It seemed like a good idea at the time: setting up a local LGBT newspaper at a time when our only national publication – Gay News – was in crisis. The fact that none of us had the slightest experience of the practicalities didn’t seem to be an issue at that stage!

But then the deadline date loomed and we had to decide what, exactly, was going to fill the 16 pages of our wonderful new paper.

Of course, this would be a consideration for every future issue too but forward planning (or any other form of planning for that matter) wasn’t really our strong point. In consequence, we generally came up with the content shortly before each issue was due to go to the typesetters.

The Cover – It’s surprising how far you can get towards publishing a paper before you realise you’ve given no thought to the cover! We had a logo but the remainder of the page was, in every sense, a blank.

And given that none of us were journalists, it was almost logical that none of us had any graphic design experience either. Therefore, short on both time and skills, we cobbled together a cover from the most readily available (and most easily manipulable) resources. In other words, a big pink triangle with text around it!

The News – Our headline story was the election to Nottingham City Council of openly gay Labour Party candidate Richard McCance.

The context of this was particularly interesting: Peter Tatchell had recently been defeated in Bermondsey and this was used to pressure Richard to keep his sexuality concealed. Richard refused – and took the formerly safe Conservative seat with a majority of 470. Elsewhere in the city Labour had suffered a major swing against them, leaving them with a ruling majority of only one. And that one was Richard!

There’s little doubt that Richard’s election – and the slim majority – were crucial in getting the City Council to take LGBT issues seriously. Six months later the Council sponsored a one day conference on Equal Opportunities for the Lesbian and Gay Community in Nottingham. Admittedly, it was done through gritted teeth, but when your one-person majority is a gay man sometimes you just need to keep in with the queers!

AIDS – This was my first ever article on AIDS – although certainly not my last. Paragraph three began,“No one really knows what causes it”. And that basically summed up the situation at that point –  no one knew, although lots of people were prepared to make all sorts of silly speculations. Similarly, at that stage no one knew just how bad things were going to get – in terms of both the impact of the disease and the level of moral enterprise.

Tom Robinson Interview – I’ve met Tom Robinson twice: the first time was when I was pushed into his dressing room in 1978. (Long story, but nothing like as salacious as it sounds!).

The second time was when he visited Nottingham with his new band Tom Robinson and Crew. Fortuitously, this was a couple of weeks before the first issue of GEM was due out.

I phoned the venue to make an appointment to interview him. The person who took the call clearly had no idea how to progress this so advised me  to just turn up, which is what I did. Given the unannounced nature of my arrival I have to say I was impressed when Tom immediately took time off rehearsals to talk to me.

He was still a bit of a hero for me at that time, given his high profile with Glad to be Gay around the time I was coming out. So I was determined not to come over as a fawning idiot when I talked to him. The plan worked – so well, in fact, that the ‘interview’ turned into quite a heated political debate!

But it all ended relatively amicably. I remembered that I was there to interview, rather than argue with him – and he was called back to the stage for sound checks shortly thereafter anyway. No blood was shed in the course of this interview!

Dykes About Town – Our ignorance of graphic design also meant we found ourselves with a paper that was in danger of becoming text-heavy. The few images we had were either in the ads or simply ripped-off from ‘other sources’ (I won’t specify where in case there’s still a possibility of being sued!).

So we were overjoyed when Cathy White offered us a regular cartoon strip. But, whilst this solved a big problem in terms of content and layout, it also caused a few unexpected difficulties.

In Issue One, Cathy had failed to put her name on the strip. We thought nothing about it until we started hawking the paper around pubs and clubs. A number of lesbians assumed that men had produced the entire content – Dykes About Town included. This led to a few hostile responses until we finally realised what was going on (and made absolutely certain that Cathy’s name featured prominently in future issues).

But, unbeknownst to us, one of our prospective advertisers – Brilliance Books – had assumed the same thing. Our marketing communications (letters) to them were met with complete silence. Admittedly we only had the resources to send out letters; as full-time volunteers we didn’t have the time to follow up with phone calls, nor did we have the luxury of email in those days.

The issue only came to light when, desperate for advertising revenue, we did phone them – and got the full ‘explanation’ (to put it politely!). Thankfully, they did come round (after a rather strained phone conversation) and became regular advertisers.

But it certainly taught us that key communication lesson – you may think you’re communicating one thing but your target audience may be reading the message completely differently.