Undated. Approximate publication date: 7 March 1973
Smith’s Ban ‘News Of The World’
Slander & Prejudice – Newsagent Hits Back
Joint Editors and Members of the Editorial Collective: Jean-Claude Thevenin (Design), John Yap (Design Assistant), Denis Lemon, Peter Mundy, Mike Mason, David Seligman
and Ian Dunn (Scotland), Glenys Parry (Manchester), Graham Chapman, David Sherlock.
Gay News special friends: Roger Baker; Denis Cohn, Barry Conley, Laurence Collinson, Brian Dax, Simon Benson, Antony Grey, Tim Morris Derek Jardine, Christopher Ambury and Richard Watkins. Peter Holmes, Richard Adams, Brian Taylor, Maxie Bacon, Toni Ranz.
Special thanks to: Richard & Norman, Ken & Allan, Angus, John, Stanley, Peter, Anthony, David, Ken, Wolf and all the other Friends and Loved Ones.
A nicely misleading front page headline, as the “Smith’s” in question is Smith’s of Moscow Road, Bayswater, rather than the censorious WHSmiths of ill-fame. In the news, the bigoted Councillor Kidd from Edinburgh has dropped dead to general acclaim. Reviews include Travels With My Aunt and Mistress of Novices.
“There is one word in the English language calculated to get me blazing mad. It is spelt q-u-e-e-r-s. Five of these creatures turned up at a Midlands school conference on sex. One addressed the pupils. In heavens name, school children should be WARNED about homosexual not asked to LISTEN to them. Could the subject not have been dealt with by someone who was not himself a confessed homosexual? I don’t believe that pansies are men who can’t help being odd and should be pitied. What they want is a lecture on self discipline. Any strange men thinking of writing me cross letters need not bother. I shall burn them.” – ‘John Field’ (in reality John Bull), News of the World