Before Stonewall: Donald's Interview Clip 4 of 4
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Before Stonewall: Donald's Interview Clip 4 of 4
Donald concludes his interview with fond memories of the past and wishes for the future but he's not yet ready for the final curtain.
In conclusion, Donald reflects on the gay 'community' and his part in it as a mature man. He recalls the vibrant scene in Toronto, Canada, where older gays have a large choice of venues and activities to do including; Country & Western line dancing and classy Noel Coward-style piano bars serving cocktails, enabling one to avoid the pounding, drug-fuelled racket in the younger nightclub scene.
Bristol, by comparison, has little to offer more mature gay men and women, and when Donald does venture out to a gay venue, he's glad he's not young anymore. He does recall, however, when young himself, being 'vile' about an older man who just sat in the pub sipping his drink. Donald realises that he is now that older man, adding that 'every dog has its day'.
Donald also enjoys going to Tunisia, where there is no gay community but just a lot of 'randy Arabs' who don't care how old you are or how you look, saying 'thank God for them'.
Looking back, Donald says that things for gay people are going the right way and cites that, men kissing on TV is nowadays barely noticed. But he worries that the contemporary scene will become even more drug-fuelled, especially for the young, and more ageist. He'd love to know that there are venues where one could meet other gays, not for sex, but to listen to Jesse Matthews records.
Donald ends with some memories of Polari. Referring to the BBC's 'Round the Horne' radio show, he describes Polari as a simple language, without an extensive vocabulary, which enabled encoded conversations. However, the term 'gay' wasn't derived from Polari, and Donald, who still likes to use 'gay' in its traditional form, has always understood it to be an acronym for 'Good As You'.
Born in Bristol in 1941, Donald was born to working class parents of Irish descent and enjoyed a very unconventional upbringing. Donald attended a Catholic junior school and a commercial secondary school, where he learned he could have sex with workmen in the toilets and earn his bus-fare home.
Happily, his family accepted Donald's unconventional sexuality. When Donald was 16, he and his family moved to Streatham, in South London, where, after working in a bookshop and going on the stage, Donald had to do his National Service.
He wangled a place in the Royal Navy, and after an horrific six weeks of basic training, was posted to the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar, in Gosport, Hampshire. Donald enjoyed many sexual encounters while in the Navy and beyond, but never formed any long-lasting relationships.
On leaving the Navy, Donald worked for a building firm before moving back to Bristol. In 1963, Donald got a job working for a black music radio station in Boston, USA, before moving to Canada, after his work permit ran out. He later moved to Los Angeles and unfortunately became heavily addicted to both alcohol and drugs. He also saw many of his friends and acquaintances succumb to AIDS during the 80s.
Donald eventually returned to Bristol and worked for BUPA. Made redundant after a while, Donald took to temping, while in his fifies, before finding a job at Arnolfini Arts in Bristol.
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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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