INFORMATION
- Issue #62
- 15p
- 24 pages
- 16–29 January 1975
- WAR & PEACE AT WORLD CONGRESS
- Delegates march on press and radio
- Women: ‘We were forgotten’
- Editor: Denis Lemon
- News Editor: Michael Mason
- Reporter at Large: Jeff Grace
- Contributing Editor (Features): Roger Baker
- Research Editor: Rictor Norton
- Art Director: Jean-Claude Thevenin
- Art Assistant: Glen Platts
- Advertising, Circulation Manager: Stuart Patterson
- Circulation Assistant: Bernard Mears
- Subscriptions, Classified Ads: Maggie Donovan
- Admin Assistant, Listing, and Box Replies: Catherine Hiscox
General Assistant: Jack Edwards - Regular Contributors: Peter Burton, Barry Conley, Laurence Collinson, Elizabeth Cornu, Brian Dax, Ian Dunn (Scottish Correspondent), Andy Dvosin (New York Correspondent), Iain Finlayson, Jackie Forster, Peter Forster, David Hart, Veronica Harvey, Mike Heberden, Carl Hill, Derek James, Howard Llewellyn, Leo Madigan, Phil McNeill, ‘Merlin’, John Montgomery, John Riley, Kurt Schiller (Swedish Correspondent), Richard Thomson (Portsmouth & District Correspondent), Bruce Wainwright, Pete Wicker, and Joseph Winter.
- eThe current and former managers of the Father Radcap are fined £100 with £40 costs each for allowing men to dance together. Tricky Dicky, the DJ at the disco the police infiltrated, was conditionally discharged for a year. The Magistrates noted that the public had not complained about the disco – the operation was entirely one generated within the Metropolitan Police.
- Reviews include Liberace – an autobiography, The Mastersingers opera at the Coliseum, and two original soundtracks from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
- ‘No poofters’, rules local radio
MANCHESTER: Hackles rose as late night volunteers at CHE National Office listened in to Manchester’s local station Piccadilly Radio.
The seven-month old commercial station was promoting a talent competition for young men and doing a ‘funny’ with the rules. “Rule five – there is no rule five. Rule six – no poofters.”
CHE’s Assistant General Secretary, Chris Bowden-Smith, immediately wrote to Philip Birch, Piccadilly’s Managing Director, to complain about the item. He drew attention in particular to the bad effect such jokes had on young gay people still coming to terms with their homosexuality. And he accused the station of encouraging people to use the word ‘poofters’ – perpetuating public attitudes of contempt and derision.
Piccadilly Radio reacted swiftly to Chris’ complaint. A letter was sent two days later by the station’s Programme Controller, Colin Walters. He assured Chris that the item was not intended to be insulting. “I think there are circumstances in which any group in the community must expect to have a little fun poked at it. But there is a world of difference between this and continuous calculated insults.
“I can assure you most sincerely that had I felt the item in question could genuinely have been taken exception to by a significant number of homosexual people
I should not have let it be broadcast. I honestly felt that the item fell into the
‘light-hearted’ category mentioned above.
“However since you feel the reference to be insulting I have given instructions for the tape to be removed from the studio, and it will not be heard again. I apologise for having given you or your members any offence.”
– (p2, included purely because Chris Bowden-Smith is the husband of this Project’s leader)