Jane recalls evenings at The Gateways Club and comments on the lesbian scene at the time.

In this extract, Jane surveys London's lesbian scene, beginning with her first visit to The Gateways Club with her partner, Jacky, and their mentor, Hilda. Being considerably older, Hilda had been a regular patron of the Gateways Club since the 1930s, when it was also known as a very bohemian venue, and on their first visit, both Jane and Jacky's eyes were 'out on stalks'.

Making a single whiskey last all night, both girls were amazed to be in a single location where everyone was a lesbian, and Jane recalls the terrific sexual tension that she felt being there. She liked dancing and dressed in a mini - dress, adopting a 'Dusty Springfield' look, but observed that the club, and the lesbian scene in general, was very much geared to single women, high alcohol consumption and promiscuity. Jane recalls that couples felt pressurised to split up, so they made the decision to move back to Oxford.

Jane also recalls that KENRIC, a social club for older lesbians, was too full of closeted women in cardigans and pearls rather than the 'butch' clothes that her partner, Jacky, wore. Jane considered herself to be 'femme' but years later on realised the internalised homophobia and hetero - sexism that underpinned the 'butch/femme' duality. At the same time, she doesn't recognise many of the incorrect assertions being made by contemporary theorists about the lesbian past.

Agreeing that superficially the 'hetero' model was being imitated, Jane insists that there were no other role models for the 'lesbian life' at that time - except the prevailing heterosexual template. Citing drama and films, where romances were always between men and women, one had to identify with either one or the other, whereas nowadays there is an abundance of gay roles models and lifestyles from which to choose.

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.

KENRIC is the UK's longest-running lesbian organisation. Founded in 1965 in Kensington and Richmond in London, it continues to offer safe spaces for lesbians to meet and socialise.

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.