0:00

Hello, holy bonus episode Batman.

0:03

From the start of Distraction Pieces we have been

0:06

big supporters and lovers and friends

0:08

of the LGBTQ community. So for

0:10

Pride Month we're doing a few

0:13

rewind episodes so every Friday there

0:15

will be a rewind of a

0:17

classic episode that discusses

0:20

topics that fall in that realm.

0:22

I mean we had a great

0:24

recent episode with Pickleby, trans activist

0:26

Pickleby. So go in and listen

0:28

to that if you haven't before but we're

0:31

kicking things off and now I know I've done a

0:33

rewind of this before but it's such a

0:35

special episode to me. In 2020 I sat

0:38

down with Michael Cashman

0:41

who was one of the

0:43

founders of Stonewall. He had

0:45

the first gay kiss on

0:48

British TV. Just had an amazing life

0:50

and has been an amazing activist and

0:52

spokesperson and this was originally a two-parter

0:55

if I remember rightly so we'll put

0:57

it all into one. It'll

0:59

be one big bumper thing. He's a

1:01

beautiful man, his story is beautiful, he

1:03

speaks beautifully. So I really

1:05

hope you enjoy this. Love to

1:08

everyone this Pride Month. This

1:25

piece of fiction is the intro to

1:27

distraction pieces. This piece of fiction is

1:29

the intro to distraction pieces. The

1:32

very beginning. At the very beginning indeed. I'm

1:35

joined today by Michael Cashman. How are you sir? I'm

1:38

really good in the middle of promoting

1:41

and talking about my lovely

1:43

book and just tells you

1:45

how good I am. Yeah. So the other day

1:47

I went in and they said

1:50

the final books here and I went

1:52

into Bloomsbury, collected it and I got

1:54

a little bit emotional. Came home

1:56

along this street where I grew up and

1:59

where I'm back in the city. living and it

2:01

was raining and I had the book tucked

2:03

inside my coat and as

2:05

I passed the streets, the

2:07

actual street we lived on, I saw

2:09

the five-year-old me and I

2:11

looked at the book and

2:14

I just thought I've written this

2:17

book and all of the

2:19

amazing things I've done and I'm

2:22

here and I cried and I cried and

2:24

I cried. Beautiful.

2:27

And so I'm good, I'm really good. I just

2:29

have a big hole in my life but I've

2:31

just got to get used to

2:33

that. Yes of course and I've just started

2:37

getting into the book. I've read extensive

2:39

notes on it in preparation for this

2:41

podcast but it's a hell of a

2:44

life that you've had and a hell of

2:46

a story and a journey and we'll go

2:48

all over the place in it. There's loads

2:50

I want to ask you about but the

2:53

day after we confirmed this interview

2:56

my Twitter feed was a light with

2:58

your name as the story resurfaced so

3:01

I figured that was a good

3:03

place to start and it was it's

3:06

from a while ago from the

3:08

80s when an article from a

3:10

yet to be shamed journalist called

3:12

Piers Morgan and it

3:15

was a review of an EastEnders storyline that saw

3:18

your character have the first gay kiss as

3:20

described by Piers as a homosexual

3:23

love scene between Yuppie

3:25

Puffs, Colin and Guido which even

3:29

at the time

3:31

feels incredibly insensitive.

3:33

Incensitive, yeah, or horrific. Well we've got

3:36

and you see there's a lot

3:38

of stuff particularly in this day and age where we have

3:40

to look back and go well of the time so on

3:42

and so forth but this was imprint again

3:44

I saw a few people trying to

3:46

defend it saying he was quoting different

3:49

lords or whoever that rang you but that

3:51

sentence he was not quoting that was his

3:53

homosexual love scene a kiss

3:55

between two men is not a

3:58

love scene if it was people will

4:00

be arrested the length and breadth of the country.

4:03

It was the second gay kiss actually. The

4:05

first gay kiss was in 1987 and

4:08

that called outrage.

4:10

I mean if we look at what

4:13

was written then in a way it

4:15

was a it

4:17

wasn't as bad as some of the awful

4:20

stuff. I'm not excusing it but what I

4:22

would say about that was it was it

4:24

was pandering to prejudice. Yuppie

4:28

puffs. There's no need to use puffs.

4:32

Somebody lovely tweeted said what's a yuppie

4:34

poof. That made

4:36

me chuckle. But we

4:39

have to remember and again this is

4:41

no excuse for it. This

4:43

was all part of the courage of

4:46

the BBC of bringing a non stereotypical

4:49

gay man into the family into

4:51

this family show. At

4:53

a time when AIDS and HIV was depicted

4:55

as I quote the gay plague people read

4:58

in these newspapers that Piers Morgan was writing

5:00

in like The Sun, The Mail, The News

5:02

of the World, all of the others that

5:04

you could catch AIDS by sitting next to

5:06

a gay person or from a glass that

5:08

hadn't been properly washed or a cup and

5:12

people were stigmatized and

5:14

stereotyped and people faced

5:16

appalling discrimination. Some people

5:19

were hounded out of their homes, bricks

5:21

through their window. I had, Paul and

5:23

I had bricks through our window and

5:26

for me you have to look

5:28

back and you have to say we have

5:31

moved on but we must never

5:33

forget how people treated

5:35

us and how people fueled

5:37

prejudice because going to

5:40

my experience and the experience of many

5:42

when a brick comes through your window

5:44

it doesn't just happen because somebody says

5:46

picks up that brick. They

5:48

are motivated by what they read day

5:50

after day what they hear day

5:53

after day whether it's in their church or

5:55

at work or in the pub and

5:57

we have to know the value of

5:59

words. and that words

6:01

can liberate, but actually words

6:03

can actually empower someone to

6:06

take those actions that

6:08

can remove somebody's life or

6:11

inflict damage. So

6:14

the journalist, Chris Godfrey,

6:17

from The Guardian, who

6:19

did the interview about me, was right to throw that

6:21

up into the Twitter ether and say,

6:23

do you still stand by this, Piers?

6:27

I'm told, Piers Morgan apologized and

6:29

said it was language of

6:31

the time. But again, I

6:34

say, OK, we move on. But

6:36

we must never forget because it's part

6:38

of the history of liberation. Do

6:40

we say 75 years

6:42

since the liberation of Auschwitz and

6:44

we shouldn't remember that anymore? Of

6:47

course not. And I'm not making direct comparisons.

6:50

What I am saying is if we forget

6:52

our history, we allow the

6:54

next generation to forget it. And it's

6:57

very easy, therefore, to repeat it. Yeah,

6:59

I think that's the key part of

7:01

that story resurfacing now and what you

7:03

said there of

7:05

the enforcement

7:07

of what is reported in the media

7:09

and things like that. And

7:11

we have a lot of arguments now when politicians

7:14

or journalists or whomever else will

7:17

say things that you can argue

7:19

isn't explicitly racist or isn't explicitly

7:21

homophobic, as Piers was. But

7:25

it still adds to that strengthening of those who

7:27

will pick up a brick and throw it through

7:29

a window if they're feeling more and more acceptance,

7:31

even if it's subtler

7:33

or more cloaked. It's still adding

7:35

to that societal suggestion

7:38

that that kind of thing is acceptable and is

7:40

the norm, which it really is. I

7:42

know. Well, let's exactly let's jump forward now

7:45

because I say the enemies of equality,

7:48

whether it's gender

7:50

equality, whether it's LGBT equality, race

7:52

equality, whatever. They never give

7:54

up. They never go away. They're

7:57

brilliantly funded, often funded from. from

8:00

America and the evangelical far

8:02

right, not only

8:04

from America, their

8:06

language becomes much more subtle. Their attacks

8:08

much more subtle. Up

8:11

in Birmingham, the two schools, Anderton

8:13

Park School in particular, the head

8:15

teacher, Sarah Hewitt Clarkson,

8:18

asked the local authority to get an

8:20

injunction because there were protests outside the

8:22

school against the inclusion

8:25

of LGBT relations in

8:27

relationship education. It's called

8:29

inclusive relationship education.

8:32

There were protests outside

8:34

the school and it went on. Now,

8:37

they gained an injunction and I went up

8:39

for one day of the hearing where

8:42

the school and the council were seeking a

8:45

permanent injunction. And

8:48

to hear lawyers, senior lawyers,

8:50

QCs, refer to LGBT as if

8:52

it was a danger,

8:56

a threat to children,

8:58

to pupils. To hear

9:01

a teacher, head teacher, have to

9:03

explain why she bought LGBT books

9:05

and brought them into the school.

9:07

It reminded me of 32 years

9:09

ago, when

9:11

they brought forward the first anti-gay law in 100

9:14

years called clause 28, section 28. And

9:19

when they brought that law in, they brought it in and they said, we're

9:22

protecting children from the promotion

9:24

of homosexuality. A

9:27

terrible argument because first of all,

9:29

there was no promotion of homosexuality. You

9:31

can't promote the sexuality. I live in

9:34

a predominantly heterosexual world. I'm 69 years

9:36

old. If heterosexuality

9:38

throughout my life, with advertising

9:40

books, everything around me, promoting

9:43

homosexuality according to them, can't win

9:46

me, then a tiny minority is

9:48

going to have absolutely no impact.

9:50

But the argument, throw that away.

9:53

But it suggests that there's something negative

9:56

and dirty and threatening about

9:58

LGBT. And there is. inclusive

12:01

religious education, but not certain other

12:03

religions, would we tolerate

12:05

that? Of course not, because the

12:07

concept of equality means that we

12:10

deal, we include, and we talk

12:12

about the multiplicity of choices that

12:14

there are. But more importantly, when

12:16

you're educating, you're empowering

12:19

children and pupils so

12:22

that the world in which they live in, they

12:25

are protected, they are not

12:27

abused. Like children

12:29

like me, like I

12:31

was abused, and

12:33

I had to suffer that abuse and couldn't

12:38

find the words to

12:41

say to my parents or people around me what

12:44

that young doctor had done to me when

12:46

I was seven years old, and then what

12:48

subsequently occurred to me, as

12:50

I detail in the book

12:52

during my teens. I want

12:55

every child to be able to find the

12:58

vocabulary, to find the confidence to say

13:00

what happens to them, and

13:03

for them to be believed. And I came

13:05

from that period where we were told kids

13:07

should be seen and not heard. So

13:10

empower young people, don't

13:13

hobble them through life so that they

13:16

can never fully defend themselves and no

13:19

other child can do what their rights are.

13:21

100%. You kind of spoke of the strength

13:24

of your sexuality in that growing

13:26

up in a largely heterosexual

13:30

climate, that wasn't enough to hamper you, to

13:32

hold you back, therefore it can't be influenced

13:36

in such a way. To look

13:38

back to when you grew up

13:41

in this area, houses away from where

13:44

you were, and we can hear the

13:46

boats in the background. Now, on

13:48

the river, and I'm just looking out

13:50

of my window and there's two

13:53

river boats going up, the sun

13:55

has just sat over to the left and it will,

13:57

a little later it will be a wonderful sunset just over

13:59

to the right. But when I was a kid, the

14:02

noise and the sound on this river

14:04

with boats and ships all hooting and

14:07

tooting because they wanted to get over

14:09

onto the docks so that they could

14:11

unload and get back out to sea,

14:14

the barges being shipped up and

14:17

down, the dockers, the stevedores, the

14:19

cranes, it was incredible. And when

14:21

I stand here, that's

14:24

what I see. That

14:26

amazing community and the community

14:28

of the docks and

14:31

the fun. And you have to remember the

14:33

fun because otherwise you can't cope with

14:37

the dark things that were done to

14:39

you. And that was the interesting thing

14:42

for me, Pip, that I, because

14:44

I knew at an early age, very early age, that

14:46

I was different, that I was attracted to other boys.

14:50

And before that man abused

14:52

me. And at one point I thought, is

14:54

it on my forehead? Can people see it

14:56

on my forehead so that they know they

14:58

can come and just use

15:01

me and I won't tell anyone. And

15:05

so it was

15:07

strange in this hugely predominantly

15:10

heterosexual area, the docks.

15:13

But then there was always a kind

15:16

of faint attraction

15:19

of what was going on in the pubs.

15:21

There were always little drag pubs around the

15:23

East End. And Luke Lynch's

15:25

shop that I worked in as a kid,

15:27

she used to call me Nobby. I never

15:29

knew why she called me Nobby. And she'd

15:31

say, Nobby, now when you cycle, it

15:34

was on the paper round, when you cycle

15:36

past that city arms, you go past there

15:38

fast. And of course, immediately as a kid,

15:40

you think, oh, what goes on in the

15:42

city arms? And I can remember I

15:44

parked the bicycle against the pub wall, stood

15:47

up on the saddle, looked into the pub

15:49

window. And I just thought, oh, it's just

15:51

people who look like my aunt Eileen. And

15:53

what I didn't know was it was mainly

15:56

drag queens in there. Beautiful. Yeah. Again, that

15:58

must have been a beautifully reassured. as

16:00

those realizations came about, because

16:03

it's easy for someone of my generation,

16:06

for example, to sit here in these continually

16:09

progressively liberal times for

16:11

such things. Again, still fights

16:13

to be fought, but huge progression,

16:16

particularly in recent years. And

16:19

think, oh, it must have been tough, Catholic

16:22

upbringing in the 50s and 60s, not

16:25

really any public homosexual role

16:28

models or figures, but what

16:30

is easy to overlook and forget is those

16:33

exact years you're probably speaking about there,

16:36

the paper round years, it

16:38

wasn't only frowned upon or looked at on,

16:40

it was literally illegal, which is so hard

16:42

to get your head round in this, like

16:44

having been born into a world

16:46

where that was never the case. It's such a

16:48

hard thing to think that something that is intrinsic

16:50

to your complete nature, your

16:53

first, not only is it frowned upon or

16:56

not talked about, it's actively illegal. How was

16:58

that and how do you kind of battle

17:01

that as you're coming to terms with it? First

17:04

of all, you're right to say that there were no

17:07

role models. The only models you were

17:09

given were in the darker pages of

17:11

the news of the world, invariably, vicars

17:14

or priests caught

17:16

generally abusing boys. There

17:20

were some sensational

17:22

cases like Peter Wildblood. So

17:25

you only read about it in a negative way

17:28

and in films and television,

17:30

we would depict it as camp,

17:32

a feminine, weak little people. But

17:36

I think when you're

17:38

surrounded by people telling you that

17:40

your attraction to someone is criminal,

17:42

that you will go to prison,

17:44

that you could be blackmailed, you

17:46

could be arrested, has a deep

17:48

psychological impact. You

17:50

carry it like a bit of, if

17:53

you can imagine in your gut, there's all

17:55

this silt deep, deep

17:57

down there. And if you're not careful over that, the

18:00

years it builds up and it

18:03

stops you functioning. Even

18:05

though in the 60s

18:08

when it was still illegal, it was

18:10

illegal, only partially decriminalised in 1967, I

18:12

remember a young actor, I was a

18:17

young actor, and people

18:19

were saying to me, you should not let

18:22

people know what you are because it will

18:25

affect your career and you will go to prison. We

18:28

went out on tour when I

18:30

was 15 and a half and I

18:32

had my first experience of these smoky

18:35

little back rooms in pubs where

18:37

it was all men and it was exciting. You

18:40

then ended up late at night in

18:43

places like the bus stations sat

18:45

there stirring your coffee and listening to

18:47

the tales, the horrific tales and the

18:49

more naive you were the more they

18:51

wanted your eyes to pop open about

18:53

the arrests and the beatings and

18:55

the queens and the

18:58

prostitutes would battle with one another for the

19:00

most outrageous stories. And

19:03

so you took comfort in being in a

19:05

small space like those bars in places like

19:08

Blackpool and Manchester and Leeds, but

19:10

you knew that once you stepped outside that door you

19:13

were at risk. You might

19:16

be blackmailed, you could be

19:18

blackmailed into sex, you could

19:20

be beaten up and equally

19:22

you could be arrested if you said to

19:24

someone, you know, I really like you because

19:27

they arrested you for, it was called soliciting

19:30

procuring or soliciting for an

19:32

immoral purpose. There

19:34

was an amazing film about it, was it

19:37

called The Victim? It was the first that

19:39

painted the homosexual character

19:43

as the victim, as the one attacked rather than

19:45

as the villain and it was

19:47

hugely important in cinema and in entertainment at

19:49

that point to have that

19:51

because it's, I talk

19:53

about it all the time on the podcast, but I'm a big

19:56

believer that there's a certain area of society who will listen to

19:58

a progressive lecture. or

20:00

a speech being given or read an article.

20:02

But there's a whole different area that will

20:04

ignore that. Whereas if you can tell those

20:06

stories through entertainment, that's when you can get

20:09

through to those people. And that, it felt

20:11

like just, I saw it a

20:13

while back at the

20:15

Dalige Gallery or museum. And

20:18

yeah, it felt hugely important to begin telling that

20:21

story. Cause it was, it was exactly that of

20:23

the fear of blackmail, the fact that you will

20:25

be blackmailed and that can be just

20:28

crippling mentally and physically

20:31

and financially, obviously. And

20:34

you saw people because these cases were

20:36

reported. They were given huge space. And

20:41

so even when they partially decriminalized

20:43

in 1967 and

20:45

I was 16, by that time

20:47

I'd set up a relationship with a

20:50

boy who was, I say a boy because we were

20:53

young boys. I was 16, he was 24. And

20:57

we ended up being together for nine years. But he

20:59

said to me, he said, we

21:02

have to have two separate rooms or

21:04

wherever we share two separate beds.

21:07

You have to tell people you're my cousin. That's why

21:09

we're sharing. Because the

21:11

police could knock on your door at

21:13

any time because I was 16 and

21:15

he was 24 and the age of consent

21:17

was 21. And

21:19

people will now hear that helicopter going

21:22

above and that's often the troop carriers.

21:24

They come all the way up here along the

21:26

river up towards Hyde Park. And

21:29

so the discrimination

21:32

didn't really change after 1967. That's

21:35

one of the things again, with history and

21:37

with dates, it's easy to look at 1967

21:39

and go, oh, it all changed then. It

21:42

was the breakthrough and it's important of course,

21:44

but purely the fact that the

21:46

first gay kiss came 20 years later on

21:48

TV. That's an illustration of

21:50

how slower process it was. It's

21:54

now decriminalised therefore everyone's okay

21:56

and everyone's safe because it

21:58

was still generating. And

34:00

we came back from this wonderful holiday, and I

34:02

read that there was going to be a march

34:05

against this section 28. And

34:09

I didn't even ask him. I didn't ask anyone. I

34:11

just knew I had to be on this march. I

34:13

knew, I thought, you can't be

34:16

on screen playing this important gay

34:18

character, and people know

34:20

that you're openly gay and

34:22

not be on that march. And I knew

34:24

if I didn't go on that march, I

34:27

would never be able to look myself in

34:29

the face again. So I

34:31

went on that. It was a lovely story

34:33

about how June Brown, who plays Doc, managed

34:35

to get me time off

34:37

so I could go. But

34:40

often I would think, why is it me that

34:42

I've got to do it again? And then the

34:44

other voice in your head says, come on, do

34:47

it. And

34:51

so it became a lot

34:53

easier working around with

34:55

people like Ian McKellen and the

34:57

wonderful activist, Lisa

35:00

Power, Jenny Wilson, Duncan Campbell,

35:03

even Matthew Parris, the Times

35:06

writer, joined us when

35:08

we were setting up Stonewall. And

35:11

it became a bit easier because

35:14

you had that sense of solidarity. But

35:18

if I'm honest, even

35:21

now, when there's an issue, something

35:24

might be happening in this country, there

35:27

might be still, well, there is still the reluctance

35:30

to roll out PrEP as it should be

35:33

rolled out. And you

35:36

know you're working with THT

35:38

and AIDS frontliners and

35:40

all of that, you've got to get up there

35:42

in parliament and raise the issue. And

35:44

every so often you think, oh,

35:47

I wish I could sit back and watch somebody else

35:49

do it. And then you think, no, come on. That's

35:52

why you have a voice. And if you don't use it,

35:55

you lose it. But

35:59

it was different. I

40:00

did a documentary about discrimination against lesbians and

40:02

gay men and where it came from. I

40:04

called it A Kiss Is Just A Kiss.

40:09

And it went out. And here my mum, as they

40:11

always used to do, whether I had a tiny part

40:13

or fronting a documentary, phoned up and they said, proud

40:15

of you, son, proud of you. And

40:17

then the next day he rang in the morning and

40:19

he said about how he was proud

40:21

and he'd been to his pub and they'd given him a

40:23

pint. And he said, so I'm

40:25

proud of you. I said, yeah, you told me that last night.

40:28

And then he said, he said, no, I want to tell you.

40:32

And his voice started to quake.

40:34

He said, I love

40:36

you. I love you, son. And

40:40

I nearly nearly broke down. I said, yeah, I love you

40:42

too, dad. And he said, right, I'm

40:44

going back. Get that pint that

40:46

the governor put on the bar before he takes

40:48

it back. And I

40:51

knew actually that that was

40:53

the moment I became my father's son, that he

40:56

realised that if he'd been gay and

40:59

he'd had exactly the same opportunities and

41:01

the same chances, he would have

41:03

done exactly the same. And

41:07

I'm so proud of that. I'm proud that it happened.

41:11

I learned about my father as

41:13

a real man because of

41:15

his friendship and his relationship

41:18

with Paul. Because if you think

41:21

about it, my dad had four sons, so he never

41:23

thought he was going to get a son-in-law. Yeah. And

41:26

I gave him the perfect son-in-law who loved

41:28

football, loved sport, loved

41:30

politics, and they could talk about

41:32

football until the cows came home,

41:34

whereas it bored me silly. But

41:38

that's what I mean about the

41:40

complexity of life

41:42

and how, for me, you

41:46

can so often find that

41:48

tender part of you that you've shut

41:50

away and denied. Only

41:52

when you have the courage to love and

41:55

the courage to own up to the fact

41:57

that you can be loved, that you deserve

41:59

it. to be loved and

42:02

that you don't deserve, as you think,

42:04

to be abused. Yeah, I mean,

42:06

it's a beautiful story because again,

42:08

it's that moment of... And

42:12

it relates to Paul as well

42:14

there. Your

42:16

dad, as much

42:18

as I'm sure he revelled in it, but he

42:20

has to love his sons. That's

42:22

his fatherly duty. He didn't have to

42:25

love Paul. So that's the beautiful thing

42:27

there, to choose that. And again, that

42:29

moment of that phone call

42:31

from the pub, that's

42:33

that moment of that recognition for

42:35

you that this isn't simply that I

42:37

have to love my sons. This is

42:39

the real look, I love you. You

42:41

know, it feels so powerful on both

42:43

of those counts there. It's

42:45

not just the responsibility to

42:47

love. No. It's the

42:50

choice to love. He came from that

42:52

generation. You know,

42:54

a tough working class man, twice

42:57

a prisoner of war, released by the

42:59

Italians, captured by the Germans, where

43:02

men didn't express love to

43:04

one another unless they were drunk. And

43:06

you certainly didn't to your sons because

43:09

your sons had to be tough like

43:11

you. When I was born,

43:14

like my other brothers, our names were put down

43:16

at the port labour board so that we would

43:18

follow him into the docks. So

43:21

that declaration of love, I'd

43:23

never heard him say

43:26

that before. And

43:28

the fact that it came through that relationship with Paul

43:30

was incredible. Yeah, I love that. So

43:33

can we go back to the founding

43:35

of Stonewall? You co-founded

43:37

it with Ian McKellen and it was

43:40

in response to section 28 of

43:42

the Local Government Act. And

43:47

how did that feel to say that we have to, essentially

43:50

we have to organise? It's not enough to

43:52

be vocal. We

43:54

have to organise because, I

43:56

mean, it sounds dramatic, but I don't

43:59

think it is our enemy is organised.

44:01

Our enemy is incredibly organised. So we

44:03

can't simply protest or speak. We

44:06

need to have that further level of

44:08

unity and organisation to battle this.

44:10

That was exactly what it was,

44:12

unity and organisation. And we certainly

44:14

didn't have unity. When we set

44:16

up Stonewall, we

44:18

were attacked from other activists. We

44:22

were attacked from sections of the lesbian and gay

44:24

media as to who did we think we were,

44:27

who did we represent? And my arrogant

44:29

answer was we represent ourselves

44:32

and we're going to try and achieve equality. And

44:34

if other people want to opt into it, great.

44:37

If they don't, fine. Organising

44:40

was difficult. It took us nearly

44:43

a year to get the right people

44:45

together. Some people said no, because

44:49

our remit was you had to be openly

44:51

lesbian, gay or bisexual. You

44:53

couldn't be in the closet because

44:56

we would present ourselves

44:58

as representing the issues. And what

45:00

we'd learnt during the

45:03

campaign against Section 28 was that

45:05

there were politicians who were willing to

45:07

listen and willing to listen to an

45:09

argument. So we knew that there were

45:11

arguments to be won. But

45:15

the attacks came because they said, you should

45:17

be a membership organisation. And

45:20

what we did know, because we'd seen it

45:22

with other membership organisations, was

45:24

how they'd imploded by serving the

45:26

different wings of their membership rather

45:29

than serving and servicing

45:31

the arguments for change and

45:33

equality. And we launched it here in 1989, a

45:37

year after Section 28 became law, on

45:41

Ian's Terrace overlooking the Thames.

45:44

And then we had to raise money because

45:47

we knew we couldn't get any public money

45:49

for it. Section 28 forbid

45:52

that. So

45:54

we had to do what we did best,

45:56

which was to put on a show. And

45:58

we put on an amazing. list

50:00

of people was just, it

50:02

was endless and it was

50:04

wonderful. And again, as you

50:06

say, it's amazing,

50:08

but it made it unavoidable. And that's the beauty

50:10

of it. It made it something that people couldn't

50:13

just turn away from and ignore. Cause it was

50:15

people in every area of their

50:18

lives. If you're a fan of theater, there

50:20

would be your favorite people from theater. If

50:22

you're a fan of TV, TV, radio, radio,

50:24

everywhere, it would say, no, we

50:26

are adding to the

50:28

richness of your life. Directly. And

50:32

Pip, the great

50:34

thing was a lot

50:36

of these people weren't lesbian, gay or bisexual.

50:39

But they made a connection with

50:41

you cannot deny equality to these

50:43

people because it affects me.

50:46

Yeah. And that is the power

50:49

of standing up for the rights

50:52

of others. Because you know that if

50:54

you want to look at it selfishly, if

50:56

you allow somebody else's rights to go or

50:59

you barter them away, eventually we

51:01

need to look back no further than the 1930s,

51:04

eventually your rights will go. And

51:07

the ability to imagine what if that were me,

51:09

what if that were my child? What

51:12

if that were my mother, my father, whatever.

51:14

If it was not right for them, how

51:17

can it be right for anybody else? And

51:19

that was the powerful signal. And

51:21

one show we did, everything

51:23

had to be written or performed. It

51:25

was written or everything

51:28

that was performed had to be written or

51:30

composed by a lesbian, gay man or bisexual.

51:32

Because we were making a statement that if

51:34

you had this section 28, you could potentially

51:37

lose all of this in a local

51:40

authority concert hall theater. So

51:42

we had to write and get permission. Again,

51:45

there's some lovely stories that I use in the

51:47

book. But one I remember fondly was Leonard Bernstein.

51:49

We wanted to do a number from West

51:52

Side Story. And Leonard Bernstein wrote back

51:54

and said, yeah, I'm proud

51:56

of that bisexual period of my life.

51:59

By that time. He was

52:01

married and doing other

52:04

things, but the association

52:06

was absolutely glorious.

52:10

Sadly, we couldn't do the number because

52:12

of the response from the lyricist, and I'll

52:14

have to let people read about that. Yeah.

52:17

Yeah. So can we talk about your

52:19

choice to become an MEP,

52:23

to continue fighting? Again,

52:26

to fight, as we said, the thing

52:29

with Stonewall was it was the realisation that we

52:31

need more than just the people at the front.

52:34

We need the organisation, we need the people in

52:36

those rooms. It's great to have these events that

52:38

have the Pet Shop Boys and George Michael, and

52:40

all the glamour, but it needs more than that.

52:42

You needed to raise that 30,000 to have an

52:45

employee. Yeah. And

52:47

was that kind of the realisation? It was like,

52:49

right, we don't just need

52:52

the front line, we need the back line as

52:54

well. We need people in parliament, in

52:57

these meetings, in these rooms, representing

52:59

us. That wasn't a

53:02

conscious thought because

53:06

Stonewall's approach was we

53:09

consider LGBT rights high

53:13

profile, high agenda rights.

53:16

They're human rights. And

53:18

so therefore, if a party considers

53:20

itself a serious political party, it

53:22

has to address those rights. And

53:25

there weren't many, but hardly anyone

53:27

out in politics. And

53:30

Stonewall's other way was not only through the

53:32

political process, but taking cases through the courts

53:34

to get to the European Court of Human

53:36

Rights in Strasbourg, and

53:38

working with some amazing individuals.

53:41

But for me, I never

53:43

thought I'd go into politics. I

53:45

left, my education really finished at the age

53:47

of 12. When I left school, I learned

53:50

I knew how to tap

53:52

dance, sing, act, impersonate.

53:55

I want to be key

53:57

skills for a politician. Absolutely. Especially the

53:59

impersonates. Paul

1:02:00

organised it, he was a brilliant organiser. Little

1:02:03

did I know when Barbara Windsor introduced us

1:02:05

all those years before, that this

1:02:07

man would organise my life and turn

1:02:10

me around, make me another person

1:02:13

and I think a better person.

1:02:16

And so we decided we were

1:02:18

going to have our civil partnership and

1:02:21

we put all the things into play. As

1:02:25

people read in the book, there was a time when I thought,

1:02:28

this isn't going to happen, this isn't going to

1:02:30

happen. All our guests were assembled, I

1:02:32

thought, it's not going to happen. But

1:02:34

I can say to people,

1:02:37

never underestimate the

1:02:39

power, the absolute power

1:02:43

of being able to say in public, this is the

1:02:45

person I love and this is the person I'm

1:02:47

committing my life to. And

1:02:50

we did that in public and my only

1:02:52

sadness was that my

1:02:54

parents weren't around to see it. If

1:02:56

my dad had been, he probably would have got drunk

1:02:58

and appeared as an old lady at the drink

1:03:02

celebration afterwards. He was always fond

1:03:04

of doing that. And

1:03:06

our families were there, our friends were there, and

1:03:09

it was such a powerful

1:03:12

day. And later on during

1:03:14

his battle with cancer, in

1:03:16

this room I was stood just behind

1:03:18

him doing the ironing. He was sat

1:03:21

on the sofa, couldn't keep his head up because

1:03:23

it was a bad day with the chemotherapy. And

1:03:27

I loved to do ironing because as Mo Mollum always

1:03:29

says, she used to love filling

1:03:32

the dishwasher and then emptying it. She

1:03:34

said, because in politics you never get

1:03:36

to see if you finished anything. She

1:03:38

said, whereas on a Sunday afternoon that

1:03:40

was hers, well, mine was ironing. I

1:03:42

loved doing it. And I looked down

1:03:44

at this beautiful man, 13 years

1:03:46

younger than me, sat on the sofa

1:03:49

and I said, Paul, because

1:03:51

by then same-sex marriage would

1:03:53

come in. And I said, Paul, will

1:03:56

you marry me? And he said, no,

1:03:58

today's not a good day. So

1:04:01

I continued ironing and they went, hang

1:04:03

on. I said, I'd just ask you if

1:04:06

you'd marry me. And he said,

1:04:08

and I said, today is not a good day.

1:04:10

So that was it. We had our civil

1:04:13

partnership and I think probably he was

1:04:15

sat there battling with this chemotherapy, battling

1:04:17

with this most aggressive of cancers, a

1:04:20

cancer that they only saw one in

1:04:22

every 3 million. And he probably thought,

1:04:24

and on top of this, he thinks

1:04:26

I'm going to organize our wedding. You

1:04:29

must be joking. You're not

1:04:31

happy with the last party I threw for

1:04:33

our relationship. Exactly. I

1:04:35

love that. So I mean, it

1:04:38

seems fair to discuss and talk

1:04:41

about your choice to walk

1:04:43

away from Stonewall and

1:04:46

to move on from that. What was the

1:04:48

reasoning behind that? And how

1:04:50

hard a decision was that to come to, I guess?

1:04:54

The reasoning was quite complex.

1:04:57

I've got an addictive personality and I

1:04:59

now control it. But with

1:05:01

an addictive personality, you become obsessive.

1:05:04

And so all of my free time, I was

1:05:07

giving to Stonewall. And Paul

1:05:10

at one point, because he was at that time an

1:05:13

actor, he was out on tour with

1:05:15

The Rocky Horror Show. And he used to say, I wonder

1:05:17

why I bother to come home. You're not

1:05:19

here. And it

1:05:22

was affecting the relationship. And I also

1:05:24

knew that I was holding

1:05:26

the organization back, that

1:05:29

it could develop in a different way. And

1:05:32

I was holding on to the old ways. And

1:05:34

I made my mind up. I

1:05:37

had to let go. And even at

1:05:39

the meeting where I announced

1:05:41

my resignation, I

1:05:44

was still backling with the other half of my

1:05:46

ego that was saying, you can't go. Because if

1:05:48

you go, look, there's no one here who can

1:05:50

take over. And

1:05:52

when I announced it and I came home and

1:05:55

I told Paul, I didn't even tell him. Because

1:05:57

I didn't want anyone to reason me out of

1:05:59

it. because I knew it

1:06:01

needed a new chair, it needed

1:06:03

a new leader. Angela Mason, a

1:06:05

brilliant executive director, wanted to develop

1:06:08

the organization in a different way.

1:06:12

And so Elaine,

1:06:15

my deputy, she was

1:06:17

then elected as the

1:06:19

chair, and it

1:06:21

was absolutely the right thing to do. It freed me

1:06:23

up. I could get on with other things. I

1:06:26

could commit to Paul, commit to the plays

1:06:29

that I was doing, and then into politics, and

1:06:32

be a part of Stonewall without

1:06:34

having to strangle it. Yeah.

1:06:37

And to stand back and watch

1:06:39

it grow in a way that

1:06:42

I never imagined, in a brilliant

1:06:44

way, was an

1:06:46

amazing gift to receive. Yeah.

1:06:49

I love that. So, I mean, we

1:06:51

started the podcast talking of, if

1:06:54

you stand on the street you grew

1:06:56

up in, and seeing your five-year-old self,

1:06:58

and having your book in your hand,

1:07:00

and having that pride, how

1:07:03

was it in 2014 to

1:07:05

be made Baron Cashman of Limehouse,

1:07:08

in the London Borough of Tower

1:07:10

Hamlets, to be, and again, particularly

1:07:12

somewhere that you

1:07:14

loved, but again, I'd imagine for a good period

1:07:16

of your life, felt you would maybe never be

1:07:19

accepted, because of what you had to hide, because

1:07:21

of who you were and what you were. So,

1:07:23

to be able to have not only

1:07:26

come out as that, not only be accepted

1:07:28

as that, but to be celebrated and honoured

1:07:30

in such a way, that must have been

1:07:32

the ultimate kind of cap to

1:07:36

put on all of that, on that part

1:07:38

of the journey. Well, first

1:07:40

of all, there's a song from, talk

1:07:42

song trilogy, not from talk song trilogy,

1:07:46

I can't remember what, but it's I Am

1:07:48

What I Am. Yeah. And I started singing,

1:07:51

I was what I was. And

1:07:53

what I was needs no excuse. I never

1:07:56

thought it would happen to me. Yeah. It

1:07:58

happened to others.