The
concept of a purely lesbian festival (rather
than the LGBT kind) arose from a number of small
literary events put on by Libertas!
during 1999. Well known authors travelled to
York to do a number of readings and it was
noticed that the smaller, single-author readings
in the shop attracted only a handful of people,
whereas the two events featuring several authors
in a hotel setting – the Virago Roadshow
and a Crime Writing event featuring Alma
Fritchley, Manda Scott and Val McDermid – were
both oversubscribed.
Since the survival of Libertas! depended
on selling books, the two owners, Jenny Roberts
and Ann Croft came up with the idea of combining
a big literary event with the regular
Libertas! disco that was proving so popular.
The
very first ‘book festival’ (actually called the
Diva Roadshow) was held in the Autumn of
2000 at St John’s College with the enthusiastic
backing of Diva Books, and featured a
line up of their newly published authors
including VG Lee, Katherine Bryson, Lee Maxwell,
Diva Books editor Helen Sandler and Jenny
herself. Around 100 women attended this first
event, lots of books were sold and the response
was so enthusiastic that Jenny decided to expand
the concept and hold a much bigger festival in
the following year.
The
Lesbian Pride Weekend in November 2001
initially featured 20 lesbian authors: Stella
Duffy, Manda Scott, Alma Fritchley, Caeia March,
Elizabeth Woodcraft, Helen Shacklady, Charlotte
Mendelson, Val McDermid, Sandi Toksvig, Eleanor
Hill, Jane Fletcher, Ali Smith, Rose Collis,
Lisa Saffron, Jay Taverner, Linda Innes,
Katherine Bryson, Lee Maxwell and VG Lee with
Helen Sandler as chief moderator. To everyone’s
great delight Sandi Toksvig agreed to do a full
hour’s appearance and a young writer by the name
of Sarah Waters, who was just beginning to make
her mark as a leading writer, also agreed to
come along. Anne Rippon gathered her full team
of volunteer security stewards together for the
first time at this event (though she, with some
of the new team, had lent great assistance to
Libertas! events from the very start).
No
one got paid anything – even Sandi, like all the
other authors, generously agreed to give her
time for a modest £50 in expenses. Authors even
paid their own hotel bills! And it is important
to note that, without their generosity of
spirit, the York Festivals would never have
happened.
The
250 tickets for this first event sold out within
a week, so an extra room was booked, more panels
were added. The additional 150 tickets sold out
within a other two weeks!. Jenny recalls, ‘It is
difficult to describe the pure joy of this first
big event. Most of the 400 women who attended
did not go out on the scene. Many had
been to mixed Pride events of course but this
was their first taste of a big social event that
was exclusively for them. What I remember most
of all is the smiling faces and the laughter –
two features that were to become the hallmark of
all the festivals.’
The
only sad thing about this first ‘proper’
festival was the number of women who were unable
to get tickets because of the limited size of
the venue. Jenny, thrilled by the success of her
event and determined to give the lesbian
community what it undoubtedly wanted, decided to
put this right in the following year and -
immediately after the 2001 event - she opened
negotiations with York Racecourse Centre and
with the York Barbican Concert Hall.
An
even bigger ‘Lesbian Pride Weekend’ in
2002 was clearly what everyone wanted but it was
also a major risk for Libertas! and for
Jenny personally. The racecourse premises – the
only ones in York that were suitable for such a
specialised event – were expensive. The fee was
around £6,500
just for the room hire costs. Add to that the
need for staging, microphones, buses, authors’
fees, accommodation and expenses and the total
costs soon rose well above £20,000. Added to
that, the planned concert at the Barbican was
likely to add a further £10,000 to the total
bill. Jenny however was confident that enough
tickets could be sold to make the event break
even. Furthermore, the potential book sales,
would, she hoped, be sufficient to shore up the
loss-making Libertas! bookshop for
another year.
She
was also greatly encouraged by the enthusiastic
support of so many volunteers – led once more by
the indomitable Ann Rippon -who gave their time
so willingly, Diva who supported the
event with advertising and the authors and
moderators who agreed to take part. While Jenny
organised the Book Festival and related
events, promoter Jean T came up from London and
took charge of the concert.
Big
names were booked for both events: Sarah Waters
(by now becoming a true literary star with the
publication of Fingersmith and the TV
production of Tipping the Velvet), Sandi
Toksvig, Stella Duffy, Ali Smith, Manda Scott
and VG Lee at the Book Festival; and
Rhona Cameron, Horse, Martha and Eve and the
Electric Landladies for the big concert. (Crin
Claxton, who was to become the director of the
York Lesbian Arts Festival in 2007 and
2008, appeared at the Book Festival for
the first time.)
Jenny again: ‘It took me virtually the whole
year to organise this massively expanded
festival and I was conscious throughout that it
might all go badly wrong if the support was not
there. By the time the 8th and 9th
of November came along I could have been a
nervous wreck but, as the Festival approached I
was bowled over by the positive response from
the lesbian community and the authors and
artists. It was clear that we had tapped into
something very special and very important..
‘On
the weekend itself there were over 3000 lesbians
enjoying themselves in York. Six hundred of them
attended a Diva Party Night on the Friday
evening (hosted by Claire Mooney with Clare
Summerskill, Rosie Lugosi and Belinda O’Hooley.
The Book Festival on the Saturday was a
sell-out with 1300 tickets sold, as was the
concert with all 1100 seats taken. There were
guided walking tours of York, instigated by Jen
Challinor, which again were fully subscribed, a
film preview and popular writing workshops for
aspiring authors. I don’t think that York had
ever seen anything like it! But then, neither
had any of us!
‘The atmosphere was brilliant. Taxi drivers
remarked on how friendly everyone was, the venue
managers were delighted with the good behaviour
of the crowds (what did they expect!?) and (with
only two exceptions) all the hotels and b & b’s
proved friendly and welcoming to their lesbian
guests (remember this was before Civil
Partnership and the equality laws). Even the
City Council stepped in with praise and the
promise of future support for this unique event.
‘I’ve done many things in my life – from
building up a successful printing business with
140 employees to running one of the world’s
toughest long distance (154 miles) races - yet,
if I had to choose one event in my life as the
most rewarding, it would be the 2002 Lesbian
Pride Weekend. It was simply amazing to see
so many happy women in one place and to feel,
like them, that we were all part of something so
special. I couldn’t believe that it had been
such an outstanding success. I was also relieved
that it broke even, that there were no disasters
and that we sold as many books in one day as we
would normally sell in six weeks!
I
remember that the shop was full to capacity
nearly all day on the Sunday and that the
shelves were almost bare by the late afternoon.
It was all truly remarkable. I should add that
running a lesbian bookshop eventually turned out
to be a financially impossible task - we were in
effect doing it for love - and the books sold at
this festival enabled Libertas! to keep
going for just a little longer.’
Letters of congratulation and support flooded in
after the event, together with a few complaints
that the event had not been political enough.
There had been a debate in some of the panels
over the future direction of the festival and
whilst a minority demanded more feminist
politics, the vast majority made it clear both
at the festival and afterwards that the overall
tone and mix was right, and that it should
continue as it was.
Planning for the 2003 Festival began the week
after. By popular vote, the name was changed to
The Libertas Lesbian Arts Festival and it
was extended to three days - with even more
events. Once again thousands of lesbians flooded
into York, holding hands in the street and
charming just about everyone with their good
nature and great sense of fun.
That year there were two big concerts at
the Barbican instead of one, both organised by
Jean T and featuring a sparkling array of
lesbian stars including Sandi Toksvig, Julie
Felix, Horse, Martha and Eve, Never the Bride,
and from the USA, singing duo Halcyon. A film
festival at City Screen featured lesbian classic
films and, once again, the ever popular writers
workshops were sold out.
At
the two-day Book Festival, overseas
authors appeared for the first time. They
included cartoonist Alison Bechdel, crime
writers Katherine V Forrest and Claire McNab,
and novelist Cathie Dunsford all the way from
New Zealand. Many of the previous years British
authors appeared again together with a host of
debut authors and a star appearance from poet
and author Jackie Kay who ended her performance
with a standing ovation.
The
new Saturday evening Women-Only Mega Disco
attracted a record crowd of over 2000 and
featured a live performance from the Electric
Landladies and Halcyon as well as a surprise
appearance of Scottish drumming group SheBoom.
Simultaneously over the other side of town,
Laure Meloy and Deborah Hannah were performing
the lesbian opera ‘Patience and Sarah’.
Sunday noon saw an hour-long open air concert
bang in the middle of York sponsored by the City
Council. Hosted by Claire Mooney, the event
featured the 20 strong, massively popular (and
very loud!) SheBoom drummers and, in spite of
the rain, attracted massive crowds of ordinary
shoppers as well as many hundreds of lesbians.
The
Festival ended with another sell-out event – an
afternoon of poetry with Jackie Kay, a special
event organised by York City Council.
Outstandingly successful as it was (and once
again it broke even), the 2003 event was due to
be the last. Jenny takes up the story again.
‘We
had trailed the closing of the Libertas
shop for many months ahead of the festival and
explained that without the shop and its
resources, it would be impossible for us to
continue to organise such a massive event.
Foolishly perhaps, I had thought that, that
would be that. However, other people thought
differently. A senior manager with York City
Council contacted me weeks before the 2003
festival and told me that such an important
event could not be allowed to lapse. Venue
managers harangued me and refused to accept
cancellation for the following year. Authors and
performers told me that it had to continue and,
once the festival was underway, I was
buttonholed by one person after another and told
in no uncertain times that the Festival must
(somehow!) go on.
‘By
the end of the festival I was once again
overwhelmed by its success and its effect on all
and sundry. I didn’t know how I could do it, but
I was determined to try and ensure the
continuance of the festival. I wrote to everyone
I knew and asked for volunteers to organise
future festivals and little by little I was able
to gather a team of like-minded people who
volunteered to organise at least one more.’
Festival stalwarts Helen Sandler, Jane Traies,
Anne Rippon, Jen Challoner, Claire Mooney, Helen
Shacklady, Pat Thynne and Ann Kaloski stepped
forward and, with a little hand-holding by
Jenny, and free facilities supplied by the City
of York Council they set about forming a
non-profit making company to run future events.
It took them over a year to get through the
legalities, get new funding, find sponsors and
start organising the 2005 event but with long
hours, hard work – and a lot of faith in the
need for such an event – they did it! Helen
Sandler took over as Director in late 2004 and,
with her new colleagues, they took the festival
forward into the future, innovating, adapting
and improving all the way – and, in spite of
even greater costs, managed to break even once
again.
The
newly re-vamped York Lesbian Arts Festival
(YLAF) took place at the racecourse again on
the last weekend of October 2005 and was, once
again, an outstanding success with the usual mix
of popular events, plus new ones like a market
place, new workshops, a big Club Night on
two floors of the Racecourse building – and even
more overseas celebrities at the book festival.
Thanks to the work of the YLAF board of
trustees (including all the new members who
stepped in so readily over the years) and an
ever-growing team of dedicated volunteers, the
festival continued to flourish. Helen Sandler
organised a highly successful event again in
2006 and Crin Claxton carried the flag for 2007
and 2008, producing two excellent and highly
enjoyable festivals.
It
seems incredible that, in a world where
alternative and voluntary events come and go
like clockwork, the York lesbian Arts
Festival has remained in such good health.
There are thousands of women who clearly hope
that it will remain so – not least Jenny
herself.
‘When we held that first small literary event
in 2000,’ she says, ‘ it never occurred to us
that we might be starting something that would
sweep across the lesbian world and become such
an institution – probably the biggest event of
its kind in the world. Like the current
organisers, we never made a penny from all the
hard work we put into the festival (nor from
Libertas! itself come to that), but neither
Ann nor myself would ever swap what, truly, has
been the experience of a lifetime.
The
really nice thing is that other people seem to
feel the same way too. It seems to have been a
very special event for thousands of women.
Hundreds of friendships have been formed (not
least amongst the volunteers, writers and
performers taking part), women have met and
fallen in love at the festival, closeted
lesbians have felt able to come out when they
went home and women everywhere have felt good
about being part of such a special community.
EvenYork itself has acquired a reputation as a
lesbian-friendly city and we still smile at the
number of women who come here for a break and
can be seen walking through the city, proudly
holding hands.
‘Whether you call it the Diva Road Show,
the Libertas Lesbian Pride Weekend, the
Libertas Lesbian Arts Festival or YLAF,
York’s unique lesbian festival is something that
belongs to all of us, something that is part of
our lesbian history - and something that, those
of us who have enjoyed it, can look back at with
affection. Let’s hope it continues for many
years to come.’
CAMPAIGN FOR HOMOSEXUAL EQUALITY – A
Short History
CHE
was the largest, most all embracing,
most democratic – and most active - mass
gay organisation England ever had.
Its time was 1960s, 1970s, and 80s.
It arose when enough gays became strong
enough to publicly "come out" and say we
are what we are and have a right – a
human right - to equality within the
law. This hadn’t happened before simply
because queers - as gays were known and
often called themselves – queers were
just frightened to publicly say what
they were.
The early moves to law reform were done
FOR gays by straights – like
J.B.Priestley, Leo Abse, Lord Arran -
and the first UK gay activist Anthony
Grey who was gay – but very quietly so.
You had to be in those days. Antony did
sterling work for law reform by lobbying
the great and good, who would of course
be non-gay. This group based in London
called itself the Homosexual Law Reform
Society and it had its charitable arm
called The Albany Trust, after Albany
off Piccadilly, London which was
J.B.Priestley’s flat where the first
meetings were held.
But by the 1960s gays themselves started
to “come out” and most noteworthy,
writing letters to the papers, and
articles for left wing periodicals, was
a colliery clerk, Allan Horsfall from
Lancashire.
Out of Allan Horsfall’s energy a group
gathered in Manchester to support Antony
Grey in London and this group were more
radical, and were mainly gay – and quite
soon all gay – so it was out of
Manchester a movement began to demand
full law change. There must be equality:
an end to discrimination and C H E as it
became called advocated and worked for
the practise and use by gays of their
rights under the law. And to actively
claim what should be their right.
So CHE Campaign for Homosexual Equality
became this great national movement of a
vast range of gays from Tories to
Lefties, from north and south, from
promiscuous to partnered – and it worked
in two great areas – to lobby for
Parliamentarians to change the law – and
the harder work of having public opinion
constantly being “educated”. And in a
second way CHE was great in making
pioneering moves to have society accept
gays might want their own dances/clubs
and ways of meeting. And meeting without
fear.
By
the 1980s and 1990s many of the
objectives had been won and as laws were
changed, and gays took advantage, the
need for a political mass movement on a
CHE scale fell away. Many gays were
starting living just normal lives – and
partnering openly – and for those who
wanted it - creating an open social life
– of clubs: chat lines: personal ads:
and even cruising pages on the Internet
became eventually accepted.
While some gays later took a leaf from
the U.S.A. experience and founded a
copycat radical pink revolutionary path
of Gay Liberation, CHE was always wary
of Gay Lib – taking a much broader, all
encompassing view that gays came in all
shapes and shades and sizes – and true
freedom would be when being gay no
longer mattered. And of course C H E was
democratic – the membership voted: the
annual conferences passed binding
motions in a trade union manner. It was
“built in” though, that victory would be
won when to be gay no longer mattered .
It’d be the kind of quality of person
you are that matters - a situation that
has at last, as far as the written law
is concerned, come to pass.
The successors to CHE were STONEWALL the
professional lobby group who pushed
through the final tidies to the law in a
professional lobby way – and Peter
Tatchell’s OUTRAGE who want freedoms we
had won to happen in Zimbabwe and
abroad, and wanted a more radical shake
of sex politics/ thought. In fact on
reflection STONEWALL is more like a
successor to the lobby effort of Antony
Grey’s Homosexual Law Reform Society,
and Peter Tatchell’s OUTRAGE more a
successor to the militant Gay Lib of Bob
Mellors.
Gay Pride ? – well that today is a
parade of hedonists – it’s a Mardi Gras
and politics have gone. The need has
passed. CHE trod the broad and middle
ground – in a politically populist way
and there’s no need for that now. So –
although CHE does still exist – it is no
way what it was and no other movement
has or could come along and do what it
did – for that time has thankfully
passed and been won.
The founder of CHE was Allan Horsfall –
a colliery clerk, and his partner Harold
Pollard a primary school head. Allan is
still alive and lives in Bolton, Greater
Manchester. Early on CHE was greatly
helped by the Church of England in
Manchester Diocese who provided the
early meeting rooms at the Board for
Social Responsibility offices in
Blackfriars Road, Salford. And provided
CHE with its first chairman – a non gay
Scot, Colin Harvey, who worked full time
as a lay worker for the Church of
England Manchester Diocese and was a
greats supporter of gay rights.
CHE’s early development was also greatly
helped by the then Bishop of Middleton
(Manchester), another non gay, Ted
Wickham, a Cockney, who was willing to
stand out and be the first
Vice-President of the early CHE.
As was Neil Pearson, a leading
Manchester solicitor, who was the first
President.
CHE collected a GOOD BODY, an honourable
body, of Vice Presidents – these things
were very necessary in those days – but
the main bulk of the early committees –
and later of all committees were of gays
themselves who were the first to “come
out”.
Other vice-presidents
included:-
Professor Colin Adamson,
D.SC., M.Sc,Eng, MIEE
The Very Rev. Alfred Jowett,
MA, Dean of Manchester
Sir Alfred Ayer, FBA
Peter Katin
Lord Beaumont of Whitely
Josephine Klein, PhD
Humphry Berkeley
Dr Arnold Linken, MB, B.Ch
Anthony Blond
Peter Maxwell Davies
Bridgid Brophy
George Melly
Dr R. W. Burslem, M.D.,
FRCOG
Dr Jonathan Miller
Robert Chartham PhD
Richard Neville
Rev. Tony Cross, MA
Rev Dr Norman Pittenger
Michael De-la-Noy
Harold Pollard
Margaret Drabble
Rt Rev John Robinson
Martin Ennals
Michael Scofield
Professor Anthony Flew, MA
Dr Maurice Silverman, MD,
DPM.
Peter Hain
Tony Smythe
Ian Harvey
Donald Soper
Dr James Hemming
Peter Wildeblood
David Hockney
Angus Wilson
H. Montgomery Hyde
Dr Michael Winstanley
The work of CHE fell roughly into two
areas –
o
There was the lobbying of the
parliamentarians to change the law – and
the writing and speaking to change
public opinion – from a position where
all male gay sex was illegal.
o
Was to set up a social life – for gays
who in those days had no open clubs, no
press – all social life was done in
secret: and in fear.
This made life “exciting” – for some.
But horrid for most: and clearly unfair
and wrong. An early supporter of CHE was
Reg Kilduff, the landlord of The
Rembrandt hotel on Sackville Street, who
was the first publican – gay himself,
running a noted “queer bar” – prepared
gingerly to let his name be attached
openly to a gay list. Today of course
every newspaper publishes gay event
lists – but not then. Nobody dared. To
be anything gay was a shame - a love
that dared not speak its name. The young
generation have no idea how things were.
And CHE were the first to come out – and
in Manchester this movement was before
the New York City Stonewall riots. From
Manchester, CHE began to publish the
very first lists of gay bars/gay meeting
places, and to hold socials in hired
rooms and publicly begin the first moves
to openly ask for licenses to operate
property an as an open gay club. We were
always turned down. And this activity
got CHE into considerable hot water with
the London campaigners for law change
who said, "You're rocking the boat".
Indeed Lord Arran, who had passed
through the House of Lords a bill said
that said that gays could in private
have relationships (if they were over
21) – he declared in the Evening
Standard he’d never have pushed through
such a bill if he’d realised gays would
be wanting to have their own clubs.
Looking back, at times there were
hilarious moments, particularly for the
organisers who had bravely “come out”
and passed through the first scary
barriers. But we must not forget - for
the membership of CHE in those early
days just to be a member took great
courage – for queers did live then under
real fear and the repression so many
lived under often resulted in blackmail
and tragic suicides. No greater example
than that in Manchester of the
mathematician Alan Turing.
The "promised land" for CHE was to live
in a world like the Dutch comrades were
creating with the COC organisation in
Amsterdam – caring and fun, yet serious
and respected. But when CHE applied for
a licence to run such a club in Burnley,
the outcry was furiously led by a Roman
Catholic priest beneath the slogan –
“We’ll have no buggers' clubs in
Burnley”. CHE persisted – constantly
meetings were held – we took the main
Central Library in Burnley: advertised
on the buses. Ray Gosling chaired the
packed and volatile public meeting.
And in the fight for clubs -“Esquire
Clubs” they were to be called - the
directors were not only Allan Horsfall,
broadcaster Ray Gosling but the M.P. for
Bootle the late Alan Roberts. Let us
salute the pioneers. Our Esquire clubs
never happened, but what we wanted has.
It was a worthwhile battle – decently
fought – and won. Partly because CHE
went public – came out of the closet and
argued common sense rights.
No disrespect to all the other people
who played their part – but CHE played a
leading role in the 1960s THE most
important period in the fight for
liberty – and now in Manchester it is to
be honoured.
Jenny
Roberts has never made any secret of the fact
that she is a trans woman. She underwent gender
reassignment in 1996 and identified as lesbian
shortly after. An avid reader, she found great
difficulty in sourcing the lesbian and feminist
books that interested her and which she felt
were vital to her understanding of women’s
culture. At that time there were a number of
/political/community bookshops that served the
feminist and lesbian market but only one shop
specifically serving the feminist/lesbian
community (Silver Moon in London).
Running
a bookshop appealed to Jenny and she saw it as a
chance to get involved in, and give something
back to, the lesbian community that had accepted
her so readily - rather than as a money-making
project (which it never was). Libertas!
Opened its doors at 40 Gillygate, York in
November 1998 with an opening ceremony by crime
author Val McDermid and a massive party (an
early taster for the York Lesbian Festival) in
the vast Georgian magnificence of the City’s
Assembly Rooms. About one hundred women were
queuing outside the shop before opening and the
interest was so great that numbers entering the
new shop had to be regulated by staff at the
entrance. The name Libertas! was
suggested by one of Jenny’s friends. Libertas is
the goddess of freedom and liber is the latin
for both ‘book’ and ‘free’. It seemed a good
name for a project serving a community which
still had so many causes to strive for.
Books
were stocked on a wide variety of subjects from
Women’s Studies and feminist publications
through to women’s fiction, lesbian fiction and
even lesbian erotica. Local interest was however
limited to the lesbian market and most straight
women in the city avoided the shop because, as
one of them admitted, ‘I’m concerned that
people will think that I am a lesbian.’
As a
consequence the stock changed to mostly lesbian
and feminist publications and Libertas!
became almost exclusively a lesbian bookshop
attracting customers from all over the UK and
known locally as ‘that lesbian shop’. Ann
Croft joined Jenny in late 1999 and they ran the
shop together, launching and expanding
Dykelife (the monthly lesbian literary
catalogue) and the online website
www.libertas.co.uk.
The shop
thrived and over the course of the first few
years Libertas! became something of a a
focus for the lesbian community. Social events
included book readings with famous lesbian
authors, and the ever popular women’s disco,
held three times each year at St John’s College,
which was always packed to capacity with women
of all ages and backgrounds. An online forum was
launched and, to this day remains one of the
most popular – and most friendly – online
discussion sites for lesbians.
‘This
was a very special and exciting time in our
lives,’ recalls Jenny, ‘Libertas! had
become an incredible force for good. Women who
were scared of their new found sexuality came
into the shop for reassurance and to build their
confidence. Closet lesbians saw the shop as a
kind of oasis in a straight world. Radical
feminists visited to buy the latest political
tract and, at the other extreme, we had a
regular stream of young (and not-so-young) women
seeking erotica or manuals on lesbian
sex, as well as books featuring lesbian romance.
Lesbian detective stories were always popular
along with classics that many of our customers
had never had the chance to access. Goodness
knows how many romances began in there among the
bookshelves!’
The web
site and the circulation of Dykelife
continued to grow apace and, in the autumn of
2000 the first very small Lesbian Festival was
held and proved so popular that it was expanded
in the following years to become a major event
in the lesbian year.
Libertas! would
have survived and prospered for many years, had
circumstances not altered radically. However it
was not to be. While demand for lesbian books
remained very high the number of publishers
began to shrink alarmingly as the big bookshops
concentrated on money spinners. The Women’s
Press, the backbone of lesbian and women’s
publishing, began to wind down. The spectacular
range of books from Sapphire(part of Virgin) was axed. Various
other small lesbian publishers closed, even
Diva Books, so vibrant in its early years,
soon began to lose momentum. The number of new
lesbian titles shrank from over 100 per year
down to about 40. Libertas! began
importing the new style of lesbian saga fiction
from the USA and this countered the trend a
little, but it was not enough to stave off the
inevitable consequences. Silver Moon, the
only other women’s bookshop in the UK – and
themselves publishers of many lesbian books -
closed in 2001 (it eventually became part of
Foyles, though in a vastly different form).
Jenny
remembers the sinking feeling that they were
fighting a losing battle. ‘We were very sad when
Silver Moon closed its doors. We saw them not as
competitors but as co-workers and we sold all of
the books that they published. Their demise was
in no way good news for the rest of us, who were
also struggling to serve the lesbian market. We
had almost begun to make a profit at the end of
the first three years but, as the number of new
books declined, our losses began to rise again.
Running a bookshop is expensive and difficult.
The profit margin per book is very small and we
reckoned we needed to sell at least one thousand
books every month simply to cover our costs. We
were nearly there when the number of books
published began to fall dramatically.
Furthermore online discounters - Amazon in
particular – beganeating away at our customer base. We
had so many loyal customers but, without the
volume of books, we knew that it was going to be
very difficult to keep going.’
In an
effort to stem the losses and survive,
Libertas! tried to widen its range. ‘We
tried selling gay men’s books. We hoped that we
might get by as a gay bookshop like Gays the
Word in London but unfortunately it seemed
that the only books and DVD’s that appealed to
our male customers were the hard porn type and
we simply weren’t prepared to stock those on
principle.’
The new
range of women’s sex toys did create a extra
sales, particularly in the mail order side of
the business, and the massive success of The
Libertas! Lesbian Arts Festival had boosted
revenue - but it was not enough. Jenny and Ann
knew that they had to try something more radical
if the shop was to survive. ‘Our lease was
ending at Gillygate so we decided to buy a shop
just off the main shopping area of York. The
idea was to have a mainstream book and gift shop
at ground level which we hoped would subsidise
the new Libertas! shop on the first
floor.’
Sadly
the overheads remained too high for the new
venture to work and losses continued to grow
even faster on the Libertas! side of the
business.
‘It was
a very very hard decision to make, but we had
seen our savings dwindle to a point where we
could not contemplate continuing any longer.
However we knew that our mailing service and our
website were profitable so we decided that the
best way forward was to cut our losses and
become a simple mail order service operating
from inexpensive premises with just the two of
us and one helper.’
The shop
closed at Christmas 2003 and a new website was
launched on 1st January 2004. Traffic
almost doubled at once and the new, slimmed down
Libertas (tellingly without the
exclamation mark) became profitable at last.
‘It was
a great relief to us,’ says Ann, who looked
after the site and continued to edit the
Dykelife catalogue, ‘but, in all honesty, it
was not the same. We missed the people, we
missed the sense of being part of a real
community. We still talked to customers on the
phone but mostly it just became another job – we
missed our team from the shop and we missed
meeting the vast selection of dykes, lesbians
and gay women who used to frequent the shop.
Over the years they had become friends rather
than just customers.’
Jenny
takes up the story. ‘I suppose it is ironic, but
having at last got Libertas to a point
where it could survive, we felt that we had lost
our ‘raison d’etre’. Making enough money to pay
the bills was wonderful, but really, we felt
that we had lost the business and the community
that was so central to the idea right at the
heart of the original Libertas!’
So, in
the summer of 2004, the decision was taken to
sell Libertas. Millivres Prowler,
publishers of Diva agreed to step in and
run the mail order and online service as it had
always been run ‘by dykes for dykes’.
Ownership of Libertas passed to them in
January 2005, since when it has continued to
thrive as an online resource.
However,
things change and it looks like even the
remodelled Libertas is finally on its way
out. The online service was amalgamated with
Diva Direct in 2008, Dykelife is no
longer published and only the forum remains as a
true reminder of the Libertas! that once
was so popular.
It is
sad but we live in a world where size seems to
count for everything. But at least Libertas!did exist and many of us will remember
with great fondness, the five glorious years
when it was a shining light for literary and
not-so-literary lesbians everywhere.
|
Biography
|
You might say that I’ve led a chequered life.
When I was born, just towards the end of
the Second World War (yes that long
ago!), no-one could have predicted the
changes that were to shape our lives in
the last part of the 20th century.
Equally no-one could have predicted the
route my own life would take.
Disappointingly, I was born a boy but
decided to make the best of it anyway. I
had a quiet childhood, living above my
parents fruit and flower shop and eating
spoiled fruit. When I was twelve, we
moved to a smallholding on the edge of a
crumbling cliff, near the sea, where I
spent many hours walking with my mother
on the beautiful, windswept sands.
I left home at 20 and joined a big chain
store in Harrogate, measuring men’s
inside legs and slicing bacon (though
not at the same time). But eventually I
realised that there had to be more to
life than this and I married, began a
small printing business and started a
family - in that order. And over the
next twenty years the business grew to
employ 140 people and the children into
two of the most wonderful people I know.
But throughout that time, the pleasure
and fulfilment of my life was matched by
the fear of the gender problems lurking
around every corner ready to ambush me.
So in 1980, driven by a fear of who I
really might be, and the worry of
upsetting the lives of those around me,
I took up running. First marathons,
then, within 5 years, ultra distance
races of anything up to 140 miles in one
go, and training up to 180 miles a week.
My athletic ‘career’ and my flight from
my problems culminated in the 154 mile
Sparta to Athens race in 1992 (which I
finished in 32 hours).
But, by this time, I’d had enough of
running away and I’d had quite enough of
pretending to be someone who I wasn’t. I
began to let go of the notion that
‘these things happen to other people’
and started to believe in myself. In
1996, everything began to become right
and I underwent ‘corrective’ surgery
finally assuming the life I’d always
known was right.
I thought that was that. (Well you would
wouldn’t you?)
But there was more. Within the space of
a year, I realised that I was not the
heterosexual, stereotypical woman that I
had taken myself for. It was a shock (a
nice one) and, from the moment that I
identified as lesbian, all the pieces
fitted perfectly.
Within the short space of three years I
wrote my first book Needle Point, opened
Libertas! Women’s Bookshop in York and
fell in love with the woman who is now
my life partner - my gorgeous Ann. (We
tied the knot in a civil partnership
ceremony in 2006.)
I found the job of running a women’s
bookshop both exciting and fun and, with
Ann, I also enjoyed organising the first
four of the big Lesbian Arts Festivals
in York which attract thousands of
friendly lesbians to the city every
year. It has been a privilege for me to
be able to give something back to a
women’s community that has been so
supportive of me. Don't believe the
stereotypes - lesbians are warm and
wonderful women.
Libertas is now owned and run by others
and the festival, too, continues to
thrive with the help of a hard working
group of women who took it over in 2004.
For me, I continue to love writing. I
love giving people pleasure through
storytelling. Eventually, I hope to have
a fourth book published - something a
little different this time.
More than anything though. I enjoy who I
am. And I am who I want to be.
Dead
Reckoning,
published by Diva books, follows
not-quite-so hot on the heels of her
previous successful novels,
Needle Point and Breaking
Point - thousands of fans have
been impatiently awaiting the return
of Cameron McGill, Roberts’ lesbian
heroine.
‘Between 2001 and 2002,’ explains
Roberts, ‘Libertas [the women’s
bookshop in York that Roberts
opened], and the Lesbian Arts
Festival dominated an already busy
life. As a consequence my writing
time suffered and I couldn't finish
Dead Reckoning properly until after
I had passed on Libertas and the
festival to other people last year.’
Roberts makes no secret of the fact
that she was born a man and is now,
very happily, a woman. Dead
Reckoning is Roberts’ first novel to
make transgender issues its core.
‘Actually,’ Roberts says, ‘I hate
the term transgender as it lumps a
whole range of very dissimilar
people under one label. I identify
primarily as a dyke but openly admit
to being transsexual. I try and pick
what might be described as a
different alternative lifestyle for
each of my books. In Needle Point
it was squatting and squatting
politics, in Breaking Point
it was animal rights. When I came to
start Dead Reckoning I wanted
to pay some sort of homage to the
city and the lgbt community that
helped me so much - so I chose the
gay village and Greater Manchester
as the backdrop - and the secrecy
and difficulties faced by two of the
local cross-dressers became the
basis for the plot. There is no
reason why I waited until the third
book. I simply didn't think of the
plot until then!’
Roberts doesn’t think there’s much
of herself in her heroine, Cameron
McGill: ‘I hope that I share
Cameron's ethical approach to life
but I'm pretty sure I fall short.
She's much younger than me, better
looking and much more
courageous/brave/foolhardy than I
am. And while I admire many of
her qualities, she remains at heart
quite a traumatised, vulnerable and
unhappy character - though someone I
like enormously.
’ How does writing short stories
compare to novels? ‘I prefer novels
any day,’ Roberts says. ‘Short
stories are only one step up from
poetry for me. The story and the
language has to be kept very tight,
and, though they can be written in a
day or two, there is little scope
for description, plot or background
colour. I hope to write more short
stories but I will always prefer the
broad canvas of a novel.
‘I wanted to write all my life but I
was too occupied with family and
work and too confused about my
gender to focus properly. I wrote
Needle Point in the year after I
came out as a dyke and it was really
in response to reading a mountain of
women's studies books, lesbian crime
and women's fiction. I had no job
so, for the first time in my life, I
had the time to sit down every day
and make myself do it.
‘I always tell aspirant authors that
they shouldn't imagine that there is
anything wrong when they find that
they can't just sit down and knock
off a masterpiece. Nearly every
published writer I know will tell
you that writing is very hard. It's
mostly about effort rather than
inspiration. The important thing is
to reserve time, to discipline
yourself to write in that time
(whether you feel like it or not),
to get something down on paper
(however bad - and that means the
whole story not just one chapter)
and then rewrite, rearrange, change,
edit and polish until you get
something that works. Even then you
must be prepared to consider
changing it when an editor asks you
to. And you must be prepared all the
time for rejection. Only the truly
determined make it through to a
published book, but it is definitely
worth the effort!’
Roberts isn’t sure whether she
agrees that lesbian detective
fiction is a genre on the rise,
though: ‘I used to agree with that,
but recently there has been such a
decline in lesbian publishing in
this country that, sadly, I don't
think it is any longer the case.
With the ending (for the moment
anyway) of Diva Books and the
closure of Women's Press a
few years ago, Britain is left with
only one very small lesbian
publisher. At the same time, the
bigger publishers are often
demanding projected sales of around
30,000 books before they will
consider an author. A novel
perceived as “too lesbian” won't
even get a look-in. Dead
Reckoning aside, all the current
new lesbian crime books seem to be
coming from the States - and even
then they are few and far between.
The readers are still out there but
we need more publishers and we need
more crime writers.’
How has life changed - and, more to
the point, how has Roberts changed -
since she underwent her sex-change
operation? ‘I don't think that I've
changed at all inside of myself as I
have always felt like the person I
am now. I spent 50 years pretending
to be a man, being treated as a man,
being excluded from women's company
in the way that men are, hating
straight sex and penetration and
putting up with a body that I
despised. Changing to the real me
and identifying as lesbian after the
operation was a coming-home which
has broadened my horizons and given
me the ability to live my life to
the full. I think I've probably
changed much more since I met my
partner Ann. Being loved is a
wonderful thing and I'm more content
now than any other time in my life.’
But have things changed over the
last few years? Does having
media-friendly trans people like
Nadia from last year's Big Brother
help? ‘Happily,’ she says,
‘difference as a whole is becoming
widely accepted and trans people are
no exception. As in the caes of
lesbians and gay men, the EU has
been very helpful in pushing the UK
government into bringing forward
anti-discrimination laws. Since May
I've been legally female and have a
birth certificate in the name of
Jenny Roberts to prove it and,
thanks to the Civil Partnership Act,
Ann and I can, at last, get legally
hitched (as lesbians of course)
around the end of this year. ‘I
think that all high-profile people
play some kind of a part whether we
take to them or not. I admired what
I saw of Nadia but since I can't
stand the show, I wasn't exposed to
her very much. In the end I believe
that 'normalisation' of hitherto
taboo lifestyles comes from people's
contact with positive images. We all
play a part in that and we can all
help to change the prejudice that
remains.’
Roberts is currently working on a
spy novel, Deep Indigo,
featuring another strong woman:
‘Jamie Driscoll, an ex-Army
Intelligence and at some odds with
the spymasters of MI5. It is still
in the very early stages and, if
accepted, because of the pondorous
ways of publishing is unlikely to
reach publication until 2007. Early
next year I hope to begin the fourth
Cameron McGill book which will carry
on from the end of Dead Reckoning
and will probably be set in
Rotterdam. Apart from that Ann and I
are enjoying gardening, time with
our grandchildren and our two
Miniature Schnauzer dogs, Cassie and
Sammie.’
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