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Ah, I'm Miriam. Sara. I'm the secretary of the Charlotte Museum Trust. And we're on the corner of Pons Road in Collingwood Street, and we're going to do the lesbian heritage walk, so we're going to head off down Pons Road. So here we are, 161. So during the late eighties, I think it was, um I don't know that I actually have a, uh, absolute date, but, um, I think it was sort of 89 round or might have been [00:00:30] 87. 88. 89 round About that time, this was 161 road, a lesbian bar upstairs. And that was a club that was called 11161. And it was set up by Elaine. Tim. She had gone away originally, she and and her former partner, Sharon ran the Empire Hotel, and it was notorious in the early eighties. And that's where Red Beryl played, and it was packed at nights. And it was a fairly outrageous pub. [00:01:00] Um, but we always had a great time. And then they, um, split up. Um, the whole complex was sold, and, of course, the Alex was demolished. Uh, a lovely old heritage hotel that we lost. But she set up and, uh, and ran a a sort of cabaret type restaurant called Tim up in Grey and and, um, a motel there. But sadly, that went broke, and several lesbians got burnt and lost money. [00:01:30] So there was a bit of soundness in a small community. That's what happens. And she went overseas. Um, then she came back after the Tim episode and set up 161. But it lasted for about nine months, or this means very good at coming to new things, and then they fade away and go back to knitting tea, cosies or polishing the silver or whatever they bloody do. Um, so that, um, demised. Maybe it was just over a year [00:02:00] and the 18 months and then that closed. So that closed more probably for attendance and financial problems. Um, one of the things is that lesbians don't have a big capacity for alcohol. We tend to fall over if we drink too much. And so raising money through alcohol to pay the rent is always tricky for lesbians. And it's always been a problem because we've always had to get the money to pay the rent, so we've always sold alcohol. [00:02:30] But in the seventies, with the KG Club, we couldn't get a licence because no woman could get a licence to sell alcohol. So of course the police would raid it. So Beach Road was probably the most notorious KG club. But we will be going and seeing as we go along our walk the very first two places where the KG Club began. And so I'll talk a bit more about the KG Club. But just to give you a bit of a background about why it was so difficult for lesbians to get together, [00:03:00] there was also an enormous amount of discrimination. And some of you mightn't realise that lesbianism was considered a mental illness up until 1973. Now you cannot change psychiatrists mind overnight, so they were still doing nasty treatments in the mid seventies. ECT insulin shock reading. Some of the files from Oakley are shocking of what they did to women. Um, a couple of us managed to get access to archival files for a while. She had proper [00:03:30] access, legitimate access. I didn't quite have legitimate access, but, um and it was interesting. The very early files in the 19 hundreds would talk about, UM, problems of deep depression and so on, and a Manish woman or the third sex or sometimes uranium was used. But mostly it was Manish Features or Manish Behaviour. Um, was the sort of tick box, but they when treated the depression, they treated the presenting symptoms. But once you got [00:04:00] the Second World War and the need to breed more cannon fodder, I say cynically for the next war. Then the emphasis was on, You know that everyone needed to to start having Children and so lesbianism The whole mental illness thing was emphasised, and that was the influence of the United States. After the Second World War was a big no no to be lesbian, you needed to be breeding. And so things got much tougher in mental hospitals. They ignored presenting [00:04:30] symptoms and started to try change people's sexual orientation with disastrous consequences. And some people are still living with those consequences today, and it's very, very hard. So I think with that in mind, it gives us an idea of how sort of almost like fugitives lesbians were in the sixties and seventies to try and get any sort of sense of community or or meet each other, you could lose your job and all those sorts of things. [00:05:00] This was the very first Women's Centre in Auckland, and while it wasn't portrayed, of course with that it was about 1973. Wasn't portrayed as lesbian lesbians, gravitated to it anywhere where there were women. And so, um, at one point there was a great controversy because one of the women who was a very lonely lesbian wanted to contact other women, other lesbians, and she came to the Women's Centre and when they discovered [00:05:30] she was a police woman, they did not want her there. So this was originally, um, it sold secondhand stoves and repaired stoves and then it became the women took over. And one of the photographs here in your brochure is actually outside this, um, first Auckland Women's Centre there. So, um, a lot of that history is just word of mouth and not recorded, and we [00:06:00] have struggled trying to name people in the photographs because there were lots of PE P schemes in those days that kept organisations running, which sadly, we don't have today and so we miss out on a lot of sort of internships, so to speak. Um, so we'll walk on a second. The Women's Centre is further up the road. Um, and that has been revamped. But I'll point out an old villa of what it looked like and tell you a little bit. When we get there, we will be walking past the Women's Bookshop. [00:06:30] And just while there's a lull on the traffic, I'll say, um, the Women's Bookshop is on our map because it has the largest collection of lesbian books and probably New Zealand, if not Australasia. So here's the the Women's Bookshop, the largest collection of lesbian books for sale, and we've got a new lesbian novel, New Zealand lesbian novel being launched. There was one last year. One a year [00:07:00] is pretty amazing. Let's hope we can keep it up because overseas I spend some time in the winter time I go over to Europe, and it's interesting that there's not a lot of lesbian books being published in People's Home countries. But, um, and here it is in the window. So McLeod's lesbian novel, and it gives you a good setting of what it was like in the sixties. So it's well worth a read. Um, because things were difficult and they were mostly [00:07:30] networks. You could only if you could find one other lesbian. Then you could ask them to dinner or meet up with them somehow. And that's how you sort of networked and school teachers did that quite a lot. School teachers and nurses were often two distinct network groups and different groups. Of course, when you broke up, of course, then you there was a split into two more groups, and so it went on. So I think the book's going [00:08:00] to be a good read and nothing's changed at all. Maybe the Jean Paul figure go to that. But I do want to hear her reading. Oh, now this isn't number 63. Number 63 is this new building. So the old women's centre number 63 was a villa a bit like this set back from the road. It wasn't as smart as this. It was a City Council building. [00:08:30] It was in poor repair. It was damp. We had a homeless lesbian living on the veranda. At one point then she was living in the house and people couldn't get her out, and there were various controversies. But it was this, well, the first Women's centre, where rape crisis first started its bounding, but it was really set up to go in. Number 63. Support line for Women was set up by Trish Dempsey. Um Rape Crisis, a group [00:09:00] of women, mostly lesbian, set up rape crisis. Of course, they were faced with attacks by men. There's always been attacks on lesbians, sometimes by family members called corrective rape. Raping the lesbian to try and make us straight. There's always been these sort of acts of violence, and I was just saying before the police would often just harass you if you looked like two lesbians in the street, Um, and particularly one couple I know [00:09:30] they got arrested a couple of times, just through police harassing them until one of them lost to call. Um, they did get their own back by stuffing the blankets down the toilets of the cells and flooding the whole police station. But so there were some lighter moments, and the judge actually let them off because he could see that they were arrested in the first place. There was no need to have, in fact, intervened with these two women walking down the street in the lower part of town. So [00:10:00] having 60 at the Women's Centre and having these support groups set up here made a big difference because it offset the sort of drinking culture that the KG Club had sort of firmly established to pay the rent. Um, and to dodge the police as they tried to close it down. Yes, the KG Club er will becoming a It's OK, Look, there's lots of argument about what KG stands for. Um, [00:10:30] some of the older women always said it was stood for camp girls, but it was first set up on road. And that's how I understood it. It stood for heavy girls. Um, the first, we will come to those two, buildings, so I'll talk about them when we get to there. But that was set up in about 1973. Um, and the Charlotte Museum is named after two of the charlottes who were on that, um, first, those first committees that [00:11:00] set up and dodged, um, police on the one hand, and angry landlords wanting overdue rent on the other. Um, so it was always difficult. They had, um actually, a friend of Sandra Coney used to hire out, um, the jute box the juke boxes were notorious of. You could stand there trying to choose a tune, and the cockroaches would be running over the, uh, over the titles. So, um, one of the places, the one we can't walk to because there's some beach road. It's a bit far to walk today. [00:11:30] And the heat. But it had a couple of boards missing on the floor where the landlord had just nailed turnover and you were dancing. You had to sort of circumvent these patches on the on the floor. It was upstairs, there was a motorbike shop down below, but that it, um, had quite a reputation of, um, activity. Um, but again, it was targeted by traffic for drunken driving. They would wait outside, and [00:12:00] I remember I went to pick up my girlfriend one night. I was stopped by the cops here. Sure, I'd been drinking. I'd had one drink, so I knew I wasn't over. And in those days, it was much more lax than it is now. I had been working on, uh, an S a for university, and I'd just gone about midnight to go and pick my girlfriend up. Who was on the committee? Um, of the KG Club. And he, um, went round. And when he saw a pro abortion sticker on my car, he kicked every tyre. So [00:12:30] I knew he was anti feminist and so on, and he took my keys. The police argued with him when I went to get my house key off, and they could see that I wasn't drunk or anything and argue with this cop. But he insisted that he had the right to have my keys taken off me. So we actually got attacked by on the taxi stand that night trying to get a taxi home. Um, I got punched in the head by three sailors, but we did manage to get home the next morning. I went to get my keys and they couldn't find them at the City Council. [00:13:00] And so the I describe I said, he he normally rides a motorbike and he's overweight. Um, and he's very He's anti abortion and anti feminist antiwomen. I think. Oh, I know who that is, she said instantly. I'll ring him up now he'd been on night shift, so she delighted in, ringing him up, and the keys were in his pocket. I thought it was all a bit dodgy myself. Um, and I But I didn't make a complaint. I worked [00:13:30] for the Justice Department, and while they were very happy about me being in unsafe places, um, they I I didn't ever want to cause any trouble. I was supporting five Children on my own, so I keeping my head down as much as I could as much as I was able to. So, anyway, this next door, sort of in the back there was a big garden with 63. So we had in the summer. It was nice to have activities out, and we sometimes had picnics [00:14:00] in the garden, and, um and there was a support line and and quite a lot of support things going on for women. It was a big move from a desert beforehand, just for women, let alone, and the lesbians sort of tried to tag on and get a few things. Um, yes, there was, um, there was a print shop down in, um that put out a lesbian. First of all circle [00:14:30] came out of Wellington and then there was I can't remember now which order they go in. But there were various lesbian newsletters. There was bitches, witches and dykes. A very feminist one. There was dyke news. There was lip lesbians in print that came out of the Prince Centre. That was in, um, what's the name of the street in parallel to Nelson? Union Street? That's right. And that that print shop was run by lesbians. And so we've managed to get a photograph [00:15:00] of them at the press and put them on. Uh, we've got a media banner at the Lesbian Museum Charlotte Museum, and we've managed to fit one of those pictures on amongst all the old lesbian magazines from the twenties that we found, um, photographed from the archives in Berlin. So, um, sadly, New Zealand didn't seem to They was a lesbian group in the twenties in New Plymouth. I have a photograph of that simply because my mother was in there with [00:15:30] my maths teacher's arm around her. I'm not quite sure the history of this that one can remain decided, I suppose, Um and so I have that photograph and that was called the Tuesday Club, and they used to meet in Betty McDonald's hairdressing salon for, um, gin and tonics on a Tuesday. So that was an early network. But we don't actually have any other information, really. Other than, um, Auckland woman who's in her eighties now [00:16:00] told me that wearing an anklet, a little chain anklet on your ankle was a sign that you were interested in women showing a bit of ankle. Yes, this was in the twenties and thirties, and it was possibly more given her background, the Dance Theatre sort of network. I'm not sure that teachers went to wearing ankles, so I think it was the stair across the staff room that did it. Talking about the gays [00:16:30] GAZ let you know we actually haven't got device mentioned on our map. But I should point out that, um, device was actually set up at the very beginning by two lesbians. Very entrepreneurial. So, um um, so it's probably worth us remembering that device is here now, and, um and it's part [00:17:00] of our rich tapestry of lesbian life. Really? Price is now in second. Well, this is marked on your map as Western Park and it has an interesting history. Of course, we had a, um, VIP stand on the corner of West Park where the buildings sinking, you know, sinking civilization over there. Um, it's all because of the hero parade, of course, that those buildings have sunk into the ground. Um, [00:17:30] so that was where the stand to see the hero parade when it started. Um, going down road. Of course, most people think that was the only parades in Auckland. But we did start off having gay rights marches down Queen Street. We were much braver and bolder in the early days, I think much more radical as we marched up and down Queen Street with people throwing insults at us and so on. But we didn't care. We just marched on. And we had a great solidarity [00:18:00] in that those early fights. And then, of course, the hero parade was much more flamboyant. And people have possibly forgotten that it was really set up in a way almost a flaunt sexuality. Because of the AIDS crisis. We wanted people not to be whatever they did, even if it was a bit dodgy. From our point of view, whatever they did was OK so that they would just start using condoms and be safe. And unless we could get that message across to people, we would lose [00:18:30] lots, lots more people. And New Zealand was very lucky in the fact that Bruce Burnett came back from San Francisco early enough to set up the Aid Support Network and get some of us involved. I mean, I got involved because they could use my my degree. I hadn't finished my PhD then, but, um, I had two, diploma in clinical psyche and a diploma in educational psyche and my master's and nobody else had a qualification. So they needed some academic sort of stuff. Even though the university didn't really like me much [00:19:00] because they were frightened, I'd pull the blow. The whistle on sexual harassment was their worry. I gathered later on, Um, anyway, that was really the reason why those those hero parades started and why they were perhaps overly sexualized from today's point of view. But it was really, really important then, for people not to be ashamed of what they might do wherever they might do it. We put stickers up in public toilets and all sorts of things to try [00:19:30] and get it across to men. For goodness sake, be safe. And we made a big difference in terms of our population of HIV. Um and it was Yes, it was worth worth being criticised for being so out there and blatant. Um, but people have often forgotten those earlier marches and the earlier work that was done in terms of getting gay rights even spoken about and putting them on the map. The first meeting in Auckland [00:20:00] on homosexual law reform was in 1969. I remember that because I was very pregnant with my son and I went along there in the hope that I might meet a lesbian. Um and they all seem to be do good in doctors, I thought. But I didn't really know what a lesbian looked like. I thought they were short. Like Andrea. Well, it's said in every man's encyclopaedia that homosexuals had arrested development. That's why I thought you were all sure I came from the country. [00:20:30] I mean, I didn't wasn't very socialised, you know, I didn't think other than what was written. I couldn't see that it might mean something. Well, I I that's why I went to university. Well, that was 69. I was doing Japanese at university. I still with the short things, you know, those little characters and so on. Little dots here and there. So it was, um Yeah, it took [00:21:00] me a while to trudge through psychology. And then I was horrified that we never all that as years of study And I never got one lecture on emotions and I started working with violent offenders who was all emotion up set an angry bunch of policemen. You know, it's classic. Anyway, The other thing about Western Park, the hero parade there across here are school girls holding hands saying a little nicer is to one another. And nowadays they start to think early am I am [00:21:30] I. I have a strong feeling, a little crush on my best friend In those early days, it probably didn't occur to many of us until we were much later, Um that the crush was our first, our first beginnings of love. But of course, across the other side of the park is Auckland Girls grammar, and we have a slightly better view of it a bit further down the road Um and that is, of course, where Charmaine Pountney taught, and to start with, she wasn't [00:22:00] so open. But after a disastrous breakup, I think I'll score you more or less. And then, um, she, um, became much more public as being a lesbian. But she was part of the old school of teachers who could lose their job if they were discovered to be lesbian. So it was all cloak and dagger stuff, like in those early days. She would never if I was going out to dinner with her friends and we invited her and her partner. No, no, she wouldn't come because Miriam so is there. She's so well known as a lesbian. [00:22:30] So sometimes I missed out on dinner parties, but private parties were OK. I could slip into those. She's working well. Just across there is Auckland Girls grammar, and this is one of their car parks. I'd always like to stop here because this is such a lovely haven in this part of Western Park. It's such a lovely dell, [00:23:00] um, lots of little nooks and crannies where people can sort of lie around in the sun and talk sweet nothings to each other. and so on. It's for all sexual orientations, so it's just a lovely part of the city to be so close. And I think we're very lucky to have these green spots, and it's not. There's plenty of deciduous trees, but it's not too overpopulated with what I call foreigners. You know, those European trees? I much prefer the cabbage trees and so on [00:23:30] and the natives. But that's just my bias, Um, and then we'll head up as soon as we can across the road there, go down a little bit and then across there to go up Hereford Street. And that's when the fun begins. Now, this was after the KG Club got closed down in Beach Road by the police, who [00:24:00] were very happy with themselves because they called a probation officer at being on unlicensed premises. I had only just left, so I would have had two from the Justice Department if I'd stayed. But, um, when the beach road closed down, some of the committee left. They had been charged with selling liquor without a licence, and so on. There were fines. Nobody had excess money. We all drove old cars. There was no one very rich in that community. [00:24:30] As I say, they teachers didn't go there because they might get labelled. Occasionally, feminists from broadsheet would go down the road to the KG Club, but always in a group. In fact, in K, Kenny's coming out story is really interesting that she the first time she went to the KG Club, she thought she would be pounced on. She was at university and still very virginal and only just sort of thinking she might be a lesbian. Um, so there were those sort of fears as well. Um, [00:25:00] so anyway, a woman, Diane Scott, who who works now in real estate, she and a group of women got to this place and rented it. It was quite a big space upstairs. She went upstairs, she got some fancy vinyl seats. I don't know where she got them from, but it was the place we'd ever been in. Um, it had pool tables, and in fact, it was one of the first times I heard of a lesbian wedding was just after they set up this club. They had this amazing, [00:25:30] um, elaborate wedding. I wasn't invited to it because I was seen as a bit sort of feminist. And also, I had all these Children. Um, and it was a a grand affair. One of them wearing, uh, they sort of quite butchered film. The wedding was, wasn't it one woman in a bride's outfit and the other one in a man's suit? Um, and it was certainly talked about, and everyone celebrated afterwards at the Hereford Street Club at here. [00:26:00] But I believe, and I can't remember how soon afterwards. But there was some trouble with money. Do you realise that everyone was poor? And I think taking from the night were too tempting for one woman who whipped off with all the proceeds and headed to Australia. And so that caused a big split as anyone who was still friends with her and those sort of, you know, na na na na na. Sort of going on, um and so some feminists got [00:26:30] on to the committee and thought that they were able to straighten everything out. And, um, yeah, because of their politics, Of course, it, um they ended up destroying the club without them realising because someone who was feeling anti men at the time, which is often women working through rape issues and sexual abuse issues, family issues and so on. Do go through a period of time where they don't wish to have anything to do with men. Now, Dian [00:27:00] had per had actually cultivated the local beat cops. In those days, we actually had beat cops. I mean, it's unheard of today, just about so these policemen walked the beat and they keep denying it, and they knew they didn't have a licence, but she would invite them up and even give them a drink if they were willing to have one. And, of course, sometimes they did. Um I'm not saying whether they were on duty or not. Um, but, uh, so she had them. OK, But when the feminists took over and someone full of vitriolic about men, for whatever reason, [00:27:30] spatted them out the window, that was enough to them to decide to raid it and which they did and it closed down. So then it went from here to street to Albert Street, always for short term leases, often in financial difficulties of, uh, emotional difficulties or relationship not necessarily relationship relationship, but friendship type difficulties. [00:28:00] Working together as a group one of the things that you notice amongst older lesbians. They are fiercely independent. They've had to be to survive. And it's quite difficult. I know, falling in love at 70 with another 70 year old. We are very set in our ways from two different cultures. Uh, she's a hygiene queen and I'm the messiest person in town. I mean, it's Ah, yeah, this is where we live in two different countries. Um, but it shows [00:28:30] that the independence, it's actually quite hard to run a committee, too, because everybody has an idea and they think their idea is right. It's, um it is a challenge to work with volunteers and so on who have often fought and struggled. So they have quite set opinions about how things should be done, and it's good that they are solid and in that way, So as we walk up and around the corner and I'll just wave my hand in the direction of dog the dog's bollocks that used to be footsteps, uh, another [00:29:00] version of the KG Club after it had been to Street and Albert Street and where it went in between or several times down Kay Road as well which we walk past. I should point out that the prostitutes collectives across there, and that was set up for um, because of the AIDS crisis. So, um, and they've been there a long time now for a six, but it's not on your map, but it's pointed out to [00:29:30] you again. It's associated Now. We're coming down to 485, which is actually quite difficult to find. I've always struggled to find this building I never seem to remember. Once I do find it, I lose it again. But it was the broadsheet office and car, and Carol, the opera singer, used to live upstairs in one flat, and Jenny Rankin from the Tamaki Lesbian News lived in the other flat. They lived above the broadsheet office that was put out from there, and then it went to Dominion [00:30:00] Road. After that, yes, broad sheet wasn't a lesbian magazine, but it did have a lesbian articles from time to time, and it had one of the biggest lesbian splits in history in terms of trying to rent a space in in Road, and the Lesbian Art Workshop wanted to join forces. Now the Broad Sheet committee knew they had the lesbian art workshop would have no money, and so broad sheet would be carrying the can for the rent. And there would be too many political differences [00:30:30] and so on. So they they didn't take on the idea of the art workshop. And it caused this big split with the in the community and lesbians left broadsheet. But they hadn't written many things for broadsheet anyway. So So Sandy Hall and I, in fact, got a hard time, didn't we, Sandy, for staying on the collective, I thought, Why leave? You know, if you wanted to have a lesbian voice, you needed to stay on there. But then we were deemed not real lesbians because we had [00:31:00] Children. That so the broadsheet office was somewhere in this area, Um, in a building that looked a bit more like the wooden buildings over there. So of course, it was pretty easy to demolish. Um, I hope they never remove that building over there because we've lost so much of of, uh, Kay Road that has such a good history and such a good, [00:31:30] you know, front for the age of this area. So that's where the magazine was churned out. And at that point, there were lesbian articles being published in the magazine. That all changed when, um after the split, they took over a a place in ANZAC Avenue and, um, down on ANZAC Avenue. One day, some lesbians decided they didn't like the pawn shop at the bottom of ANZAC Avenue and went in on motorbikes and smashed the glass [00:32:00] and generally caused mayhem in the shop. And, of course, the police came immediately up to broad sheet. And I had bad pleb, which is an infection of the varas in my feet. So I had, um, some sandals on and my feet bandaged and bandages. So the police took one look at my feet and were highly suspicious that I've been kicking in glass had glass. So once I showed them what the problem was, they then, um but, uh, yes. [00:32:30] So, um, but there's always surprises. And one thing that amazed me was a police woman who was doing some voluntary work at the museum at the at the broadsheet office at the time because we had a sort of archives collection there. Um, I just couldn't believe it that she could just she took one look at the police and recognise them and gave a false name and address, and I was amazed it's to be able to do it with such for I would have gone. I need He went [00:33:00] bright red on her behalf, but fortunately I didn't cos I'm hopeless, I I absolutely hopeless of telling any fib whatsoever. I was just amazed. I mean, she went up just about put her on a pedestal to be able to do that. Go. So there was always something going on. So, uh, sure, if someone does the history of the Broadsheet magazine, it would make some interesting reading with the weaving in and out of lesbian histories and and out that. So we walked down here [00:33:30] along Cave Road. I won't talk quite so much. Um, there was a whole range of clubs, the sinners, Um, that was a lesbian bar for a while. And then there was kiss. By then, the climate had changed. We no longer took the lease on buildings. We rented a night in a bar, and it was often a Thursday night or a Sunday night. A night when it wasn't busy. And they would often then have male staff, so it had changed completely. It wasn't autonomous. It wasn't run by lesbians. [00:34:00] It was run by normal business. And they didn't last that long. Maybe a year or so, because, as I said, we don't drink enough. We don't buy enough alcohol, and we don't make it worth their while to pay their wages for their staff and to pay the rent so it dwindles out in a shop now and across the road. The DNA was actually called Carmos for many, many years, and there's Lesbian Group Pulse [00:34:30] had an art exhibition there. I think their first exhibition might have been there, called a one night stand, put it up one night and took it out the next day. But, um so that for a long time Carmo was a place that lesbians met for various. Um, I think it was a Sunday group, and they were on a Friday night. There was retro night of dollars. You could go in and and they had nice retro music, and they danced and met new girls, and it was a very good place for meeting people. [00:35:00] That's the value of the KG Club was an opportunity if you didn't have a partner to meet someone, that you might be able to have a relationship with them. I mean, I must admit, I met several of my partners at the KG Club, and there's a nice spot in my heart. It was, I guess, there towards the end of the nineties, lesbian started wearing lipstick, which was not a big no no from the feminist community. And the gay [00:35:30] girls didn't really bother much with lipstick. Um, the the gay girls who tended to be involved in the KG Club were more inclined to, um, play sport be sporty dikes, um, drink a lot of beer and, um, yes, generally, whereas the feminists were more inclined maybe to drink wine, um, and, uh, rave on all night about, uh, politics. So I used to have these parts, [00:36:00] Yes, that they would go off with a man they were, you know, often considered bisexual. If you wore lipstick, and you might just, um, two time your girlfriend and go off with a man because you wouldn't be able to resist him. You know, there was that sort of fear to everyone was terribly, terribly insecure, terribly insecure. Which didn't. Oh, yes. You couldn't have long hair either. Mine gradually got shorter and shorter and shorter. I only had long hair like yours simply because it's the cheapest haircut in town, isn't it? [00:36:30] I never used to have to have my hair cut. So, um, so But so when the lipstick lesbian started coming, you know, you could see that feminism was starting to not have such a a big influence on the lesbian community. Whereas the other community was more considered. There was a split between lesbians and gay girls. The gays were not so political. Um, some of they were often more out even [00:37:00] than the feminists. Some of them panel beaters and so on were very out in their trades. Um, and there weren't so many teachers and so on. But there were a few sporty teachers who sort of crossed over in the gay girls. Um, world so that that split was a bit reflected in the types of clubs that we had about, um, whether we had, you know, an emphasis on drinking and pool playing and maybe darts and things. [00:37:30] So anyway, we'll walk down here to where the Pride Centre was, which is now Rainbow you. So here's Rainbow Youth Room 281. And that was the original gay pride, not the original Gay Pride Centre. The second I think Gay Pride Centre was this the second one? There was one downtown that the star Open. And that was interesting that there were splits in political alliances. Like if you were involved [00:38:00] in the Pride Centre, then it meant that you mixed a lot more with gay men. Then you had the more staunch feminists who are more involved with, um, like a feminist magazine like broad sheet or a lesbian magazine like Tamaki McAra. Lesbian News, which is very lesbian and often was only circulated amongst lesbians, still is pretty much, um, yes. And so there were these different factions, and it probably is still today, there's different networks for different things. There's [00:38:30] some of us cross all sorts of boundaries, and others are more inclined to be just in one group. So we'll head down here to the first KG Club. And as we go past the as I said before the corner of the old family and naval was a bar called candy candy Girls. Um and before that it was something else, and before that, it was something else again. I think flirt used to be there as well, and flirt was downstairs across my family. Um, flits roamed around a bit, too, and flirt [00:39:00] just depends on the energy of Sarah Lambo to voluntarily set up and run those nights to have a dance night for lesbians. About once a month. She's It's now called Lipstick, and it's going to be in the switch bar and eagle. Yes, I had a drink in Eagle last night. I went over to the family and I couldn't hear myself even think it was so loud. Oh, I can't go to the well across the road where [00:39:30] the tattooed heart where it says the tattooed heart upstairs and you can see one person got left behind. Um, the KG Club first began. That was its very first beginning, and as far as people can remember, it was about 1972 73. No one seems to be able to remember the date when it first, and we don't seem to have many. I've got one page of committee meeting notes. That's all I've got that someone handed to me. So people were moved a lot. You didn't own houses [00:40:00] in those days. You rented and moving a lot when landlords put up the rent and things and or relationships broke up. So, um, lots of papers aren't kept, so we don't have a very good record of that. And some of the women have passed on. Um, I know Pat. Before she passed on, she looked for any information she had, but she didn't have any. Um, so that was the very beginning of the KG club. It was run by a committee, and they had to often almost borrow [00:40:30] money from each other or use their own money to buy liquor and then sell it on the next at the dance so that they could then get, um, enough money to pay the rent. There was always a struggle. Well, the police raided that down. I think they got into a few high jinks like getting out on the veranda and dancing there. And, um, you know, you can see it lends itself to a good party atmosphere, and I think it was too good a party, and that was put [00:41:00] a stop to it. But someone might have fallen off the route, which was also another problem. There was a problem with someone falling out the window of the KG Club at Beach Road. Um, the midnight club was further back. Um, that was another club. It was, uh, where the rainbow flags are just in the next building there. Um and there was a pussy. Was it? I've got a, um what was it called? Pu pussy Club or pussy? So [00:41:30] I I've got a, uh a key. It's the only way I remember the name. Um, yes, you had to be a member. Um, was it called the Pussy Club or the pussy? It was pussy something, and they probably served clip tails instead of cocktails, you know? No. Well, they came from originally from the box. The box was down off opposite the region hotel. There was a club called the box, and they tried to [00:42:00] auction the women one night. Well, that went down with the feminist, like, you know, a couple of cold. Really? Um, they didn't like it at all. So there was a big split, and that was a group of more lipstick type lesbians who were sort of out there. And but there was a bit of drug involvement in that, um, some of those clubs as well. So drugs off and on were a problem like Beech Road was the height of the Asian. So Beech Road, CG club of the heroin, um, [00:42:30] Mr Asia type things. And there were sex workers who were obviously using who used to come and have a drink with us and then go off and work to keep their habits. Um, and some of those people have more recently left sex work and rejoined the lesbian community or still being part of it. Really? But on the fringe, they're more involved now, Um, not mentioning any names, but, um um, so there were I think you have to remember when people are on the fringe of things and excluded. [00:43:00] It's very easy for them to get involved in other things. And lots of us had a past that we either drank too much or took drugs to try and block out the nasty things that had happened along the way. So we always have to remember that. So on to the 2nd 2nd incarnation of the KG Club, well, the door looks just about as dodgy as it did then, in 1974 [00:43:30] the I think it was. Towards the end of 74 the KG Club moved into what's now a wine cellar. Um, and that's where it remained until it went to be, got closed down and went to Beach Road. But for a long time, there were no problem here with, um the KG Club because the local policeman was an older policeman who felt that the women needed to have a place and he used to come and lock the gate to stop drunken men from coming in and arresting the women [00:44:00] so they they could leave out the side street and get out to Pitt Street that way. Um, so that actually probably helped for quite a long time. There were no arguments outside. People were more, um, respectful of the policeman, going to that much trouble and checking that they were all right and opening the gate and letting if he saw a woman that looked like or a couple mostly U came in couples, uh, or threesomes that he would see someone who looked as if they were heading to the KG club and he would let [00:44:30] them in. So there was a bit more protection than had ever been before. But sadly, he got probably moved on for being too cosy with the with the perverts, as they were called. Then, um, of course, that was the beginning. The gay liberation was when had applied to do her PhD at Hawaii University, got accepted and then couldn't get a visa. And she was labelled by the US Embassy as a pervert. And that really started gay liberation [00:45:00] in New Zealand. And we demonstrated up by Queen Victoria on our part. So we had our own. That was our sort of stone wall. Really. Well, I'm sorry I can't claim any lesbian history around Moses, but I always think he's a great statue to just admire as we walk through. It's a lovely walk down through here, and we will be walking past the Myers Park kindergarten, [00:45:30] and several of US lesbians used the Myers Park kindergarten to look after our Children while we were at university as well as the university creche. Because there was shortage of space at the university creche who was so it was so such a demand for child care. This was, um, into the 79 through to, um, the mid eighties. It was. And then they set up a second creche towards the end of the eighties. So I will say about Myers Park. The whole of this was donated by the Myers family, [00:46:00] and one of their family was one of us. Backstage was set up by Stan. I've forgotten Stan's other name, but he was often called Stella anyway. But he was a very manly man to have a female named Stella. I always thought, and he went with Lou Prime, the rock and roll singer from they set up this bar. They were quite misogynist. They didn't really like women there, but because their bar was illegal, we had, um you had to be a member, so I still have [00:46:30] my backstage membership. Um, you paid an entrance fee that was quite steep at the time. I can't remember now how much it was 10 or $15. But you got free drinks now. The drinks were definitely dodgy. I think they were alcohol mixes with probably Rum essence or something. Um, I never drank any of those, but, um, even the gin didn't really taste like gin. I don't think a juniper would be near it. So, um Anyway, the interesting [00:47:00] times, um we came out the back, went in and in and out through the back here, and this used to be the traffic department, and all the cops were here as we staggered out to get into our cars and drive away. It was a very interesting, um, conflict of interest. But they really no one really got harassed by the traffic cops. That was interesting. I suppose if you could walk a reasonable straight line to your vehicle, they let you go. I can't [00:47:30] even walk a straight line when I'm sober. So it would have Anyway, I never got harassed here. Um, though I did sometimes at the door. Sometimes if Stan was on the door, he was often very grumpy, and he didn't like women coming in. But it was interesting. I I had a, um a girlfriend at the time who was an artist. And, um, it was just a brief, uh, relationship. But sitting there, I suddenly got, um a man stopped and started to talk to me, [00:48:00] and I keep thinking I think I must know him, but I couldn't quite remember. The lights were low and the drinks were ghastly. And, um, anyway, he said that I looked at I used to be, you know, you can see I'm white now, but I was blondish. Yeah, a bit of a bleach blonde, I think, at that point. Um, Anyway, um, he said I looked like his daughter Vanessa, and it turned out, you know, he was Michael Redgrave. And he thought I look like Vanessa [00:48:30] Redgrave. Well, made my night. I think my girlfriend was a bit more enthusiastic after that, and he insisted on buying us drinks. And then when he realised I had Children, he sort of shared a lot more about us. And then some very handsome looking gay man whisked him away. So, um, I was not his high point of the night, that was for sure. So this was an interesting conversation, and we look back up there to Cook Street where the police station is in rendezvous. [00:49:00] Um, Cook Street had, of course, the famous Cook Street market lesbians had stalls there, and it was a great sort of meeting place. Having coffee was just becoming the norm. It was the early days of drinking coffee in New Zealand. Um, Cook Street was a fabulous place, and there's a whole history of coffee drinking actually in New Zealand, because the first coffee bar was actually set up by a Jewish refugee in Hamilton. And the coffee was made from acorns because there was no coffee [00:49:30] imported into New Zealand during the war, and that was set up in 1939. So, um, uh, chicory then was, of course, used for coffee for a long time. Chicory essence was then available, but, um, so Cook Street was a fabulous place, and of course, there were above at the top of Cook Street. Uh, on the top of the building was a nightclub or car lay girls. Um, and that was a drag show, and that was fairly notorious, too. And it's interesting that they [00:50:00] were so close. I'll just ignore that, um, so close to the police station. The other thing is that, um, one of the pickup places for gay men was, in fact, Princess Street, right, um, at Albert Park. And there was the original police station on Princess Street, where the Maidment Theatre is now, so it's often right under the noses of the law. [00:50:30] Further down here, after backstage across the way was Moo's, another nightclub, and further up the street was the Shakespeare Hotel, where Adele Bridges, um, played the piano, mostly playing covers. Um, and it was a great night. Up to 200 lesbians, gay men, drag queens, Japanese seamen and a few sex workers thrown in. It was always a nice sort of mix and the same and every gay bar in Christchurch And, uh, and in Wellington, [00:51:00] the same sort of history that makes the people who couldn't fit in. Yes. So, um yeah, that was, um, part of our history. And, um, I think Adele came back from London in 1968 and began playing in the hotel about that time 68 69. So it was very, very early days of any sort of sense of community coming together. So we wander on down there to the [00:51:30] So we finish our walk at the Stark bar, which is named after Frieda Stark, who was involved in a murder trial in the 19 thirties when the husband of her lover, Thelma Mario, was killed by Frank. I think his name was who poisoned her with a sleeping draught and killed her. And so Frida was the witness for that murder trial. And we do do a Frieda Stark walk for the Heritage Festival [00:52:00] as well as the lesbian walk. Now, Frida danced in the Civic Theatre. She danced naked just in gold paint, which was you had to get it off you fairly quickly because it was bad for your health. Um, for the GIS, um, from America. So she was famous. She was a tiny the person, and later Amanda Rees, who works now on Shortland Street. She, um, did a play, um, or performance. I think you might call it called Star. [00:52:30] Um, so we have, um we have a whole a little book we put out on the history of Lesbian Theatre. And, of course, fried, uh, fits in with that very well in terms of performance. But also the founding members of Theatre in New Zealand were two lesbians called Amy Kane and Daisy Isaacs. They were the founding members of Theatre in New Zealand, and they used to play in an orchestra with Catherine Mansfield. So we have these amazing networks when we can get enough money to do some research to [00:53:00] find it out. And that was just an amazing discovery. Um, and we've since discovered we had a photograph of Amy Kane for our book on the Lesbian Theatre. But we've now discovered that there's a photograph of a Daisy Isaacs that I can now get from, uh, Alexander Turnbull. So it's another little letter to write and money to find, and so on. But so it's great to have these bits of history. And if you sometimes the the Civic is open and if you go upstairs, there is a box there with some [00:53:30] memorabilia from Preta Stark's Dancing Days. So that's always worth if you come to a show here if it's locked. Um, I've tried several times with these walks to get in there, and I've never managed it at the time. But, um, sometimes if you're going to a show, just fish the films or something popped up and have a look at, um, the memorabilia from free to start. Yes, we could arrange it, but I think we've got plenty to do. Well, I usually stop here and have a coffee, but it's up to you people what you want to do and disperse [00:54:00] and how you get back to Kay Road I If I If you are walking back, may I suggest that you walk across and over, um, up the Hope Town Bridge because it's actually really pretty walking up that way, and it's away from the traffic and it's slightly quicker. Yeah, OK, it's fine. No.
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