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Memories by Mike

Mike Volunteers for Gay Switchboard in 1997

Mike decided to volunteer to work for Gay Switchboard around the age of 34 (1997) because he feels that he had been “to so many gay bars, so many gay clubs over the last ten or fifteen years…got so many tee-shirts that it is beginning to get quite bo...

The Switchboard Caller Mix

Gay Switchboard CallersMike was asked whether he had identified any common traits among the callers and responded that about half came from the “Greater Birmingham” area – Birmingham, Solihull and Sandwell. About 25% came from the Black Country and s...

The Role of Switchboard Operators

The Switchboard operators were trained not to confirm that callers were gay when they asked operators if they thought they (callers) were. Mike used 'gay' as an inclusive term for men and women as he didn’t like the demarcation implied by the use of ...

Being Publicity Officer for Switchboard from 1999

Mike worked as Publicity Officer for Gay Switchboard, from 1999 - 2003. With a background in marketing and sales, he identified all the media in Birmingham and set out to build as many contacts as possible, including the main West Midlands radio stat...

The Jester, a First Trip to Birmingham

Mike described his impressions of Birmingham on his first visit in 1986 and focused on his first visit to a gay bar in Birmingham early one evening before getting the train back to Manchester. "It was The Jester which is on Horsefair, just by Bristol...

First impressions of Birmingham

Mike commented that his first main impression of Birmingham was of a very big, prosperous city. He didn't want to leave Manchester but the job offer was a good one. When Mike moved to Birmingham from Manchester, he got a flat in Moseley, and lived in...

Impressions of the Scene 1986

Mike discussed his impressions of the differences between Manchester and Birmingham in terms of the things he would value. "Well both of the cities have changed an awful lot in the time since 1990, that's for sure but I think that Birmingham's change...

Development of the Gay Village

Mike was asked about the rate of development in Birmingham and he explained that a big change was prompted by the change of the Nightingale's premises from Thorp Street to Kent Street after the return of the lease to the Hippodrome. Because this was ...

Lack of Public Investment in the Gay Village

When asked how he viewed the social scene in Birmingham today he replied that he had been very hopeful in the late 1990s because a gay village was emerging and because of what was "almost an over-supply - fourteen or fifteen gay bars at one point and...

Massive change in Village since 1990

Mike described the change in the social side in Birmingham since 1990. He felt that there had been a "massive change", referring again to the "two gay basement bars (The Jester and one gay club (Nightingale)" around when he first arrived in 1987, alt...

Men only at the Gale was old-fashioned for '87

Mike also said: "One of the things that I did notice when I came here (late 80s) was that there was a real demarcation between where men socialised and where women socialised. Women tended to go to Partners whereas The Jester was almost exclusively m...

Apathy filtered into Birmingham water?

Mike felt that the lack of political awareness and involvement of the Birmingham scene was in contrast to the politicisation of the Manchester gay scene in line with the general political activism in which Manchester has a long tradition. For instanc...

Nothing negative about being gay in Brum in '07

Mike explained that he felt a lot more comfortable as a gay man living in Birmingham now than he did in 1990 when he moved here from Manchester because "there is a higher visibility though not as high as it should be. There is certainly a better gay ...

Gays are no better than dogs says Tory in 1999

Mike described a conflict with a Conservative Councillor for Harborne who, in response to an issue over some public funding, complained in a Birmingham City Council meeting that "gay people were no better than dogs". He received unsympathetic coverag...

Being gay is a cultural taboo in BEM communities

When asked about this lack of confidence about their own identity on the part of the callers to Switchboard Mike said that he felt that life as a gay person in Birmingham was as positive as in any of the other big cities and certainly better than tha...

My boyfriend was the only Asian on the scene

"When I go back to Manchester, walking round the city centre, it's nowhere near as mixed culturally as Birmingham. When I first came to Birmingham in 1990, when my boyfriend was Asian, if we went out on the gay scene there were no other Asians, excep...

People didn't come out at work in the 80s

Mike talked about his experiences of being gay at work in Birmingham compared to Manchester. "The dynamics were different in Birmingham because I was the manager and therefore had to maintain a distance about my private life, although actually I had...

Forced out after mock shag

Mike described how "eventually I was forced to come out at work. It wasn't something that I had planned." About 1994 or 1995 he had gone to a gay bar in Manchester where he had met up with a friend that he hadn't seen for a number of years. They were...