Anthea looks back on exciting and dangerous times - with homophobia in the workplace and cat-calls in the street.

In this extract, Anthea's recollections of the pre-Stonewall era tell of a much greater sense of excitement though this atmosphere came with added dangers and discrimination. She suffered homophobic abuse in her workplace, where pornographic magazines featuring 'lesbian erotica' were left on her desk in the office, and she also recalls being the target of cat-calls and verbal abuse when she and her friends were seen leaving London's famous lesbian Gateways Club on the King's Road.

The homophobia of relatives was also a problem and Anthea relates a true story of two young lesbians from Northern Ireland whose parents organised a posse of private detectives and other family members to follow them to London and forcibly bring them home.

On reflection, Anthea believes that her awareness of being somehow 'outside' of society actually made things much more fun and even exciting for gay people but comments that that frisson has now evaporated - particularly in the pubs and clubs that cater for gay people.

Anthea was raised in a middle-class family and attended a multicultural school where she says she learned about people. She believes that her father was bisexual and that several women found her mother attractive. She met a girl called Francoise with whom she had a passionate, but destructive relationship that ended acrimoniously.

Attending Art School, Anthea also recalls going to the famous Gateways Club, good and bad relationships, a disastrous straight relationship, which turned abusive, surviving cancer and living in a flat that resembled the one in the, feature film Withnail & I.

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.