian community the Gateways Club finally closed its doors to both public and members alike on Monday the 23rd of September 1985.