Gay Pride 1979- World In Action.

I copied this text from Tom Robinson's website: http://tomrobinson.bandcamp.com/album... 1979 was a cusp year for gay people in the UK: the liberation movement that had started with the Stonewall Riots in America in 1969 - and Gay Liberation Front in Britain soon after - had snowballed to the extent that it had built up its own momentum without having actually achieved any significant reforms. By 1979 our paper, Gay News, was selling 25,000 copies a fortnight; we were shortly to have our very own (and wonderful) ITV magazine series, Gay Life; and Greater London Arts had given £1,000 for a gay arts festival. The result of this was a Gay Pride March the like of which no-one had ever seen in this country. 10,000 dykes and faggots flaunted themselves from Charing Cross to Hyde Park. Not many by today's Pride standards, but looking along Piccadilly that afternoon and seeing nothing but happy perverts in either direction was one of those empowering moments you draw on in times of trouble for the rest of your life. Afterwards there was a rally in Hyde Park, hemmed in by ludicrously large numbers of police and compered by T. Robinson. He thanked the lesbian and gay members of the Force for turning out in such large numbers to support the cause. We laughed. They blushed. We relaxed. Power again, you see.