As the BBC continues its month-long celebration
Gay Britannia, with plays, films, documentaries and discussions all to mark the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality in Britain, so the ever-marvellous John Coulthart's
Feuilleton takes a look at a long-forgotten remnant of those days, the esoteric
Jeremy magazine...
...a short-lived publication launched in the UK in 1969. The magazine is notable not for the quality of its contents - which seem slight considering the high cover price of six shillings - but for being the first British magazine aimed at an audience of gay men that wasn’t porn, a dating mag or a political tract. I had planned to write something about Jeremy at least two years ago... but detailed information about the magazine’s history is hard to find.
The anniversary of the change in the law has prompted a number of exhibitions and events devoted to Britain’s gay history but little of that history ever seems to travel beyond academic circles unless a notable life story - Quentin Crisp or Alan Turing, say - is involved. As with so many aspects of British culture, the conversation is dominated by America: the main campaigning organisation in the UK, Stonewall, is named after an American riot; the LGBT initialism is an American invention, as is the rainbow flag (the latter, as I’ve said before, being fine as a flag but - with its multiple colours - hopeless as a symbol). More Britons will know the name Harvey Milk than they do Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) or Allan Horsfall (1927–2012) even though Carpenter and Horsfall devoted years of their lives campaigning for gay men to be treated equally under the law in the Britain. Horsfall’s Campaign for Homosexual Equality pioneered the push for gay rights in Britain, the first official meeting taking place in Manchester in 1964. The Sexual Offences Act of 1967 seemed in later years like a poor compromise but when the alternative being offered was celibacy or the risk of a prison sentence it was a start...
..and, it would seem, an important part in this momentous history was played by
Jeremy!
Read more of this fascinating article
