The Gay Pride march in 1982 started much as it had every year at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, with about 10,000 of us ready to walk the route along Park Lane to Piccadilly. The plan was to finish at the University of London Union (ULU) on Mallet Street, where people could have a few drinks and a dance at the student union before dispersing to the gay bars scattered across London in Earl’s Court, Kings Road, Notting Hill Gate, Camden Town. We set off in high spirits – even the ranks of police (an enemy to us back then) lining the street did little to put us off. But as we started down Park Lane the heavens opened. It wasn’t long before everyone was completely drenched.
I was 32 and had been going to Pride marches for many years. Previous marches had drawn crowds of bemused onlookers. To me, Pride was not just to party but an opportunity to make our demands for equality heard (chief among them an equal age of consent, which was 21 for gay people then). It was a demonstration and we wanted an audience. We wanted the public to see and hear us. The rain took that away.
