30 years ago South Wales coalminers and their families and members of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners led what is now known as the London Pride parade. This was just the first of a number of gestures to repay the support that the queer community had given striking miners during the 1984/85 national miners strike.

There weren’t quite the coachloads of miners suggested in the movie Pride; nonetheless it is true that, on the day, the LGSM contingent was asked to lead the parade because they were the largest group at the event. Something like a thousand people were gathered around the banners of LGSM and the South Wales mining lodges at the Hyde Park assembly point.

The two miners banners arriving at Pride 85 assembly point. This was just the start of longer-term NUM support for our rights.

In 2015 the LGSM contingent will be even larger. As well as a new generation of supporters, the contingent will also include miners from across Britain. (In that respect, it looks like life really will imitate art as coachloads of miners WILL be turning up to march this year!) Somewhat ironically, it’s the very fact that the LGSM contingent will be so large that seems to have militated against them leading this year’s parade.

So, on the 30th anniversary of this historic event and with even greater LGSM support than in 1985, why will Barclays Bank be fronting the parade?

At risk of stating the obvious, it’s because Pride itself has changed so much in the intervening years. In 1985, queer people were very much under attack – from the Government and its agents as well as a homophobic media.

The tabloid Press took great delight in reporting AIDS as ‘the gay plague’ and Gay’s the Word bookshop was repeatedly raided by HM Customs and Excise. Attractive young male police officers in plainclothes flirted with gay men outside gay venues then arrested them for ‘importuning’ for sex. In September 1984, Conservative-led Rugby Council declared that it would actively exclude LGBT people from its Equal Opportunities policies. The Sun editorialised, “Let’s ALL follow Rugby in fighting back” against what it described as “the sick nonsense” of gay rights.