Two Chapters by Hel Gurney
It’s my first night out in Brighton, and I’ve spent weeks preparing. I’ve constructed a striped underbust corset and a headdress of spiky flowers from black duct tape and loops of lettered yellow...
View ArticleEscape to Brighton by Paul Burston
Back then I wrote in my diary every day. I had some vague notion of becoming a writer. The entry for February 14 1988 describes a short story I was working on. I’d been at it all day and all evening....
View ArticleOral History Excerpt by Robin Miskimmin
“I lead a very strange life. I’m sexually active in Egypt where I live half the year and I can preach virtue and abstinence in England, so I don’t know very much about gay life in Brighton now....
View ArticleBrighton 1992 by Benjamin S Grossberg
My landlady, Aline, terrified me. Everything did. But somehow, I’d gotten up the nerve to do this. I was twenty-one, an American student with a work permit and a rented room in the lanes. Aline told me...
View ArticleBetween Trains (for Clifford) by Robert Hamberger
Clifford and I were seventeen, two arty working-class East End boys from single mothers. This was the first time we’d seen Brighton. After my interview for an English Degree course, when we returned to...
View ArticleThe Grindr Date by Hakeem
I’m standing at the bottom of Trafalgar St, coked up to my eyeballs and trying to remember the name of my Grindr date. I think it’s Max, but it might be anything. It’s half-past midnight and the effect...
View ArticleMy Brighton by Karol Michalec
My story starts as it does for many Polish people. We all knew someone who travelled to the UK to make some money. In my case it was a friend from high school. She invited me to travel with her to...
View ArticleA Town Beginning with B by Robert Farrar
In 1993 a psychic advised me to move to a town that began with a B and ended with an N. I chose Brighton. Years later I realised that God was trying to get me to move to Berlin, but I have happy...
View ArticleNatalie – oral history interview
In this interview Natalie talks about Brighton, identity, political involvement, language, expression through clothing and homosexuality and secular Judaism. Excerpt: Q: What was it about Brighton that...
View ArticleGemma – oral history interview
In this interview Gemma talks about bisexuality, bisexual stigma, activism in Brighton and past relationships. Excerpt: Q: What does queer in Brighton mean to you? I think for me it means a little bit...
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