The first people we saw were a family helping to adjust a teenage boy’s fairy wings, attached to a sparkly fitted dress. It was summer 2019 and I was taking a 17-year-old to her first Pride, so we had started well. The gleaming smile on the boy’s face, gliding down Charing Cross Road towards the Pride parade while his family fixed his look, is something we still talk about.
This young person (I’ll call her “C”) was, and remains, very dear to me. She is the daughter of my then girlfriend and had been through a very hard year with her mental health. C was anxious about the prospect of a large crowd, but had been desperate to go to Pride. Her determination signalled hope. I don’t think she knew what to expect exactly, and I did not want to say too much about the noise and tightly packed streets. But I needn’t have worried. As we walked through Soho, which was throbbing with music and stamping feet, C’s nerves were eclipsed by giggly wonder.
